Tell Senate Leaders to Stop Blocking of Catholic Judicial Nominee
| Target Name | Target Organization |
| Senator Mitch McConnell | (Senate Majority Leader) |
| Phil Maxson | (Chief of Staff to Sen. McConnell) |
| Katelyn Conner | (Leg. Dir. to Sen. McConnell) |
| Senator Grassley | (Chairman, Senate Judiciary) |
| Jill Kozeny | (Chief of Staff to Sen. Grassley) |
| James Rice | (Leg. Dir. to Sen. Grassley) |
Gordon Giampietro, a distinguished former federal prosecutor and devout Catholic, has been nominated by President Trump to the federal bench in the eastern district of Wisconsin. Giampetro is pro-marriage and pro-life, and has been highly critical (as have dozens of prominent legal scholars) of the US Supreme Court's Obergefell decision imposing same-sex 'marriage' on the nation.
Even though Giampietro is eminently qualified for the position to which he's been nominated, leftist Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin is blocking his nomination because, in her view, being pro-marriage disqualifies Giampietro for service on the bench. She's decided to blackball Giampietro, denying him the senatorial courtesy of a "blue slip" and thus, she hopes, derailing his nomination. This arcane privilege is generally seen as just a formality nowadays: the "blue slip" is a statement of an opinion from a Senator in whose state a federal judicial nominee resides. But Baldwin is simply withholding her blue slip and not returning her opinion, which has stalled Giampietro's confirmation process.
Sign our petition urging Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Chuck Grassley (Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee) to take the necessary actions to side-step this bit of skullduggery from Senator Baldwin, and move the confirmation process for Giampietro forward in the Senate. It is outrageous that Baldwin thinks she can unilaterally torpedo a judicial nomination of a brilliantly qualified candidate simply because, in her bigoted view, his being a Catholic and believing what his Church teaches on marriage and life issues should bar him from sitting on the bench!
The Petition
Advance Giampietro Nomination Despite Blue Slip Withheld by Senator Baldwin
Dear Senator McConnell and Senator Grassley:
I write today to urge you to take whatever action is necessary to advance Gordon Giampietro's federal judicial nomination process in spite of the shameful attempt by Senator Tammy Baldwin to block his confirmation by withholding her "blue slip," simply because Giampietro is a Catholic who believes that marriage is the union of a man and a woman and that Obergefell was poorly reasoned and wrongly decided by the Supreme Court.
Giampietro's view on Obergefell is not a marginal position: it is shared by countless Americans, of every creed, based not only on their beliefs about marriage but also simply on a level-headed analysis of the decision, wherein the Court, in the memorable words of the late Justice Scalia's dissent, "descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."
It is simply an outrage that Baldwin seems to think Giampietro's Catholic faith is a bar to his service on the bench! This is nothing more than rank bigotry and discrimination against someone with whom Baldwin disagrees, but with whom many Americans still agree.
Please do whatever is needed to move this nomination forward despite Senator Baldwin's withheld "blue slip," and allow a fair hearing of Mr. Giampietro's judicial reasoning and legal acumen to determine whether he will sit on the federal bench, rather than an unconstitutional religious test such as Senator Baldwin would apply.
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