Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that “way more Republican senators” want to preserve the “blue slip” process for home-state senators to object to U.S. attorney and district court nominees than those who side with President Trump’s call to scrap it.
Mr. Thune’s comments come in response to the president’s latest social media post calling for Republicans to end the longstanding Senate practice.
“’Blue Slips’ are making it impossible to get great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys approved to serve in any state where there is even a single Democrat Senator,” Mr. Trump said. “If they say no, then it is OVER for that very well qualified Republican candidate. Only a really far left Democrat can be approved.”
The president called it “shocking” that Republicans, led by Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, are allowing the “scam” to continue.
“So unfair to Republicans, and not Constitutional,” Mr. Trump said. “I am hereby asking Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a fantastic guy, to get something done, ideally the termination of Blue Slips. Too many GREAT REPUBLICANS are being, SENT PACKIN’. None are getting approved!!!”
The blue slip practice is a Senate custom, not an official rule, so Republicans could ignore it and advance nominees who did not receive approval from their home-state senators if they wanted.
“The question is, even if we did, are the votes there to do it, and there aren’t,” Mr. Thune said.
He said Republicans used the process to block “really bad Biden judges from being appointed to district courts in their states” and as a result Mr. Trump was able to fill those roles in states like Missouri.
“So a lot of our Republican senators care deeply about having input into this process, particularly when there’s a Democrat in the White House,” Mr. Thune said.
The president has spent much of the year calling for Republicans to scrap the blue slip practice. His latest pressure campaign comes as Alina Habba resigned Monday as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
New Jersey’s Democratic senators objected to Ms. Habba’s nomination for the permanent position. Her resignation came after a protracted legal fight about whether she could serve in the U.S. Attorney role without Senate confirmation.
A federal judge ruled in August that she was serving in the role “without lawful authority,” and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously upheld that decision.
In its ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals lambasted the Trump administration’s maneuver of naming individuals as “acting” U.S. Attorneys to circumvent the Constitutionally mandated Senate confirmation process.
“It’s kind of sad that the rogue judge issue has happened. I think it’s unfortunate for any U.S. attorney sitting in a blue state with senators like I have who have never met me,” Ms. Habba told The Washington Times at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony on Sunday. “It’s anti-American. It’s not what we are supposed to do.”
Ms. Habba was the first of President Trump’s U.S. attorney appointments to face a legal challenge, but since then, three other U.S. attorneys for the Eastern District of Virginia, Nevada and the Central District of California were found to be serving unlawfully.
• Jeff Mordock and Alex Swoyer contributed to this story.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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