WASHINGTON (CN) — Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin again went to bat Wednesday for a procedural mechanism allowing lawmakers to weigh in on the Biden administration’s federal court nominees.
At issue once more in the upper chamber’s judicial affairs panel, whose approval marks the first hurdle for nominees seeking a Senate confirmation, was the age-old tradition known as blue slipping. The practice gives senators the opportunity to either approve of or reject White House judicial appointments in their home states.
While some lawmakers hold up blue slips as a way to give the minority party more say in the makeup of federal courts, critics argue it forms a handy tool for obstructionists looking to hold up the president’s judicial agenda.
For proponents of the process, however, the bipartisan power of blue slips was on full display Wednesday, as the Democrat-led Judiciary Committee interviewed five prospective district court judges from states with all-Republican Senate delegations.
Pointing to Democrats’ work to uphold the practice under the Trump administration and current cooperation on court nominees, Durbin said in an opening statement that “the Senate’s blue slip tradition can work as intended when we have bipartisan cooperation.”
The Illinois Democrat thanked his Republican colleagues and President Biden for working “in good faith” on the latest slate of nominees — which included picks for court vacancies in Nebraska, Texas, Utah and Wyoming — and urged other GOP lawmakers to follow suit.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee’s Republican ranking member, concurred, thanking Durbin in particular for being “instrumental in getting some of these people over the line.”
Joining in the praise for the blue slipping process was Texas Senator John Cornyn, who at a committee hearing last week urged the chairman to continue backing the practice.
“Once again, it demonstrates that we can actually get along and get things done here in a bipartisan way,” he said.
Cornyn and fellow Texas Republican Ted Cruz worked alongside the Biden administration to bring two of the nominees up for questioning Wednesday: Ernest Gonzalez and Leon Schydlower, both tapped to fill vacancies on the Western District of Texas.
Among the other nominees at the hearing were Susan Bazis, nominated to the District of Nebraska, Ann Marie McIff Allen, nominated to the District of Utah and Kelly Harrison, tapped for the District of Wyoming.
While it was smooth sailing for the red state nominees, who enjoyed words of support from both Republican and Democrat members of the Judiciary Committee, lawmakers pressed harder on Robin Meriweather, the Biden administration’s nominee to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which largely handles civil cases brought against the government.
Committee Republicans grilled Meriweather on her record and prior experience as a magistrate judge on the District of Columbia federal court.
Both Louisiana Senator John Kennedy and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley cast aspersions on the nominee’s judgment in a 2021 case involving a man charged with transporting child pornography.
The lawmakers expressed particular concern about Meriweather’s decision to grant a 21-day release motion for the defendant so that he could seek cancer treatment, remaining under house arrest at all other times. Her ruling was later reversed by the D.C. Circuit.
Asked to answer for the reversal, Meriweather explained that when she granted the initial motion the defendant had not been allowed to see a doctor but that he had received the necessary treatment by the time the circuit court addressed the matter.
“Under those new facts, the factual predicate for my temporary release decision was no longer necessary,” she said.
Kennedy was not satisfied with that answer.
“The circuit court said, ‘no way am I letting this guy out on the street for 21 days,’” he told the nominee.
Facing further questioning from Hawley, Meriweather told the committee that she was required under the Bail Reform Act to consider factors beyond the charges against the defendant as she made her decision to grant a temporary release.
“I found it very challenging to even entertain the idea of releasing someone charged with such heinous crimes, as well as someone who had a history, decades earlier, of abuse,” she said. Despite that, Meriweather pointed out, the defendant’s “own interest in self-preservation” as well as the stringent conditions of the release motion balanced things out.
Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law, said that Wednesday’s hearing “went basically as predicted.”
“I think that all of the red state district nominees will receive smooth, swift confirmation,” he predicted.
Tobias also pointed to the bipartisan nature of this most recent slate of nominees, adding that it was “noteworthy” to see Graham, Cornyn and other Republican lawmakers praise Durbin’s leadership.
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