Obama's Kindred Judicial Spirit

[Geee]

Human Events:




President Obama has renominated Goodwin Liu, a University of California at Berkeley law professor, to the notoriously activist (and often-overturned) Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Previously nominated in 2010, Liu is so controversial that he could not even command a vote in an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate that habitually rubber-stamped liberal judicial nominations. He may be too much of a judicial activist even for such a reflexively activist court.

Why would Obama risk undermining his attempt to position himself as a centrist for such an activist nominee? After all, the Ninth Circuit isn't exactly lacking in left-wing jurists. The best explanation is that Obama doesn't see Liu as a dangerous activist but as a kindred spirit.

This is because Liu advocates redistributing wealth through the courts. In an article in the Stanford Law Review, Liu questioned "the prevailing view ... that issues of poverty and distributive justice should be resolved through legislative policymaking rather than constitutional adjudication." In other words, Liu sees welfare programs as mandated by the Constitution rather than controlled by the people through their elected representatives.