Promises, promises. In a Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday, Chairman Dick Durbin moved a tiny, tentative, possible step toward a process to stop letting the Republican minority block President Joe Biden from filling federal district judgeships. The committee might, he threatened, think about skipping the ‘blue slip’ tradition in certain circumstances.
Durbin told his fellow committee members that there are vacancies that have created so-called “judicial emergencies” and that those emergencies may “test” the tradition of blue slips. “We’ve got to make these our priority,” Durbin (D-IL) said.
Blue slips are actual blue pieces of paper that senators submit when they’ve agreed with the White House on a judicial nominee. Following prior committee precedent, Durbin has been honoring them for district court nominees, but not requiring them for appeals courts—which is something, at least. But it’s not the whole thing, particularly if Biden is going to surpass the modern-day record set for confirmations by the previous guy, 234 in his four years. The Democratic Senate could do that for Biden—he’s up to 114 as of the beginning of this week, and is on a good pace to beat Trump’s record. That will only happen if Democrats make it happen, though.
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Durbin has had this chat with committee Republicans before, trying to cajole them into cooperating by telling them just how much he doesn’t want to get rid of blue slips. In a January hearing, he lamented the lack of cooperation and pointed out that Democrats had agreed to 130 of Trump’s district court nominees, while Republicans have provided only 12 for Biden’s.
As if that is going to work with any Republican, much less the worst of them all sitting on the Judiciary Committee. As if Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Mike Lee and Tom Cotton don’t cackle about how they and Trump owned the Democrats on that one. Anyway, that was back in January, and here we are again in March, with Durbin having to make vague threats that if he’s pressed hard enough, he might do something to fix one small part of it.
It’s not that judicial emergencies shouldn’t be prioritized. They absolutely should—they are emergencies, after all: vacancies that are causing a strain on the remaining judges with the caseload, and on those seeking justice because of the long delays they face in having their day in court. There are 10 Democratic-led states and 10 Republican-led states currently listed with judicial emergencies.
“I want to make this a priority in red and blue states,” said Durbin. “It will be a test on whether we can make the blue slip process work in a closely divided Senate,” he told his committee members. The thing is, there are nominees in the blue states facing emergencies just waiting to be advanced. There are no nominees in the emergency vacancies in Louisiana, Texas, and Florida—three states with GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee. So maybe the red states should be a little more of a priority?
And maybe that should mean deciding right now not to follow the tradition of giving Republicans the power to block Biden’s nominees, especially in times of emergency.
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