The Judicial Nomination Process
A Brief History of Supreme Court Confirmations
The process for nominating justices to the U.S. Supreme Court is described in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution: The president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Judges of the Supreme Court."Beyond this brief description, no further guidelines are given for the process, nor are any qualifications listed for potential justices. A Supreme Court justice need not even be a lawyer. In fact, according Dr. Patrick Maney, chair of the University of South Carolina’s department of history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt seriously considered nominating Sen. Robert La Follette…
