Amy Coney Barrett: When will Trump’s supreme court nominee be confirmed?

President Donald Trump's supreme court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, faced the Senate judiciary committee for the third time on Wednesday, as GOP lawmakers race to replace the liberal icon and equal rights advocate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) ahead of November's election.

Since Monday, Democrats have been quizzing Ms Barrett - judge on the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals - on a wide range of issues, including her stance on abortion, healthcare, voting rights and equal marriage.

Mr Trump's decision to press ahead with installing Ms Barrett, 48, has not only outraged Democrats and sections of the wider electorate, but it also broke with a precedent set by Senate Republicans just four years ago, when they refused to vote on then-president Barack Obama's pick to replace Antonin Scalia.

If Ms Barrett, a pro-life Catholic, is confirmed then it would solidify a right-leaning majority in the highest court in the land for a generation, which could have implications for some of America's most important and fiercely contested laws - including reproductive rights.

And with Republicans commanding a majority in the upper chamber, it looks all but inevitable that Ms Barrett will be confirmed before millions of Americans head to the polls, in what has been described as the most important election in living memory.

Confirmation proceedings

Senate judiciary committee chairman Lindsey Graham scheduled an initial vote for 9am local Thursday (2pm BST) - the morning of the last day of hearings. Ms Barrett’s nomination is expected to be brought up for a vote at that meeting and then delayed for a week, per committee rules.

If that happens as expected, then the GOP-led committee would vote to approve her nomination on Thursday, 22 October.

That would set up a final confirmation vote on the Senate floor the week of 26 October. If Republicans win the vote - as looks likely - then Ms Barrett would be confirmed in that week and become the third judge Mr Trump has appointed to the court while in office.

Is there anything Democrats can do to stop Ms Barrett being confirmed?

When RBG died, President Trump waited just one day to announce that he intended to replace her before the election. Hours later on 19 September, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell confirmed that he would accept a nomination, essentially giving the president the green light to proceed with filling RBG's vacated seat.

At that point, there were some murmurings on Capitol Hill that Mr Trump's old foe, Mitt Romney (Utah), could scuptter the president's plans to nominate a justice. But with perhaps one eye on shoring up votes in his own seat, Mr Romeney later fell into line.

Senators Lisa Murkowski (Alaksa) and Susan Collins (Maine) have said that they will vote against Ms Barrett. But Republicans have a majority of of 53-47 in the upper chamber, meaning Democrats are powerless to stop to nomination.

In response to what they see as a breaking of precedent, Democrats have threatened to add more seats to the court or impose term limits on serving justices, who can sometimes spend decades on the court.

With Mr Trump trailing his presidential challenger, Joe Biden by a significant margin in most major polls, there is a very real chance that Democrats could control both the Senate and Congress next year.

If this proves to be the case, then Democrats could press ahead with packing the supreme court by sending a bill through both houses. Ms Barrett's confirmation to the court would result in a majority of 6-3 in favour of conservatives. Democrats would seek to rebalance the ideological make-up of the court.