Senator Harry Reid had liberals cheering when he finally stood up to the Republican obstruction machine and helped push through a rule change in the Senate that eliminates the ability of the minority party to filibuster most federal judicial and executive-office nominees. He saw no other choice after watching the Republicans use their position in the minority to block countless nominees from receiving confirmation, effectively using their minority position to tilt the balance of power in the Federal Judiciary towards conservative ideology. Undeterred, Republicans have found another weapon in their arsenal to thwart President Obama's and the Senate Democrats ability to confirm some Federal Judges by refusing to submit "Blue Slips" for the vacancies in their states.
The "Blue Slip" is a Senate tradition dating back to 1917 and was used as a means to guide the Senate Judiciary Committee in the confirmation process for a Federal Judgeship. The thinking was that home state Senators know their judicial structure the best and would be able to assist the President and Senate Judiciary Committee in determining who would be best qualified to fill a judicial vacancy.
Now that the Republicans have been stripped of the ability to filibuster all judicial nominations outside of the Supreme Court, they are poised to use the Blue Slip as another way to sabotage the confirmation process. However, there is a silver lining in this because one person has the sole authority to disregard this informal rule and his name is Patrick Leahy.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy has the sole authority to ignore this rule and allow the confirmation process to proceed for any of President Obama's nominations regardless of Republican's attempted obstructionism. He needs to only look one chair to his right to remind himself that this is not unheard of, considering that Senator Orrin Hatch did this exact same thing when he was the chair of the committee under the Bush era.
While Senator Leahy has shown an unwillingness to do away with the Blue Slip rule, he has kept the option open if the Republicans continue to use their parliamentary tricks to prevent vacancies from being filled. How much he is willing to accept is known only to him, but one has to wonder how much longer the Democratic caucus will sit idly by as the Republicans use whatever parliamentary tricks they have up their sleeves to prevent liberal judges from being confirmed to the bench.