About a month ago, we featured a Washington Post opinion piece by contributing columnist Danielle Allen of Massachusetts on the need to grow the House of Representatives, part of her continuing series on 'renovating our democracy.'
This month, Danielle writes from Sussex, England, where she has been exploring archives there in search of two men, Thomas Paine, and his early patron, Charles Lennox, the first British peer to advocate, in the early 1780's, for universal suffrage for all men, regardless of property. Among her finds were minutes of an 18th century meeting which recorded these words by Lennox: "Restoration of a genuine House of Commons, by a renovation of the Rights of the People, is the only essential remedy against that system of corruption which has brought the nation to disgrace and poverty and threatens it with the loss of Liberty."
"Turns out,' says Allen, "I’m not the first to think that renovation is the name of the game for what it will take to restore sanity to our politics!"
To read the latest op-ed in this series, use the link below for free access to the story.
- Washington Post--August 23, 2023
Opinion| Is fixing democracy partisan? Here are answers to this and more questions.
https://wapo.st/45BW1Po (gift article link)
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