really incredibly simple indeed it’s
inspiring ly simple and it’s one
commitment that government means we all
participate in government and what that
means in America is that in the
representative system we all participate
equally the framers of our Constitution
were obsessed with mechanical things and
when they thought of what that meant
they had images of machines in their
head and they spoke of dependencies
producing this equality Madison in
Federalist 52 promised us an institution
that would have a branch Congress the
house that would be quote dependent on
the people alone and by the people what
he said was quote not the rich more than
the poor now this idea of equality is
not surprising for our a republic that
grew out of something called the
Declaration of Independence which in its
first words said we hold these truths to
be self-evident that all men ok all
white men but all men are created equal
equal and it’s because they’re equal
that they could commit to the idea of
not the rich more than the poor and
because they they were equal we would
have a system that would be dependent on
the people alone equal but the truth is
the document that they signed the
Constitution is not consistently
committed to equality indeed at the core
it compromise with this principle of
equality and that compromise is this
room the Senate
it drove Madison nuts that his brilliant
theory of an equal democracy had to be
compromised by the need to get the small
states to join the big stays Theory met
reality and the product was ideals
compromised by necessity it was
necessary they said to make this
compromise to make it so we could have a
union and we got a union now I don’t
know if we hadn’t got the union whether
slavery would have ended sooner or not
we’re not allowed to think about that
sort of thing what we’re supposed to
accept is that the Constitution has a
principle and an exception and the
principle is democratic and the
exception is inequality but the problem
we have today is that this exception is
becoming the rule and there is no
institution that better symbolizes the
way this exception of inequality is
becoming the rule then this institution
the United States Senate the history of
the Senate is a constant fight against
democratic ideals in the period before
the Civil War it was the Senate that
tried to negotiate the compromise that
would preserve slavery and for a brief
moment after the Civil War the Senate
led for the first time principles of
equality Massachusetts ja a Charles
Sumner at the forefront of that fight
but after Sumner died it was 82 years
before the Senate allowed a single civil
rights bill to be passed it was the
Senate that held America back because of
the unequal power that was living here
and even to this day principles like the
filibuster make it so the minority
controls the majority because the
principle of democracy does not exist in
this place
this is an institution that makes us
think of great men and yes great men
97.5%
of senators have been men 50 have been
women they are really great women who
are in the United States Senate but this
institution makes us think of great
people but we should recognize it it is
an unequal institution it is
institutional inequality and that
inequality produces a problem because
we’ve taken this idea of inequality and
let it grow this inequality has grown
throughout our democratic system it’s
grown here when the framers set up the
Senate the inequality was big Delaware
vote one vote in Delaware was worth 13
votes in Virginia but that gap has only
grown now one vote in Wyoming is worth
66 votes in California but it’s not just
here in the Senate that inequality has
grown this principle of inequality has
spread throughout our democratic system
think about the freedom to vote
do we have an equal freedom to vote in
America well the truth is through
techniques to suppress votes as Charles
Stewart at MIT has calculated more than
16 million Americans saw their votes
suppressed in the last election they
have less equal access to our democracy
than the rest of us do or think about
the presidential election because of the
Senate in the way that we select
electors to our electoral college the
winner-take-all system means that if you
happen to be in the minority in your
state we count your votes simply to
throw them away a million people voted
for Donald Trump in Massachusetts all of
those votes were thrown away the
winner-take-all system means unless you
happen to live in a state where you’re
the majority you do not count which
means 52 million Americans had their
vote thrown away in the last election or
think about the House of Representatives
this innovation created by a governor
from this state
gerri gerrymandering there are only 45
competitive seats in the United States
House which means for the rest 90% of
the house the winner is the winner of
the party that controls that seat which
means that if you are a minority a
Democrat in a Republican seat or a
Republican and a Democrat see your vote
doesn’t matter your views don’t matter
your Congressman cares not a whit about
what you think about because you could
never matter to his or her re-election
again a million votes by Republicans in
Massachusetts there isn’t a single
Republican member of the House from
Massachusetts this gerrymandering system
means 89 million Americans have a vote
that doesn’t matter in the house 89
million unequal because of the way we
count votes and then the Senate the
Senate two per state what that means is
a hundred and fourteen million americans
have a vote that weighs less than the
vote of just 26 million americans who
happen to live in the states that are
small states in the country but the
biggest challenge to equality in america
is money the way we fund campaigns we
fund public campaigns privately which
means members of Congress and candidates
for Congress spent anywhere between 30
and 70 percent of their time raising
money to get back to Congress dialing
for dollars for you kids that’s a
telephone that’s the way that telephones
used to work dialing for dollars calling
people across the country to rate
country to raise the money they need to
get their party back into power to get
back into Congress themselves but who
are they calling they’re not calling
average Americans they are calling no
more than a hundred thousand Americans
who are the primary funders of these
congressional campaigns a hundred
thousand Americans which means that 139
point nine million Americans just don’t
count equally in this system they are
excluded and even this graph is a little
bit unrepresentative I got to take one
man I get to divide him into a
fifth one-fifth of one men on that graph
represents the power in money and the
rest of us are unequal add all these
things together and the sum is quite
clear right we are not equal as citizens
in the United States there’s core
promise of a representative democracy
has been denied which means they can’t
represent us because they are so busy
representing them we can’t get what we
want we won’t get what we want unless
what we want we as in America
represented equally unless what we want
happens to be what the most powerful in
this system always want this
Constitution that had a principal and an
exception has transformed the exception
into the rule inequality is the norm now
we’ve had fights for equality in our
history maybe the most tragic and
inspirational fights in Americans
history for equality is the fight of
african-americans for four hundred years
to achieve equality inside the system
first freedom and then equality but the
striking thing of that fight is that in
a certain way they had an advantage over
the fight we must wage because in that
four hundred years and that fights not
over but in that four hundred years no
one ever doubted whether the system was
treating african-americans equally or
not that inequality was clear to all but
this inequality this inequality is the
carbon monoxide of a democracy invisible
tasteless odourless it spreads without
anyone recognizing it and we can’t even
imagine it especially we white males
can’t imagine it oh my gosh we’re in a
system where we’re not equal that’s just
not possible in America right but the
truth is this system is deeply unequal
and we don’t even notice it we accept it
and like a cancer it eats away at the
soul of our democracy now I’ve spent the
last decade more than the last decade
working to figure how we could rally the
moonshot it would take the moonshot it
would take to get our equality back I’m
not even sure it’s possible just like
those who plan to the moonshot I’m not
sure it’s possible but I’ve learned
three things that I think are essential
if we’re going to make this fight work
number one we have to fight as citizens
not as Republicans and not as Democrats
but as citizens first we have to find a
way to rise above the partisan divide
that kills us in our opportunity to make
a democracy work again we have to find a
way to speak to each other as equals not
as enemies
the politicians are very bad at this
they live the politics of hate and we
have to get above that that’s number one
number two we have to learn that this
fight is actually a fight for others
because who loses most because we can’t
govern it is our kids who lose most
think of every important issue that we
think we must find a way to address
climate change we’re wrecking our
climate but those of us over 50 it’s not
gonna really matter much to us like my
house might when my children are there
become a a nice waterfront property
because of the rising water levels but
I’ll never see that the people who
suffer that will be our children the
debt that we spread because we have no
capacity to control how our government
behaves
that debt is literally us borrowing from
our children thank you very much we will
never pay them back a health care system
which is so screwy and inefficient
because of our gifts to pharmaceutical
companies and insurance companies this
is a system that burdens not us us who
can afford and have the health care that
our employers give us the people that
burdens are our children who can’t
afford and won’t have health care
because again we don’t have a democracy
to deliver that to them or the economy
that seems to be stuck it can’t go up
for the average American it’s only the
rich only the rich who gets any better
the only opportunities we give are the
opportunities to the very rich who
burden who is burdened by that accept
our children in every one of these areas
the point is if we have a fight here
it’s a fight for them and if we have a
motive to the fight it’s the motive of
love for them love for them first
teaches us what we must do now and then
finally this has got to be a fight for
respect a kind of self-respect because
when you think about the extraordinary
struggle that African Americans went
through the dignity of that struggle to
achieve the Equality which they have
fought for for four hundred years
or women fighting for that chance to
participate in a democracy and live in a
society as equal the dignity and
self-respect that fight showed where is
the dignity and the self-respect for the
rest of us how can we accept a system
that treats us like this we need leaders
here we need the leaders to remind us
that we can rise above this partisan
divide we need leaders to remind us we
inherited a democracy we could be proud
of but we hand to our children and
embarrassment we need leaders to ignite
with us within us the courage that we’ll
take to fight those who benefit from
this unequal system
we need leaders and those leaders are
you are you citizens or are you
Republicans are you citizens or are you
Democrats is it country first or party
first that’s your choice do you have the
love for your children to be willing to
stand and fight for something that gives
them the chance that we had from our
parents and can you recover the dignity
of the soldier who goes to war not to
fight for a party but to fight for a
democracy in the name of equality this
is a beautiful space it reminds us of
many great leaders leaders many from
this state including the two great
Kennedys who celebrated at this museum
but let us also be reminded that the
leaders alone have never changed
anything the change only comes when it
comes from you lead here thank you very much