US Supreme Court: Senate committee sets Oct 22 confirmation vote

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday set an October 22 vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination as Republicans race to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick before the November 3 election. 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. Senator Lindsey Graham pushed past Democratic objections to set the panel’s October 22 vote on recommending her confirmation, even before final witnesses testify before and against her nomination. The committee set the vote for next week. “This is a sham,” said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, from Minnesota In the minority, Democrats acknowledge there is little they can do stop Republicans from locking a conservative majority on the court for years to come. The shift would cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the court and would be the most pronounced ideological change in 30 years, from the liberal icon to the conservative appeals court judge. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">