Repeat Players: The Politics of Reappointments to the Federal Judiciary

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Administration & Law and Courts
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Law and Courts: Issues in Judicial Politics and Judicial Behavior

Abstract

When the Senate fails to decide on the fate of nominations before the end of their term, the nominations are returned to the President under Senate Rule XXXI, paragraph 6. When this happens in the middle of a presidential term, the President is presented with the option of either submitting the same name or selecting a new nominee. Frequently, the President chooses to submit the same name and the nomination is swiftly confirmed. This creates a puzzle: why were the nominations not confirmed the first time around?

Standard bargaining and appointment models suggest that when selecting a nominee, the President will choose someone who the Senate will confirm. As a result, these models would predict that rejection never occurs. Instead, when the President and Senate have divergent preferences, the President will select a judge located at the status quo. However, rejections do occur. While rejections are uncommon at the lower court level, the use of Senate Rule XXXI to return nominations to the President functions as a form of rejection.

So what makes the Senate delay hearing a nominee in one term only to swiftly confirm the nominee in the next? There are two main reasons why this might happen: politics or time constraints. Either there was not a sufficient amount of time to hear the nominee in the first term, or the Senate that failed to confirm is not the same Senate that ultimately confirms the nominee.

In this paper, I explore these two avenues to determine why such reappointments occur and are successful. I test workload variables such as timing of initial nomination, number of major pieces of legislation passed in that congressional session, and number of nominees submitted. I also test the effect of political considerations such as shift in party control and representation and change in representation from the home state.

This paper would fit well on panels about federal appointments or inter-branch relationships.

Author

• Alicia Uribe-McGuire, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign