List of people nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States in the last year of a presidency

This article is part of the series on the
United States Supreme Court
The Court
Decisions Procedure History Court Building
Current membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch 1 seat vacant Retired Associate Justices John Paul Stevens Sandra Day O'Connor Anthony Kennedy David Souter
All members
List of all justices by court by seat by time in office by education List of Chief Justices List of Associate Justices Specialty lists All nominations Unsuccessful nominations Nominations late in presidency Court demographics Justices who served in Congress Ideological leanings of justices
Court functionaries
Clerks Reporter of Decisions Marshal of the Court Supreme Court Police
Other countries Law Portal
v t e

Vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States rarely arise during the last year of a presidency.^[1][2][3] Following is a list of those people who were nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court during the last year of a president's last term. This list does not include presidents who never had an opportunity to serve what would have been their last year, due to resignation or death.

Political scientist Michael Nelson wrote in 2012 that the U.S. Senate is less likely to approve Supreme Court nominations that are submitted during the final year of a presidency.^[4] This type of situation received considerable public attention in 2016 with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the resulting Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination.^[5][6]

Law professors Jason Mazzone and Robin Kar published a study in 2016 in which they wrote that a detailed analysis of Senate history does not support a deliberate inter-presidential transfer of nominating power from one president to the next. In their view, an actual vacancy ought to be viewed differently from a vacancy that is announced in advance but never actually vacated ("NV"); an elected president who makes a nomination ought to be viewed differently from a president-by-succession ("S"); and, a nomination made post-election-of-successor ("PE") should be distinguished from a nomination made earlier.^[7][8] Accordingly, the list below indicates these things in the notes column, although these distinctions have been questioned by scholars such as Edward Whelan.^[9]

Contents

• 
  1 Possible results
  


• 
  2 Nominees
  


• 
  3 Notes
  


• 
  4 See also
  


• 
  5 References
  


• 
  6 External links
  

Possible results

There are several possible results of a Supreme Court nomination:

• "confirmed"—for nominees who were confirmed and accepted confirmation.


• "rejected"—for nominees who lost their confirmation vote.


• "declined"—for nominees who declined nomination. This includes nominees who were confirmed by the Senate but declined to serve.


• "pending"—for nominees pending before the current session of the Senate.


• "withdrawn"—for nominations withdrawn by the President prior to a confirmation vote.


• "no action"—for cases in which the Senate session ended without the nomination being brought to the floor for consideration.


• "postponed"—for nominations about which a vote was taken to defer consideration of the nominee, but no confirmation vote took place. In this case, the "date of result" is the date of the vote to postpone. The Senate need not vote to postpone or table a matter "indefinitely", in order for a resolution to have that effect.^[10]

Nominees

President				Nomination
President	Last day of last term	Party	Nominee	Senate Control	Submitted to Senate	Result	Date of Result	Notes
J. Adams	Mar. 4, 1801	Fed	John Jay	Fed	Dec. 18, 1800	declined	Dec. 19, 1800	PE[7][11]
			John Marshall		Jan. 20, 1801	confirmed	Jan. 27, 1801	PE[7][11]
J. Q. Adams	Mar. 4, 1829	D-R	John J. Crittenden	D-R	Dec. 17, 1828	postponed	Feb. 12, 1829	PE[3][7][11]
Jackson	Mar. 4, 1837	Dem	William Smith	Dem	Mar. 3, 1837	declined	Mar. 8, 1837	PE[7][11]
			John Catron		Mar. 3, 1837	confirmed	Mar. 8, 1837	PE[7][11]
Van Buren	Mar. 4, 1841	Dem	Peter Vivian Daniel	Dem	Feb. 26, 1841	confirmed	Mar. 2, 1841	[11]
Tyler	Mar. 4, 1845	None	Reuben Walworth	Whig	Mar. 13, 1844	withdrawn	June 17, 1844	S[7][11]
			Edward King		June 5, 1844	postponed	June 15, 1844	S[7][11]
			John C. Spencer		June 17, 1844	withdrawn	June 17, 1844	S[7][11]
			Reuben Walworth		June 17, 1844	no action	June 17, 1844	S[7][11]
			Edward King		Dec. 4, 1844	withdrawn	Feb. 7, 1845	S;PE[7][11]
			Reuben Walworth		Dec. 4, 1844	withdrawn	Feb. 4, 1845	S;PE[7][11]
			Samuel Nelson		Feb. 4, 1845	confirmed	Feb. 14, 1845	S;PE[7][11]
			John M. Read		Feb. 4, 1845	no action		S[7][11]
Fillmore	Mar. 4, 1853	Whig	Edward A. Bradford	Dem	Aug. 16, 1852	no action		S[7][11]
			George E. Badger		Jan. 3, 1853	withdrawn	Feb. 14, 1853	S;PE[7][11]
			William C. Micou		Feb. 14, 1853	no action		S;PE[7][11]
Buchanan	Mar. 4, 1861	Dem	Jeremiah S. Black	Dem	Feb. 5, 1861	declined	Feb. 21, 1861	PE[7][11]
Hayes	Mar. 4, 1881	Rep	William Burnham Woods	Dem	Dec. 15, 1880	confirmed	Dec. 21, 1880	PE[7][11]
			Stanley MatthewsA		Jan. 26, 1881	no action		PE[7][11]
Cleveland	Mar. 4, 1889	Dem	Melville Fuller	Rep	Apr. 30, 1888	confirmed	July 20, 1888	[3][11]
B. Harrison	Mar. 4, 1893	Rep	George Shiras Jr.	Rep	July 19, 1892	confirmed	July 26, 1892	[11]
Wilson	Mar. 4, 1917	Dem	Louis Brandeis	Dem	Jan. 28, 1916	confirmed	June 1, 1916
			John Hessin Clarke		July 14, 1916	confirmed	July 24, 1916
Hoover	Mar. 4, 1933	Rep	Benjamin N. Cardozo	Rep	Feb. 15, 1932	confirmed	Feb. 24, 1932
F. Roosevelt	Jan. 20, 1941	Dem	Frank Murphy	Dem	Jan. 4, 1940	confirmed	Jan. 16, 1940
L. Johnson	Jan. 20, 1969	Dem	Abe FortasB	Dem	June 26, 1968	withdrawn	Oct. 2, 1968	NV[3][7][11]
			Homer ThornberryC		June 26, 1968	withdrawn	Oct. 2, 1968	NV[7][11]
Obama	Jan. 20, 2017	Dem	Merrick GarlandD	Rep	Mar. 16, 2016	no action	Jan. 3, 2017	[6][11][12]

Notes

A.^ Matthews was re-nominated immediately by President Garfield and confirmed.

B.^ Fortas was a sitting Associate Justice nominated to assume the post of Chief Justice; he continued to serve on the Court after this nomination was withdrawn.

C.^ This nomination (to assume Fortas's seat should Fortas become Chief Justice) became moot when Fortas's nomination was withdrawn.

D.^ During the 2016 Garland dispute, attention was drawn to the fact that Anthony Kennedy was confirmed by a Democratic Senate on February 18, 1988, during the last year of Republican Ronald Reagan's presidency (which ended January 20, 1989).^[13] However, Kennedy is excluded from this list because he had been nominated on November 11, 1987 (for a seat that had been vacant since June 26, 1987).

See also

• List of Presidents of the United States by judicial appointments


• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States


• List of nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States


• Unsuccessful nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States

References

1. 
   ^ "Do presidents stop nominating judges in final year?", Politifact (February 14, 2016).
   


2. 
   ^ Kiely, Eugene. "Cruz, Rubio Twist Court 'Precedent'", FactCheck.org (February 17, 2016).
   


3. 
   ^ ^abcd Kessler, Glenn. "Does the Senate have a constitutional responsibility to consider a Supreme Court nomination?", Washington Post (March 16, 2016).
   


4. 
   ^ Nelson, Michael. "2013 and Beyond: Barack Obama and the Perils of Second Term Presidents" in Elections of 2012, p. 33 (SAGE Publications, 2013): "During the final year of the second term, the Senate takes an especially jaundiced view of the president's judicial nominations. Historically, the rejection rate for final year nominations to the United States Supreme Court has been 48 percent, compared with 14 percent for nominations made earlier in the term. When the opposition party controls the Senate, the final year rejection rate rises to 75 percent."
   


5. 
   ^ Levy, Gabrielle. "Even GOP Voters Think Senate Should Confirm SCOTUS Nominee", U.S. News and World Report (March 31, 2016): "Because Obama has less than a year left in his term, McConnell said, he should not get to make a lifetime appointment..."
   


6. 
   ^ ^ab Shear, Michael (March 16, 2016). "Obama Chooses Merrick Garland for Supreme Court". New York Times. 
   


7. 
   ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv} Kar, Robin and Mazzone, Jason. "The Garland Affair: What History and the Constitution Really Say About President Obama's Powers to Appoint a Replacement for Justice Scalia", NYU Law Review (On-Line Features, 2016) via SSRN.
   


8. 
   ^ "Law Profs Kar and Mazzone Respond", Bench Memos, National Review (June 9, 2016).
   


9. 
   ^ Whelan, Edward. "Law Profs Kar/Mazzone on Senate Duty on Supreme Court Vacancies --- Part 3", Bench Memos, National Review (June 7, 2016).
   


10. 
    ^ Beth, Richard (2009). Supreme Court Nominations: Senate Floor Procedure and Practice, 1789-2009. DIANE Publishing. pp. 5ff. ISBN 978-1-4379-1994-3. 
    


11. 
    ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy} "Supreme Court Nominations". Official website of the United States Senate. Retrieved February 3, 2006. 
    


12. 
    ^ Bravin, Jess (January 3, 2017). "President Obama's Supreme Court Nomination of Merrick Garland Expires". Wall Street Journal. 
    


13. 
    ^ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/justice-kennedys-confirmation-debunks-key-gop-talking-point
    

External links

• Hogue, Henry. "Supreme Court Nominations Not Confirmed, 1789—August 2010", Congressional Research Service (August 20, 2010).

v t e Nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States
Nomination articles	Robert Bork Clarence Thomas John Roberts Harriet Miers Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan Merrick Garland Neil Gorsuch Brett Kavanaugh
Lists of nominations	All nominations Successful nominations Unsuccessful nominations Nominations late in presidency

Clash Royale CLAN TAG#URR8PPP