On Thursday, as the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nomination of Rebecca Lutzko, tapped by President Biden to fill a vacancy in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Northern District of Ohio, Sen. Dick Durbin implored lawmakers to respect longstanding Senate-approval traditions for new members of the federal judiciary, Courthouse News reports. Both parties have respected Senate tradition for decades, said Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, citing some history: The last time the upper chamber had a roll call vote on a U.S. attorney appointment was in 1975; during the Trump administration the Senate approved 85 federal prosecutors on voice votes.
The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman issued the call as his panel met to approve Lutzko, whose first nomination had fizzled on the Senate floor thanks to the obstruction of a single Republican lawmaker, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. The upper chamber has traditionally regarded U.S. attorney nominees as uncontroversial political appointments, confirming them without much fanfare via voice vote in a process known as unanimous consent. That precedent has come under fire in recent months from Vance, who has repeatedly objected to unanimous consent for federal prosecutors, as a form of protest against the Department of Justice’s indictments against former President Donald Trump. Lutzko, tapped to fill a vacancy in Vance's home state, was one of the nominees caught in the procedural vise. Since Lutzko could be headed to Ohio, she was subjected to a longtime Judiciary process called "blue slipping," by which lawmakers can endorse or object to judicial nominees proposed for their home states. While the mechanism is intended to give special dispensation to home state senators who must answer to their constituents, critics of blue slips have argued that the process can easily give way to partisan obstruction. Durbin has long defended blue slipping as a vestige of good-faith bipartisan politics. “I think that is a standard we should live by,” Durbin said Thursday. “So please, when you’re talking about putting holds on people like U.S. attorneys or whether you’re talking about blue slips, let’s reflect on the fact that the integrity of this process is at issue.”
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