“The troika of countervailing centers of political power (legislative, executive and judiciary) developed by Montesquieu and adopted by our constitutional Framers was made vulnerable to abuse with the rise of party politics.   Political parties, initiated by Jefferson and Hamilton in Washington’s first administration, are anathema to honest government. It is now obvious that  when one party controls all three departments of government, the partisan abuse becomes extreme and destructive of representative government, which we flatter ourselves to call a democracy. This gordian knot can only be severed by direct democracy: a political/electoral process whereby citizens are empowered to deliberately exercise the central power of government — lawmaking.”