Problem over in the Senate is a tradtion that home state US Senator’s CAN hold up the confirmation process for a Presidential job pick…..
Red State US Senator can and have stalled Biden US Judge’s confirmations….
A LOT of them…..
The Congressional Black Caucus is annoyed at the stalling…..
So are Democratic Progressives……
US Senate rules , as Senator Mnachin has defended , make it impossible for almost ANYTHING to be done unless a more than simple majority votes FOR that thing to be done…..
But it works BOTH ways for the political parties……
That said ?
Republicans did NOT follow the procedure during the Trump admin…..
It is The Democrats who seem to be reluctant to do the same….
Tensions are escalating between Senate Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus over the arcane tradition that gives a single senator veto power over President Joe Biden’s judicial picks.
The Black Caucus quietly met with Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) last week to lobby against the decades-old Senate practice that Republicans have recently used to block one district court nominee and stall another — slowing Biden’s efforts to stock the federal bench.
Both House and Senate Democrats are worried that the GOP will ramp up its roadblocks of Biden judicial picks through the tradition known as “blue slips,” named for the color of the forms that senators return to approve of home-state judicial nominees.
So the Black Caucus, joined by a coalition of progressive groups, is turning up the heat on Senate Democrats in what’s becoming the most consequential battle over chamber rules since Democrats tried last year to weaken the filibuster.
“I don’t know why anyone, let alone Senate Democrats, would hold up a Jim Crow practice,” Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said in an interview on Wednesday, describing the GOP’s use of blue slips against judicial nominees as a civil rights issue.
“It is literally about the fundamental survival of the people we represent,” Horsford added. “And we expressed that history, that context and that necessity to Chairman Durbin. I respect the chairman. He understands the dilemma.”
The dispute has huge implications for the future of the federal judiciary, the Senate and the White House. With the House run by Republicans until 2024 at least, Senate Democrats still can confirm judges for lifetime appointments without a single GOP vote — but Republicans can block some of those nominees from ever getting to the chamber floor by denying blue slips…
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The acrimony is particularly acute among House members from blue districts in red states. They’re chafing at their Republican senators’ unwillingness to let nominees through and looking to Senate Democrats to help — even though during the Trump era the CBC urged the GOP to keep the blue slip to give Democrats some say in lifetime nominees.
So Durbin isn’t ready to get rid of the tradition for federal district court nominees. And both Black Caucus members from the Senate, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock, share his reluctance to change the practice…..
US Seante Democrats vs Republicans way of doing business……
Senate Republicans have once more told Joe Biden to pound sand on one of his judicial nominees and, so far, the White House is going with restraint as its response.
Biden aides are refusing to weigh in on whether Senate Democrats should continue to allow Republicans to use a procedural tool to clog the judicial nomination pipeline after Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) said she would not return the so-called blue slip on district court nominee Scott Colom….
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There are currently nearly 40 judicial vacancies that Biden could seek to fill in courts in red states. But the blue slip custom generally dictates that if a home-state senator doesn’t return the blue slip, the majority party halts the nomination.
Republicans moved 17 Trump administration circuit court judges without Democrats’ blue slips, according to Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group. That was a change from prior practice and now progressives want Democrats to do the same with trial court-level judges.
But Biden has not joined that chorus. Nor has Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who remains noncommittal about moving the Colom nomination in light of Hyde-Smith’s refusal to return a blue slip.
Durbin “is extremely disappointed in Sen. Hyde-Smith’s lack of communication and ultimate obstruction of a highly-qualified nominee,” said his spokesperson, Emily Hampsten. “In the coming days, he’ll be assessing and will respond more fully.”
Durbin previously said he would abide by the blue slip custom unless they were used to block candidates because of their race, gender or sexual orientation. Colom is Black. Mississippi’s other Republican senator, Roger Wicker, returned his blue slip on Colom….