Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) “Our courts are safer today for having stopped this nomination,” he said.
Preventing cloture on a judicial nominee is not something that should be done often or lightly. It is a serious action that should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances. Today was just such a circumstance. Professor Liu’s resume for the Circuit Court consists entirely of his work in academia, where he has been a leading proponent of a dangerous judicial philosophy that rejects the textual meaning of the Constitution and repudiates our heritage of neutral, objective justice. So extreme is Liu’s progressive agenda that he has written that judges can alter the Constitution to expand the government’s role in our lives—such as through creating a constitutional right to welfare.
Undoubtedly, some will describe today’s vote as a partisan battle. They would be wrong. This is a question of philosophy, not politics. It is a dispute between those who believe in upholding our Founder’s vision and those who would rather replace it with a new progressive vision where a central government increasingly plans our lives.
Judicial fights over the nominations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan exposed the rift between lawmakers who believe in preserving our legal heritage and those who favor President Obama’s ‘empathy-standard,’ which empowers judges to substitute their own political preferences for the plain words of the Constitution.
No senator, of either party, should support a nominee to our nation’s courts unless the nominee is clearly committed to the objective system of justice which has made those courts the envy of the world. That it nearly required the votes of Republican senators alone to prevent this nomination from moving forward demonstrates the profound degree to which Senate Democrats are out of touch with the American people. The citizens of this country loathe judicial activism and expect judges to apply the law fairly, evenly, and in strict keeping with the text of the Constitution. They understand that the rule of law is the necessary foundation for our liberty and our way of life.
Today marks an important victory for the American people against judicial activism. Still, we face a much larger and longer struggle to protect this Republic against a legal philosophy that endangers all our rights by weakening the very Constitution that protects them.