美国有线新闻 CNN 美最高法院大法官提名听证会火药味十足（在线收听）

CARL AZUZ: There are currently 8 sitting justices at the U.S. Supreme Court. One retired this summer and Senate hearings are entering their second day Wednesday for President Donald Trump's choice to fill the vacancy. The nominee is Brett Kavanaugh. He's currently a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge. His first day of hearings was yesterday and it got off to a tense start. Some protestors were escorted out of the room for shouting as the hearing began. There were also attempts by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to interrupt and postpone the hearing.

Some said they wanted more time to review 42,000 documents related to Judge Kavanaugh that were released the night before the hearing. Republicans said that more than 500,000 documents had already been released before then and with the U.S. mid-term elections scheduled for November 6th, some Democrats have indicated they want to slow down these proceedings until after the elections take place. While Republicans have signaled they want to get Judge Kavanaugh confirmed to the High Court before the elections.

Analysts expect that Judge Kavanaugh's nomination will move forward as scheduled despite yesterday's delays.

The U.S. Constitution doesn't specify how many justices need to serve on the High Court and the actual number of them fluctuated until Congress set the number at 9. That happened in 1869 and it's been that way ever since.