Senate confirms Trump nominee despite missing 'blue slip'

Source: The Hill | January 30, 2018 | Jordain Carney

The Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm an appellate court pick for President Trump despite one of the nominee’s home-state senators not returning a blue slip.

Senators voted 56-42 on David Stras’s nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, making him the first Trump nominee to be confirmed despite a missing blue slip.

The “blue-slip” rule — a precedent upheld by Senate tradition — has historically allowed a home-state senator to stop a lower-court nominee by refusing to return a sheet of paper, known as a blue slip, to the Judiciary Committee.

But how strictly the precedent is upheld is decided by the Judiciary Committee chairman — in this case, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — and enforcement has fluctuated depending on who controls the panel.

Grassley sparked a political firestorm when he announced late last year that he would move forward with Stras even though then-Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) refused to return his blue slip on Stras’s nomination. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) returned her blue slip.

The Alliance for Justice noted that Stras is the first circuit court judge to be confirmed despite a missing blue slip in more than 80 years.

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