[hanging]

  executive orders can decide what the law means

You should tell the SCOTUS that. They overturned 55% of Obama executive directives that reached them, and his administration had the most overturned unanimously (yes, even Ginsberg and Sotomayor) of any Presidency.

>>Also, the U.S. Constitution's requirement that State governments be (small-r) republican

  There is no such requirement

Dude. This is literally in Article IV:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, ..."

[aw1621107]

> Dude. This is literally in Article IV:

> "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, ..."

Perhaps it’s my imperfect understanding of English here, but to me this reads more like a guarantee to the states that the federal government itself will take the form of a republican government, not that the states themselves must be republics.

It’s like a shopkeeper saying “My store shall guarantee to every shopper prices that are no higher than that of a competitor’s.” The guarantee is on the shopkeeper’s part; no obligation is required of the shoppers themselves.

[cryptonector]

The Constitution clearly sets up a Republican Form of Government for the Federal Government. Clearly, the Republican Guarantee clause's only meaning would be to limit future Amendments' scope if it were only to apply to the Federal Government. But look at more of the Article:

| The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; ...

That makes it pretty clear that this is about the States.

The Republican Guarantee is a commitment of the Federal Government to the States about the States. It means that the Federal Government will tolerate no State monarchies.

[aw1621107]

Perhaps I just don't understand something, but I'm still not seeing anything that would imply any restrictions on the type of government a state chooses to implement. To me, the additional clause you showed just says that the federal government shall protect the states against invasions.

> The Republican Guarantee is a commitment of the Federal Government to the States about the States.

I'm not quite sure where the "about the states" part came from. To me, Article IV just reads like a set of promises the federal government must make to the states.

[cryptonector]

> To me, the additional clause you showed just says that the federal government shall protect the states against invasions.

What?! How do you see that? The ", and" below is a conjunction, it's joining one commitment and another into a list of commitments made to the States:

| The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; ...

That clearly does not predicate one commitment upon the other. It's just a list of commitments.

[aw1621107]

> What?! How do you see that?

The key word in my comment is "additional", which was intended to indicate that I was replying to "and shall protect each of them against Invasion".

I have to admit it's also partially my fault since I didn't notice at the time that you are not the same person who made the original comment I replied to, so I left out some context.

Otherwise I agree that it is just a list of commitments.