O.C. Superior Court Judge Nominated to U.S. Bench

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary L. Taylor, the overwhelming favorite of the local legal community for appointment to the federal bench, was nominated to the lifetime post Friday by President Bush.

Taylor, 51, of Villa Park was selected by Bush for a judicial vacancy in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. He must now be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate after the lawmakers return from their summer recess in September.

“I’m very excited,” Taylor said. “It’s a very great honor, and it’s going to be a wonderful challenge.”

Those close to Taylor said they could not foresee anything standing in the way of his approval by the Senate. Colleagues describe him as extremely ethical, intellectually powerful and unfailingly courteous.

“Few candidates have the kind of consensus support in the legal community that Taylor has, and he has it because of his exceptional skill,” said Ira Goldman, counsel to Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who recommended Taylor for the judgeship.

Taylor said the President telephoned him with the news just before 9 a.m. Friday morning, even though Bush had pressing duties to attend to in the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

“I said, ‘You must hardly have time for this on such a busy day of world events,’ but he said, ‘This is important too, and I wanted to call you myself to tell you,’ ” Taylor said.

The nomination culminates a grass-roots push by the local legal community to increase Orange County’s presence on the state and federal benches. Taylor was widely viewed as the outstanding candidate, and prominent judges and lawyers brought him to Wilson’s attention last fall.

“We’re extremely happy,” said Jennifer J. King, president of the Orange County Bar Assn. “It’s important that the President nominated such a wonderful judge and that he is from Orange County. It means people are beginning to realize that we are our own community here and we can field leaders with the best of them.”

Leonard Goldstein, presiding judge of the Orange County Superior Court, called Taylor “a fine judge and a gentleman,” and said he was pleased for Taylor, but regrets the loss for the Superior Court.

Wilson recommended Taylor for the job last November, but his nomination--and those of a handful of other judges across the country--were stalled by a squabble between Bush and Senate Republicans over the way federal judges are chosen.

That impasse was resolved in May. But by that time, Taylor found himself in a very unusual position: He was also being sought as a candidate for the prestigious job of presiding justice on the state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana.

Gov. George Deukmejian had requested that Taylor be considered, along with several other candidates, to replace Harmon G. Scoville, who had recently retired from the helm of the 4th District Court of Appeal.

But while Deukmejian pondered, Taylor got the call from the White House.

Taylor’s nomination to the federal bench now leaves three candidates for the state appeals court job: Orange County Superior Court Judges William F. Rylaarsdam, David G. Sills and Cecil Hicks.

If Taylor is confirmed to the bench, he would join Alicemarie H. Stotler as the second federal judge sitting in the 3-year-old U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts, who had agreed to sit temporarily in Santa Ana, would return to his permanent post in Los Angeles.

Since he was sworn in as a senator in 1983, Wilson has chosen 13 federal judicial candidates for the sprawling, seven-county judicial district that is based in Los Angeles. Stotler and Taylor are the only two who come from Orange County.