Panel Rejects Bush Choice for Judgeship : Courts: Party-line vote against appellate bench nominee is based on issue of sensitivity to civil rights. It is the first such defeat for the President.

WASHINGTON —  U.S. District Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp of Miami, whose court rulings and off-the-cuff comments drew sharp criticism from civil rights advocates, lost his bid Thursday to move up to a federal appeals court in Atlanta.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, dividing strictly along party lines, rejected Ryskamp’s nomination, in the first defeat for one of President Bush’s judicial nominees. The panel’s eight Democrats voted against Ryskamp; the six Republicans voted for him.

Since taking office in January, 1989, Bush has nominated 76 people for vacancies on the federal courts, including Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. Until Thursday, all of them had been approved by the Senate without serious opposition.

Ryskamp, 59, was a prominent Miami lawyer and a Republican Party supporter when former President Ronald Reagan chose him for a federal judgeship in 1986.

Since then, he has received high marks from South Florida lawyers for his courtroom manner and for his steady handling of the notorious “Miami River Cops” case in 1987.

But, in six cases, his rulings on civil rights issues were unanimously overturned by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The appeals panel said that Ryskamp had improperly reversed jury verdicts that favored civil rights plaintiffs and had relied on evidence not presented in court.

Some of his rulings puzzled lawyers. For example, in dismissing a lawsuit filed by a fired black bank employee, Ryskamp said that the bank did not engage in unlawful discrimination because it hired a Latino in place of the fired black.

Last year, the Bush White House ignored three recommendations submitted by Republican Sen. Connie Mack of Florida and instead nominated Ryskamp for a vacancy on the 12-member appeals court in Atlanta.

The three-hour Judiciary Committee debate Thursday turned into a referendum on Ryskamp’s “sensitivity” on civil rights.

The Democrats said that Ryskamp’s rulings, combined with his 23-year membership in an exclusive Coral Gables club, convinced them that he could not be trusted to rule fairly in cases involving blacks, Latinos, women and the aged.

“No one here is arguing that Judge Ryskamp is a racist or a bigot,” said Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), “but there is a serious question about whether or not, in civil rights matters, (he) has the ability to see an issue from the perspective of those whose race or background are different from his.”

Republicans blamed “interest groups” for having engineered Ryskamp’s defeat.

Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) accused liberal civil rights groups of “hypocrisy” and “indecency” for having “branded this man as insensitive.”

Both sides agreed, however, that Ryskamp sealed his own defeat with a poor performance during a March 19 hearing.

Rather than admit that he had erred by commenting from the bench that several young black men may have deserved to “carry around a few scars” from police dog attacks, Ryskamp gave a rambling defense of his comment. He was thinking, he said, that the dog bites might be a “negative reinforcement” against committing future crimes. Two young men who were badly bitten had not been accused of any crime.

“I was thinking of their own welfare,” he told the committee.

Although he voted for Ryskamp, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) observed: “He was not a good witness on his own behalf.”

Shot back Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.): “He convinced me to vote ‘no.’ ”

On the eve of the vote, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) announced that he opposed the nomination, questioning whether Ryskamp was “fair and unbiased” on civil rights. As Biden noted, it is rare for a senator to oppose a presidential nominee from his home state.

Thursday’s vote has no affect on Ryskamp’s lifetime tenure as a federal trial judge.

After the vote, he issued a statement saying that the “charges against me are wholly false and repugnant to all that I stand for.” He added, however, that “the constitutional process has run its course, and I accept the decision of the committee.”

Democratic senators said that the White House and the Justice Department had not pushed hard for Ryskamp, but presidential Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater told reporters afterward: “Clearly, we’re disappointed by the . . . vote. We don’t believe that he is, in fact, insensitive to minorities.”

Officials of People For the American Way and the Alliance for Justice, two liberal groups that led the fight against Ryskamp, applauded the vote.