Presidents and Judicial Politics

How do presidents try to influence the courts? Once way is through legal arguments. Note the role of the Solicitor General.

Lower court nominations and The Reid Rule

Obama Administration Selection of Lower Court Nominees: Chronology of Usual Steps

If neither Senator in a state is of the President’s party, each usually, by custom, plays a secondary role in recommending district court candidates for the President’s consideration, with the primary  role assumed by other officials from the state who are of the President’s party.)

• White House Counsel’s Office receives nominee recommendations from home state Senators; for each district court vacancy, the office asks Senators to send three recommendations.
• Senators send one or more recommendations to the Counsel’s Office.
• Counsel’s Office does preliminary check of the recommended candidates, then selects one to be thoroughly vetted by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP).
• OLP does detailed vetting of the candidate, including exhaustive reading of candidate’s past writings, speeches,interviews, etc., and making “about 25 to 50 phone calls.”
• Counsel’s Office and OLP jointly interview the candidate.
• Counsel’s Office and OLP jointly review OLP’s detailed vetting and interview record and decide whether to send candidate’s name for ABA and FBI investigations.
• FBI and ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary conduct separate evaluations of the candidate and then report their findings to the Administration.
• OLP and Counsel’s Office sign off informally on the candidate.
•  President selects the candidate for nomination.

Supreme Court nominations can be crucial.

Who votes with whom.

• See the story behind Justice Fortas.
• See the story behind Justice O'Connor.