By Mary Ellen Klas / Bloomberg Opinion
No politician will ever admit they have zero interest in hearing what their constituents have to say. But from Washington, D.C., to Wichita, Kan., elected officials are cancelling meetings with constituents and systematically undermining citizen-led ballot initiatives; the one tool the public has to make change when elected officials won’t listen.
It is profoundly hypocritical; and dangerously shortsighted. In these bitterly polarized times, legislators should be finding ways to listen more to an angry public, not less.
The will of the people “is the only legitimate foundation of any government,” Thomas Jefferson explained to the citizens of South Carolina in 1801, and “to protect its free expression should be our first object.”
But today many elected officials seem eager slink away from their own constituents.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., ended his rural town hall meeting early last month when irate residents packed the room. U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., didn’t want the bother, so he canceled his scheduled town hall; people showed up anyway. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., the head of the Republican congressional fundraising committee, suggested that all members stop holding in-person public meetings to avoid public ire.
Not every Republican shares this disdain for voters. On Thursday, Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., got an earful from constituents in Asheville and stayed to hear them out. He deserves credit.
But he’s an outlier. Too many politicians have forgotten that, once elected, the official’s job is to listen to constituents and reflect their views when making decisions. They also seem to have forgotten that they represent all constituents; not just those they agree with.
The disdain for voters’ wishes goes beyond a few canceled town halls. It’s also playing out at the state level where several states have either passed or are advancing legislation to weaken citizen-led ballot initiatives. Florida legislators are fast-tracking a bill that would impose steep new barriers to getting a constitutional amendment on the ballot, including making it a felony to help a friend or neighbor sign a petition. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently signed into law new hurdles for signature-gatherers looking to get measures on the ballot. And Missouri legislators not only want to raise the signature requirements for putting an amendment in front of voters, they want to allow votes from small districts to carry more weight than votes from more populous districts.
In November, voters in several states used the power of citizen-led initiatives to enact statutes that contradicted the policies of their Republican legislatures. Kentucky voters rejected universal school vouchers touted by GOP leaders. Nebraska voters repealed legislation to create a scholarship program to use public money to send some students to private schools. Voters in Missouri, Montana and Arizona rejected strict abortion bans and approved constitutional amendments expanding abortion rights.
Lawmakers argue they’re just updating the process to avoid fraud, but what they really want is control.
It’s part of a disturbing pattern of legislative bad faith. One of the most outrageous examples occurred in South Dakota after voters passed an anti-corruption law in 2017 that constrained lawmakers’ ability to profit off their power. GOP lawmakers said voters didn’t know what they were doing and repealed the law. In Florida, after voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment allowing felons to vote, legislators gutted it. And when Missouri voters added Medicaid expansion to the state’s constitution in 2020, the state legislature refused to fund the program until a court intervened.
None of that behavior respects the “will of the people.”
Scholars have noted that both Democrats and Republicans have been guilty of this democratic backsliding in the past but, in the 21st century, the erosion is attributable primarily to Republican-controlled legislatures, most often in heavily-gerrymandered states. Somehow these lawmakers have decided that the voters who put them in power can’t be trusted and shouldn’t be heard. By operating with this kind of disdain for the public, it’s no wonder trust in government has eroded.
Republicans are missing a massive opportunity here. By creating these barriers to opposition and silencing those who share a desire for a working democracy, they intensify partisan conflict. A better approach is to simply allow people to participate in democratic decision-making.
After the last seven weeks of confidence-destroying edicts and systemic damage, it’s going to be a long road to restoring the legitimacy of the political system, but the first step, listening to people, is an easy one.
Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades. ©2025 Bloomberg L.P., bloomberg.com/opinion.
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