In my last article, I spoke of our fading democracy. I asked, “From whence comes the voice of our virtuous and unfettered politician? From whence comes the voice for social justice?” And now, here is more to the story.

John Adams wrote: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, . . . would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

My thoughts go back to Sen. George Mitchell, surely one of Maine’s finest and most honest politicians, although he rarely agreed with my views about the abolition of nuclear weapons. Yet, one of his reasons for leaving office in 1995 was because of the divisiveness in Congress. In 2011, he joined a group formed by former Vermont governor, Jim Douglas, called the Bipartisan Policy Center. This group includes four former Senate Majority leaders; Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker and Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell. The stated goal is to encourage Congressional leaders to adopt a bipartisan approach to the major issues facing the country.

And I am acutely aware of the loss we will experience as Senator Olympia Snowe leaves office. Although she and I disagreed on many issues of foreign policy, she often “came through” on those of great importance, such as her courageous positive vote for the New START Treaty. She states in an interview with the Bangor Daily News, “. . . What I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be. Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term.”

These two Maine senators earned great respect in the U.S. Congress for their dedication to values of civility, bipartisanship, and clean politics. I view them as those whose voices ring out as “virtuous and (relatively) unfettered.” I view them as politicians who served with the compassion for social justice. I view them as servants for the good of the people.

With their voices now gone from the Congressional debates, who will have the courage to vote across party lines for the good of the people? Will the voices of “avarice” gain strength? That could be the Tea Party member voices who want lower taxes for themselves at the expense of those less fortunate than they.

With their voices now gone, it paves the way for voices of “ambition” to gain strength. That could be the voices of those who are now receiving great sums of money for members seeking advancement within party and Congressional committee hierarchies. This money flow and its implications are examined in a new book, “Congressional Parties, Institutional Ambition, and the Financing of Majority Control” by Eric S. Heberlig. In this book, he addresses “the consequences of selecting Congressional leaders on the basis of their fundraising skills rather than their legislative capacity and the extent to which the battle for majority control leads Congress to prioritize short-term electoral gains over long-term governing and problem-solving.”

Do these trends make the 2012 government “totally inadequate” to address our complicated present-day issues?

I leave this topic now, but not until I make a few suggestions with regard to “avarice and ambition.” The first is to have some courageous legislator introduce a bill that would address the wage disparity between the CEOs and their employees. The next suggestion comes in two parts. It is imperative that we begin the slow and demanding process to take the money out of the political process, much as Maine did with their vote for Clean Elections. Also, I repeat my earlier suggestion: We seek an immediate legislative overturn of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent and devastating ruling that “corporations are people” that has resulted in this vast and immoral flow of money into the electoral process.

Sally Breen lives in Windham.