Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans are complaining that the Democratic majority in the Senate are ignoring objections from home-state Senators when confirming President Joe Biden’s judicial picks–due to the fact that Republicans rejected the “blue slip” tradition while they ran the Senate during the Trump Administration.

As Roll Call reports, Tennessee Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty declined to sign the “blue slips,” essentially an endorsement of the nominee by the Senators of the state the nominee would service.  Prior to 2017, such an omission would stop a nomination dead in its tracks and the Senate would not continue with the nomination.

However, when he was Senate Majority Leader from 2017 to 2021, McConnell ignored objections from Democratic Senators to judicial nominees in their states and pushed through Trump nominees in 17 of 18 cases when Democratic Senators withheld “blue slip” endorsements. 

“We are about to enter a four-year — I don’t want to characterize or mischaracterize the situation — four years of trying to balance the books,” Judiciary Chairman Richard J. Durbin said.

Now a minority–something that makes him cringe to think about–Republican Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, who celebrated Republicans pushing through judicial nominees, now decries the practice, pleading that Democrats “call off the dogs” and find a “neutral way” to restore the blue slip process.