“Please raise your right hand.” These are the Supreme Court confirmation hearings — “This is day two.” — you’re probably all familiar with. “Bigly.” “You just said ‘bigly.’” “Bigly.” Big partisan productions — “A charade and a mockery.” “Anything else you want to say, Judge Bork?” — that dominate the headlines and the airwaves. This is how they used to be. [crickets] Yeah, there actually weren’t any. So how did we get from here — [crickets] — to here? We’ll start in 1937 with former Senator Hugo Black, who’s being congratulated. That’s because he’s just been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. He’s also been outed as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. So to explain himself, he gets on the radio. “I did join the Klan. I later resigned. I never rejoined.” People are not happy. They’re basically asking: How could the Senate Judiciary Committee let this guy through? Answer: Since the first hearing back in 1873, for this guy, there were no standard ways of holding hearings for Supreme Court nominees. They didn’t have to go and testify, and the hearings didn’t need to be made public. The senators reviewed the nominees among themselves. But then came a couple of amendments to the Constitution. The upshot is they gave more voting power to the people. So the senators needed to start paying more attention to public opinion. And they’re paying attention when Black’s controversial confirmation drives Americans to ask: Why are these hearings private? It’s a big reason why the next nominee to come along gets a public hearing. And it’s not just a public hearing, it’s the first that includes no-holds-barred questioning by the committee. Things are beginning to change. Then World War II comes, and goes. America is suddenly a superpower. Business booms, suburbs grow. “The protest took the form of a boycott.” And we see the beginning of the modern civil-rights era. In 1954, the court rules to end racial segregation in schools. And this marks a point where we really start to see the court using its power to shape parts of American society. That means Americans take a greater interest in who is on the court. That means even more pressure on senators to vet these candidates. Starting with the first nominee after the Brown decision, almost every nominee will have a public hearing. Now change is in full swing. “I Have a Dream,” the march from Selma, “The Feminine Mystique.” The court keeps making controversial rulings on race discrimination, gender discrimination, personal privacy. That means more public interest, more pressure on senators, more issues to parse in the hearings. So the hearings get longer. But just wait. 1981 — game changer. “Good evening. Sandra O’Connor —” First woman nominated to the Supreme Court, first nomination hearing to be televised. The longer senators talk, the more TV time they get. The more TV time they get, the more they can posture for voters watching at home. [senators talking] So the more they talk. With the cameras rolling, we’ll see 10 out of the 12 longest hearings ever. One of those is for Robert Bork — “With a negative recommendation of 9 to 5.” — who famously doesn’t make the cut. Now onto the aughts. There’s an 11-year gap between nominees. Meanwhile, America has become more politically divided, so has the Senate. “Over and over again —” “Wait just a second —” “How many times do we do this before —” Here’s Chief Justice Roberts to explain what happened next. “I mean, you look at two of my colleagues, Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg, for example. Maybe there were two or three dissenting votes between the two of them.” Yep, three votes against Ginsburg in 1993. No votes against Scalia in 1986. “Now you look at my more recent colleagues and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines.” That’s pretty much right. “And that doesn’t make any sense.” And that’s how we got here. “I’m not looking to take us back to quill pens.” Very long — “Nah, I just asked you where you were at on Christmas.” [laughter] Always very political — “So your failure to answer questions is confounding me.” — very public Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Also, something else to notice: Sometimes these nominees give pretty similar answers. “The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways.” “And it protects the right to privacy in a number of ways.” “In various places in the Constitution.” “In a variety of places in the Constitution.” “It’s protected by the Fourth Amendment.” “The Fourth Amendment certainly speaks to the right of privacy.” “It’s founded in the Fourth Amendment.” “The first and most obvious place is the Fourth Amendment.”