The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (informally Senate Judiciary Committee) is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges (including Supreme Court justices) nominated by the president. In recent years, this role has made the committee increasingly a point of contention, with numerous party-line votes and standoffs over which judges should be approved. The committee also has a broad jurisdiction over matters relating to federal criminal law, as well as human rights, immigration law, intellectual property rights, antitrust law, and Internet privacy. It is also Senate procedure that all proposed Constitutional Amendments pass through the Judiciary Committee.
The committee is one of the oldest in the Senate. It was initially created in 1816.
Read more about United States Senate Committee On The Judiciary: Members, 112th Congress, Subcommittees, Chairmen Since 1816
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—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
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—Susan Pecker Fowler (1823–1911)
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—John Bright (1811–1889)
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—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
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—C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)
“The judiciary has fallen to a very low state in this country. I think your part of the country has suffered especially. The federal judges of the South are a disgrace to any country, and I’ll be damned if I put any man on the bench of whose character and ability there is the least doubt.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)