The editorial writer, in decrying the influence of big dollars in congressional elections, (Opinion, June 11) can be forgiven for not drawing the obvious line to its cause given the right-wing vantage point from which he is perched.
From there, all things scientific or artistic, like evaluating facts and drawing lines, are suspect. The line runs straight from the heart of Citizens United, the bomb detonated over us by the Republican wing of the Supreme Court, the most damaging decision by the court in a lifetime.
The numbers are bad now? Citizens United's equating corporations and unions as citizens overturned a century of Supreme Court precedence and unleashed a torrent of money on our electoral system that will drown any chance of rational elections.
The editorial raised a grave issue that truly threatens representative democracy as we have known it. But it failed to draw the logical conclusion - the most significant long-term impact a president has are his Supreme Court nominees.
Given the record of what its arm of the court has wrought, Republicans can absolutely not be trusted with filling a vacancy at the presidential level, nor can we afford people with a track record of lockstep partisanship like Linda Lingle to be anywhere near the confirmation process.
Overturning Citizens United is critical in preventing our government from belonging to the highest bidder. Keeping Republicans out of office, at least until some responsible adults return to the party, is a key line in the sand.
Jerry Wright
Makawao
