To the editor:

I have been reading an article about the history of the Magna Carta in the ‘New Yorker’ magazine (4/20/15). The article covers interpretations of this document over the centuries since its original writing in 1215.

Madison came to believe that, while a Bill of Rights wasn’t necessary to abridge the powers of a government that was itself a manifestation of popular sovereignty, it might be useful in checking the tyranny of a political majority against a minority. “Wherever the real power of a government lies, there is the danger of oppression,” Madison wrote to Jefferson in 1788. “In our government the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the constituents.” (p.88)

The implementation of the “Citizens United” decision by the Supreme Court considers corporations to be people, and allows unlimited amounts of money to influence US elections. Government itself has created an unlawful situation. If voting is an inalienable right of citizenship, then fair access to information about voting should also be an inalienable right!  If we believe, as Madison states, that “the real power lies in the majority of the Community,” the Citizens United decision is indeed an invasion of the right of our citizenry to have fair access to information with respect to issues, candidates and voting, instead of being bombarded by the opinions of one party financed by corporations and one percent of the voting population.

The dice are loaded, elections can now be purchased! The real power, which should lie in the majority of the community, has been subverted by money. This was certainly not the intention of our founding fathers and mothers, or of the democracy for which we have been justly proud for more than two centuries.

Penelope Jackim

Tiverton