Graham: Senate Judiciary Committee will approve Barrett on October 22

"So, we'll start on October 12, and more than half of the Supreme Court justices who have had hearings were done within 16 days or less," Graham said on Fox News. "We'll have a day of introduction. We'll have two days of questioning, Tuesday and Wednesday, and on the 15th we'll begin to markup, we'll hold it over for a week, and we'll report her nomination out of the committee on October 22."

"Then it will be up to (Senate Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell as to what to do with the nomination once it comes out of committee," the South Carolina Republican said.

Graham had given another date Saturday, saying that the committee would move on Barrett's nomination by October 26, likely teeing up a Senate floor vote shortly before Election Day.

The push to confirm a Supreme Court justice ahead of the election would put the Senate on track for one of the quickest confirmations in modern history. No Supreme Court nominee has ever been confirmed after the month of July during a presidential election year.

Barrett, a current judge on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, was nominated on Saturday by President Donald Trump to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The conservative jurist, whom the President described as a having "unyielding loyalty to the Constitution" and a person who would rule "based solely on the fair reading of the law," has been staunchly opposed by Democrats, who say her confirmation could jeopardize a number of things, including the Affordable Care Act and the landmark case Roe v. Wade.

The stakes in the fight over the vacancy are immense and come at a pivotal time in American politics. Trump's ability to appoint a new justice to the court would mark the third of his tenure in office and would create the opportunity to push the court in an even more conservative direction for decades to come.

This story has been updated with more details.