Posted on 09/14/2017 5:40:06 AM PDT by Rockitz
President Trump is eager to put his conservative imprint on the federal judiciary, but an impediment remains.
Though the Senate has virtually eliminated the ability of the minority party to block appointments to the bench from the Supreme Court on down, individual senators can still thwart nominees from their home states by refusing to sign off on a form popularly known for its color — the blue slip.
Now, with some Democrats refusing to consent as the Trump administration moves to fill scores of judicial vacancies, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, is for the first time publicly advocating that the blue slip be made strictly advisory when it comes to appeals court nominees — the most powerful judges after those on the Supreme Court.
“My personal view is that the blue slip, with regard to circuit court appointments, ought to simply be a notification of how you’re going to vote, not the opportunity to blackball,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview with The New York Times for “The New Washington” podcast.
...
But the blue slip practice — which is not a Senate rule but the prerogative of the Judiciary Committee chairman — remained in place. Because Democrats abided by it during Barack Obama’s presidency and Republicans refused to sign off on many of his nominees, his tenure ended with a large number of court openings that the Trump White House can now fill if it can overcome Democratic objections.
At the moment, there are 144 federal court vacancies, including 21 on the appeals courts and 115 at the district court level. Besides Justice Gorsuch, Mr. Trump has won the confirmation of three appeals court judges and two district judges. Forty-five nominations are pending — 11 for the appeals courts, and 34 at the district level.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Or appoint nominees from red states
It’s about time the blue slip died. The collegial Senate is a myth, and it’s time to stop pretending that a fiction (one that never existed) can be restored. The game is power, and democrats are now open about their intention to grab absolute power whenever they can do so, legally or not.
Why doesn’t McConnell go to the majority vote and discard the filibuster rule? I mean, why?
Couldn’t Trump judicial nominees from blue states just briefly change their residency to a state with two Republican Senators to circumvent the democrat senator “blue slip”?
The real problem is the amount of power ceded to the judiciary. For years rats have used judges to legislate so they will fight with every thing they have to control appointments. Countless pieces of legislation and millions of votes have been tossed by leftest judges. Until something is done about that we’ll be at their mercy.
That sounds like something RATs would do... Why NOT? Everything’s fair in this charade of a government we have.
Their all on vaction again for 11 days. Thats why.
McConnell and his Democrat superiors do not want what Majority rule in the Senate would bring. I am curious as to what excuse the Republicans would invent for why they can’t get anything done if this last hurdle were to be removed. It is a sure thing that they would have another reason for not doing anything.
Part of the solution is eight years of error-free or nearly error-free judicial appointments. Part is fixing the system so that judges cannot rule on matters that are so clearly outside the scope of their authority. I hope we will get (mostly) there in the next seven years.
—you are correct—I don’t understand why anyone doesn’t see that Dems basically are interested in a variation of the “one man, one vote, onetime” policy ——
Allowing the democrats to weigh in here will result in the usual mediocrity coming out of that body. Instead of rolling back the entitlements, the FDR era, the LBJ era etc. A renewal of what made our country great, i.e. our vibrant capitalistic society, we are going to have mush.
And of course, the blame goes to Trump.
But, maybe in the end he’ll be even more popular, even it will be less so with his base.
I used to think Bush was a great president. After seeing what real leadership is like, I realize the guy was not different and probably worse than most. Better of course than Gore or the Viet Nam Vet.
McConnell and company must go.
Bump! Blue slip bye bye. Ridiculous tradition, not even law.
McConnell, AFAIK, can change Senate rules at any time. Hey Turtle, here’s your chance to do something meaningful for a change.
2 of TN state legislatures (R)are up for confirmation to Fed judicial seats in TN. 1 is my state Senator, he is the #1 guy to our LT GOVERNOR.
We are having a special Senate election as conservative state Senator Mae Beavers is resigning to run for Governor, ignore all the rest of the field they are nobodies or in La Raza Randy Boyd’s case very RINO. PRO AMNESTY/REFUGEE FREE EVERYTHING FOR THEM!
More lies from the nyt. The truth is:
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, who chaired the Judiciary Committee from 2005 to 2007 as a Republican and switched to the Democratic Party in 2009, followed a bifurcated policy in which a negative or unreturned blue slip blocked the consideration of a district court nominee but not that of a circuit court nominee.
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, [said]:“I think there’s a difference between the blue-slip application at the district court level where the court is contained wholly within a state as opposed to a circuit court, which covers multiple states,” he said.
“The idea that an individual senator could veto in effect a nominee at the circuit court level is really unprecedented and I think needs to be carefully looked at.”
A history of four different versions of the "blue slip" rule
So it’s all up to Grassley? He needs to scrap it.
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