A day before the eagerly awaited appearance of embattled U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and one of his female accusers before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Merkley wants to call a time-out.

The Oregon Democrat will ask a federal judge Wednesday to issue an injunction to stop Senate Republicans' hurry-up plan to vote on Kavanaugh's nomination. Merkley asserts he's not been given adequate time to do his job of reviewing Kavanaugh's qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court.

Merkley's complaint has more to do with the 100,000 pages of Kavanaugh-related documents withheld by the Trump administration than with complaints of sexual misconduct. Specifically, Merkley accused President Donald Trump and his staff of "imposing a broad and unprecedented blockage on the Senate's and the public's access to reams of key documents that directly bear on Judge Kavanaugh's views, experience and character."

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and chair of the Senate judiciary committee, has said he'd like to hold a vote Friday morning. Republicans have rejected requests from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, for an FBI investigation.

Republicans have hired outside counsel, Rachel Mitchell, to question Ford during Thursday's hearing, which begins at 10 a.m. Mitchell is a seasoned sex crimes prosecutor in Maricopa County, Arizona.

"The events of the past ten days have only underscored how critical it is that the Senate conduct a careful and comprehensive review of a nominee before giving its consent," Merkley said in a written statement. "The President and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell want to ram through this nomination come hell or high water, without real advice or informed consent by the Senate, but that's just not how our Constitution works."

Amid the high drama of Kavanaugh's nomination and the sexual misconduct allegations, it's unclear how the courts will receive Merkley's request. A Portland law professor said it's dead on arrival. Tung Yin, of the Lewis & Clark Law School faculty, said there is abundant case law of judges declining to get involved in the affairs of the Legislative branch.

"I think it's a complete loser argument," Yin said.

Last week, Merkley and most of the other Democrats in Oregon's congressional delegation vowed to mount a national grassroots campaign against Kavanaugh. Though viewed as a highly qualified jurist, many see the conservative judge as a potential threat to abortion rights.

The emergence of sexual misconduct allegations has changed the landscape. Ford, now a professor in California, was the first to go public Sept. 16. In the early 1980s, she told The Washington Post, a drunken Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed during a party and put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he tried to take off her clothes. Then Deborah Ramirez told The New Yorker, in a report published Sunday, that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken dorm party 35 years ago at Yale. On Wednesday, a third woman alleged that she witnessed Kavanaugh "consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s."

A picture has emerged of Kavanaugh as a hard-partying fraternity bro who regularly drank himself to oblivion even as he insisted to Fox News on Monday night that he was a model of good behavior.

"I went to an all-boys Catholic high school where I was focused on academics and athletics and going to church every Sunday at Little Flower and working on my service projects and friendships," Kavanaugh said.

Senate Democrats weren't buying it.

"In light of this morning's appalling new allegations, Friday's vote MUST be called off," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., tweeted Wednesday morning. "Tomorrow's hearing, if it happens, cannot be the last on Kavanaugh's alleged sexual misconduct. ALL allegations must be investigated fully by the FBI - the WH must not stand in the way."

Merkley claims virtually no documents were withheld from the Senate when it reviewed the nominations of current Supreme Court Justices John Roberts, Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.

In Kavanaugh's case, the Trump administration has withheld records from his time working as staff secretary for President George W. Bush. The National Archives, which traditionally supervises records releases for Supreme Coourt nominees, has said it won't have its Kavanaugh records ready for release until late October.

Senate Republicans don't want to wait that long. They argue that Merkley and other Democrats have their minds made up anyway and the release of new documents won't change anything.

Merkley is seeking a court order stalling a vote on Kavanaugh until the National Archives releases his records. He also is seeking the court to force the Trump administration to withdraw its invocation of executive privilege and release the 100,000 pages of documents.

-- Jeff Manning