Collective acts gain legitimacy only by persuasive presentation to citizens as democratic choices.

Evidence

In the liberal tradition, for instance, we often regard such institutions as bearing a burden of justifi cation to their citizens, to account for the reasons behind public policy choices in a manner that respects the plurality of values held by individuals. On this account, “We the people” never functions merely as a passthrough vehicle for individually inscribed values or interests, since any collective act must be persuasively presented to the citizenry in order to attract legitimacy as a repre sen ta tion of democratic choice. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 155

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source