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The Dartmouth
March 28, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Alum campaigns to confirm judicial nominees

Wendy Long '82, legal counsel of the Judicial Confirmation Network, was on the front lines of the fight to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts, but she's not weighing in on Harriet Miers' nomination for the Supreme Court.

Miers, who was expected to submit more complete information about her legal views to senators Wednesday, has sparked criticism for her lack of experience.

"Harriet is still a question mark and we haven't been able to flesh that out and resolve it yet," Long said in an interview with The Dartmouth.

Although the JCN has neither supported nor condemned Bush's second Supreme Court pick, Long believes the more time that passes without supplemental information about Miers, the less likely it is that she will be confirmed.

"Hypothetically with a judicial nominee who hasn't been a judge, there are other potential ways to see how they've acted as an academic, if they've written law review articles, but unfortunately she doesn't have a body of legal writings we can consult," she said. "Many people who were advocating on behalf of Harriet say things like, 'She's a devout evangelical Christian and pro-life,' which I think are irrelevant and undermine [Bush's] message, goal, and philosophy."

Formerly a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, Long joined the JCN as its legal counsel because she believes Americans have not lived up to the values in the Constitution.

"I think we've actually done damage to it," Long said of the Constitution. "I think we have actually eroded some of the Constitution that the framers set up without amending it."

Having a long running interest in politics, Long worked as a press secretary for the U.S. Senate before attending Northwestern University School of Law. She later clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to whom she attributes her attitudes about interpreting the Constitution.

"He was a great teacher," she said. "He's kind of the embodiment of what the president is talking about in terms of interpreting the Constitution."

The JCN was founded after the 2004 election, with the mission of disseminating information about President George W. Bush's Supreme Court nominees that would balance the information flowing from many left-wing organizations.

"The whole world changed after Bork was borked," she said, referring to the controversial Reagan Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork. "The left-wing interest groups came out and worked hand in hand with liberal left-wing Senators to really bring down Judge Bork and there were very few, if any, groups on the other side."

Since joining the JCN, she has been responsible for traveling to states whose senators were on the fence about confirming Roberts and speaking to various organizations in hope of helping them understand Roberts' legal history and how he would be likely to act as a member of the Supreme Court. Long also used her role in the JCN to help educate people in these states about the role of the Supreme Court.

Long views the Roberts' confirmation as a step toward ending the "inappropriate exercise of judicial power," which resulted in the current perception of judge's roles.

The last generation of judges on all levels of the judiciary used their power, she said, to legislate from the bench either by injecting their own policy into the language of the law, or ignoring portions of the law that already existed.

"Under our system, a judge applies the law as written by the representatives of the people, they don't make it up," Long said. "A judge's personal views are not relevant at all."

Long, who was the executive editor of The Dartmouth and a contributor to The Dartmouth Review when she was a student, said her interest in the Constitution and the Supreme Court was spurned by courses she took at Dartmouth as a history major.