New Evaluations Raise Questions About Owen

With the Senate going into high gear on President Bush's right-wing judicial nominations a little-noticed report somehow went unreported by the Washington, D.C. media. You know how President Bush and Bill Frist are telling America about how great a judge Priscilla Owen is, and how she therefore deserves a promotion to the federal bench? Well, according to a new official report from the experts who actually worked with her - that's a lot of crap.

A few days ago the nonpartisan Houston Bar Association released its biannual evaluations of all the judges in the state of Texas. These are the lawyers who actually work with these judges. And what do you know - Owen received some of the worst ratings of any of the six justices in nearly all categories. In fact, for "overall" scores, she has the highest "poor" rating on the entire Texas Supreme Court.

These ratings are based on poll data taken from lawyers which may initially lead to some skepticism regarding partisanship - but the majority of judges in the Texas courts and the Texas Supreme Court in particular are conservatives. If there was just political bias, Owen wouldn't stick out - but she does. And that raises some of the most serious questions yet about whether she should be elevated to the federal bench.