Justice Priscilla Owen: Evil, Idiot, Douche bag of Liberty

Independent Woman's Forum instructs: "It is time for every honest feminist worth her salt to stand up for Priscilla Owen." Gee, I didn't know that those who opposed Owens judicial nomination were being dishonest. Allow me to be the first to thank the Republican hacks running the "Independent Woman's Forum" for alerting me that 40 national groups ranging from planned parenthood, to Friends of the Earth, to the United Autoworkers are being dishonest in their opposition of her. After all, as we can see from Owen's sparking record, ONE court case involving a minor bypassing parental notification for an abortion isn't cause to oppose her.

Let’s begin with Justice Owen’s long history of supporting the rights of Woman. In one case, Read v. Scott Fetzer Co, the vacuum company Kirby did not think that it should require its employees to undergo background checks. Unfortunately, as a result it hired Mickey Carter, who had been fired from numerous jobs for sexual harassment, and had been arrested for indecency in front of a child. On one of his door-to-door vacuum-selling visits, Carter raped a woman named D.K.R. As a result, she and her family sued Kirby for negligence. The Texas Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, ruled that Kirby was negligent, and paid D.K.R’s family $160,000 dollars. Of course, Owen dissented. She did not think that Kirby should be held liable for a rape that resulted from them sending a convicted sex offender to someone’s home. Owens, stands up for woman, after all. I think all honest feminists would agree that the woman in question “was asking for it” when she opened the door for a Kirby salesman.  

Owen’s rise to becoming a national hero could not have been successful without the help of some big people. In 1994, she paid Karl Rove $250,000 to serve as a consultant in her 1994 judicial campaign. [3] Ol’ Ethical Owens, a former lawyer for the oil and gas industry, has refused to recuse herself on cases involving some of her giant campaign contributors – which include the great bastions of morality, Enron and Halliburton. In all cases, she issued decisions which were in favor of her campaign contributors. After all, how could we ever think that such a upstanding self-made woman might have a conflict of interest?

Owens, ever the champion of the average American, has a long record of dissent in cases involving discrimination, employee rights, reproductive rights, environmental issues, public information rights; and consumer and citizen rights. Gee, how could those evil Democrats ever oppose such a spirit?!

When asked about Justice Owen, Dan Lambe of the Texas Supreme Court Monitoring group, Texas Watch, said that she “has never been more than a conservative advocate. She’s definitely a friend of corporate big business.”

And indeed, she has a record to back up such praise: In Hyundai Motor Co. v. Alvarado, a case involving a car crash in which a teenager was ejected through a sunroof, and paralyzed,  Justice Owen ,of course, was in the minority and did not believe the teenager’s family should receive compensation.  Had her dissenting opinion been that of the majority, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, which was designed to minimize injuries and deaths from car accidents, would have morphed into a protective measure for negligent manufacturers.[4]

More on this evil corporate whore later.

Notes:

1. Source NYTimes Editorial (2002), as quoted by Talk Left.

2. Flood, Mary, “Judicial Nominee Takes Issue with Conservative Label”, Houston Chronicle, May 10, 2001.

3. Texas Ethics Commission Candidate Officeholder Report of Contributions, Expenditures, and Loans, Priscilla Justice Owen, Periods January 1, 1994 through December 31, 1994.

4. Hyundai Motor Co. v. Alvarado. The majority opinion: “It is indisputable that Congress's overriding purpose in passing the Safety Act was to reduce traffic deaths and injuries caused by traffic accidents…. In the face of this clear declaration of congressional purpose, we are unwilling to accept an overly broad notion of preemption based on uniformity that could have the effect of undercutting Congress's concern for safety.”