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September 24, 2002

Why Borking Became Popular

Many people bemoan the rise of rough judicial treatment of Presidential nominations in the last couple of decades, but as this article points out, up until the 1970s, Senators had much greater influence in picking nominees. With Carter, and even more so Reagan, the Executive branch took over the picking of lower court nominees:

For long periods of American history, senators of both parties consented as much as they advised when it came to judicial appointments, especially to federal courts below the Supreme Court. That changed in the late 1970s when Democrat Jimmy Carter's administration assumed more control over appeals court nominations, a practice perpetuated by Ronald Reagan (who named several brilliant conservative academics to those courts), the first President Bush, Bill Clinton and now George W. Bush.

With Senators cut out of the nomination stage, it's hardly surprising that they've reasserted themselves in the confirmation stage.

BTW I found this article while testing out the new Google News service, another awesome creation by our friends at Google.

Posted by Nathan at September 24, 2002 02:16 PM

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