What's New?

The Souter vacancy has now become the Sotomayor nomination. In nominating an Hispanic woman, President Obama selected the one who many thought was the optimal choice for picking a qualified person while satisfying two major constituencies. Given the setting for this nomination, the president will likely achieve what he has probably always wanted—a slam dunk. Follow the nomination process as it unfolds by clicking the Sotomayor Nomination link.

June 29: I have created a subscribable blog to handle commentary about the confirmation process, the Court, and as a way of announcing changes to this site. Called "The Court", it is accessible at http://watson-on-the-court.blogspot.com Today, I have addressed the impact of the Ricci case on the Sotomayor nomination, placed in the context of the fourth 5-4 Court decision in recent weeks to split along conventional conservative/liberal lines. You are cordially invited to visit the blog and to sign up to receive notices of updated material both for the blog and for this site.

June 5: Did some of the initial negative rhetoric regarding the Sotomayor nomination make you yearn for those golden days of more civil discourse? Disabuse yourself of that notion by checking out these responses to earlier nominations.

Welcome

In his appointments of John Roberts as Chief Justice and Samuel Alito, Jr. to replace the pivotal Sandra O'Connor, President Bush succeeded in appointing two solid conservatives to the Court, insuring a more common conservative outcome in 5-4 decisions. The pivotal position relinquished by O'Connor passed to Anthony Kennedy, who joined the conservative bloc of Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito more often than not (15 out of 20 occasions in 2006-07 in which a 5-4 vote divided the conservative bloc from the more liberal bloc of Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, and Breyer. Click on the Justices link if you wish to see voting data from the Court's 2007-08 term.

Despite there being only two justices on the Court appointed by a Democratic president (Breyer and Ginsburg), what eluded the Republicans since the presidency of Richard Nixon is the creation of a solid conservative majority on the Court. That opportunity may yet come, but it seems more likely that Democratic control of the presidency and the Senate will permit the Democrats to refresh an aging liberal bloc on the Court with a younger cohort. Should the Democrats have an opportunity to replace any from the conservative bloc, including Anthony Kennedy, then the pendulum of Court decisions may begin to move back towards a more politically liberal perspective on constitutional and legislative issues.

President Obama has come into office with the power to appoint virtully anyone to the Court who can can be characterized as meeting the rather vague and shifting standards for being a justice. (Well, maybe not William Ayers.) The potential for controversy in the nomination setting will be the lowest seen by any president since Lyndon Johnson in the mid-60s. Had President Reagan had the kind of party control of the Senate that Obama will have, Robert Bork would likely still be sitting on the Supreme Court.

What Obama needs, of course, to make any changes to the Court are vacancies. Justices do not serve at the pleasure of the president, and few over the years have shown much tendency to retire merely to accommodate the political agenda of the party in power, even when it may be their own party. Click on the Vacancy link for an exploration of motivations in retiring, or not retiring, and for an assessment of the current justices and the potential for their departure in the first term of the new president.

This site has been created to help citizens, students, journalists, academics, and politicians alike understand and anticipate the Supreme Court appointment process as it unfolds. The links to the left walk you through the different stages of the vacancy, nomination, and confirmation processes. Please feel free to make suggestions about how this site can better serve any of you by submitting comments from the FAQS page. Also, consult the FAQs page for answers about questions involving the current situation. Substantial changes and additions will be made to this site now that two vacancies on the Court have occurred. Please check back periodically for new information.

Last update: June 29, 2009