The Senate Judiciary Committee once again delayed a vote on pro-abortion federal appeals court nominee Steve Six, who faces opposition from pro-life groups because of his actions stopping investigations and prosecution of the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
The Senate panel was supposed to vote on his nomination last week but punted to this Thursday. Today, following the announcement from his home state senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran that they oppose his nomination, the Senate committee put of a vote on his nomination once more.
Roberts’ statement said he came to the decision “after thoroughly reviewing” Six’s record and testimony to the committee. Moran’s nearly identical statement mentioned Six’s “qualifications” and testimony. A later statement from Roberts pointed to “several areas where his answers were not forthcoming or where issues of his judgment in handling cases as attorney general were called into serious question.”
Frequently, opposition from home state lawmakers is enough to sink a nomination and such nominees eventually withdraw, have their nomination pulled by the presidential administration or find themselves the subject of a filibuster.
Opposition has built to Six as pro-life groups have ratcheted up the campaign against him due to his ties to the abortion industry and his efforts to delay or stop an investigation into potentially illegal late-term abortions at a Planned Parenthood facility in Kansas, where Six was the state attorney general. The abortion business was accused of making up illegitimate reasons for the abortions and doctoring paperwork to justify them.
Six, in his position as the leading attorney in the state, did everything possible to delay the investigation and tried to have the state Supreme Court deny prosecutors access to the patient files and other evidence they needed to prove their case.
Senator Jerry Moran issued a statement late Wednesday saying, “After thoroughly reviewing Mr. Six’s qualifications and testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will not be supporting President Obama’s nominee to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.”
Senator Pat Roberts, also of Kansas, agreed, and said in a statement, “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. I have urged my colleagues on the committee to vote against his nomination.”
Mary Kay Culp, the director of Kansans for Life, a statewide pro-life group, told LifeNews that she is pleased Roberts and Moran will oppose Six. Her organization has been working to generate calls and emails from Kansas residents in opposition to the nomination.
“The committee has 10 Democrat and 8 Republican members, so Six will likely be recommended for confirmation to the full Senate. However, this show of opposition by the two Kansas senators marks the first important step for defeating pro-abortion Steve Six’s rise to a lifelong seat on the federal bench,” Culp said. “Many other groups, inside and outside of Kansas, expressed opposition to the nomination, including our national affiliate, the National Right to Life Committee.”
“In the matter of former Attorney General Steve Six’s elevation to the federal bench, it is vital for Senators to understand that Kansas was no ordinary state taking on just another ordinary Attorney General,” Culp added. “In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Six portrayed himself as merely a disinterested professional letting the assistant attorneys general routinely perform their job. Six has intentionally downplayed the legal chaos that he intensified to the advantage of abortion interests. Kansas’ situation of political corruption was dire, and Six failed miserably to restore justice, or even to act impartially.”
Culp said Six exposed his pro-abortion hand when he supported efforts to bury the abortion files in the case.
“Steve Six’s lack of impartiality and integrity quickly emerged within weeks of his appointment: he announced he opposed the subpoena from the Wichita grand jury because of supposed concerns about patient privacy,” she said. “At that moment, Six’s complete sell-out to the abortion industry’s media campaign about abortion patient privacy protection was revealed. The copies of abortion clinic records in his possession had already been immaculately scrubbed of patient-identifying information under protocols from the Court’s 2006 Alpha ruling.”
“The district court judge managing the grand jury said Six was wrong to refuse the subpoena. Six then joined [late-term abortion practitioner George] Tiller and the Center for Reproductive Rights in an appeal to the state Supreme Court,” she said. “On May 6, 2008, the Kansas Supreme Court ordered Six to comply with the subpoenas. After waiting two weeks, he then turned over only 34 of the 61 files. If Six had simply done his duty in initially responding to the grand jury — if he had not literally, as well as ideologically, joined the abortion industry — the grand jury would have gotten their due quantity of Tiller records.”
Former Democratic Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius appointed Six to district judge in 2005 and then appointed him as a replacement state Attorney General in Dec. 2007. Six lost his re-election bid in Nov. 2010. Sebelius, who is ardently pro-abortion, is now the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.
ACTION: Contact members of the Sneate at https://www.Senate.gov to urge opposition to Six’s nomination.
