Is there an constitutional reason a US state has to be a democracy?

Factual Questions
21

As I understand it, the term “Republic” means the head of state is elected. The head of state may be the governor, president - whoever signs bills passed by the legislature into law. In the UK the Queen does, or in Canada her representative, the Canadian Governor General. In the French Republic, the president does - but that’s a weird system (trust the French!) where the president and prime minister both think they are the boss…In some places - Italy, Israel - the president is just a figurehead who signs the laws, like the Queen but elected.

In Canada, the term of Parliament was 5 years. There was some debate how long after that 5 years were up that the election had to be called; some considerations were debated in the Good Old Days about how long after the term of parliament expired before the election had to be called. Some suggested a year later, since at a certain point a budget might need to be passed - but that’s a whole separate topic about how the Prime Minister and cabinet could keep going on orders-in-council if no parliament was sitting to pass a budget. There have been interesting times, where an election results in a minority government, then it is defeated trying to pass a budget, and the next election takes a while, so the government went 2 years or more without a budget passing.

Usually, an election was called within 4 years; this is the discretion of the government. Going past 4 years was an indication the government was very unpopular and waiting for some sort of change in the polls. Recently the feds and most provinces have passed laws setting fixed elections at 4 years; although the prime minister can call the election earlier if he chooses, or if defeated in a confidence vote.

I guess it’s an interesting debate why the USA ended up with their executive and legislature different, while Canada and other Commonwealth nations (Australia, New Zealand) ended up with parliamentary governments. I wonder if the form of government in the USA was more based on the 1700’s style of government that was set up in their colonies, where the separate head of state (King or his appointed governor) governed and the legislature was more of decoration that might pass laws but the governor tended to ignore. This form of separate executive was installed also in the new US constitution so coped by future states.

By the mid-1850’s when the colonies began setting up serious government structures, the current form of parliament had evolved - the colonies were set up by the British government to mimic their style. Particularly, the tight control following the loss of the US colonies caused the revolution of 1837, at which time the British recognized that not allowing to colonies to run much of their own affairs would only lead to further revolutions.

So short answer - the full form of parliamentary democracy by the ruling party had not evolved in 1788, so the framers copied the “separate executive” model in their colonies. Once everyone was familiar with it, they all copied it.

I assume that a “governor for life” is possible, but given the US federal government structure I assume not too many states would be keen on lifetime offices for executives. The lifetime appointment of judges was an exception that ensured their impartiality and freedom from coercion - but like the Catholic Church has discovered recently, modern medicine has made “for life” a questionable job description for effective performance. I suppose you could concoct a “the queen is president for life” office, but no guarantee the heir gets elected after that. Plus, the heir could not be titled king or queen, since IIRC the constitution forbids awarding titles.

22

And to anticipate the next question on that one: the text of the federal constitution itself says that the equality between states of federal Senate representation cannot be amended away. So you can’t do unto the federal Senators as thou wouldst unto the state senators. Used to be you could fix state senators by county, not any more.

That also makes a certain philosophical sense, when you consider that in the US constitutional structure, the entities with inherent sovereignty are the states, which once constituted cannot be dissolved by the national government, while the counties and cities are “creatures of the legislature”.

Right. No title of nobility shall be granted – although the provision is in reference to “by the United States”, it probably is long since incorporated into the state level. You’d probably have to style it along the lines of Chief Magistrate or something like that.

BTW going back to the OP:

A proposal for an amendment that would simply allow the Citizens of the District of Columbia to elect a regular congressional delegation of voting senators and representative(s), while NOT being made a sovereign state state but remaining subordinate, i.e. a Canberra-model solution, was presented in the past.
Of course those who just don’t want them to have those votes still opposed that, and the local political establishment in the District were dug in that they want full statehood, so it went nowhere.

23

It was that way in some states. NJ had one state senator for each county. This ended in 1964 with the “One man one vote” decision by SCOTUS: One man, one vote - Wikipedia. The US senate was constitutional by fiat, but states were not federal-type unions of their counties.

I see absolutely no reason a state could not institute a parliamentary-type system.

In Canada, the life of parliament or a provincial assembly is limited to five and a government must call parliament at least once a year. So a government could, in theory, last six years. As far as I know, no government has ever gone even five without an election and they normally go more than four. And a minority government might last less than a year. Trudeau’s is getting old and I suspect that only the pandemic has prevented an election.

24

Justin Trudeau just had an election last year. Good timing. And unlike his dad, he’s pretty popular still and has all his nice hair.

His dad Pierre won an election on July 8, 1974 and waited until May 22, 1979 for the next one. He was waiting for the polls to look better, but they never did. He lost in 1979. (Back again in 1980) This was the time I recall when people speculated how long a government could really go, maybe a year past the 5-year expiry date.

Similarly, Brian Mulroney was re-elected Nov 21 1988 and his party defeated Oct 21, 1993 - same scenario that they were unpopular (to put it mildly) and Brian resigned, as well several of the party seeing the polls decided not to run again. The party went from majority to 2 seats. The run-up to this election also sparked speculation on how long the government could hang on…

Generally, the rule of thumb in Canadian politics is if you ain’t popular by the 4th year anniversay, waiting another year won’t make things better.

25

The U.S. Constitution never defines what a “republic” is, but we do have the Federalist Papers, which go into great depth in discussing what a constitutional republic is. I think that would be the best place to look for what the “original intent” was.

I suspect any “republican form of government” under the U.S. Constitution would probably have to have some division of powers, with separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and direct elections of at least one legislative house.

Beyond that, though, remember, as originally formulated, the U.S. republic had directly elected Representatives in the House, but an indirectly elected President, and Senators appointed by their state legislatures. The 14th Amendment and the principle of “one man, one vote” does put some restrictions on that - you probably couldn’t have county commissioners appointing state legislators, for example.

But could you have the state legislature select the chief executive, as is done in some parliamentary democracies, as long as the legislators were directly elected? Probably. Could you have other forms of indirect elections, as long as they somehow preserved the principal of “one man, one vote”? I’d think so. Going to the model of ancient Sparta and Rome, which were directly cited by some of the Founders in discussing separation of powers in a republic, could you have a multi-member executive, like a tribunal of co-equals, instead of a single governor? Probably.

26

You’ve just described the Pennsylvania executive from 1776 to 1790. That was a republican model known to the drafters, so hard to see why it couldn’t be revived.

“If it was good enough for Ben Franklin…”

27

Half the nation was in rebellion vs the Lawful government, and a good third of Virginia wanted nothing to do with it.

Very right and proper.

28

They were representatives of that portion of Virginia not in unlawful rebellion.Twenty-nine of the convention delegates were members of the Virginia General Assembly, the rest were elected by the counties not in unlawful rebellion.

29

Others have addressed this. The Supreme Court banned it as a violation of one-person, one-vote.

That’s debatable. The current Constitution says that it can’t been changed without the consent of the states. However, if you amended the Constitution to remove that requirement of consent, then by definition, it would have been amended away.

I agree. In fact, I believe that the Supreme Court jurisprudence also permits proportional representation systems.

It seems like you’ve contradicted yourself. I believe that Hari Seldon is correct that a state could have a parliamentary system in which the executive comes out of a legislative majority.

30

I don’t think I have contradicted myself. If the legislature appoints someone to a fixed term as President, but the President, once appointed, is secure in that term, and has executive powers separate from the legislature, which is how it is actually done in some parliamentary democracies, I think that would satisfy the requirements of a separation of powers. But, I Am Not A Constitutional Scholar.

As to whether a pure Westminster style parliamentary system, with a Chief Executive selected from and answerable to the legislature, would be permissible…maybe? Obviously, it’s never been tested.

From what I can recall of the Federalist Papers, I think having a separate executive was kind of a big deal for a proper republic, but, of course, the Federalist Papers were written to sell a constitution that was set up that way. And, of course, the Federalist Papers aren’t definitive. But, they’re probably the best we have in trying to figure out what “a republican form of government” was supposed to mean. But, again, I Am Not A Constitutional Scholar, and I could well be completely wrong about all of that.

31

Those arguments were about determining how to design a particular government after having agreed that a republican form of government was desired. They weren’t meant to establish the basic definition of “republican form of government.”

32

Umm, yes, which I acknowledged in the very same sentence, which you snipped out. I also stated that I didn’t think they were definitive - a part of my post you also snipped out.

The point I was making was that the Federalist Papers are, as far as I know, the best resource we have to understand what the Framers thought they meant by “a republican form of government”. At the very least, I think they’re a good place to start.

Ultimately, I think the practical answer is, “A republican form of government is whatever Congress says it is.”

33

As I understand it, representatives from all over Virginia were invited to the assembly that led to the creation of West Virginia. If some of those representatives chose for whatever reason not to show up, then they have no place complaining about what was decided in their absence.

34

But you make the leap from one (design a particular republican government) to the other (a republican government must have) without any additional justification.

If you admit that the Federalist papers meant only A, you have to offer some other justification to get to B.

35

I’m…I’m honestly not sure what you want to argue about here.

As far as I know, the Federalist Papers are the most thorough discussion of “republican government” by the Framers which we have available to us. It just seems like a good place to look to see what they thought they meant by “a republican form of government.” Of course, they were written by only three of the Framers, and most of them were probably written by one man, so they’re far from definitive.

I have only a vague memory of them, and I don’t think I’ve read them all, so maybe, as a factual matter, they aren’t actually useful.

But if, for example, in one of the papers, the writer wrote “Any properly functional republic must of necessity separate out the legislative and executive powers into two different bodies…” that would be an interesting insight. If instead he wrote, “Of course a republic might invest both legislative and executive powers in a single body, but…” that would also be an interesting insight.

Or, as I said, it might be a moot point.

36

The Supreme Court has held for over a century and a half that whether a state has a republican form of government is a political question that it will not get into. Of course, every state has had a “close enough” to republican form of government that the Court is likely not wanting to get too involved in this question. However, I’m sure that if Montana decided to install a dictatorship, then it would get involved.

Whether a parliamentary system is close enough remains an open question. I would think “probably not” but that is just my opinion. Nothing to back it up.

Also, I’m not sure why the creation of WV belongs in this thread. The form of government was republican, the only question was whether the delegates had the authority to act for the whole of Virginia.

37

Curious why you say that. Why not? Would you say that India and Ireland are not republics? What about Germany?

38

So, here’s what Federalist Paper Number 39 has to say:

Again, the Federalist Papers aren’t definitive, but No. 39 is widely attributed to James Madison, who is also widely considered the primary drafter of the text of the U.S. Constitution.

So, the key elements seem to be:

  1. The government derives its powers through direct or indirect elections in which the bulk of the populace can participate;
  2. The officers so selected hold offices of limited duration and at the pleasure of the electorate, or “during good behavior”.

No. 39 goes on,

Here, the author of No. 39 is referencing contemporary state governments, using them as examples of properly constituted republics. Here we have the stipulations that the highest officers of the executive and legislative branches are selected by the people, directly or indirectly, for pre-determined terms, and the members of the judiciary retain their offices either for a pre-determined term or during good behavior.

39

The issue was that it was claimed that people in the Eastern part were denied representation and therefore the Restored Government of Virginia was not a republican form of government. Think about if half of your state was denied the vote, then is it truly a republican form of government. The reality (and why it is in this thread) is the entire argument is moot because Congress said, “WE decide what a republican form of government is. End of discussion!” Thus it answers WHO decides if the Guarantee Clause is met.

40

Federalist Paper Number 10, widely attributed to Alexander Hamilton, compares and contrasts republics and pure democracies.

Interestingly, this would seem to rule out direct democracy as a “republican form of government.” Again, I hasten to add, this one paper is hardly definitive, but I do wonder what Hamilton would have thought about the constitutionality of referendums…