Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham laid out a swift timeline on Sunday for confirming President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, telling Fox News his committee will approve Barrett by October 22. That could tee up her nomination for a full Senate vote before the end of the month.
Graham’s schedule is putting the Senate on track for what could be one of the fastest Supreme Court justice confirmations in modern American history, and there’s not much that Democrats can do about it.
Graham told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo that the confirmation process would begin October 12. A day of introduction would be followed by two days of questioning, and a review of the committee’s recommendation would begin October 15, he said.
“We’ll report her nomination out of the committee on October 22,” Graham said. “Then it will be up to [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell as to what to do with the nomination.”
If Graham is able to stay on that schedule, McConnell will have the option to hold Barrett’s confirmation vote before Election Day — or during the lame-duck session after the elections.
As Vox’s Andrew Prokop has explained, this would be an expedited process, but it would be fully within the rules:
In recent decades, the Supreme Court confirmation process — from nomination to the final vote — has lasted two to three months. Typically, this time is taken up by vetting of the nominee’s history, writings, and career, and then hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee (which can last several days), before Senate leaders attempt to line up sufficient support for a floor vote.
But there’s no reason other than decorum that all this has to take so much time. If Republican senators are unconcerned about the appearances of an unseemly rush to a vote, they can certainly hold a quicker vote should they so desire.
The speed of the process Graham outlined has rankled Democrats and defenders of deliberative propriety in the Senate because it implies the outcome of the committee process is preordained — and has led to Democratic concern that Barrett will not be vetted properly in the rush to confirm her…
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