Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's NewsHugh Hewitt: Senate Republicans And The Logjam On Judicial Nominees
President Trump recently decried the inability of Congress to approve his court nominees. “We have some of the most qualified people,” he said. “They’re waiting forever on line . . . it’s not fair.”
More than anyone else, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, methodically frustrates the one offering that establishment D.C. can make to conservatives in the countryside by continuing to defend blue slips. The blue slip is simply the piece of paper that is sent to the senators from the home state of every judicial nominee, allowing the senators to approve or veto the nominee. Blue slips would be anathema to our Constitutional framers and need to go.
It is simply inexplicable that any federal-court vacancies could be left unfilled a year after Trump’s inauguration.
If Senate Republicans don’t want the majority, they are doing everything exactly right. If they do like their positions of authority, then burn the blue slips and stay in session until every judicial nominee has a hearing and a vote.
More than anyone else, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, methodically frustrates the one offering that establishment D.C. can make to conservatives in the countryside by continuing to defend blue slips. The blue slip is simply the piece of paper that is sent to the senators from the home state of every judicial nominee, allowing the senators to approve or veto the nominee. Blue slips would be anathema to our Constitutional framers and need to go.
It is simply inexplicable that any federal-court vacancies could be left unfilled a year after Trump’s inauguration.
If Senate Republicans don’t want the majority, they are doing everything exactly right. If they do like their positions of authority, then burn the blue slips and stay in session until every judicial nominee has a hearing and a vote.
