Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday it’s “appalling” that Republicans are trying to move one of Trump’s judicial nominations without first getting approval from both of the nominee’s home state senators.
Trump has nominated Michael Brennan, a Milwaukee lawyer, to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court has jurisdiction over Wisconsin, and the seat had been held open for six years as Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., declined to offer his support.
Now, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., has yet to signal her approval of Brennan by sending back her own “blue slip” on Trump’s choice.
Republicans have stopped relying on this tradition of getting home state senators’ approval and say Democrats have also abandoned it in the past, but Schumer said it’s a double standard.
“What a double standard. What hypocrisy,” Schumer said. “When people ask, ‘Are we being obstructionists?’ Let the shoe fit as to what happened to this seat on the 7th Circuit.”
Schumer said the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold a confirmation hearing Wednesday on Ryan Bounds’ nomination for a vacancy on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Neither Oregon senator — Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., or Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. — are supporting Bounds’ nomination.
Schumer noted a letter sent by Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asking for then-President Barack Obama to give “senatorial courtesy” in the blue slip process Republicans no longer use.
“Today they’re singing a different tune,” Schumer said. “This is appalling. It’s unfair. It’s wrong and it’s another degradation of how the Senate has always functioned.”
