Not many people know that there’s a clause in the Constitution that charges Congress with guaranteeing every state a “republican form of government.” Even fewer people are aware of exactly what that means.
Historically, the Guarantee Clause is considered to have been a measure the Framers included to ensure that the governments of the states—which used to have far greater autonomy—didn’t devolve into monarchies or other despotic forms. But the clause’s legal effect has never been fully fleshed out. Not that there haven’t been opportunities; claims based on the Guarantee Clause are peppered throughout U.S. history. Courts have typically disposed of them by invoking the political question doctrine, which they use to avoid deciding an issue they believe is more appropriately left to the elected branches. Since there’s no legally binding definition of “republican,” a court applying the Guarantee Clause has little to work with, also contributing to the tendency to treat such cases as non-justiciable.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/theres-room-direct-democracy-republic
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