U.S. Senate panel delays votes on judicial nominees, including one from Kansas

? The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee delayed votes Thursday on several nominations for federal judge positions, including one from Kansas.

Holly Lou Teeter, 37, of Lenexa, was one of five of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees that the committee was scheduled to vote on Thursday. But Democrats on the panel, led by ranking member Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, objected because the panel had not yet received ratings on all of the nominees from the American Bar Association, according to a spokeswoman for Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

Teeter, in fact, was one of two of the nominees for whom the ABA has not yet given a rating. The other was Brett Joseph Talley, nominated for a U.S. District Court seat in Alabama.

The ABA traditionally reviews all presidential appointments to the judiciary and rates them as either well qualified, qualified or not qualified.

Teeter earned a bachelor’s degree with highest distinction from the University of Kansas School of Engineering and graduated first in her class from the University of Kansas School of Law, where she was a member of the Kansas Law Review, according to a press release from the White House.

She currently serves as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri. Earlier in her career she practiced with the Kansas City firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, and was a patent law clerk at Los Alamos National Security LLC.

Trump has nominated her for a seat on the U.S. District Court in Topeka to replace Judge Kathryn Vratil, who took senior status earlier this year.