President Donald Trump is seeking to end the long-standing “blue slip” tradition of giving senators veto power over some judicial nominees from their states—but he’s getting pushback from the Republican senator whose mind he needs to change.
“I was offended by what the president said, and I’m disappointed that it would result in personal insults,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday.
The “blue slip” refers to a senator’s positive or negative opinion of a federal judicial nominee who resides in the state the senator represents. The slips are taken into account by the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman when considering nominees. In the past, a senator returning a blue slip with a negative assessment of a judicial nominee or withholding it altogether could be enough to sink the nominee’s chances at confirmation.
In 2017, Grassley, then as now chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ended the blue slip policy for federal circuit court nominees. That meant those nominees no longer had to receive approval from both senators of their home state in order to be considered before the committee. However, Grassley kept the policy in place for district court nominations. Grassley’s change was retained by Democrats once they took back the Senate in 2021.
In recent Truth Social posts, the president has pushed for Grassley to go further and end the policy altogether.
“Chuck Grassley, who I got reelected to the U.S. Senate when he was down, by a lot, in the Great State of Iowa, could solve the ‘Blue Slip’ problem we are having with respect to the appointment of Highly Qualified Judges and U.S. Attorneys, with a mere flick of the pen,” Trump wrote in one post, adding “Democrats like Schumer, Warner, Kaine, Booker, Schiff, and others, SLEAZEBAGS ALL, have an ironclad stoppage of Great Republican Candidates.”
In another message, the president struck a more conciliatory note, “Senator Grassley must step up, like Crooked Joe Biden did, when he openly broke, at least two times, the ‘Blue Slip’ SCAM, and like others have done over the years, and let our Great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys BE CONFIRMED. He should do this, IMMEDIATELY, and not let the Democrats laugh at him and the Republican Party for being weak and ineffective. The Democrats have broken this ridiculous custom on us, it’s time that we break it on them. Chuck, I know you have the Courage to do this, DO IT!”
The president’s impatience with the Senate comes as he faces a slower rate of confirmations for both judicial and executive branch posts than he and some senators would like to see.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., explained this week that Trump has yet to have had “a single one of his civilian nominees confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote at this point in his presidency” as a result of Democrat obstructionism.
Grassley noted in his comments on Wednesday that “the people in real America don’t care about what the blue slip is, but in fact, it impacts in their states, the district judges who serve their communities and the U.S. attorneys who ensure the law and order is enforced.”
