Top 10 Supreme Court seats given as rewards from grateful presidents | Opinion

Presented with a vacant seat on the U. S. Supreme Court, President Joe Biden says he will honor a pledge he made as a candidate to appoint the first Black woman as the high court’s next associate justice.

Mr. Biden made that promise before the South Carolina primary in 2020 when his campaign was in the ICU. He had finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, and a very distant second in Nevada. Enter South Carolina Congressman James E. Clyburn, the Democratic whip, who rallied the state’s sizeable African-American base to give Mr. Biden a thumping win on election night. The momentum generated in the Palmetto State propelled the former vice-president to his party’s nomination and subsequent triumph over Donald Trump. Representative Clyburn hasn’t been bashful about giving the President a due bill for his CPR work resuscitating the Biden campaign when it was needed most. He is aggressively supporting fellow South Carolinian and federal judge J. Michelle Childs for the vacancy on the high court.

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If Judge J. Michelle Childs is chosen and confirmed — as a horseplayer, I sure like her odds — she’ll be the latest individual who was nominated to the Supreme Court in gratitude for their or someone else’s campaign work for a winning Presidential candidate. Here, in descending order of importance (according to my own ranking), are the top ten examples of those types of appointments with that justice’s years of service on the high court.

10. John Catron (1837-1865): It was a close call, but Mr. Catron – a Nashville lawyer who fought with General Andrew Jackson at the battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 – was appointed to the Supreme Court on March 3, 1837, President Jackson’s last day in office. Mr. Catron was rewarded for his good work in chairing the campaign of Mr. Jackson’s successor, Vice-President Martin Van Buren.

9. Stanley Matthews (1881-1889): this Cincinnati attorney represented fellow Ohioan Rutherford B. Hayes’ position before the congressional commission to determine the final outcome of the contentious 1876 presidential election between Mr. Hayes, the Republican, and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. Mr. Matthews put together a deal the commissioners accepted by one vote, 8-7, which delivered the White House to Mr. Hayes. When eventually thanked with a Supreme Court appointment, the Matthews nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, also by one vote, 24-23.

8. Hugo L. Black (1937-1971): this liberal icon was President Franklin Roosevelt’s first appointment to fill a high court vacancy. It was in gratitude for the Alabama Senator’s unrelenting work on behalf of New Deal legislation in the U.S. Congress.

7. Byron R. White (1962-1993): the former football all-American had the good fortune to befriend a heroic PT boat commander during World War II by the name of John F. Kennedy. In 1960, the Denver lawyer managed Senator Kennedy’s campaign in Colorado – a state Kennedy lost – but was rewarded anyway with a Supreme Court nomination in 1962.

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6. William Howard Taft (1921-1930): an outsized (literally, “Big Bill” weighed over 300 lbs.) figure in the Republican Party, this former President got his dream job, Chief Justice, from President Warren Harding who had loyally supported Mr. Taft’s spectacularly unsuccessful re-election in 1912. (Taft, the incumbent, carried exactly two states.)

5. John Jay (1789-1795): one of our country’s pre-eminent Founding Fathers, Mr. Jay was selected the Supreme Court’s first Chief Justice for his yeoman service with the young nation’s only two Federalist Party presidents: George Washington and John Adams.

4. Abe Fortas (1965-1969): no lawyer in American history did better work than this man’s representation of Lyndon Johnson in the aftermath of Johnson’s outright theft of the Democratic primary run-off for the U.S. Senate in 1948, a race that the courts eventually awarded to LBJ by 87 “votes.” In then-overwhelmingly Democratic Texas, the primary was the tantamount general election. As President, Mr. Johnson was able to put his brilliant lawyer on the Supreme Court, but failed in his attempt to make him Chief Justice.

3. John Marshall Harlan (1877-1911): the eloquent lone dissenter in the tragic “separate but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Louisville lawyer was nominated to the high court as payback for his dramatic delivery of the Kentucky delegation’s votes for Rutherford Hayes at the GOP convention which put the Ohio governor over the top for his party’s nomination for president in 1876.

2. Earl Warren (1953-1969): Thomas Dewey’s running mate in 1948, Warren – the popular governor of California – endorsed Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952 which helped secure the Republican nomination for Ike. Barely nine months into his presidency, Eisenhower appointed Warren to succeed Chief Justice Fred Vinson (from Louisa, KY) who had died suddenly.

1. David Davis (1862-1877): an Illinois judge who admired Abraham Lincoln’s remarkable skills as a trial lawyer in his court — and enjoyed his friendship outside of court — Judge Davis masterminded Honest Abe’s successful upset campaign for the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s 1860 convention in Chicago. The judge’s prodigious work ultimately resulted in the election of America’s greatest president --- and a Supreme Court appointment for himself.

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville attorney and Republican who served in Kentucky's House from the 33rd District from 1980 to 2002. He can be reached at helringr@bellsouth.net.

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This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: 10 Supreme Court seats given as rewards from grateful presidents | Opinion