1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

I am writing to demand that you oppose any effort to confirm a nominee to fill Justice Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court seat until after this November’s election. In 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died nine months before a presidential election, Senate Republicans set a clear precedent. Then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the Senate should “let the American people decide the direction of the court,” and insisted any vacancy be left to whoever the American people elected next. He called it a matter of “a principle, not a person,” and Speaker Paul Ryan echoed that the Senate should “give the people a voice in the filling of this vacancy.” That principle held the seat open for over a year. If that standard was good enough to block Merrick Garland — one of the most qualified, broadly respected nominees in modern history — it must apply now. Voters are heading to the polls this fall. Under the precedent the Senate itself established, this vacancy should remain open until they have spoken and a new Congress is seated. To do otherwise — to rush through a nominee now while refusing to do so eight years ago — would be naked hypocrisy. It would confirm that “principle” was never the real motivation, only power. The Senate cannot credibly claim constitutional high ground in one moment and abandon it the next simply because the political math has changed. I expect you to hold your colleagues to the standard they themselves created. Demand that any confirmation process wait until after the American people have voted. Anything less is an admission that the rules only ever applied when convenient. I will be watching how you vote, and I will remember it.