Reclaiming the Republic, One State at a Time | Lisa Senecal & David Pepper

• The “guarantee clause” offers a constitutional tool to defend democracy.

• Gerrymandered statehouses are exactly what the founders feared.

• The Supreme Court’s selective textualism erodes public trust and accountability.

• Bipartisan resistance in red states hints at a path toward democratic repair.

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The Constitution isn’t silent on the crisis of captured state governments — it warned us. The guarantee that every state maintain a republican form of government was meant to prevent exactly this: minority rule disguised as law. That safeguard has been ignored for too long, even as courts chip away at voting rights and legislatures redraw maps to preserve power.

But in places like Indiana and Ohio, resistance across party lines suggests a quiet revival of civic integrity. Democracy’s repair, it turns out, may depend less on new amendments than on finally enforcing the promises already written — and remembering that self-government only survives when citizens insist on it.

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