WASHINGTON (CN) — In an appeal to his colleagues’ better angels, Senator Dick Durbin on Thursday implored lawmakers to respect longstanding political traditions designed to streamline how the Senate approves new members of the federal judiciary.
The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman issued the call as his panel met to reconsider a candidate for U.S. attorney whose first nomination had fizzled on the Senate floor thanks to the obstruction of a single lawmaker.
The upper chamber has traditionally regarded U.S. attorney nominees as uncontroversial political appointments, confirming them without much fanfare via voice vote in a process known as unanimous consent. That precedent has come under fire in recent months, however, from Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who has repeatedly objected to unanimous consent for federal prosecutors. The Republican lawmaker has said he is protesting the Department of Justice’s indictments against former President Donald Trump.
One of the nominees caught in Vance’s procedural vise was Rebecca Lutzko, tapped by President Biden to fill a vacancy in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of Ohio — the lawmaker’s home state.
Durbin, who has been a vocal critic of Vance’s effort to grind judiciary nominations to a halt, pointed out Thursday that both parties have respected Senate tradition for decades.
The last time the upper chamber had a roll call vote on a U.S. attorney appointment was in 1975, he said, adding that under the Trump administration the Senate approved 85 federal prosecutors on voice votes.
“Like the situation involving the military not that long ago,” said Durbin, alluding to Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville’s abortion-fueled blockade on Defense Department nominees, “we have to stop and ask ourselves what kind of a Senate we are creating.”
Allowing Vance to continue holding up the nominations process will add to lawmakers’ growing frustration about a Senate that many see as paralyzed by partisanship, the Illinois Democrat argued.
Durbin also compared the need to respect unanimous consent to his effort to hold the line on another Senate tradition: blue slips.
“I’m getting a lot of pressure from the left on blue slips,” he told the committee. “But I’ve been told by Senator [Lindsey] Graham and many others that we’re going to abide by the blue slips and live with them, whether it’s a president from my party or his party.”
Blue slipping is a Judiciary Committee process by which lawmakers can endorse or object to judicial nominees proposed for their home states. While the mechanism is intended to give special dispensation to home state senators who must answer to their constituents, critics of blue slips have argued that the process can easily give way to partisan obstruction.
Durbin has long defended blue slipping as a vestige of good-faith bipartisan politics, repeatedly acknowledging that he continues to back the process despite the complaints of some members within his own party. He has expressed optimism that South Carolina Senator Graham, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, would extend a similar courtesy if he were in charge of the panel.
“I think that is a standard we should live by,” Durbin said Thursday. “So please, when you’re talking about putting holds on people like U.S. attorneys or whether you’re talking about blue slips, let’s reflect on the fact that the integrity of this process is at issue.”
Graham, for his part, offered only a few words of concurrence. “You said it well,” he told the committee chair.
Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law, said that Durbin’s analogy comparing blue slips with the unanimous consent tradition was “persuasive and apt.”
“Vance’s defense of holds on U.S. attorneys is just as indefensible as Tuberville’s hold on military promotions,” he argued, adding that people in districts with U.S. attorney vacancies are “entitled to have permanent U.S. attorneys working to fight crime where they live.”
The Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced Lutzko’s nomination to the Northern District of Ohio back to the full Senate on a 14-7 bipartisan vote. The panel also approved Joshua Levy, nominated to become a U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, on a tighter 11-10 vote.
Meanwhile, lawmakers voted to advance a group of seven other nominees, including Amir Ali, tapped by the White House to become a district judge for the District of Columbia. If confirmed by the full Senate, Ali would be the first Muslim judge to serve on Washington’s federal district court.
The Judiciary Committee also approved Melissa DuBose’s nomination to the District of Rhode Island, teeing her up to be that court’s first openly LGBTQ judge.
In an unusual turn of events, the panel moved forward on all nine nominees with little to no discussion. Tobias, who said he was surprised by the lack of contention from Judiciary Committee Republicans, pointed out that some of its most vocal members — such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Louisiana Senator John Kennedy — were absent from Thursday’s business meeting.
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