Voting Behavior and Linkage Instutions

a.  Voter turnout is directly related to age and education. Older people are much more interested in government activity and are more likely to vote in elections than young people. This is most likely because young people do not feel the pressure of civic duty and many don't believe their vote makes a difference.  Similarly, the more educated a person is the more likely they are to vote. However, uneducated minorities are more likely to vote than uneducated whites.

b.  Citizen requirements decrease voter turnout. America is a melting pot of people and cultures. Census experts predict that there will be a minority majority, minorities will out number the original white european immigrants, by 2040. There are thousands of immigrants who have lived in the U.S. since they were children who still can not vote. This lowers the voting population significantly.

c.  Political Parties link citizens to the government through elections and information. Citizens connect to each other and the government through common ideals. Political parties send citizens information. Citizens vote in their parties primaries.

Interest Group Techniques

         Interest groups use techniques such as litigation to achieve their objectives. The technique they choose is based on their resources, characteristics and goals. Litigation is the process of taking legal action.  This means prosecution and law suits. A group would use this because it does not require a large influence or number of people. Another technique is campaign contribution or the collection of funds to support a candidate, political party, or policy. This is used by large groups with a lot of money who can directly influence candidates. The third is Grassroots Lobbying and mass mobilization this is in a sense advertising and promoting. They use the people rather than going directly to legislation, the interest group lobbies then goes by word of mouth. Interest groups with a lot of people but not as much money use this technique.
         The NRA, national rifle association, for instance, uses mainly campaign contributions.  They raise money to support candidates and policies that support loose gun laws. According to statistics, by the Washington Post, the NRA has a significant influence over congress. They donated over $650,000 to supporters in 2012 and 80% of senators funded by the NRA won the seat. The NRA has donated over $4.6 million since 1990. The NRA uses campaign contributions rather than the other two techniques because they have a vast amount of money and it gains them favor with specific politicians. They also use grass roots but in our economy it is more important to get political support than citizen support. Litigation is unnecessary for the NRA because they have a lot of support.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/nra-congress/

Senator Ron Wyden

Ron Wyden is Oregon’s U.S. Senator. He was elected Oregon Senator 1996 and is 64 years old. Prior to his position in the U.S. Senate Wyden served as a representative in the house from 1981-1996. His parents are Jewish immigrants who fled from Nazi Germany. He was born in Wichita, Kansas and grew up in Palo Alto, California. He is a democrat who supports pro choice, creating more jobs and wildlife protection. A couple of bills he has recently sponsored are the intelligence oversight and surveillance reform act and the high technology job preservation act of 2013. Three of his most important current issues include; the fight against child trafficing, increased timber harvest, and protection of old growth and sensitive areas. Right now Wyden is focusing most on increased timber harvest. This project aims to create more jobs, better protection of woodlands and a more sustainable harvest. I would like to ask Ron Wyden what he is currently doing to stop child trafficing and how much success he is having. I would also like to ask him about the most recent bill he has sponsored.

Philippines

On November 3rd a devastating Typhoon hit the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan's death toll is feared to be over 10,000, it is one of the most powerful hurricanes known to ever hit earth. It was followed by 30 foot storm surges and major flooding, a huge issue in a tropical climate.  The hope is is to prevent what happened in Haiti, the deadly cholera outbreak following the 2010 earthquake, from repeating itself. Allowing water to sit in a hot humid climate is sure to result in disease.  I believe that the first step to prevent disease and a greater death toll is to get the people clean water, food and shelter. Many charity's are already working on this. Many more are using this as a way to make money. Charities are the best way to provide relief as long as you do your research and make sure the charity you are donating to knows what they are doing and plan to use 100% of your money on relief efforts.  Charity Navigator is a good place to look for what charities are supporting issues you would like to help with. Three charities who are giving 100% of donations to help in the Phillippines are Action Against Hunger- ACF USA: a charity committed to ending hunger and malnutrition, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee: they have many partners including UNICEF and are bringing water, food, shelter, and medicine to everyone they can, and Architecture for Humanity: a charity that works on designing and reconstructing areas that have experienced disaster.  The foremost concern for charities is going to be how to get these people clean drinking water. My idea is to set up multiple water filteration centers around the areas where people do not have available drinking water. They would be able to go there to fill up water jugs each day and take a shower every once in a while in disease free water.
Source- http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3268#.UolTjMu9KK0

Political Participation FRQ

2) The most common form of political participation is voting. However there are other ways one can participate in the political process such as protesting and running for office. Each form of participation has it's advantages. A few of the advantages of protest include immediate public attention and low costs. Immediate public attention can be very beneficial in cases such as the civil rights protests because you have no choice but to notice what is going on. Running for office can also be beneficial because it gives you direct influence over the agenda and people usually listen to government leaders.

Government Power essay

Federalism is a way of organizing a nation so that two or more levels of government; local, state and national, have control over the same area or people. The supremacy clause says that the laws of national gov are supreme over state laws. Given that the government is acting within its limits. However, the state and national governments have powers separate from each other. Power of the national government is increased by things like categorical grants and federal mandates. Categorical grants increase to power of the national government by giving a state money that can only be used for specific things and have a lot of strings attached so the state has no choice in how to spend it. Federal mandates also increase the power of the national government by forcing the state to comply by threatening to take something away. An example is state drinking age and fedral highway funding. The government told the states that they could choose their drinking age but if it is under 21 they will not fund their highway system.  Block grants and the tenth amendment have been used to increase the power of the states. Block grants increase state power because the fedral government gives the state money with few restrictions. The tenth amendment restricts government power by saying the fedral government only has rights stated in the constitution and states that states have individual power from the government 

Saturday Night Massacre

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Watergate and the Saturday Night Masacare

Photo By: William Dalquist

Constitution Essay

Our constitution has directed the government for over 200 years. This is only possible because we have been able to ammend the constitution both formally and informally.  Two routes through which one can formally amend the constitution, although less common because of how difficult it is, are congress and states. Congress can propose to change the constitution and if 3/4ths of the delegates agree, it will be ratified. Also, if 2/3 of states call a national convention and 3/4ths of the states agree at the national convention that they want to make a specific change to the constitution then it will be ratified. Some examples of this are the amendments, such as prohibition and the repeal of prohibition. The states were the ones who asked for the repeal of prohibition. Two ways to informally ammend the constitution are the Supreme Court and circumstantial changes. Judicial review came about durring Marbury vs. Madison this allows the Supreme Court to decide whether something is constitutional and if it is not, informally change the constitutions meaning. Circumstantial changes are changes that have to be made as a result of change in society such as media or suffrage.

Democracy, Majority Rule FRQ

1) The U.S. Constitution was written with the goal of creating a successful government. To have a successful government the constitution has to protect the people and the branches from loosing or gaining too much power.
a. To keep the people happy they have to feel like they have a say in what happens within their government. Originally this was fulfilled by the legislative branch. The House of Representatives is the part of the government most closely tied to the citizens. This is because representatives are directly elected by the people and have a short term length. That way if our representative is not supporting what we believe in we can elect someone new. Because the elects districts are moderately small we feel closer to them and trust them to represent us.

b.  The government is responsible for limiting majority rule. Two ways in which they do this are federalism and Supreme Court Justice terms. These two things protect different groups. For example, federalism keeps the government from gaining too much power by creating layers of government local, state and federal. These layers also make it difficult to pass laws quickly, protecting citizens from change they don't know about.  Supreme Court Justice terms on the other hand keep the government from loosing too much power to the people. Judges are nominated by the president and elected by the senate, preventing one branch from gaining too much power, but keeping the power of the law to government officials.

c. As decades pass the government becomes increasingly democratic. Primary elections and  increased sufferage are two advancements that have made our government more democratic in the last 100 years. Primary elections allow the people a greater voice in who the candidates will be in the next election. This is a big change from the caucus system where the party's held all the power and only government members had the power to elect candidates. There are also more people who can vote today as a result of the expansion of suffrage. In the last 100 years the voting population went from being all white landowning men to all races and sexes. More voters mean a greater pool of opinions and therefor more representation.

Money in Campaigns

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

      Money rules the world of politics. And the modern presidential campaign. Tv advertising alone surpassed two billion in 2012. Without this money candidates would not be able to campaign like they do. So where does this money come from? Supporters, many through 501-C4's so that you can not see who gave what. This can be an issue because government favors come into question. The government does very little to regulate fund raising. The government does put caps on amounts of money one can give a candidate. But there are ways around this such as bundling. The government could constantly regulate money sources but this is a lot of work and our government seems to have bigger things on their hands.

The New Center

The center of American politics is not a waffling group that doesn't know what they want. They identify with one side or the other based on their beliefs but also hold values of both sides. Using the esquire quiz I was placed as a minivan moderate, left leaning. I would agree with the above statement because I know where I stand on my beliefs and I do not waffle on that. Over half of the center consider themselves to be moderate but they are fairly evenly split into three parts republican, democrat and independent.  The middle consists of slightly more democrats than republicans.  The middle is generally more democratic in the fact that they think all people should be able to live above the poverty line on minimum wage and that we should help people who really need it, but not everyone. The majority of the middle thinks that the constitution can not provide guidance for today's issues. I agree with this and answered similarly but slightly more conservatively in saying that the constitution provides guidence on some issues but needs updating. The center is also generally not religious and believe that religion should not be tied to government. I think this is one of the reasons I am more left leaning, because my values are not at all tied to faith. Like me most of the middle think gay marriage should be legal and that marriage is between two people who love each other. The middle also wants a change in foreign policy. It is really interesting to see how you fit in with the rest of the U.S. I was not too surprised at my result but I expected to be a little more moderate.

Public Opinion Polls

Are public opinion polls a benefit or a curse to American politics?  What influence do they have on campaigns?  On governing?  What do critics point to as the key weaknesses of public opinion polls? Do you agree?  Explain?

I believe that public opinion polls are both a good and a bad thing in the world of American politics. Polls allow candidates to know what the people want based on the answers of a select group, on topics such as age, race, political status, and feelings on certain issues. With this information candidates can campaign to attract certain groups like single-issue groups who often determine elections. Critics point to this as the weakness of public opinion polls. However, polls can also be a good thing because they let leaders know what the people want and need from their country. I think that in the long run polls are a good thing because they show what different citizens want.

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My name is Abby Black. I enjoy the outdoors and hanging out with my family and friends. I love being active. Rock climbing is my passion and I like to travel with friends and climb wherever I can. I spend a lot of time with my family and my two dogs. I plan on going to college next year and help improve the world I live in by becoming an environmental engineer or something of that nature. I love traveling. I have been to Mexico, Canada, Japan, Spain, and all over the U.S. I hope to have a fantastic senior year!