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President Donald Trump has called on Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) to terminate the “blue slip” tradition that has long given lawmakers the ability to effectively “veto” presidential nominees.
“‘Blue Slips’ are making it impossible to get great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys approved to serve in any state where there is even a single Democrat Senator,” the president argued on Truth Social.
The blue slip process has been used in the Senate Judiciary Committee for court-related nominations since the early 1900s. According to Congress, after a U.S. president selects a nominee, the Judiciary chair can send a “blue-colored form to the two Senators representing the home state of the nominee.”
A positive response back to the committee typically means that the nomination will proceed, but a negative or withheld response can kill the nomination process. Blue slip approvals are not necessarily codified, hence why it is considered a “tradition.” The stringency of the blue slip process depends on the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Right now, the Judiciary Chairman is Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (Iowa).
President Trump remarked, “It is shocking that Republicans, under Senator Chuck G, allow this scam to continue. So unfair to Republicans, and not Constitutional. I am hereby asking Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a fantastic guy, to get something done, ideally the termination of Blue Slips.”
According to Politico, Sen. Thune has indicated that Republicans are broadly uninterested in terminating the blue slip tradition. “There are many Republican senators, way more Republican senators who are interested in preserving that than those who aren’t,” he said this week, in response to the president’s request.
“You’ve got a blue slip thing that’s horrible, it’s a horrible thing, it makes it impossible to appoint a judge or a U.S. attorney, and it’s a shame, and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves that they’ve allowed this to go on,” President Trump said this week, reacting to the resignation to one of his hand-picked attorney nominees, Alina Habba, who was formerly the acting interim U.S. Attorney of New Jersey.
Habba faced Democrat opposition in the U.S. Senate, which ultimately led to her temporary appointment as the U.S. Attorney, bypassing the traditional nomination process. Last week, Habba was disqualified from the position by a federal appeals court, forcing her resignation.