Amy Coney Barrett will likely become Supreme Court justice today. What that means for election cases

The U.S. Senate will almost certainly confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court this evening — just eight days before the presidential election. During her confirmation hearings, Barrett tried to portray herself as an independent minded judge. But she’s expected to cement conservatives’ hold on the nation’s highest court for decades, giving them a 6-3 majority.

Last week, a second federal court said the Trump administration can’t move forward with its plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population counts used to decide how many House seats a state gets. But this court went a stop further and blocked the White House from getting the Census data for undocumented immigrants it would need to carry out the plan.