That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post, which bears the subtitle “Orrin Hatch’s gamesmanship, Teddy Kennedy’s intrigue, and Ralph Nader’s costly presidential run.” Here’s a nugget from my post on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s hiring record that illustrates how attentive Breyer was to advancing his candidacy:

Hatch’s exchange with Ginsburg received virtually no attention, but there was one interested person who evidently was watching very closely. Ginsburg had beaten out First Circuit judge Stephen Breyer for the nomination. Like Ginsburg, Breyer had never had a black law clerk. But, as a Breyer law clerk told me, Hatch’s exchange with Ginsburg spurred him to race out and hire his first. That’s why a year later Breyer, in his questionnaire response following his Supreme Court nomination, was able to attest:
Of the 8 law clerks to whom I have extended circuit court clerkship offers for the next two years (and who have accepted), 3 are women (one of whom is African-American) , one is an Asian-American man, and one is an Hispanic man. [Breyer questionnaire response, pp. 59-60 (emphasis added), published in Breyer hearing transcript at 81-82.]

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