WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he is nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, as he aims to put a historic stamp on the high court just weeks before the election. Barrett was born and raised in New Orleans.

Conservative groups and congressional allies are laying the groundwork for a swift confirmation process for Barrett. They, like the president, are wasting little time moving to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, organizing multimillion-dollar ad campaigns and marshaling supporters both to confirm the pick and to boost Trump to a second term.

(Story written By ZEKE MILLER, LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK/AP)

Amy Coney Barrett is a mother to seven children and was a professor of law at Notre Dame for fifteen years. She serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

She clerked for now-deceased Supreme court jude Antonin Scalia.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate will vote “in the weeks ahead” on President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

The Republican leader said Saturday that Trump “could not have made a better decision” in nominating the appellate court judge.

McConnell says he looks forward to meeting Barrett next week.

Barrett would replace the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the court. She died of cancer on Sept. 18.

Barrett, a judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a devout Roman Catholic, has been hailed by religious conservatives and others on the right as an ideological heir to conservative icon Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice for whom she clerked. But liberals say her legal views are too heavily influenced by her religious beliefs and fear her ascent to the nation’s highest court could lead to a scaling back of hard-fought abortion rights.

 

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