Judge G. Harrold Carswell, who presided over a federal district court in Florida and earlier in his career supported racial segregation, was President Richard’s Nixon’s second nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat. The Committee on the Judiciary gave Carswell a favorable report, but several members dissented, viewing him as both hostile to minorities and incompetent.
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G. Harrold Carswell, Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Nomination to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, photograph by Warren K. Leffler, 1969
Congress Rejects President Richard Nixon’s Nominees
President Richard Nixon had the opportunity to fill two Supreme Court seats in 1969 when Chief Justice Earl Warren retired and Associate Justice Abe Fortas resigned. The Senate approved Nixon’s choice of Warren Burger as chief justice, but filling Fortas’s vacated seat proved controversial. Wanting a more conservative court, Nixon sought a strict constructionist. The Senate rejected two nominees—Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell—before finally confirming Harry Blackmun in 1970.
“As we recall, this was perhaps the hardest fought nomination in over a generation, and it was made doubly difficult because the matter that concerned us centered on the very sensitive issue of judicial ethics.”
Senator Birch E. Bayh of Indiana, on the Nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court, March 16, 1970
Judge G. Harrold Carswell, who presided over a federal district court in Florida and earlier in his career supported racial segregation, was President Richard’s Nixon’s second nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat. The Committee on the Judiciary gave Carswell a favorable report, but several members dissented, viewing him as both hostile to minorities and incompetent.
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