Texas Judge Priscilla Owen, the subject of a long and heated confirmation battle in the U.S. Senate, took the oath of office Monday for her new seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Owen, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court for more than a decade, won Senate confirmation to the federal post last month after a four-year fight over President Bush’s push to place conservatives on the nation’s highest courts. She became the first of Bush’s long-blocked nominees to win approval under an agreement reached by centrists in the Senate.
