https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/04/why-koch-brothers-want-kill-obscure-senate-rule-help-shape-federal-courts/441424001/
Why the Koch brothers want to kill an obscure Senate rule to help shape the federal courts
Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY
Published 8:00 a.m. ET July 4, 2017 | Updated 10:25 p.m. ET July 4, 2017
WASHINGTON — The influential donor network tied to billionaire Charles Koch is taking aim at a longstanding Senate tradition that allows Democratic senators to block judicial nominees from their states, as conservatives race to seize on one-party control of Washington to rapidly reshape the federal judiciary.
Their target: The “blue-slip” process, which keeps judicial nominees from moving forward in Senate confirmation if a home-state senator raises an objection. Since Republicans hold a narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate, honoring the practice could give Democrats significant power to delay confirmation of President Trump’s nominees.
“Having a home-state senator have the ability to slow down the process, in our opinion, doesn’t make sense under the Constitution,” Mark Holden, a top official in the Koch network, told USA TODAY. “If you look at why (President) Trump won, he wanted to change the culture of D.C. and what’s going on there.
“Some of these arcane rules in the Senate, they don’t make a lot of sense,” Holden said.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-01-30/senate-confirms-first-judge-nominee-without-blue-slip
Senate Confirms First Judge Nominee Without Blue Slip
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley abruptly declared last year he would not recognize the century-old tradition.
By Joseph P. Williams, Staff Writer?Jan. 30, 2018, at 4:46 p.m.
An important, centuries-old norm came to an end Tuesday when lawmakers in the Republican-majority Senate voted to confirm one of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees, even though the candidate didn't get a "blue slip" – a traditional consent form handed in or withheld by the home state senator.
In a largely party-line vote, the Senate elevated David Stras of Minnesota to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, making him the first nominee to be confirmed despite the missing paper.
Stras' confirmation continues the Senate's fast-tracking of Trump's highly conservative judicial nominees, part of a long-term plan to anchor the federal court system on the right. It also escalates the war with Senate Democrats to block the process by any means necessary – and makes good on a promise by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.
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