This report provides information on the pace of all Supreme Court nominations and confirmations since 1900, focusing on the actual amounts of time that Presidents and the Senate have taken to act (as opposed to the elapsed time between official points in the process). On May 10, 2010, President Obama announced that he had selected Solicitor General Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace Justice Stevens. Both time spans (49 and 48 days respectively for the Kagan and Sotomayor nominations) are close to or at the median 49 days that elapsed between the nomination announcement and the start of hearings for all Supreme Court nominees between 1981 and 2010. The entire Kagan appointment process, starting with when President Obama first learned that Justice Stevens would leave the Court, until Senate confirmation on August 5, lasted 118 days. In a few relatively recent instances, however, the full Senate has taken much longer to act on a reported Court nomination than it did with the Kagan nomination. The most important of these action dates include those on which (1) an outgoing Justice officially informs the President of the intention to step down from the Court (or, alternatively, the date on which a Court seat is vacated due to the death of a Justice), (2) a President formally nominates someone to the Court, the Senate receives the President's nomination, and the nomination is referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee (almost always all on the same date), (3) the Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on the nomination, (4) the committee votes on the nomination, and (5) the Senate votes on whether to confirm, or chooses to take no action. For example, rather than starting the nomination clock with the official notification of the President of a forthcoming vacancy (e.g., the receipt of a formal retirement letter), this analysis focuses on when the President first learned of the vacancy (e.g., a private conversation with the outgoing Justice). Likewise, rather than starting the confirmation clock with the transmission the official nomination to the Senate, this analysis focuses on when the Senate became aware of the President's selection ( e.g., by a public announcement by the President). Table 2 presents the number of days elapsed for six related time intervals: (1) from when the President apparently learned of the actual or prospective vacancy to the his announcement of a new nominee, (2) from the nomination announcement to the first Judiciary Committee hearing, (3) from the first hearing to the committee's final action, (4) from the committee's final action to the Senate's final action, (5) from nomination announcement to final Senate action (duration of total Senate action), and (6) from the vacancy starting date (when the President apparently first became aware of the opportunity to make a nomination) to final Senate action. The entire process, from actual or prospective vacancy to final Senate action, lasted a median of 79 days from 1900-2010. As shown in Figure 1 (and Table 3 ), from 1900-1980, Presidents took a median of 34 days to announce their nominees after apparently learning of vacancies, compared with only 19.5 days from 1981-2010. As shown in Figure 1 (and Table 3 ), this period almost quadrupled—from 12.5 days during the 1900-1980 period to 49 days from 1981-2010. Finally, the entire nomination-and-confirmation process took substantially longer after 1980 than during the previous 80 years. This report indicates that, from 1900-1980, the President's portion of the process took longer than the Senate's. Since 1981, the nomination-and-confirmation process has lasted a median of 113 days—almost twice as long as the 59-day median from 1900-1980. Some early 20 th century appointments to the Supreme Court were confirmed within days of a vacancy occurring.
The speed with which appointments to the Supreme Court move through various stages in the nomination-and-confirmation process is often of great interest not only to all parties directly involved, but, as well, to the nation as a whole. This report provides information on the amount of time taken to act on all Supreme Court nominations occurring between 1900 and the present. It focuses on the actual amounts of time that Presidents and the Senate have taken to act (as opposed to the elapsed time between official points in the process). For example, rather than starting the nomination clock with the official notification of the President of a forthcoming vacancy, this report focuses on when the President first learned of a Justice's intention to leave the Court (e.g., via a private conversation with the outgoing Justice), or received word that a sitting Justice had died. Likewise, rather than starting the confirmation clock with the transmission of the official nomination to the Senate, this report focuses on when the Senate became aware of the President's selection (e.g., via a public announcement by the President).
The data indicate that the entire nomination-and-confirmation process (from when the President first learned of a vacancy to final Senate action) has generally taken almost twice as long for nominees after 1980 than for nominees in the previous 80 years. From 1900 to 1980, the entire process took a median of 59 days; from 1981 through 2010, the process took a median of 113 days. Although Presidents after 1980 have moved more quickly than their predecessors in announcing nominees after learning of vacancies (a median of 19.5 days compared with 34 days before 1980), the Senate portion of the process (i.e., from the nomination announcement to final Senate action) appears to take much longer than before (a median of 84 days from 1981 through 2009, compared with 17 days from 1900 through 1980). Notably, the amount of time between the nomination announcement and first Judiciary Committee hearing has almost quadrupled—from a median of 12.5 days (1900-1980) to 49 days (1981-2010).
President Obama learned of another prospective vacancy on April 9, 2010. On May 10, 2010, President Obama announced he would nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens. From June 30 to July 1, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee held four days of hearings on the nomination, and on July 20, voted 13-6 to report the nomination to the Senate. On August 3, 2010, the Senate began its consideration of the nomination. The Senate confirmed Kagan as the nation's 112th Supreme Court Justice on August 5 by a 63-37 vote. The overall time for the Kagan appointment process was slightly longer than for other recent nominations. The entire period for presidential selection and Senate consideration and action on the 2009 Sonia Sotomayor nomination, for example, lasted 97 days, compared with 118 days for the Kagan nomination. Nonetheless, although the Kagan nomination took longer to move through the process than did the Sotomayor nomination, the total Kagan timetable was similar to those of other nominations since 1981. In fact, including the Kagan timetable data raised the median number of days for the entire process by only a day and a half—to 113 days, compared with 111.5 days for all Supreme Court nominations between 1981 and 2009.
This report will be updated as events warrant.