Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
Page Number: 46

Cite as:  588 U. S. ____ (2019) 

7 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

House seats—including the once-reliably-Republican Sixth
District. 

B 
Now  back  to  the  question  I  asked  before:  Is  that  how 
American  democracy  is  supposed  to  work?    I  have  yet  to
meet the person who thinks so. 

“Governments,” the Declaration of Independence states,
“deriv[e]  their  just  Powers  from  the  Consent  of  the  Gov-
erned.”  The  Constitution  begins:  “We  the  People  of  the
United  States.”  The  Gettysburg  Address  (almost)  ends: 
“[G]overnment of the people, by the people, for the people.” 
If  there  is  a  single  idea  that  made  our  Nation  (and  that 
our  Nation  commended  to  the  world),  it  is  this  one:  The
people are sovereign.  The “power,” James Madison wrote, 
“is  in  the  people  over  the  Government,  and  not  in  the 
Government  over  the  people.”  4  Annals  of  Cong.  934 
(1794).

Free  and  fair  and  periodic  elections  are  the  key  to  that 
vision.  The  people  get  to  choose  their  representatives.
And then they get to decide, at regular intervals, whether
to  keep  them.  Madison  again:  “[R]epublican  liberty”  de-
mands “not only, that all power should be derived from the
people; but that those entrusted with it should be kept in 
dependence on the people.”  2 The Federalist No. 37, p. 4
(J.  &  A.  McLean  eds.  1788).  Members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives, in particular, are supposed to “recollect[ ]
[that]  dependence”  every  day.    Id.,  No.  57,  at  155.  To 
retain an “intimate sympathy with the people,” they must 
be “compelled to anticipate the moment” when their “exer-
cise of [power] is to be reviewed.”  Id., Nos. 52, 57, at 124, 
155.  Election  day—next  year,  and  two  years  later,  and 
two  years  after  that—is  what  links  the  people  to  their
representatives,  and  gives  the  people  their  sovereign 
power. 
That  day  is  the  foundation  of  democratic 
governance.