Ryan Park
North Carolina Attorney General Ryan Park (Photo: NC Department of Justice)
North Carolina Attorney General Ryan Park will not get a vote in the Senate to fill a vacancy on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals under a deal struck between Democrats and Republicans to put forward several other judicial nominees .
In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the deal will result in four circuit court nominees “who do not have the votes to be confirmed.” will end their offer in exchange for “more than three times” the number. of lower courts moving forward.
The four circuit court nominees who have yet to receive votes for the Senate are Julia Lipez for the First Circuit, Adeel Mangi for the Third Circuit, Park for the Fourth Circuit and Karla Campbell for the Sixth Circuit. All were nominated to succeed the judges appointed by President Barack Obama.
Park did not respond to a request for comment.
His nomination was met with fierce opposition from North Carolina Republican Senators Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, with the former insisting he had “no prayer to be confirmed by the full U.S. Senate.” Tillis previously said he had convinced several Democrats to vote down Park’s bid.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-WV), who caucuses with Democrats, was among senators who repeatedly voted against President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, who lacked Republican support. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) voted against a Biden circuit court nominee earlier this year, though she voted Monday to confirm Embry Kidd of Florida to the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge James Wynn, whom Park was nominated to replace, had announced plans to assume senior status, a form of semi-retirement for federal judges. Until that transition occurs, the decision is reversible, as an Ohio district judge did after the election. It is not clear whether Wynn, who is 70 and previously served on the North Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, would follow suit.
