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<p>This article examines how one personality trait of U.S. Supreme Court nominees influences the confirmation process in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specifically, the article asks, are conscientious nominees more forthcoming when they answer Committee Members’ questions? And, second, are Committee Members, in turn, more or less likely to vote favorably for conscientious nominees? The paper builds a theory of how the conscientiousness trait shapes how nominees to the High Court interact with the Senate Judiciary Committee. To test our theory and answer the questions, we use confirmation hearing data starting from 1955 and extending through 2018, which includes both the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh hearings. We find that personality shapes interactions in the Senate judiciary committee in important and meaningful ways. Importantly, we find evidence that suggests a nominee's conscientiousness helps to explain why some Senators would be willing to vote for him or her even when that nominee might be less qualified.</p>
</abstract>

This article examines how one personality trait of U.S. Supreme Court nominees influences the confirmation process in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specifically, the article asks, are conscientious nominees more forthcoming when they answer Committee Members’ questions? And, second, are Committee Members, in turn, more or less likely to vote favorably for conscientious nominees? The paper builds a theory of how the conscientiousness trait shapes how nominees to the High Court interact with the Senate Judiciary Committee. To test our theory and answer the questions, we use confirmation hearing data starting from 1955 and extending through 2018, which includes both the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh hearings. We find that personality shapes interactions in the Senate judiciary committee in important and meaningful ways. Importantly, we find evidence that suggests a nominee's conscientiousness helps to explain why some Senators would be willing to vote for him or her even when that nominee might be less qualified.

Conscientiousness and Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee

British Journal of American Legal Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This article examines how one personality trait of U.S. Supreme Court nominees influences the confirmation process in the Senate Judiciary Committee....

Conscientiousness and Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee

Publié en ligne: 18 mai 2022

Pages: 379 - 408

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2021-0011

Mots clés
Senate Judiciary Committee, personality, conscientiousness, Confirmation Hearings, Nominee qualifications

© 2021 Ryan C. Black et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Conscientiousness and Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee

Publié en ligne: 18 mai 2022

Pages: 379 - 408

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2021-0011

Mots clésSenate Judiciary Committee, personality, conscientiousness, Confirmation Hearings, Nominee qualifications

© 2021 Ryan C. Black et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
Senate Judiciary Committee, personality, conscientiousness, Confirmation Hearings, Nominee qualifications