Alberto Gonzales

When President George W. Bush announced the appointment of Alberto R. Gonzales as White House legal counsel last December, he emphasized how important it was for him to choose “a person I can trust.” Gonzales, whom Bush appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in 1998, is considered one of the president’s closest and most loyal advisors. He is widely rumored to be among the president’s top choices for the U.S. Supreme Court, should a vacancy occur.

New to the byzantine world of Washington politics, Gonzales must learn the ropes while fulfilling the duties of one of the White House’s most sensitive posts. As the president’s legal counsel, he counts among his responsibilities the selection and vetting of judicial appointees, including those to the Supreme Court, providing ethics advice to the White House and reviewing bills, pardons, statutes, proposals, speeches and proclamations. Gonzales is a cordial, unassuming figure for a man whose duty it is to defend the presidency.

Born in San Antonio and raised in Houston, Gonzales is the second of eight children born to Pablo and Maria Gonzales, a couple who had met while working as migrant farm workers in the Midwest. Although an honor student, Gonzales joined the U.S. Air Force right out of high school. “There wasn’t a push to go to college,” he says.

After two years in the Air Force and two more at the Air Force Academy, Gonzales cast aside his dreams of being a pilot and decided to study law. He later transferred to Rice University, where he graduated with a degree in political science in 1979. He went on to graduate from Harvard Law School and become a partner at the Houston firm of Vinson & Elkins. In 1995, then-Gov. Bush appointed Gonzales as his general counsel. Two years later, he made him Texas secretary of state, a post that oversees elections and acts as a liaison with Mexico. From 1999 to 2000, Gonzales served on Texas’ highest civil court, where he developed a reputation as a thoughtful and ideologically moderate justice.

While the Gonzales household had neither a telephone nor hot running water for most of his childhood, “The Judge,” as he is referred to in the White House, says he learned conservative values from his hard-working parents. “I don’t remember my parents voting, but I learned the value of self-responsibility,” he says.

Gonzales denies that he is a candidate for a Supreme Court job. “I’m focusing on what I have to do now as counsel to the president,” he insists. Nonetheless, Gonzales has been giving frequent press interviews and responds to questions with the caution and deliberation of a man with an eye on higher office. Last week, however, Gonzales came under fire from liberal groups protesting Bush’s decision to end the American Bar Assn.’s longtime, semi-official role in vetting potential candidates for federal judgeships.

Married with three children, Gonzales is 45 years old. He was interviewed in his corner office in the West Wing of the White House.

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Question: When you were appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by then-Gov. George W. Bush, you were quoted as saying that it is important to maintain a Latino presence on the state’s highest court. Why?

Answer: In a state so heavily Hispanic, it is important to have at the highest levels of government people who look like the citizens who are being served by that government, that have some affinity to the leadership of government. Whether you’re Hispanic or African American or Democrat or Republican, decisions about justice should not depend on those factors, but the truth of the matter is inescapable. It brings a form of legitimacy to our gov- ernment. People have confidence when they see people of their own color making decisions, particularly from the bench.

Q: Does a minority judge see issues of justice from a different perspective?

A: I think we all . . . are influenced by . . . our past experiences. But quite frankly--and I’m going to tell you a little about my judicial philosophy--if I do my job right as a judge, people should not be able to tell how I feel about an issue personally. Because what I’m supposed to do is try to discern, try to find out what the legislature intended when it passed that law and to apply that law irrespective of my own personal feelings about that law. Oftentimes, I had to interpret statutes in Texas that I felt were terrible public policy, but that is immaterial. If I want to change that policy, I need to hang up my robe and go run for the Texas Legislature.

Q: When you evaluate nominees for federal judgeships, what will be the most important criterion: judicial philosophy, character or their approach to the law?

A: The first is character. The second is competence. In terms of character: Is this a person of integrity? Fundamentally, is this a good person? I realize [this] is fairly subjective, but that is what I’m looking for. . . . In terms of competence: What I look for is intellect. Does this person have the intellect to do a good job? I look for experience. Does this person have a basis to give reasoned judgment on the court? Then [it’s] judicial philosophy: What is his or her philosophy of rendering decisions? What is that person’s belief about the appropriate role of judges in our system of government?

Q: Is diversity a primary concern when you review federal judgeships?

A: Diversity is important, but the No. 1 consideration will always be character and competence. That is a given. But you always have an obligation to find good Hispanics to serve on the federal bench.

Q: Some critics are saying that excluding the American Bar Assn. from the judicial vetting process is an obvious favor to the right wing of the Republican Party.

A: If it had been a favor to the right wing of the Republican Party, we might have substituted the ABA with some other group that might be more acceptable to the right wing of the Republican Party. The truth of the matter is, the decision was based on the principle that no outside group should have a quasi-official, preferential role in the nomination process.

Q: Are you concerned that the counsel’s office will now be perceived as ideologically tilted itself because of this decision?

A: There may be some who feel that way. They’d probably be predisposed to feel that way in any event.

Q: Some observers have speculated that a Mexican American appointment to the Supreme Court would go a long way toward helping the Republican Party court Latino votes. Do you agree?

A: I think the Mexican American community would not just look at the person’s ethnicity and say “I support this person.” Hopefully, it would be more important to look at the person’s philosophy of judging and say this person would make a great judge and, therefore, [he or she is worthy of support].

Q: But didn’t you say that diverse appointments build confidence among people when they see people like themselves on the bench?

A: It probably does more damage to put a Hispanic on the court who does a terrible job.

Q: Should race and ethnicity ever play a role in hiring decisions?

A: Again, this is one of those instances when my personal feelings about this issue may be different than how I would deal with it legally. I know that I’ve been helped because of my ethnicity. But the bottom line . . . [is] that Hispanics should expect nothing more than an equal opportunity. For us to now say that we should be given an opportunity because of our ethnicity, irrespective of our competence, means that we’ll be discriminating against someone else who doesn’t happen to be Hispanic, which is the very thing that we’ve been screaming about for decades. . . . Personally, I’m not offended that race is a factor. But it should never be the overriding factor or the most important factor.

The problem in saying that it’s OK to consider race in, say, . . . admissions decisions [is that the] pressure to have a diverse student body [becomes so overwhelming] that slowly but surely, secretly and unconsciously, race becomes an overriding factor. . . . There’s the same danger in employment. That’s why I believe that in making decisions that involve race, strict scrutiny is important.

Q: How has your ethnicity helped your career?

A: When I was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court, Gov. Bush was asked [whether] race [was] a factor in this decision. He said, of course it was a factor. He said he thought it was important to have at least one person of color on the state’s highest court, but it wasn’t the most important factor. Competence and character were. . . .

Q: Will your personal view of abortion play a role in your vetting of judges?

A: There are no litmus tests for judicial candidates. . . . My own personal feelings about [abortion] don’t matter. . . . The question is, what is the law, what is the precedent, what is binding in rendering your decision. Sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive. But as a judge, that’s your job.

Q: Have the Clinton administration’s legal problems affected the way you approach your job as White House legal counsel?

A: To some extent. [I’m] more sensitive to the fact that if an issue involves the president’s personal conduct or the president’s family or dealings involving the president while he was governor--quite frankly, those are matters that should not be handled by the counsel’s office. We are here to represent the presidency and the White House. If an issue involving the president’s personal conduct arises, he needs to be represented by outside counsel. If an issue arises regarding his conduct while he was governor, that needs to be handled by outside counsel. I should not be involved in those kinds of things. . . . To the extent that we have problems, it will be a whole different set of problems.

Q: Is your job as counsel to find a way to legally accomplish the president’s goals or is it to steer the president away from what might be illegal?

A: It’s both. There’s an ethical component to what I have to do. I’m the White House ethics officer, and my charge is to make sure that we don’t even approach the line of what some could consider unethical. . . . There will be some instances where something is very important to the president’s agenda, [and] my job is to try to find a way to do it in a way that’s legal.

Q: Given Bush’s relative success with Latino voters in his 1998 gubernatorial reelection in Texas and his 38% showing nationally last November, what do you think the Republican Party will have to do to garner more Latino support?

A: One of the things it absolutely has to do is to support Republican Hispanic candidates for office--and not just go out and find people to run as Republicans, but really support them. When I ran this past June [for the Texas Supreme Court] in my first statewide election--I had a contested primary election--every statewide [GOP] official publicly endorsed me. They flew around with me. They did everything they could to help me win my election. That’s the kind of support the party needs to give to Republican Hispanics. Otherwise, regrettably . . . it is still difficult for a Hispanic to do well in the Republican Party, and we need the full support of the party, from the top to the bottom.

Q: Are you saying that the Republican Party needs more brown faces in official positions to attract more brown faces?

A: Of course. Hopefully, the general Hispanic population can look at a Hispanic elected official and say, “That person is a lot like me. I wonder why he’s in the Republican Party. Maybe I should look at that.”