Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants plenary power to the president of the United States to nominate, and with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the United States Senate, appoint justices to the Supreme Court. Nominations to the Supreme Court are considered to be official when the Senate receives a signed nomination letter from the president naming the nominee, which is then entered in the Senate's record. Since 1789, there have been 165 formal nominations (of 146 persons) to the Supreme Court; 128 of them (123 persons) have been confirmed.[3] The most recent nomination to be confirmed was that of Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022.[4] Of the 37 that were unsuccessful, 11 nominees were rejected in Senate roll-call votes, 12 were withdrawn by the president, and 14 lapsed at the end of a session of Congress. Six of these unsuccessful nominees were subsequently nominated and confirmed to other seats on the Court.[5] Additionally, although confirmed, seven nominees either declined office or (in one instance) died before assuming office.[3]
An important role in this process is played by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducts a comprehensive evaluation of a nominee's background and qualifications before the Senate considers the nomination. Once confirmed to a seat on the Court, justices have life tenure, and so they serve until they die in office, resign or retire, or are impeached and removed from office. Even so, as it requires a separate presidential appointment, an incumbent associate justice who is nominated to be chief justice must undergo the confirmation process again.[5]
On rare occasions, presidents have made Supreme Court appointments without the Senate's consent, when the Senate is in recess. Such "recess appointments", however, are temporary, expiring at the end of the Senate's next session. Presidents have made recess appointments on 12 occasions, most recently in 1958. Every recess appointed justice was later nominated to the same position, and all but one—John Rutledge in 1795 to be chief justice—was confirmed by the Senate.[5] The 1795 Rutledge nomination was the first Supreme Court nomination to be rejected by the Senate; the most recent nomination to be voted down was that of Robert Bork in 1987.[3]George Washington holds the record for most Supreme Court nominations, with 14 nominations (12 of which were confirmed). Four presidents—William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Jimmy Carter—did not make any nominations, as there were no vacancies while they were in office.[5]
Summary of table
The table below lists all persons nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court since 1789, in chronological order by date of nomination, along with the actions taken by the president and the Senate on those nominations. Specifically, the table lists the following for each Supreme Court nomination:
name of each nominee;
name of the president who made the nomination, and their political party affiliation;
name of the justice whose departure created the vacancy (the column sorts so as to show the person-to-person succession of judges since 1789);
majority party in the Senate at the time of the nomination;
date on which the president formally made the nomination, by signing a nomination message;
outcome, the type and date of final action by the Senate, or of a nomination's withdrawal by the president;
number of days that elapsed from the date a nomination was formally submitted until the date of final Senate action or the nomination's withdrawal.
The following final results of the nomination process are tracked:
confirmed–nominations confirmed by the Senate (including those of persons who subsequently declined to serve, or who died before taking office);
withdrawn–nominations withdrawn by the president prior to a confirmation vote;
rejected–nominations rejected by the Senate;
lapsed–nominations that lapsed at the end of a session of Congress without a Senate vote cast on whether to confirm (including nominations that were postponed or tabled by the Senate that were not given further consideration).
Additionally, where the final Senate action on a nomination was a roll-call vote (as opposed to a voice vote or unanimous consent), the totals for and against are noted.
In listing all persons ever nominated to the Supreme Court, the table includes the names of those who were not confirmed as well as those who were confirmed but did not assume office. For a list solely of the 115 individuals who assumed office and served on the Court, see List of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Not included in the table are intended nominees, announced presidential selections whose names were withdrawn prior to being formally submitted to the Senate,[upper-alpha 1] as such persons were never officially nominated to the Court.
↑ Such as Ronald Reagan's October 1987 selection of Douglas H. Ginsburg to be associate justice in the aftermath of the Senate's rejection of the nomination of Robert Bork, which was withdrawn before being conveyed to the Senate.[6][7]
1 2 3 4 5 Incumbent associate justice nominated for chief justice. Such appointments are subject to a separate confirmation process.
↑ Declined and continued to serve as an associate justice.
1 2 3 4 The number of days elapsed is measured from date the president formally made the nomination to the date of the action to postpone.
↑ The Senate had earlier voted 27–20 on June 15, 1844 to table the nomination.[24]
↑ A motion to bring the nomination up for discussion was defeated 25–26 on February 21, 1861.[29]
↑ Nomination effectively voided by the Judicial Circuits Act, signed July 23, 1866, which provided for the gradual elimination of several seats on the Supreme Court.
The chief justice of the United States is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States and is the highest-ranking officer of the U.S. federal judiciary. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants plenary power to the president of the United States to nominate, and, with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, appoint "Judges of the supreme Court", who serve until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached and convicted. The existence of a chief justice is only explicit in Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 which states that the chief justice shall preside over the impeachment trial of the president; this has occurred three times, for Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and for Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest-ranking judicial body in the United States. Established by Article III of the Constitution, the detailed structure of the court was laid down by the 1st United States Congress in 1789. Congress specified the Court's original and appellate jurisdiction, created 13 judicial districts, and fixed the initial size of the Supreme Court. The number of justices on the Supreme Court changed six times before settling at the present total of nine in 1869. As of June 2022, a total of 116 justices have served on the Supreme Court since 1789. Justices have life tenure, and so they serve until they die in office, resign or retire, or are impeached and removed from office.
John Johnston Parker was an American politician and United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was an unsuccessful nominee for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1930. He was also the United States alternate judge at the Nuremberg trials of accused Nazi war criminals and later served on the United Nations' International Law Commission.
Speculation abounded over potential nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States by President George W. Bush since before his presidency.
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During his two terms in office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated five members for the Supreme Court of the United States: Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Associate Justices John Marshall Harlan II, William Brennan, Charles Evans Whittaker, and Potter Stewart. All were confirmed by the Senate.
The nomination and confirmation of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States involves several steps, the framework for which is set forth in the United States Constitution. Specifically, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, provides that the president of the United States nominates a justice and that the United States Senate provides advice and consent before the person is formally appointed to the Court. It also empowers a president to temporarily, under certain circumstances, fill a Supreme Court vacancy by means of a recess appointment. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a justice, thus the president may nominate any individual to serve on the Court.
U.S. President Barack Obama nominated over 400 individuals for federal judgeships during his presidency. Of these nominations, Congress confirmed 329 judgeships, 173 during the 111th & 112th Congresses and 156 during the 113th and 114th Congresses.
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The Rutledge Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States from June to December 1795, when John Rutledge served as the second Chief Justice of the United States. Rutledge took office as a recess appointment of President George Washington to succeed John Jay. However, Rutledge was denied confirmation by the United States Senate, partly due to his attacks on the Jay Treaty. Rutledge was succeeded in office by Oliver Ellsworth. This was the first time that the Senate rejected a Supreme Court nomination; it remains the only time a "recess appointed" justice was not subsequently confirmed by the Senate. Rutledge's tenure as Chief Justice lasted for only 138 days, and the court only decided two cases under his leadership.
Florence Yu Pan is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2021 to 2022 and a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 2009 to 2021.
Arianna Julia Freeman is an American lawyer from Pennsylvania who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
President Joe Biden began his presidency with fewer vacancies to fill than his predecessor. He pledged to nominate people with diverse backgrounds and professional experience; further he pledged to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States.
John Rutledge was twice nominated by President George Washington to the Supreme Court of the United States, being nominated and confirmed in 1789 as an associate justice, and being unsuccessfully nominated in 1795 to serve as chief justice.
Harlan F. Stone was nominated and confirmed twice to the Supreme Court of the United States. First in 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge nominated him to serve as an associate justice and again in 1941, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Justice Stone to be elevated to Chief Justice. Both times, the United States Senate confirmed the nominations.
Sherman Minton was nominated to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by U.S. President Harry S. Truman on September 14, 1949, after the death in office of Wiley Rutledge created a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Per the Constitution of the United States, Minton's nomination was subject to the advice and consent of the United States Senate, which holds the determinant power to confirm or reject nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nomination was met with a mixed reception and faced active opposition stemming both from the belief that Minton would be a liberal justice and from his history as a New Deal-supporting member of the United States Senate. There was an unsuccessful effort to compel Minton to testify before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Nevertheless, the nomination was approved by a 48–16 vote of the United States Senate on October 4, 1949.
Since the creation of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1816, many, but not all, nominations for the Supreme Court of the United States have been first referred to a committee for review prior to facing a confirmation vote before the full United States Senate. Some nominations have been withdrawn, lapsed, or been postponed without being referred to the Judiciary Committee, while some others up until 1941 had proceeded to full Senate confirmation votes without first being reviewed by the Judiciary Committee. However, ever since 1941, all nominations have been referred to the Judiciary Committee.
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