In a detailed public statement addressing the U.S. Senate’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings on Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the New York City Bar Association is warning that the Senate’s “double standard” in not considering past nominee Merrick Garland but now considering Barrett “may fairly be interpreted [by the public] as an effort to tilt the Court in anticipation of a Constitutional fight” over this year’s presidential-election results.

The effect of the “unprincipled opportunism of the Senate in the exercise of its Constitutional power of advice and consent with respect to the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett” on the eve of a presidential election, writes the bar association in the statement, is that the “long-term integrity and legitimacy” of the nation’s judiciary is “being imperiled” as public trust and respect for the judiciary is eroded.