I’m very pleased to announce that, on top of the blogging that will continue here as usual, I have just launched a Substack newsletter called Confirmation Tales.
I’ve been deeply immersed in all the Supreme Court confirmation battles over the past three decades, beginning with my work as a Judiciary Committee staffer to Senator Orrin Hatch on the nominations of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Stephen G. Breyer in 1994. I have some stories to tell, and reflections to offer, that I hope will be interesting to readers across the ideological spectrum and that will also provide some important lessons and insights on such matters as:
How has the judicial-confirmation process changed over recent decades? What factors—political, legal, technological, sociological, among them—have driven these changes? What role have good and bad strategic decisions, and plain old luck, played in the process? And what does all of this portend for future confirmation battles?
Here’s the opening of my introductory post:
In late June of 1991, I was driving cross-country from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in order to begin a one-year clerkship with Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. On the Blue Ridge Parkway in southwestern Virginia, I had only a few hours left to complete my trip. My car radio’s reception alternated from clear to static along the curvy mountain highway.
Suddenly I heard a news announcer declare: “In a surprising decision, a great Supreme Court justice has announced his retirement.”
“Oh, no!” I immediately said to myself, “not after I’ve driven all this way!”
I invite you to subscribe—for free—to Confirmation Tales.