Obama’s Most Controversial Judicial Nominee

Progressive Reasoning

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote tomorrow on President Obama nominee for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Obama's nominees have proven that indeed elections have consequences and one of those consequences is his repeated nominations of individuals as judges who seek not to follow the Constitution but who seek to reshape America by "adapting" to "evolving norms" our established laws, our Constitutional rights and freedoms, and contract laws based in "common law"verse the standards which provide protection for Americans.

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Berkeley Professor Goodwin Liu Says The Constitution Is ‘Indeterminate,’ And ‘Requires Adaptation’ To ‘Evolving Norms’LIU: ‘I Stand By My Writings’GOODWIN LIU: “As in all things, Senator, I think I stand by my writings.” (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 4/16/10)

Liu believes Obama's election gave liberals “the opportunity to actually get our ideas and the progressive vision of the Constitution and of law and policy into practice.” “‘This is just a tremendous opportunity for us,’ says University of California Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu… ‘now we have the opportunity to actually get our ideas and the progressive vision of the Constitution and of law and policy into practice,’ Liu says.” ("Balance of Power Swings to Liberal Legal Group," NPR, 1/3/09)

GOODWIN LIU:"Mr. Liu opined that words like ‘free enterprise,' 'private ownership of property,' and 'limited government' are ‘code words for an ideological agenda hostile to environmental, workplace, and consumer protections.’” (“Berkeley’s Judge,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/17/10)

LIU: Constitution Is ‘Indeterminate,’ And ‘Requires Adaptation’ To ‘Evolving Norms’GOODWIN LIU: ‘Requires adaptation.’ “Interpreting the Constitution, we argue, requires adaptation of its broad principles to the conditions and challenges faced by successive generations. The question that properly guides interpretation is not how the Constitution would have been applied at the Founding but rather how it should be applied today in order to sustain its vitality in light of the changing needs, conditions, and understandings of our society.” (Goodwin Liu, Pamela Karlan, Chistopher Schroeder, "Keeping Faith With The Constitution," P.2, American Constitution Society, 2009)

· ‘Evolving norms.’ “[H]ow do people come at their judgments? Well, I think they can - in our system, they’ve come at it through a variety of ways that over time represents the gradual accretion of precedent, of principal, lessons learned from experience, and an awareness of the evolving norms and social understandings of our country.” ("Prof. Goodwin Liu Interviewed At White Oak," The Brennan Center For Justice, 5/5/09)

· ‘Indeterminate.’ “In short, the Constitution in several places embodies principles and ideas whose meaning was indeterminate even among the document’s contemporaries.” (Goodwin Liu, Pamela Karlan, Chistopher Schroeder, "Keeping Faith With The Constitution," P.38, American Constitution Society, 2009)

LIU: Can’t ‘Grasp’ ‘Resistance’ To ‘Foreign Authority In American Constitutional Law’GOODWIN LIU: “[t]he use of foreign authority in American constitutional law is a judicial practice that has been very controversial in recent years…The resistance to this practice is difficult for me to grasp, since the United States can hardly claim to have a monopoly on wise solutions to common legal problems faced by constitutional democracies around the world.” (Goodwin Liu, Developments in U.S. Education Law and Policy, 2 DAITO L. REV. 18, 27 (2006))

‘The Most Controversial Judicial Nominee’“Liu, as you’ll recall, is arguably the most controversial judicial nominee made so far by President Barack Obama...” (“At Long Last, Vote On Goodwin Liu Draws Near,” The Wall Street Journal, 5/17/11)

· “Liu has been the most controversial of President Obama's judicial selections, aside from his picks for the Supreme Court.” (“Reid Sets Showdown For Controversial Obama Nominee,” Fox News, 5/17/11)

· “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is forcing a vote on the controversial nomination of Goodwin Liu to be a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals” (“Stage Set For Senate Showdown On Liu Nomination,” National Journal, 5/18/11)

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