I ran for political office to try to make a difference. I love being a state senator and I love the institution of the Senate. I care about our state and want to make it better. But the Rhode Island General Assembly is broken and needs to be fixed.

Somewhere along the way, members foolishly began enacting rules that result in their own impotence, giving almost absolute power to the “leadership” of both chambers. It is said that absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Leadership’s unfettered power is antithetical to democracy and dangerous for Rhode Island.

Four to six people run the General Assembly, holding virtually all the power. Essentially, we have an oligarchy — rule by the few — not a democracy where members actually vote their conscience. This should concern all Rhode Islanders. I am haunted by a quotation from the late Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis: “You can have democracy, or you can have power vested in a few. You cannot have both.”

Democracy thrives on discussion and debate; it requires voting. Leadership should foster collaboration and full participation, not fear.

Instead, sadly, the General Assembly has a culture of insiders and outsiders, with “leaders” who are good people, but who inherited a bad, outdated play book of rewards and punishment.

Our most pressing problem is the way we elect “leadership.” We do so via a roll call vote, as opposed to the way we elect all others. When voters go to the polls, no one asks them to vote out loud. Why would anyone ever do that? Instead, you vote your conscience via a secret ballot.

Not so in the General Assembly. When voting in caucus for our leaders, your name is called and you respond out loud. This might not be bad, were it not for the swift and certain (sad and unfair) system of rewards and punishment.

The General Assembly has a culture of political hegemony, dominance of one group over another. Democrats dominate Republicans and the insiders dominate the outsiders. Although our inheritance, it doesn’t have to be our legacy. Right thinking members and good leaders can and must change this system.

The next problem is the concentration of power at the top. When you’re an outsider, top-down “leadership” feels more like dictatorship than leadership, and it’s antithetical to democracy.

Men and women go off to war to defend American democracy. Some of what we do makes a mockery of the very democracy soldiers risk their lives to defend. Examples of top-down leadership include control over who becomes a committee chair, who stays a chair, committee assignments, who sponsors bills, what gets a hearing, what gets a vote, what they fight for in the other chamber (meaning what actually becomes law), legislative grants and countless other “perks.”

The real choice is not only between Democrats and Republicans; it is also between leaders and followers.

We need members who will stand against the status quo; who will oppose the old “that’s the way we do things in Rhode Island.” We need members who will vote to bring back democracy. Will they support a secret ballot? Will they work against the centralization of power at the top? Will they demand to vote, or will they hide behind “holding everything for further study,” so the “oligarchy” can decide in the last days what will pass and what will die?

Witness the Pawtucket Red Sox. One man, the speaker of the House, Nicholas Mattiello, refused to even allow a vote on the Senate bill. Instead, he unwisely eviscerated it in the last days. The rest is history and, sadly, so are the PawSox. One man should not, in the final inning, have that power to do that.

Those who have been elected should speak truth to power. The future of Rhode Island depends on it.

Donna M. Nesselbush, of Pawtucket, is a Democratic state senator.