The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg offers US President Donald Trump - even if Democrats are girding for the political equivalent of trench warfare to oppose such a nominee.
Her successor, who would be Mr Trump's third nomination to the high court, is expected to lastingly anchor the country's highest judicial body firmly on the political right. The president is counting on the Republican majority in the Senate to confirm his eventual choice.
On Tuesday, . He also said he expects the Senate to vote on the nominee before the US presidential election.
Mr Trump confirmed that two women - Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Judge Barbara Lagoa - feature prominently on his shortlist.
Amy Coney Barrett
Amy Coney Barrett, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit judge. Source: AAP
At just 48, her lifetime appointment to the bench would ensure a strong conservative presence on the panel for decades, but her background - the antithesis of "RBG," the champion of women's rights who died last week - is a new flashpoint in an already polarised country.
A practicing Catholic and the mother of seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and a young son with Downs Syndrome, Ms Barrett is personally opposed to abortion, one of the key issues dominating the cultural divide in the United States.
As a judge on the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, Ms Barrett has voted in favor of one of Mr Trump’s hardline immigration policies and shown support for expansive gun rights.
Here are some of her most notable opinions.
Guns
Ms Barrett indicated support for gun rights in a March 2019 dissenting opinion.
She was part of a three-judge panel that considered a challenge to a federal law that bars people convicted of felonies from owning firearms. A businessman who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud argued the law was unconstitutional as applied to him.
The two other judges, both appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, said the federal law and a similar Wisconsin one were constitutional.
In a dissent, Ms Barrett said that, absent evidence the man was violent, permanently disqualifying him from owning a gun violated the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
“History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns,” Ms Barrett wrote. “But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.”
Abortion
Abortion rights groups have expressed concern that if appointed, Ms Barrett could help overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion nationwide.
Although Ms Barrett has not ruled directly on abortion as a judge, she has cast votes signaling opposition to rulings that struck down abortion-related restrictions.
In 2016, Indiana passed a law requiring that fetal remains be buried or cremated after an abortion.
After some judges found the law unconstitutional, Ms Barrett voted in favour of rehearing the case. She was outnumbered, but the Supreme Court later reinstated the Indiana law.
In 2019, Ms Barrett voted to rehear a panel’s ruling that upheld a challenge to another Republican-backed Indiana abortion law. The Indiana measure would require that parents be notified when a girl under 18 is seeking an abortion even in situations in which she has asked a court to provide consent instead of her parents.
The Supreme Court ordered in July that the case be reconsidered.
Immigration
In June, Ms Barrett said in a dissenting opinion that she would have let one of Mr Trump’s hardline immigration policies go forward in Illinois.
The litigation was over the “public charge” rule, a policy of denying legal permanent residency to certain immigrants deemed likely to require government assistance in the future.
Ms Barrett dissented when a three-judge panel voted to halt the policy in Illinois.
Barbara Lagoa
Barbara Lagoa speaks after Governor Ron DeSantis named her to the Florida Supreme Court on 9 January, 2019. Source: Getty
A victory in Florida is seen as crucial for Mr Trump's re-election chances. Choosing a Hispanic judge from the state potentially could give him a boost among Florida’s voters.
Ms Lagoa is a member of Florida’s large and politically influential Cuban-American community. Her parents fled Cuba after Fidel Castro’s communist revolution. She grew up in Hialeah outside Miami, graduated from Florida International University and earned her law degree at Columbia University, the same Ivy League school as Ms Ginsburg did.
While Ms Lagoa has only been on the federal bench since 2019, earlier this month she took part in a major case limiting voting by ex-felons.
Here are some of Ms Lagoa’s most notable rulings:
Ex-felons' right to vote
This month, Ms Lagoa joined the majority in a major ruling by the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a law requiring people with past felony convictions to pay outstanding court fees, fines and restitution before regaining the right to vote.
While critics have compared the Republican-backed law to poll taxes imposed in the past to keep black people from voting, the majority that said ex-felons had not shown a violation of their civil rights.
The 11th Circuit is one of the regional appeals courts that are one step below the Supreme Court. Mr Trump appointed Ms Lagoa to the Atlanta-based court last year.
Parkland massacre fallout
In January 2019, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis elevated Ms Lagoa from an intermediate state court to the Florida Supreme Court.
Four months later, Ms Lagoa handed Mr DeSantis a high-profile win when she wrote a decision upholding his authority to suspend the sheriff of Florida’s Broward County.
The sheriff, who had been criticised for his handling of a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, had accused Mr DeSantis of “an executive power grab” that interfered with the public’s right to elect officials.
Ms Lagoa said that the governor had acted within his authority under Florida’s constitution.
The ruling is consistent with the Trump administration’s view of judicial power. Its lawyers have argued in various court cases that the executive branch has broad powers and judges should show deference in reviewing its actions.
People embrace at a memorial marking the one-year anniversary of a mass shooting at the school in Parkland, Florida. Source: AAP
Minimum wage fight
While on the Florida Supreme Court in 2019, Ms Lagoa sided with business groups challenging a decision by the city of Miami Beach to raise its minimum wage.
The court said a 2003 state law that preempted all local minimum wage laws still prohibited higher local wages in Florida.
Miami Beach had tried to require private sector employers to gradually raise pay for minimum wage employees to $13.31 an hour. Florida’s minimum wage is $8.56.
Foreclosure flip
In January 2019, right before Ms Lagoa joined the Florida Supreme Court, the court issued a decision that made it easier for homeowners to recover legal fees from banks that improperly tried to foreclose on their homes.
In a highly unusual turn of events, the court withdrew that decision three months later, after Ms Lagoa and two other DeSantis-picked judges were installed. Ms Lagoa joined colleagues in saying the court never had jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place.
Alliance of Justice, a liberal group, said the decision “raise[d] questions regarding Ms Lagoa’s commitment to equal justice for consumers.”
