There is an adage that even if you kick the most loyal dog enough times, he will eventually bite that foot.
Well, it appears that the GOP has finally learned its lesson after being kicked by the Democrats about a gazillion times.
Instead of taking the high road, they are finally ready to fight fire with fire.
Democrats cried like crazy when Republicans held up some of then-President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, but GOP opposition generally emerged for good reason.
Some of those reasons included nominees not knowing the answers to basic legal and constitutional questions, and others possessing questionable ties to organizations that may or may not have been linked to some rather unscrupulous individuals.
Even so, for the most part, the GOP said that if a nominee was the person Biden wanted for a given role, he deserved a chance to see if they could do the job.
Schumer, however, intends to block everyone Trump picks, stating, “Historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny by Senate Democrats.” And he has delivered, jamming up the Senate, while leaving the Trump administration with dozens of holes to fill, even after eight months in office.
There was a time when the judicial blue-slip process was respected, and even in states where the opposing party held both Senate seats, only if the candidate was truly unqualified would that individual be denied blue-slip approval for a judicial nomination.
Democrats have now taken to the habit of blanket rejections when they hold both blue slips as a way to deny Trump the opportunity to place a judge of his choosing in a liberal state. You see, that would stop them from being able to forum and judge shop when they are pushing back against Trump’s policies in court.
Trump has ripped the traditional process and slammed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for holding tight to the practice, posting, "This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn.” Trump later added, "It's not based on law, and I think it’s unconstitutional, and I’ll probably be filing a suit on that pretty soon.”
And that was the nice post, as he also hurled personal insults and outright lies at Grassley to try to pressure him to abandon the tradition (which Democrats have not always followed when in power). I was upset over the Trump strategy, because I knew Grassley would not fold, and all he did was dig in deeper, creating even more frustration for the president.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) has had about all he can take, and he is now threatening to change the rules if Dems are going to continue to play games, and there are plenty of Republicans ready to support such a move.
Barrasso 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.”
After Schumer shot back with his “historically bad” comment, Barrasso responded, "Anybody nominated by President Trump is, in Schumer's words, ‘historically bad.’ Why? Because they were nominated by President Trump. That is his sole criteria for which these people are being gone after and filibustered, each and every one of them, even those that are coming out of committee, many, many of whom are with bipartisan support."
Normally, I would be hesitant to make such rule changes for fear of what Democrats will do when they take power again, but I think they have proven they will change the rules in a heartbeat to benefit their cause, just as they did routinely when Biden was in office. Playing fair is no longer an option, so, Sen. Barrasso, by all means, strong-arm them.
