Senate Republicans Block Judicial Nominee Liu

Senate Republicans Thursday succeeded in blocking the confirmation of Goodwin Liu, a law professor at UC Berkley’s Law School tapped by Obama for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

This is not the first time Liu’s nomination has been met with a filibuster. He has previously failed to secure the 60 votes needed to bypass GOP objections during the 111th Congress. When the 112th Congress convened, the administration immediately re-nominated him.

The final vote came in at 52 to 43, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) being the only Republican to cross party lines.

Liu has faced criticism for failing to disclose his complete list of his speaking engagements, never serving as a judge and delivering harsh remarks about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito during his nomination process.

“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,” Liu said in testimony before the Judiciary Committee in 2006. “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… where a black man may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man.”

Following the vote, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee noted that Republicans have been dedicated to providing speedy confirmation processes for conventional nominee’s, but that the GOP is unable to support Liu.

“The problem is that Mr. Liu is far from a consensus nominee,” Grassley said in a statement. “After his nomination was returned to the White House twice last year, the President failed to learn that Mr. Liu was not a nominee who could earn the needed support from 60 members on both sides of the aisle.”