Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday complained that committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was ramming through President Trump’s judicial nominees by ignoring the tradition of allowing senators from the home state of each nominee to weigh in on those nominees before starting committee work.
Under the blue-slip tradition, home-state senators have been able to delay or even kill nominees before they are taken up in committee. But last year, Grassley said he was ending that tradition, drawing complaints from Democrats.
On Wednesday, those complaints surfaced again when Grassley took up the nomination of Michael Brennan, a Milwaukee, Wis., lawyer who is nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump renominated Brennan this month after his nomination from last year expired without action, and Grassley called up the nomination even though Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., never turned in her blue slip.
“I really object to this,” said Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee. “I recognize the majority party has a great deal of power. Their voice is dispositive. But the Senate, unlike the House, has preserved strong rights for those in the minority, and the blue slip has been one of those traditions. It appears that is no longer the case.”
“It continues to raise the question of what’s the big deal that makes everybody so desperate to jam judges through that, in this case, they’re even willing to destroy, in the case of today’s hearing, they’re even willing to destroy the blue sip process and tear that down in order to get there?” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said.
Whitehouse also warned that Senate traditions that are ruined are difficult to rebuild.
“Right now, the Republicans are in the majority party, but things change, and I think we ought to really think long and hard if this is the place the Senate wants to go, because once you tear down a tradition like this, it’s really hard to rebuild it,” he said of the blue slip process.
The Rhode Island Democrat accused Republicans of ignoring the blue slip tradition in order to name nominees to the bench that would advance Republican interests, such as ruling in favor of the gun industry in Second Amendment cases and ruling in favor of less regulation in cases involving polluters.
“It’s a very unfortunate situation we find ourselves with respect to in the Senate, and it’s a very unfortunate situation we find ourselves in with respect to the politicization of the judiciary and the desire of big special interests to control outcomes in cases where their industry will face their nominees in the future,” he said.
Whitehouse’s comments in particular seemed to anger Grassley, who said he has repeatedly made clear that the Senate Judiciary Committee would continue to uphold the blue slip tradition. Grassley also said Democratic senators should not blame the Republican majority for the decision to move forward with certain nominees.
“Please don’t blame anybody but Sen. Grassley for the way the blue slip process is being handled,” he said.
