National Law Journal: Trump Eyes Lawsuit Over Blue Slips as Grassley Defends Senate Tradition
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on August 25, 2025.
There are 10 district court vacancies in blue or purple states that Trump could fill, according to the progressive group Alliance for Justice’s vacancy tracker.
During Biden’s presidency, then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Durbin chose to keep blue slips even as progressive groups urged him to end the tradition, arguing that GOP senators were using it to block the president from filling red-state vacancies.
For example, Biden’s pick for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, William Pocan, never received a confirmation hearing after Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said he would withhold his blue slip.