Specially, committee members from both parties, including chairman Senator Arlen Specter, want to know if Focus on the Family's James C. Dobson was given "back room assurances" that Miers would oppose same-sex marriage and Roe v Wade if appointed to the high court.

The questions began to arise last week after a comment Dobson made on his nationally broadcast radio program.

"When you know some of the things that I know - that I probably shouldn't know - you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice," Dobson told listeners..

"If I have made a mistake here, I will never forget the blood of those babies that will die will be on my hands to some degree," he said.

The White House has been on all-out damage control after most conservatives within the GOP voiced their disapproval of Miers and has been conducting a series of pep talks with evangelical leaders.  But, Dobson's comments raise the specter that Rove and other aides know more than is being provided to the committee. If such guarantees on how Miers might rule were made they may also have been illegal.

Spector raised the possibility of calling Dobson to testify during a Sunday interview on ABC's "This Week." 

"If Dr. Dobson knows something that he shouldn't know or something that I ought to know, I'm going to find out," Specter said.

"If there are back-room assurances and if there are back-room deals and if there is something which bears upon a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote, I think that's a matter that ought to be known by the Judiciary Committee and the American people."

Despite Dobson's claims he has been assured Miers would be a strict constitutionalist many conservative Republicans remain unconvinced. 

"If she does not exhibit these qualities in testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Harriet Miers should be rejected," Pat Buchanan writes in a Monday column in the conservative Worldnet Daily.

"That she is a woman, a good lawyer, a trusted friend of the Bush family, and a born-again Republican and evangelical Christian is not enough. That Dr. James Dobson has been secretly assured by Karl Rove she is pro-life is not enough."

Last week the Republican national Committee hosted a conference call between White House aides and conservative religious leaders in an attempt to win their support for Miers.

The call prompted National Stonewall Democrats to call on the President to also meet with gay leaders. (story)  

Along with Dobson, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, White House Political Director Sara Taylor and others in the Administration spoke with Chuck Colson and Pat Robertson protege Jay Sekulow, among others. 

During the call Taylor promised social conservatives that Miers "will make decisions not only based on what is in the Constitution, but based on what she believes strongly in."

Miers insists that she has given no guarantees to the Administration about how she might rule on the court and has told senators that she was not asked specific questions about her opinions on abortion and gay rights.

©365Gay.com 2005