This anti-choice nominee should not get a lifetime appointment

Please speak out with others and add your name:

Michael Boggs is anti-choice and anti-civil rights—the sort of judicial nominee that Senate Democrats would normally reject. But he’s on track to get a lifetime appointment on a federal court.

Why? Because Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy continues to follow an arcane Senate tradition called "blue slips" that have effectively given right-wing senators veto power over judicial nominations.

Sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos: End the practice of blue slips, don't confirm Michael Boggs, and stop allowing right-wing senators to blackball President Obama’s pro-choice nominees to the federal judiciary.

Here is the deal with blue slips: When the president nominates a judge from a particular state, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends a “blue slip” to the state’s two senators—asking for their opinion. If one or both senators do not approve, it effectively kills the nomination by blocking a hearing.

So, for a state like Georgia—represented by two wildly anti-choice Republicans—Michael Boggs is allowed to make it through to a vote while pro-choice candidates are blocked. It’s not right.

Blue slips are neither in the Constitution nor even an official rule of the Senate. This is a tradition the Senate Judiciary chair can do away with at any time, as Republicans did, on occasion, when they controlled both the White House and the Senate.

Sign the petition to Sen. Leahy: End blue slips and don't confirm Michael Boggs. We need judges who will protect a woman’s right to choose.

Keep fighting,
Chris Bowers, Daily Kos