Gonzales helped Bush get out of jury duty in a 1996 drunk driving case—a strategically-key maneuver that allowed the then-governor to avoid revealing under oath that he himself had been arrested for DUI in 1976.
Bush tapped Gonzales to be Texas’ secretary of state in 1997 and named him to the State Supreme Court in 1999.
When Bush won the presidency in 2000, he brought Gonzales with him to Washington to serve as White House counsel.
Gonzales was frequently mentioned as a potential Bush Supreme Court appointee during the president’s first term, although some religious conservatives expressed concern over his views on abortion. While he was a justice in Texas, Gonzales voted with a State Supreme Court majority to allow some teenage females to get abortions without parental consent.
At the Class of ’82 reunion two years ago, attendees were abuzz about their former classmate’s high profile in the Bush administration.
“There was some talk about how he was a confidant of Bush, but nobody could recall him,” said classmate Marshall Win, who is an attorney in South Carolina. “Someone had a yearbook and we looked up his picture but nobody recognized him.”
None of the Harvard Law professors contacted by The Crimson who were on faculty while Gonzales was a student here remembered the presumptive attorney general.
Experts said Gonzales is all but certain to win Senate confirmation. “Because so many people were discontent with Ashcroft, Gonzales ought to win relatively easy approval,” said Barry C. Burden, an associate professor of government.
Burden said the Gonzales nomination would strengthen Bush’s support among Latinos—44 percent of whom voted to re-elect the president last week, according to exit polls.
“Gonzales is the latest in a continuing series of efforts by the Bush administration to build a relationship between the Republican Party and Latinos,” Burden wrote in an e-mail.
—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu —Contributing writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.