Gerald Ford Supreme Court candidates

During his time in office, President Gerald Ford made one appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. Ford nominated John Paul Stevens to replace Associate Justice William O. Douglas, whom Ford had unsuccessfully attempted to initiate impeachment proceedings against as a congressman.

In December 1974, the 76-year-old Douglas suffered a stroke while vacationing in Nassau, Bahamas that paralyzed his left arm and leg.[1] Douglas was discharged from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in March 1975, and was in and out of the hospital for the remainder of the 1974-1975 term.[1] Although Chief Justice Warren E. Burger urged Douglas to retire, Douglas showed no intention of doing so. However, Douglas’ condition continued to deteriorate, and on October 28, 1975, his doctors told him his condition would never improve and that he would be paralyzed and in near-constant pain for the rest of his life.[1] On November 12, 1975, Douglas announced that he would immediately retire and assume senior status.[2] On November 28, 1975, Ford nominated John Paul Stevens to replace Douglas. Stevens was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 17, 1975.[3][4]

## Politics

[edit]

Handwritten notes by President Ford on the list provided by Attorney General Edward Levi.

Ford, who had been appointed to the Vice Presidency after Nixon’s second term began, and who assumed the Presidency without having sought the office, did not articulate a philosophy for the kind of justices he would like to appoint to the Supreme Court, the way subsequent presidents did. It is significant that Ford involved himself less in the earlier stages of the process of identifying candidates for the court than some later presidents did; when the Douglas vacancy arose, he essentially left the decision up to his attorney general, Edward H. Levi.[1] At the same time, one of Ford’s reasons for attempting as a congressman to impeach Douglas in 1970 involved what Ford called Douglas’ “liberal opinions.”

### John Paul Stevens nomination

[edit]

After Douglas announced his retirement on November 12, 1975, Ford asked attorney general Edward Levi to draw up a list of potential candidates. Ford was under pressure from Democrats in Congress to replace Douglas with another liberal, but at the same time, he was under similar pressure from Republicans to name a conservative.[1] Ford handed Levi the task of narrowing down the list of candidates to a manageable number, and Levi then gave Ford a list of eighteen candidates, grouped into four categories based on Levi’s impressions of them.[5] Ford annotated the list and ranked the contenders,[1] narrowing the list to “five or six names,” Ford later wrote. The list included United States Solicitor General Robert Bork, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit judge John Paul Stevens, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit judge Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy, United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Carla Anderson Hills, and United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit judge Arlin Adams.[6]

Bork wound up being disqualified because of his close ties to Nixon, while Adams was considered to be a solid conservative without Bork’s associations, but flashy and overly self-confident.[1] Levi pushed for Stevens, a fellow Chicago native.[1] Ford debated between his final two contenders, Stevens and Adams. “Both had received excellent ratings from the American Bar Association; both had had distinguished careers,” Ford later wrote.[6] “I pored over their legal opinions myself. Stevens’ opinions were concise, persuasive and legally sound. It was a close call, but after talking to Levi and (White House Counsel Philip) Buchen, I selected Stevens in December.”[6]

Despite Ford’s statement in his autobiography that he had selected Stevens in December, Ford actually formally nominated Stevens to the Supreme Court on November 28, 1975.[3] The Senate confirmed Stevens in a 98–0 vote on December 17, 1975. Senators James Allen (D-AL) and Birch Bayh (D-IN) did not vote.[4]

## Names frequently mentioned

[edit]

Following is a list of individuals who were mentioned in various news accounts and books as having been considered by Ford for a Supreme Court appointment:

### United States courts of appeals

[edit]

* Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
* Arlin Adams (1921-2015)[6]
* Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
* Charles Clark (1925-2011)[7]
* Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
* John Paul Stevens (1920-2019) (Nominated and Confirmed)
* Philip Willis Tone (1923-2001)[7]
* Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
* William H. Webster (born 1924)[7]
* Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
* Alfred T. Goodwin (1923-2022)[6]
* J. Clifford Wallace (born 1928)[7]
* Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
* Malcolm Richard Wilkey (1918-2009)[7]

### United States district court judges

[edit]

* Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy – United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (1923-2014)[6]

### United States Senators

[edit]

* Robert P. Griffin (1923-2015) – Michigan[7]

### Members of the United States House of Representatives

[edit]

* Charles E. Wiggins (1927-2000) – California[7]

### Executive branch officials

[edit]

* Robert Bork (1927-2012) – United States Solicitor General under Nixon and Ford (nominated by Ronald Reagan in 1987, but rejected)[1]
* Carla Anderson Hills (born 1934) – United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Ford, former United States Assistant Attorney General under Presidents Nixon and Ford[6]

### Other backgrounds

[edit]

* Vincent L. McKusick (1921-2014), private attorney[7]
* Dallin H. Oaks (born 1932), President of Brigham Young University[5]

## See also

[edit]

* United States portal
* Politics portal

* United States federal judge
* Judicial appointment history for United States federal courts

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Greene, John Robert (1995). The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0638-2.
2. ^ Douglas, William Orville, Federal Judicial Center website, accessed December 9, 2008
3. ^ a b Federal Judicial Center page on John Paul Stevens Archived 2009-01-18 at the Wayback Machine.
4. ^ a b U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes - Nomination of John Paul Stevens, senate.gov
5. ^ a b David Alistair Yalof, Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees (2001), p. 127.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Ford, Gerald (1979). A Time to Heal. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-060-11297-4.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Nemacheck, Christine L. (2007). Strategic selection: presidential nomination of Supreme Court Justices from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush. Constitutionalism and democracy. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-2614-8. OCLC 70335194.

* v
* t
* e

Gerald Ford

* 38th President of the United States (1974–1977)
* 40th Vice President of the United States (1973–1974)
* U.S. Representative for MI–5 (1949–1973)

Presidency
(timeline)|

* Inauguration
* Timeline
* Foreign policy
* Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974
* Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
* Safe Drinking Water Act
* Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976
* Equal Credit Opportunity Act
* Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
* Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
* Education for All Handicapped Children Act
* Vladivostok Summit Meeting on Arms Control
* Helsinki Accords
* National Security Study Memorandum 200
* Nixon pardon
* Whip inflation now
* Cannabis policy
* Wilson desk
* Assassination attempts
* Sacramento
* San Francisco
* State of the Union Addresses
* 1975
* 1976
* 1977
* Judicial appointments
* Supreme Court candidates
* controversies
* Betty Ford's August 1975 60 Minutes interview
* Executive Orders
* Presidential Proclamations

Life|

* Gerald R. Ford Birthsite and Gardens
* President Gerald R. Ford Jr. Boyhood Home
* Gerald R. Ford Jr. House
* Warren Commission
* Confirmation as Vice President
* AEI World Forum
* Death and state funeral
* Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum
* Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

Elections|

* United States House of Representatives elections
* 1948
* 1950
* 1952
* 1954
* 1956
* 1958
* 1960
* 1962
* 1964
* 1966
* 1968
* 1970
* 1972
* 1976 presidential election
* Carter transition
* Republican Party presidential primaries
* 1976
* 1980
* 1976 Republican National Convention
* 1976
* 1980

Cultural
depictions|

* The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
* Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (1978)
* Dynasty (1981)
* The Betty Ford Story (1987)
* Assassins (1990)
* "Two Bad Neighbors" (1996)
* Saturday Night Live parodies
* The X-Presidents (1997)
* Presidential Reunion (2010)
* The Political Machine (2004)
* The Butler (2013)
* The First Lady (2022)

Legacy|

* Gerald R. Ford International Airport
* Gerald R. Ford Award
* Ford School of Public Policy
* Ford House Office Building
* USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)
* Gerald R. Ford Freeway
* U.S. Postage stamps
* Statue

Family|

* Charles Henry King (grandfather)
* Leslie Lynch King Sr. (father)
* Dorothy Gardner Ford (mother)
* Gerald Rudolff Ford (stepfather)
* Thomas Gardner Ford (half-brother)
* Betty Ford (wife)
* Michael Gerald Ford (son)
* John Gardner Ford (son)
* Steven Meigs Ford (son)
* Susan Ford Bales (daughter)
* Liberty (family dog)

* ← Richard Nixon
* Jimmy Carter →

* ← Spiro Agnew
* Nelson Rockefeller →

* Category

* v
* t
* e

Presidents and the federal judiciary of the United States

Supreme Court candidates
and nomination results|

All Supreme Court nominations

* Wilson
* Harding
* Coolidge
* Hoover
* F. D. Roosevelt
* Truman
* Eisenhower
* Kennedy
* L. B. Johnson
* Nixon
* Ford
* Carter
* Reagan
* G. H. W. Bush
* Clinton
* G. W. Bush
* Obama
* Trump
* Biden

All presidential
judicial appointments|

Judicial appointment history for United States federal courts

* Washington
* J. Adams
* Jefferson
* Madison
* Monroe
* J. Q. Adams
* Jackson
* Van Buren
* Tyler
* Polk
* Taylor
* Fillmore
* Pierce
* Buchanan
* Lincoln
* A. Johnson
* Grant
* Hayes
* Garfield
* Arthur
* Cleveland (I)
* B. Harrison
* Cleveland (II)
* McKinley
* T. Roosevelt
* Taft
* Wilson
* Harding
* Coolidge
* Hoover
* F. D. Roosevelt
* Truman
* Eisenhower
* Kennedy
* L. B. Johnson
* Nixon
* Ford
* Carter
* Reagan
* G. H. W. Bush
* Clinton
* G. W. Bush
* Obama
* Trump (I)
* Biden
* Trump (II)

Appointment controversies|

* L. B. Johnson
* Nixon
* Ford
* Carter
* Reagan
* G. H. W. Bush
* Clinton
* G. W. Bush
* Obama
* Trump
* Biden

List of presidents of the United States by judicial appointments • Supreme Court demographics
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template