Brandeis' and the Supreme Court

I hope you haven't been too busy with the presidential race to take notice of the vacancy at the Supreme Court and the reluctance of the Senate Judiciary Republicans to do their job. It's a really big deal.

However, you may not know that the very first confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justice were apparently held after President Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis Brandeis in 1916. Apparently, "until that point, the Senate simply voted yay or nay" and Brandeis himself didn't even show up to the hearings.

Here's a picture of him from Wikipedia:



Interestingly, the Wikipedia article reports that Brandeis' legal work helped develop the right to privacy. Pretty cool stuff!