Changes in Court Personnel

For the twenty years following Nixon’s election to the presidency, vacancies on the Court were filled by Republican presidents. Chief Justice Burger proved a more moderate leader than conservatives had hoped for, but subsequent Republican appointments ensured that the Court did not return to the Warren years.

The Bork Nomination

President Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork to the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Powell triggered an unprecedented political firestorm. Democrats controlled the Senate, and the Judiciary Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Joseph Biden, proved an insuperable obstacle to Bork’s confirmation. Opponents focused on Bork’s political views rather than on his judicial record, which even Bork’s critics agreed was excellent. Even though the outcome was a foregone conclusion, Bork refused to back down, forcing a full Senate vote on his confirmation. But his stand changed nothing, and confirmation was denied by the widest margin in the history of the Supreme Court.

Bush’s Court Appointments

President George H.W. Bush appointed two justices to the Court. David Souter was confirmed without serious opposition, but the confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas quickly degenerated into the sort of political circus that had accompanied the Bork nomination. When members of the Judiciary Committee were unable to engage Thomas on political issues of the sort that had helped derail Bork’s nomination four years earlier, things took a lurid turn. A former colleague testified that she had been sexually harassed by Thomas years earlier, allegations that Thomas flatly denied. Thomas was ultimately confirmed by the Senate by the narrowest margin in more than a century.

Clinton’s Appointees

The Bork and Thomas confirmation hearings prompted Republicans to take the position that the professional qualifications of the nominees rather than their personal politics should guide the confirmation process. President Clinton nominated two highly qualified liberals to the Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former general counsel for the ACLU, and Stephen Breyer, a noted legal scholar and public servant. Both were confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate without serious opposition.

The Clinton Impeachment

The impeachment of President Clinton was historic as only the third time in U.S. history that such proceedings were begun against a president. The proceedings marked the culmination of one of the biggest sexual and political farces in the history of the United States. A Republican-controlled House of Representatives alleged that Clinton had committed high crimes and misdemeanors when he perjured himself by lying under oath about an extramarital affair with a White House intern. The lurid details of the affair embarrassed Clinton’s supporters, but fell short of the high crimes and misdemeanors required by the Constitution. Clinton kept the presidency, but lost his license to practice law as a result.

Bush v. Gore

The 2000 election was one of the most controversial in U.S. history. The candidates were roughly tied in electoral votes, and the outcome depended on Florida, where Bush led Gore by a few thousand votes. While Gore’s lawyers secured a Florida court order for manual recounts, Bush’s lawyers petitioned the federal courts to halt the recounts. The Supreme Court finally intervened, ruling that the Florida recount order violated guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. It further ordered that all recounts cease immediately, which effectively handed Bush the presidency.

Spirits of Amendments Past

Article V of the Constitution places no time limits on ratification of proposed amendments, an omission underscored in 1992 by the ratification of the two-centuries-old Twenty-Seventh Amendment. As a practical matter, Congress has begun setting timeframes for the ratification of proposed amendments, a power recognized by the Court in Dillon v. Glass (1921).