Senate Democrats need to play hardball - Jennifer Rubin - Opinions @similaropinion

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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.
The most egregious example occurred just last year. President Biden nominated Judge William Pocan to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in December 2021. Conspiracy-mongering Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) first approved the nomination but changed his mind on the eve of the hearing when the nominee and his family were already in D.C.
Durbin issued a huffy statement, which read in part:
According to Sen. Johnson’s statement, he is withholding a blue slip on this nomination because Judge Pocan does not currently live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. But as I understand it, Judge Pocan does live nearby and has made it clear that he would relocate to Green Bay,” Durbin said. “What’s more, Sen. Johnson knew full well back in June that Judge Pocan did not live in Green Bay at this time. Yet that did not prevent the bipartisan Wisconsin Federal Nominating Commission from recommending Judge Pocan to Senators Baldwin and Johnson. And it did not prevent Sen. Johnson from joining Sen. Baldwin in recommending Judge Pocan to the White House as one of the four candidates to fill the Eastern District of Wisconsin vacancy. Let me emphasize that point — Sen. Johnson is blocking this Committee from proceeding on a nominee he recommended to President Biden …
My office learned secondhand that Senator Johnson would prevent Mr. Pocan from going forward at 7:00 o’clock last night. Such a lack of communication is unacceptable and, frankly, disrespectful to the nominee and his family.
However, the blue slip process remained. The Eastern District of Wisconsin still does not have a nominee.