Good article explaining the "blue slip" tradition and how its been used and abused by republicans and occasionally conservative dems.

It should be said that, in its original use, the blue-slip was a simple note on the acceptability of the nominee....

That changed in 1995 when Republicans took the Senate. Eager to stymie the Clinton administration, Republicans required two blue-slips for a nominee to go forward, which made it easier to kill Clinton's nominees. With the election of George W. Bush, however, Republicans reverted to the one-slip rule, in order to expedite the process. It flipped again in 2001 after Sen. Jim Jeffords defected from the GOP caucus, giving Democrats control of the Senate, and then again in 2003, when Republicans won the chamber and announced a zero blue-slip rule, allowing hearings on nominees even if there wasn't a note in favor of the candidate.

It's in response to this that Leahy restored the two blue-slip rule when Democrats took the Senate in 2006 and he became chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/opinion/letters/mc-michael-boggs-judge-nomination-web-20140513,0,4162079.story#ixzz31ksu0MhS
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