The US Senate should definitively confirm Monday, October 26 the appointment to the Supreme Court of a judge chosen by Donald Trump, who will thus be able to boast, eight days before the presidential election, of having durably consolidated the conservative majority within this institution. key.
Read also: Amy Coney Barrett, a practicing Catholic at the Supreme Court
Distanced by his opponent Joe Biden in the polls, the Republican president had appointed magistrate Amy Coney Barrett, a fervent conservative Catholic of 48, to succeed the progressive and feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg after her death.
The Republican President is counting on this well-conducted vote to satisfy his electoral base.
During his tenure, he will have appointed three conservative judges within the temple of American law.
The Democrats denounce for their part its desire to achieve such a crucial appointment, of a judge chosen for life, so close to the November 3 ballot, but have few levers to oppose it.
Because the Republicans are in the majority in the Senate, at least until the elections of November 3, since in addition to their president, the Americans will also partially renew Congress.
Meeting exceptionally one weekend, the senators overcame Sunday, by 51 votes against 48, a last procedural obstacle to limit the duration of the debates.
This paves the way for a solemn vote in plenary on Monday on the name of Amy Coney Barrett, already validated in committee.
The simple majority of 51 votes, in the hands of the Republicans, will suffice.
Read also: Donald Trump puts conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett on track
"We will give this candidate the votes she deserves no later than Monday,"
Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell had launched on Friday at the opening of the debate, sweeping aside calls for Democrats to wait for the results of the elections.
The Republicans
"oversee the most partisan, the most hypocritical and the least legitimate process in history"
of confirmations to the Supreme Court, replied his Democratic alter ego Chuck Schumer, recalling that the same Mitch McConnell had refused, in 2016, to hear a judge appointed by then-President Barack Obama on the pretext that the elections were too close.
The presidential camp has generally united behind the choice of Donald Trump.
If two Republican senators had expressed their opposition to this hasty process, one of them, Lisa Murkowski, warned this weekend that it would not prevent her from voting in favor of the judge.
“I lost the procedural battle
,
”
but
“I have nothing against her as a person,”
she said.
Read also: Supreme Court: Donald Trump challenges the Democrats by appointing Amy Coney Barrett
The arrival of Judge Barrett will significantly alter the balance within the high court, with a conservative majority of six judges against three more progressive.
This mother of seven children opposed to abortion will be able, except surprise, to participate in her first hearing from November 2, the day before the presidential election.
It will therefore theoretically sit in the event of examination of possible appeals against the results of the ballot.
Above all, the Supreme Court decides in the United States the thorniest social debates, from abortion to carrying weapons through the rights of sexual minorities.
Democrats, short of options to block this appointment, tried to turn the debates, broadcast in part on television channels, into a forum on the future of Obamacare health insurance, which Donald Trump wants to repeal .
The high court must indeed examine on November 10 an appeal against this emblematic law of the former Democratic president, on which the judge has expressed reservations in the past.
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