Miers among least qualified Supreme Court nominees since 1937, suggests WUSTL legal expert

Oct. 27, 2005 -- Harriet Miers withdrawal from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court is not surprising given the fact that she ranks among the least qualified candidates since the nomination of Hugo Black in 1937, according to an analysis by authors of a new book on the politics of Supreme Court nominations.

"Despite the tremendous importance of politics in Supreme Court nominations, the single most important determinant of a successful confirmation is the qualifications of the nominee," suggests Lee Epstein, a professor of law and political science in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and co-author "Advice and Consent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments" (September 2005, Oxford University Press).

Lee Epstein

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Epstein and her co-author Jeffrey A. Segal, the SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair of Political Science at Stony Brook University, measured the qualifications of all nominees since Hugo Black (1937) by content analyzing newspaper editorials from leading newspapers at the time of their nominations.

"By this standard, Miers falls near the bottom of the stack. Thus, her withdrawal is not surprising," they concluded.

In a New York Times story published Oct. 24 Epstein suggested that "Harriet Miers is in a real danger zone. " Epstein indicated that her research using statistical models to study public perception of past Supreme Court nominees indicated that Miers was then still likely to be confirmed, although she raised concerns about mounting political complications.

"Our models right now are showing that she would get confirmed, but I would be worried if I was the president," she told the Times. The early calls for withdrawal, the "intraparty attacks" and the questions about her qualifications, Epstein said, are what make Miers' nomination "reasonably unique."

What is unusual about the Meirs' nomination, suggests Epstein and Segal, is the degree to which it stirred opposition from the President's co-partisans. While Abe Fortas' 1968 defeat for the Chief Justice position came in substantial part at the hands of Democrats, those were Southern Democrats who could hardly be said to be of the same party as the national Democrats that Lyndon Johnson and Abe Fortas represented.