Drop Confirmation Hearings Biden Suggests

Saddam Hussein’s show trial in Baghdad is less scripted than the confirmation hearings the Senate Judiciary Committee held for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Jr. this week. The process has devolved into senators grandstanding for their most vociferous supporters while the nominee endeavors to avoid answering questions. Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) has suggested scrapping the hearings and going straight to the vote in the Senate – which is how things used to be.

The Senate Historical Office, which keeps track of this kind of thing, has said that the Supreme Court nominees didn’t testify before any Senate body prior to 1925. In that year, Calvin Coolidge nominated Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone to fill a vacancy on the court. In the aftermath of the Teapot Dome Oil Leasing Scandal (what is it about Republican administrations, oil and corruption?), hearings on the confirmation offered Mr. Stone a chance to explain things. He was confirmed.

Back then, the idea was to give the nominee a chance to explain. He wanted to talk, to provide information, to answer questions. Times have changed to the point that, as Senator Biden said, “Nominees now, Democrat and Republican nominees, come before the United States Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues.”

This journal must sadly agree. It has become an exercise in futility. A man or woman seeking one of this highest posts to which a jurist may aspire should provide information about cases that may come before the court, about one’s view of numerous constitutional matters, about the law and how is does or doesn’t serve justice. At the same time, though, those are not grounds for rejecting any nominee.

There are good reasons not to confirm some prospective appointees. Lack of experience is a good basis for voting against a nominee. A judge who has been reversed on appeal an excessive number of times may not be suitable for promotion to the highest court. Perhaps lack of a legal background is adequate reason to decline confirmation (although one needn’t necessary be a sitting judge, e.g., Earl Warren). In addition, moral turpitude, mafia connections and a drug habit might all suffice as well. What isn’t adequate cause is a man or woman’s political ideology. That, much to the detriment of the Republic, is what this is all about now. So, skip the hearings, debate and filibuster in the Senate and give up the pretense that this is anything other than a political farce.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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