Senate votes on Supreme Court nominations

[MarkD]

We have such deep divisions over the confirmation of the Supreme Court Justices because of these reasons: 1) the Supreme Court itself is too political, far too often basing its decisions on the personal values of the Justices themselves; 2) the Presidents keep picking people for appointment based on ideological reasons; 3) the Senators expect the Presidents to keep doing #2.
What is the Supreme Court supposed to be, ideally? It is supposed to be the nine most highly objective interpreters of law that can be found anywhere in the country. Consider what G.W. Bush said about 12 and a half years ago, at the Oct, 8, 2004 televised presidential debate between Bush and Sen. Kerry.
The debate moderator asked, "Mr. President, if there were a vacancy on the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?"
Bush's response began with, "I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States." He last remark (after rambling a bit) was, "No litmus test except for how they interpret the Constitution."
Those words were, to me, clearly correct, however Bush himself had no credibility on that topic because of the fact that he had already been known to say that Justices Scalia and Thomas were his favorite Supreme Court Justices.
We don't need more Justices like Scalia and Thomas, nor more Justices like Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. We need more Justices like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Benjamin Cardozo, and Hugo Black. I think if people like them were nominated, then the Senate would confirm them without controversy.

[MarkD]

"No Justice of the Court conscientiously and persistently endeavored, as much as Justice Black did, to establish consistent standards of objectivity in adjudicating constitutional questions." -- James J. Magee, "Mr. Justice Black: Absolutism on the Court," published 1980; page 194.

'[T]he Chief [Earl Warren], Brennan, Bill Douglas, Arthur [Goldberg], Thurgood [Marshall] are usually going to do the right thing. ... While they're around, we'll generally get a just judgment. But when they're gone and we get a McReynolds type, he's free to let go with his bad sense of right and wrong. I believe we've got to tie the judges of this Court and the subordinate federal courts to something lasting, even if we've got to sacrifice doing some good through the federal courts. We don't want this Court to be like one of these agencies -- one law when the Republicans are in and another when the Democrats are in. This Court's got to have some enduring principles." -- Hugo Black, quoted by Hugo Black, Jr., in "My Father; A Remembrance," published 1975, page 243.