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North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park (Photo: NC Department of Justice)
North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park will not receive a vote in the Senate to fill a vacancy on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals under a reported deal struck between Democrats and Republicans to advance several other judicial nominees.
In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the deal will see four circuit court nominees “lacking the votes to get confirmed” end their bids in exchange for “more than triple” the number of lower court judges moving forward.
The four circuit court nominees who have yet to receive votes before 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 judges appointed by President Barack Obama.
Park did not respond to a request for comment.
His nomination met strident opposition by North Carolina’s Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, with the former maintaining that he had “no prayer of getting confirmed by the full U.S. Senate.” Tillis previously said that he had convinced multiple Democrats to vote down Park’s bid.
During the time that Park’s nomination has remained in limbo, Tillis has refused to consider nominees for three other district court vacancies in the state: two in the Middle District of North Carolina and one in the Western District. It is unclear whether the Senate deal would allow nominations to those posts to proceed.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (I-WV), who caucuses with the Democrats, was among the senators who repeatedly voted against President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees lacking Republican support. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) voted against a Biden circuit court nominee earlier in the year, though she voted to confirm Florida’s Embry Kidd to the Eleventh Circuit on Monday.
Carl Tobias, a professor specializing in the federal judiciary at the University of Richmond School of Law, said it was “really unfortunate” that Park would not advance, expressing skepticism that Senate Democrats lacked the votes to confirm him. He called Park a “consummate lawyer,” praising his intellect and legal experience.
“It’s really unfortunate for Ryan Park, who’s an extraordinary nominee,” Tobias said. “It’s a real loss for the state, but at this point, I don’t think it’d be rectified in the short term. But maybe in the long term — we’ll see.”
He noted that Judge James Wynn, who Park was nominated to replace, faced similar Senate intransigence before completing his successful path to the bench. When Wynn was first nominated by President Bill Clinton, Republican Senator Jesse Helms refused to give his approval, blocking him from becoming the first Black judge to serve on the Fourth Circuit. He would not join the court until Obama renominated him in 2009.
In January, Wynn announced plans to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for federal judges. Until that transition takes place, the decision is reversible, as an Ohio district judge did following the election. It is not clear whether Wynn, who is 70 and previously served on North Carolina’s Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, would follow suit.
