Harriet Ellan Miers was born on August 10,1945 and is an American lawyer who served as White House counsel to President George W Bush from 2005 to 2007.
42 Facts About Harriet Miers
2.
Harriet Miers was born in Dallas and spent most of her life there until she moved to Washington, DC, to work in the Bush administration.
3.
Harriet Miers graduated from Hillcrest High School in Dallas in 1963.
4.
Harriet Miers entered Southern Methodist University intending to become a teacher.
5.
In 1967, Harriet Miers graduated from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
6.
Harriet Miers's supervisor was Robert Lieff, then a partner in the Belli firm and later a founder of the nationally prominent plaintiffs' law firm Lieff Cabraser.
7.
Harriet Miers was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1970 and admitted to the DC bar in 1997.
8.
Raggio, who died in 2011, knew Harriet Miers for nearly 40 years, since Harriet Miers was a student at Southern Methodist University.
9.
Harriet Miers was the first female lawyer hired by the firm and later became its president.
10.
In 1985, Harriet Miers became the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association.
11.
In 1992, Harriet Miers became the first woman to head the State Bar of Texas.
12.
From 2000 to 2001, Harriet Miers chaired the ABA's Commission on Multi-Jurisdictional Practice.
13.
In 1989, Harriet Miers formally registered with the Republican Party and was elected to a two-year term as an at-large member of the Dallas City Council.
14.
Harriet Miers did not run for reelection in 1991 after a restructure of the city council converted Miers's at-large seat into a single-district seat.
15.
Nathan Hecht, a mutual friend and Harriet Miers's date, made the introduction.
16.
Harriet Miers subsequently worked as general counsel for Bush's transition team in 1994, when he was first elected Governor of Texas.
17.
Harriet Miers subsequently became Bush's personal lawyer and worked as a lawyer in his 2000 presidential campaign.
18.
Harriet Miers, who had not been involved in the Chicago meeting, supported ABA abortion neutrality in San Francisco.
19.
Since September 1994, Miers has contributed to the campaigns of various Republicans, including Kay Bailey Hutchison, Phil Gramm, and Pete Sessions, with recorded contributions to Republican candidates and causes totaling nearly $12,000.
20.
Harriet Miers's last recorded contribution to a Democratic cause or campaign was in 1988.
21.
Some have credited Harriet Miers with reforming the commission after a previous corruption scandal.
22.
In 1997, the commission under Harriet Miers hired Lawrence Littwin as executive director but fired him five months later.
23.
Harriet Miers stated that Miers ordered him to stop the investigation.
24.
Harriet Miers brought a lawsuit alleging that he was fired in retaliation for the investigation and to ensure that GTech would keep its contract.
25.
Harriet Miers resigned from the lottery commission in early 2000, a year before her term ended.
26.
Harriet Miers said her resignation had nothing to do with lagging sales in the system's biggest game, Lotto Texas, but rather that she wanted to allow her successor time to prepare for rebidding the lottery's primary operator contract.
27.
Harriet Miers was not chosen and John Ashcroft became Attorney General instead.
28.
In January 2001, Harriet Miers did follow Bush to Washington, DC, serving as Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary during the first two years of his presidency.
29.
Harriet Miers is said to be one of Bush's closest personal friends and appears given to effusive praise for the President.
30.
Harriet Miers met with the Senate Judiciary Committee after her nomination and in those meetings she was ill-prepared and uninformed on the law.
31.
Harriet Miers had no experience in constitutional law and did not have extensive litigation experience; at her Texas law firm, she had been more of a manager.
32.
Harriet Miers was claimed to have privately expressed a belief in the right to privacy to the pro-choice Arlen Specter, only to later deny that she had communicated that position.
33.
Harriet Miers's answers included an error on constitutional law where she mentioned an explicit constitutional right for proportional representation; though many court rulings have found that legislative and other districts of unequal population violate the equal protection clause, the right to proportional districts is not explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution.
34.
Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Sam Brownback then drafted a letter asking the President's office to turn over legal memoranda and briefs Harriet Miers had written for Bush, in order to elucidate her views on political matters.
35.
Brownback and Graham knew the memos were protected by executive privilege, that the White House was not required to turn them over, and that Harriet Miers could refuse to deliver the memos and then ostensibly step down on principle.
36.
On October 27,2005, Harriet Miers asked President Bush to withdraw her nomination, citing fears that the nomination would create a "burden for the White House and its staff".
37.
Harriet Miers remained as White House Counsel for another year until announcing her resignation on January 4,2007.
38.
The second effort succeeded; Harriet Miers announced her resignation January 4,2007 and left January 31,2007.
39.
Harriet Miers maintains offices in Austin, Dallas, and Washington, DC The firm is known as Locke Lord.
40.
Harriet Miers was requested to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 11,2007.
41.
Harriet Miers refused to appear before Congress because Bush ordered her not to.
42.
Harriet Miers is a close friend of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman.