The Latest on the Kavanaugh confirmation battle

A little over a week after the Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court justice, a Senate committee voted to move forward with his nomination, even as the conservative movement is preparing to fight any attempts by the Trump administration to slow down or delay his confirmation process.

The vote was 52-48.

While the Senate was moving forward with a confirmation process that is expected to last several weeks, Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said the Senate needs to move ahead on a confirmation for Kavanaugh before the end of the year.

If Kavanaugh is confirmed in December, it would take about three years for the Court to consider a new nominee, which is why the Senate’s rules are designed to slow the process down.

Senators also said they want to avoid a situation where a Supreme Court nominee is blocked from becoming a law, or a nominee is confirmed with less than 60 votes in the Senate.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the court on Jan. 10, 2018, a few days before the November election.

He was confirmed by a 51-49 vote.

A day after his nomination was announced, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said the next step would be for the Senate to move toward holding hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Durbin said the goal is for the hearings to happen by January and for the confirmation process to end by March.