President Donald Trump on Tuesday reportedly sharply criticized a long-standing Senate practice that he says is giving Democrats unilateral power to block his judicial nominees — and he called on Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to end it.
At issue is the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition, an internal committee custom that allows home-state senators to approve or reject a federal judicial nominee via a symbolic blue piece of paper.
Though not codified in law, the practice gives individual senators enormous influence — and in the hands of Democrats, Trump argued, it’s being weaponized to obstruct his administration.
“Chuck Grassley, who I got re-elected to the U.S. Senate when he was down, by a lot, in the Great State of Iowa, could solve the ‘Blue Slip’ problem we are having with respect to the appointment of Highly Qualified Judges and U.S. Attorneys, with a mere flick of the pen,” Trump said on Truth Social.
He accused top Democrats including Senators Schumer, Warner, Kaine, Booker, and Schiff of exploiting the custom to halt “Great Republican Candidates,” branding them “SLEAZEBAGS ALL.”
The president described the practice as an “ancient, and probably Unconstitutional, ‘CUSTOM’” that enables a single Democrat senator to veto nominees in their state — effectively nullifying the president’s constitutional authority to appoint judges.
In Trump’s view, the consequences are severe. “I would never be able to appoint Great Judges or U.S. Attorneys in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, and other places, where there is, coincidentally, the highest level of crime and corruption — The places where fantastic people are most needed!” he wrote.
Trump also noted that former President Joe Biden ignored the blue slip custom during his term — at least twice — and that other administrations have bypassed it as well.
Yet despite the president’s appeal, Grassley appears unwilling to discard the tradition.
A spokesperson for the senator said that Grassley had already successfully advanced nominees with Democratic support, including those backed by Senators Warner and Kaine of Virginia and Klobuchar and Smith of Minnesota.
“When a nominee comes out of committee all 100 senators have a say on the nomination,” the spokesperson noted, “and part of their consideration is based on the home state senators’ input.”
Still, the president’s frustration is unlikely to abate. As his administration seeks to reshape the federal judiciary with constitutionalist judges, Trump sees the blue slip as a partisan barrier — one that, in his words, keeps him from appointing anything other than “a Democrat or a weak and ineffective Republican.”
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