I have what are more questions than comments for Jon (or anyone who knows the answers). How does the blue slip work with Court of Appeals nominees? I’ve always thought (perhaps mistakenly) that the blue-slip was pretty much limited to the district courts, where it is easy to apply — i.e., the jurisdiction of a district court is always within one state (or territory), so a nominee can be blue-slipped by one of the two senators for that state. (E.g., in the 4 federal districts in NY — SDNY, EDNY, NDNY & WDNY — Sens. Schumer or Clinton could blue slip any nominee.)

But the Circuit Courts of Appeal are a very different animal. There are only 12 Circuits and they divide up all the 50 states and the territories (which comprise something like 94 federal districts). The Second Circuit, where NY’s federal courts are located, for example, also includes the federal districts of Connecticut and Vermont. (Some Circuits, like the 9th, are enormous.) Would what Jon is describing mean any of the six senators in the Second Circuit states could tank any nominee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals? Or would the blue slip be limited to the senators from the state of which the nominee is a citizen?

It would seem to me that if every senator in a Circuit could potentially veto a nominee, without any vote or hearing, just by a blue slip, that would be even worse than the filibuster. For example, how would you ever get an originalist judge on the Second Circuit if any one of Sens. Schumer, Clinton, Leahy, Dodd or Jeffords could effectively veto it? Would Sen. Boxer be able to blue-slip someone like Judge Janice Rogers Brown? I know she’s supposed to go to the D.C. Cir, not the 9th Cir., but would the fact that Brown is a California citizen mean Sens. Boxer and Feinstein would have the power to blue slip her?