Three different judges: Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, and a third judge of your choice.

Take each judge one at a time and discuss the following:

1. Describe the nomination process for this judge. This should go into some detail about his previous rulings and ease of the nomination process and any other significant events that occurred during the hearing of the nominee.

2. Why do you think the president nominated this particular judge? Are there any patterns in presidential nominations? If so, does this nominee follow the pattern?

3. What was the outcome of the nomination/confirmation process? 4. What effect has this nomination had on the Court?

1.) Robert Bork: Bork previously served as Solicitor General, Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1987, he was chosen to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, but the Senate discarded his nomination. Bork had more accomplishment as an antitrust scholar; his once-idiosyncratic view that antitrust law should focus on maximizing consumer welfare has come to dominate American legal thinking on the subject. Bork is best known for his theory that the only way to reconcile the role of the judiciary in the U.S. government against what he terms the "Madisonian" or "counter-majoritarian" dilemma of the judiciary making law without popular approval is for constitutional adjudication to be guided by the framers' original understanding of the United States Constitution. Bork's writings have influenced the opinions of conservative judges such as Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and former Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, and sparked a vigorous debate within legal academia about how the Constitution is to be interpreted. President Reagan nominated Bork for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on July 1, 1987. A hotly contested United States Senate debate over Bork's nomination ensued. Opposition was partly fueled by strong opposition by civil and women's rights groups concerned with Bork's opposition to the authority claimed by the federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon the states (at his confirmation hearings for the position of Solicitor General, he supported the rights of Southern states to impose a poll tax), and his stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts. Bork is one of only three Supreme Court nominees to ever be opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, along with William Rehnquist and Samuel Alito. Bork was also criticized for being an "advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy” which his role in the Saturday Night Massacre exemplified according to his critics. Democrats also warned Reagan there would be a fight if Bork were nominated. Nevertheless, Reagan nominated Bork for the seat on July 1, 1987. Judge Bork served as Solicitor General from 1973 to 1977; acting Attorney General from 1973 to 1974; and Circuit Judge of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1982 to 1988.  He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States on July 1, 1987. Confirmation was denied by the Senate on October 23 of that year.  In February 1988 he resigned as Circuit Judge and joined the American Enterprise Institute from which he resigned in November 2003.  Judge Bork served as the Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Public Law at YaleLawSchool from 1962 to 1981 with time off to serve as Solicitor General. He is currently a professor at the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the Tad and Diane Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Bork obtained both his J.D. and his B.A. from the University of Chicago.The Intercollegiate Studies Institute published Judge Bork's latest book, "A Time to Speak." This book is a collection of Judge Bork's writings, oral arguments, briefs, and opinions spanning his legal career.

2.) Clarence Thomas: Thomas grew up in Georgia and was educated at the College of the Holy Cross and at Yale Law School. In 1974, he was appointed an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri and subsequently practiced law there in the private sector. In 1979, he became a legislative assistant to Missouri Senator John Danforth and in 1981 was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the

U.S. Department of Education. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed Thomas Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and he served in that position until 1990, when President George H. W. Bush nominated him for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On July 1, 1991, after one year and four months of service on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Thomas was nominated by Bush to fill Marshall's seat on the United States Supreme Court. Thomas's confirmation hearings were bitter and intensely fought, centering on an accusation that he had made unwelcome sexual comments to attorney Anita Hill, a subordinate at the Department of Education and subsequently at the EEOC. The U.S. Senate ultimately confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52–48. Bush decided that Thomas had not yet had enough experience as a judge, having served only several months on the federal bench. Bush therefore nominated Judge David Souter of the First Circuit instead