LogFAQs > #974621454

I think what people see is a seeming lack of urgency towards the structural issues that elected Democrats spend a lot of time decrying. When given power, they'll point to the Supreme Court or filibuster as reasons they can't wield it, but has there been a push from party leadership to make public issues out of those? Does anybody believe Joe Biden even wants to get rid of the filibuster, or alter the number of Supreme Court justices, much less get into a fight over them?

Judicial blue slips are a very good example. We've all seen the importance of the judicial branch, but Democratic senators are abiding by a practice that allows Republicans to veto judges from their own states - despite the GOP not returning that favor under Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/senate-judicial-nominations-blue-slips-durbin/index.html

If Durbin allows Republicans to block Biden from filling trial judge nominees in their home state, it really is going to hamper president Bidens ability to leave a mark on the judiciary, said Chris Kang, an alum of the Obama White House Counsels Office who is now chief counsel of Demand Justice, which advocates for Democrats to take a more aggressive approach to the judicial confirmation process.
Of the 38 district court vacancies that dont currently have nominees, more than two dozen are in red or purple states where Republican senators have veto power via the blue slip over whom Biden chooses. A large swath of those openings are in the South, where some of the most consequential decisions on voting rights, immigration, and other contentious policies are handed down.

You start to see a pattern where Democrats are apparently more concerned with the upholding of Senate decorum or abstract rules invented by slaveowners than policy outcomes.