I have written this oped for the NY Daily News. It begins:

For the last few months, Democrats have been criticizing Senate Republicans for failing to even hold a hearing for Judge Merrick Garland, whom President Obama has nominated to fill the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court.

“We need nine,” the refrain goes. But it’s the balance of power on the Supreme Court and not the number of justices that matters. The fate of many of our most cherished rights hangs in the balance of not just the presidential race, but control of the Senate.