Sessions: Goodwin Liu's "Unconvincing' Testimony

Statement

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement today after the Committee's hearing for Goodwin Liu, nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit:

"Today's hearing was a valuable opportunity to engage in a needed discussion about the future of our courts. Americans overwhelmingly want judges who follow the Constitution as written. But Professor Liu has devoted his professional and academic career to arguing the opposite. He is at the forefront of a progressive legal movement that seeks to use the courts to expand the size, reach and role of the government in our lives. Yet today, Professor Liu testified that the legal philosophy he so adamantly advances as a law professor will somehow have no influence on his rulings as a judge. This is, frankly, hard to believe.
"Over the course of his testimony, Professor Liu attempted to distance himself from the views he has explicitly embraced in years of speeches and writings -- positions that he has articulated and refined throughout his career. It seems he tried to sidestep all of his most controversial views -- from his belief that foreign law should be applied to constitutional interpretation, to his clear statements that the courts can create new rights to healthcare and welfare, to his support for racial quotas, to his repeatedly expressed belief that a judge's view of "social understandings' and "evolving norms' can be used to bypass the text of the Constitution.
"His sudden protestations of faithfulness to the Constitution were, ultimately, unconvincing.
"Professor Liu exemplifies the big government judicial activism that has Americans so concerned -- a philosophy they do not want to see in the President's nominee to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Given Professor Liu's weak qualifications, it appears the President chose him for no other reason than his philosophy.
"As government continues to grow and expand to unprecedented levels it is more important than ever that we recognize the constitutional limits that have made our country the greatest and freest in the world."

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