Understanding Federalism and the Role of the US Government: A Comprehensive Guide - Prof. , Study notes of Political Science

Download Understanding Federalism and the Role of the US Government: A Comprehensive Guide - Prof. and more Study notes Political Science in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 4 Under articles of confederation there are two levels of govt national and state Federal issues national has sovereignty State issues state govt has sovereignty Delegating authority Unitary govt- on level of govt that has sov. National/central is sov. Britain, parliament. Central govt creates lower levels of govt, can take power away, my way or the highway, most common Confederal govt- national/state govt. states created national govt, sov rests with states, civil war (confederate states) least common Federal govt.- shared sov, created state and national created or didn’t create each other, neither can work independently, middle common National and state govt only have sov over me bc of dillon’s rule Any level of govt below state level has no sov bc the state govt has made it Federalism makes prostitution legal in one county of Nevada Federalism hurts and helps: voting and education are state level, discrimination 3 ways federalism helps and one major way it hurts on test Sharing toys, state and federal want to be more powerful To distinguish state or federal issue: us constitution first, then us supreme court Constitution: article 6 paragraph 2, supremacy clause says if there is a state and federal law that conflict with each other, the national law will be supreme, only if powers are legitamit Concurrent powers- both state and federal have Article 1 section 8… commerce clause: (trade) uscn fed govt regulates all interstate and international commerce. Under articles the states have to work it out. Intrastate is regulated by individual states. Ebay- same state pays sales tax, different states no sales tax. This test is going to be bullshiiitttt Exam 2 is an essay and also final exam is an essay 3 powers specifically listed in constitution: enumerated, implied, reserved Reserved: reserved for the states, 10th amendment, includes regulate drivers license, marriage, voting… Enumerated: national govt, 18 powers, first 17 are very specific: tax, declare war, coin money, create army and navy, create post offices. Very clear no questions about it. The 18th is the necessary and proper clause, implied powers clause or elastic clause: congress shall have all powers n and p to carry out any other powers it has. Maculley vs Maryland: supremecy clause, n&p clause, LOOK FOR ON EXAM!! May be an essay question 3 major eras of federalism: Dual federalism, cooperative fed, fiscal federalism Dual: 1789-1930, two clear levels of govt fed and state (layer cake federalism) Depression happens Coop: 1930-1950/60 Cold war happens Fiscal: 1950/60-present, huge change from coop, -change by increments, huge change for great depression and 9-11 Hoover: asked permission Fdr: no permission, asked for forgiveness lol When lines become blurred it goes from layer cake to marble cake! Devolution of power: step backwards, ppl want devolution of power, give states more power over the money they have. Grants in aid: Find difference between categorical (very restrictive in purpose) block grant (give for general topic states get to choose) govt likes categorical Civil rights battle Started with civil war, civil rights amendments 13, 14, and 15, Reconstruction occupation: keep troops there to make sure things went the way they were supposed to, white people who were in rebellion against the union lost ability to hold public office and vote Reconstruction ends in 1876-presidential election Republican:north democrats: north and south None of the candidates get a majority of the electoral college so house of reps gets to choose republican (Rutherford b hayes) asks south what he can do for them and they say pull out troops and end reconstruction. He does. And kkk and all these other things happened. Physical protection for African Americans was gone. Could still go vote and everything but might get lynched or house burnt down or beaten to death. Supreme court did 2 things that allowed discrim to continue State action doctrine 1896 separate but equal Plessey vs. ferguson CHAPTER 7 Public policy: applies to everybody, decisions any level of govt makes, public rules, made by bureaucrats and elected officials-we care only if it affects us Public opinion: aggregate of beliefs values and opinions of the American population, how certain people feel about a certain situation, accumulation of general pops feelings about certain issues. Trustee model: elect them and then trust them to do the best for us Delegate model: we elect them and want them to do what we want Neither one is the best- we want a mixture of the two Measure public opinion with polls 3 things we know about public opinion: uninformed, inconsistent, non-ideological. Uninformed: we don’t know everything Inconsistent: we are super fickle Non-ideological: when you make a decision you don’t make an ideology when making it Ideologies: two major are conservatives and liberals A well organized Set of beliefs values and opinions that we use consistently when making decisions ``protest, petition, lobbying, voting, run for office, get involved in a campaign, donate money, signs stickers hats shirts, Voting is most common…..running for office is least common Political efficacy: the level at which I think I can make an impact on the system CHAPTER 9 To get an office you have to win: Party nomination (primary) General election (actual people voting for you) SMSP electoral system: single member simple plurality: get more votes than anybody else Third parties are discouraged with SMSP SMSM: single member simple majority--- get a majority of the votes—more than 50% If there is no winner there is a Runoff election between top two candidates Straight ticket voting: voting one party no matter what—checking the top box on the ballot (party centered) Issue voting—electing based on who will solve problem better (issue/candidate centered) Prospective voting—who will be better in the future Retrospective voting—who did good in the past and will still do good Incumbent means person who is already in office More than 90% of incumbents get re-elected How congress is elected Congressional primaries are direct primaries Open primary—closed primary—modified open primary (semi closed) OPEN PRIMARY: Missouri doesn’t ask what party you belong to—can vote in any party you choose lets unaffills vote CLOSED PRIMARY: North Carolina—declare party—no unaffills voting MODIFIED OPEN PRIMARY: require you to register for party or register w no party. Unaffiliated gets to pick from both The difference between them is how they treat unaffiliated voters THURSDAY OCTOBER 27 Next election November 2012 Find out runners for president august 2012 at national convention select 4400 delegates to go to national convention—delegates are told who to vote for for candidate decide on 4400 delegates—they get distributed to the states, dc, and guam and Puerto rico you get a certain number depending on: population party loyalty each state finds out how many delegates they have and they tell the delegates who to vote for 2 different types of contests you can have to pick a candidate: direct primary or caucus Whoever shows up with the most delegates wins \democrats have popular vote like if Missouri has 27 democratic delegates and 55% of them are for obama but 45% of them are for Hillary then they all still go to the convention and 55% will vote for obama and 45%will vote for Hillary /republicans go with winner take all and whoever has the most votes per delegate per state, every delegate has to vote for the winner from that state CAUCUS: the night of the primary there will be two meetings (DEM and REP) and everyone who wants to help nominate the president will show up at the meeting for their respective party. They will argue and debate about which candidate they will support. This happens in each precinct and each precinct nominates delegates to go to county caucus. After precinct caucus they go to county caucus and then congressional and then state. THIS DEPENDS ON THE STATE!! JUST WANTED TO SHOW THAT THIS PROCESS IS CONGRESSIONAL. Break the country up into regions and send one whip to each region. Whips act as liaisons Constitutional leaders show up for special occasions while political leaders actually do all the work HOW SPEAKERS AND LEADERS ARE ELECTED:::::: nov. 2012 there will be a congressional election Between nov 2012 and jan. 2013 the parties get together and elect leaders through a caucus In about December there will be a serious of party caucuses 4 separate meetings: republic house and senate caucus////democratic house and senate caucus Select leaders::set agenda:::assigning committees------both parties are doing this simultaneously CAUCUSSES ARE PARTY BASED!!! November 8, 2011 Issue caucus: instead of a meeting about politics it is a meeting about a certain problem fore xample the Mississippi river and the congressional districts around it Committee system: Standing: permanent Select: temporary Conference Every committee has a chairperson Committee votes on who they want their leader to be Bills HAVE TO START IN THE HOUSE Steps to becoming a law or whatever::::::::::::::::::: House has a rules committee and the senate does not The house has limited debate senate has unlimited debate Pigeonholing………….subcommittee is where most of the work on the bill is done, known as mark up, also there are hearings in this stage, interest groups have a lot of influence at this point After it goes through the house it goes through the senate Enrolled bill is a bill that has been through both houses and is ready for presidential action To override presidential veto you must have 2/3rds of each house!!! BOTH OF THEM Pres can veto or sign or sit on his desk Pocket veto is when the prez doesn’t have all ten days to sign so if its due on the 15 th and the president gets it the13th, if he doesn’t sign it by then it will die THURSDAY NOVEMBER 10 When you attach an unrelated request to a different bill Called pork or ‘earmark’ They usually attach it to things they know the president will sign Pres has to sign the whole thing or let the whole thing die Line item veto ……pres can take out funding from the budget to things he doesn’t like…abortion example Doesn’t exist anymore because it is unconstitutional Makes the president ‘write’ legislation which is not allowed to happen APPROPRIATION: looks at all bills that are written and they distribute money….if your authorization isn’t funded then you exist but you can't function bc you aint got no muns AUTHORIZATION: most legislation is this…it has permission to exist When a law is passed we hand it off to the legislative branch for execution Starts at prez and he hands it to federal bureaucrats and they execute the laws Many of the same positions between us exec branch and state exec branch (attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer) president appoints these people but for state they have to be elected…if president doesn’t like someone on his exec branch he can get rid of them and buy a new one. governor is stuck with these people 3 basic groups of people that the prez uses to execute things (all bureaucrats)::: Cabinet: help implement laws, police, firemen, teachers, dea agents::: 15 cabinet members- appointed by pres and approved by senate Executive Office of the President: policy experts, technical review of the law….appointed by prez and approved by senate White House Staff: political advisors, going to be biased hired primarily bc of their position, chief of staff, council, national security advisor presidents ‘appoints’ them but really he hires who he wants. They don’t have to be approved by the senate PRESIDENT IS BOTH the chief executive and also head of state Head of state does ceremonial stuff like welcome foreign leaders to us TUESDAY NOVEMBER 15 Five authorities the president has: 1. Inform and persuade: from time to time the president will report to congress about the state of the union….broccoli example 2. Power of veto: ESSAY QUESTION …..pocket veto, line item, straight up veto 3. Appointment power: pres has power to pick certain people for certain positions….patronage/spoils system—replaced with civilservice/merit system—shown that that person can do that job, deserves it…….3000 political federal level jobs that still give out by the patronage system. Cabinet, white house staff, all federal judges (appointed for life), Senatorial courtesy 4. Power to recommend: encourage them to do something. Inaugurated and speeches 5. Inherent executive powers: naturally part of/passed down from someone else a. Executive order: used by pres to get bureaucrats to do what he wants. If they don’t do it they will go to jail. Congress can write a law, judges could make it unconstitutional, another pres can revoke it 6. Executive privilege: can keep things private like lawyer confidentiality ---some things have to be kept secret 7. Power to pardon: guilt is completely removed…complete and total forgiveness---different from a commutation (still have it on your record but sentence is reduced or limited) TUESDAY NOVEMBER 22 Federal court system: there are 51 sovereign court systems---each state court system and one federal 3 levels Trial courts Supreme court Appeal court 2 types of law: civil and criminal Political parties do this during the electorate: Recruit candidates, nominate candidates, contest elections, mobilize voters Political parties: form governments, coordinate policies across independent governmental units, provide accountability (when something goes wrong we want to blame someone and we blame the ppoltical parties) TUESDAY DECEMBER 6 Political parties started when Washington left office---very elitist people, very small amount of people— basically federalists and anti federalists 1820s political parties begin to change—andrew Jackson—first commoner to become president—elitists didn’t like that he got nominated bc Jackson wasn’t like them—national nominating convention----START to become mass participation organization 1860---Reconstruction/Civil war era----first election where we see a democrat running against a republican---first showing of both current parties---republican was Lincoln 1860-1910ish is when political parties became most powerful Started to call them party machines Controlled government jobs, nomination process and election process also they watched you vote. If you didn’t vote with your party you got fired. Controlled everyone’s lives!! Progressives attacked party machines: elections, nomination, and govt jobs Pendleton act, merit act…… Party machines no longer control govt jobs Introduced Australian ballot---private voting NEW DEAL ERA::: around great depression::: starting in about 1940ish we see a change in who is supporting the republican and democratic parties---african Americans gave the republicans their support, mostly due to Lincoln----democrats start getting behind civil rights movement—hillbillies in the south start to throw support to republicans bc they don’t like the African Americans ERA OF DIVIDED GOVT::: after years of voting either republican or democrat only, the voters began to split the vote and vote both parties into positions SMSP system: this is why there are two major parties---third parties merge with the two major ones 1992 3 men running for prez: bush, ross pereaux, and Clinton-----rp got 19% of the vote Successful third parties:::short lived, single issue parties;;;;narrowly focused;;;tee totaler party— opposed to the consumption of any type of alcohol—bull moose party created so that teddy Roosevelt could become president for the third time, teddy didn’t want to run again, party moved on. Most famous right now is Ralph naders party. Tries to cover all of the issues THURSDAY DECEMBER 8 LAST DAY OF CLASS YAAAAAY!!! Interest groups are not allowed to give money to candidates or campaigns or political movements Since they can't give money they create a PAC political action committee which can give muns Three types: Material: protecting the financial interest of its members:::MBA Missouri bar association Solidary: social reasons::: like joining a sorority to have something to do on Friday and Saturday nights Intrinsic: it’s the right thing to do::: ACLU group of lawyers that protect civil liberties Interest groups give info to the general public to help elected officials They effect public policy by giving information to::: The general public, elected officials, and their members 1. Government lobbying: (direct lobbying) when somebody from the interest group goes and talks directly to a govt official or provides info to the official….very effective but also very expensive:: pretty much big wigs and fancy groups with lots of money 2. Grassroots lobbying: starts at the bottom and works its way up::: avg everyday member contact the officials:: can be more effective, less expensive, harder to do but has become easier due to technology::: 3. Electioneering and PACs:: Free rider:: understand what it is and it will be on the final