Advise and Consent Book Review

Lee Epstein and Jeffrey Segal's book Advice and Consent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments, is a decidedly useful tool when dealing with the appointment processes held when a vacancy occurs in the Supreme Court. Their findings tend to be in continuum with those of many legal scholars popularized today in scholarly journals and politically concentrated newspapers. They take over two hundred years of history and sum it up and pinpoint the exact areas needed to understood and also include developments and the evolutionary history. They do not draw anything out more than needed like many other political philosophers. It is point blank on target to what needs to be known and the support obtained, much in examples in history, is crucial to their holdings. They also offer considerable information into the concrete politics practiced within all of these processes.

The conservative and liberal views are ever changing, much like the appointment processes. These views along with the new technology being given to the public are contemporary issues that are coming up in the press and all around the world. Many of these topics may even deal with voting and choosing a president. For instance, in the 2000 election, the supreme court decided that George Bush had won the election over Al Gore even though part of the Florida votes were not used to decide this outcome. This example provides a slight conflict of interest constitutionally when dealing with the separation of powers. The people and electoral college are supposed to decide the election, not the Presidentially nominated and Senate confirmed justices. This issue should have been either re-voted upon by the Florida people or decided in another way which did not clash with constitutional objectives. This provides information that evolutionary connections exist within politics and are significantly important in the decision making process and also within the government.

The judicial appointment processes are playing a sizeable and significant role in the current era and existing Presidency. The recent vacancies of the Supreme court yield a highly important and influential job for the current president. These appointment processes go within the senate and give long and drawn out hearings in which senators bring up issues which may be of importance to them or possibly issues which are going to the be main focus of upcoming trials. The answers to these questions by the appointees are usually pretty vague and incomprehensive. They use a roundabout way to answer them in order to completely avoid the actual context of the questions as it was asked. These questions should be answered in a more complete form in order for the senators to be familiar with particular nominees' values and morals. Much of the senators blocking of a nominee may have been unfairly decided because they lacked certain amounts of information. Another possible motive for a blocked candidate may be in the form of rejection towards a certain president and their recent or controversial actions within their profession. Many of today's political objections within the senate are also possible holdings due to bitterness of a law being passed and signed or also values in which are in divergence with a legislative member.

The president usually chooses justices in which will be more ideologically just with their own partiality of government and standards of legal objectives. Many of the qualms with today's legal minds are indications of the upcoming cases pending in the court system. The controversy lies within the presidential opposition and the liberals in which he is conflicting in interests with. They believe that the newly appointed Bush justices may push the decision making progression back or possibly change much of today's precedent to an exacerbate state. Such as the issue of gay marriage which is highly controversial. Some liberal opposition may find that Bush appointed justices will take the conservative stance and out law it completely and not leave it up to the states or make it legal throughout the country.

Many leading theorists also believe that a justice has a tendency to be loyal to his or her president in which nominated them and also to be loyal to that president's political ideals. Being as our current president is conservative, he is seen to be designating justices in which may have some of the same perspectives. In reality, this allegiance only apparently lasts throughout their first portion of tenure throughout their job. Lee Epstein explains in a 2005 interview with the Oxford University Press, that "During the first four years of justices' tenure, their voting behavior correlates at a rather high level with their appointing president's ideology, but for justices with ten or more years of service, that relationship drops precipitously".