TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas Senate committee has approved Gov. Sam Brownback’s nomination of his chief counsel for an open seat on the state Court of Appeals.
The Judiciary Committee’s voice vote sends the nomination of Caleb Stegall to the full Senate. The chamber is expected to debate and vote on the appointment Wednesday.
Republicans dominate the committee and the full Senate, so the GOP governor’s nomination of Stegall wasn’t likely to meet much opposition.
But he faced questions about comments in 2005 in an online magazine he edited that encouraged “forcible resistance” to court orders in order to save the life of a brain-damaged Florida woman.
Stegall said during a Judiciary Committee hearing that the comments in The New Pantagruel about the Terri Schiavo case were an endorsement of civil disobedience.
