Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

The Policy Racket

Senate to vote on Ninth Circuit appeals court vacancy

The Senate is voting today to confirm Goodwin Liu, President Obama’s pick to fill a vacancy on the Ninth Circuit, which includes Nevada, as a federal Appeals Court judge.

But it may not be the easiest road.

Liu’s nomination has been stewing on the bench for months, a casualty of Republicans’ and Democrats’ protracted standoff over judicial nominations that has left 110 vacancies on the federal bench.

Obama nominated Liu in February 2010. He’s a professor and associate dean at the University of California at Berkley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, a role through which he took public positions and wrote papers in favor of liberal positions on issues like same-sex marriage. Many conservatives leapt on that history, charging that Liu would be an “activist judge” on the bench, and thus must be barred.

The resistance, and lack of a deal on judicial nominations generally, means Liu’s confirmation vote will have to overcome the threat of procedural filibuster, an option Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appears to have favored in order to start pushing long-idling nominations through.

“Everyone agrees that Goodwin Liu’s nomination is far from the ‘extraordinary circumstance’ that would warrant a filibuster,” Reid said yesterday. The only extraordinary things about Liu are his experience, accomplishments and integrity.”

Liu’s actually received the support of some right-leaning conservatives, including John Yoo -- a fellow alum of Yale Law -- and Ken Starr, author of the famous report about Bill Clinton’s indiscretions in the White House.

Liu, 39, is of Taiwanese descent, and would be one of a small but growing group of Asian-Americans on the federal bench.

But when his nomination was announced last year, Liu’s hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, reported that conservative activists considered him to be “the biggest target” of all Obama’s nominees, because his youth, race and academic reputation made him a shoo-in candidate the administration was “obviously grooming” for the Supreme Court.

If that’s the case, it could be a rough vote for Liu. The Senate has steadily been clearing judicial nominees over the last few weeks, but not every vote has been a foregone conclusion: earlier this month, a cloture vote to confirm Rhode Island lawyer John “Jack” McConnell Jr. to the federal district bench passed with only four extra votes on hand.

The Senate votes on Liu’s confirmation Thursday afternoon.

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