White House Withdraws Judicial Nominee; GOP Didn’t Have Votes for Confirmation
The GOP’s bid to transform the federal bench with conservative judges hit its first significant snag Thursday as the White House withdrew the nomination of Ryan Bounds to serve on the powerful and famously liberal 9th Circuit appeals court, reports The Washington Post.
After an hour-long delay on the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the nomination had been withdrawn. Two Republican senators planned to vote against the confirmation.
“The nomination drew widespread criticism over articles Bounds wrote in the Stanford Review as an undergraduate that ridiculed multiculturalism and groups concerned with racial issues,” writes Karoun Demirjian. “Bounds attempted to apologize for those writings earlier this year, but his apology — which focused more on his rhetoric than his views — failed to convince Democrats or satisfy all Republicans.”
