The President of the United States has launched a public attack on a senior senator from his own party. The target is not a policy disagreement, but an “old and outdated ‘custom’” – the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition.
This is not a minor procedural squabble. It is a high-stakes, internal battle over a long-standing norm that serves as one of the last remaining bipartisan checks on a president’s power to shape the federal judiciary and the Department of Justice for a generation.
A Primer on the “Blue Slip”: A Senate Tradition Under Fire
To understand this conflict, one must first understand the blue slip. It is not a formal rule, but a century-old tradition of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When the President nominates someone for a district court judgeship or a U.S. Attorney position, the committee sends a blue slip of paper to both home-state senators, asking for their opinion.
If a home-state senator returns a negative blue slip or does not return it at all, the chairman of the committee has traditionally refused to hold a hearing or a vote on that nominee. This courtesy is a powerful expression of federalism within the appointment process, ensuring that the senators who represent a state have a meaningful voice in the selection of the federal officials who will serve there.
An Assault on a Constitutional Norm
The President’s post frames this tradition as an infringement on his constitutional authority.
“I have a Constitutional Right to appoint Judges and U.S. Attorneys, but that RIGHT has been completely taken away from me in States that have just one Democrat United States Senator.”
This is a deliberate and profound misreading of the Constitution. Article II, Section 2 does not grant the President an absolute “Right to appoint.” It grants him the power to nominate, but only with the “Advice and Consent of the Senate.” The blue slip, while just a custom, is one of the most powerful mechanisms through which the Senate provides that very “advice.” The President is not being denied a right; he is being checked by the co-equal power of the legislative branch, exactly as the framers intended.
The Irony of the Accusation
The President’s post goes on to claim that Democrats, including former President Biden, have done away with the blue slip on “numerous occasions.” This misrepresents a complex history.
In fact, it was Senate Republicans who, during President Trump’s first term, eliminated the blue slip tradition for the powerful circuit court of appeals judges, allowing them to confirm nominees over the objections of home-state Democrats. The tradition has, for the most part, been kept in place by both parties for the district court and U.S. Attorney nominees that are the subject of the President’s current frustration.
The President is now demanding that Senator Grassley provide him with a partisan advantage that his own party pioneered for a different class of judges. His demand to “tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!” is a call to abandon the last vestiges of bipartisan consultation in the judicial confirmation process.
This public pressure campaign on a fellow Republican is about more than just a few nominees. It is an attempt to dismantle a norm that forces a president to consult with senators from the opposing party, a process that encourages moderation and consensus. The fate of this “old and outdated custom” will tell us a great deal about the future of the Senate’s role as a meaningful check on the presidency.