Linkage Institutions Essay #6

A linkage institution is a structure within a society that connects the people to the government or centralized authority. These institutions include: elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media.

The younger the person is, the less likely they are to be involved in politics and to vote. In addition, if a person has gone through at least high school, and or college, they are more likely to vote in elections than someone who has a lesser form of education. 

One government electoral requirement is that you have to register with a political party before you vote for a presidential candidate. It's hard to get people to vote, especially if they have to immediately identify which party they would like to be associated with before the vote which is the main reason so many people choose to be Independents for the sole fact that you don't have to to choose one side or the other. 

Citizens are most connected to the government through media. The media gives them a quick insight to candidates and issues that they may choose to vote on. Though media can be helpful, it may also hinder. Media can be very biased and one-sided but it still has to give you the facts. It is the fastest and easiest way for the government to advertise candidates and issues and to also see how the people respond to certain issues. 

Interest Groups Essay #5

The term interest group refers to virtually any voluntary association that seeks to publicly promote and create advantages for its cause. Litigation, Campaign contributions, and Grassroots Lobbying / mass mobilization all contribute to enforcing the point behind interest groups. Litigation is the process of resolving legal disputes through the court system. It includes civil lawsuits and criminal actions. Interest groups can provide support for causes they wish to promote, such as by providing free legal assistance to individuals or groups whose causes they support. Interest groups use campaign contributions as a form of bribery - the interest groups will give money for the candidate's campaign and in return, the candidate will usually vote in favor of the interest groupd when voting on legislation. Grassroots lobbying/mass mobilization is when a group gets a lot of its followers together in an effort to raise awareness through media coverage.  This technique is utilized because it is inexpensive for interest groups and highly successful.

The interest group NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) uses mostly litigation because most of the progressive work they do involves court cases. For example, the Brown vs. Board of Education was a case that was brought all the way to the Supreme Court to raise awareness of segregation in public schools. The NAACP demonstrates the most successful way to stop civil rights injustices.

Senator Wyden

Biographical Outline:

Ronald Lee Wyden was born in Wichita, Kansas on January 3, 1981. His parents were both Jewish and fled Nazi Germany and Wyden is still practiced Judaism. He grew up in Palo Alto, California and after graduating high school, he attended UCSB, then transferred to Stanford, then completed his doctorate degree from the University of Oregon School of Law. In 1980, Wyden ran for the US House of Reps and was elected, and has continued to be reelected seven times from this district, never dropping below 70% of the vote. In January 1996, Wyden defeated Oregon State Senate President Gordon Smith in a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Bob Packwood. He has and is currently still holding that Senate seat, and gets reelected every year.

Committees:

+Committee on the Budget
+Committee on Finance
     -Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure
     -Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight
     -Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness
+Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
+Select Committee on Intelligence
+Special Committee on Aging
+Joint Committee on Taxation

Background/Discussion:

     Education

Senator Wyden authored the Student Right to Know Before You Go Act which provides all potential college students with reliable information on what they can expect to find in the workplace. It allows the students to choose their path of schooling and careers based on their financial abilities and the financial return they will receive later in life.

     Foreign Policy

Senator Wyden was one of the 23 Senators to vote against going to war with Iraq. He has since worked to bring the troops home and provide them with quality veteran services when they return. He also is an advocate for human rights around the world and his latest accomplishment was getting the US State Department to cease selling arms to the Kingdom of Bahrain until their human rights abuses end. 

Questions for the Senator:

1) Is there one issue or topic that you are most passionate about and why?

2) How has going to law school to get a J.D. helped you in the political world?

3) When elected to the U.S. Senate, you pledged to hold at least one public town meeting in each of Oregon's 36 counties each year. You have kept that promise since 1996. How has connecting to the people helped you get reelected each year?

Philippines Disaster Relief Project

     Since it has been plaguing the news, most people are aware of the current situation in the Philippines. After a tragically big typhoon hit the country, there is no now clean drinking water, no shelter, and no medical help whatsoever. To combat the terrible things happening in the Philippines, most people have turned to donating whatever money they have to a charity that will use the proceeds to assist the country in need. However, there are new studies that show charities nowadays are taking the donated money and using, for example, 70 cents out of one dollar to foot the overhead costs of the charity. Although some people believe that this is not a big deal, others believe that it would be more profitable to send money straight to the effected area.

In my opinion, donating money to The Red Cross would be the best option because that charity has been around for so long and is very trustworthy and reliable. They use 91 cents from every dollar donated go straight to help the cause. Although The Red Cross uses money donated for overhead costs, the overhead costs are are used for necessary things such as: transportation, shipping, employee salaries, etc. So even though most of your money is going to assist The Red Cross, you are also helping the people in the Philippines. The American Red Cross is a great charity to help with the Philippines because not only can they help with food, water, and shelter, but they can also help medically because they are the number one place for blood donations.

Another widely acclaimed charity is UNICEF. With over 5 million children effected by the typhoon, their main focus is to assist and protect them. These children desperately need shelter, clean water, medicine and nutrition. Although 60 metric tons of emergency supplies just arrived in the Philippines, it isn't enough. UNICEF's resources in the Philippines are exhausted. Coming straight from the UNICEF website: "The U.S. Fund for UNICEF spends 90.4 cents of every dollar we receive on programs that help children. Only 6.7 cents goes to fundraising, and 2.9 cents to administration." They are very experienced in giving the most help to children and how to keep them safe which I think is a number one priority after any disaster.

To get clean water to the Philippines is a hard task because it is such a long way to transport water that by the time it got there, it would have to be tested again. The smartest, and cheapest way to get clean water straight to the people is to bring water from immediate areas and filter it on the spot. There are many inventions to do this task such as: drops to put in the water to clean it, pumps to filter the water, or even straws that filter the water as you drink it. Obviously the best thing to do would be to find the cheapest invention, ship massive amounts of it to the Philippines, and have volunteers help filter and clean the water before handing it out. This way there are low costs which leaves more money to be spent on medical supplies, food, and shelter for the survivors of the typhoon.

There is no simple way to bring peace and health to the Philippines but we are trying our best. Through charitable donations and volunteers, we can start to rebuild the Philippines through clean water, food, and shelter. It won't happen overnight but with hard work, we can get it back to the way it used to be before this horrible disaster. 

James McCord - Watergate Scandal

  
                   Watergate building    

  
                      James McCord

     Probably one of the most famous events of the 1970s, Watergate will forever go down in history books. It was 1972 when Richard Nixon started the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP.) He enlisted the help of aides, Attorney Generals, and former CIA agents to get him back in the White House for a second term. Little did the public know, he was doing it by wire-tapping and breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Shortly after midnight on June 17, 1972, Frank Wills, a security guard at the Watergate Complex, noticed tape covering the latches on doors in the complex (allowing the doors to close but remain unlocked). He removed the tape, and thought nothing of it. He returned an hour later, and having discovered that someone had retaped the locks, Wills called the police. Five men were discovered and arrested inside the DNC's office. The five men were Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis, who were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them for conspiracy, burglary, and violation of federal wiretapping laws. The five burglars who broke into the office were tried by Judge John Sirica and convicted on January 30, 1973.

     James McCord was born in Waurika, Oklahoma in 1924 and after graduating college, went into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA.) During his long career in the CIA, McCord was head of security for the Committee for the Re-election of the President; who was Richard Nixon at the time. In a later letter, written to the U.S. District Judge John Sirica, who convicted him, McCord stated that his plea and testimony, some of which he claimed was perjured, were compelled by pressure from White House counsel John Dean and former Attorney General John Mitchell. The letter implicated senior individuals in the Richard Nixon administration of covering up the conspiracy that led to the burglary.

     Since the evidence against Nixon was rock-solid, both the House of Representatives were on the road to impeach him and there was a possibility of conviction from the Senate. This lead Richard Nixon to resign his presidency on August 9, 1974 to try and put an end to the Watergate scandal. Nixon is the only president to this day to resign and though he thought resigning would put the scandal behind him, he was very wrong as it is still discussed and studied today. 

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/james.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmccordJ.htm

The Power of the States/Federal Government (Essay #5)

Both block grants and the Tenth Amendment have increased the power of the states relative to the federal government. Block grants increase the states power relative to the federal government because the aids to local and state government are given directly from the federal government. The Tenth Amendment increases the power of the states relative to the federal government because it states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." That means that most of the power is reserved mostly for the states and not to the federal government.

Federalism Essay #4

Federalism is the federal principle or system of government. Both categorical grants and federal mandates have increased the power of the federal government relative to the states. Categorical grants increase the states' power because they are the main source of federal aid to state and local governments. Federal mandates increase the states' power because they require that states and local governments comply with federal rules under threat of penalties or as a condition of receipt of a federal grant.

Ways the Constitution Can Be Amended Essay #3

There are two formal ways the Constitution can be amended. First, it can go through the supreme court, which has the power to amend the constitution when a case is brought before them that requires it. And the second way, Congress can amend the constitution with a vote of two thirds in each house. There are many ways to informally change the Constitution since the founders left many elements of our government open to interpretation. One method is via the elastic clause. This clause gives Congress the ability to pass any law deemed "necessary and proper" for carrying out it's expressed powers. For example, nowhere in the Constitution did it specify that the federal government had the power to establish a national bank but it did anyway. When this action was challenged by the federal courts in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, the U.S. Supreme Court had to determine if this action by Congress was legal under the Constitution. The government argued that since it had the powers to tax, borrow, coin money, and spend it is implied that they have the right to establish a national bank since this would make their job related to these areas much easier. The Court agreed and the Constitution was informally changed. Another informal method of changing the Constitution is through the development of political custom or tradition. For example, nowhere in the Constitution does it mention anything about a President having a cabinet to assist him in making decisions. This was developed over the years by president's themselves as the need for assistance and advice arose. This form of meeting has become a regular fixture for presidents present and future. Informal methods are used more often than the formal amendment process because it is much easier to amend the Constitution.

Forms of Political Participation Essay #2

Two forms of participation in the political process other than voting are: signing a petition and protesting. The advantage of signing a petition is that it is possible to get something changed or make something happen with only the support of average citizens. It gives voters more power. The advantage of protest is that is is very possible that the protest could capture the media's attention and give air time to the cause you are protesting. Protests can be very useful for advertising beliefs through picketing or marches, usually a very peaceful form of political process. We are still working towards a more democratic government, and in my opinion, we are doing a good job. However, there is still a lot more work to be done and more progress to be made.

Voter Age/Participation Statistics

                                              

The percentages of correct answers out of 5

 

Team Hadlie, Hannah, Megan and Meg Period 1

How the Constitution Limits Certain Provisions Essay #1

The government has long struggled to move to a more democratic society and though the Constitution tried, we now have to find other ways to revise our Constitution to become more democratic. Through branches of government, and political processes, we are now finding ways to become more closely tied to our government and participate more in politics.

The Senate, located in the Legislative Branch of the government, is originally the most tied to citizens because the Senate seats, before the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, were appointed by popular vote of the people. Therefore, it is closely tied to citizens. When the Constitution was first created, it limited majority rule by only placing one element of government, the House of Representatives, within direct control of the votes of the majority and also because judges were given lifetime tenure while senators were only given terms of six years. Through primary elections and the Seventeenth Amendment, our government has become more democratic. Primary elections helped because some of the power lies in the hands of the people because they our able to vote, which moves the power away from a government with officials only elected by the President. The Seventeenth Amendment helped because it provided for the direct election of senators. This uses more democracy because there is no Electoral College vote for electing officials

Significance of Fundraising in Campaigns

*Describe the significance of money in a modern presidential election campaign.  How does the government regulate the fund-raising and expenditures of presidential campaigns?  Is the government regulation adequate? Explain.

In a modern presidential election campaign, people who are most likely to run and most likely to win, are the candidates that have or can raise the most money. Politics is a money game, it's about finding investors with deep pockets that have a concrete stance on an issue that you have the same stance on. And towards the end of a presidential race, there are usually only two candidates left because the other candidates run out of money.
By putting caps on donations and the amount of money that candidates can spend, the government regulates campaign spending. If an ad campaign contains advocacy for the candidate, it is considered an independent expenditure under the Federal Election Campaign Act, and there are no limits on the amounts that may be spent on them. But if a media campaign does not contain advocacy for a candidate, but rather discusses their actions, voting record, or position on an issue, funding for these don't have to be regulated primarily because freedom of speech is protected under the First Amendment.

Esquire Survey Response

Based on my results compared to the data collected by the entire survey, I would say that my results were pretty normal because I'm in the middle and leaning towards the right a bit which is exactly the same as the national average of Conservatives vs. Liberals. As expected, minority groups are more likely to vote more liberally and white caucasian Americans are more likely to vote more conservatively. I think that on social issues younger people are more likely to view the issues more liberally and as you grow older, you become more conservative. A shocking thing I read today was that the election between Obama and Romney was almost split right down the middle which is surprising to me because to me, people who voted for Obama made it seem like everyone was. Most people, along with myself, believe that voters should be required to show ID before they go to vote. Also, because I'm dealing with college admissions right now, the question about affirmative action is relevant and I think should be taken away because now and in the future, white Caucasians are proven to become the minority of the population. The issue of illegal immigrants have most people voicing their opinions that immigrants who don't make an effort to become a US citizen should not be given any help. Also a kind of frightening fact is the question about people's view on the American economy and our political system. Most people said that our economy is on the rise and that they are positive about it and then most of the people said that they are pessimistic about our politics. Opinions on guns have definitely changed with the amount of school shootings recently but like I said, there should be mandatory background checks and mandatory safety courses before anyone should be allowed to own a gun. Education can prevent a good amount of the terrible things that we see happen. In conclusion, I believe that religion has a lot of input on how you answer these survey questions and everyone has their own political sphere whether it be huge, or nonexistent.

About Me...

My name is Megan Mitchell. This summer I took a few trips to go to a few concerts and also went to LA to look at colleges. I would love to travel to Chile, where my brother is on exchange right now. I spent most of my summer either with or communicating with Hannah Nitsos because she's super cool and loves all the same things that I do.

-Megan .xx