We live in a republic, which basically means a country not ruled by a monarch. One-hundred-fifty-nine nations call themselves republics, including China, North Korea, and Belarus. However, ours is a democratic republic, and a constitutional republic.
Democracy wasn't born yesterday, or only in America. Even as Cleisthenes set ancient Athens on a democratic path in 508 B.C., ancient India had developed several dozen republics, oligarchies, aristocracies--including a few democracies. All disappeared long ago when empires took over the Indian subcontinent.
Direct democracy is even older. A Stone Age band of 30 kinfolk hardly needed a legislature. In time, larger tribes held an assembly each year, where all free men, with their families, came together to pass laws and choose leaders.
Eventually, people elected representatives to a more permanent central assembly. Iceland's Althing has convened from 930 A.D. to date. Most modern countries are parliamentary (representative) democracies, with states and cities governed on a similar plan.
Direct democracy still exists. Countless groups of a few hundred or less--a social club, a hamlet, a church congregation--still run themselves this way. Citizen participation remains in the larger political system as the referendum, initiative, and recall, found in the constitutions of 26 states and most countries, notably Switzerland, which is considered a direct democracy.
These mechanisms hold government accountable to the people, and lead to higher voter turnout. Note that 25 states are not California, and have their own ways to handle the process. Washington and Oregon have a Citizen's Initiative Review.
Currently, Arkansas registration and voter turnout are in 50th place nationally--dead last. Grass-roots initiatives might encourage more participation. Yet Issue 2 would severely limit them by requiring a 60 percent supermajority.
Let's review more history. When the Constitution's writers looked for model republics, they found the ancient Greeks and Romans--civilizations dependent on slavery, where women took no part in civic life. In our own earliest elections, most people couldn't vote, neither women, indentured servants, slaves, Indians, nor white men without property. Over time, the franchise expanded. Now every adult citizen is eligible, excepting, in some states, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated.
Worldwide, political participation multiplied in the 20th century as country after country added women and working-class men to the lists of eligible voters. Today the gold standard of representative governments everywhere is that every citizen has a vote.
Our founding document was groundbreaking, its genius expressed in a system of checks and balances, and the Bill of Rights that guarantees basic freedoms and minority rights. Its writers included an amendment process because they expected change.
The U.S. population is now 84 times the size it was in 1790, and the two senators allotted to each state speak for widely different numbers of citizens. Vermont's senators represent fewer than a million; Texas senators represent 29 million. California's delegation represents 70 times as many constituents as do Wyoming's. Is this fair representation?
In 1781, some of the original 13 states were jealous of their prerogatives (slavery). However, most of the 50 were admitted later, with boundaries often set by 19th century railroads. Not distinct from neighbors either as bio-regions or cultures, they are simply established administrative units. I've lived in 12 states, from Oregon to Florida, North Dakota to Arkansas, and can't get excited about "states' rights."
And if states have rights, why not cities? The U.S. currently has six states with fewer than one million inhabitants and 14 cities with over one million each.
However, not everybody likes majority rule. Or citizen participation. Many of us see democracy only as unlimited individual liberty: no public health regulations; the right to own one's personal bazooka. I hope somebody, somewhere is still teaching civics.
It's not working well. Constant blaring politics dominates and distorts our democratic process. Corrupt practices have crept in that make some people's votes count more than others, or not count at all, such as gerrymandering, the outsized role of money in election campaigns, voter suppression, and politically partisan state election officials. The Electoral College is dangerously outdated, with two minority presidents so far this century. The unelected Supreme Court appears to be legislating.
Ideally, our system is about working together as best we can: moderation and compromise. Not a war. Not a constant search for tricks and loopholes. Not attempts to knock citizens out of the franchise.
Meanwhile, the clever ones find new ways to game the system. In the latest scheme, the Independent State Legislature Doctrine would give state legislatures supreme authority over federal elections--overruling state courts and state constitutions. SCOTUS conservatives are already interested; the court will take up a case this session.
Whatever happened to checks and balances?
This representative democracy, once the beacon for the world, is sick and desperately needs our help. We need more citizen participation, not less.
Coralie Koonce is a writer living in Fayetteville, and the author of "Twelve Dispositions: A Field Guide to Humans."