Does the Constitution require states to have legislatures?

Question

I've always wondered what would happen if a state decided it was done with representative democracy and decided to go to go to direct democracy or some form of dictatorship by re-writing their state constitution. Is there something in the Constitution that would prohibit this? The Constitution makes several mentions of state legislatures but never explicitly says that a state legislature must consist of elected representatives. Does this imply that a state: A)Must have a legislature of some sort; and B) That the "legislature" cannot consist of a single person OR the entire population of the state?

Answer 1

In Luther v. Borden, decided in 1849, the Supreme Court ruled that this was a political question and therefore non-justiciable. This remains good law today. That case was about Section IV, Article 4, ‘the guarantee clause.’

However, under the equal protection of the 14th amendment, it has been ruled that functions such as the apportionment of districts is a justiciable question, see Baker v. Carr.

So, while we can say that the Constitution’s guarantee clause requires there to be a form of republican government, and thus your (A) and (B) would apparently be true, there is no definitive answer to whether or not you could bring any sort of claim before a federal court on the issue as it seems to be a political question.