Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) inexplicably went full asshole last week in attacking Washington Democrats, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. Actually, it wasn't inexplicable at all. Grassley's an asshole and he is attacking women. Typical. He chastised the senators for not providing their "blue slips," giving their sign-off for a judicial nominee Grassley will be having a hearing for Wednesday. Yes, this Wednesday, while the Senate is in recess, reneging on a deal Democrats made with leadership to approve a limited number of judges and let everyone get out of town.
Never mind that Grassley has had no problem having hearings for and sending out judges that he didn't have blue slips for, but the senators representing the states those judges are from were men. At any rate, Murray is having none of Grassley's bullying.
Murray said in a statement that Republicans "have been trampling" on Senate precedent in order to place "extreme conservatives" on the courts, adding that she cannot be "complicit."
"This needs to end. So I am not going to be complicit in this latest rushed process to load the courts with Trump nominees in the lame duck session and I will not be returning the blue slip that signals my approval of this process," said Murray, who is a member of Democratic leadership.
The nominee in question is for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the court that's been a major force in blocking some of Trump's worst. Eric Miller, the nominee, has a long history of litigating against Native tribes. The National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund oppose his nomination, saying he has a long record of refusing to recognize tribal sovereignty, a central tenet of Native American law under the Constitution. "He's been on the opposite side of the tribal interests in a lot of these cases," said NCAI General Counsel Derrick Beetso. "And he's sort of built his career on opposing tribes."
That could be enough to scuttle the nomination with Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, but this is Grassley hedging his bets, along with Mitch McConnell, that they'll be able to force this bad nominee through in the lame duck session. Grassley is going to do that whether or not Cantwell and Murray agree. His letter to them was just egregious bullying and general assholishness. Because that's who he is.
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