The Pew Charitable Trusts

California Governor Jerry Brown surprised his state's legal and political community again Tuesday, this time by picking a law professor for the state Supreme Court whose nomination was discussed often in Washington, D.C., but seldom in Sacramento.

Brown tapped Goodwin Liu for the post, after Republicans in the U.S. Senate had blocked Liu's nomination to a San Francisco-based federal appeals court. Before assuming the job, Liu must be approved by a three-member confirmation panel.

Republicans filibustered Liu's federal nomination in the U.S. Senate, arguing that he was too liberal. As a professor at the University of California Berkeley, Liu opposed Samuel Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, because of Alito's support for the death penalty, notes the Los Angeles Times . The paper also notes that Liu has supported gay rights, a crucial issue at the California Supreme Court, which is scheduled to weigh in, yet again, on litigation surrounding Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California.

But Liu's nomination upset many key groups in California. If he is confirmed, four of the court's seven members would be Asian Americans, with no Latinos or African Americans. Plus, Liu's confirmation would mean none of the court's judges hailed from Southern California, the Los Angeles Times explains in a separate piece .

"We are almost the majority of the people of the state of California, and for the governor to say there isn't one Latino who is qualified to serve on the court is extremely troubling," Victor Acevedo, president of the Mexican-American Bar Association, told the paper. "That to me is like the governor turning a cold shoulder to the Latino community in Southern California."