The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday postponed voting on the nomination of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six, a Democrat, to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals because both of his state’s senators say they will not support him.
The committee had scheduled a vote on Six’s nomination Thursday, but Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) announced that panel would not vote because Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran opposed the nominee.
“After thoroughly reviewing Mr. Six’s record and his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will not support his nomination to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals,” Roberts said in a statement June 16. “I have urged my colleagues on the committee to vote against his nomination.”
Roberts and Morgan sent a letter to Leahy Monday asking the committee not to take up the nomination, and declined to state their reason.
But in a statement sent to Main Justice, Roberts suggested his opposition centers around Six’s political beliefs about the health care reform law and abortion.
“Based on the nominee’s own testimony and responses to questions, I found significant difficulty in recommending the nominee to this lifelong appointment to the appellate court position,” Roberts said in the statement.
Six, who was appointed the state’s Attorney General from 2008 to 2011 by then-Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, has said that he could find no constitutional defects in the health care reform bill signed by President Barack Obama, and he declined to file a lawsuit challenging the law while in office.
Roberts disagreed with Six’s assessment, saying, “with all due respect, the average person can identify the constitutional defects of Obamacare.”
The senator also said he was troubled by Six’s evasive responses before the Senate Judiciary Committee about an investigation into a Planned Parenthood clinic. That investigation was started by Six’s predecessor, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.
Obama first nominated Six in March to fill a vacancy created by Federal Appeals Court Judge Deanell Reece Tacha.
Documents obtained by the Associated Press show that Roberts initially suggested to the Judiciary Committee that he approved of Six’s nomination, and Moran made no judgment at the time.
In a reply letter to the senators, Leahy said he was surprised to learn of their opposition and asked how they would like the committee to proceed, according to the AP. He also said it was his understanding that the senators had been consulted by the White House before the nomniation, and that Six enjoyed substantial bipartisan support.
“This type of reversal of position by a home state senator on a nomination has rarely occurred,” Leahy wrote to Roberts. “As I have expressed to Sen. [Charles] Grassley, the committee’s ranking member, in my view no new material information emerged during the course of our review of the nomination, his testimony at his confirmation hearing, or in his answers to multiple rounds of written follow up questions, and certainly none that was disqualifying.”
UPDATED: To add statements from Sen. Pat Roberts
