虽然参议院共和党人正快速推进特朗普司法提名人的确认，但总统及其部分盟友希望废除参议院一项有着一个多世纪历史的传统，该传统为司法提名程序提供两党制衡机制。
他们声称蓝 slips 传统正在阻碍共和党人确认候选人，并指责民主党人将这一程序作为人质。
“废除蓝 slips 将是一个巨大的错误，”北卡罗来纳州共和党参议员汤姆·蒂利斯告诉福克斯新闻数字频道。
蒂利斯与其他几位共和党人一样，认为蓝 slips 是少数党（民主党）的宝贵工具，并且不可避免地，当民主党重新控制上议院时，共和党人将需要利用这一传统为自己谋利。
自特朗普第二任期开始以来，参议院已确认了33名法官，这一数字远超他在白宫第一任期内通过上议院的司法提名人总数（包括美国检察官、地区和巡回法院法官）。
在其第一任期的第一年，参议院确认了19名第三条宪法法官，其中包括最高法院大法官尼尔·戈萨奇。
尽管共和党人的确认速度远超特朗普第一次任期，但前总统乔·拜登领导下的民主党人在这一指标上仍超过了他们。拜登在其任期的第一年确认了42名司法提名人。
参议院能否超过特朗普第一任期内总共234名司法提名人的最终数量仍有待观察，但目前蓝 slips 似乎安然无恙。
尽管如此，特朗普去年年底在椭圆形办公室抨击这一做法，称共和党人应该“废除蓝 slips，因为作为共和党总统，我无法任命任何与美国检察官或法官相关的职位。”
他对这一有着100多年历史的传统的不满，很大程度上源于去年阿丽娜·哈巴和林赛·哈利根的提名因蓝 slips 而被搁置。
他将这种不满发泄在参议院司法委员会主席、爱荷华州共和党人查克·格拉斯利以及其他希望维持这一传统的共和党人身上。
值得注意的是，格拉斯利在2017年修改了这一传统，允许巡回法院法官绕过该程序，从而在民主党反对的情况下进一步增加了共和党人能够确认的法官人数。
当被问及参议院确认司法提名人的速度是否进一步证明蓝 slips 会继续存在时，格拉斯利告诉福克斯新闻数字频道：“这不需要成为一个当前的问题。”
“因为这是一个110年的传统，参议院中的每个人都希望保留蓝 slips，”格拉斯利说。
亚历克斯·米勒是福克斯新闻数字频道报道美国参议院的记者。
Senate Republicans confirmed half a dozen of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees last week, continuing a quick pace to green-light as many of his picks as possible.
While the Senate GOP is moving fast to confirm Trump’s judicial nominees, the president and some of his allies want to eviscerate an over-century-old tradition in the Senate that provides bipartisan guardrails to the judicial nomination process.
They contend that the blue slip tradition is slowing down Republicans from being able to confirm picks, and that Democrats are holding the process hostage.
“Nuking the blue slip would be a huge mistake,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital.
Tillis, like several other Republicans, has argued that the blue slips are a valuable tool of the minority, and that inevitably, the GOP would need to use the tradition to their advantage when Democrats regain control of the upper chamber.
The Senate has confirmed 33 judges since the start of Trump’s second term, a figure that dwarfs the number of total judicial nominees, including U.S. attorneys, district and circuit court judges, moved through the upper chamber during his first go-round in the White House.
During the first year of his first term, the Senate confirmed 19 Article III nominees, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Though Republicans are far ahead of Trump’s first time clip, Democrats under former President Joe Biden still outpaced them in this metric. Biden clocked 42 total judicial nominees confirmed during the first year of his term.
Whether the Senate can outpace Trump’s final total of 234 judicial nominees from his first term remains to be seen, but for now the blue slip appears to be safe.
Still, Trump sounded off on the practice late last year in the Oval Office, arguing that the GOP should “get rid of blue slips, because, as a Republican President, I am unable to put anybody in office having to do with U.S. attorneys or having to do with judges.”
Much of his frustration with the tradition, which has been around for over 100 years in the upper chamber, likely stemmed from the nominations of Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan getting derailed by blue slips last year.
He’s taken his frustrations out on Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a vocal proponent of the practice, and other Republicans that want to maintain the tradition.
Notably, Grassley modified the tradition in 2017 to allow for circuit court judges to skirt the process, further boosting the number of judges Republicans were able to confirm under Trump despite Democratic objections.
When asked if the Senate’s pace in confirming judicial nominees further affirmed that the blue slip was here to stay, Grassley told Fox News Digital, “It doesn’t need to be a present question.”
“Because it’s a question of 110 years, and everybody in the Senate wants to maintain the blue slip,” Grassley said.
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
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