To the editor:

Saturday is Constitution Day. In 1787, the states ratified the U.S. Constitution, establishing a democratic republic. Throughout our history, the Constitution through the amendment process has served as a vehicle to ensure our civil rights. Constitutional amendments that were used to reverse Supreme Court rulings included banning slavery, giving women and 18-year-olds the right to vote and allowing the popular election of U.S. Senators.

Yet, despite having gained our independence from overseas tyranny, our very form of government is now being threatened from within. The right of citizens to be heard in elections is being challenged by the untethered influence of unlimited amounts of money in our elections. Although the Constitution guarantees equal representation, today, our leaders are being chosen by an elite few: billionaires, global corporations, the biggest unions and special interests and even foreign governments. All these entities now dominate our political system and drown out the voices of everyday Americans.

There is a solution. The passage of the For our Freedom Constitutional Amendment is the key to fixing a broken system that makes high-dollar donors more powerful than every other American. It offers a lasting, constitutional solution to protect free speech and the equal right of every American to representation and a vote that counts. It will ensure that we the people have an equal say in who governs our nation and the laws being passed. It will end the domination of our elections and corruption of our representative government by dark money and elite donors.

Only by regaining the voters’ influence in making the laws under which we live can we be confident that we have a government that is in President Lincoln’s words, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

-Nancy Morgan, Alexandria