Kochs out to shape federal courts

Network tries to kill Senate rule to block judicial nominees

WASHINGTON The influential donor network tied to billionaire Charles Koch is taking aim at a long- standing tradition that allows senators to block judicial nominees from their states as conservatives race to seize on one- party control of Washington to rapidly reshape the federal judiciary.

The target: the “blue- slip” process, which keeps judicial nominees from moving forward in Senate confirmation if a home- state senator raises an objection. Since Republicans hold a narrow 52- 48 majority in the Senate, honoring the practice could give Democrats significant power to delay confirmation of President Trump’s nominees.

“Having a home- state senator have the ability to slow down the process, in our opinion, doesn’t make sense under the Constitution,” Mark Holden, a top official in the Koch network told USA TODAY. “If you look at why Trump won, he wanted to change the culture of D. C. and what’s going on there.

“Some of these arcane rules in the Senate, they don’t make a lot of sense,” Holden said.

At a recent private retreat in

“Some of these arcane rules in the Senate, they don’t make a lot of sense.” Mark Holden, Koch network

Colorado for about 400 of the network’s donors, Koch officials distributed a one- page document explaining the blue- slip practice and urging attendees — many of them big players in Republican politics — to press the issue with the Senate’s GOP leadership and “other Republican senators you know.”

“Tell them not to allow needless delay tactics and obstruction of the process,” the document reads. The stakes are high. When Trump entered office, there were more than 100 vacancies on the federal bench — an opportunity created in part by Senate Republicans blocking many of President Obama’s nominees before he left office. Removing the blue- slip obstacle could help Trump reverse, in a single term, the Democrats’ advantage on the nation’s 13 federal appeals courts and shape the federal judiciary for decades.

Nine of the 13 appellate courts have a majority of Democratic presidents’ nominees. Trump has announced 22 nominees to the lower courts, including nine to the appeals courts, a pipeline to the Supreme Court. Federal judges have lifetime appointments.

More lower- court nominations are on the way. Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society who has advised the White House on judicial picks, told USA TODAY that Trump has signed off behind the scenes on a “few dozen” more still- to- be- announced nominees to the federal bench.

Holden’s network plans to spend as much as $ 400 million to advance its free- market, limited-regulation agenda before the 2018 elections. He called the lower- court nominations a “huge priority” for the political empire associated with Charles Koch and his brother, David.

The Supreme Court typically takes about 80 cases a year, so the group is focused on shaping the lower courts that “are rendering all the decisions,” Holden said.

The Kochs’ Kansas- based industrial conglomerate, Koch Industries, is among the corporate donors to the Federalist Society, and Leo attended the donor conclave in June.

Other Republican- aligned activists are weighing in.

Friday, the conservative Judi- cial Crisis Network, which spent $ 7 million promoting Justice Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, began a $ 140,000 ad campaign in Michigan to push another Trump pick. Its 30- second commercial calls on the state’s Democratic senators, Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, who could use their blue slips to veto Michigan picks, to back Joan Larsen, a Michigan Supreme Court justice nominated to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

The blue slip is a century- old practice of senatorial courtesy and refers to the blue- colored form that the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee sends to a nominee’s home- state senators. Senators can send it back with a positive response to move the nomination along. If senators object, they either don’t return the form or return it with a negative response.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he expects to abide by the blue- slip tradition. But he and other top Republicans also said home- state senators should have less say about nominees to regional appeals courts, which cover multiple states.

Democrats and liberal groups have accused Trump of outsourcing the judicial vetting process to conservative organizations, such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation think tank.

In a memo in May, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said ending the blue- slip practice would allow “nominees to be handpicked by right- wing groups.”

Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, said stripping Democrats’ power to “have a meaningful conversation” with Republicans about nominees could undermine an independent judiciary

“The administration, together with ultra- conservative groups, will pack individuals who will rubber- stamp President Trump’s agenda across a range of issues,” Aron said.