Sex, Drugs, and U.S. Supreme Court Nominees

The confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court has faced serious challenges due to allegations of sexual assault against a 15-year-old girl when Kavanaugh was a teenager. However, this is not the first time a presidential nominee for the Supreme Court has been embroiled in scandal and controversy during the confirmation process. The U.S. Senate, which is constitutionally the final authority on lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court, has not confirmed about 25% of nominees for this position. This report examines some previous Supreme Court nominees whose confirmation processes were marked by scandal and controversy. Some were eventually confirmed, while others withdrew or were not appointed. Robert Bork; Ideological Reasons Robert Bork was nominated for the Supreme Court in 1987 by then-President Ronald Reagan. He was among the first nominees to be rejected not for judicial qualifications but for ideological reasons. Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy publicly accused Bork of envisioning an America where "women would be forced to have unsafe and secret abortions, blacks would have to sit in separate environments, and rogue police might break into citizens' homes during nighttime raids." Another negative political record of Bork was his senior position in the Justice Department during Richard Nixon's presidency. He executed Nixon's order in 1973 to fire an independent prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. The Senate Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, voted on Bork's nomination, which was rejected by 58 votes against and 42 in favor. Douglas Howard Ginsburg; Marijuana Use After the Senate's negative vote on Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan nominated Douglas Howard Ginsburg for the Supreme Court in October 1987. Ginsburg held various positions in Reagan's administration from 1983 to 1986, including in the Justice Department. However, after media reports surfaced about his marijuana use during his college years in the 1960s and again in the 1970s while he was a Harvard professor, his nomination became impossible. Influenced by this scandal, Ginsburg withdrew, paving the way for the nomination and eventual confirmation of Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas, Sexual Allegations Clarence Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court in 1991 by then-President George Bush. Following the revelation of an FBI report in which a woman named Anita Hill, a former colleague of Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accused him of sexual misconduct, the confirmation process for Thomas became one of the most intense political conflicts. Unlike Robert Bork, Thomas did not clarify his positions on the most controversial legal and political issues during his confirmation process. His membership in the U.S. Supreme Court was confirmed as the second African American member of the institution with 52 votes in favor and 48 against, the lowest approval rating for a nominee to this position. J. Harold Carswell; Racial Segregation Record Richard Nixon nominated J. Harold Carswell for the Supreme Court in 1969. However, during his confirmation process, civil rights activists claimed that he had supported racial segregation as a federal judge in the 1940s and had a poor record in defending civil rights. His nomination, criticized as an "incompetent" conservative, was rejected with 51 votes against and 45 in favor. Harriet Miers; Opposition from Both Parties George W. Bush nominated his close legal advisor Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court in 2005. Miers had a very close personal relationship with Bush, having served as his legal advisor when he was first elected governor of Texas in 1994 and holding various positions in the White House since 2001. However, both Democratic and Republican parties opposed Miers' nomination because she had never been a judge and did not understand the complex questions senators posed regarding constitutional issues. After her inability or refusal to provide appropriate answers to senators' questions about the Constitution, a Republican senator and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee stated that Miers' responses were "inappropriate," "insufficient," and "offensive." Eight days after her nomination was announced, the White House announced that Miers had asked Bush to withdraw her nomination, which the president "reluctantly accepted." Miers' withdrawal was the first case following the scandal surrounding Douglas Howard Ginsburg's nomination and withdrawal in 1987 and the seventh case of Supreme Court nominees withdrawing in U.S. history.