The woman at center of the Senate's fight

Three justices wrote dissents. Two of the dissents suggested that the Texas law was written narrowly by the state Legislature to bar a bypass under most circumstances, and one of those two dissents accused the majority of engaging in judicial activism. The third dissent, written by Owen, raised a completely different legal point. She said the state high court should have upheld the trial court since it was the only court to have undertaken a detailed and direct assessment of the evidence.

"This court has usurped the role of the trial court, reweighed the evidence, and drawn its own conclusions," Owen wrote. "The court thus overrules more than fifty years of precedent."

Mr. Gonzales was among the majority justices overturning the trial court. In a concurring opinion, he addressed concerns raised by two of the three dissenting opinions. He said the dissenting justices were reading the Texas bypass provision too narrowly.

"To construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism," he wrote.

It is this quote that is being widely portrayed as an open criticism of Owen. But a careful reading of Owen's dissent, Gonzales's concurrence, and subsequent statements by Gonzales suggest he was not criticizing Owen.

In his concurrence Gonzales immediately adds, "As a judge, I hold the rights of parents to protect and guide ... their children as one of the most important rights in our society. But I cannot rewrite the statute to make parental rights absolute, or virtually absolute, particularly when, as here, the legislature has elected not to do so."

Gonzales was asked about his concurrence during his recent nomination hearing for attorney general. He said the comment was not directed at Owen or any other justice. "It was actually focused at me," he said.

In Gonzales's view, given his interpretation of what the Legislature intended and the words the lawmakers used in crafting the bypass provision, it would have been an act of judicial activism not to have granted the bypass in that case, he said.

"As to the words that have been used as a sword against Judge Owen, let me just say that those words were related to me in terms of my interpretation of what the legislature intended," Gonzales said.

Gonzales does not appear to be referring only to himself, however. His concurrence twice mentions the name of another Texas Supreme Court justice, Nathan Hecht - the same justice who had accused the majority of activism. But it nowhere refers to Owen.

Senate Democrats point to a string of other cases in which positions advocated by Owen were questioned by fellow justices on the court. It is not unusual for justices on a nine-member supreme court to disagree on the outcome of cases.

Democrats also cite the outcomes of various cases to suggest that she is not concerned with the plight of ordinary folks.

They note that she authored a decision reversing a $30 million jury award to the family of a 14-year-old boy who became a quadriplegic allegedly because of a seat-belt malfunction during a car accident. She ordered a new trial because the first trial was held in the wrong venue. The decision took a year and a half for the court to issue. The boy died before a new trial could be held.

In response, Owen has said that although she authored the majority decision, she was only one of nine justices working on the case. She said they took about the same amount of time to resolve the case as other cases that year.

Owen supporters say her opinion received bipartisan support among a majority on the Texas high court, and her ruling did not eliminate the ability of the family to sue in the proper county.

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