When did the nastiness in the SCOTUS appointments start in your mind Grizz?
It kind of started with Nixon in 1969 but went away as his next three nominees were confirmed with overwhelming majorities as well as a 98-0 vote on Gerald Ford's lone nominee.
Scalia, O'Conner, and Stevens were in the interim and each were approved without a single Nay vote even though they were nominated by Republicans. It then got worse with Robert Bork under Reagan (I would guess most scholars would put Bork as the impetus of current contention). Kennedy was approved after Bork's rejection, also without a single Nay votes so it kind of reset the clock.
Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer were largely confirmed with only a hiccup on Clarence Thomas, though he did get the needed majority. It's been pretty ugly since the Clinton years.
It really started to get bad when Republicans started to impose a Litmus Test on Roe v. Wade. Prior to that, Republicans had nominated Justices like Souter and Stevens due to overall qualifications and without a lone deciding judicial philosophy that was either qualifying or disqualifying.
You're seeing the Abortion Litmus Test again today as Sen. Hawley from Missouri said this recently, “I'm going to start by asking the question that I articulated before the Senate, which is, does this nominee — has this nominee recognized that Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided in 1973? If they can't beat the test, it doesn't get further than that, I'm gonna vote no."
Sen. Braun from Indiana said, "I would love if that nominee would say that they're going to look at right to life as an issue, overturning Roe versus Wade, I think is something that any of us believe in the sanctity of life, and that is an important issue and again that's very important in Indiana."
Lagoa already said Roe is "binding precedent" which should make her a "Nay" from Hawley if he honors his word. That alone, with Murkowski and Collins puts Pence as the 50-50 tie-breaker. But few of expect Hawley to be a man of his word, so I doubt it will come up.