Analyzing the Rhetoric of Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Abstract

Supreme Court confirmation hearings place the often-reclusive institution in the public spotlight and afford members of the Senate Judiciary Committee the ability to pursue important personal and party goals. I construct and evaluate a measure of rhetorical sentiment that considers the positive and negative behaviors of committee members during Supreme Court confirmation hearings between 1971 and 2020. While some observers have pointed to the evolving dynamics of confirmation hearings as being the result of key inflection points, I find that these events alone do not explain rhetorical behaviors. Instead, my results suggest that rhetorical behaviors have been predominately mediated by structures of party control and the balance of interbranch political power since at least the 1970s. I conclude by noting how these behaviors can further deteriorate the public’s perceptions that the Court remains insulated from the contentious political environment.