WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee set Oct. 22 for its vote to recommend Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the full Senate, with a final confirmation vote expected by month's end.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would begin the full Senate consideration of Barrett's nomination on Oct. 23. "We have the votes," McConnell said as he voted early in Kentucky on Thursday.
Leadership aides declined to lay out a precise floor timeline for Barrett, but the schedule McConnell mentioned hints at a procedural vote on her nomination sometime Oct. 26, and a final confirmation vote the next day.
"A sham," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. "Power grab," protested Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. "Not normal," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
"You don't convene a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, in the middle of a pandemic, when the Senate's on recess, when voting has already started in the presidential election in a majority of states," declared Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.
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Republicans eager to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg countered that President Donald Trump is well within bounds to fill the vacancy, and they have the votes to do it.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he understands Democrats' "disappointment." He said, "Their loss is the American people's gain."
In the hearing room where the Judiciary Committee spent more than 20 hours with Barrett this week, angry Democrats used some of their last remaining procedural levers to try to slow Republicans' progress -- while warning the majority party of dire consequences for what they called an illegitimate process.
They briefly denied the committee the quorum it needed to conduct business and forced a vote to postpone the proceedings.
Republicans overcame both setbacks, ignoring the quorum requirement and easily defeating the request for a delay. Democrats conceded they had no real power to block the ascension of Barrett.
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"I recognize, Mr. Chairman, that this goose is pretty much cooked," said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
CAREFUL ANSWERS
Barrett's confirmation would bring the most pronounced ideological change on the court in 30 years, from the liberal Ginsberg to the conservative appeals court judge from Indiana.
The 48-year-old Barrett was careful during two days of public testimony not to tip her views on many issues, or take on the president who nominated her. She declined to offer specifics beyond a vow to keep an open mind and take the cases as they come.
"It's not the law of Amy," the mother of seven told the senators at various times.
Barrett wasn't present for Thursday's hearing, the last of the week's sessions as the coronavirus pandemic hangs over the country. Two GOP senators on the committee tested positive for the virus and two campaign staff members for Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, the vice presidential nominee, also tested positive, grounding her travel Thursday, the campaign announced.
Stakes are high for all sides. Liberals pounced when top Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California hugged the chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as days of hearings closed, praising his handling of the process.
"This has been one of the best Senate hearings I have participated in," Feinstein told Graham. "Thank you for your fairness and opportunity of going back and forth. It leaves one with a lot of hopes."
Liberals called for her immediate removal from leadership.
Feinstein said Democrats were limited in what they could accomplish with the GOP in control. "When Republicans signaled they'd move ahead in the face of all objections, the only thing we could do was show this nominee would radically alter the court, and we accomplished that," she said, adding that she would vote against confirmation.
FOR AND AGAINST
Among those testifying Thursday in support of Barrett's nomination, retired appellate court Judge Thomas Griffith assured senators that Barrett would be among justices who "can and do put aside party and politics."
But a coalition of civil-rights groups still opposed her nomination. Kristen Clarke, the president of the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights, said the judge's unwillingness to speak forcefully for the Voting Rights Act and other issues should "sound an alarm" for Americans with a case heading to the high court.
"Our nation deserves a justice who is committed to preserving the hard-earned rights of all Americans, particularly the most vulnerable," Clarke testified.
With a slim 53-47 majority, her confirmation is almost assured. Two Republican senators, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins, are opposed to voting before the election, but no others objected. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Thursday he will vote to confirm Barrett. She would be Trump's third justice on the high court.
A former Notre Dame Law School professor, Barrett would be the only one of her Supreme Court colleagues not groomed in the Ivy League. She had little courtroom experience when the Senate confirmed her to the federal bench in 2017, but quickly became a rising star.
At the high court, she may be quickly called on, if confirmed, to consider the challenge to the Affordable Care Act in a case coming before the court Nov. 10, as well as any election-related challenges between Trump and Democrat former Vice President Joe Biden in the heated presidential campaign.
Trump has publicly stated he wants a justice swiftly seated for both situations. The Republican president has said on Twitter he wants a justice who would rule differently than Chief Justice John Roberts, who helped preserve the law in previous cases. And he said he wants a justice in place for any disputes arising from the election, particularly concerning the surge of mail-in ballots expected during the pandemic.
Barrett frustrated Democrat senators during two days of public hearings by declining to disclose views on those matters, and many others.
She brushed past Democrats' questions about ensuring the date of next month's election or preventing voter intimidation, both set in federal law, and the peaceful transfer of presidential power. She also refused to express her view on whether the president can pardon himself.
In rebuffing Democrats, she left them exasperated.
"I'd be afraid to ask her about the presence of gravity on Earth," Durbin said Thursday.
OPEN MIND PROMISED
When it came to major issues that are likely to come before the court, including abortion and health care, Barrett repeatedly promised to keep an open mind and said neither Trump nor anyone else in the White House had tried to influence her views.
Nominees typically resist offering any more information than they have to. But Barrett is the most open opponent of abortion nominated to the Supreme Court in decades. She refused to say whether the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights was correctly decided, though she has signed two ads against it.
"What was the point of the hearing if we don't know what she thinks about any issues?" Durbin asked at Thursday's final session.
Republicans focused intently on her Catholic faith and what Graham called Barrett's "unashamedly pro-life" views as a role model for conservative women.
Others testifying Thursday included Laura Wolk, the first blind woman to be a law clerk for the Supreme Court, who told senators that Barrett's encouragement and support were life-changing.
"Her brilliance is matched only by her compassion," said Wolk, who also spent a year as a law clerk for Barrett.
Wolk described how she initially struggled academically at Notre Dame's law school because she relied on assistive technology that never materialized because of bureaucratic obstacles. Wolk said she spoke to Barrett, who told her: "This is no longer your problem. This is my problem."
Wolk said she got the special technology that enabled her to succeed at law school and led to her clerkship on the Supreme Court.
"Those who have had the benefit of knowing Amy Coney Barrett understand that she possesses a boundless font of energy and a radical sense of love that she is ever ready to pour out," Wolk said, adding, "Judge Barrett will serve this country with distinction."
But Crystal Good, a writer from West Virginia, shared the very personal story of seeking an abortion as an abused teenager. "Hear us when we ask you not to approve this nomination," she implored the senators.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., raised the possibility of payback if Democrats win the Senate.
"Don't think that when you have established the rule of 'Because we can,' that should the shoe be on the other foot, you will have any credibility to come to us and say, 'Yeah, I know you can do that but you shouldn't,' " Whitehouse said.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Mark Sherman, Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Daly, Jessica Gresko, Elana Schor and Aaron Morrison of The Associated Press; by Seung Min Kim and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post; and by Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times.
