Supreme Court Nominations Fly By

         When Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the United States Supreme Court in 2018, I wasn’t sure he would get confirmed. His confirmation hearings were contentious to say the least, and there seemed to be a lot of pushback from the media, Democrats, and even some conservatives. When Amy Coney Barrett was nominated this year, there was also quite a bit of opposition. Although Kavanaugh had squeaked by, I had thought to myself: “would Amy Coney Barrett also make it through the confirmation hearing process?”

I should have known better. Of course! “Since 1789, 42 presidents have nominated 163 people to serve on the Supreme Court. Of those who were nominated, 126 were confirmed and seven declined to serve. Only 11 people who faced the Senate were not confirmed to the Supreme Court, and only one was rejected from serving as chief justice.” In over 200 years, only 11 rejections! Given the effectiveness of the incentive system in place, the pre-screening process for US Supreme Court nominations, prior to their Senate confirmation hearing, is incredibly robust. Thus, we seldom see a nomination rejected by the Senate. Put another way, a US Supreme Court nomination will rarely be put forth by the president if they are not extremely confident that the candidate will be confirmed by the Senate. As Weingast and Moran wrote, “the more effective the incentive system, the less often we should observe sanctions in the form of congressional attention through hearings and investigations” (pg.769). US Supreme Court nominations are a prime example of their paper in action.