Dear Senate Democrats: Be like Mazie.
There are two primary reasons Democrats need to retake the Senate in 2020: judges and judges. The McConnell-Trump takeover of the judiciary has to be blunted, and Democrats have to figure out a way to do that. That might only happen with an infusion of new blood into the Senate, people who've been on the outside looking in and seeing just how phenomenally destructive Mitch McConnell will continue to be.
The old guard of the Senate Democrats is, even now, in 2019, after all the years of McConnell's wrecking ball, acting as though they can return to normal and bring back all those niceties of the Senate. Even in the same breath as admitting just how extreme McConnell has been. "When you think about Merrick Garland and what McConnell has done to the Senate, there’s a lot of feelings of vengeance and revenge," said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate Democratic whip. "We just hope the better angels of our nature will prevail."
It's not vengeance and revenge. It's saving the country, but beyond that there are no better angels on the Republican side. Just saying those words out loud is an embarrassment. Then there's Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who could very well be at the helm of the Judiciary Committee if Democrats take back the Senate. "I'm not into payback. I never have been. And I'd just do it as fairly as I possibly could, that's all," she said. Using the majority to marginalize Republicans "has never been discussed. Much to our credit." That sound you hear is Sen. Lindsey Graham, current chair of the committee, cackling with glee.
So bring back the blue slips! cry the likes of Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal. That's the tradition of not moving nominees forward unless their home-state senators officially approve them or "blue slip" them. "It ensures that judicial nominees respect the character and views of the areas where they serve and that the local bar has a say or impact because they know the nominees better than anyone else," he says. What it ensures is that Democratic presidents don't get to fill vacancies, as Blumenthal saw firsthand during President Obama's term.
The reality: McConnell forced so many vacancies on critical courts during Obama's term that Trump has now secured 43 appeals court judges; there are just four circuit court vacancies now. How have they done this? By ignoring Democratic senators' objections to many of these nominees. How did they keep so many vacancies with a Democratic majority in the Senate in the early days of Obama's term? By exploiting then-Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy's adherence to the blue slip tradition.
There are senators who get it. "Democrats should not play by a different set of rules from Republicans," says Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has a particular interest in this as she eyes the White House. "We can't live in a world where the Republicans twist everything their way whether they're in the majority or the minority and the Democrats just keep trotting along. That's not working." She's echoed by Hawaii's Mazie Hirono. "I don't consider it vengeance," the Judiciary Committee member says. "I consider it doing something about the reality of what's happening to our courts."
We need a lot more Hironos and Warrens in the Senate, starting in 2020.
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