History of Conflict over U.S. Supreme Court Appointments

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for American Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts are anticipated for some time in September.

The history of U.S. Supreme Court nominations has often been one marked by open ideological conflict and political intrigue as shown in a recent National Public Radio report that examines the battles surrounding Clarence Thomas in 1991, Robert H. Bork in 1987, G. Harrold Carswell in 1970, Clement Haynsworth Jr. in 1969, and Abe Fortas in 1968.

The Jurist website based at the University of Pittsburgh organized a symposium in 2004 on the judicial confirmation process in the U.S. Some of the presentation titles are very revealing of trends south of the border that have many observers worried:

• Is the Judicial Confirmation Process Broken?What would Hamilton, Tocqueville, and Montesquieu do?
• Anatomy of a Confirmation Mess: Recent Trends in the Federal Judicial Selection Process
• Judicial Selection During the Bush Administration: Is The System Broken?
• The Passionate Intensity of the Confirmation Process

One can also follow stories about the Roberts nomination fight on the Findlaw website, in the Supreme Court news section.

In late July, the National Archives of the United States released thousands of pages of documents and files concerning the current nominee. And Resourceshelf reported that askSam has created a searchable database of Roberts' decisions as a judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.