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Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist No. 9) recognized “the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election” as one of the distinctively modern innovations of government that set the United States up for success. In this short course, we will begin with some big picture questions about the origins and logic of representative democracy, including the question of what duties elected officials owe to their constituents. We will then consider whether contemporary American political institutions live up to our ideals. Do anti-majoritarian practices such as the filibuster and judicial review represent unacceptable deviations from democracy? Why do so many Americans find our government so offensively unrepresentative? Philip Wallach is one of the country’s leading thinkers about Congress and its place in America’s constitutional system. The Wall Street Journal named his 2023 book, Why Congress, one of the year’s best on politics. He has been writing about what leads people to accept policies as legitimate since his first book, To the Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (2015). He is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and previously worked at the Brookings Institution and as a Fellow for the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.