Appellate Judicial Selection During the Bush Administration: Business as Usual or a Nuclear Winter?

With the nomination of John G. Roberts, Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court, an uneasy equilibrium established by an unprecedented bipartisan agreement among fourteen rank and file senators was maintained in federal judicial selection processes. How did federal judicial selection processes arrive at this state of affairs, and what does this portend for the future? This Article examines that question with a particular focus on the operation of advice and consent processes on Ninth Circuit vacancies.