The Death of Bipartisanship: Declining Crossover Voting in Lower Court Judicial Confirmations

In spite of the historic opposition Senate Democrats have posed against President Trump’s efforts, senatorial partisan opposition to lower court nominees may not be a recent phenomenon or new development. While lower court nominees have traditionally enjoyed large bipartisan majorities, prevailing research suggests that the Senate has been become increasingly polarized since the 1970s. Although this polarization easily manifests in major legislative initiatives and Supreme Court confirmations, polarized voting and position-taking could easily permeate into issues of lesser legislative importance such as lower court nominations. The following paper aims to determine whether the increased party polarization in the Senate is prevalent in lower court nominations through analyzing the level of bipartisan support for nominees to the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 1977 to 2008, ultimately concluding that increased partisanship in the Senate has not led to a significant decline in bipartisan support for circuit court nominees.