DIANNE FEINSTEIN

A new generation of senators is working on gun violence prevention legislation in the aftermath of mass shootings.

Yevgeny Prigozhin rose from an ex-con hot dog vendor to winning lucrative Kremlin contracts and heading a formidable mercenary army.

In a story published November 18, 2023, about the California Democratic Party’s endorsing convention, The Associated Press erroneously reported the name of a demonstrator.

Newly appointed California Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler will not seek election to a full term in 2024.

On the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, speakers called attention to a nationwide backlash against LGBTQ+ rights.

California's newly appointed U.S. senator is facing a risky decision: whether or not to enter the 2024 race for her seat that already is crowded with candidates.

Former baseball MVP Steve Garvey is joining the race to succeed the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Vice President Kamala Harris and other national leaders praised the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein as a leader of uncommon integrity and defender of American values.

Mourners are streaming into San Francisco City Hall to pay their respects to the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose casket is on display.

Former union leader and Democratic insider Laphonza Butler has been sworn in as the newest member of the U.S. Senate, replacing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein after her death and becoming only the third Black female senator in history.

When California Gov. Gavin Newsom needed to fill the U.S. Senate seat of his late mentor Dianne Feinstein, he could have turned to a big-city mayor, a member of Congress or a powerful legislator.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has named Democratic strategist and Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign adviser Laphonza Butler to fill the U.S. Senate seat made vacant by Sen. Dianne Feinstein's death.

A military jet carrying the body of California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has landed in her hometown of San Francisco.

The nation's LGBTQ+ leaders are lauding the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein as a longtime friend who learned and evolved to become an ally.

In tributes to Sen. Dianne Feinstein after her death, her female colleagues talked about her indomitable, fierce intelligence and how she had paved the way for so many women.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s death creates a vacancy in the Senate at a time when Democrats hold the slimmest majority in the chamber.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing pressure to appoint a replacement for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Tributes are pouring in for Dianne Feinstein, the trailblazing California senator, who has died at 90.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he spoke with Sen. Dianne Feinstein after she fell in her home and went to the hospital for a short time.

Attorneys for California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein say in a court filing that she is being stiffed on payments for “significant” medical bills by a trust created for her benefit by her late husband.

Destination cruise shows are among the fashion world's most ambitious, winging the fashion crowd to some of the planet's most scenic locations.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s ongoing medical struggles have raised a sensitive political question with no easy answer: Who would California Gov. Gavin Newsom pick to replace her if the seat becomes vacant.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office says she is suffering from Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a complication from the shingles virus that can paralyze part of the face.

Senate Democrats moved three of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees along party lines Thursday after weeks of delay due to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s extended absence.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has returned to the Senate after a two-and-a-half-month absence recovering from a case of shingles.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is returning to Washington after a more than two-month absence led to calls from within her own party for the oldest member of Congress to resign.

A Southern California lawmaker who is running for a contested Congressional seat was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.

In campaign 2024, Democrats are looking to find a successor for one of their top House candidates as they try to retake the majority in the House.

Dianne Feinstein isn't the first senator to take an extended medical absence or face questions about age or cognitive abilities.

Republicans have blocked a Democratic request to temporarily replace California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee, leaving Democrats with few options for moving some of President Joe Biden’s stalled judicial nominees.

Democrats’ efforts to temporarily replace California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee are meeting quick opposition from some Republicans.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is back at work in the U.S. Capitol, almost six weeks after a fall at a Washington-area hotel and undergoing extended treatment for a concussion.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s monthslong absence from the Senate has become a growing problem for Democrats.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is asking to be temporarily replaced on the Judiciary Committee while she recovers from a case of shingles.

A Republican attorney and former congressional candidate has entered California's 2024 race for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Dianne Feinstein.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has been released from the hospital after treatment for a concussion and will continue to recover in an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee has formally launched her campaign for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Dianne Feinstein of California.

California congresswoman Barbara Lee has filed paperwork to enter the race for the seat held by long-serving Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is not seeking reelection in 2024.

California’s U.S. Senate race is kicking off at a hectic pace, with candidates holding competing events more than a year before the primary election.

Nancy Pelosi has made an early pick in California's 2024 U.S. Senate race — providing Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn't seek another term.

The political jockeying for the California Senate seat on the 2024 ballot is well underway, even as Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has yet to say whether she'll run again.

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of California says she'll seek the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Democrat and the oldest member of the chamber.

U.S. federal lawmakers have changed 19th-century maritime liability rules for accident victims and their families in response to the 2019 boat fire off the coast of Southern California that killed 34 people.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says he plans to question the director of the federal Bureau of Prisons this week about why the agency continues to stand by a high-ranking official who beat Black inmates in the 1990s.

The troubled Los Angeles City Council appears headed into a long power struggle, as two disgraced councilmen resist widespread calls for their resignation amid a racism scandal and state investigation.

The three Los Angeles City Council members at the center of a scandal over a recording of racist comments have each had long careers in state and local politics.

A little-known federal judge appointed to the bench two years ago by Donald Trump is in the spotlight this week over her decision to hand the former president a major procedural win.

The utility that oversees California’s last operating nuclear power plant is taking steps to seek federal approval for an extended lifespan, just hours after the Legislature opened a pathway for a run that could last through 2030.

California has a first-in-the nation law and a $30 million training program both aimed at trying to help former inmate firefighters turn pro after they are released from prison.

Wildfires fed by windy and hot conditions have grown dramatically in California and Montana, forcing evacuation orders for over 100 homes.

The nine justices of the Supreme Court made clear in their landmark ruling Friday whether they stand on abortion.

Less than a day after a gunman massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas, a Wednesday Senate hearing for President Joe Biden’s pick to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reflected the deep political divisions over guns.

In one form or another, every Supreme Court nominee is asked during Senate hearings about his or her views of the landmark abortion rights ruling that has stood for a half century.

Empathy is not a quality many Republican senators want to see in the next Supreme Court justice.

The latest nominee for a seat on the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, has stressed the importance of religious faith in her life and career.

Richard Blum, the husband of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has died after a long battle with cancer.

The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are demanding Attorney General Merrick Garland take immediate action to reform the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons.

San Francisco residents have recalled three members of the city’s school board for what critics called misplaced priorities and putting progressive politics over the needs of children during the pandemic.

A seemingly endless amount of drama, name-calling, lawsuits and outrage from parents made the saga of San Francisco’s school board a riveting pandemic sideshow.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced a proposal to reauthorize the 1990s-era law that extends protections for victims of domestic and sexual violence after it lapsed in 2019 because of Republican opposition.

More than 600 sitting senators have died or resigned since the first Congress met in 1789.

During his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh assured Sen_ Susan Collins a woman's right to an abortion was “settled law.”.

A Navy ship named for slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk has been launched in San Diego Bay.

American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue will require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Vice President Kamala Harris urged voters in her home state of California to defend the Democratic Party's progressive values by defeating the recall against Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the Senate this week includes funding for Western water projects that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are badly needed across the parched region.

James Hormel, the first openly gay U.S. ambassador and a philanthropist who funded organizations to fight AIDS and promote human rights, has died.

Lawmakers in Congress have introduced a bill that would pump tens of billions of dollars into fixing and upgrading the country's dams.

Veteran forester Randy Moore has been named chief of the U.S. Forest Service, the first African American to lead the agency in its 116-year history.

Looming over the Senate Democrats this year is a decision that could fundamentally change Congress as it has operated for decades.

Six decades after University of California forestry professor Harold Biswell experimented with prescribed burns and was treated with ridicule, he is seen as someone whose ideas could save the U.S. West’s forests and ease wildfire dangers.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is winning support from top Democrats including Vice President Kamala Harris as he prepares to face a recall election later this year.

FILE - In this June 1, 2020, file photo, San Francisco Mayor London Breed speaks outside City Hall in San Francisco. Breed joined a chorus of officials who have denounced the tweets by the vice president of San Francisco's school board, Alison Collins, as racist and anti-Asian. The posts resurfaced last week amid a surge of violence and harassment against Asian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the country. They are the latest embarrassment for San Francisco’s school board, which has prided itself on putting racial equity at the top of its agenda. Under a plan recently negotiated with its labor unions, San Francisco plans to phase-in the reopening of elementary school classrooms in mid-April.

Gavin Newsom says he'll appoint a Black woman to the U.S. Senate if Feinstein retires before her term ends in 2024. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday he expects and hopes Sen. Dianne Feinstein will serve her full term after suggesting the day before he's been thinking about her replacement. Newsom followed up Tuesday with extended and effusive praise for Feinstein, calling her a friend and mentor and praising her work in Washington. Feinstein and Newsom hail from San Francisco, a political power center where each served as mayor, though decades apart. Warschaw said she did not speak to Newsom but expects he heard from upset Feinstein supporters.

Gavin Newsom says he'll appoint a Black woman to the U.S. Senate if Feinstein retires before her term ends in 2024. Gavin Newsom said Monday he'd appoint a Black woman to replace U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein if she retires before her term is up in 2024. “We have multiple names in mind and the answer is yes," he said during a interview on MSNBC's “The ReidOut" when asked if he would name a Black woman to the seat if given the chance. Newsom recently held that power after then-California Sen. Kamala Harris was elected vice president. He faced competing pressure to name a Latino and a Black woman and eventually chose Alex Padilla, making him California's first Latino U.S. senator.

Some Americans are receiving tax forms saying they owe money on unemployment benefits they never received. Unemployment benefits are taxable, so government agencies must send a tax form to people who received them. Her daughter-in-law and a friend also received the tax forms, as did Republican Gov. AdNow, overwhelmed unemployment agencies could face another onslaught — this time from people requesting corrected tax forms. He put a freeze on his credit and filed a fraud report with the state unemployment department, but so far hasn't heard anything back.

FILE - In this March 12, 2020, file photo, George Washington High School stands in San Francisco. The San Francisco school board has voted to remove the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln from public schools after officials deemed them and other prominent figures, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein unworthy of the honor. After months of controversy, the board voted 6-1 Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, in favor of renaming 44 San Francisco school sites with new names with no connection to slavery, oppression, racism or similar criteria, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The decision by the San Francisco Board of Education in a 6-1 vote Tuesday night affects one-third of the city's schools and came nearly three years after the board started considering the idea. It’s almost like a parody of leftist activism,” said Gerald Kanapathy, a father of two young children, including a kindergartener at a San Francisco school not on the list.

The disgraced former San Diego congressman received one of the pardons issued Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, by President Donald Trump in the final hours of his term. The disgraced former San Diego congressman received one of the pardons issued Wednesday by President Donald Trump in the final hours of his term, which included several others with California connections. Trump granted him a conditional pardon, saying Cunningham tutored inmates while in prison and now volunteers for a local fire department. ELLIOTT BROIDYTrump granted a full pardon to Broidy, of Beverly Hills, a major Trump fundraiser and former Republican National Committee deputy finance chairman. Those supporting the pardon included California Republican Reps. Devin Nunes and Ken Calvert.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump vetoed a bill Friday that would have gradually ended the use of large-mesh drift gillnets deployed exclusively in federal waters off the coast of California, saying such legislation would increase reliance on imported seafood and worsen a multibillion-dollar seafood trade deficit. Trump also said in his veto message to the Senate that the legislation sponsored by Sens. But they said at least 60 other marine species — including whales, dolphins and sea lions — can also become entangled in the nets, where they are injured or die. In 2018, California passed a four-year phaseout of large-mesh drift gillnets in state waters to protect marine life. He said Americans will import more swordfish and other species from foreign sources without this fishery.

Gavin Newsom speaks at a COVID-19 testing facility in Valencia, Calif. As California Gov. Gavin Newsom's shoulders as he considers his pick to serve out the rest of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' Senate term through 2022. The South saw its highest number of Black Senate candidates ever this year, but none won races outright. Labor icon Dolores Huerta and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice want Newsom to appoint a Black woman. De Leon won the endorsement of the California Democratic Party and prominent labor unions, in part because of his support for immigrant rights and aggressive policies to curb climate change.

Myers, a former press secretary to President Bill Clinton, became a senior adviser to California Gov. She joins Jim DeBoo, a California consultant well-versed in the quirks of the state capital and statewide political campaigns, as a senior adviser to the governor. Beyond Myers, Newsom's new additions include DeBoo as senior adviser, making official on Jan. 1 a role he has informally held. Observers say adding him to Newsom's staff signals a desire for sharper political thinking and better connections with the state Legislature, but it could raise questions about special interests' access to the governor. Angie Wei, a Newsom adviser and former chief of staff for the California Labor Federation, is his new legislative affairs secretary.

WASHINGTON – California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Monday she will step down from her role as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving up the powerful spot after public criticism of her bipartisan outreach and her handling of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearings. Feinstein, 87, said in a statement that she would not seek the position in the next Congress. 2 Democrat, said he will seek to replace Feinstein as the committee's top Democrat. He led daily news conferences during breaks in the hearings with the other Democrats on the panel while Feinstein usually did not appear. “It’s time for Sen. Feinstein to step down from her leadership position on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, which opposes conservative nominees to the courts.

Election Day is over but California already is consumed with its next high-profile political contest the competition to fill Kamala Harris' soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat. Padilla is one of a group of people being considered as one of the candidates for the Senate pick. A group of Black California lawmakers have organized a lobbying drive behind U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, who represents parts of Los Angeles and its suburbs. And they could wait: California’s other Senate seat is held by 87-year-old Dianne Feinstein, the chamber’s oldest member. Does Newsom run the risk of angering groups who lose out on the Senate pick and who might make his re-election bid more difficult?

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., shakes hands with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at the close of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. “This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” Feinstein said at the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s time for Sen. Feinstein to step down from her leadership position on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, which opposes conservative nominees to the courts. Trump has been able to install more than 200 judges on the federal bench and is now poised to seat his third justice on the Supreme Court. “Judiciary Committee Democrats had one goal this week: to show what’s at stake under a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court — and we did that,” Feinstein said.

Relying on a slim Senate majority, Trump's Republicans are poised to lock a 6-3 conservative court majority for years to come. A former Notre Dame Law School professor, Barrett would be the only one of her Supreme Court colleagues not groomed in the Ivy League. But Barrett is the most open opponent of abortion nominated to the Supreme Court in decades. Others testifying Thursday included Laura Wolk, the first blind woman to be a law clerk for the Supreme Court, who told senators that Barrett’s encouragement and support were life-changing. “Her brilliance is matched only by her compassion,” said Wolk, who also spent a year as a law clerk for Barrett.

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett speaks during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times via AP, Pool)WASHINGTON – Over and over, Amy Coney Barrett said she’d be her own judge if confirmed to the Supreme Court. Barrett's confirmation to the Supreme Court to take the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems inevitable, as even some Senate Democrats acknowledged in Senate hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday. She called the Voting Rights Act a “triumph in the civil rights movement,” without discussing the specifics of the earlier challenge to it. The health care debate has been central to the week’s hearings, as Americans struggle during the pandemic, leading to a sharp exchange among senators at one point.

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett listens during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Barrett also said she could not answer whether Trump has the power to delay the general election, an idea the president floated earlier this year. Democrats say they have no interest in revisiting that issue during this confirmation process. This time, Democrats have focused on the effects on “real people” if the Affordable Care Act is overturned by the high court. AN “EXCRUCIATING” PROCESSBarrett said she accepted Trump’s nomination because she is “committed to the rule of law” and the role of the Supreme Court.

Yes, the Trump administration is asking the high court to throw out the Obama-era healthcare law, and if she is confirmed quickly Barrett could be on the Supreme Court when the court hears the case. Democrats also repeatedly brought up words Barrett wrote in 2017, when she was a law professor, criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts' 2012 opinion saving the Affordable Care Act. Barrett wrote that Roberts had "pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute." But the court could simply “sever” the mandate from the law and leave the rest of the law alone. One other key observer of the case suggested the Affordable Care Act would likely stand.

Committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., talk as Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020. Allowing Trump to fill the seat with Barrett “poses a threat to safe and legal abortion in our country," Harris said. And that table is the Supreme Court." Democrats warn that she would be a vote to undo the law and strip health coverage from millions of Americans. "I'm not hostile to the ACA,” Barrett told the senators.

Yes, the Trump administration is asking the high court to throw out the Obama-era healthcare law, and if she is confirmed quickly Barrett could be on the Supreme Court when the court hears the case. Democrats also repeatedly brought up words Barrett wrote in 2017, when she was a law professor, criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts' 2012 opinion saving the Affordable Care Act. Barrett wrote that Roberts had "pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute." But the court could simply “sever” the mandate from the law and leave the rest of the law alone. One other key observer of the case suggested the Affordable Care Act would likely stand.

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool)WASHINGTON – The Latest on the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett (all times local):5:50 p.m. The Senate Judiciary Committee has wrapped up the first of four days of planned Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett. She warned it’s not just health care that is at risk if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed. Sen. Michael Lee was present for the start of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings Monday for Barrett. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham opened the hearing by defending holding the hearing so close to the presidential election.

FILE - In this June 2, 2020, file photo, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti arrives to appeal to Black Lives Matter protesters in downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel,File)LOS ANGELES – After a scrappy debate that Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey believed lifted her campaign and was a “disaster” for her opponent, she got a text message from the LA mayor with unwelcome news: He was switching his endorsement to her challenger. A little more than half is for Gascon, the vast majority from a handful of well-heeled backers supporting justice reforms. Gascon has gained support from protests over the death of George Floyd at the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. Lacey said Gascon is pandering to supporters and that when he was San Francisco DA he never prosecuted a police killing case.

Hearings before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee will begin Monday, Oct. 12, for President Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett. SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIF.Harris, Joe Biden's running mate in the presidential election, will again be in the spotlight as Democrats question a Trump nominee for the Supreme Court. Harris and other key Democrats said the hearings should not move forward without plans to test people attending, including senators, for coronavirus. In a sign of the heightened scrutiny, Vice President Mike Pence tried to get Harris to reveal whether she and Biden support expanding the Supreme Court, as many liberals advocate. In just three years on the 7th Circuit, Barrett has twice argued for approval of abortion restrictions that violated Supreme Court precedent, Hirono said.

Democrats are treading carefully on religious faith as they prepare to question President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee. “I don’t intend to question her about her personal views or private religious faith or views,” Coons, a key Biden ally, said this past week. Fearful of losing the high court for a generation, the left is demanding that Democrats resist Barrett's nomination with everything they have. Republicans have preemptively declared any discussion of Barrett’s faith out of bounds. But specifics about Barrett’s faith, such as broaching People of Praise, would have “a bad odor,” Franke said.

In this Oct. 1, 2020, photo, Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, meets with Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., at the Capitol in Washington. Confirmation hearings begin Monday for President Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. If confirmed, the 48-year-old appeals court judge would fill the seat of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last month. (Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – Confirmation hearings begin Monday for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. If confirmed, the 48-year-old appeals court judge would fill the seat of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last month.

FILE - Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trumps nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, meets with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. Barrett graduated with honors in 1994 from a small liberal arts school, Rhodes College in Memphis. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)WASHINGTON – Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on the Justice Department to provide any missing materials from a questionnaire completed by Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. The letter was signed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, and nine other Democrats. “As Judge Barrett said on the day she was nominated, ‘A judge must apply the law as written.

Barrett tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that the White House initially contacted her Sept. 19, the day after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, creating the court vacancy. Trump made the offer when she visited the White House on Monday, Sept. 21, “and I accepted,” she wrote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was “even more convinced” of Barrett after their brief meeting. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold hearings Oct. 12. At the Capitol, Vice President Mike Pence said Barrett “represents the best of America.” The White House formally submitted the nomination Tuesday.

The court will hear a case challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care law just after the election, adding to the urgency of the issue. Asked about Feinstein's earlier comments, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, another committee member, said “religious faith should not be at issue here.” He then pivoted to health care. On Monday, Harris told voters in North Carolina that without the health care law, birth control coverage could be eliminated and pregnancy could be considered a preexisting condition. In focusing on health care, Democrats would be taking a different posture than in the last Supreme Court confirmation fight, when they argued that then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was not fit to be a justice. They will also tie the health care issue to the pandemic and to abortion rights, the aides said.

If Trump wins the election, Biden said the president’s nominee should have a vote. No justice has ever been confirmed to the Supreme Court so close to a presidential election with early voting already underway in some states. Republicans believe the fight ahead will boost voter enthusiasm for Trump and Senate Republicans at serious risk of losing their majority. Democrats warn Barrett's confirmation would almost certainly undo Americans' health care protections as the high court takes up a case against the Affordable Care Act in the fall. Biden has said he would nominate the first Black woman to the court, but he has not released the names of his potential choices.