You did it. Thank you to those of you who heeded the call to contact U.S. Senators to encourage them to oppose the nomination of Goodwin Liu to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Senate refused to end debate (or end the conservative-led filibuster) by a vote of 52-43.
Not only did liberals fall eight votes short, but the final tally suggests that Democrat-controlled Senate would be unable to confirm the Obama nominee even if Liu did get an up-or-down vote. Liu was one of Obama’s most radical and inexperienced judicial nominees. Our members (and thousands of other grassroots conservatives) mobilized, and we stopped this judicial disaster in the making. After the vote, Prof. Liu asked President Obama to withdraw his nomination. Victory achieved!
Judicial Watch vigorously opposed the Liu nomination from the get-go. In fact, we sent a letter in March 2010 to Senators Leahy and Sessions from the Senate Judiciary Committee outlining our case against Liu:
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In a book he co-authored, Keeping Faith with the Constitution, Mr. Liu suggests that the Constitution should be interpreted using the “evolving norms and traditions of our society.” This activist theory for interpreting the Constitution would substitute the whims of individual judges over the text and original meaning of the U.S. Constitution.
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Mr. Liu joined an amicus brief that suggests that the Constitution’s equal protection clause requires allowing same-sex couples to marry. Mr. Liu has a radical and expansive view of judicially-enforceable rights to “welfare,” and seems to oppose the notion that the Constitution is colorblind.
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Also of concern is Mr. Liu’s lack of practical legal experience. Mr. Liu has practiced law for just a little over ten years. Judicial nominees ought to have significant practical experience as a lawyer or a judge, especially nominees for appellate seats.
And then, of course, there was Liu’s vicious attack on then-Judge Alito during Alito’s Supreme Court confirmation process.
PHOENIX (AP) — Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has for years tried to convince states to adopt Arizona’s system of selecting judges, which aims to remove politics from the judiciary.
But a state Senate committee on Monday will consider asking voters to ditch that system and require judges be confirmed by the Senate every four years, a move supporters say would prevent judicial activism but which O’Connor called “a great step backwards.”
“We have an excellent judiciary at present, and in my opinion it would be against the best interests of Arizona to increase the partisanship in the selection of its judges,” O’Connor wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee dated Feb. 4.
A former Arizona state senator, O’Connor in 1974 helped send to voters the referendum creating the existing judicial selection system, which supporters call “merit selection.” It applies to state appellate courts and trial courts in Maricopa and Pima counties, where the vast majority of Arizona’s judges work.
For each judicial vacancy, nonpartisan commissions review applications and send the three most qualified candidates to the governor, who selects one. Voters decide whether to retain judges or remove them from office.
Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, proposes that judges instead be nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, similar to the federal system. Judges would have to be reconfirmed by the Senate every four years.
The bill is SCR1002, judicial appointments; senate confirmation.
Another bill being herd by the RULES committee Monday is SB1102, concealed weapons; permit; justification.
Don’t forget that legislation that you are interested in can be followed on the ALIS system.
