Gov. Jerry Brown this afternoon swore in UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court, three months after Liu's bid for a seat on a federal appeals court was scuttled by Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
In a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda, Liu recalled field trips to the Capitol when he was a boy and Brown was governor before.
"I stood in this rotunda many times, perhaps even on days, Governor, when you were hard at work just a few paces away," Liu said. "But I never imagined that our paths would cross quite like this."
He called his appointment the "opportunity of a lifetime."
Liu's swearing-in came one month after Brown nominated him to the high court and less than 24 hours after the state Commission on Judicial Appointments unanimously confirmed his appointment.
"I really believe that Goodwin Liu is an individual who will exemplify the finest of scholarship and also the kind of character and temperament that brings people together," said Brown, a Democrat.
He called Liu "the exact right person for the particular period we're in now."
The appointment is the first judicial appointment of Brown's third term. He said he hopes he will have "many others of such interesting quality."
Liu, 40, replaces retired Justice Carlos Moreno, the only Democrat on the moderately conservative court. Moreno, who retired in February, was also the court's only Latino, and Brown had widely been expected to appoint a Latino to replace him.
Liu, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, is the court's fourth Asian American justice and its youngest. His parents, he said, recited the same oath he did when they became U.S. citizens years ago.
Brown reflected on decades of civil rights advances in California and called Liu's appointment is "a real milestone."
"Maybe our forebears, wherever they are, will turn over in their respective graves," he said, "but also enjoy the progress that we've made, following in their footsteps, but not being held back by them."
Liu became controversial as President Barack Obama's nominee to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, criticized by conservatives for advocating for affirmative action and gay marriage, among other causes. Others praised his scholarship.
Liu, a Georgia native, moved to Sacramento as a child. He was co-valedictorian of Rio Americano High School, and an editor and photographer from the school newspaper were on hand to cover the event. The Rhodes scholar received degrees from Stanford, Oxford and Yale.
Brown's judicial appointments when he was governor before, from 1975 to 1983, were highly controversial, none more so than Rose Bird, whose opposition to the death penalty infuriated the electorate. California voters removed Bird and two other Brown appointees from the court.
Brown said when he appointed Liu that he did not ask Liu about his views on the death penalty or other controversial subjects, only broader questions about his approach to the law.
The Commission on Judicial Appointments, which confirmed Liu's appointment on Wednesday, consists of Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Attorney General Kamala Harris and Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, presiding justice of the state courts of appeal.
In remarks this afternoon, Cantil-Sakauye welcomed Liu to the court.
"You are incredibly well-suited," she said, "and we look forward to a long tenure with us."
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