Goodwin Liu, a longtime Obama administration judicial nominee whose confirmation has been blocked by Senate Republicans, has thrown in the towel.
On Wednesday, he asked President Barack Obama to withdraw his nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, The Associated Press reported.
Liu, whom Obama first nominated for a seat on the San Francisco-based court in February 2010, wrote in a letter to the president that he and his family have “to make plans for the future” since a vote on his nomination appears increasingly unlikely, according to the AP.
Senate Democrats last week were unable to invoke cloture on his nomination. That would have limited debate and would have set up a final vote for the nominee. Liu, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, was the first Obama judicial nominee who did not clear a cloture vote.
The filibuster on Liu’s nomination marks the first time that a judicial nomination has been blocked since President George W. Bush’s first term. At the time, 10 judicial nominations were blocked by Democrats, and senators agreed that judges would receive a confirmation vote except under “extraordinary circumstances.”
The Liu nomination made national headlines as a battle raged between Republicans — who portrayed him as a liberal activist out of the mainstream — and Democrats — who described the nominee as a talented legal scholar.
Republicans held up his nomination over concerns that he would push the 9th Circuit, widely considered the most liberal of the federal circuits, further to the left.
They also expressed worries about highly critical remarks Liu made about Samuel Alito during Alito’s Supreme Court nomination hearing in 2006. Liu later apologized for the remarks. He said in a hearing this year that his comments were “unduly harsh.” And GOP members may have feared that the 40-year-old Liu might eventually be nominated as a Supreme Court Justice by a Democratic president.
“I hope the President accepts Mr. Liu’s request so we can finally move forward with a consensus nominee who reflects the mainstream of American views, respects the rule of law and the Constitution, and has an appropriate judicial temperament,” Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “As I have pledged and demonstrated, I will work with the President and the Majority to confirm such a nominee.”
