“This President has kept no promise more faithfully than his promise in 2000, and again in 2004, that he would nominate only strict constructionist, original intent jurists to the Supreme Court. In the face of unprecedented obstructionism, led especially by former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in the last term, this President has held fast to his promises and nominated scores of sterling and extremely competent judges. One of the people helping him to fulfill those campaign promises has been Harriet Miers. She played an instrumental part in helping the President select those judicial nominees, as his staff secretary, deputy chief of staff and White House counsel. She has worked closely with this President for more than a decade. I do not know Harriet Miers. I do know President Bush and his commitment to a federal judiciary that lives within its constitutional assignment and interprets the law and doesn’t write it from the bench. If the President trusts Harriet Miers to fulfill his campaign promises to the American people, then I trust Harriet Miers until I am given compelling evidence to the contrary.”
The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16.3 million members in 43,024 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.