President Biden signs executive order to protect abortion access
President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at protecting abortion rights. He said the Supreme Court had “exercised raw political power” by overruling Roe v. Wade.
Ariana Triggs, USA TODAY
- Sen. Rand Paul said Mitch McConnell did not give him the courtesy of contacting him about Chad Meredith’s planned nomination.
- Paul did not return Meredith’s “blue pass,” which the White House cited to abandon the intended nomination.
- “McConnell is guilty of this because he tried to do it secretly,” Paul said.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has blamed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the collapse of a deal with President Joe Biden to nominate a conservative anti-abortion attorney to be a federal judge in Kentucky.
Paul accused McConnell of failing to consult with him in his efforts to get Biden to nominate Chad Meredith to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
“I support Chad Meredith and I supported him when he was being considered for another position. I think he would make a good judge,” Paul told USA TODAY in a written statement. “Unfortunately, instead of communicating and providing support, Senator McConnell chose to make a secret deal with the White House that fell apart.”
As a result, Paul said he did not return Meredith’s “blue slip” to the White House, effectively killing plans for a nomination.
“McConnell is guilty of screwing it up because he tried to do it in secret,” Paul told Politico on Monday.
Paul’s remarks exposed a rift between the two Republican U.S. senators from Kentucky that spoiled a rare opportunity for a conservative lawyer to be nominated for a lifetime judicial term by a Democratic president.
More: Biden abandons plan to nominate anti-abortion, GOP federal judge McConnell pushed for
“He did them a huge favor”
A McConnell adviser told USA TODAY that the two senators worked together on several judicial and federal nominations when President Donald Trump was in office.
But that possibility does not exist when the president is from the opposing party. Under these circumstances, the president usually selects the nominee without the input of home state senators.
Meredith is the type of candidate conservatives would love to see, the adviser said, especially under a Democratic president and Senate.
“I suspect the White House is relieved; I suspect Dick Durbin is relieved; and I suspect the political people on the Biden team are relieved that Rand Paul blew this up,” the McConnell adviser said.
“He did them a huge favor.”
How the “blue slip” works.
Traditionally, local state senators return what is known as a “blue slip” to show their support for federal candidates for district court.
Republicans abandoned the “blue slip” practice for appeals court judges during the Trump administration, but kept it for district court judges. The Democrats kept the same practice.
The White House cited Paul’s failure to return Meredith’s blue slip on Friday in announcing that Biden would not formally nominate Meredith to the bench.
As first reported exclusively by The Courier Journal, a White House official informed Kentucky Gov. Andy Bescher’s office in a June 23 email that he planned to nominate Meredith the next day to be a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky .
The next morning, however, the US Supreme Court released its decision overturning Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion and sending the nation into shock. Meredith’s intended nomination was never announced or introduced.
More: Exclusive: Email shows Biden set to nominate anti-abortion GOP judge on Roe day
Biden’s planned nomination has sparked a backlash from Democrats and progressives angry that Biden would pick a member of the Federalist Society who opposes abortion access.
U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., expressed outrage at the pick, saying Biden must have made a deal with McConnell to not hold up future White House nominations.
McConnell told the New York Times that “there was no deal” with Biden to trade Meredith’s nomination for other considerations in the chamber, calling the president’s willingness to nominate his preferred conservative judge the kind of “collegiality” the senators demonstrated.
“It was a personal gesture of friendship,” McConnell added.
McConnell also said he was “very surprised” that Paul voiced his opposition to Meredith’s nomination.
How did the deal go?
McConnell’s adviser said the GOP leader contacted White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein in early 2022 and asked about Meredith’s judicial appointment.
The president’s top aide came back saying they were ready to nominate him to the federal bench.
“People can argue whether it’s good or bad, but two guys like Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden — he’s as different from us politically as anything in the world — who would just say, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that,'” the adviser said. “It’s a throwback to a different era.”
Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary, declined to comment on the McConnell adviser’s account of events. Klein did not respond to a request for comment.
The adviser said McConnell never offered a deal in exchange for nominating Meredith and the White House asked for nothing in return. But he said of Paul “sabotaging that was stunning”.
Several Senate Democrats last week said they would vote against Meredith’s nomination, raising the odds that the president’s own party could block the pick if he moves forward.
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre would not say Monday when asked why Biden planned to nominate Meredith in the first place. She echoed Paul’s opposition and said she was unaware of McConnell’s claim that the nomination was a “personal gesture of friendship” from Biden.
USA TODAY reporter Francesca Chambers contributed to this story.
Connect with Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.
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