“Whatever Means Necessary”: Weaponizing the Judicial Confirmation Process

America’s Founders prescribed the judicial appointment process in which the Senate confirms most nominations efficiently, with little or no opposition and without either systematic partisanship or using Senate rules in novel ways. The confirmation process followed this pattern for more than two centuries. The modern confirmation process norms cannot be explained by anything related to the judicial appointment process itself, nor by ordinary partisanship. The changing operation of the judicial confirmation process is a symptom; the cause is the changing purpose of that process. Democrats departed from the Founders’ prescribed purpose of evaluating nominees’ qualifications by becoming independent of the President and using the confirmation process as a weapon.

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