Keeping Their Mouths Shut
It was on this day in 1987, the U.S. Senate rejected the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork on a vote of 58 to 42. It was one of the most controversial nomination hearings in history.
…they objected to a nominee for political reasons…
In the first hundred years of the American republic, the Senate took its role in the process of selecting Supreme Court justices very seriously. Between 1794 and 1892, 81 nominees were sent to the Senate and 22 failed to make it onto the court. Senators did not hesitate to say that they objected to a nominee for political reasons.
But after 1894, as the power of the presidency grew, the Senate started approving nearly every nominee that came down the pike. Between 1894 and 1968, only one nominee was rejected by the Senate, John J. Parker of North Carolina. He was nominated by Herbert Hoover.
Robert Bork, a distinguished legal scholar was nominated by President Reagan to lead the conservative revolution on the court. And in his confirmation hearings, Bork decided to enter the debate about his ideas head-on and openly discuss his originalist views of the Constitution and his belief that there was no right to privacy.
In the years since he was voted down, in 1987, no nominee to the court has openly debated with senators about legal philosophy the way Bork did. Most nominees have refused to answer at least some of the questions asked of them, and no nominee has been rejected since.
From the Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor
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