Supreme Court Nominations and Game Theory
A few months ago, news broke out that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had died of natural causes in Texas. Naturally, the country started scrambling in order to predict what would moves President Obama and the Senate would take in the midst a particularly feisty election cycle. While Scalia sat on the Supreme Court, he tended to vote on the conservative side of issues. Thus, his death results in a virtual deadlock between the remaining four traditionally liberal and four traditionally conservative justices. Typically, the president nominates a justice and a vote is sent to the Senate, but as Obama nears the end of his second term (his “sitting duck” year), the Republican portion of the Senate is looking to delay any possible appointment until the outcome of November’s election. Should their presidential candidate, Donald Trump, win, they would presumably control the Supreme Court for the years to come.
The article I’ve linked to below was published immediately following Antonin Scalia’s death and analyzes the different strategies that President Obama could have taken–nominate someone who he thinks is best suited for the position, nominate someone extremely liberal in defiance, or nominate a known moderate and hope for the best. I found it interesting that the eventual nominee, Merrick Garland, was actually brought up in the article as an option for the third strategy. The article discusses how this strategy minimizes both Republican and Democratic losses in the government; i.e. neither party has control of the Court. However, the Republican-controlled Senate is currently on summer recess and has not granted Garland a hearing, as they believe Obama’s successor should appoint the new justice. This relates hugely to the material covered in class about Game Theory and how two adversaries sometimes have to strategize their best move when their opponent’s decisions are unknown.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/02/15/not-replacing-scalia-game-theory-in-the-real-world/