Before 1987, Supreme Court nominations were relatively peaceful affairs. Yes, there occasionally were bursts of controversy—the appointment of progressive activist Louis Brandeis in 1916, the promotion of conservative Justice William Rehnquist in 1986—but controversy was the exception, not the rule. Justice Antonin Scalia, a known conservative commodity, was confirmed in 1986 by a vote of 98 to 0. (“The two missing were Barry Goldwater and Jake Garnes,” Scalia later reflected, “so make it 100.”)

But the world of judicial confirmations changed irrevocably in 1987, when Senator Ted Kennedy and others rose up in full-throated opposition to the Robert Bork nomination, followed by the Democrats’ intense scrutiny of Clarence Thomas and (hard as it is to believe today) David Souter. For a short time, Republicans declined to follow suit—they were far less heated in their opposition to President Clinton’s nominees, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. But even then, they began to escalate their opposition to lower court nominees.