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A 1993 speech by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers prompted new skepticism from some Senate Republicans about whether she has a consistently conservative judicial philosophy about abortion, religion and the role of courts.
The senators said Miers must explain an apparent contradiction between her 1989 support for a constitutional amendment banning most abortions and the speech in which she suggested a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy was a matter of ''self-determination.''
Miers's 1993 speech ''raises questions about how consistent and well-grounded her judicial philosophy might be,'' said Louisiana Republican David Vitter, who met with Miers Wednesday in Washington.
Vitter is among a half-dozen conservative Republicans who have questioned whether Miers's qualifications and judicial philosophy make her the best nominee at a time when President Bush has an opportunity to cement conservative control of the Supreme Court.
Senate Judiciary Committee hearings are set to begin Nov. 7 on Miers's nomination to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a pivotal vote on many hot-button issues who voted to uphold abortion rights. Miers today is to resubmit written answers to questions that some lawmakers said she failed to answer completely the first time.
Miers's 12-year-old speech to ''would suggest at least she's got some opinions that don't necessarily jive,'' said South Dakota Republican John Thune.
Conservative Senate Republicans have so far been the most vocal critics of Miers, 60, the White House counsel and a former Dallas lawyer who specialized in commercial litigation. Conservative groups opposing the nomination argue that because Miers was never a judge, she has no record on issues likely to be decided by the court.
''I think she has a high hill to climb,'' said Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2008.
''The big question mark about this candidate is about the judicial philosophy,'' he said, ''and what it is and how set it is.''
Vitter said that when he asked Miers about the 1993 speech ''she tried to put it in context'' by saying ''she thought some of the analysis of particular snippets, statements from her past, was sort of over-analysis.''
In the 1993 speech to a Dallas group of women business executives, Miers spoke of ''the ongoing debate'' about ''the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women's right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion,'' according to a text furnished to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Washington Post reported on the speech Wednesday.
In the speech, Miers said that ''legislating religion or morality we gave up on a long time ago.''