Overview
- President Trump on July 29 and 30 pressed Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley to abandon the blue-slip tradition to accelerate his judicial and U.S. attorney appointments.
- Grassley refused to scrap the informal vetting process and said he was “offended” and “disappointed” by the president’s personal attacks.
- Senators John Kennedy, Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski and Tommy Tuberville joined Grassley in defending the blue slip as vital for home-state input on district court and prosecutorial nominees.
- The blue-slip process, though not enshrined in Senate rules, empowers individual senators to block nominees and has contributed to a backlog of roughly 250 of Trump’s picks in committee.
- New Jersey Democrats Cory Booker and Andy Kim recently used blue-slip objections to block Alina Habba’s U.S. attorney nomination, prompting its withdrawal.