Nomination of Rousselot Withdrawn : Politics: Gov. Wilson acts after complaints about the ex-lawmaker’s ties to Charles Keating and the failed Lincoln Savings. State Sen. Tom Hayden led the opposition.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Thursday withdrew his appointment of former U.S. Rep. John H. Rousselot to a post on the state Board of Prison Terms after complaints about Rousselot’s ties to Charles Keating and the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Co.

“We have asked that the appointment be withdrawn,” said Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for Wilson. “It’s clear we did not have the votes to put him through.”

Eckery and Dan Schnur, Wilson’s communications director, said the governor concluded that a hearing in the Senate Rules Committee would be useless because the panel had “prejudged” Rousselot based on factors that had little to do with his ability to serve on the prison terms board.

Rousselot has been serving in the $76,000-a-year position, from which he makes recommendations to the governor on parole for convicted felons, since last December. His confirmation was all but assured until Democratic Sen. Tom Hayden of Santa Monica began a one-man campaign to dislodge the former federal lawmaker.

Hayden asked for a delay in Rousselot’s confirmation hearing and then compiled data on the nominee’s association with Keating, who had enlisted the help of key U.S. senators to pressure bank regulators to leave his institution open in the late 1980s even as evidence of irregularities mounted.

Hayden solicited support from Democratic senators to oppose Rousselot until Wilson was persuaded that his pick was doomed.

“This is a very unfortunate situation where a qualified nominee has been prejudged, not on his ability to do the job, but on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations and innuendo,” Schnur said. He added that there was “no indication that he had any involvement whatsoever in Keating’s dealings with members of the Senate or regulators.”

But the nation’s former top savings and loan regulator, Republican Edwin J. Gray, said otherwise in an affidavit sent to the state Senate.

“I believe the confirmation of John Rousselot to any position of public trust . . . would ignore the disservice he rendered to the citizens and taxpayers of our country during the raid on the U.S. Treasury by Charles H. Keating Jr.,” Gray wrote.

Gray said Rousselot, first as a lobbyist for Keating and then as Lincoln’s final chief executive officer, participated in a scheme to try to buy the troubled thrift, supposedly in an effort to delay the federal regulators’ effort to shut it down.

Rousselot could not be reached for comment Thursday.