You are of course correct -- the last democrat-nominated majority was during the Kennedy/Johnson era.
The greatest majority lately was 8:1 during Bush Sr.
The last democrat supermajority was during Roosevelt/Truman, when all 9 justices were democrat-nominated.
For anyone who's interested, here's a google doc I created that shows the tenure of the justices with the party of the president that nominated them, starting from the end of Truman. It's been on my to-do list to extend it back to the first justices. Maybe I'll take that as a weekend project.
There has not been a Democratic majority on the court in the last half century, and it is unlikely that there will be one for another half century.
There could have been one a few years ago, but a judicial nomination was held up for over a year, on blatantly partisan grounds. They all know that they were appointed for partisan reasons.
There are some very partisan cases appearing in front of the court and it is worth considering whether they will act in a partisan manner. There is reason why to believe that they have, and will. It should not just be up to the minority party to call for impartiality.
It's important to note that 4 of the 9 justices on the court, and 4 of the 6 who voted in favor of this decision were appointed by presidents that lost the popular vote.
Trump appointed 50% more judges in half the time. So, triple the rate.
And to your second point, the popular vote went Democratic in the last 7 of 9 elections (and electoral in 5 of 9) but 3 of 9 Supreme Court Justices are Democrat appointed. The court does not reflect our deeply ingrained values.
> The GOP hasn't allowed democrats to appoint any judges (even when they had majorities in the senate) for over a decade now.
In case anyone was curious, literally the most recent appointment to the Supreme Court was by (Democratic president) Joe Biden. Ketanji Brown Jackson began her service exactly one year ago.
(Biden has also appointed over a hundred other federal judges.)
No, Gorsuch was a conservative jurist replacing the most conservative jurist who has been on the court in recent history with the possible exception of Clarence Thomas.
Supreme Court Nominations used to be non partisan, and one might note that there is one party that made them not so.
The 60 vote rule was removed by Reid when the democrats had control -- for all other federal appointments. The republicans merely adopted the rule he put in place for SCOTUS appointments as well.
I don't have much of a post history here, so not sure where you're coming from.
You're right that the current Congresses have been extraordinary in their dysfunction, but a little late on your timeline for Supreme Court appointment battles: Reagan's Bork was shot down 42-58, GHWB's Thomas was confirmed 52-48, with both debates waged in the media.
Obviously I'm aware of Bork and Thomas but they are irrelevant to my point. My point is that, in general, we usually confirmed justices by a large margin. That hasn't happened for 3 appointments in a row. 2 Exceptions in the last few decades doesn't make my point any less valid.
In the times of 90-vote confirmations, horse-trading of variegated appointees just went on behind closed doors. Now that things are so fractured, a president can only get away with nominating a slate of judges all partially partisan in the same direction.
The idea that a president has to nominate a partisan set of judges is not correct. All of GW's nomiations were conservative.
It wouldn't be the constitution being amended anyway, just Senate procedural rules, but Harry Reid is never going to go for that.
No, I meant what I said when I called it a constitution amendment. 3/5 to confirm a justice should be in the Constitution. The founders failed to foresee how politicized the Court would become.
I am terrified by the supreme court justices that would be appointed during 4-8 years of Democratic rule. Unless Democrats become associated with strict constructionism, I will continue to fear them and oppose their appointment to lifelong positions.
Believe it or not, the Senate used to actually follow the law as written and advice and consent, and not simply reject out of hand because the nominating president was of the opposing political party. 13 Supreme Court Justices have been confirmed by a Senate controlled by the opposing party since 1945. All of these were under a Republican President and confirmed by a Democratic Senate.
The last Justice to fail to be confirmed was Bork in 1987, for the very valid reason of his association with Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre prior to the latter's forced resignation.
The process was never intended to be a political, partisan battle, and this was respected by both parties until 2016. Merrick Garland was (and remains) eminently qualified for the seat, and nobody serious on either side of the aisle claims otherwise. I defy anyone to give me a cogent reason why he should not have been given the prescribed consent by the Senate. Mitch McConnell has most likely indelibly changed the Supreme Court confirmation process to be a purely political one, to the great detriment of the Court. Incredibly shortsighted, in my opinion, as it has dispensed with all pretense of a supra-partisan deliberating body.
This thread seems to be about the Citizens United ruling that happened during the George W. Bush administration. He nominated 2 justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. Congress confirmed them. There were 7 other justices from previous administrations that he had zero influence on.
Also, the democrats won the popular vote for president, but we got trump. In 2018, they won by 12%, but the senate has a republican majority.
Because of this, the judicial system is being stacked with ultraconservatives with lifetime appointments. They’re mostly filling seats that opened under the Obama administration.
“Majority rules” is becoming a bad joke in the US. Even after demographics shift enough to vote the republicans out, the senate and executive branch will still be blocked by the judiciary. There are ways to fix the supreme court, but that won’t change the fact that the lower federal courts are politically driven kangaroo courts.
Tl;dr: minority radicals intentionally broke the federal government, and it will take at least 30 years to fix (short of rewriting the constitution).
No, it hasn't. It is nothing like that at all. You will have to provide much, much more evidence to support that if you wish to try and make that assertion.
And the Supreme Court was always an appointed position, even in the time of the Founding Fathers. Having judges be elected is a terrible, terrible idea.
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