Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers met this evening with U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado as she tries to garner support amid persistent questions about her qualifications and views.
Miers met with the Colorado Republican at his Washington office at about 5 p.m. EDT.
“This was a constructive meeting,” Allard said in a statement after the meeting. “We had a very candid conversation. Our meeting was informative and useful. I continue to have a high regard for Harriet Miers and found her answers to my questions to be thoughtful and direct.
Allard praised Miers’ background as a woman in the legal profession. “At a time when few women attended law school, at a time when powerful law firms did not hire women and make them partner, at a time when women were not elected to head state bar associations, this woman was a trailblazer.”
The senator said that “although today’s discussions went well, I am not yet ready to commit to voting to confirm her nomination. This meeting has been a positive first step, and she addressed a number of my concerns. We had a wide-ranging, open-ended discussion on a number of topics, including some of the issues I raised in my letter to the president such as public lands policy, environmental issues and water law, which are extremely important to me now in light of the absence of a Western presence on the Supreme Court.”
Allard said he looked forward “to learning more about Ms. Miers qualifications to serve on our nation’s highest court during the upcoming Judiciary Committee hearings, and to possibly meeting with her again prior to Senate action on her nomination.”
Allard stated his support for John Roberts on the day he was nominated for chief justice.
“The senator was more familiar with his résumé and his record and
his work,” Allard spokeswoman Angela de Rocha said earlier this month of Roberts,
noting that the Senate had already approved him as an appeals-court judge.
“She (Miers) hasn’t gone through the formal approval process in
the Senate before,” De Rocha said.
Roberts also met with Allard as well as his Democratic colleague, Sen. Ken Salazar, prior to the Senate vote confirming him.
Salazar has not indicated how he’ll vote on the Miers nomination, either. But last week, Salazar told The Post: “I think Harriet Miers is still very much an unknown commodity. And I think without a lot more information, she is going to be having a difficult time getting through her confirmation hearings in the Senate.”
No meeting between Salazar and Allard has been announced yet.
This online report is based in part on reporting by Denver Post staff writer Anne C. Mulkern.
