A Memphis lawyer nominated by President Biden to the U.S. 6th Court of Appeals, is on his way to a confirmation hearing, and Tennessee’s two Republican senators are not happy about it.
The nominee is Andre Mathis of the Butler Snow law firm, and the nomination, announced on November 17, was presumably based on a recommendation by 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, the state’s senior Democratic office-holder.
Home-state senators, regardless of party, are traditionally given approval-or-veto power, but, according to the D.C. periodical Roll Call, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty were not given that option.
And the reason is that, following the Trump administration, the “blue slip” protocol, inviting a response from home-state senators of judicial nominees, was jettisoned.
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) characterized the circumstance as an opportunity to “balance the books,” apropos the four-year Trump practice.
A hearing on the Mathis nomination would be forthcoming, Durbin indicated.
The situation was reminiscent of the lengthy years-long wait endured by Obama nominee Ed Stanton III, also of Memphis, a U.S. District Judge nominee who was approved by home-state Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker but kept from a confirmation vote by then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).