Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 - 2010: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President
August 23, 2010 - RL33225
The process of appointing Supreme Court Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature, the sharing of power between the President and Senate, has remained unchanged. To receive a lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. A key role also has come to be played midway in the process by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Table 1 of this report lists and describes actions taken by the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the President on all Supreme Court nominations, from 1789 to the present. The table provides the name of each person nominated to the Court and the name of the President making the nomination. It also tracks the dates of formal actions taken, and time elapsing between these actions, by the Senate or Senate Judiciary Committee on each nomination, starting with the date that the Senate received the nomination from the President. Of the 43 Presidents in the history of the United States, 40 made nominations to the Supreme Court. They made a total of 160 nominations, of which 124 (more than three-quarters) received Senate confirmation. Also, on 12 occasions in the ...