The courts

The courts in the presidency game means the Supreme Court, a bench of named justices who rule on challenged legislation and executive orders. A justice can die or retire, and the President's nominee replaces them if the Senate agrees. Every ruling comes from the bench's own ideology and conviction, not from anything else about the justices.

The bench

Each scenario opens with its own court of named justices. A custom presidency opens with its own custom bench, which ages with the calendar at a pace adjusted so a year of turns always ages it by a year, whether Weekly Pacing is on or off. Every justice carries a name, an age, an ideology score from 0 for an originalist to 100 for a progressive, and a conviction score for how rigidly they vote that ideology. A justice also carries an intelligence score, the party that appointed them, the year they were seated, and a flag for whether they are the Chief Justice; intelligence is shown on the card but does not affect how a justice votes. A workshop pack may replace the whole bench with between three and fifteen justices, exactly one of them the Chief. A governor's state court in Career Mode is a separate bench with its own pace of vacancies.

How a justice rules

Each sitting justice votes according to the distance between their own ideology and the policy in front of them. A justice of high conviction votes their ideology every time, while a justice of low conviction can act as a swing vote. A policy is upheld if the justices voting to uphold it reach half the bench, rounded up. Whether a case reaches the court at all has nothing to do with who is sitting on it; that part of the process is explained on Checks and balances.

Vacancies

Before each month's event, the game checks whether a sitting justice dies or retires. The risk of death rises with age. Retirement is a strategic choice, possible only from age 70 onwards, and becomes more likely for an older justice, and more likely still for a justice from the President's own party when the Senate favours that party. A justice from the opposing party retires only rarely, whatever the Senate looks like. Only the first vacancy found in a month is used, and a notice names the justice and the cause.

A seat can also become vacant in other ways. A personnel order that expands the court adds new vacant seats, up to a maximum bench size, unless the order is blocked under the checks. A purge empties the seats it names, unless it too is blocked. In the Designated Survivor scenario, the opening attack kills most of the bench, always including the Chief Justice, and rebuilding the court is part of that scenario's story.

Nominations

Opening a vacancy generates a pool of ten candidates, each with a name, an age, an ideology score, a conviction score, an intelligence score and a one-sentence biography. A Democratic President's candidates lean progressive; a Republican President's lean originalist. The pool stays available for six months, so a rejected nominee's rivals are still there the following month. The nomination screen can filter the pool by how moderate or extreme a candidate is, and sort it by ideology, intelligence, conviction or age.

Confirmation

Submitting a nominee puts them to a single Senate vote. Confirmation is easier with a friendlier Senate and harder the further the nominee sits from the political centre. At a Senate split exactly down the middle, a Republican President's nominee is confirmed far less easily than a Democratic President's; the game gives no in-story reason for the difference, but it holds regardless of who the nominee is. An Easy Confirmation favour from a stakeholder skips the vote and confirms the nominee outright. With Congress dissolved, every seat fills by decree instead, with no vote at all.

The vote tally is drawn from however many senators are actually seated, so a depleted Senate confirms a nominee by a count that matches its real size, and a 50-50 tie is broken by the Vice President and recorded as a 51-50 vote. A confirmed nominee is seated with the President's party as their appointing party and the current year as their start year, and inherits the Chief Justice title if that is the seat they fill. A rejected nominee leaves the seat vacant. Only one confirmation attempt is allowed each month, and no new vacancy is checked for in a month when a nomination was made.

After Congress is dissolved

With Congress dissolved by the self-coup special action (see Special actions), the court still hears challenges and still rules, but an adverse ruling is now defied: the policy goes ahead anyway, at a cost to government stability each time. Nominations in that state are seated by decree.