Americans across the country are anxiously watching the upcoming elections for U.S. president and Congress. Depending on who wins, the results will inevitably alter our nation’s trajectory — or so the thinking goes.

Not so fast. In reality, the American system of government, as designed by the Founding Fathers, has several key firewalls protecting citizens from encroachments on their God-given rights — and one of those firewalls is the principle of federalism. Under our system, the states are sovereign republics, and power is divided between them and the federal government. The states retain the vast majority of powers; the U.S. Constitution delegates only specific, limited powers to the federal government. In The Federalist, No. 51, James Madison highlighted the strength of America’s federalist system. Describing the United States as a “compound republic” with power “divided between two distinct governments,” he noted that this system provides “a double security … to the rights of the people.”

To protect citizens’ God-given rights, states must reclaim the sovereignty that they have lost to federal usurpations, including by nullifying unconstitutional federal acts and rejecting all federal funding. While this is essential, more is needed: State governments must ensure that their own policies protect God-given rights and align with the limited-government principles of the Founding Fathers.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence, which outlines the philosophical basis for the American form of government, declares that “all men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” And Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” Are state governments currently securing their citizens’ God-given rights? And are they adhering to a republican form of government, one that operates under the rule of law and not the rule of men? Unfortunately, states have largely abandoned republicanism in key areas. What follows is a selection of these areas — and the ways states can restore adherence to fundamental American principles.

Direct Democracy

Direct democracy — including legislative-initiated referendums and citizen-initiated ballot measures — is one of the greatest departures from republican government by the states. Until the late 19th century, referendums were seldom used — and only for significant measures such as ratifying a new state constitution, or for purely local matters. Widespread adoption of direct democracy at the state level — particularly to bypass state legislatures — began with South Dakota’s adoption of an initiative process in 1898. This adoption coincided with the growing popularity of “democracy,” and a rejection of traditional American republicanism, among the “progressive” intelligentsia. Two decades later, direct democracy had been widely adopted by state governments, and Harry F. Atwood in his 1918 book Back to the Republic included it as a major example of how states had “drifted away from the moorings of the [federal] Constitution.” Today, every state except Delaware requires a popular referendum as part of the process for changing the state constitution — usually with a bare majority needed for ratification. Meanwhile, 26 states allow citizen-initiated ballot measures, which completely bypass the legislature, to change the state constitution, enact new statutes, and/or override legislatively enacted laws.

What is wrong with allowing citizens to vote directly on laws? While it may sound appealing, direct democracy is incompatible with the American form of government, enables mob rule, and makes it easier for governments to violate God-given rights. Although modern-day politicians, academics, and media personalities regularly label the United States a “democracy,” the Founding Fathers established it as a constitutional republic. Unlike democracies, which are governed by the ever-changing whims and passions of the majority — or demagogues who manipulate it — republics operate under the rule of law and protect unalienable, God-given rights. In his 1961 speech Republics and Democracies, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch noted that the Founding Fathers created a system in which “laws … could not be changed without laborious and deliberate changes in the very structure of that government.” However, under direct democracy, it is easy to enact radical and poorly thought-out laws and constitutional amendments. After all, most people, busy with their daily lives, find little time to research the referenda on their state ballots, and their lack of information makes it easier for them to be led astray, or to vote for what might sound good without thoughtfully considering the ramifications.

The Founding Fathers despised democracy, and took pains to differentiate it from the American form of government. For example, James Madison wrote in The Federalist, No. 10, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” And Alexander Hamilton, speaking at the New York ratifying convention in 1788, declared, “The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” Summarizing the Founders’ attitude in a 2001 article for The New American, William F. Jasper noted, “[They] saw that the only proper and practical means of enacting laws under a system of self-government would be through representatives in deliberative bodies. There, representatives could read, review, study, debate, propose, deliberate, and decide in an ordered atmosphere — with the benefit of input from their constituents.”

A major problem with direct democracy is that it empowers demagogues and special interests rather than ordinary citizens — and observers from across the political spectrum have recognized this. For example, in a 2008 editorial for San Francisco news site SFGate, editor John Diaz criticized California’s initiative process because it “is no longer the antidote to special interests and the moneyed class; it is their vehicle of choice to attempt to get their way without having to endure the scrutiny and compromise of the legislative process.” Indeed, an analysis of state ballot measures in recent years affirms this statement. In particular, leftist groups and donors have used direct democracy to enact radical policies, including legalized abortion, ranked-choice voting, Medicaid expansion, and raising the minimum wage. These measures have often passed in conservative-leaning states whose legislatures would have rejected such proposals. Although conservative groups have sometimes enacted limited-government policies via direct democracy, the process has been used mostly to increase the size of government. And, regardless of how it is used, direct democracy inherently contradicts the limited-government principles of the Founding Fathers. States should repeal such policies and return to representative government as advocated by the Founders.

Legislative Apportionment

Legislative apportionment and redistricting — particularly the judicially imposed principle of “one man, one vote” and redistricting commissions — is another area in which many states have diverged from a republican form of government.

Until the mid-20th century, the states used different and unique methods of apportioning state legislative districts. Although many based apportionment on population, others did so based wholly or partially on political subdivisions — usually counties — for one or both houses. For example, states including Montana, New Jersey, and South Carolina apportioned one state senator per county. States including Alabama and Iowa required each county to have at least one state representative, with the remaining seats apportioned by population. And states including California and Texas apportioned their senates roughly on population, but required no more than one senator per county. Regardless of these states’ specific methods, they prevented one or a handful of geographically small urban areas from dominating the rest of the state. This is similar to how the U.S. Senate is composed on the federal level (two senators per state, regardless of population), and ensures adequate representation of the states’ geographic regions while limiting the dangerous impulses of majoritarian democracy.

In the 1960s, however, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state-level apportionment methods. In Baker v. Carr (1962), Gray v. Sanders (1963), and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), it imposed the judicially manufactured requirement of “one man, one vote” on state elections — states subsequently needed to apportion their legislative districts solely on population. In his dissent in Reynolds v. Sims, Justice John Marshall Harlan II noted that “these decisions … have the effect of placing basic aspects of state political systems under the pervasive overlordship of the federal judiciary.” Although having no constitutional basis and blatantly violating the 10th Amendment, these decisions moved states significantly away from a republican form of government and toward democracy. Today, states including Georgia, Illinois, New York, and Washington are dominated politically by populous urban areas that dictate policies statewide. The Supreme Court’s opinions on this topic are unconstitutional, and states should enforce the U.S. Constitution by refusing to enforce (i.e., nullifying) them.

A more recent development is states’ adoption of redistricting commissions to redraw legislative boundaries. Beginning with Arkansas’ adoption of such a commission in 1956 via popular referendum, 15 states have enacted measures bypassing their legislatures in redistricting. In most of these states, redistricting commissions are composed of unelected members who are unaccountable to legislators or voters, yet have total authority to determine their states’ legislative district lines. Supporters of such commissions argue that they prevent gerrymandering and result in fairer representation. However, this is not necessarily true. For example, in the 2010 redistricting cycle, California Democrats used the state’s independent redistricting commission to draw maps that overrepresented Democrats. According to a 2011 ProPublica report, “The citizens’ commission had pledged to create districts based on testimony from the communities themselves…. To get around that, Democrats surreptitiously enlisted local voters, elected officials, labor unions and community groups to testify in support of configurations that coincided with the party’s interests.” In the 2012 elections, Democrats gained seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, even though Republicans had seen faster demographic growth. According to Professor Doug Johnson of the Rose Institute, whom ProPublica interviewed, “By the numbers, Republicans should have held at least the same number of seats, but they lost.” In the 2020 redistricting cycle, California’s maps again gave Democrats a disproportionate advantage. Letting unelected “experts,” rather than elected representatives, make decisions doesn’t lead to better or fairer outcomes.

Redistricting commissions are an example of technocracy — that is, central planning under the rule of elites and “experts.” As Patrick Wood notes in his 2018 book Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order, technocracy is the preferred government of those pushing for a global “New World Order,” and one can see its implementation in globalist programs such as the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Although much of the focus on technocracy is at the global level, it is also being implemented by state governments, particularly by having the duties of elected representatives fulfilled instead by “experts” who will supposedly do the same work in a more professional manner. Technocracy and democracy are incompatible with America’s republican form of government — and both ultimately lead to oligarchy. This is explained in more detail in The John Birch Society video Overview of America, which can be viewed at https://jbs.org/video/featured/overview-of-america.

States should resist pressure to adopt redistricting commissions. Those that have already adopted these institutions should repeal them and return to representative government.

Judicial Selection

States’ processes for selecting judges are another area in which many have abandoned republican government for democracy and technocracy. Until 1832, every state selected judges via appointment by either the governor (often with the consent of the legislature or executive council) or the legislature, roughly mirroring the process prescribed under the federal Constitution. In 1832, however, Mississippi adopted a new state constitution that required the direct election of state judges, and New York did the same in 1846. By the end of the 19th century, the vast majority of states directly elected their judges.

While electing judges may sound positive, it is yet another step toward democracy and away from representative government. Furthermore, electing judges forces them to make campaign promises that potentially conflict with their duty to uphold the law. Atwood, in Back to the Republic, decried the election of judges as “a gross error” for this very reason. He also noted that direct election of any state officials besides the governor and legislators allows them to avoid “full responsibility for the quality of public service” and leads to “useless expenditures, excessive legislation and chaotic administration,” as well as “less competent men in the public service.”

During the 20th century, a new method for selecting judges — albeit one just as repugnant to republican government — grew in popularity: judicial “merit selection,” also called the “Missouri Plan” after the state that first adopted it in 1940. Under this method, judicial nominating commissions, usually composed of unelected lawyers, select a handful of judicial nominees. The state governor must choose one of the pre-selected nominees, and cannot consider alternatives. Although its supporters claim it leads to more qualified judges, judicial merit selection is a major example of technocracy, since unelected “experts,” rather than elected representatives, make important decisions under this system. Furthermore, judges appointed under this system lean toward the left when compared to those appointed under other systems. For example, in a 2009 law-review paper, Professor Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt University argued that, because of “the powerful role it accords lawyers and, in particular, state bar associations,” merit selection “may simply move the politics of judicial selection into closer alignment with the ideological preferences of the bar,” which leans left. And in an in-depth 2017 study, Fitzpatrick found that states using merit selection or nonpartisan elections had judiciaries “skewed to the left” compared to “the public at large in those states.”

Although each state’s judicial system is different, 21 states currently elect their judges, while another 21 use a variant of merit selection. To help restore adherence to republican government by elected representatives, these states should return to a system modeled after the federal Constitution.

State Constitutions and Bureaucracies

Particularly since the late 19th century, the size and scope of state governments have grown dramatically. The length and provisions of state constitutions help illustrate this. While the U.S. Constitution, including its 27 amendments, has 7,591 words, the 50 state constitutions have on average about 39,000 words each. Vermont’s is the shortest at 8,565 words, while Alabama’s is the longest at 369,380 words (down from about 402,000 before a technical revision in 2022). The specific provisions of state constitutions are more important than raw word count, however, and they mandate state involvement in areas far outside the proper, God-given role of government. According to liberal Professor Jorge M. Farinacci-Fernós in a 2023 law-review article, “Many state constitutions are truly modern documents that address important social, economic, and political issues from a progressive perspective” and are “indispensable tools in the pursuit of progressive change.” For example, every state constitution mandates a government-education system, and many include provisions on organized labor, welfare, the environment, direct democracy, and positive “rights” that compel big-government action. Meanwhile, multiple state constitutions either have watered-down protections of the right to keep and bear arms or lack them entirely. Atwood, in Back to the Republic, noted in 1918 that even then many states had “modeled their constitutions less and less after the plan of the Federal Constitution,” and one can clearly see this today.

Also, state bureaucracies have grown enormously. In 1959, 51 agencies or departments on the same subject (education, corrections, etc.) existed in 38 or more states — already far larger than just a few decades earlier. By 2019, however, that number had grown to 121. Meanwhile, the number of full-time state employees quadrupled from about 950,000 in 1953 to 3.9 million in 2023. Much of this bureaucracy lies far outside the proper role of government. For example, according to a report by the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), 56.9 percent of total state spending in fiscal 2023 went toward education or Medicaid, areas in which state governments should not be involved. Furthermore, states participate in many federal programs, ranging from law enforcement to social welfare. For instance, all but 10 states have voluntarily adopted Medicaid expansion in compliance with ObamaCare (and the holdouts face heavy pressure to do the same), and all 50 states have complied with the unconstitutional Real ID Act (a national ID card). These state-adopted federal programs encourage and entrench big government.

State bureaucracies often operate independently of — or contrary to — state legislatures. Atwood, in Back to the Republic, criticized the states for “appointing boards and commissions, and creating other agencies that merely result in … confusing governmental procedure.” Lack of adherence to legislatively enacted laws was clearly seen during Covid-19 in 2020, when state agencies across the country unilaterally imposed pandemic restrictions and removed election-integrity safeguards. Although multiple states have since enacted legislation reining in their respective bureaucracies, much more work remains in this area: According to a 2023 report on state emergency executive powers by the Maine Policy Institute, the average score for states was only 55.9 on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 signifying the strongest checks on executive power. Ultimately, significantly trimming state bureaucracy and involvement in federal programs, and removing big-government elements from state constitutions, would go a long way toward restoring republican government.

Big-government Revenue

With bigger government bureaucracy come higher and more intrusive taxes. Although some states had occasionally taxed certain aspects of income, inheritance, and property since the Colonial era, these forms of taxation began in earnest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, the first modern state individual income taxes — which deny individuals the whole fruit of their labor — were adopted by Hawaii (still a U.S. territory at the time) in 1901 and Wisconsin in 1911. Most states had imposed individual income taxes by the late 1930s, and today, all but nine tax personal income. Estate and inheritance taxes, which deny one’s property or savings to his descendants, saw similar expansion, beginning with New York’s imposition of an inheritance tax in 1885. By 1916, 43 states had such a tax, and every state had one by the end of the 20th century. Although most states repealed or ended their inheritance and/or estate taxes in the early 2000s — driven by changes in a 2001 federal tax law — 17 states still impose them. By repealing these taxes, states would help guarantee their citizens’ God-given right to “the pursuit of Happiness.”

Property taxes — which amount to paying rent to the government in order to live on one’s own property — are an even greater violation of individual freedom. Although they are levied by local governments (counties, municipalities, school districts, etc.), state governments ultimately decide how — if at all — localities may tax property. The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of property rights in a free society. For example, John Adams, in A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, declared that “the moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God … anarchy and tyranny commence.” And Madison, in The Federalist, No. 10, noted that democracy is “incompatible with … the rights of property.” However, property taxes are currently levied in virtually every county. As of 2022, the average state property-tax rate ranged from 0.26 percent in Hawaii to 2.08 percent in New Jersey. In 15 counties — all in California, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia — the median property tax owed annually exceeds $10,000. In Property Rights: As Sacred as the Laws of God, John Birch Society CEO Emeritus Art Thompson notes how property taxes are antithetical to property rights: “Try not paying your taxes and you will soon find out whether you own your property, or whether the government really owns it in the fullest sense of the word.” In recent years, some state leaders have recognized the problems of property taxes. For example, in June 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott noted that “Texans want to own their property, not rent it from the government…. We will put Texans on the pathway to eliminate property taxes.” Despite these initial steps, though, much more work is needed to fully protect property rights and end property taxes.

State governments also rely on the federal government for much of their revenue. Federal grants to states and localities were virtually nonexistent before the late 19th century, largely because Americans understood the limited, constitutional role of the federal government. In 1902, only five federal grants existed, funding less than one percent of total state revenue. By 2018, however, that number had ballooned to 1,274 grants, comprising large portions of states’ overall revenue. According to the aforementioned NASBO report, 35.3 percent of total state spending in fiscal 2023 came directly from the federal government, and the states most reliant on federal funding that year were Louisiana at 50.3 percent, Oklahoma at 49.2 percent, and Montana at 48.9 percent.

Of course, any federal funding comes with strings attached — specifically, requirements to implement federal policies. For example, 45 states (all except Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Wyoming) participate in the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. In exchange for receiving funding, states must create two “Climate Action Plans” that will “incorporate a variety of measures to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions from across their economies in six key sectors (electricity generation, industry, transportation, buildings, agriculture/natural and working lands, and waste management)” — in other words, implement draconian environmental policies on behalf of the federal government. Federal threats of withholding funding also deter states from nullifying unconstitutional federal policies. The costs of accepting federal funding — namely big-government policies and the erosion of state sovereignty — far outweigh any perceived benefits.

If states simply eliminated all big-government programs and unnecessary spending, the taxes and revenue sources listed above would be entirely unnecessary. States should trim big government while also eliminating income, inheritance, and property taxes, and all dependence on federal funding.

Restoring State Government

This article covers only a limited number of the ways that states have departed from the principles of the Founding Fathers. For example, much could be written about the problems with ranked-choice voting, term limits, Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, or the benefits of sound-money legislation. However, restoring adherence to founding principles in the areas discussed in the article would go a long way toward restoring republican government at the state level.

How do we achieve this? First, it is essential to create an informed electorate, educating them about these largely forgotten principles and how we can reapply them. Second, we must take action to influence and pressure elected officials to adhere to foundational American principles. All this requires organization to be effective, and The John Birch Society has been leading this effort to protect our constitutional Republic. Also, because of the importance of having elected officials who defend constitutional and limited-government principles, The John Birch Society, through The New American, publishes the Freedom Index and Congressional and Legislative Scorecards, which reveal federal and state legislators’ fidelity — or lack thereof — to those principles. Through these efforts, we can restore state government according to the republican and limited-government principles of the Founding Fathers. Will you join us?