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Progressives Urge Senate Dems to Ditch Tradition That's Allowing GOP to Veto Biden Judges
"Senate Democrats should eliminate every barrier possible" to confirm President Joe Biden's judicial nominees, said Indivisible.
Feb 24, 2023
With Democrats hoping to confirm dozens more federal judges following President Joe Biden's milestone of appointing 100 new members of the judiciary, progressives on Friday said the party has no choice but to eliminate a tradition they say has been exploited by Republicans to block the president's nominees.
Advocacy group Alliance for Justice said Democratic leaders, particularly Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) must make a choice: They can "transform our federal courts by confirming so many more judges with a respect for the rights of all of us," or they can allow Republicans to continue the tradition of using so-called "blue slips" to reject nominees.
The Senate "can't do both," said the group.
Under the blue slip practice, which is not an official Senate rule, senators can unilaterally block federal district court judge nominees from being considered by the committee if the nominee is from their home state. Only if they submit a "blue slip" for the judge can the nomination proceed.
Prior to last year's midterm elections, Durbin said the party has "made it work" and would continue to abide by the blue slip tradition, but earlier this month he said he will no longer honor the withholding of a blue slip if he believes it "discriminates because of race, gender, or sexual discrimination."
Republicans including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have protested, with the latter claiming the practice is "essential to the Senate's constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent."
But as NBC News reported this week, Durbin noted Republicans have made clear that they're intentionally using the tradition to block Biden's nominees, submitting only 12 blue slips since Biden took office, compared to the 120 Democrats submitted under the Trump administration.
Also under former President Donald Trump, Republicans in control of the Judiciary Committee at the time did away with the use of blue slips for circuit nominees and as a result rapidly confirmed 54 judges to the circuit court.
Demand Justice noted that under the Obama administration, Republicans blocked 17 judicial nominees using the practice.
\u201cDuring the Obama presidency, Republicans abused blue slips to block a diverse group of 17 highly qualified judicial nominees.\n\nChair Durbin needs to reform the blue slip to keep the same from happening during the Biden presidency.\u201d— Demand Justice (@Demand Justice) 1677180513
American Constitution Society President Russ Feingold, a former Democratic senator,
toldNBC News the Democrats "would be chumps to not get rid of [blue slips] for this Congress, in order to allow them some opportunity to make up for the very aggressive tactics used by Republicans over the prior four years."
"When Republicans had the advantage, they just didn't hesitate to eliminate blue slips for the courts of appeals, which are an even higher court," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said he wants his party to top the 234 federal judges the Republicans confirmed in four years. There are currently 72 district court vacancies and nine open seats on appeals courts.
To secure judicial seats, said Meagan Hatcher-Mays, director of democracy policy for Indivisible, Democrats must "be for real" and recognize that the question of whether to continue to allow blue slips is "existential."
"Republicans have used [blue slips] to successfully keep seats open on the federal bench in their states, not because they have an objection to Biden's nominees on the merits, but because they want to hold seats open in the hopes that a future MAGA president will install even more anti-abortion, anti-democracy federal judges instead," said Hatcher-Mays.
"President Biden’s judicial nominees have been exceptional and among his signature achievements throughout his presidency," she added. "Senate Democrats should eliminate every barrier possible to continue to confirm his nominees at a historic pace, including getting rid of blue slips."
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Warnings Mount Over Right-Wing Plot to Rewrite US Constitution
Ahead of the midterm elections, said one political strategist, "Democrats must emphasize to voters that Republicans still control most state legislatures, and if they remain in power, they can drastically change the Constitution."
Sep 19, 2022
Government watchdogs are warning that the Republican takeover of state legislatures in recent years could imminently have major implications for the United States, as a right-wing effort to hold a new constitutional convention appears closer than ever to being realized.
"Republicans always tell us what they want to do. We should believe them and think broadly and in the long term of where we should be working to stop this from happening."
On Monday, former Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold wrote in an op-ed at The Guardian that Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution allows the document to be amended, either with amendments being proposed by two-thirds of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states, or through a method that has never been tested: the establishment of a new constitutional convention.
To hold a new convention, two-thirds of all state legislatures--34 total--must apply to hold the gathering, where lawmakers would have broad freedom to change the Constitution however they saw fit. Three-quarters of states would have to ratify their proposed amendments.
"The right has already packed the Supreme Court and is reaping the rewards, with decisions from Dobbs to Bruen that radically reinterpret the Constitution in defiance of precedent and sound legal reasoning," wrote Feingold, referencing recent rulings on abortion rights and gun control. "But factions of the right are not satisfied to wait for the court to reinterpret the constitution. Instead, they have set their sights on literally rewriting our foundational document."
Feingold--now president of the American Constitution Society--is among those warning that a new constitutional convention is "closer to reality than most people realize," as The New York Times reported earlier this month.
As the Democratic Party expended considerable effort on passing federal legislation during the Obama administration, ACLU communications strategist Rotimi Adeoye wrote at The Daily Beast last month, Republicans focused on taking control at the state and local level, with Democrats losing 13 governorships and 816 legislative seats between 2008 and 2016.
As a result, Republicans now just need control of four more states to reach the threshold needed to call a second constitutional convention.
Feingold noted that if right-wing advocates for a new convention like the Convention of States Project and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) get their way, there would be few limits on how Republicans could change the constitution:
There is nothing in the Constitution about how delegates would be selected, how they would be apportioned, or how amendments would be proposed or agreed to by delegates. And there is little useful historical precedent that lends insight to these important questions. This means that nearly any amendment could be proposed at such a convention, giving delegates enormous power to engage in political and constitutional redrafting.
"The framers left no rules," wrote Feingold in his new book, The Constitution in Jeopardy. "In this uncertainty lies great danger and, possibly, great power."
The former Wisconsin senator wrote at The Guardian that Republicans could use a new convention to craft an amendment banning abortion care, strip Americans of voting rights, gut federal anti-poverty programs, and further threaten people's right to be safe from gun violence by enshrining "their interpretation of the Second Amendment."
On Sunday, Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn told MSNBC that in the hands of Republicans, a second constitutional convention could "put all of our constitutional rights up for grabs."
\u201cAn Article V Convention \u201ccould put all of our constitutional rights up for grabs.\u201d\n\nOur president, @KHobertFlynn, outlined the risks of a #ConstitutionConvention with @CapehartJ on @TheSundayShow. Check it out \u2b07\ufe0f\u201d— Common Cause (@Common Cause) 1663607112
Feingold noted that a national policy discussion regarding the "founding failures of the Constitution" is warranted.
"That said, any conversation about how to go about amending the Constitution needs to be transparent, inclusive, and informed," he wrote at The Guardian. "What factions of the right are pursuing is anything but. They are pursuing exclusively partisan outcomes and have sought to keep their efforts opaque. They do not seem interested in a representative, democratic process."
The Convention of States Project has received millions of dollars from the right-wing Donors Capital Fund and has been endorsed by Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and influential conservative commentators Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro.
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), a strong proponent of a new constitutional convention, recently proposed legislation to direct the National Archives to conduct an official count of all the states that have called for a convention at various times.
"Democrats should take the threat seriously," Amanda Litman, co-founder of progressive group Run for Something, told The Daily Beast. "Republicans always tell us what they want to do. We should believe them and think broadly and in the long term of where we should be working to stop this from happening."
With the midterm elections fast approaching, wrote Adeoye, "Democrats must emphasize to voters that Republicans still control most state legislatures, and if they remain in power, they can drastically change the Constitution."
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7,000+ Lawyers, Law Students Demand Hawley and Cruz Resign for Inciting 'Violence and Terror'
"Hawley and Cruz directly incited the January 6th insurrection, repeating dangerous and unsubstantiated statements regarding the election and abetting the lawless behavior of President Trump."
Jan 10, 2021
A petition circulating among lawyers and law students calling for the disbarment of Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz for their roles in inciting last week's deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol has received more than 7,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon, including over 1,000 members of the Missouri and Texas bar associations.
"In leading the efforts to undermine the peaceful transition of power after a free and fair election, Sens. Hawley [Mo.] and Cruz [Texas] attacked the foundations of our democracy," the petition reads. "Hawley and Cruz directly incited the January 6th insurrection, repeating dangerous and unsubstantiated statements regarding the election and abetting the lawless behavior of President [Donald] Trump."
"In leading the efforts to undermine the peaceful transition of power after a free and fair election, Sens. Hawley and Cruz attacked the foundations of our democracy."
--Lawyers' and law students' petition
"A violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol," the petition continues. "Five people have died. The nation and the world watched as rioters took over the very halls and chambers that embody our democracy."
"Yet after the violence and terror of the day's events, Sens. Hawley and Cruz still chose to stand in the chamber of the U.S. Senate and persist in their baseless objections to the will of the people," it adds.
The Washington Postreports prominent signatories of the petition include former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School, Cruz's alma mater.
In less than 72 hours, thousands of lawyers and law students have called for the disbarment of Sens. Hawley and Cruz.
Lawyers--even U.S. Senators--must defend our democracy, not sabotage it. Join the movement, sign the petition, and share widely.https://t.co/mYcXJ2VWhh
-- Daniel Ki (@danielrki) January 10, 2021
The petition was started by seven students at Yale Law School, where Hawley earned his juris doctorate. One of the students, Daniel Ki, told the Post that "we thought it was important to speak up."
"We decided to ask other law students and members of the bar to join in the call to begin immediate disbarment proceedings against Sens. Hawley and Cruz and have been inspired and heartened by the overwhelming response," said Ki.
The petition follows calls by Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Chris Coons (Del.), Patty Murray (Wash.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.) for Hawley and Cruz to step down. Murray on Friday accused the pair of having "broken their oath of office."
Even Republicans have strongly condemned the senators, with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Sunday calling them "complicit in the big lie" that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" or plagued with "widespread fraud." Toomey, however, stopped short of calling on the senators to resign.
Across the nation, people still reeling from what they saw unfold last week on live television joined in the chorus of condemnation of the senators and demanded their immediate resignation. Several hundred protesters braved subfreezing temperatures and the Covid-19 pandemic to take to the streets of downtown St. Louis on Saturday, chanting, "No Hawley. No KKK. No fascist USA" and painting "RESIGN HAWLEY" in the street in front of the historic Old Courthouse.
\u201cPhotos: Hundreds gather in St. Louis calling for Hawley to resign https://t.co/Emrur73K7I via @pd_shutterspeed\u201d— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@St. Louis Post-Dispatch) 1610239542
The petition comes as the House of Representatives on Monday moved closer to impeaching Trump for inciting insurrection after Republican lawmakers blocked a House resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.
The vice president--who was apparently marked by some of the Capitol insurrectionists for possible execution due to his perceived disloyalty to Trump--has given no indication that he would consider such a constitutional remedy.
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