Senatorial Delay in Confirming Federal Judges, 1947-1998

The Confirmation Obstacle Course: Signaling Opposition through Delay

“…These studies have included consideration of divided government (Bell 2002b;Binder and Maltzman 2002;Scherer et al 2008;Sollenberger 2010), the size of the opposing party's delegation in the Senate (Nixon and Goss 2001), the ideological distance between the president and a key member of the Senate (Basinger and Mak 2010;Binder andMaltzman 2002, 2009;Primo et al 2008;Scherer et al 2008), and the proportion of opposing-party members on the Judiciary Committee (Martinek et al 2002). Previous descriptive analyses have found that most of the delay seen in the modern confirmation process occurs at the committee stage (Goldman 2003;Goldman et al 2011;Slotnick and Goldman 1998), and that the Judiciary Committee chair is particularly important in determining the extent of delay imposed by the committee (Scherer 2005).…”

Appointment Delay and the Policy Environment of the National Transportation Safety Board

“…According to Ruckman (1993), "critical nominations" at the Supreme Court that change the partisan direction of the Court are subject to extreme opposition by senators. Binder and Maltzman (2002) find evidence for this phenomenon for appeals courts appointment. We hypothesize that when partisan control of a seat changes hands, a vacancy will persist longer.…”

“…Binder and Maltzman (2002) use the nominee as their unit of analysis and measure only confirmation delay: the time elapsed between nomination and confirmation. That is, they study only that specific stage of the appointment process after a nominee has been named by the president.…”

“…However, the evidence supporting this contention is mixed. Some scholars have uncovered evidence that divided government is a significant component of executive branch and appeals courts confirmation delay (Binder & Maltzman, 2002;McCarty & Razaghian, 1999). Others have rejected divided government as a significant component of delay for nomination referrals from the Judiciary Committee (Allison, 1996;Hartley & Holmes, 1997) or for appointment delay for the FCC (Nixon, 2001).…”

Outsider Participation and Influence in Judicial Confirmation Hearings, 1979-2004

“…Scholars have addressed many aspects of modern judicial appointment politics, including delay in the nomination and confirmation process (Binder and Maltzman 2002;Martinek, Kemper, and Van Winkle 2002;Massie, Hansford, and Songer 2004), changes in how the president selects nominees (Goldman 1997;Goldman et al 2005), contention between the Senate and the president (Holmes and Savchak 2003), and the involvement of organized interests in the selection of lower court judges (Bell 2002a(Bell , 2002bCaldeira, Hojnacki, and Wright 2000;Cohen 1998, Flemming, MacLeod, andTalbert 1998;Scherer 2005). Central to analyses of modern judicial appointment politics has been a focus on the increased politicization and interest group involvement in the confirmation process (Bell 2002a(Bell , 2002bGoldman 2003;Hartley and Holmes 2002;Scherer 2005).…”