WASHINGTON (BP)--The nomination to a federal appeals court of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six, whose confirmation was opposed by pro-life organizations, has come to a halt in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D.-Vt., chairman of the committee, announced July 28 the panel would not proceed with Six's nomination by President Obama to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colo. According to published reports, Leahy deferred to Six's home-state senators, Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran. Both Republicans opposed Six's confirmation and asked the committee not to continue its consideration of his nomination, according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Roberts' opposition was based on Six's failure as attorney general to challenge the 2010 federal health-care reform law and his management of two specific criminal investigations, he told The Capital-Journal. One of those investigations involved 107 charges by Phill Kline, attorney general in 2003-07, against a Planned Parenthood clinic in Overland Park, Kan., the newspaper reported.
Pro-life organizations in Kansas charged Six with protecting the state's abortion businesses when he took over the case. The counts against Planned Parenthood included the performance of illegal late-term abortions. Then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, an abortion rights advocate and now secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, appointed Six as attorney general in 2008.
Kansans for Life said, "Six acted in a highly partisan and indefensible way to inhibit abortion business prosecutions and continue with the pro-abortion actions of his predecessor, Paul Morrison ."
Compiled by Tom Strode, Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.
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