A guide to the Supreme Court nomination

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - With the nomination of Samuel Alito to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, President Bush has his second opportunity to put his stamp on the Supreme Court. Here's a guide to how the selection and confirmation process works.

Once a president nominates a justice, what is required for him or her to become a member of the Supreme Court?
The Senate must vote to confirm the nomination. Since 1925, that Senate vote has often been preceded by hearings before the Judiciary Committee during which senators question the nominee on his judicial record, if any, and his approach to constitutional issues.

How many Supreme Court nominees has the Senate rejected?
Since 1789, the Senate has rejected 30 out of the 144 nominees, the most recent being Robert Bork in 1987.

Must nominees to the Supreme Court answer questions before the Judiciary Committee?
There is no constitutional or statutory requirement for them to testify.

The practice started in 1925, when nominee Harlan Fiske Stone faced some opposition from liberal senators over his career as a corporate lawyer prior to becoming President Calvin Coolidge’s attorney general.

One liberal senator called Stone a “tool of the House of [financier J.P.] Morgan” who had spent “all of his life in the atmosphere of big business.” To assuage the opposition, Stone agreed to appear before the committee and answer questions.

But nominees have often been unwilling to provide specific answers to senators’ questions about their legal views, mindful of the American Bar Association’s Code of Judicial Conduct, which says that nominees “shall not make ... statements that commit or appear to commit the candidate with respect to cases, controversies or issues that are likely to come before the court.”

Interactives Nine who have the say Ten landmark decisions Supreme Court superlatives Supreme Court nominations since 1968

In 1939, when he went before the Judiciary Committee, nominee Felix Frankfurter told senators that “a nominee’s record should be thoroughly scrutinized by the committee,” but the nominee himself should take no part in that scrutiny.

It would, Frankfurter said, be “improper for a nominee no less than for a member of the Court to express his personal views on controversial political issues affecting the Court.”

When he was questioned by the Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings in September, Chief Justice John Roberts said, "Every one of the justices has been vigilant to safeguard against is turning this into a bargaining process. It is not a process under which senators get to say, 'I want you to rule this way, this way and this way. And if you tell me you'll rule this way, this way and this way, I'll vote for you.'"

He added, "Judges are not politicians. They cannot promise to do certain things in exchange for votes."

Does the confirmation process always take weeks, if not months?
In recent decades the confirmation process has been prolonged, but it was not always so: The morning after Justice John Hessin Clarke resigned in 1922, President Harding nominated his friend Sen. George Sutherland of Utah, and the Senate confirmed him that same day.

MORE FROM THE CHANGING COURT

The Changing Court Section Front

On first case, Alito splits with right Alito sworn in as Supreme Court justice Alito lends touch of drama to State of Union Analysis: Why Bush won the Alito fight The Changing Court Section Front   Add The Changing Court headlines to your news reader: