The battle of the blue slips is heating up. Blue slips, you might remember, are the literal blue pieces of paper senators hand to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, signing off on a president's judicial nominee from their home state. The lack of a blue slip has traditionally meant that that judge won't get a hearing. The current chairman, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says he intends to honor that tradition. And Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) is warning that he will exercise his right of refusal.
Trump is close to nominating David Porter to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, a source familiar with the nomination process told HuffPost. President Barack Obama nearly nominated Porter, a Republican corporate attorney, to a district court in 2014 as part of a bipartisan package deal that also included Democratic judicial nominees. But progressive groups torpedoed that agreement by launching a campaign highlighting Porter’s ties to groups opposed to abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and gun control.
Porter's nomination to the Third Circuit is expected to be announced in the next couple of weeks, per this source, and is being pushed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), one of Porter's home-state senators.[…]
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Porter's other home-state senator, has warned the White House he's prepared to withhold Porter's blue slip if Trump nominates him.
Casey has "serious concerns" with this nomination, said the source.
Among other things, Porter led the Federalist Society's Pittsburgh Lawyers Chapter, helped found a coalition that tried to stop Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation, and has been a contributor and trustee at the conservative Center for Vision and Values.
In other words, he's the same kind of Republican political operative chosen by right-wing special interests as Neil Gorsuch. Democrats couldn't stop him—there's no blue slip for the Supreme Court—but they can stop Trump's other nominees. If Casey can do it, anyone can.
As of now, Republicans on the committee are saying they'll respect the blue-slip tradition. That goes for Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), too. Of course he can change his mind. His most recent Republican predecessor—the oh-so principled Orrin Hatch (UT)—threw blue slips out the window. His Democratic successor, Patrick Leahy (VT), reinstated the tradition and so far Grassley has followed it. It's been easy for him to because the shoe was on the other foot—it was Republican senators refusing to cooperate with the Obama White House on nominees.
This is an issue Democrats must force. Take Grassley at his word that he'll accept their decisions. It will make it that much harder for him to reverse course in support of an increasingly unpopular and unhinged president.