The surprising roots of the current conservative super-majority.
President Lyndon Johnson introduces Abe Fortas and John Chancellor at a news conference at the White House in July 1965. The Chief Executive named Fortas, a longtime friend and Washington attorney, to the Supreme Court to succeed Arthur J. Goldberg.s the Supreme Court launches a new term, it remains dominated by a 6-3 super-majority that has ushered in one of the most conservative eras in the institution’s history.
That hubris was on full display when Lyndon Johnson eyed the high court months after his landslide victory in 1964. Eager to extend the Warren Court’s liberal jurisprudence and fearful that his Great Society might suffer the fate of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives at the hands of conservative jurists, Johnson resolved to maintain the institution’s ideological bent.
Yet, what might have been the next chapter in cementing the liberal dominance of the Court instead proved to be the beginning of its undoing. In June 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren decided to retire because he was convinced that Richard Nixon would win the presidency.
To secure the nominations, Johnson attained personal guarantees from the Senate’s two most powerful members, Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, and Richard Russell, the long-time leader of the Southern Democrats. Backed by Johnson—the one time “Master of the Senate”—and having been easily confirmed in 1965, Fortas’ ascension seemed like a
Even more surprisingly, for a president revered for bending the Senate to his will, he failed to rally the chamber’s liberals angered over his handling of the Vietnam War. The final blow came when his two long-time friends, Dirksen and Russell, abandoned Johnson, the latter in a pique over Ramsey Clark’s handling of a district court judgeship.
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