Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2022: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President

Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2022: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President

Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2022: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President

Updated January 14, 2026 (RL33225)
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Contents

Introduction

Description of Report's Contents

Findings from the Nominations Table

Number of Nominations and Nominees

Presidents Who Made the Nominations

Date That Nominations Were Received in Senate

Referral of Nominations to Senate Judiciary Committee

Nominations That Received Public Confirmation Hearings

Advent of Public Hearings

Length of Hearings in Days

Nominations Reported Out of Committee to Full Senate

Reporting

Reporting with a Favorable Recommendation

Reporting Without Recommendation

Reporting with an Unfavorable Recommendation

Nominations Not Reported Out of Committee

Senate Cloture Votes on Nominations

Final Action by the Senate or the President

Days from Date of Senate Receipt of Nomination to First Hearing

Days from Senate Receipt to Final Committee Vote

Days from Senate Receipt to Final Senate or Presidential Action

Recess Appointments to the Supreme Court

Concluding Observations

Tables

Table 1. Nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-2022

Table 2. Number of Supreme Court Nominations Confirmed by Voice Vote/Unanimous Consent (UC) or by Roll Call Vote

Summary

The process of appointing Supreme Court Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature, the sharing of power between the President and Senate, has remained unchanged. To receive a lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must, under the "Appointments Clause" of the Constitution, first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. A key role also has come to be played midway in the process by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Table 1 of this report lists and describes actions taken by the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the President on all Supreme Court nominations, from 1789 through 2022. The table provides the name of each person nominated to the Court and the name of the President making the nomination. It also tracks the dates of formal actions taken, and time elapsing between these actions, by the Senate or Senate Judiciary Committee on each nomination, starting with the date that the Senate received the nomination from the President.

Of the 45 Presidents of the United States to date, 42 have made nominations to the Supreme Court. Altogether, these Presidents made a total of 165 nominations to the Court, of which 128 (78%) were confirmed by the Senate. Also, on 12 occasions in the nation's history, Presidents have made temporary recess appointments to the Court, without first submitting nominations to the Senate. Of the 37 unsuccessful Supreme Court nominations, 11 were rejected in Senate roll call votes, 11 were withdrawn by the President, and 15 lapsed at the end of a session of Congress. Six individuals whose initial nominations were not confirmed were later renominated and confirmed to positions on the Court.

A total of 122 of the 165 nominations were referred to a Senate committee, with 121 of them to the Judiciary Committee (including almost all nominations since 1868). Prior to 1916, the Judiciary Committee considered these nominations behind closed doors. Since 1946, however, almost all nominees have received public confirmation hearings. Most recent hearings have lasted four or more days.

In recent decades, from the late 1960s to the present, the Judiciary Committee has tended to take more time before starting hearings and casting final votes on Supreme Court nominations than it did previously. The median time taken for the full Senate to take final action on Supreme Court nominations also has increased in recent decades, dwarfing the median time taken on earlier nominations.

The information presented in this report is current through the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022.

For additional perspectives on actions taken on Supreme Court nominations, in earlier historical periods as well as in the modern era, see CRS Report R44235, Supreme Court Appointment Process: President's Selection of a Nominee; CRS Report R44236, Supreme Court Appointment Process: Consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee; CRS Report R44234, Supreme Court Appointment Process: Senate Debate and Confirmation Vote; CRS Report R44773, The Scalia Vacancy in Historical Context: Frequently Asked Questions; CRS Insight IN11514, Supreme Court Vacancies That Occurred During Presidential Election Years (1789-2020), by Barry J. McMillion; CRS Insight IN11519, Final Action by the Senate on Supreme Court Nominations During Presidential Election Years (1789-2020), by Barry J. McMillion; and CRS Report R44819, Senate Proceedings Establishing Majority Cloture for Supreme Court Nominations: In Brief, by Valerie Heitshusen.

Introduction

The procedure for appointing a Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States is provided for by the Constitution in a few words. The "Appointments Clause" (Article II, Section 2, clause 2) states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court." The process of appointing Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature—the sharing of power between the President and Senate—has remained unchanged. To receive a lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. An important role also has come to be played midway in the process (after the President selects, but before the Senate considers) by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On rare occasions, Presidents also have made Supreme Court appointments without the Senate's consent, when the Senate was in recess. Such "recess appointments," however, were temporary, with their terms expiring at the end of the Senate's next session. The last recess appointments to the Court were made in the 1950s.

The need for a Supreme Court nomination arises when a vacancy occurs or is scheduled to occur on the Court.¹ The most recent vacancy to be included in this report occurred in 2022 when Justice Stephen Breyer stepped down from the Court upon the nomination and confirmation of his successor, Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Jackson nomination was the 165th instance of a President nominating an individual to be a Supreme Court Justice.

The Jackson nomination received four days of confirmation hearings, after which the Senate Judiciary Committee, on April 4, 2022, by a vote of 11-11, failed to report the nomination favorably to the Senate. Under temporary procedures that applied when the Senate was evenly divided between the two political parties in the 117th Congress (2021-2022), the Senate discharged the Judiciary Committee from consideration of the nomination on April 4, 2022, by a vote of 53-47. This placed the nomination on the Executive Calendar in the same status as if it had been reported.² On April 7, 2022, following floor debate and a 53-47 vote to close debate on the Jackson nomination, the Senate confirmed Judge Jackson to the Court, by a 53-47 vote.

In the past, most, but not all, Supreme Court nominations have received Senate confirmation. From the first appointments in 1789, the Senate has confirmed 128 out of 165 Court nominations. Of the 37 unsuccessful nominations, 11 were rejected in Senate roll call votes, while most of the rest, in the face of committee or Senate opposition to the nominee or the President, were withdrawn by the President, or were postponed, tabled, or never voted on by the Senate. The 37 unconfirmed nominations, however, also include those of six individuals who were later renominated and confirmed.

Description of Report's Contents

This report lists and describes actions taken by the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the President on all Supreme Court nominations, from 1789 to 2022. These actions are listed in Table 1 of the report.³

Specifically, the table lists the following for each Supreme Court nomination through 2022:

name of the person nominated (the nominee);

name of the President who made the nomination;

date the nomination was made by the President and received in the Senate;⁴

date(s) of any committee hearings held on the nomination that were open to the public;

type and date of final committee action; and

type and date of final action by the Senate or, in rarer instances, by the President (when the final action taken on a nomination was its withdrawal by the President).

Table 1 also shows the speed with which certain actions were taken on nominations, specifically presenting the number of days that elapsed from the date a nomination was formally received in the Senate until the following:

the first day of public confirmation hearings (if any);

the date of final committee action (if any); and

the date of final Senate action or presidential withdrawal of the nomination.

The table also lists all recess appointments to the Supreme Court, as well as the later nomination of each recess appointee. As well, it identifies five occasions (the earliest in 1968, the latest in 2022) on which motions have been made in the Senate to bring debate on Supreme Court nominations to a close.

Table 1 provides the dates of formal actions taken by the President, the Senate, and the Senate Judiciary Committee on each Supreme Court nomination. The table, for example, records the dates that nominations were actually made and transmitted by the President to the Senate. The table, however, does not track the dates on which Presidents learned of prospective Court vacancies or announced their intention to nominate someone to be a Justice.

Actions by the full Senate tracked systematically in Table 1 are those on which the Senate took final action (ordinarily in the form of confirmation, and less often in the form of rejecting, tabling, or postponing action on a nomination). For certain Supreme Court nominations, Table 1 also provides dates of procedural actions taken on the Senate floor, prior to or after final Senate action, in order to put the final action in fuller context. The table, however, does not account for all Senate procedural actions on, or for all dates of Senate floor consideration of, Supreme Court nominations.

In listing all persons ever nominated to the Supreme Court, Table 1 includes the names of those who were not confirmed as well as those who were confirmed but did not assume their appointive office.⁵

Findings from the Nominations Table

Number of Nominations and Nominees

Table 1 lists all 165 Supreme Court nominations from 1789 to 2022.⁶ Each of the 165 nominations entailed a President signing a nomination message, which was then transmitted to, and received by, the Senate. A lesser number of separate individuals, 146, were actually nominated to the Court, with some of them nominated more than once.⁷

Of the 165 total nominations to the Court, 22 were to the position of Chief Justice and the other 143 to a position as Associate Justice. The 22 Chief Justice nominations involved 20 persons nominated once, and one person nominated twice.⁸ The 143 Associate Justice nominations involved 126 persons nominated once, 7 persons nominated twice, and 1 person nominated three times.

Presidents Who Made the Nominations

Of the 45 Presidents to date, 42 have made nominations to the Supreme Court.⁹ These 42 are listed in the second column of Table 1. All but 1 of the 42 Presidents succeeded in having at least one Supreme Court nomination confirmed by the Senate. The one exception was President Andrew Johnson, whose only nomination to the Court, the nomination of Henry Stanbery in 1866, was thwarted when the Senate enacted legislation eliminating the Associate Justice position to which Stanbery was nominated.¹⁰

As Table 1 shows, the number of nominations made to the Supreme Court has varied greatly across presidencies. For any given President, the number of nominations will be affected by various factors, including the length of time the President was in office, the number of vacancies occurring on the Court during that presidency, and whether more than one nomination was required to fill a Court vacancy due to a previous nomination's failure to be confirmed. Overall, slightly less than half of the Presidents (21 of 45) made four or more nominations, while slightly more than half (24 of 45) made three or fewer. Likewise, slightly less than half of the Presidents (again, 21 of 45) saw three or more of their Court nominations confirmed, while slightly more than half (again, 24 of 45) saw two or fewer confirmed.

The President with the most Supreme Court nominations and confirmations was George Washington with 14 nominations, 12 of which were confirmed.¹¹ The two Presidents with the second-largest number of Court nominations were John Tyler and Franklin D. Roosevelt, with nine each. One of Tyler's nine nominations received Senate confirmation, while all nine of FDR's were confirmed.

The President with the largest number of Supreme Court confirmations in one term (apart from the first eight of George Washington's nominations—all in his first term, and all confirmed) was William Howard Taft, who, during his four years in office, made six Court nominations, all of which were confirmed.

Six Presidents made one Supreme Court nomination each, with the nominations of five of these Presidents receiving confirmation.¹² And, as noted above, three of the nation's 45 Presidents were unable to make a single nomination to the Court, because no vacancies occurred on the Court during their presidencies.

Date That Nominations Were Received in Senate

The Supreme Court appointment process officially begins when the President signs a message to the Senate nominating someone for appointment to the Court. Usually on the date of the signing, the message is delivered to the Senate and recorded in the Senate Executive Journal as having been received that day.¹³ However, in 31 instances (all but two prior to the 20th century), Supreme Court messages were recorded in the Senate Executive Journal as received in the Senate on a day after they were signed by the President—usually the next day. In Table 1, in the "Date received in Senate" column, a second date is provided in parentheses (as the "Nom. date"), whenever a President made a nomination on a day prior to its receipt by the Senate.

Referral of Nominations to Senate Judiciary Committee

Although referral of Supreme Court nominations to the Senate Judiciary Committee is now standard practice, such referrals were not always the case. Table 1 shows that 122 of 165 Supreme Court nominations have been referred to a Senate committee, of which 121 were referred to the Judiciary Committee.

The first standing legislative committees of the Senate, including the Judiciary Committee, were created in 1816. Only once previously was a Supreme Court nomination referred to committee, when, in 1811, the Senate referred the nomination of Alexander Wolcott to a select committee of three Members. For roughly half a century after the Judiciary Committee's creation, nominations, rather than being automatically referred to the committee, were referred by motion only. From 1816 to 1868, more than two-thirds of the nominations (26 out of 38 nominations), were referred to the committee. During this period, the confirmation success rate was roughly the same for nominations referred, 15 of 26, as it was for those not referred, 7 out of 12.

In 1868, Senate rules were changed to provide that all nominations be referred to appropriate standing committees, unless otherwise ordered by the Senate.¹⁴ Subsequently, from 1868 to the present day, 95 of 101 Supreme Court nominations have been referred to the Judiciary Committee. The six nominations not referred to committee were of persons who, at the time of their nomination, were a former President, a Senator, a former Senator, an Attorney General and former U.S. Representative, a former Secretary of War, or a sitting Associate Justice,¹⁵ and all were easily confirmed. The last Supreme Court nomination not referred to the Judiciary Committee was that of Senator James Byrnes in 1941. The Senate by unanimous consent considered and confirmed the Byrnes nomination, without referral to committee, on the day it received the nomination from the President.

Nominations That Received Public Confirmation Hearings¹⁶

Table 1, in the "Public hearing date(s)" column, lists dates on which the full Judiciary Committee, or a Judiciary subcommittee, held public confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominations. Included in this listing are public sessions of the committee at which either Supreme Court nominees testified on their own behalf and/or outside witnesses testified for or against the nominees.

Advent of Public Hearings

Before 1916, the Judiciary Committee considered Supreme Court nominations behind closed doors. Thus, until that year, there are no entries in the "Public hearing date(s)" column. Rather, committee sessions on Court nominations typically were limited to committee members discussing and voting on a nominee in executive session, without hearing testimony from outside witnesses.¹⁷ In 1916, for the first time, the committee held open confirmation hearings on a Supreme Court nomination—that of Louis Brandeis to be an Associate Justice—at which outside witnesses (but not the nominee) testified. More days of public hearings (19) were held on the Brandeis nomination than on any Supreme Court nomination since. The Brandeis hearings, however, did not set immediately into place a new policy of open confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominations, since each of the next six nominations (during the years 1916 to 1923) was either considered directly by the Senate, without referral to the Judiciary Committee, or was acted on by the committee without the holding of confirmation hearings.

From 1925 to 1946, public confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominations became the more common, if not invariable, practice of the Judiciary Committee. In 1925, Harlan Stone became the first Supreme Court nominee to appear in person and testify at his confirmation hearings.¹⁸ During the next two decades, the Stone nomination was one of 11 Court nominations that received public confirmation hearings before either the full Judiciary Committee or a Judiciary subcommittee,¹⁹ while five other nominations did not receive public hearings. One of the five nominees not receiving a public confirmation hearing was Senator James Byrnes, whose nomination in 1941, as noted earlier, was considered directly by the Senate without referral to the Judiciary Committee.²⁰

Not indicated in the "Public hearing date(s)" column is the precise length (in minutes or hours) of each public hearing session. The hearing sessions for a few Supreme Court nominations during the 1925 to 1946 period lasted for hours, extending over several days;²¹ others, however, were brief and perfunctory in nature, held only long enough to accommodate the small number of witnesses who wished to testify against a nominee.²²

From Tom Clark's appointment in 1949 through the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022, all but 4 of 41 Supreme Court nominations have received public confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee or a judiciary subcommittee.²³ The first of the four exceptions involved the 1954 nomination of John Harlan II, made less than a month before the final adjournment of a Congress. At the beginning of the next Congress, however, Harlan was renominated, and hearings were held on that nomination.²⁴ The second and third exceptions involved the Associate Justice nominations of John Roberts Jr. and Harriet Miers in 2005, both of which were withdrawn by the President before the scheduled start of confirmation hearings. Roberts was renominated, this time to be Chief Justice, and hearings were held on that nomination. The fourth and most recent exception, in the presidential election year of 2016, involved the nomination of Merrick Garland. No hearings were held on the nomination after the Senate majority leader and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee both took the position that the person to fill the Scalia vacancy be one selected by the next President taking office on January 20, 2017.²⁵

Length of Hearings in Days

The number of days given to public confirmation hearings has varied greatly from one Supreme Court nomination to another, particularly in recent decades. Following the 19 days of hearings held on the Brandeis nomination in 1916, Court nominations through the Associate Justice nomination of Abe Fortas in 1965 typically received either one or two days of hearings. However, from 1967 through the present, 21 of the 27 Court nominations which advanced through the hearings stage received four or more days of open confirmation hearings. Additionally, 4 of the 27 nominations received 11 or more days of hearings,²⁶ while one nomination received eight days of hearings.²⁷ By contrast, only 3 of the 27 nominations received two or fewer days of hearings.²⁸

Nominations Reported Out of Committee to Full Senate

Supreme Court nominations referred to the Judiciary Committee have almost always subsequently been reported to the Senate. If a majority of its members oppose confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee, the committee technically may vote against reporting the nomination (although Table 1 shows no instances of the committee ever doing this). The committee might also simply decide not to consider or vote on a nomination.

Failure to report a nomination would prevent the full Senate from considering the nominee, unless the Senate were able to successfully discharge the committee from consideration of the nomination. This occurred in 2022 when the Senate Judiciary Committee failed, by a tied vote of 11-11, to report favorably the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Under temporary procedures that applied when the Senate was evenly divided between the two political parties in the 117th Congress (2021-2022), the Senate discharged the Judiciary Committee from consideration of the nomination on April 4, 2022, by a vote of 53-47. Note that this placed the Jackson nomination on the Executive Calendar in the same status as if it had been reported by the committee.

Table 1 shows that instances of the committee not reporting a nomination have been rare. Of the 121 Supreme Court nominations referred to the Judiciary Committee, 111 were reported to the Senate.²⁹ The committee has reported these nominations in the following four ways.

Reporting

For most of the first five decades in which the Judiciary Committee considered Supreme Court nominations (1828 to 1863), its usual practice was simply to report these nominations to the Senate, without any official indication of the committee members' opinions regarding them. Twenty-three nominations were reported to the Senate in this way, and 15 (65%) of them were confirmed.

Reporting with a Favorable Recommendation

In 1870, the Judiciary Committee initiated the practice of reporting to the Senate an explicit recommendation in favor of confirmation whenever a majority of members supported a Supreme Court nominee. Over the course of almost a century and a half, the committee has favorably reported 77 Supreme Court nominations, with 71 (92%) receiving Senate confirmation.³⁰

Reporting Without Recommendation

On four occasions—three times in the late 19th century and once in the late 20th century—the Judiciary Committee has voted to report a Supreme Court nomination while explicitly stating it was not making a recommendation to the Senate. On each occasion, the committee reported a nomination without urging the Senate either to confirm or to reject.³¹ The Senate confirmed three (75%) of the nominations that were reported in this way, while rejecting the fourth.³²

Reporting with an Unfavorable Recommendation

On seven occasions—five times in the 19th century and twice in the 20th century—the Judiciary Committee voted to report a Supreme Court nomination with a recommendation to the Senate that it reject the nomination. Only two (29%) of the seven nominations received Senate confirmation (and each only by a close roll call vote);³³ the Senate rejected four of the others³⁴ and postponed taking action on the fifth.³⁵

Nominations Not Reported Out of Committee

Of the 121 Supreme Court nominations referred to the Judiciary Committee since its establishment, 10 (8%) were not reported by the committee to the Senate.³⁶ Although six of the nominees were never confirmed to the Court,³⁷ the other four ultimately were—three after being renominated and one after the Senate discharged the committee from consideration of the nomination.³⁸

Senate Cloture Votes on Nominations

When a Supreme Court nomination is under Senate consideration, supporters of the nomination have available to them, under Senate rules, a procedure for placing a time limit on its further consideration. This procedure is the motion to invoke cloture.³⁹ A cloture motion filed on a nomination receives a vote after two days of Senate session. If the Senate agrees to the motion, further consideration of the Supreme Court nomination is limited to 30 hours.⁴⁰

Over the last half century, the Senate has required different kinds of majorities to invoke cloture on nominations in general, including Supreme Court nominations.⁴¹ Prior to 1975, the majority required was two-thirds of Senators present and voting, a quorum being present.⁴² Thereafter, until 2017, ending consideration of Supreme Court nominations required a vote of three-fifths of Senators duly chosen and sworn (60 Senators unless there was more than one vacancy).⁴³ The cloture threshold for Supreme Court nominations changed again on April 6, 2017, when the Senate reinterpreted its Rule XXII, to allow a simple majority of Senators voting, a quorum being present, to invoke cloture. (The new rule interpretation applied to Court nominations the same majority cloture threshold requirement that the Senate, in a 2013 precedent, had applied to all other nominations.)⁴⁴

As indicated in Table 1, motions to bring debate on Supreme Court nominations to a close have been made on eight occasions:

The first use occurred in 1968, when Senate supporters of Justice Abe Fortas tried unsuccessfully to end debate on the motion to proceed to his nomination to be Chief Justice. After the motion was debated at length, the Senate failed to invoke cloture by a 45-43 vote,⁴⁵ prompting President Johnson to withdraw the nomination.⁴⁶

A cloture motion to end debate on a Court nomination occurred again in 1971, when the Senate considered the nomination of William Rehnquist to be an Associate Justice. Although the cloture motion failed by a 52-42 vote,⁴⁷ Rehnquist was confirmed later the same day.⁴⁸

In 1986, a cloture motion was filed on a third Supreme Court nomination, this time of sitting Associate Justice Rehnquist to be Chief Justice. Supporters of the nomination mustered more than the three-fifths majority needed to end debate (with the Senate voting for cloture 68-31),⁴⁹ and Justice Rehnquist subsequently was confirmed as Chief Justice.

A cloture motion was presented to end consideration of a Supreme Court nomination a fourth time, during Senate debate on the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. in January 2006. The motion was presented on January 26, after two days of Senate floor debate.⁵⁰ On January 30, the Senate voted to invoke cloture by a 72-25 vote,⁵¹ and the next day it confirmed the Alito nomination by a vote of 58-42.

In 2017, the Senate voted on a fifth occasion on whether to close debate on a Supreme Court nomination, in a series of procedural votes involving the Associate Justice nomination of Neil Gorsuch.⁵² On April 6, 2017, a 55-45 vote on a motion to close debate on the nomination fell short of the super-majority required under Senate rules—then three-fifths of the Senate's full membership.⁵³ Immediately thereafter, however, the Senate voted to reinterpret its cloture rule to allow cloture to be invoked on Supreme Court nominations by a simple majority of Senators voting (a quorum being present).⁵⁴ The Senate then, pursuant to the rule reinterpretation, voted a second time on the motion to close debate on the nomination, again by a 55-45 vote, which this time exceeded the majority required (now a simple majority).⁵⁵ The next day, the Senate confirmed the Gorsuch nomination by a vote of 54-45.

After four days of Senate debate, a cloture motion was presented on October 3, 2018, to close debate on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. On October 5, the Senate voted to invoke cloture by a 51-49 vote. The Kavanaugh nomination was confirmed the next day by a vote of 50-48.

In 2020, the Senate voted on whether to end debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. The Barrett nomination was the third consecutive nomination to the Court for which a cloture motion was presented to close debate on the nomination. On October 25, after three days of debate, the Senate voted to invoke cloture by a 51-48 vote. The Barrett nomination was confirmed the following day by a vote of 52-48.

The nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson became the fourth consecutive nomination to the Court for which a cloture motion was presented to end debate on the nomination. On April 7, 2022, after two days of debate, the Senate voted to invoke cloture by a 53-47 vote. The Jackson nomination was confirmed the same day by a vote of 53-47.

Final Action by the Senate or the President

From the first Supreme Court appointments in 1789 to the most recent one in 2022, Presidents have made 165 nominations to the Court. Table 1 shows, in the "Final action by Senate or President" column, that the Senate confirmed 128, or 78% of these nominations. Of the 37 nominations that were not confirmed, 11 were rejected by the Senate (all by roll call vote),⁵⁶ 11 were withdrawn by the President,⁵⁷ and 15 lapsed at the end of a session of Congress without a Senate vote cast on whether to confirm.⁵⁸ The 37 nominations not confirmed by the Senate represented 32 individuals, some of whom were nominated more than once. Six individuals whose initial nominations were not confirmed were later renominated and confirmed for positions on the Court.⁵⁹

While the invariable practice of the Senate in recent decades has been to cast roll call votes on Supreme Court nominations, this historically was not often the case. For example, Table 2, at the end of this report, shows that of the 128 nominations confirmed by the Senate from 1789 to 2022, 73 (57%) were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent, while 55 (43%) were confirmed by roll call vote.

Initially, for some 40 years, the Senate rarely used roll call votes to decide Supreme Court nominations. Starting in the 1830s, however, and continuing through the 1880s, the Senate used roll call votes on Supreme Court nominations somewhat more often than unrecorded votes. The trend reversed between 1890 and 1965, when fewer than one-third of Senate decisions on confirming Court nominations were by roll call vote. Since 1967, though, every Senate vote on whether to confirm a Supreme Court nomination has been by roll call.

Table 2 shows these trends within these four historical periods, by breaking down the number of nominations confirmed during each period by either voice vote or unanimous consent (UC) on the one hand, or by roll call vote, on the other. While not included in the table, all 11 Senate rejections of Supreme Court nominations occurred by roll call vote.

Historically, recorded vote margins on Supreme Court nominations have varied considerably. Some roll call votes, either confirming or rejecting a nomination, have been close.⁶⁰ Many votes, on the other hand, have been overwhelmingly in favor of confirmation.⁶¹ More recently, Supreme Court nominations have been confirmed by relatively narrower vote margins as a majority of Senators not belonging to the President's party have voted against confirmation. This has been the case with the seven most recent Supreme Court nominations—in 2006 (the Alito nomination), 2009 (Sotomayor), 2010 (Kagan), 2017 (Gorsuch), 2018 (Kavanaugh), 2020 (Barrett), and 2022 (Jackson).

Days from Date of Senate Receipt of Nomination to First Hearing

For Supreme Court nominations, the amount of time elapsing between Senate receipt and start of confirmation hearings has varied greatly. Table 1 shows that, for all 49 Court nominations receiving public confirmation hearings (starting with the Brandeis nomination in 1916), the shortest time that elapsed between Senate receipt and start of hearings was four days, for the nominations of both Benjamin Cardozo in 1932 and William Douglas in 1939; the second shortest time interval of this sort was five days, for the nominations of both Stanley Reed in 1938 and Felix Frankfurter in 1939. The longest time elapsing between Senate receipt and first day of confirmation hearings was 82 days, for the nomination of Potter Stewart in 1959; the next-longest time interval of this sort was 70 days, for nominee Robert Bork in 1987.

In recent decades, from the late 1960s to the present, the Judiciary Committee has tended to take more time in starting hearings on Supreme Court nominations than it did previously. Table 1 reveals that prior to 1967, a median of 10 days elapsed between Senate receipt of Supreme Court nominations and the first day of confirmation hearings. From the Supreme Court nomination of Thurgood Marshall in 1967 through the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be Associate Justice in 2022,⁶² a median of 26 days elapsed between Senate receipt and first day of confirmation hearings.⁶³

Starting in the 1990s, the Judiciary Committee has generally allowed at least four weeks to pass between Senate receipt of Supreme Court nominations and the start of confirmation hearings.⁶⁴ The three exceptions to this general timeframe were the nominations of John Roberts in 2005 (6 days), Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 (13 days), and Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022 (21 days).⁶⁵ Although the elapsed time from the date of the Roberts nomination to the date when hearings began was relatively short (six days), another, longer time interval is more meaningful. Table 1 shows that Roberts's earlier nomination to be Associate Justice—later withdrawn, in order for Roberts to be renominated for the vacant Chief Justice position—was received by the Senate 45 days prior to the start of hearings on this latter nomination.

The length of time from nomination to the first date of committee hearings for the Barrett nomination, 13 days, was the shortest such period for an Associate Justice nomination since 1975 (when committee hearings for John Paul Stevens began 7 days after he was nominated by President Ford).

Days from Senate Receipt to Final Committee Vote

The time elapsed between Senate receipt of a Supreme Court nomination and the final committee vote on a nomination has also varied greatly. Table 1 shows that, for the 114 Court nominations that received final committee votes,⁶⁶ the nomination receiving the most prompt committee vote was of Caleb Cushing in 1874, which was reported by the Judiciary Committee on the same day that the Senate received it from the President.⁶⁷ The committee votes on 14 other nominations to the court occurred three days or less after the dates of Senate receipt.⁶⁸ At the other extreme was the 1916 nomination of Louis Brandeis, on which the Judiciary Committee voted 117 days after Senate receipt and referral to the committee. Five other nominations, one in the 19th century and four in the 20th, received committee votes more than 80 days after Senate receipt from the President.⁶⁹

In recent decades, the Judiciary Committee has taken much more time in casting a final vote on Supreme Court nominations than it did previously. Table 1 shows that prior to 1967, a median of nine days elapsed between Senate receipt of Supreme Court nominations and the committee's final vote on reporting them to the full Senate.⁷⁰ From the Supreme Court nomination of Thurgood Marshall in 1967 through the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022, a median of 51 days elapsed between Senate receipt and final committee vote.⁷¹

Somewhat earlier, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953 to 1961), two of five Supreme Court nominations had been pending, prior to Judiciary Committee vote, in excess of the 1967-2022 median of 51 days (while two other nominations had been pending 44 and 49 days, respectively, before receiving committee action).⁷² The corresponding time intervals for the next three Court nominations (two by President John F. Kennedy and one by President Lyndon B. Johnson) were all well below the 51-day median.⁷³

Days from Senate Receipt to Final Senate or Presidential Action

The Supreme Court confirmation process now typically extends over a much longer period of time than it once did. Table 1 shows that from the appointment of the first Justices in 1789, continuing into the early 20th century, most Senate confirmations of Supreme Court nominees occurred within a week of the nominations being made by the President. In recent decades, by contrast, it has become the norm for the Court appointment process—from Senate receipt of nominations from the President to Senate confirmation or other final action (such as Senate rejection, or withdrawal by the President)—to take more than two months.

The last column of Table 1 shows the number of days that elapsed from the dates Supreme Court nominations were received in the Senate until the dates of final action by the Senate or President. The number of elapsed days is shown for 156 of the 165 nominations listed in the table, with no elapsed time shown for nine nominations on which there was no record of any kind of official or effective final action by the Senate or by the President.⁷⁴ At the bottom of the table, the median number of elapsed days from initial Senate receipt until final action by the Senate or the President is shown for three historical time spans—1789-2022, 1789-1966, and 1967-2022.

In recent decades, the median elapsed time for Supreme Court nominations to receive final action has increased dramatically, greatly surpassing the median time taken on earlier nominations. Table 1 shows that from 1967 (starting with the nomination of Thurgood Marshall) through 2022 (with the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson), a median of 66 days elapsed from when a Supreme Court nomination was received in the Senate until the date it received final action, compared with a median of 7 days for the same interval for the prior years of 1789 to 1966.

Most recently, the overall length of time from nomination to confirmation for Ketanji Brown Jackson was 38 days (apart from the Barrett nomination in 2020, this was the shortest length of time from nomination to confirmation for a nominee to the Court since 1981, when Sandra Day O'Connor was confirmed 33 days after being nominated).⁷⁵

The number of days that elapsed from nomination to final action for the second-most recent nomination to the Court, that of Amy Coney Barrett, was closer to the median for nominations during the 1789 to 1966 period than to the median for nominations since 1967 (i.e., a 20-day difference compared to a 41-day difference). Additionally, the length of time from nomination to Senate confirmation for the Barrett nomination was the shortest since the confirmation of John Paul Stevens in 1975.

Most of the Supreme Court nominations receiving final action within a relatively brief period of time—for example, within three days of initial receipt in the Senate—occurred before the 20th century,⁷⁶ while most of the nominations receiving final action after a relatively long period of time—for example, 75 days or more after receipt in the Senate—occurred in the 20th century (and nearly all of these since 1967).⁷⁷

The presence of Senate committee involvement has clearly tended to increase the overall length of the Supreme Court confirmation process. Of the 26 Court nominations made prior to the establishment of the Judiciary Committee in 1816, only one, of Alexander Wolcott in 1811, received final action more than seven days after initial Senate receipt (being rejected by the Senate nine days after receipt). It also was the only Court nomination prior to 1816 which was referred to, and considered by, a select committee. Subsequently, until the Civil War, six nominations received final action more than 50 days after initial Senate receipt. All six were first considered and reported by the Judiciary Committee. During the same period, other Court nominations were considered and acted on by the Senate more quickly—some with, and some without, first being referred to committee.

Subsequent historical developments involving the Senate Judiciary Committee further served to increase the median length of the Supreme Court confirmation process. One such development was the Senate's adoption of a rule in 1868 that nominations be referred to appropriate standing committees, resulting in the referral of nearly all Supreme Court nominations thereafter to the Judiciary Committee. Another was the increasing practice of the Judiciary Committee in the 20th century of holding public confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominations (ultimately to become standard practice). A third, more recent, historical trend has involved the pace and thoroughness of the Judiciary Committee in preparing for and conducting confirmation hearings. Since the late 1960s, close and thorough examination of the background, qualifications, and views of Supreme Court nominees has become the norm for the Judiciary Committee, an approach that typically extends the confirmation process by at least several weeks, as a result of preparation for and holding of confirmation hearings.

Recess Appointments to the Supreme Court

On 12 occasions in the nation's history, Presidents have made temporary recess appointments to the Supreme Court without first submitting nominations to the Senate. Table 1 identifies all of these 12 appointments, showing how each was related to a later nomination of the appointee for the same position. The table shows that nine of the 12 recess appointments were made before the end of the Civil War,⁷⁸ with the last three made almost a century later, in the 1950s, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.⁷⁹

Each of the 12 recess appointments occurred when a President exercised his power under the Constitution to make recess appointments when the Senate was not in session.⁸⁰ Historically, when recesses between sessions of the Senate were much longer than they are today, recess appointments served the purpose of averting long vacancies on the Court when the Senate was unavailable to confirm a President's appointees. The terms of these recess appointments, however, were limited by the constitutional requirement that they expire at the end of the next session of Congress (unlike the lifetime appointments Court appointees receive when nominated and then confirmed by the Senate).⁸¹

Despite the temporary nature of these appointments, every person appointed during a recess of the Senate except for one—John Rutledge, to be Chief Justice, in 1795—ultimately received a lifetime appointment to the Court after being nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. As Table 1 shows, all 12 of the recess appointees were subsequently nominated to the same position, and 11 (all except for Rutledge) were confirmed.

President Eisenhower's three recess appointments in the 1950s generated controversy. Concerns were expressed, among other things, over potential difficulties placed on Senators on the Judiciary Committee interrogating a nominee who already was sitting on the Court, and over the possibility of the judgments of a recess-appointed Justice being shaped by concerns with his eventual confirmation process.⁸² The possibility of further recess appointments prompted the Senate in 1960, voting closely along party lines, to pass a resolution expressing opposition to Supreme Court recess appointments in the future.⁸³ More recently, the two Houses of Congress have, on a regular basis from the 110th Congress (2007-2008) onward, kept their recesses relatively short, effectively preventing Presidents from making any recess appointments (including to the Supreme Court) during those periods.⁸⁴

Concluding Observations

The preceding discussion suggests that Senate treatment of Supreme Court nominations has gone through various phases during the more than 200 years of appointments to the Court. Initially, such nominations were handled without Senate committee involvement. Later, from 1816 to 1868, most nominations to the Supreme Court were referred to the Judiciary Committee, but only by motion. Since 1868, as the result of a change in its rules, the Senate has referred nearly all Court nominations to the Judiciary Committee. During the rest of the 19th century and early 20th century, the committee considered nominations without public hearings. Subsequently, public hearings gradually became the more common, if not invariable, committee practice, although many of the earlier hearings were perfunctory and held to accommodate a small number of witnesses wishing to testify against the nominees. Gradually, however, in the latter half of the 20th century, public hearings on Supreme Court nominations lasting four or more days—with nominees being present part of the time to answer extensive questioning from committee members—would become the usual practice. This continues to be the Judiciary Committee's practice in considering Supreme Court nominations during the 21st century.

Also, the overall length of time taken by the Supreme Court confirmation process has, in general, increased significantly over the course of more than 200 years. From the appointment of the first Justices in 1789, continuing well into the 20th century, most Supreme Court nominations received final action (usually, but not always, in the form of Senate confirmation) within a week of being submitted by the President to the Senate. In recent decades, by contrast, it has become the norm for the confirmation process to take from two to three months.

Additionally, recorded vote margins on Supreme Court nominations have varied considerably. Some roll call votes, either confirming or rejecting a nomination, have been close, while many other votes have been overwhelmingly in favor of confirmation. A trend in recent decades, however, has been for Supreme Court nominations receiving a Senate vote to be confirmed by narrower vote margins. For example, as previously discussed, the seven most recently confirmed nominations to the Court received nay votes from a majority of Senators not belonging to the President's party.

Other trends and historical phases may be discerned from Table 1 and Table 2. Still other trends may be revealed by future nominations that Presidents make and by the actions taken by the Senate and its Judiciary Committee.

Table 1. Nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-2022

Senate committee actions

Final action by Senate or President

Days from date received in Senate to:

Nominee

President

Date received in Senatea

Public
hearing
date(s)

Final vote dateb

Final vote

Date

Final actionc

First public hearing date

Committee final vote date

Final action by Senate or President

John Jay of New York (Chief Justice, hereinafter
C. J.)

Washington

09/24/1789

Nomination predated creation of Judiciary Committee in 12/10/1816. No record of other committee referral.

09/26/1789

Confirmed

—

—

2

John Rutledge of South Carolina

Washington

09/24/1789

09/26/1789

Confirmed

—

—

2

William Cushing of Mass.

Washington

09/24/1789

09/26/1789

Confirmed

—

—

2

Robert Harrison of Maryland

Washington

09/24/1789

09/26/1789

Confirmed (Nominee declined)

—

—

2

James Wilson of Pennsylvania

Washington

09/24/1789

09/26/1789

Confirmed

—

—

2

John Blair Jr. of Virginia

Washington

09/24/1789

09/26/1789

Confirmed

—

—

2

James Iredell of North Carolina

Washington

02/09/1790

(Nom. Date 02/08/1790)

02/10/1790

Confirmed

—

—

1

Thomas Johnson of Maryland

Washington

Recess Appointment, 08/05/1791

11/01/1791

(Nom. Date 10/31/1791)

Nomination predated creation of Judiciary Committee in 12/10/1816. No record of other committee referral.

11/07/1791

Confirmed

—

—

6

William Paterson of New Jersey

Washington

02/27/1793

02/28/1793

Withdrawn

—

—

1

William Paterson of New Jersey

Washington

03/04/1793

03/04/1793

Confirmed

—

—

0

John Rutledge of South Carolina
(C. J.)

Washington

Recess Appointment, 07/01/1795

12/10/1795

Nomination predated creation of Judiciary Committee in 12/10/1816. No record of other committee referral.

12/15/1795

Rejected
(10-14)

—

—

5

William Cushing of Mass. (C. J.)

Washington

01/26/1796

01/27/1796

Confirmed (Nominee declined)

—

—

1

Samuel Chase of Maryland

Washington

01/26/1796

01/27/1796

Confirmed

—

—

1

Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut (C. J.)

Washington

03/03/1796

03/04/1796

Confirmed
(21-1)

—

—

1

Bushrod Washington of Virginia

J. Adams

Recess Appointment, 09/29/1798

12/19/1798

Nomination predated creation of Judiciary Committee in 12/10/1816. No record of other committee referral.

12/20/1798

Confirmed

—

—

1

Alfred Moore of North Carolina

J. Adams

12/04/1799

12/10/1799

Confirmed

—

—

6

John Jay of New York
(C. J.)

J. Adams

12/18/1800

12/19/1800

Confirmed (Nominee declined)

—

—

1

John Marshall of Virginia
(C. J.)

J. Adams

01/20/1801

01/27/1801

Confirmed

—

—

7

William Johnson of South Carolina

Jefferson

03/22/1804

03/24/1804

Confirmed

—

—

2

H. Brockholst Livingston of New York

Jefferson

Recess Appointment, 11/10/1806

12/15/1806

(Nom. date 12/13/1806)

Nomination predated creation of Judiciary Committee in 12/10/1816. No record of other committee referral.

12/17/1806

Confirmed

—

—

2

Thomas Todd of Kentucky

Jefferson

02/28/1807

03/02/1807

Confirmed

—

—

2

Levi Lincoln of Mass.

Madison

01/02/1811

01/03/1811

Confirmed (Nominee declined)

—

—

1

Alexander Wolcott of Connecticut

Madison

02/04/1811

No record
of hearing

Select Committee, 02/13/1811

Reported

02/13/1811

Rejected
(9-24)

—

9

9

John Quincy Adams of Mass.

Madison

02/21/1811

Nomination predated creation of Judiciary Committee in 12/10/1816. No record of other committee referral.

02/22/1811

Confirmed (Nominee declined)

—

—

1

Joseph Story of Mass.

Madison

11/15/1811

11/18/1811

Confirmed

—

—

3

Gabriel Duvall of Maryland

Madison

11/15/1811

11/18/1811

Confirmed

—

—

3

Smith Thompson of New York

Monroe

Recess Appointment, 09/01/1823

12/08/1823

(Nom. date 12/5/1823)

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

12/09/1823

Confirmed

—

—

1

Robert Trimble of Kentucky

J. Q. Adams

04/12/1826

(Nom. date 04/11/1826)

Motion to refer to Judiciary Committee rejected by Senate, 05/09/1826
(7-25)

05/09/1826

Confirmed
(27-5)

—

—

27

John Crittenden of Kentucky

J. Q. Adams

12/18/1828

(Nom. date 12/17/1828)

No record
of hearing

01/26/1829

Reported with recommen-dation not to act

02/12/1829

Postponed
(23-17)

—

39

56

John McLean of Ohio

Jackson

03/06/1829

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

03/07/1829

Confirmed

—

—

1

Henry Baldwin of Pennsylvania

Jackson

01/05/1830

(Nom. date 01/04/1830)

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

01/06/1830

Confirmed
(41-2)

—

—

1

James Wayne of Georgia

Jackson

01/07/1835

(Nom. date 01/06/1835)

No record
of hearing

01/09/1835

Reported

01/09/1835

Confirmed

—

2

2

Roger Taney of Maryland

Jackson

01/15/1835

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

03/03/1835

Postponed
(24-21)

—

—

47

Roger Taney of Maryland
(C. J.)

Jackson

12/28/1835

No record
of hearing

01/05/1836

Reported

Motion to proceed, 03/14/1836
(25-19)

—

8

78

03/15/1836

Confirmed
(29-15)

Philip Barbour of Virginia

Jackson

12/28/1835

No record
of hearing

01/05/1836

Reported

Motion to proceed, 03/15/1836
(25-20)

—

8

78

03/15/1836

Confirmed
(30-11)

William Smith of Alabama

Jackson

03/03/1837

No record
of hearing

03/08/1837

Reported

03/08/1837

Confirmed
(23-18) (Nominee declined)

—

5

5

John Catron of Tennessee

Jackson

03/03/1837

No record
of hearing

03/08/1837

Reported

03/08/1837

Confirmed
(28-15)

—

5

5

John McKinley of Alabama

Van Buren

Recess Appointment, 04/22/1837

09/19/1837

(Nom. date 09/18/1837)

No record
of hearing

09/25/1837

Reported

09/25/1837

Confirmed

—

6

6

Peter Daniel of Virginia

Van Buren

02/27/1841

(Nom. date 02/26/1841)

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

03/02/1841

Confirmed
(22-5)

—

—

3

John Spencer of New York

Tyler

01/09/1844

(Nom. date 01/08/1844

No record
of hearing

01/30/1844

Reported

01/31/1844

Rejected
(21-26)

—

21

22

Reuben Walworth of New York

Tyler

03/13/1844

No record
of hearing

06/14/1844

Reported

Tabled, 06/15/1844
(27-20)

—

93

96

06/17/1844

Withdrawn

Edward King of Pennsylvania

Tyler

06/05/1844

No record
of hearing

06/14/1844

Reported

06/15/1844

Tabled
(29-18)

—

9

10

John Spencer of New York

Tyler

06/17/1844

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

06/17/1844

Withdrawn

—

—

0

Reuben Walworth of New York

Tyler

06/17/1844

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

Motion to proceed objected to, 06/17/1844. Senate adjourned on same day, with no record of further action.

—

—

—

Reuben Walworth of New York

Tyler

12/10/1844

(Nom. date 12/04/1844)

No record
of hearing

01/21/1845

Reported

Tabled,
01/21/1845

—

42

58

02/06/1845

Withdrawn

Edward King of Pennsylvania

Tyler

12/10/1844

(Nom. date 12/04/1844)

No record
of hearing

01/21/1845

Reported

Tabled,
01/21/1845

—

42

60

02/08/1845

Withdrawn

Samuel Nelson of New York

Tyler

02/06/1845

(Nom. date 02/04/1845)

No record
of hearing

02/08/1845

Reported

02/14/1845

Confirmed

—

2

8

John Read of Pennsylvania

Tyler

02/08/1845

(Nom. date 02/07/1845)

No record
of hearing

02/14/1845

Reported

No record of action

—

6

—

George Woodward of Pennsylvania

Polk

12/23/1845

No record
of hearing

01/20/1846

Reported

Motion to postpone
rejected, 01/22/1846
(21-28)

—

28

30

01/22/1846

Rejected
(20-29)

Levi Woodbury
of New Hampshire

Polk

Recess Appointment, 09/20/1845

12/23/1845

No record
of hearing

01/03/1846

Reported

01/03/1846

Confirmed

—

11

11

Robert Grier of Pennsylvania

Polk

08/03/1846

No record
of hearing

08/04/1846

Reported

08/04/1846

Confirmed

—

1

1

Benjamin Curtis of Mass.

Fillmore

Recess Appointment, 09/22/1851

12/12/1851

(Nom. date 12/11/1851)

No record
of hearing

12/23/1851

Reported

12/23/1851

Confirmed

—

11

11

Edward Bradford of Louisiana

Fillmore

08/21/1852

(Nom. Date 08/16/1852)

No record
of hearing

08/30/1852

Reported

08/31/1852

Tabled

—

9

10

George Badger of North Carolina

Fillmore

01/10/1853

(Nom. Date 01/03/1853)

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

02/11/1853

Postponed
(26-25)

—

—

32

William Micou of Louisiana

Fillmore

02/24/1853

(Nom. Date 02/14/1853)

No record
of hearing

Referred to Judiciary Committee on 02/24/1853. Senate
ordered committee discharged of nomination on same
day; no record of Senate consideration after discharge.

—

—

—

John Campbell of Alabama

Pierce

03/21/1853

No record
of hearing

03/22/1853

Reported

03/22/1853

Confirmed

—

1

1

Nathan Clifford of Maine

Buchanan

12/09/1857

No record
of hearing

01/06/1858

Reported

01/12/1858

Confirmed
(26-23)

—

28

34

Jeremiah Black of Pennsylvania

Buchanan

02/06/1861

(Nom. Date 02/05/1861)

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

02/21/1861

Motion to proceed rejected
(25-26)

—

—

15

Noah Swayne of Ohio

Lincoln

01/22/1862

(Nom. Date 01/21/1862)

No record
of hearing

01/24/1862

Reported

01/24/1862

Confirmed
(38-1)

—

2

2

Samuel Miller
of Iowa

Lincoln

07/16/1862

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

07/16/1862

Confirmed

—

—

0

David Davis of Illinois

Lincoln

Recess Appointment, 10/17/1862

12/03/1862

(Nom. date 12/01/1862)

No record
of hearing

12/05/1862

Reported

12/08/1862

Confirmed

—

2

5

Stephen Field of California

Lincoln

03/07/1863

(Nom. date 03/06/1863

No record
of hearing

03/09/1863

Reported

03/10/1863

Confirmed

—

2

3

Salmon Chase of Ohio (C. J.)

Lincoln

12/06/1864

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

12/06/1864

Confirmed

—

—

0

Henry Stanbery of Ohio

A. Johnson

04/16/1866

No record
of hearing

Referred to Judiciary Committee on 04/16/1866. No
record of committee vote, and no record of Senate
action after referral.

—

—

—

Ebenezer Hoar of Mass.

Grant

12/15/1869

(Nom. date 12/14/1869)

No record
of hearing

12/22/1869

Reported adversely

02/03/1870

Rejected
(24-33)

—

7

50

Edwin Stanton of Pennsylvania

Grant

12/20/1869

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee

12/20/1869

Confirmed
(46-11)
(Nominee died before assuming office)

—

—

0

William Strong of Pennsylvania

Grant

02/08/1870

(Nom. date 02/07/1870)

No record
of hearing

02/14/1870

Reported favorably

02/18/1870

Confirmed

—

6

10

Joseph Bradley of New Jersey

Grant

02/08/1870

(Nom. date 02/07/1870)

No record
of hearing

02/14/1870

Reported favorably

Postponed,
03/02/1870
(31-26)

—

6

41

Motion to postpone rejected, 03/02/1870
(23-28)

03/21/1870

Confirmed
(46-9)

Ward Hunt
of New York

Grant

12/06/1872

(Nom. date 12/03/1872)

No record
of hearing

12/11/1872

Reported favorably

12/11/1872

Confirmed

—

5

5

George Williams of Oregon (C. J.)

Grant

12/02/1873

(Nom. date 12/01/1873)

No record
of hearing

12/11/1873

Reported favorably

Recommitted,
12/15/1873

—

9

37

Closed
hearingsd
12/16/1873
12/17/1873

—

—

01/08/1874

Withdrawn

Caleb Cushing of Mass. (C. J.)

Grant

01/09/1874

No record
of hearing

01/09/1874

Reported favorably

01/14/1874

Withdrawn

—

0

5

Morrison Waite of Ohio (C. J.)

Grant

01/19/1874

No record
of hearing

01/20/1874

Reported favorably

01/21/1874

Confirmed
(63-0)

—

1

2

John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky

Hayes

10/17/1877

(Nom. date 10/16/1877)

No record
of hearing

11/26/1877

Reported favorably

11/29/1877

Confirmed

—

40

43

William Woods of Georgia

Hayes

12/15/1880

No record
of hearing

12/20/1880

Reported favorably

12/21/1880

Confirmed
(39-8)

—

5

6

Tabled motion to
reconsider, 12/22/1880
(36-3)

Stanley Matthews of Ohio

Hayes

01/26/1881

No record
of hearing

Considered , 02/07/1881

No record of action

—

19

—

02/14/1881

Postponed

Stanley Matthews of Ohio

Garfield

03/18/1881

(Nom. date 03/14/1881)

No record
of hearing

05/09/1881

Reported adversely
(6-1)

05/12/1881

Confirmed
(24-23)

—

52

55

Horace Gray of Mass.

Arthur

12/19/1881

No record
of hearing

12/20/1881

Reported favorably

12/20/1881

Confirmed
(51-5)

—

1

1

Roscoe Conkling of New York

Arthur

02/24/1882

No record
of hearing

03/02/1882

Reported favorably

03/02/1882

Confirmed
(39-12)
(Nominee declined)

—

6

6

Samuel Blatchford of New York

Arthur

03/13/1882

No record
of hearing

03/22/1882

Reported favorably

03/22/1882

Confirmed

—

9

9

Lucius Lamar of Mississippi

Cleveland

12/12/1887

(Nom. date 12/06/1887)

No record
of hearing

01/10/1888

Reported adversely
(5-4)

01/16/1888

Confirmed
(32-28)

—

29

35

Melville Fuller of Illinois (C. J.)

Cleveland

05/02/1888

(Nom. date 04/30/1888)

No record
of hearing

07/02/1888

Reported without
recommen-dation

07/20/1888

Confirmed
(41-20)

—

61

79

David Brewer of Kansas

Harrison

12/04/1889

No record
of hearing

12/16/1889

Reported favorably

Motion to postpone
rejected, 12/18/1889
(15-54)

—

12

14

Motion to postpone
rejected, 12/18/1889
(25-45)

12/18/1889

Confirmed
(53-11)

Henry Brown of Michigan

Harrison

12/23/1890

No record
of hearing

12/29/1890

Reported favorably

12/29/1890

Confirmed

—

6

6

George Shiras Jr. of Pennsylvania

Harrison

07/19/1892

No record
of hearing

07/25/1892

Reported without
recommen-dation

07/26/1892

Confirmed

—

6

7

Howell Jackson of Tennessee

Harrison

02/02/1893

No record
of hearing

02/13/1893

Reported favorably

02/18/1893

Confirmed

—

11

16

William Hornblower of New York

Cleveland

09/19/1893

No record
of hearing

Considered, 09/25/1893
and 10/25 & 30/1893

No record of action

—

—

—

William Hornblower of New York

Cleveland

12/06/1893

(Nom. date 12/05/1893)

No record
of hearing

Considered, 12/11, 14 & 18/1893

01/15/1894

Rejected
(24-30)

—

33

40

01/08/1894

Reported adversely

Wheeler Peckham of New York

Cleveland

01/22/1894

No record
of hearing

On question of reporting favorably, committee vote divided, 02/12/1894
(5-5)

02/16/1894

Rejected
(32-41)

—

21

25

02/12/1894

Reported without recommen-dation

Edward White of Louisiana

Cleveland

02/19/1894

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee

02/19/1894

Confirmed

—

—

0

Rufus Peckham of New York

Cleveland

12/03/1895

No record
of hearing

12/09/1895

Reported favorably

12/09/1895

Confirmed

—

6

6

Joseph McKenna of California

McKinley

12/16/1897

No record
of hearing

01/13/1898

Reported favorably

01/21/1898

Confirmed

—

28

36

Oliver Wendell Holmes of Mass.

T. Roosevelt

12/02/1902

No record
of hearing

12/04/1902

Reported favorably

12/04/1902

Confirmed

—

2

2

William Day of Ohio

T. Roosevelt

02/19/1903

No record
of hearing

02/23/1903

Reported favorably

02/23/1903

Confirmed

—

4

4

William Moody of Mass.

T. Roosevelt

12/03/1906

No record
of hearing

12/10/1906

Reported favorably

12/12/1906

Confirmed

—

7

9

Horace Lurton of Tennessee

Taft

12/13/1909

No record
of hearing

12/16/1909

Reported favorably

12/20/1909

Confirmed

—

3

7

Charles Evans Hughes of New York

Taft

04/25/1910

No record
of hearing

05/02/1910

Reported favorably

05/02/1910

Confirmed

—

7

7

Edward White of Louisiana
(C. J.)

Taft

12/12/1910

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

12/12/1910

Confirmed

—

—

0

Willis Van Devanter of Wyoming

Taft

12/12/1910

No record
of hearing

12/15/1910

Reported favorably

12/15/1910

Confirmed

—

3

3

Joseph Lamar of Georgia

Taft

12/12/1910

No record
of hearing

12/15/1910

Reported favorably

12/15/1910

Confirmed

—

3

3

Mahlon Pitney of New Jersey

Taft

02/19/1912

No record
of hearing

03/04/1912

Reported favorably

03/13/1912

Confirmed
(50-26)

—

14

23

James McReynolds of Tennessee

Wilson

08/19/1914

No record
of hearing

08/24/1914

Reported favorably

08/29/1914

Confirmed
(44-6)

—

5

10

Louis Brandeis of Mass.

Wilson

01/28/1916

02/09/1916
02/10/1916
02/15/1916
02/16/1916
02/17/1916
02/18/1916
02/24/1916
02/25/1916
02/26/1916
02/29/1916
03/01/1916
03/02/1916
03/03/1916
03/04/1916
03/06/1916
03/07/1916
03/08/1916
03/14/1916
03/15/1916

05/24/1916

Reported
favorably
(10-8)

06/01/1916

Confirmed
(47-22)

12

117

125

John Clarke of Ohio

Wilson

07/14/1916

No record
of hearing

07/24/1916

Reported favorably

07/24/1916

Confirmed

—

10

10

William Howard Taft of Connecticut (C. J.)

Harding

06/30/1921

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

06/30/1921

Confirmed
(60-4) e

—

—

0

George Sutherland of Utah

Harding

09/05/1922

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

09/05/1922

Confirmed

—

—

0

Pierce Butler of Minnesota

Harding

11/23/1922

(Nom. date 11/21/1922)

No record
of hearing

11/28/1922

Reported favorably

Placed on Executive Calendar, 11/28/1922, with no record of further action

—

5

—

Pierce Butler of Minnesota

Harding

12/05/1922

Closed hearings
12/09/1922
12/13/1922

12/18/1922

Reported favorably

Motion to recommit defeated, 12/21/1922
(7-63)

—

13

16

12/21/1922

Confirmed
(61-8)

Edward Sanford of Tennessee

Harding

01/24/1923

No record
of hearing

01/29/1923

Reported favorably

01/29/1923

Confirmed

—

5

5

Harlan Stone of New York

Coolidge

01/05/1925

Closed hearing 01/12/1925f

Reported favorably
01/21/1925

Recommitted
01/26/1925

—

28

31

01/28/1925
(after 01/26/1925 recomt'l) f

02/02/1925

Reported favorably

02/05/1925

Confirmed
(71-6)

23

Charles Evans Hughes of New York
(C. J.)

Hoover

02/03/1930

No hearing held

02/10/1930

Reported favorably
(10-2)

Motion to recommit rejected, 02/13/1930 (31-49)

—

7

10

02/13/1930

Confirmed
(52-26)

John Parker of North Carolina

Hoover

03/21/1930

04/05/1930

04/21/1930

Reported adversely (10-6)

05/07/1930

Rejected
(39-41)

15

31

47

Owen Roberts of Pennsylvania

Hoover

05/09/1930

No hearing held

05/19/1930

Reported favorably

05/20/1930

Confirmed

—

10

11

Benjamin Cardozo of New York

Hoover

02/15/1932

02/19/1932

02/23/1932

Reported favorably

02/24/1932

Confirmed

4

8

9

Hugo Black of Alabama

F. Roosevelt

08/12/1937

No hearing held

08/16/1937

Reported favorably (13-4)

Motion to recommit rejected, 08/17/1937
(15-66)

—

4

5

08/17/1937

Confirmed
(63-16)

Stanley Reed of Kentucky

F. Roosevelt

01/15/1938

01/20/1938

01/24/1938

Reported favorably

01/25/1938

Confirmed

5

9

10

Felix Frankfurter of Mass.

F. Roosevelt

01/05/1939

01/10/1939
01/11/1939
01/12/1939

01/16/1939

Reported favorably

01/17/1939

Confirmed

5

11

12

William Douglas of Connecticut

F. Roosevelt

03/20/1939

03/24/1939

03/27/1939

Reported favorably

04/04/1939

Confirmed
(62-4)

4

7

15

Frank Murphy of Michigan

F. Roosevelt

01/04/1940

01/11/1940

01/15/1940

Reported favorably

01/16/1940

Confirmed

7

11

12

Harlan Stone of New York (C. J.)

F. Roosevelt

06/12/1941

06/21/1941

06/23/1941

Reported favorably

06/27/1941

Confirmed

9

11

15

James Byrnes of South Carolina

F. Roosevelt

06/12/1941

Nomination was not referred to Judiciary Committee.

06/12/1941

Confirmed

—

—

0

Robert Jackson of New York

F. Roosevelt

06/12/1941

06/21/1941
06/231941
06/27/1941
06/30/1941

06/30/1941

Reported favorably

07/07/1941

Confirmed

9

18

25

Wiley Rutledge of Iowa

F. Roosevelt

01/11/1943

01/22/1943

02/01/1943

Reported favorably

02/08/1943

Confirmed

11

21

28

Harold Burton of Ohio

Truman

09/18/1945

No hearing held

09/19/1945

Reported favorably

09/19/1945

Confirmed

—

1

1

Fred Vinson of Kentucky
(C. J.)

Truman

06/06/1946

06/14/1946

06/19/1946

Reported favorably

06/20/1946

Confirmed

8

13

14

Tom Clark of Texas

Truman

08/02/1949

08/09/1949
08/10/1949
08/11/1949

08/12/1949

Reported favorably
(9-2)

08/18/1949

Confirmed
(73-8)

7

10

16

Sherman Minton of Indiana

Truman

09/15/1949

09/27/1949

10/03/1949

Reported favorably
(9-2)

Motion to
recommit rejected, 10/04/1949
(21-45)

12

18

19

10/04/1949

Confirmed
(48-16)

Earl Warren of California (C. J.)

Eisenhower

Recess Appointment, 10/02/1953

01/11/1954

02/02/1954
02/19/1954

02/24/1954

Reported favorably
(12-3)

03/01/1954

Confirmed

22

44

49

John Harlan II of New York

Eisenhower

11/09/1954

No hearing held

Referred to Judiciary Committee on 11/09/1954. No record of committee vote or Senate action.

—

—

—

John Harlan II of New York

Eisenhower

01/10/1955

02/25/1955g

03/10/1955

Reported favorably (10-4)

03/16/1955

Confirmed
(71-11)

46

59

65

William Brennan Jr. of New Jersey

Eisenhower

Recess Appointment, 10/15/1956

01/14/1957

02/26/1957
02/27/1957

03/04/1957

Reported favorably

03/19/1957

Confirmed

43

49

64

Charles Whittaker of Missouri

Eisenhower

03/02/1957

03/18/1957

03/18/1957

Reported favorably

03/19/1957

Confirmed

16

16

17

Potter Stewart of Ohio

Eisenhower

Recess Appointment, 10/14/1958

01/17/1959

04/09/1959
04/14/1959

04/20/1959

Reported favorably (12-3)

05/05/1959

Confirmed
(70-17)

82

93

108

Byron White of Colorado

Kennedy

04/03/1962

04/11/1962

04/11/1962

Reported favorably

04/11/1962

Confirmed

8

8

8

Arthur Goldberg of Illinois

Kennedy

08/31/1962

09/11/1962
09/13/1962

09/25/1962

Reported favorably

09/25/1962

Confirmed

11

25

25

Abe Fortas of Tennessee

L. Johnson

07/28/1965

08/05/1965

08/10/1965

Reported favorably

08/11/1965

Confirmed

8

13

14

Thurgood Marshall of New York

L. Johnson

06/13/1967

07/13/1967
07/14/1967
07/18/1967
07/19/1967
07/24/1967

08/03/1967

Reported favorably (11-5)

08/30/1967

Confirmed
(69-11)

30

51

78

Abe Fortas of Tennessee
(C. J.)

L. Johnson

06/26/1968

07/11/1968
07/12/1968
07/16/1968
07/17/1968
07/18/1968
07/19/1968
07/20/1968
07/22/1968
07/23/1968
09/13/1968
09/16/1968

09/17/1968

Reported favorably (11-6)

Cloture motion rejected,
10/01/1968
(45-43)h

15

83

100

10/04/1968

Withdrawn

Homer Thornberry of Texas

L. Johnson

06/26/1968

07/11/1968
07/12/1968
07/16/1968
07/17/1968
07/18/1968
07/19/1968
07/20/1968
07/22/1968
07/23/1968
09/13/1968
09/16/1968

Referred to Judiciary Committee, 06/26/1968.
No committee vote taken.

10/04/1968

Withdrawn

15

—

100

Warren Burger of Virginia (C. J.)

Nixon

05/23/1969

06/03/1969

06/03/1969

Reported favorably

06/09/1969

Confirmed
(74-3)

11

11

17

Clement Haynsworth Jr. of South Carolina

Nixon

08/21/1969

09/16/1969
09/17/1969
09/18/1969
09/19/1969
09/23/1969
09/24/1969
09/25/1969
09/26/1969

10/09/1969

Reported favorably (10-7)

11/21/1969

Rejected
(45-55)

26

49

92

George Harrold Carswell of Florida

Nixon

01/19/1970

01/27/1970
01/28/1970
01/29/1970
02/02/1970
02/03/1970

02/16/1970

Reported favorably (13-4)

04/08/1970

Rejected
(45-51)

8

28

79

Harry Blackmun of Minnesota

Nixon

04/15/1970

04/29/1970

05/06/1970

Reported favorably (17-0)

05/12/1970

Confirmed
(94-0)

14

21

27

Lewis Powell Jr. of Virginia

Nixon

10/22/1971

11/03/1971
11/04/1971
11/08/1971
11/09/1971
11/10/1971

11/23/1971

Reported favorably (16-0)

12/06/1971

Confirmed
(89-1)

12

32

45

William Rehnquist of Arizona

Nixon

10/22/1971

11/03/1971
11/04/1971
11/08/1971
11/09/1971
11/10/1971

11/23/1971

Reported favorably (12-4)

Cloture motion rejected, 12/10/1971
(52-42)i

12

32

49

Motion to postpone until 01/18/1972 rejected, 12/10/1971
(22-70)

12/10/1971

Confirmed
(68-26)

John Paul Stevens of Illinois

Ford

12/01/1975

(Nom. Date
11/28/1975)

12/08/1975
12/09/1975
12/10/1975

12/11/1975

Reported favorably (13-0)

12/17/1975

Confirmed
(98-0)

7

10

16

Sandra Day O'Connor of Arizona

Reagan

08/19/1981

09/09/1981
09/10/1981
09/11/1981

09/15/1981

Reported favorably (17-1)

09/21/1981

Confirmed
(99-0)

21

27

33

William Rehnquist of Arizona (C. J.)

Reagan

06/20/1986

07/29/1986
07/30/1986
07/31/1986
08/01/1986

08/14/1986

Reported favorably (13-5)

Cloture invoked, 09/17/1986
(68-31)j

39

55

89

09/17/1986

Confirmed
(65-33)

Antonin Scalia of Virginia

Reagan

06/24/1986

08/05/1986
08/06/1986

08/14/1986

Reported favorably (18-0)

09/17/1986

Confirmed
(98-0)

42

51

85

Robert Bork of District of Columbia

Reagan

07/07/1987

09/15/1987
09/16/1987
09/17/1987
09/18/1987
09/19/1987
09/21/1987
09/22/1987
09/23/1987
09/25/1987
09/28/1987
09/29/1987
09/30/1987

Motion to report favorably rejected, 10/06/1987
(5-9)

10/23/1987

Rejected
(42-58)

70

91

108

10/06/1987

Reported unfavorably (9-5)

On 10/29/1987, following the Senate's rejection of the nomination of Robert Bork, President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to nominate Douglas Ginsburg of the District of Columbia to be Associate Justice. Ginsburg, however, withdrew his name from consideration on 11/07/1987, before an official nomination had been made.

Anthony Kennedy of California

Reagan

11/30/1987

12/14/1987
12/15/1987
12/16/1987

01/27/1988

Reported favorably (14-0)

02/03/1988

Confirmed
(97-0)

14

58

65

David Souter of New Hampshire

G. H. W.
Bush

07/25/1990

09/13/1990
09/14/1990
09/17/1990
09/18/1990
09/19/1990

09/27/1990

Reported favorably (13-1)

10/02/1990

Confirmed
(90-9)

50

64

69

Clarence Thomas of Virginia

G. H. W.
Bush

07/08/1991

09/10/1991
09/11/1991
09/12/1991
09/13/1991
09/16/1991
09/17/1991
09/19/1991
09/20/1991
10/11/1991
10/12/1991
10/13/1991

Motion to report favorably
failed, 09/27/1991
(7-7)k

UC agreement reached, 10/08/1991, to reschedule vote on confirmation from 10/08/1991 to 10/15/991, to allow for additional hearings

64

81

99

09/27/1991

Reported without recommen-dation
(13-1)

10/15/1991

Confirmed
(52-48)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg of New York

Clinton

06/22/1993

07/20/1993
07/21/1993
07/22/1993
07/23/1993

07/29/1993

Reported favorably (18-0)

08/03/1993

Confirmed
(96-3)

28

37

42

Stephen Breyer of Mass.

Clinton

05/17/1994

07/12/1994
07/13/1994
07/14/1994
07/15/1994

07/19/1994

Reported favorably (18-0)

07/29/1994

Confirmed
(87-9)

56

63

73

John Roberts Jr. of Maryland

G. W. Bush

07/29/2005

Referred to Judiciary Committee,
07/29/2005. No hearing held and no
committee vote taken.

09/06/2005

Withdrawn

—

—

39

John Roberts Jr. of Maryland
(C. J.)

G. W. Bush

09/06/2005

09/12/2005
09/13/2005
09/14/2005
09/15/2005

09/22/2005

Reported favorably (13-5)

09/29/2005

Confirmed
(78-22)

6

16

23

Harriet Miers of Texas

G. W. Bush

10/07/2005

Referred to Judiciary Committee,
10/07/2005. No hearing held and no
committee vote taken.

10/28/2005

Withdrawn

—

—

21

Samuel Alito Jr. of New Jersey

G. W. Bush

11/10/2005

01/09/2006
01/10/2006
01/11/2006
01/12/2006
01/13/2006

01/24/2006

Reported favorably (10-8)

Cloture invoked,
01/30/2006
(72-25)

60

75

82

01/31/2006

Confirmed
(58-42)

Sonia Sotomayor of New York

Obama

06/01/2009

07/13/2009 07/14/2009 07/15/2009 07/16/2009

07/28/2009

Reported favorably (13-6)

08/06/2009

Confirmed (68-31)

42

57

66

Elena Kagan of Mass.

Obama

05/10/2010

06/28/2010
06/29/2010
06/30/2010
07/01/2010

07/20/2010

Reported favorably (13-6)

08/05/2010

Confirmed (63-37)

49

71

87

Merrick Garland of Maryland

Obama

03/16/2016

No hearing held

Referred to Judiciary Committee on 03/16/2016. With no subsequent committee vote or Senate action taken, nomination returned to President on 01/03/2017 at final adjournment of 114th Congress.

—

—

—

Neil Gorsuch of Colorado

Trump

02/01/2017

03/20/2017
03/21/2017
03/22/2017
03/23/2017

04/03/2017

Reported favorably (11-9)

Cloture motion rejected
04/06/2017
(55-45);
Upon reconsideration, cloture invoked (55-45)l

47

61

65

04/07/2017

Confirmed (54-45)

Brett Kavanaugh of Maryland

Trump

07/10/2018

09/04/2018
09/05/2018
09/06/2018
09/07/2018
09/27/2018

09/28/2018

Reported Favorably (11-9)

Cloture invoked 10/05/2018 (51-49)

56

80

88

10/06/2018

Confirmed (50-48)

Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana

Trump

09/29/2020

10/12/2020
10/13/2020
10/14/2020
10/15/2020

10/22/2020

Reported Favorably (12-0)m

Cloture invoked 10/25/2020 (51-48)

13

23

27

10/26/2020

Confirmed (52-48)

Ketanji Brown Jackson of the District of Columbia

Biden

02/28/2022

03/21/2022

03/22/2022

03/23/2022

03/24/2022

04/04/2022

Failed to Report Favorably
(11-11)n

Cloture invoked

04/07/2022 (53-47)

21

35

38

04/07/2022

Confirmed (53-47)

Median number of days from date received in Senate, 1789-2020o

15

11

11

Median number of days from date received in Senate, 1789-1966o

10

9

7

Median number of days from date received in Senate, 1967-2020o

26

51

66

Sources: U.S. Congress, Senate, Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America (hereinafter, Senate Executive Journal), various editions from the 1st Congress through the 110th Congress; Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Legislative and Executive Calendar, various editions from the 77th Congress through the 103rd Congress; various newspaper accounts accessed on-line through ProQuest Historical Newspapers (the primary source for recorded vote tallies in committee prior to the 1980s); CRS Report RL31171, Supreme Court Nominations Not Confirmed, 1789 – August 5, 2010, by Henry B. Hogue (out of print; available to congressional clients from the author upon request); and "Nominations" database in the Legislative Information System, available at http://www.congress.gov/nomis/.

Acknowledgments: Extensive research for the above table in earlier versions of this report was performed by former CRS Specialist D. Steven Rutkus, former CRS Analysts Mitchel A. Sollenberger and Susan Navarro Smelcer, former CRS Information Research Specialist Maureen Bearden, and former CRS Research Assistant Raymond T. Williams.

a. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the date on which the President formally made a nomination, by signing a nomination message, usually has been the same as the date on which the nomination was received in the Senate. These two dates are the same for any given nomination when only one date is shown in the above table's "Date received in Senate" column. However, for a nomination made by a President on a date prior to the nomination's receipt by the Senate (a common occurrence in much of the 19th century), the earlier presidential nomination date ("Nom. date") is distinguished, in parentheses, from the later date when the nomination was received by the Senate.

b. For nominations prior to 1873 that were referred to committee, the "Final vote date" is the date recorded in the Senate Executive Journal on which the committee's chairman or other member reported the nomination to the Senate. For nominations from 1873 to 2005, the "Final vote date" is the date on which the Judiciary Committee voted to report a nomination or, in one instance (on February 14 1881, involving the first Stanley Matthews nomination), voted to postpone taking action.

c. "Final action," for purposes of this table, covers the following mutually exclusive outcomes: confirmation by the Senate ("Confirmed"), withdrawal of a nomination by the President ("Withdrawn") and Senate rejection by a vote disapproving a nomination ("Rejected"). In other instances, when none of the preceding three outcomes occurred, the last procedural action taken by the Senate on a nomination is indicated. On certain nominations, as indicated in the table, the last procedural outcome entailed tabling a nomination ("Tabled"), postponing consideration ("Postponed"), or rejecting a motion to proceed to consideration ("Motion to proceed rejected"). Final Senate actions taken by roll call votes are shown in parentheses. Final Senate actions without roll call votes shown in parentheses were reached by voice vote or unanimous consent. For roll call votes shown above, the number of Yea votes always comes before the number of Nay votes. Thus, under "Confirmed" or "Rejected," the first number in the vote tally is the number of Senators who voted in favor of confirmation, and the second the number voting against confirmation.

d. On December 16 and 17, 1873, the Judiciary Committee held closed-door sessions to examine documents and hear testimony from witnesses relevant to a controversy that arose over the Williams nomination only after the committee had reported the nomination to the Senate. The controversy prompted the Senate to recommit the nomination to the Judiciary Committee and to authorize the committee "to send for persons and papers." Senate Executive Journal, vol. 19, p. 211. After holding the two closed-door sessions, the committee did not re-report the nomination to the Senate. Amid press reports of significant opposition to the nomination in both the Judiciary Committee and the Senate as a whole, the nomination, at Williams's request, was withdrawn by President Ulysses S. Grant on January 8, 1874. The December 16 and 17 sessions can be regarded as an early, perhaps the earliest, example of a Judiciary Committee closed-door hearing. However, the above table, which focuses in part on the times that elapsed between dates nominations were received in the Senate and dates of public confirmation hearings, does not count the time that elapsed from the date the Williams nominations was received in the Senate until the December 16 and 17, 1873, sessions, because they were closed to the public.

e. The 60-4 roll call vote to confirm Taft, conducted by the Senate in closed-door executive session, was not recorded in the Senate Executive Journal. Newspaper accounts, however, reported that a roll call vote on the nomination was demanded in the executive session, and that the vote was 60-4 to confirm, with an agreement reached afterwards not to make the roll call public. See Robert J. Bender, "Ex-President Taft New Chief Justice of United States," Atlanta Constitution, July 1, 1921, p. 1; Charles S. Groves, "Taft Is Confirmed, as Chief Justice," Boston Daily Globe, July 1, 1921, p. 1; and "Proceedings of Congress and Committees in Brief," Washington Post, July 1, 1921, p. 6.

f. The January 12, 1925, hearing, held in closed session, heard the testimony of former Sen. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware. "Nomination of Stone Is Held Up Once More," New York Times, January 13, 1925, p. 4. At the January 28, 1925, hearing, which was held in open session, the nominee was questioned by the Judiciary Committee for four hours. This was the first confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court nomination at which the nominee appeared in person to testify. See Albert W. Fox, "Stone Tells Senate Committee He Assumes Full Responsibility for Pressing New Wheeler Case," Washington Post, January 29, 1925, p. 1.

g. The Judiciary Committee held two days of confirmation hearings on the Harlan nomination, on February 24 and 25, 1955. The February 24 session, held in closed session, heard the testimony of nine witnesses (seven in favor of confirmation, and two opposed). Luther A. Huston, "Harlan Hearing Held by Senators," New York Times, February 25, 1955, p. 8. The committee also began the February 25 hearing in closed session, to hear the testimony of additional witnesses. However, for Judge Harlan, who was the last scheduled witness, the committee "voted to open the hearing to newspaper reporters for his testimony." Luther A. Huston, "Harlan Disavows 'One World' Aims in Senate Inquiry," New York Times, February 26, 1955, p. 1.

h. The 45 votes in favor of the motion to close debate fell far short of the super-majority required under Senate rules—then two-thirds of Senators present and voting. The cloture motion, if approved, would have closed a lengthy debate (which had consumed more than 25 hours over a four-day period) on a motion to proceed to consider the Fortas nomination.

i. The 52 votes in favor of the motion to close debate fell short of the super-majority required under Senate rules—then two-thirds of Senators present and voting. Although the cloture motion failed, the Senate later that day (December 10, 1971) agreed, without a procedural vote, to close debate and then voted to confirm Rehnquist 68-26.

j. The 68 votes in favor of the motion to close debate, by invoking cloture, exceeded the super-majority then required under Senate rules—namely, three-fifths of the Senate's full membership.

k. Motions to gain approval in Senate committees require a majority vote in favor and thus fail if there is a tie vote.

l. On April 6, 2017, a first vote on the motion to close debate on the Gorsuch nomination fell short of the super-majority required under Senate rules—then three-fifths of the Senate's full membership. Immediately thereafter, however, the Senate voted to reinterpret its cloture rule to allow cloture to be invoked on Supreme Court nominations by a simple majority of Senators voting (a quorum being present). The Senate then, pursuant to the rule reinterpretation, voted a second time on the motion to close debate on the nomination, exceeding the simple majority required. Congressional Record, daily edition, vol. 163 (April 6, 2017), pp. S2388-S2390. For a brief report explaining the Senate's April 6, 2017, actions, see CRS Report R44819, Senate Proceedings Establishing Majority Cloture for Supreme Court Nominations: In Brief, by Valerie Heitshusen.

m. The Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the Barrett nomination was boycotted by the 10 Democratic Senators on the committee, resulting in the absence of recorded "nay" committee votes in opposition to the nomination.

n. Under temporary procedures that applied when the Senate was evenly divided between the two political parties in the 117th Congress (2021-2022), the Senate discharged the Judiciary Committee from consideration of the nomination on April 4, 2022, by a vote of 53-47. This placed the nomination on the Executive Calendar in the same status as if it had been reported. For more information on the temporary procedures used during the 117th Congress, see CRS Report R46769, The Senate Powersharing Agreement of the 117th Congress (S.Res. 27), by Elizabeth Rybicki.

o. If a particular action did not occur for a nomination (e.g., a committee hearing was not held on a nomination), the nomination is not included in the calculation of the median number of days from the date a nomination was received in the Senate to the occurrence of that particular action (e.g., the median number of days from a nomination being submitted to the Senate to the start of public committee hearings). Consequently, the median values reported for Table 1 include only those nominations for which a particular action occurred after being submitted to the Senate (i.e., any nominations that did not receive a committee hearing are not included in the calculation of the median number of days from the nomination being submitted to the Senate to the first public hearing date).

Table 2. Number of Supreme Court Nominations Confirmed by Voice Vote/Unanimous Consent (UC) or by Roll Call Vote

Years

Voice Vote or UC

Roll Call Vote

Total Confirmed

1789-1829

24

2

26

1830-1889

15

18

33

1890-1965

34

13

47

1966-2022

0

22

22

Totals

73

55

128

Note: Not included in Table 2 are nominations to the Court that were rejected by roll call vote. There were two, three, three, and three such nominations during the 1789-1829, 1830-1889, 1890-1965, and 1966-2022 periods, respectively.

Sources: U.S. Congress, Senate, Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, various editions from the 1st Congress through the 110th Congress; also, "Nominations" database in the Legislative Information System, available at http://www.congress.gov/nomis/.

Footnotes

1.

From President George Washington's initial six appointments to the Supreme Court in 1789 and 1790 to the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2022, a vacancy on the Court occurred on average every two years (with a median length of time between vacancies of 1.4 years). During the post-World War II period (1946 to the present), a vacancy on the Court occurred on average every 2.4 years (with a median of 1.9 years). As of January 12, 2026, a vacancy last occurred on the Court 3.5 years ago.

2.

For more information on the temporary procedures used during the 117th Congress, see CRS Report R46769, The Senate Powersharing Agreement of the 117th Congress (S.Res. 27), by Elizabeth Rybicki.

3.

Preceding the table is summary text, which highlights certain nominations statistics derived from the table. The text also provides historical background information on the Supreme Court appointment process and uses nominations statistics from the table to shed light on ways in which the appointment process has evolved over time. Many of the statistical findings discussed, for example, provide historical perspective on the emergence, and then increased involvement, of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the appointment process.

4.

Typically, the date on which the President formally makes a nomination, by signing a nomination message, is the same as the date on which the nomination is received in the Senate. In Table 1, these two dates are the same for any given nomination when only one date is shown in the "Date received in Senate" column. However, for a nomination made by a President on a date prior to the nomination's receipt by the Senate, the earlier presidential nomination date is distinguished, in parentheses, from the date when the nomination was received by the Senate.

5.

Table 1 identifies eight Supreme Court nominees who subsequent to Senate confirmation did not assume the office to which they had been appointed: Seven declined the office, and one died before assuming it. One of the seven who declined the office, William Cushing—confirmed to be Chief Justice in 1796—was at the time serving on the Court as an Associate Justice, and continued to serve in that capacity until 1810. Another of the seven, John Jay—confirmed to be Chief Justice in 1800—had served earlier on the Court, as the Court's first Chief Justice, from 1789 to 1795.

6.

Additionally, the Supreme Court provides a list of individuals who have served on the Court as either a Chief Justice or Associate Justice. The list is available at http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/members_text.aspx.

7.

Specifically, eight persons were nominated twice to the same Court position (seven to be Associate Justice, one to be Chief Justice); one person was nominated three times to be Associate Justice; and nine persons were nominated first to be Associate Justice and later to be Chief Justice. The sum of 19 (the number of Court nominations that were not a person's first nomination to the Court) and 146 (the number of persons nominated to the Court at least once) is 165 (total Supreme Court nominations).

8.

The nation's first Chief Justice, John Jay, was nominated to that position twice. Jay was first nominated, and confirmed, in September 1789. He resigned as Chief Justice in 1795 to serve as governor of New York. In December 1800, Jay was nominated and confirmed a second time as Chief Justice, but declined the appointment. For analysis of the process by which a Chief Justice is appointed, accompanied by a list of all Chief Justice nominations from 1789 to the present (including the nomination, confirmation, judicial oath, and end-of-service dates of Chief Justice nominees, as well as their ages at time of appointment and upon termination of service), see archived CRS Report RL32821, The Chief Justice of the United States: Responsibilities of the Office and Process for Appointment, by Denis Steven Rutkus and Lorraine H. Tong.

9.

The three Presidents not to have made any Supreme Court nominations were William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Jimmy Carter, with no vacancies on the Court having occurred while they were in office. While it may be unremarkable that no vacancies occurred during the relatively short presidencies of Harrison (March 4 to April 4, 1841) and Taylor (March 5, 1849, to July 9, 1850), Jimmy Carter's presidency (January 20, 1977, to January 20, 1981) is notable in that it is the only full-term presidency during which no Supreme Court vacancies occurred.

10.

See Myron Jacobstein and Roy M. Mersky, The Rejected (Toucan Valley Publications, 1993), pp. 69-74. (Hereinafter cited as Jacobstein and Mersky, The Rejected.)

11.

President Washington, early in his first term of office, was presented with the opportunity to make six Supreme Court nominations, as the Judiciary Act of 1789 (1 Stat. 73 (1789)) set the number of Justice positions on the newly established Court at six. On September 24, 1789, the President nominated six persons to the Court, and two days later the Senate voted for their confirmation. However, one of the confirmed nominees, Robert Harrison of Maryland, declined the appointment, resulting in President Washington, in 1790, making a seventh nomination, of James Iredell of North Carolina, whose confirmation by the Senate put the six-member Court at full strength. Subsequently during the Washington presidency, four vacancies occurred on the Court, which resulted in the President making seven more nominations. Four of these seven nominations were confirmed by the Senate, with the nominees accepting their appointments to the Court. The other three nominations involved the first of two nominations of William Paterson of New Jersey in 1793 (who, after his first nomination was withdrawn, was renominated by President Washington and confirmed), John Rutledge of South Carolina (whose nomination in 1795 to be Chief Justice was rejected by the Senate), and William Cushing of Massachusetts (whose nomination in 1796 to be Chief Justice was confirmed by the Senate, but who declined the appointment).

12.

The six Presidents whose single Supreme Court nominations received Senate confirmation were Franklin Pierce, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge, Gerald R. Ford, and Joe Biden. As mentioned above, the one President whose single Supreme Court nomination did not receive confirmation was Andrew Johnson.

13.

A President may announce the selection of a nominee well before transmitting a nomination message to the Senate. For instance, President George W. Bush announced his selection of Samuel Alito to be a Supreme Court nominee on October 31, 2005, but formally signed and transmitted the nomination of Alito to the Senate on November 10, 2005. For a complete list, from 1900 to 2009, of the dates on which Presidents announced their Supreme Court nominees (as distinguished from when they signed and transmitted nomination documents to the Senate), see archived CRS Report RL33118, Speed of Presidential and Senate Actions on Supreme Court Nominations, 1900-2010, by R. Sam Garrett and Denis Steven Rutkus.

14.

See U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, History of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 1816-1981. Sen. Doc. No. 97-18, 97th Cong., 1st sess. (GPO, 1982), p. iv; also, U.S. Senate, History of the Committee on Rules and Administration—United States Senate, prepared by Floyd M. Riddick, Parliamentarian Emeritus of the Senate, 96th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. No. 96-27 (GPO, 1980). Riddick provides, on pp. 21-28, the full text of the general revision of the Senate rules, adopted in 1868, including, on p. 26, the following rule: "When nominations shall be made by the President of the United States to the Senate, they shall, unless otherwise ordered by the Senate, be referred to appropriate committees...."

15.

The nominations from 1868 to the present not referred to the Judiciary Committee were those of Edwin Stanton in 1869 (at time of nomination, former Secretary of War); Edward White in 1894 (Senator); Edward White again, in 1910, this time to be Chief Justice (Associate Justice at time of nomination, and former Senator); William Howard Taft in 1921 (former President); George Sutherland in 1922 (former Senator); and James Byrnes in 1941 (Senator).

16.

For a historical overview of public hearings on Supreme Court nominations submitted to the Senate, see CRS Insight IN10476, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings for Supreme Court Nominations: Historical Overview and Data, by Barry J. McMillion (out of print; available to congressional clients from the author upon request).

17.

At least once in the 19th century, the Judiciary Committee did hear witnesses testify concerning a Supreme Court nomination—that of George Williams to be Chief Justice—but these two days of hearings, on December 16 and 17, 1873, were held in closed session. The closed-door sessions were held to examine documents and hear testimony from witnesses relevant to a controversy that arose over the Williams nomination only after the committee had reported the nomination to the Senate. The controversy prompted the Senate to recommit the nomination to the Judiciary Committee and to authorize the committee "to send for persons and papers." U.S. Congress, Senate, Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, vol. 19 (GPO, 1901), p. 189. After holding the two closed-door sessions on December 16 and 17, the committee did not re-report the nomination to the Senate. Amid press reports of significant opposition to the nomination both in the Judiciary Committee and the Senate as a whole, the nomination, at Williams's request, was withdrawn by President Ulysses S. Grant on January 8, 1874. See Jacobstein and Mersky, The Rejected, pp. 82-87.

18.

For a discussion of the advent of Supreme Court nominee appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee, starting with Harlan Stone in 1925 (and carrying through the nominations of Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry in 1968), see, James A. Thorpe, "The Appearance of Supreme Court Nominees Before the Senate Judiciary Committee," Journal of Public Law, vol. 18, 1969, pp. 371-402.

19.

A scholar examining the procedures followed by the committee in its consideration of 15 Supreme Court nominations referred to it between 1923 and 1946 found that, with two exceptions—the nominations of Charles Evans Hughes in 1930 and Harold Burton to be Associate Justices in 1945—all of the nominations were first "processed by a subcommittee prior to consideration by the full committee membership." David Gregg Farrelly, "Operational Aspects of the Senate Judiciary Committee," (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University: 1949), pp. 184-185. (Hereinafter cited as Farrelly, "Operational Aspects.")

20.

The four other nominations not receiving public confirmation hearings even though referred to the Judiciary Committee were of former New York governor and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes in 1930, former federal prosecutor Owen Roberts in 1930, Senator Hugo Black in 1937, and Senator Harold Burton in 1945.

Farrelly, in "Operational Aspects," also lists the Supreme Court nomination of former Michigan governor Frank Murphy in 1940 as one not receiving a confirmation hearing. Farrelly notes, at pp. 191-192, that the Senate Judiciary subcommittee which first processed the nomination "voted against public hearings." That vote notwithstanding, the nominee voluntarily appeared before the subcommittee on January 11, 1940, in a public session at which four Senators "all questioned Mr. Murphy about his views of the Constitution and the duties of a Supreme Court Justice." "Senate Body Backs Murphy for Court," New York Times, January 12, 1940, p. 1. Based on this and other similar newspaper accounts of the subcommittee session, January 11, 1940 is listed below, in Table 1, as a public hearing date for the Murphy nomination.

21.

See, in Table 1, the multiple hearing days for the nominations of Felix Frankfurter in 1939 and Robert Jackson in 1941.

22.

For example, a Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the 1932 nomination of Benjamin Cardozo lasted only five minutes, during which one witness testified in opposition. Likewise, when the Judiciary Committee extended open invitations for witnesses to testify in opposition at the confirmation hearings for Stanley Reed in 1938, William Douglas in 1939, Harlan Stone (for Chief Justice) in 1941, Wiley Rutledge in 1943, and Fred Vinson (for Chief Justice) in 1946, no witnesses appeared to protest against Douglas or Stone, and "only one or two persons filed protests in each case against Reed, Vinson and Rutledge." Farrelly, "Operational Aspects," pp. 194-195.

23.

The last Supreme Court nomination on which a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held hearings was the 1954 nomination of Earl Warren to be Chief Justice. The subcommittee held public hearings on the nomination on February 2 and 19, 1954, after which the full committee, on February 24, 1954, voted to report the nomination favorably. All subsequent hearings on Supreme Court nominations were held by the full Judiciary Committee.

24.

The Judiciary Committee held two days of confirmation hearings on the second Harlan nomination, on February 24 and 25, 1955. The February 24 session, held in closed session, heard the testimony of nine witnesses (seven in favor of confirmation, and two opposed). Luther A. Huston, "Harlan Hearing Held by Senators," New York Times, February 25, 1955, p. 8. The committee also began the February 25 hearing in closed session, to hear the testimony of additional witnesses. However, for Judge Harlan, who was the last scheduled witness, the committee "voted to open the hearing to newspaper reporters for his testimony." Luther A. Huston, "Harlan Disavows 'One World' Aims in Senate Inquiry," New York Times, February 26, 1955, p. 1.

25.

See CRS Report R44773, The Scalia Vacancy in Historical Context: Frequently Asked Questions, by Barry J. McMillion. See also letter by majority members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Senate majority leader expressing unanimous agreement that there be no hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until after the next President was sworn in on January 20, 2017, at https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/judiciary-committee-republicans-mcconnell-no-hearings-supreme-court-nomination; also, Dave Boyer, "Grassley Reiterates No Hearing Stance in Garland Meeting," The Washington Times, April 13, 2016, p. A5.

26.

These were the nominations of Robert Bork in 1987 (12 hearing days), Clarence Thomas in 1991 (11 days), and Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry in 1968 (11 days for their joint hearings).

27.

In 1969, eight days of confirmation hearings were held on the nomination of Clement Haynsworth.

28.

One day of hearings each was held on the nominations of Warren Burger (to be Chief Justice) in 1969 and Harry Blackmun in 1970, while two days of hearings were held on the nomination of Antonin Scalia in 1986.

29.

As noted earlier, only once prior to the establishment of the Judiciary Committee in 1816 was a Supreme Court nomination referred to committee, and that nomination was reported to the Senate as well. See, in Table 1, the nomination in 1811 of Alexander Wolcott, which was considered by a select committee and then reported to the Senate, where it was rejected by a 9-24 vote.

30.

The six favorably reported nominations which failed to receive Senate confirmation involved these nominees: George Williams, for Chief Justice, in 1873 (nomination withdrawn); Caleb Cushing, in 1874 (nomination withdrawn); Pierce Butler in 1922 (no action taken by Senate); Abe Fortas, for Chief Justice, in 1968 (nomination withdrawn); Clement Haynsworth Jr. in 1969 (rejected by Senate); and G. Harrold Carswell in 1970 (rejected by Senate). Butler, it should be noted, was renominated and confirmed.

31.

A report that states it is not accompanied by a recommendation can be a way to alert the Senate that a substantial number of committee members have some reservations about the nominee which, however, do not rise, at that point, to the level of opposition; it might also be a way to bridge or downplay differences between committee members who favor confirmation and other members who oppose it. The latter, for example, was said to be the purpose for the Judiciary Committee in 1888 reporting the Chief Justice nomination of Melville Fuller without recommendation; the action was described in a news account as a "compromise between the Democratic minority who desired a report to the Senate in favor of confirmation, and the Republican majority, who desired to defeat the nomination.... " "Mr. Fuller's Nomination," Washington Post, July 3, 1888, p. 1.

32.

The three nominees confirmed by the Senate after the Judiciary Committee explicitly reported their nominations without recommendation were: Melville Fuller, for Chief Justice, in 1888; George Shiras Jr. in 1892; and Clarence Thomas in 1991. A fourth nomination reported without recommendation, Wheeler Peckham, in 1894, was rejected by the Senate.

33.

See, in Table 1, the second nomination of Stanley Matthews in 1881 (confirmed 24-23) and the nomination of Lucius Lamar in 1888 (confirmed 32-28).

34.

The nominations reported unfavorably and then rejected by the Senate involved these nominees: Ebenezer Hoar in 1869 (rejected 24-33); William Hornblower in 1894 (rejected 24-30); John Parker in 1930 (rejected 39-41); and Robert Bork in 1987 (rejected 42-58).

35.

The Senate in 1829 postponed taking action on the nomination of John Crittenden after receiving an adverse report on the nomination from the Judiciary Committee.

36.

As discussed in the text, the most recent occurrence of a nomination being referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and not reported out of committee was in 2022 when the committee failed, in a tie vote, to favorably report the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Under temporary procedures that applied when the Senate was evenly divided between the two political parties in the 117th Congress (2021-2022), the Senate discharged the Judiciary Committee from consideration of the nomination on April 4, 2022, by a vote of 53-47. This action placed the Jackson nomination on the Executive Calendar in the same status as if it had been reported by the committee.

The second-most recent occurrence of a nomination being referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee and not reported out of committee was in 2016 when President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the vacancy on the Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Garland's nomination was referred to the Judiciary Committee on March 16, 2016, and remained pending before the committee until it was returned to the President on January 3, 2017.

37.

The final outcome for five of these six nominees, however, was determined not by the failure of their nominations to be reported out of committee, but by action, or lack of action, taken outside the committee—by the Senate, Congress as a whole, or the President. In 1853, the nomination of William Micou was referred to the Judiciary Committee and on the same day ordered discharged by the Senate, where no action was taken. In 1866, the nomination of Henry Stanbery was referred to the Judiciary Committee, but shortly afterwards, while the nomination was pending in the Senate, the Associate Justice position to which Stanbery had been nominated was eliminated by statute. In 1893, the nomination of William Hornblower was referred to the Judiciary Committee, but not reported; later that year, in a new session of Congress, Hornblower was renominated, reported unfavorably by the Judiciary Committee (in early 1894), and rejected by the Senate, 24-30. In 1968, the Judiciary Committee declined to report the nomination of Homer Thornberry to succeed Associate Justice Abe Fortas until the final outcome of the nomination of Fortas to be Chief Justice was determined. The Thornberry and Fortas nominations were both withdrawn by the President after a motion to close debate on the Fortas nomination failed to pass in the Senate. (The failure of Fortas's Chief Justice nomination eliminated the prospective Associate Justice vacancy that Thornberry had been nominated to fill.) In 2005, the nomination of Harriet Miers was withdrawn by the President before the Judiciary Committee held hearings on the nomination. By contrast, the failure to be confirmed of a sixth unreported nominee, Merrick Garland in 2016, could be seen as attributable in significant part to the Judiciary Committee not considering or acting on the Garland nomination.

38.

In February 1881, just before the final adjournment of the 46th Congress, the Judiciary Committee voted to postpone taking action on the Supreme Court nomination of Stanley Matthews; shortly afterwards, however, in a special session of the 47th Congress, Matthews was renominated, and, although his second nomination was reported unfavorably by the Judiciary Committee, it was confirmed by the Senate, 24-23. In November 1954, late in the 83rd Congress, the nomination of John Harlan II was referred to the Judiciary Committee, where no action was taken; in 1955, Harlan was renominated, considered and reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee, and confirmed by the Senate. In September 2005, before the scheduled start of confirmation hearings, the nomination of John Roberts to be Associate Justice was withdrawn and, on the same day of the withdrawal, Roberts was renominated for Chief Justice; the second Roberts nomination was reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee and confirmed by the Senate. Most recently, in 2022, the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson was not reported out of committee when the committee failed, in a tied vote, to favorably report the nomination. Under temporary procedures that applied when the Senate was evenly divided between the two political parties in the 117th Congress (2021-2022), the Senate discharged the Judiciary Committee from consideration of the nomination on April 4, 2022, by a vote of 53-47. This action placed the Jackson nomination on the Executive Calendar in the same status as if it had been reported by the committee.

39.

See CRS Report RL31980, Senate Consideration of Presidential Nominations: Committee and Floor Procedure, by Elizabeth Rybicki; also, CRS Report RL30360, Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate, by Valerie Heitshusen and Richard S. Beth.

40.

Ibid.

41.

It has only been since 1949, under Senate rules, that cloture could be moved on nominations. Prior to 1949, dating back to the Senate's first adoption of a cloture rule in 1917, cloture motions could be filed only on legislative measures. See CRS Report RL32878, Cloture Attempts on Nominations: Data and Historical Development Through November 20, 2013, by Richard S. Beth, Elizabeth Rybicki, and Michael Greene.

42.

Ibid.

43.

Ibid.

44.

See CRS Report R44819, Senate Proceedings Establishing Majority Cloture for Supreme Court Nominations: In Brief, by Valerie Heitshusen. The action was similar to that taken in November 2013, when the Senate had reinterpreted the cloture rule to allow a simple majority vote to invoke cloture on all nominations except to the Supreme Court. See CRS Report R43331, Majority Cloture for Nominations: Implications and the "Nuclear" Proceedings of November 21, 2013, by Valerie Heitshusen.

45.

For the Senate's debate on the Fortas nomination immediately prior to the vote on the motion to close debate, see "Supreme Court of the United States," Congressional Record, vol. 114, October 1, 1968, pp. 28926-28933.

46.

The 45 votes in favor of cloture fell far short of the super-majority required—then two-thirds of Senators present and voting, a quorum being present.

47.

For the Senate's debate on the Rehnquist nomination immediately prior to the vote on the motion to close debate, see "Cloture Motion," Congressional Record, vol. 117, December 10, 1971, pp. 46110-46117.

48.

The Senate, on December 10, 1971, confirmed the Rehnquist nomination by a vote of 68-26, after voting 22-70 to reject a motion that a vote on the nomination be deferred until January 18, 1972. Congressional Record, vol. 117, December 10, 1971, p. 46121 (vote on motion to defer) and p. 46197 (confirmation vote).

49.

"Nomination of William H. Rehnquist To Be Chief Justice of the United States," Congressional Record, vol. 132, September17, 1986, pp. 23729-23739.

50.

"Cloture Motion," Congressional Record, January 26, 2006, daily edition, vol. 152, p. S197.

51.

"Nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr., To Be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States," Congressional Record, January 30, 2006, daily edition, vol. 152, pp. S260-S308.

52.

See Congressional Record, April 6, 2017, daily edition, vol. 163, pp. S2388-S2390.

53.

Ibid.

54.

The Senate established the new precedent, when, by a 48-52 vote, it overturned a ruling of the chair that a 2013 precedent that applied a majority vote cloture threshold to executive branch and lower court nominations did not apply to Supreme Court nominations. For a brief report explaining the Senate's April 6, 2017 actions (by which the Senate effectively extended to Supreme court nominations its November 2013 reinterpretation of Senate Rule XXII), see CRS Report R44819, Senate Proceedings Establishing Majority Cloture for Supreme Court Nominations: In Brief, by Valerie Heitshusen.

55.

Ibid.

56.

The earliest Senate rejection of a Supreme Court nomination occurred in 1795, when President George Washington's nomination of John Rutledge to be Chief Justice failed on a 10-14 vote. The latest instance was the Senate's rejection of Robert Bork in 1987, by a 42-58 vote. Between Rutledge and Bork, the following nominations were also rejected: Alexander Wolcott in 1811, John Spencer in 1844, George Woodward in 1846, Ebenezer Hoar in 1870, William Hornblower in 1894, Wheeler Peckham in 1894, John Parker in 1930, Clement Haynsworth Jr. in 1969, and G. Harrold Carswell in 1970.

57.

The following Supreme Court nominations were withdrawn, in the years indicated, with the Presidents who withdrew them shown in parentheses: The first nomination of William Paterson, in 1793 (George Washington); the first nomination of Reuben Walworth, in 1844 (John Tyler); the second nomination of John Spencer, in 1844 (John Tyler); the third nomination of Reuben Walworth, in 1845 (John Tyler); the second nomination of Edward King, in 1845 (John Tyler); George Williams and Caleb Cushing, both in 1874 (Ulysses S. Grant); Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry, both in 1968 (Lyndon B. Johnson); John Roberts and Harriet Miers, both in 2005 (George W. Bush). Less than a week after his first nomination was withdrawn, Paterson was renominated by President Washington and confirmed by the Senate on the same day. On the same day that President Bush withdrew the Roberts nomination to be Associate Justice, he renominated Roberts to be Chief Justice, and the latter nomination was confirmed.

58.

The 15 nominations that lapsed at the end of a session of Congress, without a Senate confirmation or rejection vote or a withdrawal by the President having occurred, can be broken into the following groups according to Senate actions, or lack of Senate actions, taken: On three nominations (John Crittenden in 1829, the first nomination of Roger Taney in 1835, and George Badger in 1853), the Senate voted to postpone taking action; the Senate tabled two nominations (the first nomination of Edward King in 1844 and Edward Bradford in 1852); on one nomination, the Senate rejected a motion to proceed (Jeremiah Black in 1861, by a 25-26 vote); and on nine nominations, there was no record of any vote taken (the second nomination of Reuben Walworth in 1844, John Read in 1845, William Micou in 1853, Henry Stanbery in 1866, the first nomination of Stanley Matthews in 1881, the first nomination of William Hornblower in 1893, the first nomination of Pierce Butler in 1922, the first nomination of John Harlan II in 1954, and Merrick Garland in 2016). However, four of the 15 persons whose nominations lapsed in one session of Congress were renominated in the next congressional session and confirmed (Taney in 1835, Matthews in 1881, Butler in 1922, and Harlan in 1955).

59.

The six individuals who were not confirmed only to be later renominated and confirmed were, in the following years of confirmation shown in parentheses, William Paterson (1793), Roger Taney (1836), Stanley Matthews (1881), Pierce Butler (1922), John Harlan II (1955), and John Roberts (2005).

60.

The closest roll calls ever cast on Supreme Court nominations were the 24-23 vote in 1881 confirming Stanley Matthews, the 25-26 vote in 1861 rejecting a motion to proceed to consider the nomination of Jeremiah Black, and the 26-25 Senate vote in 1853 to postpone consideration of the nomination of George Badger.

Since the 1960s, the closest roll calls on Supreme Court nominations were the 51-49 vote in 2018 confirming Brett Kavanaugh, the 52-48 vote in 2020 confirming Amy Coney Barrett, the 52-48 vote in 1991 confirming Clarence Thomas, the 53-47 vote in 2022 confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson, the 45-51 vote in 1970 rejecting G. Harrold Carswell, the 54-45 vote in 2017 confirming Neil Gorsuch, the 45-55 vote in 1969 rejecting Clement Haynsworth Jr., the 58-42 vote in 2006 confirming Samuel Alito, the 42-58 vote in 1987 rejecting Robert Bork, the 63-37 vote in 2010 confirming Elena Kagan, and the 65-33 vote confirming William Rehnquist to be Chief Justice in 1986. Also noteworthy was the 45-43 vote in 1968 rejecting a motion to close debate on the nomination of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice; however, the roll call was not as close as the numbers by themselves suggested, since passage of the motion required a two-thirds vote of the Members present and voting.

61.

The most lopsided of these votes were the unanimous roll calls confirming Morrison Waite to be Chief Justice in 1874 (63-0), Harry Blackmun in 1970 (94-0), John Paul Stevens in 1975 (98-0), Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981 (99-0), Antonin Scalia in 1986 (98-0), and Anthony Kennedy in 1988 (97-0); and the near-unanimous votes confirming Noah Swayne in 1862 (38-1), Warren Burger in 1969 to be Chief Justice (74-3), Lewis Powell Jr. in 1971 (89-1), and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 (96-3).

62.

In calculating the median elapsed time for the contemporary period, the Marshall nomination in 1967 was selected as the starting point for the following reason. The Marshall nomination, it could be argued, marked the start of an era in which the confirmation hearings of most, if not all, Supreme Court nominees were highly charged events, covered closely by the news media, with nominees interrogated rigorously and extensively (and for more than a day) about their judicial philosophy as well as their views on constitutional issues and the proper role of the Supreme Court in the U.S. government. For the Marshall nomination, the elapsed time between Senate receipt and start of confirmation hearings was 30 days.

63.

See bottom rows of Table 1 for median number of days that elapsed from the date Supreme Court nominations were received in the Senate to first hearing dates, for three different time spans.

64.

This block of time is intended to be used by the committee members and staff for thorough study and review of background information about nominees and issues relevant to their nominations, in preparation for the hearings.

65.

For the other nine nominations, the elapsed time between Senate receipt of nomination and the first day of confirmation hearings was 50 days for David Souter in 1990, 64 days for Clarence Thomas in 1991, 28 days for Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993, 56 days for Stephen Breyer in 1994, 60 days for Samuel Alito in 2005-2006, 42 days for Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, 49 days for Elena Kagan in 2010, 47 days for Neil Gorsuch in 2017, and 56 days for Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

66.

As already mentioned, the first such nomination, of Alexander Wolcott in 1811, was reported by a select committee; all subsequently reported nominations were reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

67.

Five days after the committee's favorable, and extremely prompt, recommendation of Cushing, President Ulysses S. Grant withdrew the nomination.

68.

Five nominations were voted on by the Judiciary Committee one day after their receipt by the Senate: Robert Grier in 1846; John Campbell in 1853; Morrison Waite, to be Chief Justice, in 1874; Horace Gray in 1881; and Harold Burton in 1945. Six nominations were voted on by the committee two days after Senate receipt: James Wayne in 1835; Samuel Nelson in 1845; Noah Swayne in 1862; David Davis in 1862; Stephen Field in 1963; and Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1902. Three nominations were voted on by the committee three days after Senate receipt: Horace Lurton in 1909; Willis Van Devanter in 1910; and Joseph Lamar in 1910.

69.

The first of Reuben Walworth's three nominations to the Court in 1844 was voted on by the Judiciary Committee 93 days after Senate receipt and committee referral. During the 20th century, the Judiciary Committee, in addition to its 1916 vote on the Brandeis nomination, voted on the following nominations more than 80 days after Senate receipt: Potter Stewart in 1959 (93 days); Robert Bork in 1987 (91 days), Abe Fortas, to be Chief Justice, in 1968 (83 days); and Clarence Thomas in 1991 (81 days).

70.

All of the 15 nominations on which the Judiciary Committee voted three days or less after Senate receipt were made prior to 1946, and 14 of the 15 were made prior to 1911.

71.

See bottom rows of Table 1 for median number of days that elapsed from the date Supreme Court nominations were received in the Senate to final Senate vote dates, for three different time spans.

72.

The four Eisenhower nominations for which 44 or more days elapsed from the date received in the Senate to the date voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee were those of: Earl Warren to be Chief Justice in 1954, 44 days; John Harlan II in 1955, 59 days; William Brennan Jr. in 1957, 49 days; and Potter Stewart in 1959, 93 days. Three of the nominees—Warren, Brennan, and Stewart—were already on the Court as recess appointees, a circumstance that served perhaps to make action on their nominations seem less urgent to the committee than if their seats on the Court had been vacant. Harlan, however, was not a recess appointee at the time of his nomination. See "The Harlan Nomination," New York Times, February 25, 1955, p. 20, discussing, according to the editorial, the "inexcusable delay" on the part of the committee in acting on the nomination and the objections to the nomination voiced by a few of the committee's members. (Ultimately, the committee voted 10-4 to report the nomination favorably.) Receiving much more expeditious committee action was President Eisenhower's fifth Supreme Court nomination, of Charles Whittaker in 1957, which was approved by the Judiciary Committee 16 days after Senate receipt.

73.

The days that elapsed from the date received in the Senate to the date voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee were eight days and 25 days for the 1962 nominations of Byron White and Arthur Goldberg and 13 days for the 1965 nomination of Abe Fortas to be Associate Justice.

74.

Besides nominations that received official final Senate action in the form of confirmation or rejection (128 and 11, respectively), or that were withdrawn by the President (11), six others are treated in the table as also receiving final action, albeit not of a definitive official sort—with three having been postponed by the Senate, two tabled, and one (the nomination of Jeremiah S. Black in 1861) not considered after a motion to proceed was defeated by a 25-26 vote. While the six nominations remained pending in the Senate after the noted actions, the effect of the actions, it can be argued, was decisive in eliminating any prospect of confirmation, and thus constituted a final Senate action for time measurement purposes. Accordingly, for these six nominations, the number of days elapsed is measured from date of Senate receipt to the dates of effective final action just noted.

75.

This does not include the nomination of John Roberts for the Chief Justice position in 2005. While his nomination to be Chief Justice was confirmed 23 days after its initial receipt in the Senate, Roberts had been previously nominated on July 29, 2005, to be an Associate Justice on the Court. After the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 3, 2005, the first Roberts nomination was withdrawn and he was renominated to the vacant Chief Justice position. Hearings on his nomination to be an Associate Justice, set to begin on September 6, were cancelled, and rescheduled hearings, on the Chief Justice nomination, began on September 12. The overall time that elapsed from Roberts's Associate Justice nomination on July 29, 2005, to Senate confirmation of his Chief Justice nomination on September 29, 2005, was 62 days.

76.

Table 1 shows that 43 nominations received final Senate or presidential action in three or fewer days after having been received in the Senate. Of the 43, 36 (84%) were nominations that occurred prior to the 20th century.

77.

Table 1 shows that 18 nominations received final Senate or presidential action more than 75 days after having been received in the Senate. Of the 18, 14 (78%) were nominations that occurred during the 20th or 21st centuries, with 12 (67%) made since 1967.

78.

See in Table 1 the recess appointments of Thomas Johnson in 1791, John Rutledge (to be Chief Justice) in 1795, Bushrod Washington in 1798, H. Brockholst Livingston in 1806, Smith Thompson in 1823, John McKinley in 1837, Levi Woodbury in 1845, Benjamin Curtis in 1851, and David Davis in 1862.

79.

See in Table 1 the recess appointments of Earl Warren (to be Chief Justice) in 1953, William Brennan Jr. in 1956, and Potter Stewart in 1958.

80.

Specifically, Article II, Section 2, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution empowers the President "to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."

81.

For background on the history of recess appointments to the Supreme Court, and the policy and constitutional issues associated with those appointments, see CRS Report RL31112, Recess Appointments of Federal Judges, by Louis Fisher (out of print; available to congressional clients from the author upon request); and Henry B. Hogue, "The Law: Recess Appointments to Article III Courts," Political Science Quarterly, vol. 34, September 2004, p. 656.

82.

See U.S. Congress. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Expressing the Sense of the Senate That Recess Appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States Should Not Be Made Except Under Unusual Circumstances, report to accompany S.Res. 334, 86th Cong., 2nd sess., August 22, 1960, S.Rept. 1893 (GPO, 1960).

83.

Adopted by the Senate on August 29, 1960, by a 48-37 vote, S.Res. 334 expressed the sense of the Senate that recess appointments to the Supreme Court "should not be made, except, under unusual circumstances and for the purpose of preventing or ending a demonstrable breakdown in the administration of the Court's business." "Opposition to Recess Appointments to the Supreme Court," debate in Senate on S.Res. 334, Congressional Record, vol. 106 (August 29, 1960), pp. 18130-18145.

84.

"From the 110th Congress onward," a CRS report has noted, "it has become common for the Senate and House to use certain scheduling practices as a means of precluding the President from making recess appointments. The practices do this by preventing the occurrence of a Senate recess of sufficient length for the President to be able to use his recess appointment authority. As previous discussed ..., in a June 26, 2014 opinion [ Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. v. Noel Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550 (2014)], the U.S. Supreme Court held that the President's recess appointment power may be used essentially only during a recess of 10 days or longer." CRS Report RS21308, Recess Appointments: Frequently Asked Questions, by Henry B. Hogue.