Jimmy Carter never appointed a Supreme Court justice, but he left a remarkable judicial legacy

 

Jimmy Carter never appointed a Supreme Court justice, 

but he left a remarkable judicial legacy

Analysis by Joan Biskupic, CNN

 3 minute read 

Updated 3:08 AM EST, Mon December 30, 2024

President Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a White House 

reception for women federal judges in October 1980. 

Glasshouse Images/Shutterstock

Jimmy Carter, who served a single full presidential term without the chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice, nonetheless left behind an incomparable judicial legacy.

He was the first president to significantly diversify the lower federal courts by appointing female and minority judges — a point that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg often touted.

Carter named Ginsburg to an important Washington-based US Court of Appeals in 1980, which positioned her for eventual elevation to the Supreme Court.

His presidency was the first during which women made up a significant number of confirmed circuit and district court nominees, according to a Congressional Research Service compilation of judicial appointments. During his one-term presidency, 41 of his appointees were women.

Women made up 12 of his 59 circuit court appointees and 29 of his total 203 district court appointees. Until Carter’s tenure, only two women had ever been named as circuit court judges and six as district court judges.

“Once Carter appointed women to the bench in numbers, there was no turning back,” Ginsburg, who died in 2020, declared in one speech.

Recounting the earlier resistance to women on the bench, Ginsburg added that when former President Harry Truman, who served from 1945 to 1953, broached the possibility of a woman on the court, justices reportedly said a woman justice “would make it difficult for (the other justices) to meet informally with robes, and perhaps shoes, off, shirt collars unbuttoned and discuss their problems and come to decisions.”

In addition to the 41 women judges Carter named to the federal judiciary, he appointed a record 57 people of color to the bench, including those who would become prominent federal appellate judges such as Leon Higginbotham, on the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit; Amalya Kearse, on the New York-based 2nd Circuit; and Damon Keith on the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit.

Civil rights advocates praised Carter’s work for bringing diversity to the bench. But it was also in the words of Sherrilyn Ifill, Howard University law professor and former NAACP Legal Defense Fund director, “important for improving the legitimacy and quality of judging.”

Carter downplayed his role in the barrier-breaking pattern, saying, “The nation was ready for it.”

Yet, Carter never garnered the opportunity to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. He is the only one-term president who finished a full term without an appointment. His emphasis on appointing female and minority judges, however, may have added to the pressure on Ronald Reagan when he was running against Carter in 1980 to vow to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court.

Reagan made the vow in October 1980, telling an audience in Los Angeles, “One of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can find.”

At the time, Carter dismissed the promise as a cynical ploy for votes, saying, “Equal rights for women involves more than just one job for one woman.”

A few months after Reagan claimed the White House in 1981, he made good on his promise and nominated Sandra Day O’Connor.

The second woman, named by President Bill Clinton in 1993, was Ginsburg, Carter’s earlier appellate court choice.