The significance of region was reinforced by the creation of georgraphically–based federal judicial regions. Until 1869, Supreme Court justices would have responsibilities for riding "circuit" throughout that region to handle federal judicial business. It was common, though by no means required, to select a justice who was from one of the states in the circuit and familiar with life in the region. Region has become less significant over the years. However, in 1969 an effort to secure the vote of independently minded Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine against Harrold Carswell, opponents called to her attention the fact that this Southern jurist, accused of incompetence and racism, would have responsibility for the Federal Circuit that included Maine.
In the twentieth century, the representation of other characteristics important to contemporary political issues, such as religion, sex, and race or ethnicity has guided certain nominations. The retirement of Thurgood Marshall in 1991 immediately raised questions of whether Marshall's seat constituted an African–American seat or, more generally, a racial/ethnic minority seat. President Bush's rhetoric denied such a proposition, but the focus on Emilio Garza and Ricardo Hinojosa, either of whom would have been the first Latino on the Court, along with the eventual nominee, Clarence Thomas, an African–American, spoke more forthrightly than did the President.
Similarly, we never again are likely to have a Supreme Court without at least one woman justice. In 1981, Sandra O'Connor was named to the Court as the result of an intensive search, initially by the Nixon and then Ford administrations, to find a woman with whom conservative Republicans could feel comfortable. For Ronald Reagan, the Republican president with a reputed gender gap — women being less likely than men to support him — the opportunity to appoint the first female justice was a political coup. The fact that President Clinton filled his first vacancy with a woman was especially significant. It removed the onus that would have befallen a president and his nominee had the only female seat on the Court become vacant. For now, at least, there is no "female seat" on the Court, and we may anticipate a time in which a majority of the Court may even be women. The day will come when we may say the same for racial/ethnic status.
Presidents generally prefer not to acknowledge representational constraints on their appointments to the Court. They typically assert that appointments are based solely on qualifications and that they are selecting the most qualified person for the job. At the same time, presidents may reflect upon our diverse society and the desirability for the Court to reflect that diversity. It is all part of a not-so-elaborate game in which a president perpetuates the myth that he is appointing the best person while simultaneously attending to significant group representational demands.
George Watson and John Stookey, Shaping America; The Politics of Supreme Court Appointments, 1995, pp. 60–61.
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