Graphic Justice
If all goes according to plan, the Senate will vote next week on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the 112th Supreme Court Justice. The exact date and time of the vote has not yet been scheduled, but the Senate will begin its August recess next Friday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has committed to scheduling a vote before they depart. This timing will make the vote on Kagan at least 83 days after her nomination. For the past 14 nominees to the Supreme Court, there were an average of 78 days between nomination and confirmation.
The Washington Post has a great graphic displaying the number of days between the nomination, Judiciary Committee hearing, and Senate vote for all of the nominees since Justice John Paul Stevens was nominated. (Shockingly, the entire confirmation process for Justice Stevens took only 19 days.)
My discovery of this graphic led to my unearthing of three other Court-related interactive features on the Washington Post and New York Times websites. All three provide effective and interesting ways to learn more about the Justices and the decisions that they make:
1) New York Times: How Your Views Compare with the Court. Take a quiz to find out which Justice's opinions are most compatible with your own. In the process, find out more about some of the major cases on hot-button issues that the Court has decided in recent years.
2) Washington Post: Supreme Court Round Up. Learn more about the recently-concluded 2009-2010 Supreme Court Term. Find out how the Justices voted, how often they agreed with each other, and how frequently they were in the majority. Also, read about the blockbuster cases of the Term and how they were decided.
3) Washington Post: Supreme Court Justices Throughout History. Discover more about the men and women who have served on our nation's highest court. Sort the list by the President who nominated them, their age, or the year that they were nominated to discover trends. (Did you know that the youngest nominee to the Supreme Court was only 32?)