Dear Senator McConnell,
It would be a bad bargain to gain a conservative majority while losing the nation’s shared respect for the legitimacy of the Court and the Rule of Law. That would not be a “good deal”. Senator McConnell, when you do something as patently and obviously outside of the bounds of fairness, equality, and lawfulness as denying a hearing to one president for reason of proximity to an election, then turn around and grant the same hearing to another of your party, you erode, degrade and will ultimately destroy our nation’s sacred basis, that we are united in being governed by consent and the rule law.
The Rule of Law has been defined as “a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated…” 
Let me tell you what the “rule of law” has meant to me. It has meant that my parents taught me, and I taught my child, that the police are our friends. That when I choose charities, I include national and local police. That when, as an emergency physician, a police officer comes to see me that I take them, sometimes out of line, as quickly and effectively as possible in recognition for the service. That on those times I have served as a juror I have, whether rightly or wrongly, taken the sworn testimony of a police officer as having more weight than the accused against whom the officer is testifying, and convinced others to do so. That in general I offer respect and gratitude to the officers of the court and of the law, and finally – and most importantly – that I obey the law, do not attempt to skirt it, even on my taxes, even when I think I could do so.
Your party has been trumpeting on about the “illegal” entry of persons into this country, but you yourself have, and are, undermining, compromising, and ultimately destroying the very respect for law you insist on. I suspect this is not only true for me, but true as well for tens of millions like me.
President Obama had the legal right and duty, when a vacancy came up on the Supreme Court, over a year before the end of his legal tenure in office, to name a replacement. You were derelict, and intentionally so, in your sworn duty and legal obligation to advise and consent. That in itself compromised my respect for the rule of law. And by extension those charged with supporting it. It left my respect for institution severely damaged. But you would have a chance to shore it up. If you do not you will leave it hanging by a last thread if at all.
The precedent of not considering the legitimate nominee of a sitting President was at best questionable. However, if you were to apply that very same standard now to a President of your own party, it might serve at least temporarily, to shore up some shred of belief and respect for that, we would like to believe, impartial and legitimate institution of our courts and laws.The issue could then be, as it should be, impartially adjudicated at a later time.
If, however, you go ahead in what even to you must clearly be a hypocritical and obvious deviation from the notion of the law applying equally to all, then you will, for me at least and I suspect for millions of others, permanently compromise, subvert, and leave in taters what has for me been, up to now, a heartfelt respect for the institution of law in our nation. If the Supreme Court is compromised, the Law is compromised. If the law is compromised, respect for its enforcement is also compromised.
In such a case, I myself, for example, a hitherto very compliant and law abiding citizen would no longer feel it incumbent to support the institutions of the law. Those should be based on equality, impartiality, and fairness. But if, when in power, you don’t support them, then why should I?. Not that I would start undertaking ‘criminal acts’, I wouldn’t. I would no long feel inclined to count law enforcement as a primary target for my charity, nor feel it necessary to automatically give the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to the police in a court of law. As representatives of a system whose integrity is, at least meant to be, above question and above politics, I have done so. In the future, I am not so sure.
I hope that you could find your long term duty, and the best interests of this nation, to stand, politics and personal preferences, and servility to your party aside, for the fair, impartial, and equal application of the rule of law. Then I would also continue to struggle to do so. If, however, you will not, and you just do what you have the temporary power to do, then why should I stand for the law, for fairness? I think that the overall diminution of respect for our legal structure and norms is not a legacy you want to leave. That would be a bad trade for your conservative justice. A bad deal.
I know the chances of you every reading a word of this are close to zero but I hope you do, and I hope you consider as you rush toward trying to cram a conservative enough candidate through a deeply divided senate to please a clearly divisive president, what the long term implications will be. Your conservative justice will, last for decades as is well known.
But the lack of a common and shared notion of legitimacy, the lack of respect for the institutions of our nation, the lack of regard which your actions will create for the notion of the rule of law and those who enforce and adjudicate it will last far, far longer.
Consider it, Mr. Senator. Consider the real duty is, of those sworn to uphold our constitution and the rule of law in our nation.
With respect,
A citizen who has traditionally loved and supported our nation for its sincere attempts to govern itself through the rule of law and the principles of democracy.