How many SCOTUS nominees were rejected by the senate?
12!
John Rutledge - Washington
Alexander Wolcott - Madison
John Spencer - Tyler
George Woodward - Polk
Jeremiah Black - Buchanan
Ebenezer Hoar - Grant
William Hornblower - Cleveland
Wheeler Peckham - Cleveland
John Parker - Hoover
Clement Haynsworth Jr. - Nixon
G. Harrold Carswell - Nixon
Robert H. Bork - Reagan
How many nominees declined the position?
7
Robert Harrison - Washington
William Cushing - Washington
John Jay - Adams (he was being nominated to Chief Justice after his retirement)
Levi Lincoln - Madison
John Quincy Adams - Madison
William Smith - Jackson
Roscoe Conkling - Arthur
Tyler had the worst luck. One rejection, four withdrawals, two nominated without any action, one postponed and finally, one confirmation. President Tyler was so unpopular within his party that they actually kicked him out of the Whig party while he was still in the White House! This is mostly because he was the first Vice President to assume office after the death of the president. Within a year of his presidency, only one member of the cabinet had not resigned. Since the Whigs were in control of the senate, they postponed and ignored many of his nominations, flat-out rejected one nomination, and finally had the decency to confirm one of the 9 attempted nominees.
Another highly controversial nomination was Caleb Cushing - Ulysses Grant’s pick for Chief Justice. The Republican-controlled senate of the time confirmed 5 other nominees under Grant, but drew the line at Cushing. Cushing was a former attorney general who publicly criticized abolitionist and supported the 1857 Dred Scott decision. This nomination, which took place in the midst of Reconstruction following the civil war, was not warmly-received. The nomination was so strongly opposed that Cushing asked Grant to withdraw his name from consideration before the senate could even vote.
Finally, it is important to note that the last rejection was certainly not the least. In fact, many consider it to have been a turning point in the operation of the modern SCOTUS confirmation process. So much so that it created a new term to describe the process of vigorously questioning the legal and political philosophies of nominees in order to derail the confirmation: “borking”. This all spawned from Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork - a steadfast originalist who did not show support for the Court precedent of the Constitutional right to privacy. Senator Ted Kennedy and other congressional liberals mounted an aggressive campaign against the nomination leading to the largest margin of any failed nominee: 42-58.
After Bork’s defeat, Reagan nominated Douglas H. Ginsburg (no relation to Martin Ginsburg). But the “borking” soon set in. Controversy arose surrounding a possible financial conflict of interest involving a case that Ginsburg had handled while working at the Justice Department. The metaphorical nail in the coffin, however, was the groundbreaking revelation that Ginsburg had smoked marijuana as college student and even as an assistant professor at Harvard. Ginsburg subsequently asked Reagan to withdraw his name before the formal nomination in order to avoid another heated confirmation battle.
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