The US Senate will vote on Monday to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett as a Justice of the Supreme Court to replace late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell told a Capitol Hill press conference on Tuesday.
“We will be voting to confirm Justice Barrett next Monday,” McConnell said.
The move would be part of the Republican “effort to put on the federal courts men and women who believe in the quaint notion that maybe the job of a judge is to follow the law,” he said.
McConnell and President Donald Trump have been widely criticized for rushing through Barrett’s nomination process which is now scheduled to be completed only eight days before the presidential and congressional elections on 3 November.
If confirmed, Barrett’s admission would expand the conservative majority on the court to six against three liberals.
Many Democrats have therefore called on for a Democratic president and Senate majority if elected on 3 November to expand or “pack” the court to enable the appointment of at least four more liberal justices to ensure an ideological majority.