Jennifer Rubin is a columnist for the Washington Post. Originally, she was hired to express conservative views. Her column was called “Right Turn.” But when Trump was elected, she flipped. She realized that the Republican Party had lost its principles and stood for nothing other than slavishly obeying Trump’s whims and passing tax cuts for the 1%.
In this column, she calls out Senator Dick Durbin for acquiescing to the obsolete tradition of allowing one home-state Senator to block the President’s nomination to a federal judgeship. Democrats play by the unwritten rules, but Republicans ignore them. Democrats allowed Trump to nominate totally unqualified federal judges and joined in confirming them (e.g., the zealous anti-abortion extremist in Amarillo, Texas, who recently slapped a national ban on the main abortion pill because he disapproved of the Federal Drug Administration’s rigorous approval process).
But Republicans withhold their approval of well-qualified judicial nominees. And now, with Senator Dianne Feinstein home on sick leave, the Judiciary Committee is not approving any of President Biden’s nominees and will not give their approval to Senator Feinstein’s request to be removed temporarily from the committee.
Rubin wrote recently:
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) seems spectacularly ill-suited for an era when democracy is at risk, when Republicans observe no rules of decorum and when the federal judiciary’s credibility is crumbling.
Far too restrained and deferential, Durbin has refused to alter practices such as the “blue slip,” which allows home-state senators to nix the president’s judicial nominees, although he has beseeched Republicans not to abuse the practice. Durbin also hasn’t yet conducted hearings on the disastrous effects of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and related abortion bans, nor has he held hearings on a mandatory ethics code for judges — although he has promised hearings on revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas’s failure to disclose luxurious travel gifts and real estate sales. Then again, Senate Democrats as a whole haven’t pushed Durbin, so one cannot blame him alone for his timidity.
Caroline Fredrickson and Alan Neff recently wrote about blue slips for Just Security:
“The blue slip is an opaque — and inherently obstructionist — Senate tradition that allows a single Senator in any State to block a presidential nominee to the District Courts in their electoral patch merely by withholding their consent to consideration of the nominee in Committee. Like the filibuster, the blue slip allows Senators to halt Senate action without ever having to explain themselves to their Senate colleagues, their constituents, or the public, even if it means more criminal and civil cases languish unresolved on federal trial-court dockets for longer periods.”
Durbin could end this practice at any time, removing another abuse of minority-party power in the Senate. It’s one that has been spectacularly abused by Republicans, who have pushed through grossly unqualified, unfit nominees nominated by Republican presidents and yet nixed perfectly acceptable judges nominated by Democratic presidents…
Last week, Carl Hulse wrote for the New York Times:
“Then last week, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, served notice to the Judiciary Committee that she would not allow the nomination of Scott Colom, a candidate for a court vacancy in the state, to move forward, citing his past political support from the left, among other reasons. Her stance endangered the confirmation of Mr. Colom, a popular Black Democratic state prosecutor who had the backing of Roger Wicker, the other Republican senator from the state, as well as leading Mississippi Republicans including two former governors, Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant.”
Durbin had previously promised he would respect blue slips unless the decision to withhold the blue slip was based not on the nominee’s qualifications but on race, gender or sexual orientation.
Apparently, this didn’t qualify in his eyes.
Durbin’s appeals to shameless Republicans have accomplished nothing. Instead, he has allowed Republicans to run amok. Is it any surprise that when they were asked to approve the request from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to be removed from the committee, they balked? Plainly, they know they have nothing to fear from Durbin.
Committee Democrats can, if they choose, push Durbin to end the blue slip practice. They also could demand a hearing on Supreme Court ethics, on book banning, and on the effects of Dobbs and abortion bans. They might even hold hearings on corruption in the prior administration or on domestic terrorism. They could hold hearings on nationwide injunctions and single judge divisions, which allowed for Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s abysmal ruling on the abortion drug mifepristone.
All these would be appropriate uses of oversight power — unlike House Republicans’ stunts. They’ve done none of that.
Voters, court reformers, progressive advocacy groups, donors and even Vice President Harris — a former committee member who is strenuously working to keep the plight of women denied abortions in the news — could all apply pressure. Democrats cannot attend to the threats to democracy if they play by Marquess of Queensberry rules and apply to Republicans’ nonexistent good faith.
The voters elected a Democratic Senate and Democratic president; they have a right to expect swift confirmation of qualified nominees when democracy remains vulnerable. Voters have a right to expect Senate investigations into questionable actions at the Supreme Court and elsewhere.
Durbin and his fellow Democrats need to learn to play hardball.
I think this is another one of Traitor Trump’s coup attempts.
This one was to take over the country through the courts coup, if all the other attempts failed.
If you don’t succeed, keep trying.
At only six words, that must be the traitor’s motto. I don’t think the traitor’s brain can handle more than that. I thought the four word MAGA was the traitor’s limit until he added a new slogan for 2024. Make America Great Again, Again. Then I thought five was his limit.
There was the BIG LIE that the traitor is still spreading and the Traitor continuing to threaten bloodshed in the streets if he doesn’t return to the White House, or he is found guilty in court. The Traitor has said if he does end up in prision, that will not stop him from running for president again.
There was the attempt to get Mike Pence to refuse to allow Biden to become president after he won the election. When Biden didn’t do it, the Traitor’s followers wanted to catch and hang Pence.
There was the January 6th riot the traitor planned to attend after he told them to “fight like hell”, so he could watch the slaughter take place and egg his mob on to more ruthlessness and barbarity.
There were the fake electors.
There were the 60+ plus court cases attempting to overrule the election results.
There were the phone calls telling.asking other Republicans to find enough votes so the traitor would win.
I also think the Traitor is pulling Marjorie Taylor Green’s puppet strings, explaining why she has filed more impeachment papers in the House against Biden than anyone else on the Traitor’s future want-to-be junta, known as the Freedom Caucus.
I think another attempt was him taking all those secret documents to Mar-a-Lago, hoping he’d find something he could blackmail people in power with to put him back in the White House. If he didn’t find that kind of blackmail, he planned to sell the secrets to Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran, or all three, lying to them that he was only selling them once.
Did I miss anything?
I don’t think his planned trip to Scotland in early May to play golf on his golf courses there is really just to play golf. I think he may be planning to seek asylum in Russia since the Russians already publicly made the offer through Russia’s state TV channel. Vietnam had Hanoi Hannah. Japan had Tokyo Rose. Russia wants their own Moscow MAGA Mouth. Russian state TV also offered Tucker Carlson a job. I don’t think Traitor Trump would share a stage with Tucker though. He’d demand his own talk show. Would he hug Russia’s flag and kiss it on that show as he pretends to be a president in exile?
If Trump is FINALLY brought to justice for one or more of his MANY and EXTREME crimes, including serial rape, sedition, collusion to interfere with a government proceeding, election interference, kidnapping (of children of asylum seekers), etc., it would not be surprising AT ALL if he took refuge in Russia or in some Russian client state. And wouldn’t that be an interesting end? Jabba the Trump under the protective wing of his handler, Tsar Putin.
How is this a coup attempt?
Mr. Durbin’s insistence on the genteel “blue slip” to discreetly kill qualified nominees is foolish at best.
Mr. Durbin is my senator, and he is more than happy to hold onto outdated “traditions” that allow minority rule to trample all over the Senate Democratic majority.
Is Mr. Durbin afraid his finance-industry donors will be angry with him if a progressive judge or two gets slipped into the judiciary?
Mr. Durbin has brought a spork to the GOP-initiated gunfight.
It’s high time Mr. Durbin stands up or gets out of the way. At this point I’m hoping we get a progressive primary challenger to run against him. I’m tired of seeing Democrats snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Durbin endorsed conservative Paul Vallas for mayor of Chicago. Luckily he lost.
People in states with blue senators should email them and urge them to ‘stop the GOP steal’ of judiciary appointments. Democrats must start pushing back and become more strategic. They need to understand they are at war, and they must start fighting back. The future of democracy is at stake.
The Dims grow a spine? The Dims wake up? The Dims not acquiescing to the Rethugs? Well. . .
. . . I’ve got some great white sand beach ocean front property over at Lake of the Ozarks in central MO (for all you coastal folks that’s smack dab in the middle of the country) for sale. Cheap!
You can easily spot a Trump/Federalist Society judge or justice from the knuckles dragging the floor and the vacant expression of the eyes.
Wake up, teachers and retired teachers in Ohio. The pension administrators reportedly lost $40 mil. from the fund. Ohio STRS was invested in the Silicon Valley Bank.
Yes! And why, oh, why did Dems not make a fuss about McConnell refusing to give a hearing to Obama’s nominee? A dear old friend of mine–who just passed away–helped teach collective bargaining to me and other teacher-union folks. His most important principle was simply: “When you’re in a fight, the first thing to do is get up off your knees!” Democrats’ apparent weakness is sickening to some swing voters, discouraging to supporters, and important guidance to Republican strategists.