senatorial courtesy

n.
The custom in the U.S. Senate of refusing to confirm a presidential appointment to office opposed by both senators from the state of the appointee or by the senior senator of the President's party.

Requires that care be taken by the president that, above all, the nominee to a high‐level federal position is not personally obnoxious to a home‐state senator (or other significant political personage) on pain of having him or her invoke that age‐old, almost invariably honored, custom—an almost certain death knell to confirmation by the Senate. The custom or practice is based on the assumption that a president will, as a matter of political patronage, practice, and courtesy, ipso facto engage in consultation prior to the nominee's designation, provided usually that the senator, or other pertinent political power, is a member of the president's political party.

Senatorial courtesy dates back to the first years of the Republic, when the Senate recognized the need for solidarity to prevent a president from appointing a senator's political adversary to high office. Actually, the practice commenced in the very first session of Congress in 1789, when President George Washington nominated Benjamin Fishbourn as a naval officer in the port of Savannah, Georgia. Although apparently well qualified, Fishbourn was opposed by Georgia's two United States senators, and Washington withdrew his nomination when it was apparent that the Senate would side with its Georgia colleagues. Washington subsequently nominated someone favored by the two legislators, thereby enshrining the concept of senatorial courtesy perpetually. Ensuing events have made amply clear that if a president fails to adhere to this custom, the aggrieved senator's or senators' colleagues will almost certainly be supportive of the latter on their call for the nominee's defeat as a matter of courtesy, of a fraternal quid pro quo.

An appropriate application of senatorial courtesy in a specific area of the realm of presidential nominations is that of the chief executive's selections for the federal bench. In view of the fact that federal judges are appointed for “good behavior”—that is, in effect for life—a judicial post represents one of the plums available to a president. Not only is it a lifetime appointment, it enables the president at the very least to endeavor to single out candidates who generally seem to agree with his own constitutional cum jurisprudential–political philosophy. No wonder, then, that senatorial courtesy enters here more pronouncedly and more predictably than for any other post over which the president has appointive authority. Consequently, chairpersons of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which is charged with the approval of all candidates for the federal bench, developed through the years a system of concurrence by home state senators that has become part and parcel of the senatorial courtesy practice. Thus, until Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced early in 1979 that he would not unilaterally table a nomination simply because a “blue slip” is not returned by a colleague concerned by and interested in a nominee, the so‐called blue slip system had institutionalized senatorial courtesy. It proceeded as follows: once the president formally nominated a candidate for the judiciary, the Senate Judiciary Committee would send to each of the nominee's home‐state senators a blue sheet of paper, asking his or her “opinion and information concerning the nomination.” In fact, the blue slip asked whether the chief executive's formal choice was either the person the home‐state senator(s) wanted or at least could agree to. If a senator approved, he or she returned the blue slip to the committee; if not, the senator retained the slip. If the senator was from the president's own party, a withheld blue slip amounted to a one‐person veto, terminating the nominee's chances.

Senator Kennedy's bold effort to end this system met with considerable condemnation by a number of his committee colleagues, and when Senator Strom Thurmond succeeded to the chair of the committee in 1981, he was at first inclined to reinstitute it but evidently decided to handle matters more informally. His 1987 successor, Senator Joseph R. Biden, announced a new policy under which failure to consult with the home‐state senator, combined with a negative blue slip, would automatically kill a nomination.

See also Appointment and Removal Power; Selection of Justices.

Bibliography

• Henry J. Abraham, The Judicial Process: An Introductory Analysis of the Courts of the United States, England, and France, 6th ed. (1992)

— Henry J. Abraham

When senators vote against a nomination because the home-state senator objects to that nominee, they are showing “senatorial courtesy.” They expect that other senators will reciprocate by voting against any objectionable nominee from their own state. The first instance of “senatorial courtesy” took place in 1789, when the Senate rejected the nomination of Benjamin Fishbourn to be a naval officer of the port of Savannah. The two senators from Georgia preferred another candidate and convinced their colleagues to vote against Fishbourn. President George Washington then submitted another nomination that was acceptable to the Georgia senators. “Senatorial courtesy” has given senators great influence over such appointments as federal judges and U.S. attorneys from their state.

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