WASHINGTON (CN) — Pleas from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat to respect the panel’s bipartisan tradition were left aside Thursday, as the committee’s Republican lawmakers roundly refused to offer any support for a group of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees.
The Judiciary Committee met this week to vote on one of the last slates of White House court picks, as Democrats rush to fill as many vacancies as possible before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. The panel advanced half a dozen nominees for federal courts and U.S. marshal positions, sending them to the full chamber for confirmation votes.
Thursday’s business meeting was also one of the last for committee chairman and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who will likely relinquish his gavel to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley in the new year.
Reflecting on his time at the head of one of the Senate’s most powerful committees, Durbin noted his defense of some of the panel’s longstanding bipartisan traditions.
“I feel strongly that we have a responsibility to protect the institutional interests of this body and our constitutional role of advice and consent,” said the senator. “I trust that Chair Grassley and all my colleagues will keep this in mind as we enter this new Congress.”
As Judiciary Committee chairman, Durbin has partly preserved an unwritten Senate procedure known as blue slipping, which allows home state senators to offer their support or opposition to White House judicial nominees with jurisdiction over their constituents. The Illinois Democrat has held up blue slipping as a last vestige of working across the aisle in the Senate — though critics say the tradition is ripe for abuse.
Durbin pointed out Thursday that he has resisted calls to do away with blue slipping entirely, and thanked Senate Republicans who worked with the Biden administration to identify qualified compromise candidates for court vacancies.
“Our judiciary is better off thanks to those efforts,” he said.
Some GOP lawmakers, such as Florida Senator Rick Scott, have been less cooperative with the White House, withholding blue slips for federal district court nominees and leaving courts without sorely needed jurists.
But Durbin said that while he disagreed with those tactics, he would “honor their prerogative” as home state senators to make such decisions, even if it meant the Senate could not consider some “exceptional” nominees from the Biden administration.
As he prepares to take over the Judiciary Committee, Grassley has signaled that he will continue to honor blue slips for federal district court nominees. But it remains to be seen whether the Democratic minority will be able to meaningfully influence which judges the Trump administration nominates.
While chairing the committee under the first Trump presidency, Grassley began refusing to honor blue slips for appellate court nominees. The Iowa senator argued at the time that blue slips were unreasonably used as “veto power” for home state senators and that such authority should not be extended to circuit court nominees whose jurisdiction covers more than one state.
Democrats continued that trend once they seized the Senate majority — Durbin has said that there cannot be one set of rules for Democrats and another for Republicans. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have suggested that the Judiciary Committee return to the tradition of considering blue slips for all judicial nominees.
Grassley’s office has said that the lawmaker will take a “traditional approach” to blue slips as Judiciary Committee chairman.
But despite Democrats’ hopes for judicial bipartisanship under Republican leadership, there was little on display Thursday as the committee voted on the latest slate of Biden nominees.
All six of the White House’s appointees — including five federal district court nominees and one U.S. marshal — cleared the panel on rigid party lines, with no Republicans crossing the aisle. Few of the nominees had proven controversial at their confirmation hearings.
The only Biden pick who made any waves at all was Anthony Brindisi, tapped by the White House to fill a vacancy on the Northern District of New York. A former congressman from the Empire State, Brindisi got a grilling from Republican lawmakers in September over his co-sponsorship of a 2019 bill aimed at expanding federal antidiscrimination laws for LGBTQ people.
GOP lawmakers needled the nominee over the bill’s contents, which included provisions pulling certain public spaces such as stores, restaurants and bathrooms under the purview of antidiscrimination law. Brindisi was cautious to make any definitive statements, pointing out that he currently serves as a judge on the New York State Court of Claims.
The nominee cleared the Judiciary Committee Thursday on an 11-10 party line vote.
The panel also advanced Northern District of New York nominee Elizabeth Coombe, District of New Mexico appointee Sarah Davenport, Northern District of Georgia nominee Tiffany Johnson and Keli Neary, tapped to fill a vacancy on the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Lawmakers also approved Miranda Holloway-Baggett’s nomination to become a U.S. marshal for the Southern District of Alabama.
Senate Republicans in recent weeks have found themselves under immense pressure from incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune and President-elect Trump to prevent Democrats from confirming the Biden administration’s remaining judges.
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door,” Trump wrote Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter. “Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”
The president-elect made essentially the same plea on Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social.
It’s “clear” that Thursday’s committee votes were tied to that pressure campaign, said Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law.
“It is crucial to stress the double standard now being applied by Trump and soon-to-be Majority Leader John Thune,” said Tobias. “It is important to remember how the GOP acted during the 2020 lame duck session. Trump and then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did precisely what they are alleging Democrats are doing now.”
In the final weeks before President Biden took office in January 2021, Senate Republicans confirmed a circuit court judge and a dozen federal district court judges.
Republicans have so far succeeded only in drastically slowing down the confirmation process on the Senate floor, forcing roll call votes on procedural matters that have dragged floor proceedings out for hours longer than usual. Lawmakers have been forced to remain on Capitol Hill late into the night on several occasions this week.
Fox News reported Thursday morning that Senate Democrats had struck a deal with the GOP to pull four appellate nominees from floor consideration in exchange for votes on a slate of federal district court appointments — leaving crucial circuit court vacancies for President-elect Trump to fill.
It’s unclear exactly which nominees would be getting the boot under such a deal. A spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.