I saw, via Tapped, that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is planning to schedule hearings on six Bush judicial nominees for federal courts in Michigan despite opposition from both of Michigan’s senators — Carl Levin (D) and Debbie Stabenow (D).
Why is this important? Because for years, senators could place indefinite holds called “blue slips” on judicial nominees to federal courts in their home state. So, for example, if President Clinton nominated someone to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and one of Utah’s senators opposed the nominee, that senator could blue slip the nominee and stop consideration of that judge.
When Bush became president, Hatch, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, decided he wanted to change the blue slip rule. Instead of allowing one senator from a state to block a nominee, Hatch required both senators from the same state to raise opposition. This, of course, made it significantly harder for Dems to block Bush’s choices for the federal bench.
Bush, however, recently selected six conservative judicial nominees for courts in Michigan — four for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and two for the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan — all of whom generated blue slips from both of Michigan’s senators.
Hatch’s response? The rule is changing again — no more blue slip holds on judicial nominees.
In explaining why he was simply ignoring the objections of both Michigan senators, Hatch said, “To my knowledge, at no time during these extensive consultations have you articulated any specific objections to any of the nominees for the Michigan vacancies.”
That may be true, but since when does that matter? When Republicans were blocking Clinton nominees — with one blue slip instead of two — Hatch didn’t require “specific objections to the nominees” to enforce the rule. As usual when it comes to congressional Republicans, rules are meant to be bent or broken as long as it suits their purposes.
I should note, in the interests of fairness, that I have always found the blue slip policy to be ridiculous. It seems capricious and undemocratic for senators of either party to block a judicial nominee simply because the judge will sit on a bench in that senator’s home state.
That may suggest that I somehow approve of Hatch’s newfangled change of heart, but it’s not that simple. I may agree that blue slips are unfair, but I also believe that there shouldn’t be one strict standard applied to President Clinton and a different, easier standard applied to Bush. If Republicans could block Clinton nominees with one blue slip, it’s absurd that Hatch is repeatedly changing the policy to make it easier for Bush to stack the courts with right-wing ideologues.