Suchergebnisse

The 11 years from 1994 to 2005 comprised the second-longest period without an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court (Epstein et al. 2003, 353). The nominations of John Roberts in 2005 and Samuel Alito in 2006 were met with enthusiasm by conservatives, foreboding by liberals, and great interest by political scientists concerned with the Court's future and with changes in the appointment process since Stephen Breyer's appointment in 1994.

In the September 1993 pages of this journal, I asked whether senators can illuminate the political and legal beliefs of Supreme Court nominees by questioning them at confirmation hearings (Comiskey 1993). Many observers of the confirmation process believe that a nominee's testimony can produce insights into the nominee's views that go beyond what is available from the nominee's public record. While such testimony has often proved barren in the past, these observers often express the view that better questioning of nominees can bring forth greater insights in the future (Carter 1988; Melone 1991; Rees 1983; Ross 1987). By contrast, I concluded that the political context in which Supreme Court nominations occur, the motives of participants in the confirmation process, and the incentives facing these participants will likely continue to inhibit illuminating testimony by nominees.Since my previous paper was written before last summer's hearings on the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this article examines those hearings. In some respects, her testimony resembled that of most recent nominees. In at least one respect—her candor on abortion—her testimony was a major departure from that of all recent nominees with the partial exception of Robert Bork.

This article examines a theoretically important issue that has received surprisingly little attention: whether the process of democratic competition for public office has fueled the growth of domestic spending in the capitalist democracies since World War II. Probably because it is difficult to measure electoral competition in multiparty systems, existing comparative studies of public spending either ignore this question or use dubious measures of electoral competition. This study presents and tests some conceptually more appealing measures of competition. The results show a strong, robust relationship between improved indicators of electoral competition and the growth of domestic spending from 1950 to 1973 and 1973 to 1983. The study concludes by analyzing the implications of the findings for economic performance in the capitalist democracies and for the democratic management of fiscal policy.

In the last 40 years, universal recognition of the Supreme Court's important policy-making role, the prevalence of divided government, and heightened conflict over value-laden issues such as abortion and school prayer have led to ever more elaborate Senate review of Supreme Court nominations (Freund 1988; Ross 1987, 116-23). Senate hearings into nominees' views on constitutional issues comprise the most visible element in the expanded confirmation process. Yet most recent nominees have won Senate approval while revealing little of their legal or political philosophies. As Powe (1976, 893) has concluded, "Senate questioning [of nominees] has proved astonishingly ineffective in eliciting the desired information." The ability of nominees to hide their beliefs on vital constitutional questions raises serious doubts about the Senate's ability to give informed consent to presidents' Supreme Court nominations.This article examines confirmation hearings on recent, pre-Clinton Supreme Court nominees to answer two questions. First, given the recognized importance of Supreme Court appointments and the correspondingly systematic scrutiny of nominees, how do nominees get away with revealing so little of their views on vital constitutional issues? Second, given the answers to the first question, can the hearings be reformed so that senators may air a nominee's views more thoroughly and give—or withhold—truly informed consent to these nominations?