And since they ditched the whole "Blue Slip" tradition, then move ahead with the nomination anyway. And I agree with this from the OP article -
Johnson's objection immediately sparked new call from some on the left for Democrats to ignore the blue slip for district judges.
"This bad faith objection eight months after Johnson recommended Pocan is the perfect example of why Biden and Durbin should ignore blue slips even for district courts," Christopher Kang, the chief counsel for the progressive group Demand Justice, tweeted.
McConnell to End Senate’s ‘Blue Slip’ Tradition
The elimination of the longtime practice, by which senators could veto a judicial nominee from their home state, is seen as a way to fast-track conservative picks for federal judgeships.
By Joseph P. Williams | Oct. 11, 2017, at 2:14 p.m.
Amping up Republicans' war with Democrats over the federal judiciary, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly will end the century-old tradition of "blue slips" – important consent forms which the minority party is using to sidetrack some of President Donald Trump's far-right judicial nominees. In an interview with The Weekly Standard published Wednesday, the Kentucky Republican declared he's scrapping the widely respected courtesy to put Trump's picks for critical federal judgeships on an even faster track to confirmation.
From now on, McConnell said, Senate Republicans will treat blue slips "as simply notification of how you're going to vote, not as an opportunity to blackball" a nominee. At the same time, he said, Democrats should prepare to see more hard-core conservatives reach the bench – with or without their cooperation. When nominees "come out of committee, I guarantee they will be dealt with," McConnell told The Weekly Standard. "Regardless of what tactics are used by Democrats, the judges are going to be confirmed."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York scolded McConnell for the power moves, accusing him of poisoning the well of bipartisanship, which both sides need to get things done for voters. But the move also leaves his party nearly powerless to stop Trump's parade of conservative nominees for the federal bench. "It's just a shame that Senator McConnell is willing to abandon it for circuit court judges," Schumer said in a statement Wednesday.
He said he hoped that Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican "who has always believed in the traditions of the Senate, will resist Senator McConnell's request." Two years ago, when he assumed the chairmanship, Grassley pledged to uphold Senate traditions, including respecting the blue slips. Grassley has recently hinted he wants to keep his word, but it's unclear whether he can withstand mounting pressure on his party, and on McConnell, to change course.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-11/mcconnell-to-end-senates-blue-slip-tradition
Here is a good commentary article by Al Franken done this past summer for Marc Elias' organization -
How Ending the Blue Slip Damaged the Federal Courts Forever
By Al Franken
August 25, 2021
When journalists write about the Republican takeover of the federal courts, they tend to focus on three events. 1) Harry Reid going nuclear in 2013. 2) Mitch McConnell blocking Merrick Garland. 3) Candidate Donald Trump promising just weeks before the 2016 election to choose Supreme Court nominees solely from a shortlist provided by The Federalist Society and The Heritage Society. What they leave out is 4) McConnell, White House Counsel Don McGahn and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley ending the blue-slip policy.
Quickly – The first three. 1) Reid and 51 others of us in the Democratic caucus went nuclear in November 2013 because McConnell had filibustered as many of President Obama’s executive and judicial nominees as had been filibustered previously in the entire history of the nation. On the executive side, Republicans had stopped Obama from filling even critical national and domestic security positions. On the judicial side, the most egregious example of McConnell’s obstruction was his refusal to allow votes on three Obama nominees to the D.C. Circuit of Appeals — the nation’s second most important court. A number of moderate Democrats begged Republicans to recreate the Gang of 14, named for the seven moderate Republicans and seven moderate Democrats who had agreed in 2005, to put through all but Bush’s most extreme judges, in order to prevent Republicans from going nuclear. But in 2013, when Reid met with McConnell, Mitch refused, and we pushed the button.
2) Senate Republicans won the majority in the 2014 midterm. When Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit, for the vacant seat. McConnell instructed his caucus not to take up Garland in the Judiciary Committee or even meet with him. This unprecedented move, McConnell insisted, was based on the so-called Biden Rule, which he claimed that Senator Biden, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had laid down in June of 1992. Biden, McConnell maintained, had announced that the Senate would not take up any nominee for the Court in a presidential election year. Except Biden hadn’t said that at all. What Biden had actually said was that if a Justice retired after that year’s Supreme Court session, which was about to end, he would take up a nominee, but only if President George H.W Bush nominated a moderate or if Bush consulted with committee Democrats first.
The difference? Justice Scalia didn’t resign in July to allow his party’s president to nominate a much younger successor. No. He died. In February. Also, Garland was known not just as a moderate, but as a universally respected consensus-builder on the D.C. Circuit. And President Obama had consulted with Senator Orrin Hatch, the senior Republican on Judiciary, who publicly went on record immediately after Scalia’s death to say that Garland would be a great choice to replace the late justice.
More:
https://www.democracydocket.com/news/how-ending-the-blue-slip-damaged-the-federal-courts-forever/
= new reply since forum marked as read
