Law professor Goodwin Liu may be test case for Obama judicial picks
Liberal legal activists came away from last summer'sconfirmation hearings on Sonia Sotomayor with an empty feeling. It's not so much that they had a beef with Sotomayor, whom they supported. But her pragmatic discourses on judging and her vague remarks on constitutional interpretation were far from the soaring progressive vision of the Constitution that they had waited for years to hear from a Democratic nominee.
The activists are likely to get the debate they were looking for soon enough. President Obama's nomination of Goodwin Liu, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, to a spot on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has energized the left and outraged the right. His hearing and the battle over his nomination could tell much about the Obama administration's willingness to appoint controversial nominees to the bench, including the Supreme Court.
"I think people are viewing this as a test for the Supreme Court nomination that will be coming up" if Justice John Paul Stevens steps down at the end of this term, said Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice.
It also might be the beginning of an examination of Liu's eventual fitness for a place on the high court. The Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, might serve "as an initial referendum on Goodwin Liu as a Supreme Court nominee," said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who advised committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) during the Sotomayor hearings.
"I think people are viewing this as a test for the Supreme Court nomination that will be coming up" if Justice John Paul Stevens steps down at the end of this term, said Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice.
It also might be the beginning of an examination of Liu's eventual fitness for a place on the high court. The Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, might serve "as an initial referendum on Goodwin Liu as a Supreme Court nominee," said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who advised committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) during the Sotomayor hearings.