[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   CONFIRMATION OF RALPH R. ERICKSON

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I wish to support the confirmation of 
U.S. district judge Ralph Erickson to serve on the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
  Mr. Erickson received the support of both of his home State Senators, 
Democrat Heidi Heitkamp and Republican John Hoeven. Both Hoeven and 
Heitkamp submitted their blue slips for Mr. Erickson, and the Senate 
Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance his nomination to the 
full Senate.
  I hope Mr. Erickson's confirmation reinforces the importance of 
bipartisanship and the importance of maintaining the blue slip process. 
The Judiciary Committee has used the blue slip process since at least 
1917, and the process is integral to maintaining the bipartisan nature 
of the Senate. Under both Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, even 
when a party had unified control of the Presidency and the Senate, if a 
home State Senator objected to a nominee, the nomination did not 
proceed. There have been recent discussions to suspend the blue slip 
tradition in order to force nominations through the Judiciary 
Committee. I encourage my colleagues to reject any such measures and to 
continue in the blue slip tradition.

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