The confirmation of lower federal court judges heavily depends on senatorial courtesy and the blue slip. Prior work largely ignores state representation—a norm whereby each judgeship on the U.S. Courts of Appeals is assigned to a particular state in the Circuit. Given this norm, senators expect that the president will nominate someone from the same state as the departing circuit judge. However, presidents fail to follow this norm nearly a quarter of the time. This research analyzes how ignoring state representation increases the level of conflict over a nominee. Our results reveal that (a) the probability of a nominee’s rejection by the Senate and (b) the amount of time for the Senate to take final action both increase as the ideological distance between the previous home state senators and the president grows. Additionally, if the new home state senators reveal public opposition to a nomination, the likelihood of rejection and time to final action increase.
BasingerScottMakMaxwell. 2010. “The Changing Politics of Federal Judicial Nominations.” Congress & the Presidency37 (2): 157–175.
2.
BellLauren Cohen. 2002. “Senatorial Discourtesy: The Senate’s Use of Delay to Shape the Federal Judiciary.” Political Research Quarterly55 (3): 589–607.
3.
BinderSarah A.MaltzmanForrest. 2002. “Senatorial Delay in Confirming Federal Judges, 1947-1998.” American Journal of Political Science46 (1): 190–199.
4.
BinderSarah A.MaltzmanForrest. 2009a. “Advice and Consent During the Bush Years: the Politics of Confirming Federal Judges.” Judicature92 (6): 320–329.
5.
BinderSarah A.MaltzmanForrest. 2009b. Advice and Dissent: The Struggle to Shape the Federal Judiciary. Brookings Institution Press.
6.
BinderSarah A.SmithSteven S.. 2001. Politics or Principle?: Filibustering in the United States Senate. Brookings Institution Press.
7.
BoltonAlexanderThrowerSharece. 2016. “Legislative Capacity and Executive Unilateralism.” American Journal of Political Science60 (3): 649–663.
8.
BoltonAlexanderThrowerSharece. 2021. Checks in the Balance: Legislative Capacity and the Dynamics of Executive Power. Princeton University Press.
9.
BostonJoshuaWaterburyNicholasSpriggsJames F.IIIRickertPatrick, 2025. “Replication Data for: The Curious Case of the Migrating Seat: Understanding the Role of Senate Norms in Confirming Judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals.” Political Research Quarterly. doi:10.7910/DVN/V6H1UB, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:1GHTrQy8ocoT0KaFxVSZIg== [fileUNF].
10.
Box-SteffensmeierJanet M.JonesBradford S.. 2004. Event History Modeling: A Guide for Social Scientists. Cambridge University Press.
11.
Box-SteffensmeierJanet M.CampisanoCharles P.HittMatthew P.ScottKevin M.. 2016. “Advising, Consenting, Delaying, and Expediting: Senator Influences on Presidential Appointments.” Studies in American Political Development30 (1): 19–37.
12.
CaldeiraGregory A.WrightJohn R.1998. “Lobbying for Justice: Organized Interests Supreme Court Nominations, and United States Senate.” American Journal of Political Science42 (2): 499–523.
13.
CameronCharles M.CoverAlbert D.SegalJeffrey A.. 1990. “Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees: A Neoinstitutional Model.” American Political Science Review84 (2): 525–534.
14.
ChaseHarold W.1972. Federal Judges: The Appointing Process. University of Minnesota Press.
15.
CoxGary W.McCubbinsMathew D.. 1993. Legislative Leviathan. University of California Press.
16.
CoxGary W.McCubbinsMathew D.. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the US House of Representatives. Cambridge University Press.
17.
EpsteinLeeSegalJeffrey A.. 2005. Advice and Consent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments. Oxford University Press.
18.
EpsteinLeeLandesWilliam M.PosnerRichard A.. 2013. The Behavior of Federal Judges: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Rational Choice. Harvard University Press.
19.
GarrettR. Sam. 2011. “State Representation” in Appointments to Federal Courts of Appeals. Technical Report CRS Report No. RS22510. Congressional Research Service.
20.
GilesMicheal W.HettingerVirginia A.PeppersTodd. 2001. “Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas.” Political Research Quarterly54 (3): 623–641.
21.
GoldmanSheldon. 1967. “Judicial Appointments to the United States Courts of Appeals.” Wisconsin Law Review86: 186–214.
22.
GoldmanSheldon. 1997. Picking Federal Judges: Lower Court Selection From Roosevelt Through Reagan. Yale University Press.
23.
HartleyRoger E.HolmesLisa M.. 2002. “The Increasing Senate Scrutiny of Lower Federal Court Nominees.” Political Science Quarterly117 (2): 259–278.
24.
HolmesLisa M.ShomadeSalmon A.HartleyRoger E.. 2012. “The Confirmation Obstacle Course: Signaling Opposition Through Delay.” American Review of Politics33 (Spring): 23–49.
25.
HowellWilliam G.2003. Power Without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action. Princeton University Press.
26.
HübertRyanCopusRyan. 2022. “Political Appointments and Outcomes in Federal District Courts.” The Journal of Politics84 (2): 908–922.
27.
JacobiTonja. 2005. “The Senatorial Courtesy Game: Explaining the Norm of Informal Vetoes in Advice and Consent Nominations.” Legislative Studies Quarterly30 (2): 193–217.
28.
JohnsonTimothy R.RobertsJason M.. 2004. “Presidential Capital and the Supreme Court Confirmation Process.” The Journal of Politics66 (3): 663–683.
29.
JohnsonSusan W.SongerDonald R.. 2002. “The Influence of Presidential Versus Home State Senatorial Preferences on the Policy Output of Judges on the United States District Courts.” Law & Society Review36 (3): 657–675.
30.
LewisDavid E.2010. “The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance.''
31.
LowandeKennethShipanCharles R.. 2022. “Where is Presidential Power? Measuring Presidential Discretion Using Experts.” British Journal of Political Science52 (4): 1876–1890.
32.
MartinekWendy L.KemperMarkVan WinkleSteven R.. 2002. “To Advise and Consent: The Senate and Lower Federal Court Nominations, 1977-1998.” The Journal of Politics64 (2): 337–361.
33.
MassieTajuana D.HansfordThomas G.SongerDonald R.. 2004. “The Timing of Presidential Nominations to the Lower Federal Courts.” Political Research Quarterly57 (1): 145–154.
34.
McGahnDonald F.2019. “A Brief History of Judicial Appointments from the Last 50 Years Through the Trump Administration.” William & Mary Law Review61: 815–844.
35.
NixonDavid C.2014. “Institutional Conflict and Perceived Property Rights in Appointment Politics.” Congress & the Presidency41 (2): 223–247.
36.
PrimoDavid M.BinderSarah A.MaltzmanForrest. 2008. “Who Consents? Competing Pivots in Federal Judicial Selection.” American Journal of Political Science52 (3): 471–489.
37.
PritchettC. Herman. 1948. The Roosevelt Court: A Study in Judicial Politics and Values, 1937–1947. Macmillan Group.
38.
RutkusDenis Steven.2013. The Role of Home State Senators in the Selection of Lower Federal Court Judges. Technical Report CRS Report No. RL34405. Congressional Research Service.
39.
SchererNancyBartelsBrandon L.SteigerwaltAmy. 2008. “Sounding the Fire Alarm: The Role of Interest Groups in the Lower Federal Court Confirmation Process.” The Journal of Politics70 (4): 1026–1039.
40.
SchubertGlendon A.1960. Quantitative Analysis of Judicial Behavior. Free Press.
41.
SegalJeffrey A.CoverAlbert D.. 1989. “Ideological Values and the Votes of US Supreme Court Justices.” American Political Science Review83 (2): 557–565.
42.
SegalJeffrey A.SpaethHarold J.. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. Cambridge University Press.
43.
ShepsleKenneth A.WeingastBarry R.. 1987. “The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power.” American Political Science Review81 (1): 85–104.
44.
SmithSteven S.2014. The Senate Syndrome: The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern US Senate. University of Oklahoma Press.
45.
SteigerwaltAmy. 2010. Battle Over the Bench: Senators, Interest Groups, and Lower Court Confirmations. University of Virginia Press.
46.
SteigerwaltAmyMartinekWendy L.. 2017. “Lower Federal Court Confirmations: Motivations and Strategies.” In Routledge Handbook of Judicial Behavior, edited by HowardRobert M.RandazzoKirk A.. Routledge.
47.
SunsteinCass R.SchkadeDavidEllmanLisa M.SawickiAndres. 2007. Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary. Brookings Institution Press.
48.
TobiasCarl. 2018. “Curing the Federal Court Vacancy Crisis.” Wake Forest Law Review53: 883–919.
49.
UlmerS. Sidney. 1960. “The Analysis of Behavior Patterns on the United States Supreme Court.” The Journal of Politics22 (4): 629–653.
50.
WawroGregorySchicklerEric. 2007. Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the US Senate. Princeton University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
