Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Saturday that the confirmation process will be "incredibly difficult" for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh "because this man will be the deciding vote on most things we hold most dear."
"This president has said he would appoint the person that would take down Roe [v.Wade] ... and I take him at his word," Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the California Democratic Party executive Committee meeting in Oakland.
State party members, Politico reports, were to decide Saturday on an endorsement in Feinstein's re-election bid against California state Sen. Kevin de León.
Feinstein, 85, who has represented the Golden State on Capitol Hill since 1993, told the gathering that she has participated in more than 10 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Kavanaugh's nomination, however, "is beyond, [it is] different from all of them," she said, according to Politico.
President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh, 53, on Monday to succeed the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, the Reagan appointee who has been on the bench since 1988.
Feinstein said her staff was poring over nearly one million documents on Kavanaugh in readying for the confirmation fight.
"We have a massive effort going," she said. "We collect information from everywhere."
Staffers are even researching Kavanuagh's activities and opinions in President George W. Bush's archives, Feinstein said.
Bush appointed Kavanuagh to the appellate bench in 2006 — and he had served as White House staff secretary since 2003.
"The vetting process of this justice is going to be incredibly difficult... it’s estimated that one million pieces of paper that our staff is going to need to go through prior to a hearing," Feinstein said, according to Politico.
"I can tell you this: That it is really key and critical that Democrats, including those in difficult states, get the support of our party so that they can do the right thing in this vote."
She noted that Kavanaugh's vetting was even more critical for because five Democrats who are up for re-election in states President Trump won heavily in 2016.
"This makes this vote difficult for them," she said. "For me, it’s not difficult at all.
"But I'm the lead Democrat on the committee, and we will put together a kind of message, I hope, for the American people which will enable those Democrats to vote along with us."
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