Jimmy Carter Supreme Court candidates

The 1977 annual Supreme Court visit to the White House

During President Jimmy Carter's term in office, no vacancy occurred on the Supreme Court of the United States. He thus became the first president since Andrew Johnson and the fourth president overall (after William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and Johnson) to complete his term without making any appointments to the Supreme Court. Because these other presidents either died in office or assumed the presidency because of an intra-term vacancy, Carter is the only US president as of 2025 to serve a single full term without getting to appoint a Justice.

Politics

The possibility that no Supreme Court vacancies would arise during the 1977–1981 presidential term had been speculated on since before Carter took office: a November 1976 article in The New York Times noted that the then-recent appointments of several justices during Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford's presidencies had left the court "settled in for some time to come".[1]

As president, Carter actively sought to burnish his standing among women's rights groups by using the power of appointment provided by his office.[2] By the end of his term, Carter had appointed forty-one of the forty-six women serving as federal judges and three of the six women ever to have served as full Cabinet members.[2] One of these Cabinet members was Shirley Hufstedler, who in 1979 resigned her seat on Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to serve as head of the newly created Department of Education.[3] According to White House officials, Hufstedler received assurances that accepting the Cabinet position would not preclude her from being nominated to the Supreme Court.[4]

Names mentioned

Following is a list of individuals who were mentioned in various news accounts and books as having been considered by Carter for a Supreme Court appointment, or otherwise reported on as a possible choice:

United States courts of appeals

Executive branch officials

Other backgrounds

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Oelsner, Lesley (November 30, 1976). "Carter Will Be Able to Influence High Court, Despite Nixon Legacy". The New York Times. p. 34. Retrieved January 5, 2026.
  2. ^ a b c Dumbrell, John. The Carter Presidency: A Re-Evaluation. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-4693-3.
  3. ^ Federal Judicial Center page on Shirley Ann Mount Hufstedler Archived 2009-05-14 at the Wayback Machine, fjc.gov.
  4. ^ a b Biskupic, Joan (2005). Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice. Ecco Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-06-059018-5.
  5. ^ Totenberg, Nina (August 29, 1979). "Amalya Kearse: Judge, Lawyer And 'Cool Cat'". NPR. Retrieved January 4, 2026.
  6. ^ Roberts, Sam (April 1, 2016). "Shirley Hufstedler, Judge and Cabinet's First Education Secretary, Dies at 90". The New York Times. p. B15. Retrieved January 5, 2026. widely considered the favorite to be the first woman nominated to the Supreme Court if a vacancy arose during the Carter administration.
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