Litigation

High Court Confirmation Hearings ?A Joke?

By Peter Hardin

Not only are Supreme Court confirmation hearings a “joke,” but the process has taken a toll on the kind of nominees who presidents select.

In advance of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the confirmation of nominee Elena Kagan later this month, experts provided these and other analyses at an American Constitution Society for Law and Policy luncheon, according to a TPM blog post.

These are hardly new concerns, and Kagan herself in 1995 described the confirmation process as a “vapid and hollow charade” (see Gavel Grab). Her opinions have raised hopes by some for a more substantive proceeding this year. The ongoing discussion, nonetheless, seems to highlight both underlying weaknesses in the confirmation process and the difficulties inherent in overcoming them.

“These hearings are a joke,” said Thomas Wilner, counsel at Shearman and Sterling. “It’s not an open debate anymore, it’s become a sham process and I just don’t think it matters much because the Senate is too partisan.”

Former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, who served under President Clinton, said presidents shy away from selecting governors or others from outside the traditional legal world, and instead pick more professorial nominees. The confirmation process “terribly distorts the kind of person that ought to be the nominee,” Dellinger said.

Kagan has served as President Obama’s solicitor general. She is a former dean of Harvard Law School. She also taught law at the University of Chicago.

To read about Kagan, click on Gavel Grab. To learn more about the nominations process, visit Justice at Stake’s ?Replacing Justice Stevens? page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).