Supreme Democracy: The End of Elitism in Supreme Court Nominations

Recent events have overtaken political science professor Davis’s follow-up to his 2005 Electing Justice: Fixing the Supreme Court Nomination Process, which also discussed concerns that the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees has become too politicized. While Davis’s prescriptions here are not as revolutionary as those in his prior book—where he suggested that Supreme Court justices should be elected directly by the voters—the current Senate’s deep partisan divisions make his less-radical proposed reforms, such as fixed 18-year terms for justices, nonetheless unlikely. The impracticality of his suggestions makes this a volume of limited utility; while academics may be interested in Davis’s fine-grained analyses—such as of the percentage of nominees confirmed at various stages in American history—readers who have followed the Gorsuch confirmation battle will find no larger revelations. By the end of the book, we are still left with a situation in which, as Davis observes, much of the public views the confirmation process as “tainted,” which ultimately impacts public respect for “the Court itself.” (June)