Note: After two years of analyzing NYC data over at I Quant NY, and in preparation for a book I am working on with Riverhead, I’ve decided to broaden some of my posts to include a more national focus. In New York City, my little data blog combined with the power of Open Data has led to a talk on TED, some changes in how New Yorkers pay for cabs, a new button on subway vending machines and the repainting of streets. I hope to have some fun learning from data at the national level too!

With the passing of Justice Scalia, Mitch McConnell has suggested that President Obama should refrain from appointing a nominee.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,”



This got me wondering about the historical precedent here. Where in each President’s term did a Supreme Court nomination take place? To find out, I compiled the submission dates to Congress for each Supreme Court nominee and joined it to the next inauguration date. From there, I could see how many weeks there were between that nomination and the inauguration.

The findings? It turns out that about 18% of nominees happened later in a President’s term than where Obama currently is in his term:

If we limit the analysis only to Presidents that would not go on to be reelected, we can see 24 nominations (or 15% of all nominations in U.S. history) that were made later than where Obama is in his term, resulting in 8 serving Supreme Court justices. This includes Justice John Marshall, who went on to be the longest running Chief Justice to date. He was nominated 43 days before the end of John Adam’s presidency.

With about 11 months to go before the next inauguration, I looked at all nominees and how long they were under consideration by the Senate.

Only one nominee was considered for more than four months, so a delay of more than 5 months would be unprecedented.

Nobody knows what the next eleven months will bring. But I bet I can name at least eight prior Supreme Court Justices that would likely disagree with Mitch McConnell’s views on the nomination process.

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Nominee data from Wikipedia



