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The California Supreme Court's newest justice, Goodwin Liu, hits the ground running this morning with a high-profile issue: Proposition 8. The high court is hearing oral arguments in San Francisco on whether state law gives sponsors of the same-sex marriage ban the right to defend it in a case now pending before a federal appellate court. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco struck down the voter-approved measure last year as unconstitutional. State officials, including Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris, have declined to appeal. Another federal judge has since rejected the proponents' argument that Walker's decision...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A U.C. Berkeley law professor whose nomination to a federal appeals court was blocked by Senate Republicans is about to become a member of the California Supreme Court. The state's three-member Commission on Judicial Appointments unanimously voted to approve Liu's nomination by Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday. T

Senate Republicans were irate at Goodwin Liu's opposition to President George W. Bush's Supreme Court candidates. Imagine their indignation if they'd known that Liu had a hand in a Supreme Court opinion that, if it had prevailed, might have kept Bush out of the White House. The information comes from Herma Hill Kay, a law school colleague of Liu's at UC Berkeley. She wrote to the state Commission on Judicial Appointments in support of Gov. Jerry Brown's nomination of Liu to the California Supreme Court, after President Obama's choice of the 40-year-old academic for a federal appeals court seat in...

Goodwin Liu, the UC Berkeley law professor nominated to the state Supreme Court by Gov. Jerry Brown, drew raves Monday from a State Bar panel, which praised his "brilliant intellect ... impartiality, integrity, collegiality, and a work ethic second to none." Liu, whose nomination by President Obama to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was derailed by conservative opposition and a Republican-led filibuster, apparently faces no such obstacles to a seat on the state's high court. Only supporting witnesses have signed up to testify at Wednesday's confirmation hearing of the Commission on Judicial Appointments in San...

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Tuesday nominated University of California law professor Goodwin Liu to sit on the state Supreme Court.

Gov. Jerry Brown nominated UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court Tuesday, giving the state high court a fourth Asian justice and a collegial liberal who is likely to be strongly supportive of civil rights. Liu was President Obama's pick for a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but he failed to garner enough Republican support. Liu, 40, has never been a judge, but his colleagues at Berkeley, including conservatives, strongly endorsed him for the position. Liu, a graduate of Yale Law School, is the son of Taiwanese immigrants. He was born in...

Pro-Abortion Obama Judge Pick Goodwin Liu Withdraws Nomination by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 5/26/11 11:38 AMFollowing a Senate vote upholding the filibuster Republicans mounted against the nomination of pro-abortion activist Goodwin Liu for a federal appeals court position, Liu has submitted a letter to President Barack Obama withdrawing his nomination.The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Liu’s nomination for the federal appeals court in the western United States in April on a 10-8 party line vote. Last week, the Senate voted 52-43 against stopping the Republican filibuster with Republican senators Lindsay Graham, Dick Lugar, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins...

WASHINGTON -- A liberal legal scholar is withdrawing his nomination to an appeals court judgeship after Senate Republicans blocked a vote on his confirmation last week. Goodwin Liu, 40, said in a letter to President Barack Obama Wednesday that he and family need "to make plans for the future" now that there is little prospect of a Senate vote on his nomination.

Unions spent an estimated $200 million electing President Barack Obama and re-electing Democratic majorities in Congress in 2008. Union officials ought to be ecstatic with Obama’s performance since then because he has delivered everything he promised the unions, and more. Obama’s largesse is all the more amazing when it is remembered that unions represent fewer than 7 percent of all private-sector workers. Fortunately for the country, Democrats in Congress don’t always share Obama’s loyalty to the union label. Consider Thursday’s cloture vote in the Senate on Obama’s nomination of 39-year-old UC Berkeley School of Law professor Goodwin Liu to the...

Senate Backs Filibuster of Pro-Abortion Nominee Goodwin Liu Washington, DC -- The Senate votes today against a motion by Senate Democrats to cut off debate on Goodwin Lui, a pro-abortion law professor President Barack Obama selected to become a judge on a federal appeal court. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/19/senate-backs-filibuster-of-pro-abortion-nominee-goodwin-liu/

Senate Backs Filibuster of Pro-Abortion Nominee Goodwin Liu Washington, DC -- The Senate votes today against a motion by Senate Democrats to cut off debate on Goodwin Lui, a pro-abortion law professor President Barack Obama selected to become a judge on a federal appeal court. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/19/senate-backs-filibuster-of-pro-abortion-nominee-goodwin-liu/

Senate Republicans staged the first successful filibuster of a judicial nominee since 2005 on Thursday, dealing a blow to the Obama administration on the long-stalled nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Only one Republican joined Democrats Thursday in supporting Liu, who needed 60 votes to break a filibuster. Meanwhile, 52 Democrats voted ‘yes’ to open debate on the 39-year-old f University of California, Berkeley professor’s nomination. One Democrat voted no. The final vote was 52-43. The filibuster will be met with disappointment from both progressives and Asian-American groups who advocated for Liu and hoped to...

Senate Republicans have successfully filibustered the nomination of Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The final vote on cloture was 52 to 43, with one Senator (Orrin Hatch of Utah) voting “present,” well short of the 60 votes required to end a filibuster. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) voted yes, while Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) voted no. Sens. Bauchus, Hutchison, Moran and Vitter did not vote.

Senate Republicans are poised Thursday to use a filibuster to block the confirmation of law professor Goodwin Liu to an appellate court. * * * In moving to block Liu, Republicans are warning President Obama that his next Supreme Court nominee is likely to face a more difficult path to confirmation than did his first two selections. “If we prevail, it ought to send a signal that the White House ought to send up people who are more mainstream,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday. Grassley predicted that he had the votes...

Republican opposition is steadily growing against controversial University of California-Berkley law professor Goodwin Liu, President Obama's nominee for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, potentially imperiling a judicial appointment for the first time in his presidency. Senior Republicans launched an all-out push to quash the nomination, urging their conference colleagues to support a GOP-led filibuster. "(Liu's) record reflects a carefully honed and calculated philosophy that he developed and advanced over the course of his brief career in the ivory towers of academia and which threatens the American tradition of limited constitutional government," Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on...

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans may hand President Barack Obama his first defeat on a judicial nomination, as they appear to have sufficient votes to sustain a filibuster against liberal law professor Goodwin Liu. Democrats chose to force a vote Thursday to end GOP blocking tactics against the University of California, Berkeley, scholar. Senate aides from both parties said it did not appear the majority party could attain the 60-vote super-majority needed to stop a filibuster.

This excerpt summarizes the showdown that will occur tomorrow when Senate Democrats force a cloture vote on Ninth Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu, President Obama’s most radical judicial nominee and the man whom Obama would dearly like to make the first Asian-American Supreme Court justice. Liu’s left-wing agenda and outrageously activist view of the law makes this showdown a classic test of the bipartisan “extraordinary circumstances” standard for when judicial nominees can be filibustered. The standard originated in the 2005 Gang of 14 agreement. Liu is a 40 year old Berkeley law professor whose vocal and unabashed championing of judicial activism...

The nomination of UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to a federal appeals court has been stalled by the partisan gamesmanship that pervades Washington.The Senate Judiciary Committee is finally expected to vote today on whether to advance the nomination, more than a year after President Obama tapped him for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has suggested that Liu is at "the very vanguard of what I would call intellectual judicial activism." The characterization of Liu as a radical does not hold up to reasonable scrutiny. Unfortunately, reasonableness does not seem to carry...

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on pro-abortion federal appeals court nominee Goodwin Liu, whom President Barack Obama picked for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Liu, liberal a University of California law professor, is slated to come before the panel on Thursday, where he will face strong opposition again from Republicans. He is a left-wing abortion supporter who conservative legal guru Ed Whelan observed was so left-wing that former “White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel initially vetoed” his candidacy for the Ninth Circuit “on the ground that Liu’s left-wing record made him too controversial.”...

Goodwin Liu, UC Berkeley law school professor, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. According to the Blog of The Legal Times, Liu walked back his damning 2006 testimony against the confirmation of now Justice Sam Alito. In 2006, Liu had said: "Judge Alito's record envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away with a stolen purse; where federal agents may point guns at ordinary citizens during a raid, even after no sign of resistance; where the FBI may install a camera where you sleep on the promise that they...