Jimmy Carter judicial appointment controversies

Three of the nominees who were not processed (Eugene Nickerson, Nicholas Bua and Howard F. Sachs) were nominated after July 1, 1980, the traditional start date of the unofficial Thurmond rule during a presidential election year.

The nominees were held up at the same time that in an unprecedented move, the Senate chose to take up Carter's November 13, 1980, nomination—after he already had lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan—of Stephen Breyer to an appellate judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

(Breyer's appellate court confirmation in 1980, which was the result of support from both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, often is cited as evidence disproving the existence of the Thurmond Rule.)

In 1978 or 1979, Carter strongly and publicly had considered nominating Joan Krauskopf, then a law professor at the University of Missouri, to a newly created seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Despite support for her candidacy by Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton, Carter himself, on the recommendation of his attorney general, Griffin Bell, made the decision not to proceed with Krauskopf's nomination.