I understand all this. I'm specifically refuting the "truly" qualifier. Nominally, and in various day to day issues, they may be given some degree of say yes. I would argue this is only in so far as they are delegated or granted this by actual power.
And I did not mean to imply that power can only ever reside in one unitary leader. It is almost certainly always distributed to one degree or another, even in absolute monarchy. But, crisis times reveal where majority of the de facto rather than de jure power resides in reality, despite our assumptions, and I don't think it is ever in the hands of the collective masses more than some minority groups/institutions.
I'm not a believer in populism, think rather the Italian school/elite theorists[0] were right who describe how power is most often wielded by a minority, whether individual or oligarchic group(s) mostly because it is much easier to organize on the small group level, and the public is always more disorganized and less aware about inner workings of the system which over time enables factions to consolidate power away from the disorganized broad masses. The demos can here and there express their will for a time, for example by supporting some elite leader or faction/party, but ruling/governing over the long term is nearly impossible for the masses to direct political outcomes. Once set up the insiders have an asymmetry they can leverage in all sorts of ways.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
Good book giving broad overview of some of these political ideas and thinkers including Mosca,Pareto,Michels,Schmitt,Jouvenel, Burnham,Francis, Gottfried:
https://www.imperiumpress.org/shop/populist-delusion/
The people are given a say on all sorts of things until circumstances arise where the people and laws are against the interests of real power, and then these nominal structures are simply ignored.
>perhaps more than any other place
I'll grant that this relative comparison may be true. It's only a matter of time until entropy degrades this special situation and bureaucratic and institutional inertia consolidate power into the hands of insider elites like every other instance.
>Any alterations to the law
They are breaking the law right now, the people's will and the law are irrelevant here in terms of actually preventing this action.
Machiavelli would say the people do have to be placated and their interests served to a large degree else you will end up with civil war, so they aren't "powerless", and they need to grant legitimacy of the system that rules over them (for things to work well), but they are not in charge.