SCOTUS
Acting as the ultimate check and balance to the power of congress, and the president, The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is currently made up of nine justices, and is the highest federal court in the country. The SCOTUS was established in 1789 by the 3rd article in the U.S constitution, and has the ultimate jurisdiction over all laws in the U.S. This granted Congress power to create smaller federal courts. The first Supreme Court was made up of Chief Justice John J. and Associate Justices John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, Robert Harrison, and James Wilson. The first session was set to happen on February 1, 1790, but it had to be postponed a day and their first meeting occurred the next day on February 2, 1790.
More than 100 justices have served on the U.S. supreme court, each justice serves an average of 16 years each. Justices in the Supreme court are appointed for life, but the constitution does not explicitly say that this has to be the case. The constitution says, "justices shall hold their offices during good behavior" - the only time a justice may be removed is if they are removed via impeachment. There has only been one justice to be impeached, his name was Samuel Chase, who was impeached in 1805.
The number of justices in the SCOTUS has fluctuated over the years. The first SCOTUS only had 6 justices in total. The number has changed a total of 6 times from the 5 being the least, to 10 being the most. In 1869 Congress set the number of seats to 9, where it still is today. The current Supreme Court is comprised of chief justice John Roberts, Jr. and associate justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch.
It is the Presidents job to nominate a replacement for empty seats in the SCOTUS. There are no constitutional qualifications to be a justice. The Supreme court nominee first has to be nominated, and then he or she submits a questionnaire. After the questionnaire, the nominee sits before the Senate judiciary committee for a series of hearings. After these hearings the judiciary committee votes to send a positive or negative nomination to the full senate. Finally the full senate votes to confirm the nominee, and the final vote only requires a simple majority of senators present to pass. There have only been five nominees in the history of the court have received no vote at all. John m read, was the first ever nominee to have received no vote in 1845. Merrick Garland was the latest in 2016 to receive no votes after Barak Obama nominated him to the court.
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