The current norms about what kinds of questions nominees are allowed to evade are mostly just norms. With the exception of a few things governed by the canons of judicial ethics (and relevant mostly to sitting judges), those norms can be changed if enough Senators are willing to put their political capital at risk in doing so. Indeed, we have seen some such norms changes in recent years, for better or worse.

The reason that nominees do not give more in-depth answers about how they would rule in given cases, or whatever else, may simply be that they have no incentive to do so. In today’s political configurations, there are very few Senators who both 1, will vote against a nominee because he or she didn’t answer enough questions, and 2, would likely vote for that nominee if they got honest answers. In other words, I doubt that the Senators actually care whether nominees answer their questions, or at least they do not care enough to reward nominees they otherwise oppose, or to punish nominees they otherwise support.

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