Senate Confirmation of Appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract

tutional and statutory law. This study assumes that the impact of interest groups on the selection of Supreme Court Justices can be divided into two stages: the Presi? dent's selection of a nominee and the Senate's acceptance or rejection of the nominee. The first component is impossible to quantify because the method of selecting nominees has changed with almost every President, as have the vehicles used by interest groups to influence the decision. Presidents have based their nominations upon subjective and arbitrary criteria: they have nominated complete strangers and intimate friends, law school deans and men without law degrees, established jurists and persons with little legal experience, savvy politicians and political nov? ices. Some Presidents have delegated substantial responsibility for find? ing nominees while others have made their selections with little advice. Some nominations were widely anticipated while others were complete surprises to everyone ? including the nominee.2 There is, in fact, only one consistent element in the criteria for nomination: each President's hope that his nominee will interpret the law to the advantage of those whose interests the nomination was intended to satisfy. Therefore, this paper takes the President's selection of a nominee as given and analyzes the second component ? the Senate's action ? using those relation

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