美参议院将为确认最高法院大法官人选听证

The U.S. Senate is holding its first confirmation hearing Monday for Neil Gorsuch, the judge President Donald Trump has nominated to fill a long vacancy on the Supreme Court.

The court has been one short of its nine justices since Antonin Scalia died in February 2016. Former President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy, Judge Merrick Garland, never got a confirmation hearing by the Republican-led Senate.

Gorsuch and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are scheduled to give opening statements Monday. Gorsuch will then face questions Tuesday and Wednesday, and the hearings are due to end Thursday with comments from outsiders.

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Democrats could attempt to block the Gorsuch nomination with a tactic known as the filibuster, which would require 60 votes to approve the new justice. However, it is not clear if they would do so, and Republicans could change Senate rules to require only a simple-majority vote for confirmation.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would restore the 5-4 conservative majority on the court that was in place before Scalia's death.

Gorsuch has been through the confirmation process before. In 2006, the Senate confirmed him to a seat on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Before that, he was a high-ranking official in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. He also spent time in the early 1990s as clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.