Why the GOP is delaying Obama's judicial nominee
Lisa Keen - Keen News Service | Fri, 03/26/2010 - 10:14am | Login to bookmark or commentWASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee was squaring up for a showdown this week over President Obama’s most controversial judicial nominee to date, but that showdown has been indefinitely delayed after Republicans use a parliamentary delaying tactic.
The nominee is Goodwin Liu, a professor of law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. President Obama nominated him last month for a seat on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which covers California and eight other Western states. The American Bar Association gave him a “unanimously well-qualified” rating.
But he also has a paper trail a mile wide and a mountain high. That trail reads like good news for the LGBT community, but it screams “liberal” to Republicans.
Fox News has reported that Republicans are “champing at the bit to grill Liu, who has described the Constitution as a living document, advocated for same-sex marriage and suggested health care is a right.”
Fox says Liu’s nomination “is getting extra attention because conservatives are concerned that he could be on the fast track for the Supreme Court.”
Liu is one of four people Obama has named to federal appeals court positions since Feb. 24. The other three -- Ray Lohler Jr. and Robert Chatigny for the 2nd Circuit, and Scott Matheson for the 10th -- have relatively quiet credentials.
But Liu has been very much part of the public discourse on a number of civil rights issues, including Proposition 8, the initiative which voters in California passed in November 2008 to ban same-sex marriage.
In one of many essays he has published in various newspapers and publications, Liu told the Los Angeles Times, “there is no question that [Proposition 8] targets a historically vulnerable group and eliminates a very important right.” He has
The nominee is Goodwin Liu, a professor of law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. President Obama nominated him last month for a seat on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which covers California and eight other Western states. The American Bar Association gave him a “unanimously well-qualified” rating.
But he also has a paper trail a mile wide and a mountain high. That trail reads like good news for the LGBT community, but it screams “liberal” to Republicans.
Fox News has reported that Republicans are “champing at the bit to grill Liu, who has described the Constitution as a living document, advocated for same-sex marriage and suggested health care is a right.”
Fox says Liu’s nomination “is getting extra attention because conservatives are concerned that he could be on the fast track for the Supreme Court.”
Liu is one of four people Obama has named to federal appeals court positions since Feb. 24. The other three -- Ray Lohler Jr. and Robert Chatigny for the 2nd Circuit, and Scott Matheson for the 10th -- have relatively quiet credentials.
But Liu has been very much part of the public discourse on a number of civil rights issues, including Proposition 8, the initiative which voters in California passed in November 2008 to ban same-sex marriage.
In one of many essays he has published in various newspapers and publications, Liu told the Los Angeles Times, “there is no question that [Proposition 8] targets a historically vulnerable group and eliminates a very important right.” He has