Congress
Grassley defends ‘blue slips’ amid latest Trump criticism
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley isn’t caving to pressure to end the precedent of deferring to home-state senators on district court and U.S. attorney nominees — even after being called out over the weekend by President Donald Trump and his thwarted pick for top prosecutor in New Jersey.
“As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE,” the Iowa Republican wrote in a social media post Monday.
“A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not [have] the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t [have] the votes to get out of cmte,” he added.
Trump has tried to pressure Grassley for weeks to get rid of the so-called blue slip, the practice that allows senators to block a home-state district court or U.S. attorney nominee they don’t support.
Republicans got rid of the same precedent for appeals court nominees during Trump’s first term, but they have so far rebuffed Trump’s calls for them to do the same for district court and U.S. attorney nominations. Many GOP senators believe that if they bend to Trump’s demand now, it would only come back to bite them later, when they find themselves back in the minority and unable to stop nominees from a Democratic administration.
But the conflict with the White House got new fuel poured into it late last week when U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled that Alina Habba “is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney” in New Jersey and has been in the position without legal authority since July 1.
Trump had tried to keep Habba in charge of the office after her interim appointment expired. That effort included withdrawing her Senate nomination, which was already stalled because of opposition by New Jersey Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim.
In a Truth Social post Sunday night, Trump doubled down on his attempts to pressure Grassley to nix the blue slip, which the president called an “old and outdated ‘custom.’”
Trump continued: “The only candidates that I can get confirmed for these most important positions are, believe it or not, Democrats! Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!”
Habba also criticized Grassley and Sen. Thom Tillis by name Sunday morning, calling on them to revisit the blue slip precedent and allow her nomination and others to go through.
“This tradition that Senator Grassley is upholding effectively prevents anybody in a blue state from going through into Senate to then be voted on,” Habba said on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”
“I would say to Senator Tillis and Senator Grassley, you are becoming part of the issue,” she added. “You are becoming part of the antithesis of what we fought for four years.”
Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said recently that he would continue to honor the blue slip for district court and U.S. attorney nominations even if the precedent was rescinded. That means he would oppose all relevant nominees who lacked support from their home state senators.
Grassley also noted in a subsequent X post Monday that the administration had withdrawn Habba’s nomination and that the committee “never received any of the paperwork needed for the Senate to vet her nomination.”
Spokespeople for Grassley and Tillis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Congress
Mike Johnson tries again to extend contested spy law
House GOP leaders on Thursday unveiled the text of a new three-year extension of a key spy law, as Speaker Mike Johnson tried to overcome ultra-conservative resistance and pass it next week.
The proposed reauthorization of the so-called Section 702 law includes some new oversight and penalties for abuses of the spy authority but stops short of warrant requirements sought by GOP hard-liners.
Conservatives have pushed back on extending Section 702, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners, because of concerns about U.S. citizens being caught up in the program.
The faction that’s been opposing an extension has not yet signed off on the latest plan. GOP leaders plan to continue talks into the weekend.
Congress
House GOP leaders scramble to sell Senate’s slimmed-down budget with promises of ‘Reconciliation 3.0’
House Republican leaders want a floor vote next week on the Senate’s budget resolution, the first step in writing an immigration enforcement bill and passing it by President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline.
“It has to be clean because it has to be quick,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday, indicating that conservatives could not make major changes to the other chamber’s blueprint at this time.
But Johnson and others still have to lock in support from conservatives who are threatening to vote against it if it doesn’t encompass more top GOP policy priorities, and it is proving to be a delicate balancing act.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) met Thursday morning with Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (Texas) and leaders of key House GOP factions, according to four people granted anonymity to share details of private meetings — an effort to quell concerns among some conservatives about the narrow scope of the current plan. Arrington and other senior Republicans have been pushing to expand the party-line bill currently under discussion.
Johnson, Scalise and others in GOP leadership are promising that as soon as Republicans pass a bill funding immigration enforcement and some border patrol activities, they will get to work on another measure through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.
“We’re going to move right to reconciliation, what will now be 3.0,” Johnson said, referring both to the current plan and the tax and spending megabill Republicans passed last summer. “We’re going to do it as quickly as possible.”
Some of the ideas that circulated during the closed-door leadership meeting Thursday included opening up the possibility for more tax policy changes, addressing the Trump administration’s request for $350 billion for the Pentagon, additional funding for the Iran war and spending cuts across social programs in another package.
Arrington, who is among those wishing to expand the upcoming reconciliation effort, is seeking steep spending reductions to social programs and hopes to revisit Obamacare spending — including cost-sharing reductions, which would reduce out-of-pocket health costs.
Leadership of the Republican Study Committee, meanwhile, is demanding that any third reconciliation bill be fully paid for. There has been limited angst over “pay-fors” for the current party-line pursuit because the measure is an attempt to fund the immigration enforcement agencies and circumvent regular appropriations negotiations, which have been stuck for months.
But many Republicans are doubtful their party will be able to pass another party-line bill ahead of the midterms and see the immigration funding bill as their last bite at the apple. Some of them, including Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, are threatening to vote against the Senate budget resolution that would unlock the reconciliation process for the immigration funding measure unless it can incorporate more items from the hard-liners’ wishlist.
GOP leaders are now scrambling to stave off defections. Adoption of identical budget resolutions in both chambers will unlock the ability for lawmakers to write and pass a bill through reconciliation that would send tens of billions of dollars to immigration enforcement operations run through the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shuttered since February.
Republicans are on a very tight schedule to send this bill to Trump’s desk and pave the way for ending the record-setting DHS shutdown, given White House demands.
Congress
‘Junior reporters’ pepper Hakeem Jeffries with tough questions
Hakeem Jeffries celebrated Take Your Child to Work Day by taking questions from the children of the Capitol Hill press corps, but it got heavy fast.
The first question: “Why do voters view Democrats so poorly?”
Jeffries responded with a lengthy explanation of broad voter distrust in institutions.
“There’s a great frustration that applies to every organized institution in this country, and Democrats are not immune from that,” he said.
But, Jeffries added, “Consistently in state after state and race after race and contest after contest, irrefutably, the American people are choosing the Democratic Party.”
He fielded other tough questions from the “junior reporters” in the room, including if he would have voted to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick if she hadn’t resigned earlier this week.
“She did the right thing in stepping down,” Jeffries said.
Other questions from kids in the room did tackle lighter subjects.
Jeffries’ favorite candy? Sugar-free Hershey’s chocolate.
What did he want to be when he grew up? A point guard for the Knicks or a hip-hop star.
Does he think the Yankees will win the World Series? “Hope springs eternal.”
And, simply, “What’s next?”
To that Jeffries said: “As Democrats, we’re fighting one battle after another, pushing back against the extremism that we believe is being released on the American people by Donald Trump and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.”
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