McConnell says: ‘We have the votes’ on Barrett confirmation; committee to vote on Oct. 22
WASHINGTON » The Senate Judiciary Committee has formally set a panel vote on Judge AmyConey Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court for Oct. 22.
Democrats protested the swift action less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 election, but are powerless to stop it.
“We have the votes,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.. told reporters in Kentucky as he said the full Senatewill begin debate on the nominee Oct. 23. Republicans hold a 53- 47 majority in the Senate.
One Democratic senator protested the move by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., the committee chairman, to go ahead with setting up the nomination vote, under committee rules that require at least two members of the minority to be present during the meeting. Sen. Dick Durbin, DIll., was the only Democrat present until Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn., showed up. But Graham went ahead and held a vote that set the committee’s vote on the nomination for next week. Both Durbin and Blumenthal voted in person.
“What’s going to happen is that we’re going to be denied the ability to operate as normal,” Graham said.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N. J., made an impassioned appeal to Republicans to halt Barrett’s nomination process in the name of saving the institutional integrity of Congress, appealing to them to commit “an act of heroism” by delaying her confirmation until after Election Day.
“The greatest acts of American history are when people have the authority to do something, but they showed the restraint of power and did not use the authority,” Booker said. “This is one of those moments, where that is the kind of grace that can stop this tumbling of this institution further toward what I think will be a real constitutional crisis.”