SPECIAL REPORT! Harriet and Nathan and Priscilla and Us
Wonkette operatives have turned up an interesting fillip in the Harriet Miers-Nathan Hecht-Priscilla Owen bizarre love triangle: "The Harriet effect." Speaking of the mid-1990s , when Owen first joined Hecht on the Texas Supreme Court, our operative reports:
If Owen and Hecht were at an event and Miers would show up, there were frequently scenes with Owen snarking at Hecht and stomping out, in full view of many, with Hecht left to calm [Owen] down. Some Texas judicial observers said you can actually chart the "Harriet fights" by the few times Owen and Hecht didn't vote the same way.
Ah! Wrath of woman scorned and whatnot. Wonkette investigates --after the jump!
Hecht's political alliance with Owen has been well-documented. In 1995, "Texas Lawyer" reported that Hetch and Owen campaigned for the Court together in 1994, so much together "to the point that they refused to participate in a Texas Lawyer candidates roundtable unless both were present and their opponents were absent." After each gaining their seats, in 1995 they "voted together more than any other pair of justices, agreeing on the result in 91 percent of the court's decisions and sharing the same opinion 88 percent of the time."
And what of the "Harriet effect"? Our Nexis skills are only as good as our hangover will allow, but we did discover that the Hecht-Owen alliance took a precipitous dive in the 1995-96 court year, with Owen agreeing with Hecht only 78 percent of the time, again, according to Texas Lawyer. Where was Harriet? Serving as chair of the Texas Lottery Commission (sez the WH) and lobbying Bush to veto a bill prohibiting the Texas courts from capping lawsuit awards (from AP). She would be spending an awful lot of time in Austin. . .
By 2002, the Owen and Hecht seems to have smoothed things over or come to an "understanding" or reached cloture or something: The two voted together in 93 percent of cases, forming a hard-right conservative bloc that has liberals in Texas tearing their hair out to this day. Happy ending, indeed.-- WONKETTE
Miers Lobbied Bush on Lawyer Fees in 1995 [AP]
Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen [TPJ -- pdf file]