Supreme Court Appointment Process: President’s Selection of a Nominee

"The appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is an event of major significance in American politics. Each appointment is of consequence because of the enormous judicial power the Supreme Court exercises as the highest appellate court in the federal judiciary. Appointments are usually infrequent, as a vacancy on the nine-member Court may occur only once or twice, or never at all, during a particular President’s years in office. Under the Constitution, Justices on the Supreme Court receive what can amount to lifetime appointments which, by constitutional design, helps ensure the Court’s independence from the President and Congress.

The procedure for appointing a Justice is provided for by the Constitution in only a few words. The “Appointments Clause” (Article II, Section 2, clause 2) states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court.” The process of appointing Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature—the sharing of power between the President and Senate—has remained unchanged: To receive appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate.

Political considerations typically play an important role in Supreme Court appointments. It is often assumed, for example, that Presidents will be inclined to select a nominee whose political or ideological views appear compatible with their own. The political nature of the appointment process becomes especially apparent when a President submits a nominee with controversial views, there are sharp partisan or ideological differences between the President and the Senate, or the outcome of important constitutional issues before the Court is seen to be at stake..."
Supreme Court appointment process: President's selection 

Supreme Court Appointment Process: Consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee

"The appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is an event of major significance in American politics. Each appointment is of consequence because of the enormous judicial power the Supreme Court exercises as the highest appellate court in the federal judiciary. To receive appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. Although not mentioned in the Constitution, an important role is played midway in the process (after the President selects, but before the Senate considers) by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specifically, the Judiciary Committee, rather than the Senate as a whole, assumes the principal responsibility for investigating the background and qualifications of each Supreme Court nominee, and typically the committee conducts a close, intensive investigation of each nominee.

Since the late 1960s, the Judiciary Committee’s consideration of a Supreme Court nominee almost always has consisted of three distinct stages—(1) a pre-hearing investigative stage, followed by (2) public hearings, and concluding with (3) a committee decision on what recommendation to make to the full Senate.

During the pre-hearing investigative stage, the nominee responds to a detailed Judiciary Committee questionnaire, providing biographical, professional, and financial disclosure information to the committee. In addition to the committee’s own investigation of the nominee, the FBI also investigates the nominee and provides the committee with confidential reports related to its investigation. During this time, the American Bar Association also evaluates the professional qualifications of the nominee, rating the nominee as “well qualified,” “qualified,” or “not qualified.” Additionally, prior to hearings starting, the nominee pays courtesy calls on individual Senators in their offices, typically including some Senators who do not serve on the Judiciary Committee.

Once the Judiciary Committee completes its investigation of the nominee, he or she testifies in hearings before the committee. On average, for Supreme Court nominees who have received hearings from 1975 to the present, the nominee’s first hearing occurred 43 days after his or her nomination was formally submitted to the Senate by the President.
Supreme Court appointment