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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is endorsing a move on the federal judiciary that Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has hinted at: ending one of the procedures that Republicans regularly used to block President Obama's judicial nominees so that Democrats can't use it to block Trump's.
Grassley has already said that maybe he won't require the okay of judges' home state senators to proceed with circuit court nominations. He's threatened to ignore the "blue slip" tradition that Republicans used regularly to thwart Obama. Now—for the first time—McConnell is endorsing that idea, advocating that Democrats be shut out of the process.
"My personal view is that the blue slip, with regard to circuit court appointments, ought to simply be a notification of how you're going to vote, not the opportunity to blackball," Mr. McConnell said in an interview with The New York Times for "The New Washington" podcast. He said he favored retaining the blue slip authority for lower-level district court judges.
With the conflict escalating, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, has requested a meeting with Mr. McConnell and the top Republican and Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee to dissuade Republicans from weakening the blue slip.
"Getting rid of the blue slip would be a mistake," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. He said he would argue to Mr. McConnell and Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that since majority control of the Senate has been in flux in recent years, members of both parties should remember that they could find themselves back in the minority.
"Preserving some of the minority's power in the Senate has broad support because every one of us knows we're probably going to be in some of each," Mr. Schumer said.
Circuit court judges are the key one, the ones that advance appeals. It's the pool of judges most likely to be drawn from for the Supreme Court. It's the level of the judiciary where real damage can be done. McConnell and Grassley want to give the power to direct that damage to Trump.
When Democrats were in power, they honored the tradition and Republicans used it to block Obama's nominees. When Republicans regained the Senate, they used a combination of tactics to block nominees. Republicans simply refused to work with Obama's White House to identify judicial candidates and they slow-walked the process. That was well within their prerogatives.
And it's within Democrats prerogatives to use every procedural tool at hand to respond. They can stop cooperating in the Judiciary Committee and on the floor. They can boycott committee meetings. They can slow down every floor proceeding. They can stop giving unanimous consent to everything that the Senate does on the floor, forcing procedural hurdles. They can hold the floor with speeches. Every time a Republican is speaking on the floor, a Democrat can ask them to yield for a question and then force them to defend themselves and defend Trump.
We've long since waved good-bye to normal in the U.S. as Republicans embraced a president who has no respect for the rule of law, for the American people, for the constitution. Democrats cannot be compliant in this. They have to resist. They have to do everything in their power to keep as much of the judiciary out of his hands as is possible. They need to Shut. It. Down.