Overview: This file allows you to link a federal judge's confirmation date with which political party had a majority in Senate on the day of the vote. It also contains Supreme Court Justices linked to Senate majority when the Justice was confirmed.
Data Setup: The file is setup with the first sheet as a Readme explaining data sources and variable definitions.Â
The second sheet provides the day the majority starts and ends (inclusive) and which party held the Senate in that period. This is based on the historical data provided by the US Senate itself here. As the Vice President casts any tiebreaking votes, if there is a tie the majority is assigned to the same party as the President.
The third sheet provides a linking table with every Supreme Court Justice included in the modern Washington University Law Supreme Court Database. It includes the exact day the justice was confirmed (according to the biographies maintained by the Federal Judicial Center) and which party had a majority in the Senate the day the justice was confirmed. Unique ids from the WashU database and FJC database are included.
Disclaimer: This data was gathered for my use as an academic researcher. Despite my best efforts, the data may contain some errors. I update this dataset from time to time to correct errors as I become aware of it. If you find an error, please contact me.
Terms of Use: This linking file was used in some of my research papers. If you use this data, please cite the following papers:
Time Period Covered: 1937-2025
Last Updated: 2/25/2025