Liu Guilty by Omission

By Robert Romano

The failure by Barack Obama’s nominee to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Goodwin Liu to initially provide 117 items asked for by the Senate Judiciary Committee, including speeches, publications, and other background materials offers yet one more reason why he should be rejected by the Senate.

According to a letter from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and other Senate Judiciary Republicans, missing from the nominee’s questionnaire was “1) Professor Liu’s commencement speech to UC Berkeley Law; (2) his participation in a panel entitled ‘What the 2008 Election Will Mean for the Supreme Court’; (3) his participation in a presentation entitled ‘The Fate of Affirmative Action from the O’Connor Court to the Roberts Court’; (4) his participation in an event co-sponsored by La Raza and the Center for Social Justice at Berkeley entitled ‘Mendez v. Westminster: 1946—A California Look at Brown v. Board of Education’; and (5) his participation in a conference on school funding.”

In the least, Liu’s views on prominent issues facing the Supreme Court, affirmative action, Brown v. Board of Education, and other items are quite relevant to determining Liu’s qualifications as a judge and his prejudices as an activist.

The final item in that list pursuant to school funding is particularly relevant, however. As ALG News has previously reported, Liu’s writings suggest he views education and health care as “welfare rights” that courts should have a role in distributing.

In truth, no other nominee more broadly reflects the true judicial philosophy of Barack Obama than Goodwin Liu. As was revealed in his 2001 WBEZ public radio interview, then-Illinois State Senator Obama lamented that the Warren Court did not “break us free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution” and had “never ventured into the issues of redistribution of the wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.”

So, in the least, Senate Republicans should get their hands on any information demonstrating that Liu shares Obama’s views — because those alone ought to be necessarily disqualifying, Obama’s election to the highest office in the land notwithstanding.

Does Liu have something to hide? His omissions did continue even after Republicans demanded everything, as noted by the letter.

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