WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said yesterday the Senate will "easily" confirm his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the election, despite furious Democratic opposition to his bid to steer the court rightward for years to come. Trump has nominated Barrett, a darling of conservatives for her religious views, to replace the late liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a lifetime seat on the top court, potentially impacting some of the most partisan issues in America, from abortion to gun rights to healthcare.

His decision to push her nomination through just weeks before the tense and potentially disputed Nov 3 election, in which polls show he is the underdog, has galvanized Democrats, who are calling for the decision to be made by the winner of the vote. His election rival, Democrat Joe Biden, has led the charge. "The Senate should not act on this vacancy until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress," Biden said Saturday, just moments after Trump announced Barrett's nomination.

But Trump expressed confidence yesterday in an interview with "Fox & Friends". "I think we're going to have it done easily before the election," he said. "I think it would be nice to do. Get it out of the way," he continued, adding: "We have plenty of time." Barring a huge surprise, Republican senators, who have 53 out of 100 votes in the upper house of Congress, are expected to confirm Barrett. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has already announced that a vote will be held "this year".

If confirmed, Barrett will fill the seat of Ginsburg, likely steering the court to the right for years, expanding the current conservative wing's sometimes shaky 5-4 advantage to a solid 6-3. Trump has previously filled two of the nine seats on the high court. With the liberals' influence waning, the court will likely see a replay of some of the biggest judicial disputes in the nation, not least abortion rights and the already battered Obamacare health care plan.

More immediately - and even more explosively - a quick confirmation of Barrett would tilt the court just as fears are growing that the body may have to arbitrate a post-election dispute in which either Trump or his Democratic opponent Joe Biden refuses to accept the result.

Trump, who is well behind in the polls, has repeatedly said he may have to challenge results, alleging -without evidence - that Democrats want a "rigged" election. He said this week that the contest is likely to end up in the Supreme Court. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to consider Barrett's nomination are scheduled to begin Oct 12.

Democrats are furious, given that Trump could lose the election, yet still leave a judicial imprint with potential to last decades. They are especially incensed, given that Barrett, 48, is replacing Ginsburg, one of the country's biggest feminist icons and a steady ally of the left. "Considering the fact that this Supreme Court nominee may serve on the court for 30 years, it is nothing short of outrageous that they want to approve her in fewer than 30 days," Senator Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip, told CNN on Saturday.

Added Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat: "Justice Ginsburg must be turning over in her grave up in heaven, to see that the person they chose seems to be intent on undoing all the things that Ginsburg did." A majority of Americans - by 57 to 38 percent - oppose the push for confirmation before the election, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll.

But leaders of the Republican majority in the Senate, which is tasked with confirming Supreme Court nominees, said they expect a vote either before the election or, at latest, during the ensuing "lame duck" session before the inauguration of the next president in January.

Barrett was first named to the bench in 2017. A deeply conservative Catholic and mother of seven, she is an opponent of abortion, a core issue for many Republicans. Barrett used her own remarks at the White House to try and calm the waters. She began with an impassioned tribute to Ginsburg, saying, "should I be confirmed, I will be mindful of who came before me."

"The flag of the United States is still flying at half staff in memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to mark the end of a great American life," she said, noting the jurist's pioneering success in law. "She not only broke glass ceilings, she smashed them." Barrett also gave a taste of what will be her presentation to the Senate, describing her conservative values as a judge. "A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers," she said. - AFP