How many SCOTUS nominees have not been confirmed?
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(NEXSTAR) — With two Republican senators vowing to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, the contentious confirmation period will come to and end. Brown Jackson is expected to be confirmed later this week, becoming the first Black woman to make it to the nation’s highest court.
But Brown Jackson’s journey has been anything if easy or certain.
Using Senate records, we’ve listed other nominees who weren’t so lucky and weren’t confirmed. Often, confirmations would lapse between presidential terms before the Senate was able to hold hearings for various reasons (sometimes for political reasons).
Nominee | Year | President | Outcome |
John E. Badger | 1853 | Fillmore | No action taken |
Jeremiah S. Black | 1861 | Buchanan | No action taken |
Robert Bork | 1987 | Reagan | Rejected |
Edward A. Bradford | 1852 | Fillmore | No action taken |
Pierce Butler* | 1922 | Harding | No action taken |
G. Harrold Carswell | 1970 | Nixon | Rejected |
Caleb Cushing | 1874 | Grant | Withdrawn |
John J. Crittenden | 1811 | J. Q. Adams | No action taken |
Abe Fortas | 1968 | L.B. Johnson | Withdrawn |
Merrick Garland | 2016 | Obama | No action taken |
John Marshall Harlan II* | 1954 | Eisenhower | No action taken |
Clement Haynsworth | 1969 | Nixon | Rejected |
Ebenezer R. Hoar | 1869 | Grant | Rejected |
William B. Hornblower | 1893, 1893 | Cleveland | No action taken, Rejected |
Edward King | 1844, 1844 | Tyler | No action taken, Withdrawn |
Stanley Matthews* | 1881 | Hayes | No action taken |
William C. Micou | 1853 | Fillmore | No action taken |
Harriet Miers | 2005 | G. W. Bush | Withdrawn |
John J. Parker | 1930 | Hoover | Rejected |
William Paterson* | 1793 | Washington | Withdrawn |
Wheeler Hazard Peckham | 1894 | Cleveland | Rejected |
John M. Read | 1845 | Tyler | No action taken |
John Roberts* | 2005 | G. W. Bush | Withdrawn |
John Rutledge | 1795 | Washington | Rejected |
John C. Spencer | 1844, 1844 | Tyler, Tyler | Rejected, Withdrawn |
Henry Stanbery | 1866 | A. Johnson | No action taken |
Roger B. Taney* | 1835 | Jackson | No action taken |
Homer Thornberry | 1968 | L. B. Johnson | Withdrawn |
Reuben Walworth | 1844, 1844, 1844 | Tyler | Withdrawn, No action taken, Withdrawn |
George Henry Williams | 1873 | Grant | Withdrawn |
Alexander Wolcott | 1811 | Madison | Rejected |
George W. Woodward | 1845 | Polk | Rejected |
NOTE: Nominees noted with an * eventually went on to be confirmed via another nomination. The 26 others were never confirmed.
There have also been several nominees who were confirmed but never served. Many ultimately declined: John Quincy Adams, William Cushing, Roscoe Conkling, Robert H. Harrison, John Jay and Levi Lincoln, Sr. Edwin Stanton, nominated by Ulysses S. Grant in 1869, died before he could serve.
Of the nominees who were rejected, the U.S. Senate notes John Parker (1930) was the only rejection for a 74 year period between 1894 and 1968. Garland’s nomination is also significant in that the GOP-controlled Senate refused hearings as there was a forthcoming election — which was a new reasoning. Barbara Perry, the Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, told TIME the reasoning given by Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t outlined in the Constitution and that about six presidents were able to successfully have nominees confirmed during lame-duck periods.
Altogether, 127 SCOTUS nominees have been confirmed since 1789.