Harriet Miers has never been a judge, and her law practice appears to have consisted entirely of representing ordinary commercial interests.* There is, therefore, one and only one source for documents revealing her views on important issues likely to become before the Supreme Court, including abortion, affirmative action, civil liberties, executive branch prerogatives in wartime, and a host of other issues: documents written or approved by her in her role as White House Counsel or (her previous post) Deputy Chief of Staff.
However, those documents will almost certainly be withheld by the administration on grounds of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. The Senate therefore will be left with absolutely nothing to go on, other than the meaningless platitudes regarding "strict construction" and "the intent of the framers" that she can be expected to regurgitate at her confirmation hearing after hours of drilling by staffers.
That state of affairs would be unacceptable, and Democrats ought to get on the record to that effect quickly. If the White House won’t release Miers’ documents, the Dems should treat Miers the way they treated John Bolton.
*The one time Miers seems to have been publicly involved in an important public policy issue was when she urged the American Bar Association not to adopt a pro-Roe v. Wade position. That, however, does not strike me as terribly important. She may in fact be opposed to Roe (we of course don’t know), but I have always thought it was a bad idea for the ABA, which is supposed to be a professional association representing all lawyers rather than a partisan group, to take stands on issues such as abortion.
