Senate Blocks Confirmation of Court Nominee Liu
The U.S. Senate blocked the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the first rejection of one of President Barack Obama’s judicial choices.
With 60 votes needed to end debate on the University of California law professor’s nomination, the largely party-line tally was 52 in favor of proceeding to a confirmation vote, 43 against. Joining 51 Democrats voting to end debate was Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, while 42 Republicans and Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, opposed the motion. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah voted “present.”
The procedural vote came after more than a year of delays in the confirmation process stemming from Republican opposition to Liu’s selection.
Opponents said Liu, 40, lacks necessary courtroom experience and has activist judicial views reflected in writings and speeches supporting expanded welfare rights, gay marriage and privacy rights. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Liu as a judge might favor contemporary ideas over the Constitution’s legal standards.
“I am concerned by his apparent lack of appreciation for the proper role of a judge in our system of checks and balances,” Grassley said. “His philosophy leads to an inevitable expansion of the power of the judiciary.”
Alito Issue
Also at issue for many Republicans were comments Liu made during testimony to the Judiciary Committee opposing Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2005 by then- President George W. Bush. Liu said Alito’s record as a federal appeals court judge “envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away with a stolen purse” and where “federal agents may point guns at ordinary citizens during a raid, even after no sign of resistance.”
Liu told the Judiciary panel this year he regretted the language he used.
Republicans, though, said Liu’s rhetoric was intemperate enough to disqualify him for the judgeship.
‘Bridge Too Far’
“These statements about Judge Alito and the decisions he’s rendered and his philosophy are designed to basically say that people who have” those beliefs “are uncaring, hateful, and really should be despised,” Senate Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said during floor debate today. “That is a bridge too far because I share Judge Alito’s philosophy.”
Alito was confirmed to the high court in January 2006.
Liu’s Democratic backers pointed to his years of scholarship and his background. A native of Augusta, Georgia, Liu is the son of Taiwanese immigrants. He attended public schools and went on to Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut, a Rhodes scholarship and a clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The American Bar Association rated him “unanimously well qualified” to join the Circuit court.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said Liu’s testimony to the panel and his answers to hundreds of written follow-up questions from Republicans demonstrated that he would add great weight to the appellate court.
‘Exceptional Lawyer’
“This is an exceptional lawyer and scholar who would make an outstanding judge -- a judge who understands the rule of law and reveres the Constitution,” said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.
Though the Senate confirmed Obama’s two Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, some of his lower- court nominees have experienced delays in Senate consideration.
There are 16 federal appeals court vacancies and 70 on federal trial courts, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. A Senate logjam in pending nominations has eased after partisan feuding over delays last year. Twenty-four federal judges have won Senate confirmation this year, and last week the Democratic-led Senate overcame a Republican filibuster and confirmed John J. McConnell to the federal district court in Rhode Island.
Liu’s nomination tested whether he met the “extraordinary circumstances” warranting a filibuster, which can be broken only by a 60-vote supermajority, rather than a simple majority vote for confirmation. That test was established after a bitter showdown over Bush’s court nominees yielded a bipartisan 2005 agreement to expedite court confirmations.
Republican View
Two of the Republican senators who participated in that agreement, Graham and John McCain of Arizona, said before today’s vote that they believed concerns about Liu merited a filibuster.
“Goodwin Liu should run for elected office, not serve as a judge,” Graham said in a statement. “Ideologues have their place, just not on the bench.”
Obama first nominated Liu in February 2010 and renominated him on Jan. 5. The Senate Judiciary panel approved him twice in party-line votes.
Liu’s name never went to the Senate floor last year in the face of a likely filibuster by Republicans, many of whom cited his past opposition to Bush’s two Supreme Court nominees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito.
Liu has been viewed as a possible future Supreme Court nominee by Obama. He is a former chairman of the board of the American Constitution Society, a Washington-based group whose website says it seeks to counter the “activist conservative legal movement.”
Privacy Issue
Liu is co-author of a book, “Keeping Faith with the Constitution,” that said judges should interpret some portions of the Constitution, including those pertaining to privacy rights, using modern-day views.
At his confirmation hearing in March, Liu defended his writings and told the judiciary panel he agreed that judges must follow court precedents.
“He has made absolutely clear that if confirmed he would follow not any academic theory or writing, but the law as it is written and handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and Judiciary panel member, said on the Senate floor yesterday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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