Sen. Dianne Feinstein's formal ability to block 9th Circuit nominees evaporated nearly a year ago when Sen. Chuck Grassley said that he would not apply the Senate's so-called "blue slip" tradition — which allows home-state senators to object to judicial picks. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo Congress Dems fume as GOP advances Trump judicial picks during Senate recess

A fresh round of partisan jostling broke out on Monday over President Donald Trump's judicial nominees, as Senate Democrats objected to considering several contentious picks for the federal bench during the chamber's preelection recess.

At issue is a pair of hearings on judicial nominees slated for this week and next week, while the Senate is out of session ahead of next month's midterm elections. Senate Democrats raised specific alarms about moving ahead on "controversial" nominees to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which Trump tapped new picks for last week, hours before the minority party struck a deal to confirm 15 of the president's judges and move the chamber into recess — much to the consternation of liberal groups.


"The Committee has never before held nominations hearings while the Senate is in recess before an election. The handful of nominations hearings that have been held during a recess have been with the minority’s consent, which is not the case here — in fact, we were not even consulted," the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary panel wrote to committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday.

The White House announced its latest trio of 9th Circuit judicial picks without getting buy-in from the nominees' home-state Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, both of whom pushed back quickly. The 9th Circuit nominees expected to get considered next week do not include those Feinstein and Haris objected to but do include one, Eric Miller, who met with opposition from one of his Democratic home-state senators.

The 9th Circuit, located in San Francisco, dealt a recent setback to Trump's travel ban governing majority-Muslim countries, and his administration sought to avoid it altogether in defending its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

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Much of the formal ability Feinstein and Harris have to block 9th Circuit nominees, however, evaporated nearly a year ago when Grassley said he would not apply the Senate's so-called blue slip tradition — which allows home-state senators to object to judicial picks — for appeals court judges who cover multistate circuits. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) also has reportedly declined to lend her blue-slip support to Eric Miller, who is slated for consideration at next week's hearing according to correspondence that Grassley's office released Monday night.

Mike Davis, Grassley's chief counsel for nominations, wrote to Democratic aides in the Oct. 1 correspondence that they had "agreed that [Democrats] will not complain about timing, including three hearings in a three-week period.

"But we also agreed that it is fair game for your side to complain about hearings with two circuits," Davis added. "See how reasonable I am?"

Grassley has said he'll continue to honor blue slips for federal district court nominees who try cases from a single state.

Grassley fired back at the Democratic letter on Monday with his own missive to Feinstein, which contended that she already had consented to nomination hearings this week and next week after he agreed to three postponements of earlier dates.

"And you specifically agreed not to object to these hearing dates when I rescheduled them at your request," Grassley wrote to his Democratic counterpart. He reiterated his commitment to this Wednesday's hearing but did not mention next week's scheduled hearing, when Democrats expect the 9th Circuit nominees to get considered.

A Feinstein spokeswoman responded to Grassley's letter by saying that at the time the hearings were previously discussed, "at no point did we think there was a possibility of going into recess before October 29th, as was scheduled" before last week's agreement that enabled early adjournment.