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30 Sep 2005
Did you know that 4 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices now serving were confirmed by unanimous votes? And another 3 had fewer than ten opposing votes each. Only Clarence Thomas's confirmation was even close.
Justice Appointed by Vote John Paul Stevens Ford 98-0 Sandra Day O'Connor Reagan 99-0 Antonin Scalia Reagan 98-0 Anthony Kennedy Reagan 97-0 David Souter G.H.W. Bush 90-9 Clarence Thomas G.H.W. Bush 52-48 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Clinton 97-3 Stephen Breyer Clinton 87-9 John Roberts G. W. Bush 78-22
nomad says:
Obvious: Roberts was the second closest.
Logan says:
I just find the concept of a unanimous vote so completely alien. I mean landslide, sure, I could see that. But not a single opposing vote? Granted, there are a few abstentions/absences in most of those votes, but it’s still extremely one-sided.
nomad says:
Let’s throw the presidential election margins in there too, just to see if there’s a correlation. Let’s also expand the data to show every justice in history.
Logan says:
Really what would probably be more useful is the makeup of the Senate for each of those votes (especially since Ford wasn’t an elected president). 99-0 is a lot more indicative of something if the Senate was evenly split. I’m working on getting you those numbers.
Logan says:
The makeup of the Senate for the votes were: 38-60, 53-46, 53-47, 45-55, 45-55, 44-56, 57-43, 57-43, 55-44, respectively (with the President’s party listed first). Looking at the few vote results I can find for pre-Ford justices, I don’t believe that virtual landslides are a historical commonplace.
Ellyn says:
What you see in that list of votes is that there used to be a thing called consensus candidates back in the old days. The judges were actually nominated on the basis of the judicial experience not just because they passed the litmus test required by the extremist fringe of the president’s party. Sure, our current president may haved listened to bipartisan input but it’s not what he uses to make his decision.
We can be thankful, at least, that he did pick a candidate for the chief justice that is said to be intelligent and thoughtful. Hard to believe he’ll be able to repeat that trick, again.
So, our senators both voted for Judge Roberts. I’m not surprised by Lieberman but I would like to think that Dodd voted for him just because he is picking his battles. He must have figured that Roberts wasn’t sufficiently egregious to be worth provoking the opposition party.
Ellyn says:
What you see in that list of votes is that there used to be a thing called consensus candidates back in the old days. The judges were actually nominated on the basis of the judicial experience not just because they passed the litmus test required by the extremist fringe of the president’s party. Sure, our current president may haved listened to bipartisan input but it’s not what he uses to make his decision.
We can be thankful, at least, that he did pick a candidate for the chief justice that is said to be intelligent and thoughtful. Hard to believe he’ll be able to repeat that trick, again.
So, our senators both voted for Judge Roberts. I’m not surprised by Lieberman but I would like to think that Dodd voted for him just because he is picking his battles. He must have figured that Roberts wasn’t sufficiently egregious to be worth provoking the opposition party.