Conformation And Appointment To The Supreme Court example essay topic

The appointment and conformation to the Supreme Court has become on of the most sought after and most prestigious positions in the U.S. Government. In the past two hundred years the Supreme Court has changed in many different ways and with each decision affecting the delicate balance of the U.S. legal system the appointment of justices has become a very watched over subject. In all conformation and appointment to the Supreme Court there is politics involved but with each presiding president their agenda is focused towards appointing a justice that expresses their ideas on the court. The Appointment process is delegated to the president in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution and states, "shall nominate, and by with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges to the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law. Which means that when a justice leaves the president can appoint a replacement to the court however the Supreme Court must confirm them with a majority vote. When a justice decides to step down the current president must make a very important decision in going through the hundreds of qualified judges.

Since the beginning of the Supreme Court there has been 108 members, which makes it one of the most exclusive government jobs in the world. All but four of the justices have been white male two were female and the other two were black. There is no age limit on how old a justice may be, and no requirement that a justice must be from the United States. There is one common trend that all justices have is that they have all been lawyers. However many justices never graduated or even attended law school, they gained their legal experience by others means.

John Rutledge and john Blair received their legal experience at the Inns of Court in England. James F. Byrnes received his legal experience as a law clerk and passed the bar at age 24, even though he never graduated from high school. 2 Since all of the justices have been lawyers most have been judges before being appointed to the Supreme Court, forty-one justices have had experience at the state level and thirty-one at the federal level. The only chief justice on the court without judicial experience is Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Six members of the Supreme Court sat on the Continental Congress.

Some justices have even held congressional positions. In 1908-1912 William H. Taft was president afterward he was appointed to the Court and then was named chief justice in 1921. Before 1936 there was a religious biased to the court in that all of the justices that were appointed were protestant. When Andrew Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney a catholic it broke the protestant preeminence on the court. 4 Another misrepresentation to the Supreme Court was the geographical. In the courts pre-civil war history it was assumed that each region should have representation on the court, meaning that the larger more populous states like Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts should have a seat on the court.

After the Civil war this tradition faded with the expansion of the United States. 2 A total of six justices have been born out of the United States all of whom served on the court before 1940. The first Justice to be born outside the United States was James Wilson, in 1742 and came to America as a young man from Scotland. He was an original signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the 1787 Constitutional Convention; he was also one of the original members of the Supreme Court.

One of the most important was George Sutherland who came here from England and became a justice in 1922 and was well known for constantly voting against most of Franklin D. Roosevelt's new deal programs. 2 The Conformation process is the most important part of the appointment process; it is also the hardest part to get past. Since 1994 twenty-eight nominees have failed to qualify approval by the senate. The main reason an appointee fails to qualify in front of the senate is not usually the nominee's legal experience, but political and legal ideology. 2 The Conformation of justices has changed over the past 200 years at the Supreme Court. In the beginning there were only five seats to fill with a chief justice, however today there are 8 seats with a chief justice.

The number of seats has changed over the time also, in 1790 and 1807 a seat was added to the court. Congress added two more seats in 1837 and a tenth seat in 1863. In 1865 the tenth seat was dropped and in 1867 the seats were reduced to seven, then in 1869 congress set the number of seats at nine and has stayed that way ever since. 4 When the president appointees a justice the senate must vote and look at the nominee's qualifications. To be confirmed the senate must have a majority vote, there have been few presidents who have not appointed someone to the court. President John Tyler suffered five defeats with in his nominees, the most of any president, all because of political disputes with the senate.

In Roger B. Taney the first catholic justice was first chosen to be an associate justice in 1835, but was confirmed in 1836 when he was named chief justice. The Nineteenth century saw little legal ideology disputes most of the confirmation battles were just politics. Legal ideology didn't become a factor until the twentieth century. 2 The twentieth century saw major changes in the appointment and conformation process.

In 1925 the Senate began asking questions directly to the nominee on certain occasions due to lack of knowledge about the nominee. Before 1929 the senate did not allow reporters into the hearings for Supreme Court confirmation. 3 In the early 1960's Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who was a lawyer at the time, wrote an article about the senate's limited inquiry of nominee's during the conformation process. In hearings of Thurgood Marshall in 1967 and Abe Fortis 1868 marked the beginning of a longer more in depth conformation process.

Another change in the late twentieth century was the addition of televised conformation hearings, which changed the way we go about choosing justices altogether. Before 1929 a popular nominee with legal experience and congressional or judicial experience was easily confirmed, however today the political magnifying glass only appointees nominees who are relatively new to the political world or who have gained popularity through hard work in the legal community. 2 The confirmation process of today includes rigorous questioning by the senate and the nominee's background information checked to the last detail. In 1991 president Bush nominated the second black man to the court to replace Thurgood Marshall. Clarence Thomas was appointed and was immediately scrutinized for charges of sexual harassment brought out before the senate hearings. Thomas denied the allegations and was confirmed by a 52-48 vote by the senate one of the closest in history.

The first woman appointed to the court was Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981 by president Reagan. Her lack of legal experience was a major issue during the senate hearings, however this was only because she was a woman and couldn't find a job as a legal associate. She finish third in her class at Stanford Law, first was William H. Rhenquist had been first, only to find out that being a woman could only get her a job as a law clerk. 3 She was confirmed by a 99-0 vote the largest margin in history.

5 In the Supreme Court the confirmation process is getting harder and harder to pass for nominees who have certain political opinions about certain topics. In 1987 Robert Bork, a member of the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., was nominated by Reagan. Bork was not confirmed by a 58-42 vote because of his writings on constitutional topics that were not appeasing to the senate. 1 The Supreme Court currently has six white males, two white females, and one African American sitting on the Court today. I believe this will change very soon because most of the justices are getting rather old, but it doesn't mean they lack judgment. In the near future whether it will be president George W. Bush or another president the court will change and it is my opinion that we will see and hear on of the most important conformations in history.