About The Renovator
by The Renovator Editorial Board
About The Renovator
American democracy is at a crossroads. Our institutions aren’t solving the problems we face— and haven’t for a long time. Captured by polarized politics and insulated elites, they’ve lost the trust of the people and the ability to deliver real results. While some have chosen despair or disengagement, we choose renovation.
The Renovator is a voice for those ready to build, not tear down. The Renovator lives in the Democracy Renovation Galaxy— a network of writers, thinkers and tinkerers; teachers, civic leaders, and technologists who believe democracy can be renewed through storytelling, informed debate, shared truth, inclusive dialogue, pragmatic reform, pro-social technologies, and fun. We don't exist to rage against decline. We exist to make room for possibility.
We are neither a traditional media outlet nor partisan megaphone. We are a new kind of civic forum: one that platforms diverse voices working toward a pluralistic, constitutional democracy. Our contributors may not agree on every policy or principle, but we are united by a belief in government of the people that is also by the people and for the people— we refuse to abandon it. Here we share ways to make freedom real.
What you'll find here:
● Strategy ideas for how we can slip the trap of dysfunctional democracy and get our institutions working for all of us again
● Dispatches from state and local democracy renovators from every part of the country
● Spotlights on tipping point states that are renovating democracy in effective and exciting ways, and how they can help bring us a healthy democracy nationally
● Updates on how new technologies are being put to work to support citizen voice, improve public official decision-making, and make implementation and enforcement of policies efficient, AND also accountable and transparent
● Weekly commentary on the democracy renovation movement— its possibilities, realities, and challenges— from public leaders, civic organizers, scholars, and technologists
● Frequent commentary on power-sharing liberalism, an approach to the economy that shoots for inclusive prosperity by rebalancing power in the economy
● Short articles and long-form essays exploring and expanding our ideals of liberty, equality, democracy, confident pluralism, reflective patriotism, and civic strength— cultivating the culture, philosophy, and romance of democracy required for the realization of these ideals in messy, pragmatic practice
● Accessible explainers that answer real questions from real people
● Civic education resources
● Interviews and analysis on the future of constitutional democracy as it relates to AI/technology, higher education, constitutional redesign, civic reform, and power-sharing liberalism
● Roundups that highlight both emergent threats to healthy democracy and democratic renovations happening across the country
Our tone varies: sometimes conversational, sometimes rigorous, and always committed to clarity, accessibility, and truth. You'll find FAQs, deep dives, weekly recaps, and roundtable debates— plus audio, video, and chat spaces that bring our community together.
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Danielle Allen's thoughts and words already helped transform thinking about our society and system of government. Even the title of her book, "Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality" was profoundly transformative. She was right about a crucial insight. It is time to stop thinking of "the Declaration" and see it and use it as "our Declaration." It is time to stop seeing the Declaration as an ancient historical document (suitable for framing and hanging on a wall) and see it and use it as "our Declaration," powerful evidence of the power of the people over tyrants and oppressors (suitable for everyday use by all "the People" today).
So far, the best writing I've seen linking our Declaration and our Constitution (writing about our right of renovation) was by James Madison. I must agree with the many who thought Madison earned the titles Father of the Constitution and Father of the Bill of Rights. He was not entirely responsible for their creation, but he was crucial in creating and raising them. When Madison presented to the First Congress on June 8, 1789, his proposals on how to improve on our original Constitution, he highlighted crucial truths about how our Constitution was designed to diminish the power of public servants to abuse the sovereign people and about how the people had the power to correct our public servants and their public service.
Madison expressed explicitly the most important principle implicit in our Constitution--the sovereignty of the people. Such sovereignty already was implicit in the words and structure of the Constitution, including its first words ("We the People" do "ordain and establish this Constitution" to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves") and the first sentence of Articles I, II and III (emphasizing that the People, alone, "vested" power (and only limited power) in particular public servants).
Even so, to further clarify and cement the sovereignty of the people (and to better safeguard against abuses of power by any of our public servants), Madison recommended a renovation: "First. That there be prefixed to the constitution a declaration" of three aspects of the sovereignty of the people and the limitations of power of all public servants. Madison implicitly invoked paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence and he expressly revealed how our Declaration's principles permeate our Constitution:
"That all power is originally vested in and consequently derived from the people.
That government is instituted, and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution."
Subsequently, in the national controversy over the Sedition Act of 1798, Madison prepared The Report of 1800 (to oppose the violations of our Constitution by a conspiracy of the President, the Secretary of State, the majority of Congress, and judges, including SCOTUS Justice Samuel Chase). Those officials made and purported to enforce the Sedition Act of 1798 to punish criticism of federal government employees. Madison responded by emphasizing the sovereignty of the people over all public servants.
We must consider the rights and powers of the sovereign people and the powers of public servants "with a reverence for our constitution, in the true character in which it issued from the sovereign authority of the people." "The essential difference between the British government, and the American constitutions, will place this subject in the clearest light." In Britain, Parliament was (and is) sovereign and the people were (and are) mere subjects.
"In the United States, the case is altogether different. The people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty. The legislature, no less than the executive, is under limitations of power. Encroachments are regarded as possible from the one, as well as from the other. Hence in the United States, the great and essential rights of the people are secured against legislative, as well as against executive ambition. They are secured, not [only] by laws paramount to prerogative; but by constitutions paramount to laws."
"It will be remembered that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy to which republics are liable . . . . The authority of constitutions over governments, and of the sovereignty of the people over constitutions, are truths which are at all times necessary to be kept in mind; and at no time perhaps more necessary than at the present."