Talk:Nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States

Attribution

Material on this page was copied from the article, Supreme Court of the United States. The complete edit history may be found there. bd2412 T 18:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Suggested free use educational video file

Explainer Supreme Court Justices

• File:Explainer Supreme Court Justices.webm

Suggested free use educational video file for use in the article.

Public domain as product of United States Federal Government -- VOA News.

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 05:55, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

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Upload of Confirmation Process graphic

I've uploaded a complex flowchart image which illustrates the process for the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court justices. There's a lot going on here, and it's possible that I got a detail wrong. If anyone catches anything or deems it appropriate to remove the image altogether, please let me know so that the image can be improved. MinnesotanUser (talk) 03:07, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, isn't Sonia Sotomayor a justice? Why isn't her hours listed for how long her hearing was?

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2020

Table showing nominees to the Supreme Court submitted during a Presidential election year needs to be revised to match the information provided on the following government website: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtNominations1789present.htm There are many, many discrepancies. The data needs to be revised entirely as most of it is incorrect. 68.202.213.113 (talk) 22:02, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done You need to state specific inaccuracies before action can be taken. Drdpw (talk) 22:38, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 September 2020

In the last full paragraph before the table in the Confirmation section, the Huffington Post is used as a reference for a citation when the sentence itself cites the Congressional Research Service. The Huffington Post article cites the CRS, but the CRS has since updated their report, and the number of days cited here is out of date. The sentence currently reads as follows:

" According to the Congressional Research Service, the average number of days from nomination to final Senate vote since 1975 is 67 days (2.2 months), while the median is 71 days (or 2.3 months)."

Its citations are as follows:

"The Stakes Of The 2016 Election Just Got Much, Much Higher". The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 14, 2016.
McMillion, Barry J. (October 19, 2015). "Supreme Court Appointment Process: Senate Debate and Confirmation Vote" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. Retrieved February 14, 2016.

The updated sentence should read as follows: "According to the Congressional Research Service, the average number of days from nomination to final Senate vote since 1975 is 69.6, (approximately 2.3 months) while the median is 69.0." The citation should be as follows: U.S. Congressional Research Service. Supreme Court Appointment Process: Senate Debate and Confirmation Vote (R44234; Sep. 7, 2018), by Barry J. McMillion.

Nomination of Anthony Kennedy in 1987/88

The list of nominations made in the last year of a presidency should potentially include Anthony Kennedy. He was nominated in late 1987, but not acted on until 1988. Of course this isn't a "nomination made in the last year of a presidency", but it is a nomination that was pending in the last year of a presidency, and so is relevant for purposes of this section (which is about the controversy surrounding the nominations to replace Scalia and Ginsburg).

Along the same lines, the chart should probably include nominations made in the last year of a term, not just of the presidency. In other words, when Trump makes a nomination this year, it should be on the chart regardless of whether he wins reelection.

Semi-protected edit request on 23 September 2020

Please change the second sentence in the below paragraph of the current version of the article to the following (removal of an extra "and" in that sentence).

Political scientist Michael Nelson wrote in 2012 that the Senate is less likely to approve Supreme Court nominations that are submitted during the final year of a presidency. Although Supreme Court vacancies rarely arise during the last year of a presidency, this type of situation received considerable public attention in 2016 with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the subsequent Merrick Garland nomination, and in 2020 upon the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

—McTrozo (talk) 13:32, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done: I have simplified the sentence by removing the clause mentioning Merrick Garland. Drdpw (talk) 14:08, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

How is removing important information the same as removing an excess "and"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goaded (talk • contribs) 21:59, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. I'm not sure what you want done with a 2 year old edit request. The article has changed significantly since this request was first opened. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:47, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

For the record Goaded, at this moment in time the sentence in question reads: "Although Supreme Court vacancies rarely arise during the last year of a presidency, this type of situation received considerable public attention in 2016 following the death of Antonin Scalia, and again in 2020 upon the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg." Drdpw (talk) 23:23, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I did see that, but I wondered why there was no reference to the nominations of their replacements. I would have thought adding information about the second time in four years the issue came up (and possibly why it was an issue - hearing both nominees would not have been contentious, and hearing neither would not have aroused even stronger feelings) would have been preferable to removing the reference to the first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland_Supreme_Court_nomination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gorsuch_Supreme_Court_nomination and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Coney_Barrett_Supreme_Court_nomination I realise that this is not a social media site, so I'll leave it to the regulars. Thanks for your time. Goaded

Why attribute to "the Senate" what was due to only one party?

Why does the text read "the Senate's refusal to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland" and not "Republicans in the Senate's refusal to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland"? Was there a single Democratic politician against the consideration of his nomination? If not, is this not political bias against them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goaded (talk • contribs) 21:55, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, the wording of that phrase, and the sentence as a whole, is politically neutral. A more apropos place to mention the political parties is in the earlier Full Senate section sentence: "Most recently, the committee, led at the time by Republicans, did not hold hearings on Democratic President Barack Obama's 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland; …" or something like that. Drdpw (talk) 00:17, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

That does sound like a reasonable change (I'm assuming I can't make it myself), although it wasn't the full Senate that decided not to consider Garland, just Republican leadership. Goaded

 Done – I have made the change mentioned above. Drdpw (talk) 18:35, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Nominees who declined their commission

The National Constitution Center had a blog post on January 2nd [1] with the seven people who were confirmed to the Court by the Senate, but refused the commission (including Rutledge and Jay, but also others I was not aware of like John Quincy Adams). Might this be worthy of inclusion? Magidin (talk) 18:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we need to list the names of the seven who declined to serve or (in one instance) died before assuming office, as they are noted in other articles. That said, we could add a sentence to the end of the 'Full Senate' section stating: Since 1789, seven successful nominees never took an oath of office to serve on the Court. The last person to decline a Supreme Court commission was Roscoe Conkling in 1882. Drdpw (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)