John Kerry on the Vote to confirm Priscilla Owen, Nominee for 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

The following statement was just released by John Kerry regarding the vote to confirm Priscilla Owen:

"It would be an irrevocable mistake to confirm Priscilla Owen for a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. She is an activist judge with a history of rewriting the law based on her personal political ideology.

"Priscilla Owen, a former oil and gas attorney, has consistently ruled in favor of big business and against working people. She took contributions from Enron and Halliburton and ruled in their favor. Her decisions have been called 'an unconscionable act of judicial activism' by her former colleague and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and as 'nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric' by a majority of her colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court. Even Republican Senator and then Justice John Cornyn said her decision in a medical malpractice case was contrary to the Texas constitution. I question her ability to set her personal beliefs aside and follow the Constitution when deciding the important issues of our time. We need judges who make legal decisions and not political decrees from the bench.

"As a Senator, I have a Constitutional obligation to withhold my consent for such a nominee."