“The Little Piece of Paper That Stops Time”: Inside the Senate’s Blue Slip Power Struggle

 In the United States Senate, power rarely announces itself. It whispers through corridors lined with portraits of long-dead men. It lives in customs and pieces of paper that most Americans will never see. Among these tokens of authority, one artifact stands out for its near-mystical influence a small sheet of blue paper capable of halting a president’s judicial nominee in their tracks for years.

It is called the blue slip, and for over a century, it has been alternately revered, ignored, or abused depending on who stands to gain from its use.

The tradition traces back to 1917, to a senator from Montana named Thomas J. Walsh, who chaired the Judiciary Committee. Walsh introduced the blue slip as a token of respect: a formal way to ask the senators from a nominee’s home state whether they approved. It was meant to symbolize balance between local representation and presidential appointment.

https://samueleburns.substack.com/p/the-little-piece-of-paper-that-stops