Channels, Fall 2019

Channels • 2019 • Volume 4 • Number 1 Page 15 contributions in the next section. In the end, the Founders believed that dividing the appointment power between the president and the Senate would produce a safer, less tyrannical government. The Senate’s check upon the president would effectively curb the appointment of improper officials to the Supreme Court. The Federalist Papers The Framers created a constitutional framework and federal system that was based on separation of powers, division of responsibilities and accountability, and checks and balances associated within each new branch of government. In other words, the framework was “more prone to obstructionism than comparable systems” (Weaver 1717). Specifically, the advice and consent function has served as a check upon the president given that 37 out of 163 nominations to the Supreme Court have not survived the Supreme Court confirmation process within the U.S. Senate (“Supreme Court nominations”). In contrast, between the Founding and 2011, the Senate has rejected only fifteen cabinet nominees, demonstrating a more robust application of the Senate’s advice and consent power (Weaver 1730). Moreover, the Senate also demonstrates the importance of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary as a whole in the national government. Under the guise of checks and balances, each participant within the Supreme Court confirmation process—the president and his staff, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate body, and the judicial nominee—must “modify their behavior” to achieve an optimal outcome (Friedland 177). Specifically, the president must moderate his selection of a nominee on occasion in order to assure a smoother confirmation process by avoiding ideologues and extreme candidates (Weaver 1731). The Senate has adjusted its review methods concerning the various candidates at times as well, especially concerning party considerations of the Senate majority and the party of the president (Friedland 177). Even the judicial nominee may have to modify his or her behavior by being more precise or more ambiguous and withholding during the confirmation process on his or her philosophical viewpoints. One should note that this level of inefficiency within the federal framework is good. Stephen Friedland touched on the benefits of having a thorough, comprehensive confirmation process. Specifically, he evaluated having more input from a variety of sources as a positive aspect that would only strengthen the overall government: It eliminates the singular viewpoint and its impulsiveness and susceptibility to a lack of questioning, and instead values the idea of freedom of speech and differing viewpoints—of the Senate and the President, at least—and also emulates an adversary system of truth seeking…In addition, the hearing mechanism by itself creates at least a path to transparency, if not to the truth (177-178). Friedland’s reflections on the adversarial system of checks and balances underscores the Framers’ mindset found in Federalist Papers Nos. 48-51, which were written by James Madison. In Federalist No. 48, Madison argues that the three branches of government should “provide practical security for each, against the invasion of the others” (No. 48). In Federalist No. 51, Madison continues this theme of distrust of the government and a desire to uphold a “constitutional equilibrium” (No. 49) by devising a system of checks, which he referred to as “auxiliary