There are more than 600 Federal district judges serving today, and they decide some 230,000 civil cases each year. About 90% of the decisions they reach are final. Lyles argues that these lower court judges not only influence the flow of information to the judicial hierarchy, but they formulate questions that influence how higher courts, including the Supreme Court, respond. As such they are key elements in the formulation and implementation of public policy. To cite a few examples, they desegregate school districts, run mental institutions and prisons, break up monopolies, and reapportion legislatures. Lyles begins by examining the structure and function of federal courts and detailing the history, operation, and purpose of the district courts. He then turns to the selection, nomination, and appointment of district judges. Lyles then analyzes the extent to which presidents might advance policy objectives through their judicial appointments to the district courts. After examining how African-American, Latino, and white judges, male and female, view their roles as policy actors, Lyles concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study. Important for students and scholars of contemporary public policy and the court system.

In recent decades, the process for appointing judges to the U.S. circuit courts of appeals and the U.S. district courts has been of continuing Senate interest. The responsibility for making these appointments is shared by the President and the Senate. Pursuant to the Constitution's Appointments Clause, the President nominates persons to fill federal judgeships, with the appointment of each nominee also requiring Senate confirmation. Although not mentioned in the Constitution, an important role is also played midway in the appointment process by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The need for a President to make a circuit or district court nomination typically arises when a judgeship becomes or soon will become vacant. With almost no formal restrictions on whom the President may consider, an informal requirement is that judicial candidates are expected to meet a high standard of professional qualification. By custom, candidates who the President considers for district judgeships are typically identified by home state Senators if the latter are of the President's party, with such Senators, however, generally exerting less influence over the selection of circuit nominees. Another customary expectation is that the Administration, before the President selects a nominee, will consult both home state Senators, regardless of their party, to determine the acceptability to them of the candidate under consideration. In recent Administrations, the pre-nomination evaluation of judicial candidates has been performed jointly by staff in the White House Counsel's Office and the Department of Justice. Candidate finalists also undergo a confidential background investigation by the FBI and an independent evaluation by a committee of the American Bar Association. The selection process is completed when the President, approving of a candidate, signs a nomination message, which is then sent to the Senate. Once received by the Senate, the judicial nomination is referred to the Judiciary Committee, where professional staff initiate their own investigation into the nominee's background and qualifications. Also, during this pre-hearing phase, the committee, through its “blue slip” procedure, seeks the assessment of home state Senators regarding whether they approve having the committee consider and take action on the nominee. Next in the process is the confirmation hearing, where judicial nominees engage in a question and answer session with members of the Judiciary Committee. Questions from Senators may focus, among other things, on a nominee's qualifications, understanding of how to interpret the law, previous experiences, and the role of judges.

From Louis Brandeis to Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas, the nomination of federal judges has generated intense political conflict. With the coming retirement of one or more Supreme Court Justices--and threats to filibuster lower court judges--the selection process is likely to be, once again, the center of red-hot partisan debate. In Advice and Consent, two leading legal scholars, Lee Epstein and Jeffrey A. Segal, offer a brief, illuminating Baedeker to this highly important procedure, discussing everything from constitutional background, to crucial differences in the nomination of judges and justices, to the role of the Judiciary Committee in vetting nominees. Epstein and Segal shed light on the role played by the media, by the American Bar Association, and by special interest groups (whose efforts helped defeat Judge Bork). Though it is often assumed that political clashes over nominees are a new phenomenon, the authors argue that the appointment of justices and judges has always been a highly contentious process--one largely driven by ideological and partisan concerns. The reader discovers how presidents and the senate have tried to remake the bench, ranging from FDR's controversial "court packing" scheme to the Senate's creation in 1978 of 35 new appellate and 117 district court judgeships, allowing the Democrats to shape the judiciary for years. The authors conclude with possible "reforms," from the so-called nuclear option, whereby a majority of the Senate could vote to prohibit filibusters, to the even more dramatic suggestion that Congress eliminate a judge's life tenure either by term limits or compulsory retirement. With key appointments looming on the horizon, Advice and Consent provides everything concerned citizens need to know to understand the partisan rows that surround the judicial nominating process.