Blue Slip

When the President nominates someone for a federal judgeship, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends a blue-colored form to that nominee’s two home-state senators asking whether they approve. Historically, a negative or unreturned blue slip from even one home-state senator could quietly block a nomination from ever getting a hearing, giving individual senators significant leverage over judicial appointments in their own states — but the practice is a committee custom controlled entirely by whoever chairs the Judiciary Committee at the time, not a formal Senate rule.

Because of that, its enforcement has shifted repeatedly depending on who chairs the committee and how badly the chair’s party wants to fill vacancies. Committee chairs from both parties have at different points honored blue slips strictly for circuit court nominees and then abandoned that practice when it became politically inconvenient, illustrating how much of Congress’s day-to-day procedure rests on custom that a committee chair can simply choose to stop following.

Common misconception: people often assume the blue slip is a binding procedural requirement, similar to a formal committee vote. It has no independent legal force at all — it exists only because a Judiciary Committee chair chooses to respect it, and any chair can announce they will no longer honor negative blue slips for some or all types of nominations, instantly changing decades of settled practice.