Cheryl Miller reports in The Recorder on a letter, now with 14 signatories, urging Governor Gavin Newsom to appoint Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu as California Attorney General if the current AG, Xavier Becerra, is confirmed as President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The letter’s signers are all retired judges, including two of Justice Liu’s former Supreme Court colleagues — Kathryn Werdegar and Ming Chin. Former Justice Carlos Moreno, whom Liu replaced on the court, also signed, as did former U.S. Northern District Judges Jeremy Fogel, Thelton Henderson, and Marilyn Hall Patel, state trial court judges, and jurists from other states, the article says.
Separately, Janet Napolitano endorsed Liu in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed. Napolitano is a former state Attorney General herself (in Arizona), but is better known as Arizona’s governor, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, and president of the University of California.
When Justice Liu’s name was first mentioned for Attorney General, I doubted that he would want the job. If appointed, he will have to run for reelection to a four-year term next year in a partisan, contested, expensive campaign, instead of being on the same ballot in an uncontested retention election to remain on the court for another 12 years.
But it’s very unlikely all these endorsements would be appearing if Liu were not interested in being picked by Newsom. As Judge Fogel is quoted in The Recorder article, “there’s no way a letter like this would be sent without his knowledge.”
Related:
More mentions of Justice Liu as California Attorney General candidate
“Why Goodwin Liu Should Be California’s Next Attorney General”
Justice Liu mentioned as possible California Attorney General appointee
