Two more nominations quietly die — Goodwin Liu and Edward Chen

Over at FireDogLake, bmaz writes with Marcy Wheeler on the Emptywheel part of the site. He recently had a piece decrying Obama and Team Change's "betrayal" of liberal nominees like Dawn Johnsen (who had the 60 votes she needed), and goes on to consider the pending case of Elizabeth Warren. It's a good read for that element alone.

But I'd like to point to another aspect of his piece, one in which he has personal knowledge and experience — judicial nominations for the 9th Circuit Court (my emphasis throughout):

Most distressing to me, because I practice law in the 9th Circuit, is the complete abandonment of two critical liberal judicial nominees, Goodwin Liu and Edward Chen; you may not be aware of because their nominations were tanked in the quiet of the night before those oh so hard working and diligent souls in the United States Senate jetted out of town for a 37 day vacation. Because Senate Rule XXXI specifies that all nominations not voted on and not held over by unanimous consent are extinguished and returned to the White House, the Liu and Chen nominations are toast.

Some of the still starry eyed Obama true believers who care about Liu and Chen (and both are incredibly excellent and worthy nominees) probably still think Obama will renominate them (and there is mention of that by, of course, an anonymous “White House official”). But even if he did, why in the world would anybody believe it to be anything other than a ruse to get their support leading up to the fall election? Obama renominated Dawn Johnsen and then hung her out to dry twisting in the wind until she finally ended the charade. It was a charade to sucker progressives, and there is no reason to believe he will not do it again. There is a track record with this White House, and it is not a good one; in fact, it is downright pathetic.

This matters for several reasons. One is that the current judiciary is overwhelmingly Republican-appointed and conservative (including Movement-Conservative):

Over the last three decades, Republicans have put the appointment of conservative judges at the top of their agenda. And controlling the White House 20 of the last 30 years has allowed them to carry out their plan. By the time George W. Bush left office, 60.2 percent of the judges, including two-thirds of the Supreme Court, had been appointed by Republican presidents. The younger Bush appointed nearly 40 percent of all federal judges.

Yet Obama has been cautious to the point of weird about reversing this trend. While news stories on this subject headline his lack of judicial confirmations, stories like this one also contain tales of his caution; Bloomberg:

“A lot of groups are still waiting for this president to nominate someone who will really reshape the bench,” said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights in Washington. The group supports expanding legal protection for blacks and other minorities.

The 13 appeals courts throughout the U.S. are particularly influential. They have the final say in thousands of cases, while the Supreme Court decides about 80 cases a year. Appellate courts ruled on or dismissed 59,600 cases in the year ending March 31, 2009, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington.

Obama has submitted to the Senate 63 trial court nominations and 22 for the appeals courts. At the same point in his first term, George W. Bush had nominated 83 trial judges and 32 for the appeals courts, according to Russell Wheeler, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The story above also mentions Goodwin Liu, calling his nomination "controversial." That's Bloomberg editorializing — it's Repub-speak for "could be effective" and "let's scare him out of it."

Here's bmaz on Goodman Liu — it's one heck of an endorsement:

If you do not know about Goodwin Liu, you should. Liu is quite arguably the brightest and most accomplished young legal liberal star in the universe. He is the future of any liberal hope on the Supreme Court; like Antonin Scalia or John Roberts on the right, Liu is the future legal heavyweight for the liberal future. At only 39 years of age, Liu’s resume and record of accomplishment, service and involvement in the law makes Elena Kagan look like a malnourished piker. He is worth fighting for tooth and nail (and so is Ed Chen for that matter). Except Barack Obama did not lift a finger; didn’t ever expend any of his precious political capital in furtherance of the nomination and didn’t even utter a peep of protest as Harry Reid and the Senate let him die in the night as they were fleeing town. But that is the hallmark of the Obama Presidency in relation to liberals and/or progressives; they just don’t give a damn and won’t lift a finger (but they will expect the votes whenever elections come around).

Sad on so many levels. And dangerous. Lifetime judicial appointments are correctly perceived by Movement Conservatives as their greatest presidential prize — along with control of the federal purse (yep, I said "control"), ripe for easy pilfering.

And what does Team Hope do to mitigate this? That would be Nothing. I'll give bmaz the last, frustrated word:

Maybe progressives ought to be considering someone like Elizabeth Warren for a much higher office than head of CFPB; or they can continue to be treated as “f**cking ret*rds” by the current denizens of the White House.

This isn't the first time I've heard her name mentioned this way.

Not that I'm advocating — but Team Please Keep Us In Office, the frustration is growing like a fire; it's three months till the next election; and we could both see sunset before anything that looks like noon.

GP