Senate Democrats held the floor Tuesday night for three hours to protest the decision by GOP leadership to schedule a vote on a controversial circuit court nominee over the objection of both home-state senators.
The Senate is expected to vote on Ryan Bounds' nomination to serve as an appeals judge on the Ninth Circuit this week.
But Democrats are blasting the decision to bring up the nomination, arguing Republicans are trashing Senate tradition by scheduling a vote despite opposition from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
"No judge until now has ever been confirmed by this body not having received a single blue slip by a home-state senator,'' Merkley said as he displayed poster boards filled with blown-up images of some of Bounds' most controversial writings, the Oregonian/Oregon Live reported.
The move "tramples on a century-old tradition of collegiality among senators,'' Wyden said.
The "blue-slip" rule — a precedent upheld by Senate tradition — has historically allowed a home-state senator to stop a lower-court nominee by refusing to return a sheet of paper, known as a blue slip, to the Judiciary Committee, The Hill reported.
Bounds would be the first appeals court nominee to be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Congress even though neither home-state senator returned their blue slip, The Hill reported.
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