Dear Representative Polito

I was checking the roll call on the vote for an interim replacement for Senator Kenndy’s seat and noticed you did not cast a vote (at least not that I saw, if I missed it please excuse my oversight) and was wondering why a vote was not cast, and where you stood on the issue? I know as a state rep. you are extremely busy and may not have time to reply to each and every email you receive but this issue, to me anyway, exemplifies exactly what is wrong with the way the Commonwealth is being run.

150 years ago in his famous work On Liberty John Stuart Mill warned that “Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities.” From representative governments inception in ancient Greece there has always been the fear that a majority could “legally” impose its will on and place its interests so far above that of anyone who dissents that the dissenting become oppressed. Plato warned against in the Ancient world, Alexis de Tocqueville coined the phrase the “tyranny of the majority” in his masterpiece Democracy in America, and John Stuart Mill eloquently warns against it in his utilitarian works. What we have here in Massachusetts is nothing short of a “tyranny of the majority” (TOTM).

These same representatives only a few years ago passed this law to prevent the governor at the time, Mitt Romney, from appointing an interim Senator should Kerry’s seat become available. This was nothing but partisan politics, they did not want a republican possibly getting a coveted Senate seat. Now only five years later, these same men and women, want to repeal a law that they passed so that Governor Patrick can appoint someone to the seat vacated by Senator Kennedy’s passing. To call it anything but an ultimate exercise in hypocrisy is naieve at best, ignorant at worst. The Massachusetts state legislature has become the TOTM that Plato, De Tocqueville, and Mill all warned against. They are putting their own self interest so far above the interest of the individuals who disagree that it has become an act of active oppression. They have become the “kingmakers” of the medieval world, rather than responsible representatives of the citizen body.

It is my sincere hope that you do not agree with the representatives who support this bill.

Sincerely

Craig from Shrewsbury