WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare judicial defeat for President Joe Biden, the White House is expected to soon withdraw its nomination of Michael Delaney to the Boston-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, according to a person familiar with your confirmation process.
Delaney’s nomination does not have the necessary votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not yet been made public.
His inability to secure the necessary Democratic votes in both the committee and the full house is due in part to concerns over an abortion legal brief he signed as New Hampshire’s deputy attorney general. The brief argued for a parental notification law in the state.
Delaney also faced scrutiny for his portrayal of St. Paul, a New Hampshire private boarding school that was sued for sexual assault.
Delaney said in written testimony to senators that he did not write the 2005 abortion brief and otherwise had “extremely limited involvement” in the case, which was filed while he was deputy attorney general in New Hampshire. But he was never able to garner the support of enough Democrats to win approval in the committee, where Democrats hold a narrow one-vote margin.
Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., declined to hold a vote on Delaney’s nomination at Thursday’s committee meeting, as he did last week. He said a week ago that the votes weren’t in for Delaney yet.
“It just wasn’t the right time,” Durbin said last week. “See me.”
New Hampshire senators, Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, strongly supported Delaney. But other Democrats had expressed concern.
Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Cory Booker of New Jersey had indicated they were undecided in recent months.
“For me personally, reproductive rights is a fundamental, fundamental issue,” Blumenthal told The Associated Press in March. “And I think he would want to know why he put his name on the brief and what it reflects on his personal vision.”
This is a New Hampshire law, passed in 2003 but repealed in 2007, that required minors to tell their parents before having an abortion. As the state’s deputy attorney general, Delaney was one of the signatories to a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court defending the law because it “does not present a substantial obstacle to any woman’s right to choose an abortion.” .
