Article 2. Section 2. Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The process has always been that unless a nominee has an ethical or legal cloud hanging over their head, the Senate has no right to vote against them.
LOL. Oh my. I just don't where to go with this one. I'll just leave it at a -bump-
"The process has always been that unless a nominee has an ethical or legal cloud hanging over their head, the Senate has no right to vote against them."
Then you have no basis to object to my citing the Federalist Papers, since they are a major source for bout precedent and interpretation.
The process has always been that unless a nominee has an ethical or legal cloud hanging over their head, the Senate has no right to vote against them.
Nonsense. The text you cited clearly gives the Senate the power to give or withhold consent. It does not put any limitations on this power.
And you want precedent? The Senate has exercised its right to withhold consent many times in the past when there was no "ethical or legal cloud."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Failed_Nominations_to_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
Not al all correct.
FEDERALIST No. 76
The Appointing Power of the Executive
HAMILTON
To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? . . . It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.
The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. . . . He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.