Litigation

Editorials Back Ninth Circuit Nominee Liu

By Peter Hardin

In the run-up to a potentially stormy confirmation hearing, President Obama’s pick for a vacancy on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Goodwin Liu, has won support from editorials in two leading national newspapers.

A Los Angeles Times editorial agreed with an American Bar Association judgment that Liu, a constitutional law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is “well qualified.” As for those Republicans who assail Liu as “beyond the mainstream,” the choice of words is synonymous with “Democratic nominee” or “liberal,” the newspaper said.

“His views fall within the mainstream of legal scholarship and American politics,” a New York Times editorial opined, and it suggested Liu may be drawing rising criticism because he is considered by some a strong potential Supreme Court nominee in the future.

A hearing is scheduled for April 16 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Liu has written a letter of apology to committee members over having “mistakenly omitted scores of materials from a background questionnaire,” the Blog of Legal Times reported. To learn more about his nomination, visit Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 06, 2010 (boomark / email).