This account of the machinations following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, and their damaging effects, is “a gripping tale of insider Washington” (The Boston Globe).
In this book, the Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times provides a richly detailed, news-breaking, and conversation-changing look at the unprecedented political fight to fill the Supreme Court seat made vacant by Antonin Scalia’s death—using it to explain the paralyzing and all but irreversible dysfunction across all three branches in the nation’s capital.
The embodiment of American conservative jurisprudence, Scalia cast an expansive shadow over the Court for three decades. His unexpected death in February 2016 created a vacancy that precipitated a pitched political fight that would change not only the tilt of the court, but the course of American history. It would help decide a presidential election, fundamentally alter longstanding protocols of the Senate, and transform the Supreme Court—which has long held itself as a neutral arbiter above politics—into another branch of the federal government riven by partisanship. In an unheard-of development, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to give Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, a confirmation hearing. Not one Republican in the Senate would meet with him. Scalia’s seat would be held open until Donald Trump’s nominee, Neil M. Gorsuch, was confirmed in April 2017.
Hulse tells the story of this battle to control the Court through exclusive interviews with McConnell, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and other top officials, Trump campaign operatives, court activists, and legal scholars, as well as never-before-reported details. Confirmation Bias provides much-needed context, revisiting the judicial wars of recent decades to show how they led to our current polarization. He examines the politicization of the federal bench and the implications for public confidence in the courts, and takes us behind the scenes to explore how many long-held democratic norms and entrenched bipartisan procedures have been erased across all three branches of government.
Includes a new afterword
“An absorbing, if dispiriting, look at the maneuverings of inside players like McConnell and Donald McGahn, Trump’s first White House counsel, and outside advocates like Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, who appears to have steered judicial selection as much as anyone in the White House.” —The Washington Post
Carl Hulse is chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times and a veteran of more than three decades of reporting in the capital. He has also served as the Washington editor of The Times as well as the chief congressional correspondent. Carl is a native of Illinois and a graduate of Illinois State University.
Table of Contents
1 Calling the Play 1
2 A Death in Texas 9
3 "Business to Attend To" 14
4 "Of Course the President Is Going to Nominate Someone" 23
5 Playing It Straight 32
6 Pulling a Biden 38
7 The Oval 45
8 The List: Part I 50
9 Lack of Judicial Temperament 57
10 Should Ideology Matter? 65
1 Filibusted 73
12 The Gang's All Here 83
13 Battle Lines 94
14 Going Nuclear 104
15 Dumbledore 114
16 Stalemate 126
17 The List: Part II 138
18 Upset 144
19 Postmortem 154
20 Gorsuch 159
21 One Horse-Sized Duck 172
22 Nuclear Winter 178
23 Giving the Slip to the Blue Slip 182
24 The Trump Judiciary 193
25 The Kennedy Seat 204
26 Golden Boy 217
27 Advice and Dissent 223
28 The Hearing Will Not Come to Order 230
29 The Paper Chase 235
30 The Letter 242
31 "Forever Change the Senate and Our Nation's Highest Court" 259