How responsive should a government be to its people? | No. 171 — November 21, 2021
Wisconsin Republicans, who hold a supermajority of legislative seats despite winning only a small majority of votes, are setting the stage to overturn the results of the next election
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”
— US Constitution, Article IV Section 4
“… the vital principle of republican government is the lex majoris partis, the will of the majority”
— James Madison, 1834
“… a key characteristic of a democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals.”
— Robert Dahl, Polyarchy, 1971
How democratic do we want our government to be? How responsive should it be to its people?
These questions have been animating my thinking on America and its states over the past few years — especially the last one. And I think they are ones more people should ponder.
Consider Wisconsin’s Republicans. The news on Friday was that members of the Badger-state GOP, which holds a near-supermajority (62%) of seats in the state legislature despite winning only 54% of the vote in either chamber in 2020, last week stepped up their calls for the …
