Special Blog Post:
The Message I Sent Today

To the Democratic Members of the United States Senate:

I send you this facsimile to ask that, in the matter of the confirmation of Mr. Samuel Alito, Jr., in appointment to Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, you vote "No." I furthermore ask that you support the Honorable Senator John Kerry, who has expressed his intention to extend debate on the matter.

Article II Section 2 of the United States Constitution vests the power of appointment of Supreme Court Justices in the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate. Neither the President nor the Senate is conferred an absolute right by this charge: the President's prerogative is the privilege, the Senate's is a duty; and neither acts without the bounds of representing the will of the People of the nation. That you may be concerned with your vote representing the will of the majority at some particular time in the course of the affairs and time of the country is not at issue: your vote in this and all matters must be to the will, good, and benefit of all citizens for all times and certainly not only and merely for the here and now.

Parliamentary procedures are established to ensure that the minority in representation is heard while the will of the majority carries; but such procedures are altered in the form adopted by the U.S. Senate, and I would submit to you that the divergence is particularly to the purpose of ensuring that a mere majority in representation may not use that position in tyranny over any group whose interest may for a time be in the minority.

Yours is the charge of the ages: what you do in your time of strength or weakness in service to this Republic will reverberate down the chamber of history for generations to come and affect men, women, and children yet even to be born. Let them, no less the us, say of you that you stood on this day for principle unpopular with those who would unduly circumscribe rights and liberties we and our ancestors shed blood, reputation, and treasure to attain.

This, I ask of you in the name of our great nation and no less in the name of the People, those living, those who have come before us, and those yet to live in this bright land of a free people.