By Lee H. Hamilton
It’s a fundamental premise of American democracy that our elected representatives will do what we expect them to do. That doesn’t mean we can dictate every action they take. Overall, however, their job is to represent their constituents, not anyone else.
But here’s the catch. Politicians can only do what we want if they know what that is. Representative government is only effective when we take seriously the duty of citizenship. That means we need to inform ourselves, articulate our views, and make clear what we value.
I’ve always been impressed that many Americans want to do this. We volunteer in our communities, vote in elections and contribute to charities. Many of us attend government meetings, write letters to our representatives and respectfully share our views with friends and strangers. This engagement is at the heart of our democracy. It’s what has made America a great nation and made our system of government a model for the world.
One of the great pleasures of my tenure in Congress was seeing how ordinary people could make a difference in their small towns and rural communities. In my southeastern Indiana district, residents often put a great deal of effort into improving infrastructure. Farmers took the lead in safeguarding the local watershed. Nurses, doctors and patients collaborated to strengthen health care. These efforts were usually nonpartisan and were led by people who knew the community. They didn’t always succeed, but often they energized supporters and produced positive results.
They were a good example of public virtue, the idea that we have a duty to put the common good ahead of their own self-interest. America’s founders wrote often about public virtue and believed it was essential for citizens, not just for our leaders. Practicing citizenship can take work, however, and it’s getting harder. Most people, understandably, are focused on earning a living and caring for their families. They may not have time for much else.
Even being an informed voter, a cornerstone of citizenship, has become challenging in this era of partisan news, pervasive social media and online
rumors. Paradoxically, as news and opinion sources proliferate, it can be harder to find information that’s reliable. It’s gotten so bad that the fact-checking organization Politifact dropped its tradition of identifying a “lie of the year” and declared 2025 to be “the year of the lie”. Being a citizen also means understanding how government operates, and it’s concerning that many Americans seem uninformed about such basics as the three branches of government and the workings of Congress.
As I suggested, the duty of citizenship includes making our views known. If our representatives don’t hear from us, they are unlikely to do what we want. It may seem that politicians only listen to party insiders and lobbyists, or that they only hear those with the loudest voices or the most money. I can assure you that’s not the case.
You can see this in a recent example from Indiana. State lawmakers came under intense pressure from President Donald Trump to redraw congressional districts to give his party an advantage in the 2026 elections. The legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, but it rejected the idea. State legislators listened to the voters, who didn’t want mid-decade redistricting.
Those legislators and the constituents who contacted them were demonstrating public virtue, as were the local leaders whose efforts I described earlier in this column. They put mutual interest ahead of partisanship, just as the founders hoped that future Americans would do.
Engaging in civic life may seem like a burden, but it’s our duty as citizens. Active citizenship is essential for our system of government to work. Without it, there is no way we will find the public-spirited leaders that we need.
More commentaries from Rep. Hamilton are available on the Hamilton on Foreign Policy news page.