To the Editor:
When Senate Republicans decided that President Obama should not be allowed to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the last year of his term, they claimed that blocking his nominee was necessary “to protect the will of the American people.”
The election revealed the will of the people, albeit a will thwarted by the Electoral College: A clear majority voted against Donald Trump.
After the Republican-controlled Senate nonetheless confirms Mr. Trump’s nominee to fill a vacancy that ought not to exist, it will be time to recognize that the court has lost its legitimacy as an independent judicial institution. The former Supreme Court will soon be better understood as a G.O.P. headquarters in black robes.
MITCHELL ZIMMERMAN
Palo Alto, Calif.
The writer is an attorney.
Note from KBJ: Don't give me this "We won the popular vote" business, creep. You knew the rules going in, and you lost. Suck it up. Did the Cleveland Indians protest the World Series on the ground that they scored just as many runs (27) as the Chicago Cubs? (I borrow this analogy from Rush Limbaugh, who used the 1960 World Series as his example. The Pittsburgh Pirates were vastly outscored by the New York Yankees, but the Pirates won four games to the Yankees' three, and that's how World Series are decided.) Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, fair and square, in accordance with the rules everyone knew about and accepted. Since it was a major plank of his platform that he would nominate law-abiding judges to the federal bench, including the Supreme Court, he has a mandate from the people to do so. If progressives don't like it, they can try to elect a president in 2020. Good luck!
Note 2 from KBJ: How many of Hillary Clinton's votes were cast by illegal aliens? It's far from "clear" that she got more popular votes than Donald Trump.
