On the recordNovember 28, 2017
I rise today to address two elements of the Senate's process for evaluating judicial nominations: the role of the American Bar Association and the so-called blue-slip courtesy. Each can influence the appointment process, and we must be diligent to ensure that neither is abused. The Eisenhower administration was the first to request the input of the ABA--American Bar Association--on prospective judicial nominations. Speaking to the 1955 ABA convention, President Eisenhower thanked the ABA for helping him and his advisers to ``secure judges'' of the kind he wanted to appoint. If that sounds as though the ABA was a part of the administration, it was. The ABA evaluated individuals before they were even nominated. Individuals deemed not qualified by the ABA were almost never nominated. No other interest group was given such a quasi-official veto over nominations to any other office. What could justify such a special role for an interest group? What could do that? The theory is that the ABA was a nonpolitical professional association concerned only with the legal profession and the practice of law. At its 1933 annual meeting in Grand Rapids, MI, for example, the ABA's executive committee considered changing the ABA constitution to allow ``discussion and expressions of opinion on questions of public interest.'' After arguments that this would revolutionize the scope and purpose of the ABA, no one--not one person--supported the amendment, to the best of my knowledge.…
