Senate Republicans do not always bow to President Donald Trump's wishes. He wants to end "blue slips," an informal practice that lets individual senators block Trump's appointments of federal judges and prosecutors in their home states. The Senate is not backing down.
The GOP controls the Senate, but the tradition means that "some of Trump's judicial nominees have stalled out" because Democratic senators in blue states like New York and New Jersey have withheld their approval, said ABC News. Trump expressed his "continued displeasure" with the practice in a Truth Social post. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) should "tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!" said Trump.
Senate Republicans, however, say the custom allows them to block liberal judges during Democratic presidencies. There isn't "any strong interest" in getting rid of blue slips, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in July.
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Blue slips have been around "since at least 1918," said The Associated Press. The process meant previous presidents "often worked with home state senators" to make appointments. But no more. Trump and Democrats have "shown little interest in working with each other."
The blue slip process has been "central to how the Senate performs its constitutional duty" of confirming presidential nominees, The Washington Post said in an editorial. But Trump wants the upper chamber to "abandon the practice" because New Jersey Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim blocked the appointment of his former personal lawyer Alina Habba to be the Garden State's U.S. attorney. While a president should be able to work with his "preferred team," the "overly partisan" Habba is the kind of nominee that "blue slips exist to stop."
It's a "tool Republicans have used effectively over the last decade," Michael A. Fragoso said at the National Review. Four judgeships in North Carolina were kept open with blue slips during the Biden administration, allowing Trump to nominate "four excellent conservatives."
There are similar stories in Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and other red states. Right now, there are only nine "current or future judicial vacancies" that Democratic senators can block with blue slips, said Fragoso. That's "some thin gruel" for changing the practice and why "Institutionalist senators" in the GOP will resist doing away with blue slips. "What goes around comes around."
What next?
Trump on Aug. 25 announced he would file a "long-shot lawsuit" challenging blue slips, said Politico. The practice makes it "impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or U.S. Attorney," he said. But courts have traditionally been "wary of intervening in political disputes between the other branches of government."
Observers on Capitol Hill say Trump is making a "strategic error," said The Hill. The president's attacks are "grating" on GOP senators who want to keep blue slips. And the Senate has the right to determine its own practices. "It makes no sense," said one Senate Republican, "picking a fight that the president has no way of winning."
