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What Trump has done to the courts
14 December 2019, 05:44 PM
wtgWhat Trump has done to the courts
Probably more accurate to say "What McConnell has done to the courts".
https://www.vox.com/policy-and...court-federal-judges
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When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
14 December 2019, 06:06 PM
jon-nycI don’t understand why the Eastland rule was such a constraint. Just pick a nominee from a blue state. What am I missing?
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
15 December 2019, 10:45 AM
wtgI didn't think the state the nominee comes from is the issue. It's the state where the court is located/assigned.
quote:
Under Leahy, a single senator of either party could veto any nominee to a federal judgeship in their state (although federal appeals courts typically oversee multiple states, each individual seat on these courts is traditionally assigned to a particular state).
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When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
15 December 2019, 10:49 AM
QuirtEvansIt has always been the case that the courts have been a major hindrance to Republican administrations.
McConnell is just the first to weaponize the judicial nomination process.
15 December 2019, 12:44 PM
jon-nycOdd. Every source I find on the internet says it’s home state senators of the nominee. Including the senate judiciary committee and the Washington Post.
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
15 December 2019, 01:05 PM
wtgI hear what you are saying, and there are a lot of sources that say it's the state of residence. However....
Here's a 2014 press release from Leahy.
quote:
A blue slip is a piece of paper that the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman uses to solicit views of home state senators when someone is nominated to be a judge in their state.
https://www.leahy.senate.gov/p...nd-consent-a-reality 
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When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
15 December 2019, 03:18 PM
Jack Frostquote:
Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
McConnell is just the first to weaponize the judicial nomination process.
I think Biden and Kennedy did that with Bork.
jf
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16 December 2019, 06:56 PM
wtgquote:
Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Odd. Every source I find on the internet says it’s home state senators of the nominee. Including the senate judiciary committee and the Washington Post.
Were you looking at this, or something else?
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/blueslip(edit: Not trying to be obnoxious, just really want to be sure I have the right definition...)
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When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
17 December 2019, 03:29 AM
jon-nycI did see that one, but dozens more too.
Go to the NYT and search “blue slip”. Other than ‘Blue Jays slip past the..’, every reference is about this tradition and literally all of them define it as home state of the nominee.
Some in detai. This one names the senators from Oregon as the holders of power over the Oregonian nominee to the SF courts.
quote:
On Wednesday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for Ryan Bounds, a federal prosecutor who has been nominated to the influential United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. The hearing is taking place despite the refusal of his home-state Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, to return their “blue slips” — blue pieces of paper that senators use to indicate their favorable or unfavorable opinion of a nominee from their state.
Other examples are 20 years old, well predating this controversy.
I gotta conclude that the Vox guy is the outlier. Which would be a little embarrassing for them since he built so much of his story around it.
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
17 December 2019, 03:40 AM
jon-nycHere’s Diane Feinstein talking about it in detail, and quoting a letter from the Republican caucus from 2009.
Both are unambiguously describing it as home state of the nominee.
https://www.feinstein.senate.g...D4-9D6A-E3CA85D64FB6Surely Feinstein would know if she had traditionally had veto power over the whole 9th circuit!
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
17 December 2019, 03:49 AM
jon-nycHere’s the blog of the historian at the National Archives, writing in 2003:
https://prologue.blogs.archive...senatorial-courtesy/Here’s Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_slipAll talk about home state of candidate.
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
17 December 2019, 03:58 AM
jon-nycThe only way both sides of this could be sorta correct is if the practice was different for district courts than for circuit courts, but then you’d think at least one source of the dozens we’ve read would have made the distinction.
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
17 December 2019, 07:51 AM
QuirtEvansFor purposes of emergency stays, the Supreme Court divides jurisdiction among the Justices, so each Justice oversees a different circuit.
https://www.scotusblog.com/201...circuit-assignments/I do not know if the same practice applies in the Courts of Appeals (that different justices oversee particular district courts).
17 December 2019, 08:31 AM
wtgThe Vox guy is Ian Milheiser; I saw him on Fareed last weekend where they talked about this.
quote:
Ian Millhiser is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. Before joining Vox, Ian was a columnist at ThinkProgress. Among other things, he clerked for Judge Eric L. Clay of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and served as a Teach For America corps member in the Mississippi Delta. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Kenyon College and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke University, where he served as senior note editor on the Duke Law Journal and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He is the author of Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted.
I see the problem....he went to Kenyon and Duke.....

Seriously though, it seems more logical to me that senators' interest would be with with the *courts* located in their state rather than the nominees who might happen to *live* in their state. From the National Archives blog:
quote:
Senatorial courtesy reflected the view that home state senators should have a voice in the selection of officials who could have a substantial impact within their state.
As jon pointed out though, many sources make it sound like both interpretations have been applied.
I still don't know what to think except that the Eastland Rule isn't really a rule but something that seems to be a somewhat mushy tradition that people have interpreted/applied in various ways since the beginning of the republic.
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When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
17 December 2019, 09:10 AM
jon-nycIt could also be that district judges were traditionally picked from local attorneys or state courts so it amounted to the same thing, that could have led to sloppy descriptions of the process at times.
But I think the origin was that the senator from the home state of the nominee would more likely know the person or his reputation. Especially back in the day this tradition started.
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If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.