Administration Won’t Ask Senate to Vote on Reynolds

The Reagan Administration has decided against asking for a “discharge” resolution to force a full Senate vote on the nomination of civil rights chief William Bradford Reynolds to the Justice Department’s No. 3 post, The Times learned Monday.

Administration sources said that “political reality” dictated the decision, which signaled that Reynolds’ nomination is dead. Last Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against recommending his confirmation and then refused even to forward his name to the Senate floor with an unfavorable recommendation.

A discharge resolution, never before used on a nomination and only rarely invoked otherwise, requires only a majority of the votes cast. But Reynolds’ backers said they feared that any such effort would face a certain filibuster and conceded that it is unlikely the support necessary to break the filibuster could be mustered.

New Nominations Seen

Meanwhile, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III is expected to announce within two weeks President Reagan’s nomination of candidates to fill other Justice Department vacancies, including assistant attorneys general to head the office of legal counsel, the office of legal policy and the civil and antitrust divisions.

It could not be learned whether he will pick another nominee for the associate attorney general’s post, which Reynolds was seeking. Reynolds has said he will remain as head of the civil rights division.