Artemus Ward

The Nominations Presidents Make: Appointing Supreme Court Justices

Much scholarly attention has focused on the politics of appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices. The following is a historical institutionalist approach to explaining Court appointments. Specifically, presidents and their nominees are examined by the four presidential authority types identified by Stephen Skowronek in his book The Politics Presidents Make (1993). The analysis shows how political regimes fragment, as presidents less affiliated with an ascendant regime have an increasingly difficult time seeing their nominees reach the Court. Applying Skowroneks model is beneficial for two reasons. First, his macro-level analysis is useful for explaining micro-level presidential behavior. And second, his framework provides an important addition to, and even incorporates, the existing paradigm of Senate composition and strength in determining the success of appointments to the Supreme Court. “There is no reason in the world why a president should not ‘pack’ the Court–appoint people to the Court who are sympathetic to his political and philosophical principles.” Justice William H. Rehnquist, lecture, University of Minnesota, 1984.