Yet another meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee came and went without a vote on a pro-abortion appeals court nominee President Barack Obama put forward, Steven Six. The former Kansas Attorney General has not had a vote ever since his two home state senators announced their opposition.
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.
Kansans for Life which has been leading opposition to Six, has again urged votes against him.
Kathy Ostrowski, its legislative director, responded to the decision to defer the vote again.
“The Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary committee once again deferred a vote on the court of appeals nomination of Steve Six, which is great news for prolifers in the 10th circuit states of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and dismal news for the abortion interests suing new pro-life laws in those states,” she told LifeNews.
“We were appropriately pleased when our two Kansas U.S. Senators (Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran) previously announced their opposition to the nomination of Kansan Steve Six to the U.S. Court of Appeals (one level below the U.S. Supreme Court),” KFL said yesterday. “And we were thrilled the next day when Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy postponed the committee vote. At that time, the White House even called Sen. Moran’s office very upset about his decision to oppose Six. Senator Moran stood his ground and said his opposition is “firm.”
The pro-life group said Republican lawmakers need to “stand strong” against Six’s nomination.
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.
Mary Kay Culp, the director of the Kansans for Life group, previously explained why her group opposes Six’s nomination to the appeals court.
“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.
