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Friday, February 19th, 2021

Senate Dems take a page from GOP in judicial nominee battles

Author:     MARIANNE LEVINE
Source:     Politico
Publication Date:     02/17/2021 05:38 PM EST
 Link: Senate Dems take a page from GOP in judicial nominee battles
Stephan:   What goes around comes around. We are watching a new trend. The Democrats have learned from the Republicans led by McConnell, and now it is going to play the other way. And I predict the Democrats will increase their majorities in both the House and the Senate in 2022.
The policy that incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin is pursuing would make no change to the so-called “blue slip” process. Credit: Tom Williams/Getty 

Senate Democrats are planning to continue the GOP’s approach to giving home-state senators veto power over lower court nominees — while granting freer rein to President Joe Biden’s circuit court nominees.

The policy that incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is pursuing would make no change to the so-called “blue slip” process that Republicans changed in 2017 to yank home-state senators’ power to block former President Donald Trump’s circuit court picks. While Democrats criticized Republicans for scrapping blue slips for Trump, they’re now signaling that after four years of bruising judicial confirmation battles, they’re not going to reinstate the obscure tradition they had defended.

“Chair Durbin has said on a number of occasions that there cannot be one set of rules for Republican nominees and another set of rules for Democratic nominees,” said a Senate Judiciary Committee Democratic aide.https://e5d4f188e53d717f86f2dbd416ac0864.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Then-Judiciary chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) cited delays from Democrats when he did away with blue slips for […]

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