With a vote date set, the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday debated the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, Democrats objecting to Republicans’ rush to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick before the Nov. 3 election.
The committee set an Oct. 22 vote to recommend Barrett’s nomination and send it to the full Senate for a vote by month’s end. Democrats tried, and failed, as the minority party to halt the process.
The session is without Barrett after two long days of public testimony in which she stressed that she would be her own judge and sought to create distance between herself and past positions critical of abortion, the Affordable Care Act and other issues.
Her confirmation to take the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems inevitable, as even some Senate Democrats acknowledged.
Guests:
Anna Edgerton, politics editor for Bloomberg; she tweets @annaedge4
Josh Blackman, professor of law at the South Texas College of Law Houston, where he specializes in constitutional law and the Supreme Court; he tweets @JoshMBlackman
Pratheepan Gulasekaram, professor of law at Santa Clara Law, where he specializes in constitutional and immigration law; he tweets @pgdeep