As confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett begin this week, the Illinois News Bureau caught up with Professor Jason Mazzone. An excerpt from his interview follows:

Is this an appropriate time for the U.S. Senate to vet a new U.S. Supreme Court justice?

Let’s talk about the Constitution. The president has power to nominate individuals to serve on the Supreme Court. They take office upon the consent of the Senate. There is no election-year exception to the process the Constitution creates. The timing issue came up in the debate last month between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Biden argued that the choice of the next justice should be delayed until after the November election so that the voters have an opportunity to weigh in. Trump responded that the voters have weighed in by electing him in 2016 and again in 2018 by keeping the Senate in Republican control, and that his term of office is four years, not three.

Read the full interview at news.illinois.edu.