"New York Times editorial board presses Durbin to end Senate 'blue slip' judicial vetoes"

[orleans]

this allows republicans to sink biden's judicial nominees and it doesn't have to!
please call and leave a message for durbin to get rid of the blue slip "tradition" so biden can get judges through
durbin's washington number: 202-224-2152

The New York Times editorial board is calling on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to reform the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition whereby a senator can block a federal judicial nominee appointed to a court in his or her home state as a matter of senatorial courtesy.

The Times wrote in an editorial Monday that blue slips should be used to raise objections to a nominee but not be permitted to sink one entirely, something that happened to Judge William Pocan, whom President Biden nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in December 2021. Sen. Ron Johnson (D-Wis.) blocked Pocan’s nomination by refusing to return a blue slip to Durbin despite numerous attempts by Durbin’s staff to contact the conservative senator. The Times wrote Monday that Durbin could have moved Pocan’s nomination anyway but ultimately decided not to.

“There is no rule or law that prevented him from sending it to the Senate floor for final approval. The only barrier was Mr. Durbin’s interpretation of an archaic Senate tradition of courtesy that allows senators to effectively veto federal district judge nominations from their own state for any reason or no reason at all,” the paper wrote.

The Times wrote that the “home-state veto power is a fundamentally undemocratic practice that gives far too much power to individual senators.” It noted that Durbin could “unilaterally end this blue-slip custom at any time without requiring any kind of vote or radically upending an important Senate practice” and that “it’s far past time for Mr. Durbin to do so.”

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3845909-new-york-times-editorial-board-presses-durbin-to-end-senate-blue-slip-judicial-vetoes/

i just heard about this on thom hartmann's show.

william pocan is congressman mark pocan's brother. i found this from march 2022:

Rep. Pocan accuses Sen. Johnson of homophobia over brother’s stalled federal court nomination

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat, accused Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of being homophobic after Johnson blocked Pocan’s brother’s nomination to a federal court seat in Green Bay.

Both Pocan and his brother, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge William Pocan, are gay. In February, Johnson refused to allow William’s nomination to a U.S. District Court seat to move forward in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mark Pocan said in a tweet that he’d spent more than a week trying to get Johnson on the phone to discuss William’s stalled nomination and federal funding for a UW-Madison research facility.

“I just don’t understand why a US Senator wouldn’t return a call from a Member of Congress from his own state — unless it’s because of the increasingly homophobic behavior of [Ron Johnson],” Pocan tweeted. “It’s been a week and the courtesy of a callback has still not happened.”

more
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/rep-pocan-accuses-sen-johnson-of-homophobia-over-brothers-stalled-federal-court-nomination/

also, apparently chuck grassley ignored the blue slips from the dems.
using & honoring this blue slip objection shit is just a tradition -- it's not a fucking rule!

this from politico 2017

Grassley rips up 'blue slip' for a pair of Trump court picks

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is burning the blue slip for some judicial nominees.

The Iowa Republican announced Thursday that he is going ahead with a confirmation hearing for a nominee to the powerful appellate courts despite the objections of a Democrat who had been blocking the nomination for months.

snip

Grassley says he has scheduled hearings for David Stras, a nominee to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Stras’ home-state senator, said earlier this year that he would not return the so-called blue slip for Stras because of his conservative ideology.

snip

The blue slip process is a century-old Senate tradition that says the Judiciary Committee doesn’t hold a confirmation hearing for potential judges without approval from the candidate’s home-state senators. Senators return an actual blue slip to the committee.

more at link
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/16/chuck-grassley-trump-court-picks-245367

[riversedge]

1. Johnson is a selfish, greedy man. Period!

[rsdsharp]

2. When ol' Chuck Grassley was chair of the judiciary committee,

if he didn’t like a blue slip, he ignored it. IOKIYAR.

[msfiddlestix]

3. k&R

Recommended reading. Thanks for posting, surprised this hasn't gotten more attention here.

[orleans]

4. so am i. i don't remember hearing about blue slips before (here or anywhere else) nt

[msfiddlestix]

5. first time for me too. everytime I get wind of "backroom" deal making machinations the more jaded I

become, and the less optimistic as to my limited ability to keep the faith as they say.

[orleans]

6. well, i just called & got a recording - can't leave a message

so i sent an email on his contact page.
i live in illinois so it takes my message. i don't know if someone puts in address from out of state if the contact would go through. (springfield didn't answer the phone either)