The Holy Grail of Senate confirmation.

Here's an interesting post about what absolutely, positively must not be controverted by a nominee for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in order to obtain Senate confirmation:

"The Constitutional Catechism." By Jack Balkin, Balkinization, 1/11/06.

Alas, we think the problem is more serious than that. In addition, the nominee must not ever suggest that the 14th Amendment was not intended to have been applied as it has in modern times, that the commerce Clause has been spectacularly abused, that conditional grants of federal dollars permit that to be done indirectly that cannot under the Constitution be done directly, and that, in general, the Republic known to the Framers and the citizens of 1789 is no more.

The nominee must, in short, acknowledge that the supreme government of the United States is now the federal government and that state governments are merely its administrative extensions.

Nominees dedicated to a meaningful federalism and the actual Constitutional scheme of the Founders need not apply.