Senate Republicans oppose federal judicial nominee Edward Chen

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Senate GOP opposes S.F. judicial nominee
by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
December 29, 2009

President Obama's nomination of U.S. Magistrate Edward Chen for a federal judgeship in San Francisco has run into trouble in the Senate, which sent Chen's name back to the White House last week in a sign of Republican opposition to the former American Civil Liberties Union attorney.

Chen, 56, named a magistrate by Bay Area federal judges in 2001, was nominated by Obama to the lifetime judicial post in August. He would become the first Asian American judge in the Northern District of California, which covers the coastal area from Monterey County to the Oregon border.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved him by a party-line 12-7 vote in October. Republican opponents cited cases he handled as an ACLU attorney in San Francisco from 1995 to 2001, including an unsuccessful challenge to Proposition 209, the 1996 California initiative that banned government affirmative action programs based on race or gender.

Opponents also cited some of his public statements, including a 2005 speech in which he questioned whether the government's response to Hurricane Katrina would have been quicker if most of the victims had been white and middle class rather than poor and black.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/29/MN811BAJT6.DTL

Waah! Chen dissed Chimpy over the government's oblivion towards Hurricane Katrina! And he's from that liberal hellhole San Francisco! He's also racist against white people!
:sarcasm: