Supreme Court Nomination Quotes

It's been 80 years since the Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee who was nominated during an election. And particularly when the court hangs in the balance, it makes no sense whatsoever to give Barack Obama the power to jam through a judge in the final election year.

If you look at the Constitution, the two clauses of the Constitution make it very clear the president shall nominate, and the Senate shall provide advice and consent. It's been since 1888 that a Senate of a different party than the president in the White House confirmed a Supreme Court nominee.

I believe strongly that we should have nominees to the United States Supreme Court based on their qualifications rather than any litmus test.

The Democrats' drive to defeat Neil Gorsuch is the latest battle in a 50-year war for control of the Supreme Court - a war that began with a conspiracy against Richard Nixon by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Abe Fortas and Lyndon Johnson.

Judicial Watch is pleased that Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Supreme Court will provide President Trump another opportunity to nominate a constitutional conservative who will honor the Constitution and the rule of law, rather than legislate from the bench.

I hope Barack Obama puts another woman on the Supreme Court. And this time, I hope it's a woman with kids.

We've got another nominee coming up, well qualified, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owens has a tremendous reputation, tremendous record, but they are already marshalling their forces to try to stop that nomination.

If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her.

Nothing raises the national temperature more than a VACANCY sign hanging from the colonnaded front of the Supreme Court.

And the president is all wrong when he maintains that a nominee should have an up-or-down vote. The Constitution doesn't say that. The Constitution doesn't say that that nominee shall have any vote at all. There doesn't have to even be a vote.

She [Justice Sandra Day O'Connor], unlike, Judge Bork, did not think that being on the court would be an "intellectual feast," to quote Judge [Robert Heron] Bork.

I am told that very early on in this transition process, to expect that [Donald] Trump will announce his nominee for the Supreme Court.

I'm disappointed, depressed, and demoralized. [...] It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy. Miers is undoubtedly a decent and competent person. But her selection will unavoidably be judged as reflecting a combination of cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.

Here is a needle President Obama needs to thread if he chooses a ninth. The nominee would need to be so strongly qualified that he or she would be hard to reject. The person must also be willing to be nominated even though leading Senate Republicans have said they will not consider anyone the president names.

It could well be the end of justice in America. Do not let Mr. Reagan get his hands on that court.

[Nominee for the Supreme Court] will be something designed to very much please conservatives, even as they may get a little nervous on some of what he's talking about in terms of ObamaCare and infrastructure.

I don't know the man I admire more than [Charles Evans] Hughes. If ever I have the chance I shall offer him the Chief Justiceship.

It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder.

The liberal groups spent months raising money so they could take down anyone President Bush nominated. But they have not been able to touch judge Roberts.

The historical resonances are sharp. [Louis] Brandeis is nominated on Jan. 28, 1916. Confirmed on June 1. Waits 125 days between nomination and confirmation, which remains an unbroken record, although Merrick Garland will surpass it in July, if my math is right. Anti-Semitism was definitely not the central reason for the opposition, which tended to focus more on his anti-corporate radicalism, but it was a theme.

A nominee [to Supreme Court] must possess the competence, character and temperament to serve on the bench.

It's something, since the nomination and confirmation hearings of Justice Ginsberg, that's really become kind of an unwritten rule, this "I can't answer a question if it's a potential issue that's going to come before me on the Supreme Court." I think that most senators have come to accept that as a very legitimate answer. They don't love it, they're not happy, but it is legitimate when you put it in that context.

Call me a cockeyed pessimist, but I'm having trouble finding any good news in the trashing of Harriet Miers.

I believe Judge Kavanaugh is a well-qualified conservative jurist, and I commend President Trump for his commitment to naming Supreme Court justices who are committed to the rule of law.

I believe the two biggest mistakes made by the Founders were giving Federal judges life-time appointments and permitting them to be confirmed without the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate.