Goodwin Liu
On March 2, Professor Goodwin H. Liu once again appeared before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to testify in support of his confirmation to become a federal appellate court judge based in California. He was first nominated over a year ago on February 24, 2010. This was Professor Liu’s second confirmation hearing before that Committee. After a total of approximately 5 hours of testimony and the submission of over a thousand pages of documents, Professor Liu is now well overdue for a confirmation vote by the full Senate. When that vote is taken, Senators should vote in favor of this exceptionally qualified, measured, and inspirational second-generation, Asian Pacific American nominee.
No other judicial candidate nominated by President Barack Obama has had to undergo the scrutiny that Professor Liu has experienced. Although Senators absolutely have a right and duty to evaluate each nominee to ensure that they are fit for office, that evaluation must at some point result in a decision – an up or down vote. To do otherwise would be to hide behind procedural tactics based on political concerns or concerns over the outcome of the vote. Of course, each Senator must vote his or her conscience. Fundamentally, however, they should vote.
When they vote, it should be a resounding “yes” for confirmation. The assault on Professor Liu has been unfair. Some have argued that he is unqualified for the job based on his relative youth and lack of courtroom experience. Professor Liu graduated from Stanford University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and received his law degree from Yale University. He had prestigious law clerkships with a D.C. Circuit judge and a Supreme Court Justice. The ABA gave Professor Liu its highest ranking of “Unanimously Well-Qualified.” Fox News anchor and legal analyst Megyn Kelly said that “his qualifications are unassailable,” and The New York Times agreed that he is “an exceptional nominee.” To the extent that he has not had a lifetime of courtroom experience, that factor has not prevented numerous individuals from serving as federal appellate court judges. Any suggestion that he does not have what it takes to do the job is far-fetched.
Still others have attacked him based on ideological grounds, charging that Professor Liu is a “radical” or “extremist” liberal. Any fair reading of Professor Liu’s writings and speeches would lead to the conclusion that Professor Liu is a mainstream nominee who is extremely intelligent, open-minded about different opinions and ideas, and very thorough in his scholarship. The list of people supporting Professor Liu further contradicts the notion that Professor Liu is a “radical liberal” who would bring a political agenda to the bench. The list includes prominent conservatives such as former federal appellate court judge and Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr, Republican Congressman Tom Campbell, Ford Administration Transportation Secretary William T. Coleman, Jr., school choice advocate Clint Bolick, and many others. All of these individuals believe that Professor Liu would make an excellent judge.
Why should this matter to Asian Pacific Americans? Among the approximately 875 federal judges with lifetime tenure in the United States, only 13 active judges are Asian Pacific American. That percentage is even lower among active federal appellate court judges, where only one (!) out of 175 is Asian Pacific American. Furthermore, there are nearly 100 current vacancies. Professor Liu’s confirmation as a federal appellate court judge is even more meaningful because he would be on the Ninth Circuit, the federal appellate court covering the West Coast and Hawaii, and where almost 40 percent of all Asian Pacific Americans in the United States reside. If Professor Liu is not confirmed, then Asian Pacific Americans will continue to be under-represented in the federal judiciary. Just as importantly, Asian Pacific Americans may be left with the impression that there continues to be a glass ceiling such that Asian Pacific Americans will be denied top level leadership positions regardless of their qualifications for the position.
All Americans should have an interest in having judges who are the best and brightest. Therefore, all Americans should support Professor Goodwin Liu.
Paul Hirose is the President of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. For more about Professor Liu’s nomination and what can be done to support him, go to www.confirmgoodwin.com.
I am writing this subsequent to the Senate vote which prevented cloture on the nomination of Goodwin Liu, effectively preventing his appointment.
Goodwin Liu would have been an excellent federal appellate judge. The ABA unanimously rated him as well-qualified, which was clearly supported both by his education at top-ranked schools (BA from Stanford, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, an editor of the Yale Law Journal at Yale Law School) and by the distinguished record he has compiled as a professor and assistant dean at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall).
In the current political environment, however, conservatives are not willing to confirm even the most highly qualified candidates for office, even a candidate for a U.S. Court of Appeals in a federal judicial circuit where 40 percent of the population is Asian-American but there are no Asian-American appellate judges, if they perceive that candidate to be strongly liberal in his or her views. Goodwin Liu is not the only current nominee to run into a conservative roadblock. There has been no Senate action, for example, on the nomination of the Hon. Denny Chin to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, even though he was previously confirmed by the Senate as a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and has served honorably and effectively in that position.
Unfortunately, the judicial confirmation process has become highly politicized, and even exceptionally highly qualified nominees have become hostages to political point-scoring. Republicans evidently believe that by preventing cloture on the nomination of Goodwin Liu, they have blocked a liberal from becoming a federal judge. Unfortunately, they have also deprived the American judiciary of the services of one of the most highly qualified Asian-American lawyers and legal scholars in our entire country. That is not the kind of loss that can easily be made good by advancing some other nominee in his place.
The next time somebody contacts you to request a campaign contribution, remember this: President Obama was willing to nominate Goodwin Liu to a position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and Senator Reid was willing to hold a vote in the Senate to close debate on his nomination, which if approved would have allowed a public vote on his confirmation. By refusing to agree to cloture, Republicans in the Senate prevented his nomination from ever getting to an up-or-down vote.
I only heard of this fellow through conservative facebook buddies – from what I’ve seen, he would be only more of the vote for liberal – as – hell persons of color even though the will make America go – to – hell instead of picking people who won’t destroy America regardless of race, color, or sexual persuasion.
Professor Goodwin would have been confirmed with 100% acceptance if his last name was Lewinski.