Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushed back on comments made by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) indicating that the top Senate Republican would like to eliminate the last tool Democrats have to block President Trump’s judicial nominees.
“The Senate has fewer and fewer mechanisms that create bipartisanship and bring people to an agreement. The blue slips are one of them,” Schumer said Wednesday in a statement, referring to the Senate tradition that a judicial nominee not move forward until both home state senators return the so-called “blue slip” approving their nomination.
“It’s just a shame that Senator McConnell is willing to abandon it for circuit court judges. We hope that [Judiciary] Chairman [Chuck] Grassley, who has always believed in the traditions of the Senate, will resist Senator McConnell’s request,” Schumer’s statement continued.
In an interview with the Weekly Standard published earlier Wednesday, McConnell said that Republicans going forward will treat blue slips “as simply notification of how you’re going to vote, not as an opportunity to blackball.”
Ironically, more than a few of the judiciary vacancies Trump can now fill exist because Republicans under President Obama refused to return blue slips for his nominees — even for nominees they had previously supported.
Technically, it’s up to the leader of the Judiciary Committee — currently Sen. Grassley (R-IA) — to decide whether to honor the blue slip tradition or not. McConnell’s spokesman told TPM in an email that his Weekly Standard comments reflected his “well-known public position on the matter” and that “we have not made any announcements about a Conference or committee position.”
According to the spokesman, Don Stewart, McConnell said in the interview that the position was “his view,” but that part of the quote was not included in the Weekly Standard story.
Grassley told TPM last month, after McConnell made similar comments, that he will decide on a “case by case basis” whether to move forward with a nominee if Democrats have not returned the blue slip. His spokesman did not respond to TPM’s inquiry as to whether that position has changed.
Update: This story has been updated to include a statement from McConnell’s spokesman.
Good job Sen. Schumer. Leverage it. Trump needs you. McConnell knows it too.
Still another indication that McConnell was privy to the collusion info in 2016 and/or that he’s going to do as much damage as possible before the 2018 mid-terms.
This is what you get for not recognizing the enemy and continuing to try to play fair while they undermine EVERYTHING in order to win. Go fuck yourself and your “niceness” and “bipartisanship” and “collegiality.” The country is in crisis because it is increasingly and LITERALLY being ruled by a smaller and smaller minority…and I"m not just talking about plutocracy that the rule of the “1%” oligarchy, etc. I’m talking about gerrymandering and the GOP shutting down all avenues of majority rule. The next time the Dems have the Congress they need to run roughshod all over the GOPers LIKE THEY DON’T FUCKING EXIST. Anything short of that means nothing changes and we remain on the trajectory resulting in open revolt.
This is crucial. This better not go how it looks like it’s going. Democrats have been completely outmaneuvered on judicial nominees since Bill Clinton.
“Ironically, more than a few of the judiciary vacancies Trump can now fill exist because Republicans under President Obama refused to return blue slips for his nominees — even for nominees they had previously supported.”
Someone explain to me what the fuck is “IRONIC” about that. It’s not ironic in any way. IT’S BY DESIGN, AND IT IS UNDERMINING OUR COUNTRY’S DEMOCRACY AND SHOULD BE REPORTED AS SUCH.