President Trump, on Saturday, announced his 3^rd SCOTUS pick and selected Notre Dame Law graduate Amy Coney Barrett, who currently serves as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, as his 3^rd SCOTUS pick and nominee.

His selection concluded a week of speculation and uncertainty following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday the 18^th of September. Democrats who are now down to three supreme court justices after the death of Ginsburg have urged republicans not to go ahead with the confirmation process of a SCOTUS pick. Top democrat politicians and officials have pleaded with Republicans to wait until after the 2020 presidential election to nominate a supreme court justice in the hope that Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November. However, many important senate republicans needed to approve of the nominee have already come out in support of a vote before the election. This includes Utah republican senator Mitt Romney, who has publicly come out against Trump on multiple occasions and has voted against him on many key issues in the senate.

Coney Barrett has long been the frontrunner on Trump’s SCOTUS list. She is very popular among Republicans and is seen to be an important figure to have in such a high position of the republican party. Being a successful conservative Christian woman with astonishing academic achievements, republicans see her as being a face for women as well as receive even more support from the Christian community. Days before the formal announcement of the pick in Washington, house republicans even wrote a joint letter to Trump urging him to select Barrett as his supreme court nominee. Republicans hope that by selecting her, they can win over a big portion of women and have a feminist talking point for years to come, by replacing Bader-Ginsberg with their feminist icon.

Republicans hold a majority in the senate and have the simple majority needed to confirm Trump’s SCOTUS pick. President Trump has made it clear that he wants the confirmation process to go smoothly and quickly for a pre-election day vote on the Senate floor and has repeatedly spoken of the importance of senate republicans working to get his pick confirmed before election day. With a 53-seat majority and only two republicans as of right now coming out against the pick, Trump seems to have secured enough votes to get his pick passed in the senate.

This has been met with fierce pushback and criticism from democrats on all levels. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D) spoke against the move by republicans and sparred with majority leader Mitch McConnell (R) who is pushing ahead with the process. Schumer has called a pre-election day confirmation a “betrayal” to the American people. Schumer later spoke on Sunday slamming the move by Trump, saying that Amy Coney Barret’s pick goes against the wishes of American people and would put healthcare and abortion rights in peril. The most powerful Democrat in the country, house speaker Nancy Pelosi has said democrats have many options on the table to delay the confirmation process, including floating around the idea of impeachment. It would the first time in U.S history that a president got impeached twice if democrats were to follow through on that.

In the weeks before the upcoming election, America will be watching to see what happens on both sides of the political spectrum, as senate hearings for Barrett are set to begin on the 12^th of October and tensions heat up. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (R) has said that the Senate plans to vote on Coney Barrett’s nomination on October 29^th. If senate republicans follow through on that schedule, it would be enough time for Barrett to be confirmed to the Supreme court just days before the election. This is seen to be very important to republicans as she could be the vote needed to sway the election to republicans in the event that the election is close and contested, thus heading to the supreme court for a final decision.

This is a major win for Republicans and a big loss for democrats. It’s looking very likely that Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed to the SCOTUS just before the election. This will make Justice Robert who is a republican but sides with the liberals in many cases, seem almost completely irrelevant when needing a republican majority in a vote. Barrett being 48, will be the youngest justice in the court confirmed, and will be able to serve for a generation. Republicans will be able to get a lot of things done from their agenda, as well as challenge democrat presidents, lawmakers, and policies for years to come.