Supreme Court Nominee Candor and Judiciary Committee Votes : Does Answering Questions Really Matter?

This paper examines Supreme Court confirmation hearings and their role in the political process. In particular, we are interested here in exploring the relationship between nominee candor and the Judiciary Committee's votes. Do senators support nominees who are more forthcoming and vote against those who are evasive? We hypothesize that since 1981, when the hearings were first televised, senators have been influenced more by partisanship and ideology than by nominee candor. To test this hypothesis, we draw on the results of a recently completed content analysis of every confirmation hearing transcript since 1955. Our results suggest that, during the pre-television era, candor was influential in determining committee votes. However, contrary to what many senators claim, candor during the televised hearings era plays almost no role in determining committee votes. Moreover, it appears that partisanship has taken the place of candor in determining the committee votes. We discuss the implications of these findings and close by outlining possible next steps