In a questionnaire for the Dallas Eagle Forum during her successful 1989 campaign for Dallas City Council Harriet Miers did not explicitly support City sanctions against companies working with South Africa, that was actively engaging in apartheid at the time!

In this questionnaire which offered options of “Yes, No or Undecided” she did not select any of the available options for the related question. It is the only question where she did not select any of the available options.

Because this particular questionnaire is a little harder to transcribe than some others I’ve transcribed. I will only be listing a few of the questions here, which include the question about South African related sanctions. The other questions of note have already been covered by other news sources anyway and basically involve her saying she would not grant any special treatment to people with AIDS. There is also a question about the structure of the council that I will not be listing here.

Answers will be in bold type. If no answer was given that will be mentioned in italics.

The South African question is #5 and the most concerning to me. Why would she basically “punt” on such a critical question? The city had already passed the ordinance, although I’m sure many in the business community probably did not like it. She could not commit to a Yes, No or even Undecided answer and wrote in a response that gives the impression she wanted to select “NO”, but realized that would not be politically correct! Any judge should be able to support the actions of the legislature regarding business dealings in a city. It seems she took some issue with the ordinance related to South Africa. Was she OK with Dallas businesses helping to fund a nation practicing apartheid at a time when the whole world was bringing pressure to the issue? If she had it her way, would apartheid in South Africa still exist, given without sanctions they would have had little reason to change? As a justice how would she look at issues like this? If a business feels that such an ordinance impedes on their ability to do business would she feel that an ordinance legally passed by a legislative body was some kind of Constitutional violation? Would she overturn it and be an “activist judge” for businesses?

This is a concern that I hope gets more attention in hearings and the media. I have not seen this issue raised anywhere. Why is such a critical matter from such a sensitive moment in history being ignored, regarding a candidate we don’t know much about?

Now we could look at this and say “well she just wanted businesses to decide for themselves”. But this was related to the city’s business dealings. If a city does not wish to be party to funding a country that treats people unequally I’m fine with that. Given some of the abuses going on in nations like Saudi Arabia I won’t mind when we are able to pump enough of our oil to do without them! But does Miers just overlook the abuse? We need this issue to be raised and discussed more thoroughly!

Related Post: Media gives incomplete information about another Harriet Miers questionnaire!