telling us, "Let's not be hasty." POS
Posted on 10/13/2017 2:06:35 PM PDT by cotton1706
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell walked back his announced intention to eliminate a longtime tool of bipartisanship in the Senate by doing away with blue slips — something that Republicans used and abused in order to block former President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees during his time in office.
McConnell had told The Weekly Standard on Tuesday that he planned on removing the importance of blue slips, rendering them as a symbolic gesture as opposed to a procedural mechanism. But McConnell's spokesman, Don Stewart, told HuffPost on Wednesday that the Republican Party did not intend on eliminating blue slips.
The blue slip is not a rule per se, but more of a tradition — a 100-year-old tradition that has been observed by both parties to ensure that the president consults with senators on judicial nominations from their states. It fulfills the Senate's constitutional duty to provide “advice and consent” to the president when it comes to filling permanent spots on the federal judiciary.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
McConnell is finished if he backtracks on this. He got many compliments by doing this, revoking it would be a disaster for him and the Republican senate.
It’s been reported elsewhere, too. Mitch is working for the other team and no one seems able to dislodge the turtle.
Man don’t ya know mitch and ryan need to go.
Very confusing reporting.
First McConnell says “he”planned on removing the blue slips, and then his spokesman says “the Republican Party did not intend on (sic) eliminating the blue slips.”
So, is McConnell going to get rid of the blue slips or not, because the Republican Party clearly does not have the authority to determine Senate procedures.
As far as I know, blue slips have never involved the Senate Majority Leader. It has always been a courtesy of widely varying importance by the two ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
McConnell isn’t nearly a strong enough leader to unilaterally issue orders.
Mucking Fitch!
All McConnell wants to do is to convince his DONORS that he MIGHT get rid of the blue slips, then he’ll defer to Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary chair, who will defer to tradition and deny hearings and votes for nominees lacking blue slip returns.
There are judiciary hearings on Tuesday. Watch to see if the vote on them after the hearings or schedule votes a week or two ahead. They’re playing the delay game, to keep conservative jurisprudence out of the courts.
Trump is sending them conservatives only! You can bet your a$$ that if Trump sent some Harriet Miers types, Grassley and McConnell would be fast-tracking them, with democrat help.
telling us, "Let's not be hasty." POS
Besides the reporting on this has been shoddy. Since 2003, the process was that both Senators from the state had to blue slip a nominee - one wasn't enough to block; reports said that both had to concur.
-PJ
Chuck Grassley - is it me or is this guy one of the more disingenuous “conservatives” in the Senate. Seems as though he talks a good game and then its sing along and dance along when it comes down to crunch time.
Obviously he doesn’t believe Brannon can decimate the establishment Senate RINOs.
Yertle needs to resign
....and that stupid 30 hour “rule”.....it has to go.
Grassley is over 80 and was elected to the senate in 1980. They don’t have the energy for the fight anymore, if they ever did.
It has nothing to do with their “energy”. If has to do with loving their power, position and perks (and assorted corruptions allowing their friends and families to become wealthy). The only thing they “fight” is the average good Citizen.
Careful what you wish for. Grassley was the alternative to Hatch as Judiciary chair. Due up if Grassley wasn’t there are Linda Graham and John Cornyn. Pick your poison.
What’s with calling this “court packing”? All he is doing is attempting to fill vacancies. What BS!
Don’t panic. Even in the minority, Grassley used the rules to block some of the more noxious Obama judicial picks. As chair of Judiciary, he has cleared batches of Trump nominees through committee by holding sessions late Friday afternoon when no on wanted to be around.
McConnell is passively-aggressively trying to dodge blame for lack of Senate floor action. Blue slips are in committee and have nothing to do with the floor votes.
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