Dear Sen. Mark Kirk:

I write to thank you for having the integrity to meet personally with President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. You deserve credit for your sense of responsibility, your commitment to the rule of law, your service to the state of Illinois and your courage.

That it takes courage for a Republican senator to meet with Judge Garland is tragic. This is the first time in the history of the United States that members of the United States Senate have declared in advance that they will not even meet with a president's nominee to the Supreme Court. It takes courage to take a principled stand, as you have, because right-wing interest groups have savaged the few other Republican senators who have dared to take this position across the nation.

Let me go further, though, and offer you some ammunition to help you persuade your Republican colleagues that it is their constitutional obligation to have a fair and open hearing and to vote to confirm Garland.

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