Alina Habba slams Sens. Chuck Grassley, Thom Tillis over Senate's blue slips

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Source: Politico

08/24/2025 04:10 PM EDT


Alina Habba is heaping more pressure on Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to revoke the chamber’s blue slip tradition, which New Jersey’s two Democratic senators wielded to stop her from getting a floor vote for the post of U.S. attorney in the state. Trump had nominated Habba, whom he tapped on an interim basis in March, for the full-time appointment.

But Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim used blue slips — which empower home-state senators to block U.S. attorney and District Court judge nominees — to keep her from advancing in the chamber. And Grassley, despite pressure from the White House, isn’t planning on curtailing that power anytime soon. Meanwhile, Tillis, also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he’d serve as a check against anyone opposed by a home-state senator even if Grassley rescinded the procedure.

“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.” “Senator Booker and Senator Kim had absolutely every right to vote no for me for the U.S. Attorney position. But I had the right as the nominee to get if front of Senate and to be voted on, to be vetted. I never even got there.”

But there remains little appetite in the GOP-led Senate to scrap the tradition, which Republicans have used in the past to influence judicial appointments at home with Democrats in the White House.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/24/alina-habba-slams-senate-blue-slips-00522501