California can use some good news this evening, after the withdrawal (until next year, at least) of AB 52, the health insurance premium regulation bill. And we did get some today.
Goodwin Liu, once hoped to be headed to the Ninth Circuit, has been confirmed to the California Supreme Court, replacing liberal retired Justice Carlos Moreno.
Liu's confirmation to the state Supreme Court not only boosts the career of a 40-year-old liberal legal superstar, but gives California's seven-member high court a majority of Asian justices for the first time in history.
The other Asians on the court are moderate Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, conservative Justice Ming Chin, and moderate-conservative Joyce L. Kennard, who is half Dutch and half-Chinese. Rounding out the court are Justices Marvin Baxter, Kathryn Werdegar and Carol Corrigan. All except Liu are Republican appointments.
Brown nominated Liu in July, turning to him to replace former Justice Carlos Moreno, the lone Latino on the Supreme Court who retired in February. Brown's judicial advisers considered Liu, a former Rhodes scholar and Yale Law School graduate, an irresistible pick once he informed the Obama administration in May that he was withdrawing from consideration for the 9th Circuit in the face of a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Liu will get a quick baptism as a Supreme Court justice. The court will hear a new round of cases next week, including the latest legal wrangling over Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday on whether the sponsors of the voter-approved ballot measure have a legal right to defend the law and appeal a federal judge's order declaring it unconstitutional when the state's governor and attorney general refuse to do so.
Liu's position on gay marriage was one source of criticism from conservatives who opposed his 9th Circuit nomination. As a law professor, Liu has backed the rights of same-sex couples to marry, and signed on to legal briefs supporting those rights in a 2008 case that prompted the state Supreme Court to invalidate the state's previous ban on gay marriage. Republicans also questioned Liu's views on various constitutional theories, as well as his opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Goodwin Liu is a good bet to be a Democratic nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court before long -- he's that young and that good. Republicans have oddly done him a favor by keeping him off of the Ninth Circuit, as when that time for his appointment may come he will bring diversity to the Supreme Court in a sense beyond his Asian ancestry: he'll have been a State Supreme Court judge rather than a federal appellate judge.
If you wanted some good news tonight, there it is. Thank you to Governor Brown for making this quick, bold, and excellent appointment.