NPR - Nina Totenberg: Senate Battle Looms Over Appeals Court Nominee Liu

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The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing Friday on President Obama's most controversial judicial nominee to date, Berkeley associate dean Goodwin Liu.

Liu, one of the nation's leading liberal academic thinkers and writers, is nominated for a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in California.

For years, liberal Democrats have groaned about -- and sometimes fought -- the conservative scholars nominated by Republican presidents to the federal appeals courts. Almost all those conservatives have gone on to serve distinguished careers, sometimes moving the law in distinctly conservative directions: judges like Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner and Michael McConnell. And some, like Antonin Scalia, have moved on to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Until now, Obama has not followed the lead of Republican presidents. Instead, he has nominated centrist liberals to the appeals courts. So, liberal stalwarts were pleased when he nominated Liu, a 39-year-old star in academia and a leading liberal light.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126023254


Watch his nomination hearing live tomorrow at 10am here:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4480

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

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1. CSPAN is airing the hearing live tomorrow

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/schedule