Goodwin Liu: You've Been Nominated

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Got this release sent in and wanted to make sure and post it on up (thanks Honda camp):

CAPAC Applauds President Obama’s nomination of Goodwin Liu for Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Washington DC – Today, President Obama nominated Goodwin Liu for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Liu is currently Associate Dean and Professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. Judicial diversity has been a top concern of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), and as such has endorsed Asian American, Pacific Islander, and other diverse candidates for the bench, including Professor Liu. Currently, there are no Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders serving as a federal appellate court judge.

“CAPAC is pleased with the President’s nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As an acclaimed education and constitutional law scholar, CAPAC members are proud to support his nomination,” said Rep. Mike Honda (CA-15), chair of CAPAC. “Goodwin is a personal friend and leader in my home state of California, and I have worked with him for many years, particularly in ensuring access and equity in our education system. Not only has he been a leader in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, he has proven himself in the legal profession as well, with support from renowned legal minds from a diversity of ideological backgrounds.”

Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty in 2003, Liu was an associate at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. He clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the October 2000 Term, and for Judge David S. Tatel on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1998-1999. Between his clerkships, Liu served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. He has also worked for the Corporation for National Service, where he helped launch the AmeriCorps program.

Liu was born in Augusta, Georgia, to parents who emigrated from Taiwan, and he grew up in Sacramento where he attended public schools. Liu earned a B.S. from Stanford University in 1991, an M.A from Oxford in 2002, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1998.

CAPAC Members are pleased that President Obama is committed to nominating individuals of the highest caliber, such as Goodwin Liu, to the federal bench, while at the same time making judicial diversity a top priority. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been underrepresented in the federal judiciary, constituting less than 1% of the bench prior to President Obama’s Administration. In his first year and a half in office, he has already doubled the federal presence of Asian American and Pacific Islander judges.
Cool.