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Take action: Stop GOP senators from using literal slips of paper to block Biden's judicial nominees [1]
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Date: 2023-01-18
Democrats made outstanding progress on confirming Biden’s judicial nominees during the first two years of his term. However, Republicans in key Southern states—where district courts are the battleground for countless human rights cases—have blocked our progress.
As Daily Kos' Joan McCarter explains, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Utah all have both federal district court vacancies and two Republican senators. The Southern states also have larger populations, meaning larger workloads and not enough judges to hear cases. "[T]his is where critical civil rights, voting rights, and culture war kinds of cases are going to happen. It’s where far right-wing interest groups shop for judges to advance their radical hobby horses—like banning abortion and voter suppression—to set up cases to go to the Trump-packed Supreme Court," McCarter writes.
Our ability to both undo Donald Trump's damage and block future MAGA Republican attacks on democracy depend on our ability to reclaim the courts. We need the White House and Senate Democratic leadership to stop pretending Republicans are willing to act in good faith. It's 2023: That ship has long sailed.
Thankfully, blue slips aren’t actually a requirement of Senate judicial business. As the American Bar Association notes: “Since the use of blue slips is not codified or included in the committee’s rules, the chair of the Judiciary Committee has the discretion to determine the extent to which a home-state senator’s negative or withheld blue slip prevents a president’s judicial nominee from receiving a committee hearing.”
Republicans steamrolled over Democrats’ objections to Trump’s extremist nominees for four years, proving that blue slips are simply obsolete and outdated. Now that Democrats have a true majority in the Senate, with Sen. Dick Durbin chairing the Judiciary Community, there’s no reason to give Republicans veto power over judicial nominees any longer.
Sign the petition to Senate Democratic leadership: Republicans will continue to weaponize blue slips to block Biden nominees. It’s time to do away with this archaic tradition for good!
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/1/18/2147819/-Take-Action-Stop-GOP-senators-from-using-literal-slips-of-paper-to-block-Biden-s-judicial-nominees
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