Political Quotes

“Madam President, let me just say, as a personal matter, this is the first time I have seen you presiding in the Senate. It is a nice sight, and I welcome you. I am here today to talk about the eroding and perhaps even vanishing tradition that we refer to in the Senate as the blue slip. People don't necessarily know what a blue slip is, but there has been a tradition with respect to U.S. attorneys, local U.S. district judges, U.S. marshals, and the seats on the U.S. circuit courts of appeals that are by tradition associated with a particular State. With respect to all of those nominations, there has been a tradition that they require the approval of the home State Senators. The mechanism for that approval is called a blue slip, and there actually is a blue slip. The tradition in the Senate Judiciary Committee that was very rigorously enforced most recently by Chairman Leahy, when he was chairman, is that a nominee for one of those offices does not get a hearing and cannot proceed without the blue slip of the home State Senators. I commend the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, on the great work she has done on the minority report she led that describes the history of the blue slip and the extent to which what we are doing today is a break with that tradition. What provokes this is the nomination of Michael Brennan to proceed without a blue slip having been returned by his home State Senator, Ms. Baldwin.…”