UPDATE: The hearing has been postponed. This is the note on the committee’s web page: “The hearing on ‘Nominations’ scheduled before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 2:30 pm has been postponed due to Republican objection and will be rescheduled at the earliest possible time.”

A Senate confirmation hearing set for this afternoon could provide a preview of the contentious fight President Obama may face should he get the chance to nominate another Supreme Court justice soon.

Goodwin Liu, who was nominated by Obama for the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, faces the Senate Judiciary Committee today. And the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions, has already made it clear that a battle awaits Liu.

Speaking about the nomination of 39-year-old Liu, a University of California at Berkeley law professor known his intellectual heft as well as his left-leaning views, Sessions told the Washington Post: “Instead of nominating an individual who has demonstrated an impartial commitment to following the Constitution and the rule of law, President Obama has selected someone far outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence.”

Sessions told the Los Angeles Times: “I think most senators would say he’s beyond the mainstream.”

Justice John Paul Stevens recently said he’d decide whether or not he would retire from the Supreme Court within the next month. Meanwhile, White House officials say the president stands ready to nominate a successor should Stevens choose to step down, and experts say Solicitor General Elena Kagan is the likely candidate for the job.

But the fight over Liu may demonstrate not only the Republicans’ willingness to push back against any Obama judicial nominee – last year Sonia Sotomayor was originally thought of as a moderate, safe choice, but her confirmation vote was ultimately split down party lines – Liu himself is seen as a potential future high court pick.

Today’s hearing may serve “as an initial referendum on Goodwin Liu as a Supreme Court nominee,” Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who advised committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) during the Sotomayor hearings, told the Post.

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