Legal News

Chapter II of the Liu Nomination: The Backlash to the Backlash

By Ashby Jones

Perhaps we’re suffering from a brain cramp here, but we really can’t remember a recent federal appellate-court nomination that garnered as much immediate controversy as has President Obama’s recent nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit. (LBers, help us out here — who are we forgetting about?)

Almost immediately after the 39-year-old Berkeley law professor was nominated, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned the nomination. In an interview last week on Fox News, Sessions, said that Liu "believes the Constitution is something judges can manipulate to have it say what they think culture or evolving standards of decency requires on a given day." Bloggers and editorial writes have also been on Liu’s case.

But now a backlash to the backlash has cranked up, it seems. According this post on the BLT Blog, one of Liu's students, Berkeley 3L Jonathan Singer, has started a blog in support of Liu’s nomination.

"He needs people who support him to speak up for him," Singer told the BLT Blog, noting the custom for judicial nominees to maintain silence in public pending their hearing. "When people don't stand up for nominees of this quality, who would add this much to the federal bench, then those nominees won't be put forward in the future."

Other support has come from perhaps less likely corners. Clint Bolick, the director of the Goldwater Institute, recently sent this letter to Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) supporting Liu’s confirmation.

And a fellow Berkeley professor — John Yoo (heard of him?) — had this to say about Liu, according to this LA Times article: “he’s not someone a Republican president would pick, but for a Democratic nominee, he’s a very good choice.”

Not exactly a full-throated vote of support, but something.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 09, 2010 (boomark / email).