The Democrats are gearing up to block several of Trump’s nominees for the federal bench using a process called the “blue slip” where a home state Senator can effectively stop a judicial nominee from their own state.
With his nomination Monday of 10 conservative judges to the federal courts, President Donald Trump is reviving the long-running judicial wars with Democrats. And the two picks likely to rankle Democrats the most are the ones they have the most leverage to block.
Senate Democrats have few powers to prevent judges from getting confirmed to their lifetime appointments, due to rules changes they pushed through in 2013 that eliminated the 60-vote threshold for nearly all nominations. But Democratic senators can wage a silent filibuster of sorts against nominees from their home states through the so-called blue-slip process.
Two of the 10 judicial nominees the White House unveiled on Monday were on Trump’s short list of potential Supreme Court justices during the campaign: Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, who will be nominated to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Justice David Stras, who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court and is Trump’s pick for the 8th Circuit.
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