We knew it would be difficult for Trump to get some of his appointments and nominees through the Senate, but this is getting ridiculous.
Democrats would rather score political points than allow the government to become operational and fill judicial seats.
The frustration is understandable on the GOP side, especially since the media applauds Dems when they do it and rips the GOP when they use the same tactics. Point being, the GOP has nothing to lose by making rules changes right now, and that appears to be the path they will pursue.
Trump has two problems in terms of his nominees and appointments.
The first being that Democrats continue to filibuster Trump appointments, as we are eight months into this presidency, and Trump still does not have all of his administration positions filled because of Democrats stonewalling.
Second, Trump’s judicial appointments are being blocked in any state that has two Democrat senators, as they refuse to give blue-slip approval for Trump’s nominees. Trump unleashed, "Put simply, the president of the United States will never be permitted to appoint the person of his choice because of an ancient, and probably unconstitutional, ‘CUSTOM.’"
He continued, "The only candidates that I can get confirmed for these most important positions are, believe it or not, Democrats! Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!"
I understand wanting to keep tradition alive, but the Biden administration did not respect the tradition, and I think it is safe to say that bipartisanship as we used to know it in our government is dead.
Even so, Grassley insists this is the best way to go about it.
He posted, "U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t hv the votes to get out of cmte. As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE."
Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is leaving office after this term, has supported Grassley, as he refuses to vote for anyone who did not get blue-slip approval. He posted, "Chairman Grassley is a principled conservative who wants to keep radical liberals off the bench. Getting rid of the blue slip is a terrible, short-sighted ploy that paves the path for Democrats to ram through extremist liberal judges in red states over the long-term.”
If Democrats were denying appointments based on qualifications, that would be one thing, but they are simply refusing to pass through ANY Trump nominee when they have both senators in any particular state that can block the appointments.
Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) is now just as fed up as Trump, and the movement to change the rules is growing. He stated, "We need to either get a lot of cooperation from the Democrats, or we're going to have to roll over them with changes of the rules that we're going to be able to do in a unilateral way, as well as President Trump making recess appointments.”
Senator Schumer (D-N.Y.) shot back that Trump’s "historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny by Senate Democrats,” but I would beg him to look at some of the judges Biden put forward, many of whom could not even answer basic legal questions, but Democrats just pushed them through.
It is like dealing with petulant children, only these children are running our country straight into the ground. Sadly, there is no way around this because, for the most part, Democrat voters are zombies who will continue to pull the lever for candidates solely because they have a “D” next to their name.
