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.