Will Another Politician Ever Be Nominated to SCOTUS?

[electionsguy259]

One thing that stuck out at me while reading articles dealing with the history of the Supreme Court is that many former SCOTUS justices had been politicians prior to being named to the Court (such as Salmon Chase, William Howard Taft, Hugo Black, and Frank Murphy). This practice has mostly disappeared; the most recent SCOTUS to have had elected experience was Sandra Day O'Connor (1981). Does anyone see actual politicians, on either side of the aisle, being nominated to the Supreme Court anytime soon?

[NewYorkExpress]

Kamala Harris might end up on the Court if Democrats still control the Senate after 2026...if Sotomayor or Roberts retires at that point. (I imagine Biden is well aware that Harris would lose the 2028 Presidential Election and would nominate her to avoid seeing her take a career ending loss).

[Del Tachi]

Yeah, Biden should appoint Harris to Sotomayor's seat when/if she retires next year.  It's great pretense for dropping her in favor of someone who has actual 2028 potential (i.e., Whitmer, Warnock, Moore, Shapiro, etc.)

[Skill and Chance]

Yeah, Biden should appoint Harris to Sotomayor's seat when/if she retires next year.  It's great pretense for dropping her in favor of someone who has actual 2028 potential (i.e., Whitmer, Warnock, Moore, Shapiro, etc.)

Never going to happen.  Automatic loss of senate seat.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yeah, Biden should appoint Harris to Sotomayor's seat when/if she retires next year.  It's great pretense for dropping her in favor of someone who has actual 2028 potential (i.e., Whitmer, Warnock, Moore, Shapiro, etc.)

Never going to happen.  Automatic loss of senate seat.

Yep. If this happens, which is very unlikely, the replacement will be a governor rather than a senator. Gun to my head I'd name the strongest possibilities as Moore, Polis, Pritzker, Shapiro, and Whitmer, in no particular order but maybe with Whitmer slightly above and Polis slightly below the other three. (I get that Gavin Newsom is a strong national performer but I think a lot of people really overestimate how much respect other major Democratic politicians have for him.)

[Ferguson97]

All judges are politicians, but yes. "Ever" is a very long time.

[Vosem]

We came very close to this in 2016-17, since apparently Bannon really wanted Trump to nominate Ted Cruz to the Scalia/Gorsuch SCOTUS seat as a grand party reunification gesture (a la Obama picking Hillary to be Secretary of State), but Cruz was unwilling to go for it. (Which, IMO, showed him to be a profoundly unserious figure).

So I think it remains on the table, and it'll be on the table for a while, but it gets less likely as the political class comes to be less full of lawyers, which I think is the long-term trend on both sides.