Obama Court Nominee Causing a Firestorm on Capitol Hill

April 8, 2010— -- The confirmation hearing for Goodwin Liu -- President Obama's nominee for a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals --is turning into a firestorm in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking GOP member, claims that Liu's failure to submit a complete list of his writings in his Senate questionnaire might place the nomination in jeopardy.

Wednesday afternoon Sessions issued a statement criticizing Liu and asking the committee's chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to postpone Liu's hearing currently scheduled for next week. "Goodwin Liu's entire record consists primarily of a stunning series of writings and speeches—and yet he failed to disclose dozens of those writings and speeches to the Judiciary Committee, " Sessions said.

In a letter to Leahy Sessions wrote "At best, this nominee's extraordinary disregard for the Committee's constitutional role demonstrates incompetence; at worst, it creates the impression that he knowingly attempted to hide his most controversial work from the Committee".

The controversy arose earlier in the week when Liu, who is a Berkley law professor, submitted a letter to the committee apologizing for the omissions. "In preparing my original submission, I made a good faith effort to track down all of my publications and speeches over the years. " Liu wrote to the committee. "But I have since realized that those efforts were not sufficient."

In a letter to Sessions, Leahy acknowledged that Liu had failed to provide some materials but refused to postpone next week's hearing.

Leahy said that Senate Republicans had already delayed Liu's hearing once after the nominee had left his one-week old son home to attend the hearing, and saw no reason to further delay "this nominee's opportunity to appear before the Committee."

Many believe that Liu's hearing could foreshadow contentious confirmation this summer should Justice John Paul Stevens decide to retire and the president chooses to nominate a similar candidate with an extensive paper trail on divisive social issues.

In his statement Sessions outlined his concerns with the position Liu has taken in some of his writing and said he was troubled because the committee has less time to consider the newly submitted work. "These omissions," the Senator said, "are particularly severe because many of them shed greater light on Liu's most controversial and troubling views—such as his support for racial quotas and his belief that government welfare is a constitutional right."

Jennifer Meinig, legislative counsel for the liberal group Alliance for Justice, says Republicans are nervous because "Liu will appeal to a wide audience because he has spent his career advocating for the right of equal justice for all, not a select, privileged few."