ABSTRACT
A presidential election was less than five months away and it seemed all but certain that the Republican nominee would be Warren’s least favorite politician, Richard M. Nixon. Johnson thought he was being clever, but his advisors warned the president that pairing Fortas and Thornberry would look like cronyism. The president must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the United States for 14 years. A member of the House of Representatives must be at least 25 years of age and a citizen for a minimum of seven years, and a senator must be at least 30 years of age and a citizen for nine years. The Constitutional Convention’s decision in 1787 to give both the president and the Senate a role in the selection of judges was a compromise between two groups of delegates: one favored giving the president the sole power to appoint judges, the other wanted the Senate to make selections.
