Bureaucracy

A bureaucracy is a complex administrative system to organize and manage a country or a company using a pyramid-like hierarchy. This means that in a bureaucracy each person reports to a person of higher position and that this form of organization always each person to focus on a specialized expertise. In regards to the American government, the federal government’s head of bureaucracy is the President and the executive branch is the bureaucracy. Within a bureaucracy each position has a function and the power to act is granted to a position rather than a person. A bureaucrat describes an individual that is an official member of a bureaucracy and works for a department within the bureaucracy. There are four major types of structures within the bureaucracy of the federal government: executive departments, independent agencies, independent regulatory agencies and government corporations. Every department within the executive departments were created by Congress and met a government need that arose and required a department to focus on a specific policy area. An example of one would be the Education department that focuses on federal programs and policies as well as policies to aid education and coordinate educational research. Agencies that are independent have a single function and are not a part of a department. An example of one would be the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). There are also independent regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) that have a specific function to create, implement and regulate a specific public policy to protect the public’s interest. The U.S. Postal Service is an example of a government corporation and is the largest government corporation that exists. Government corporations do similar services handled by the private sector and do charge for services however taxpayers foot the bill if the government corporation loses money. In regards to elections, our country depends on bureaucrats to do their jobs in order to have a successful election process. For example, in the election, mail men/women had to effectively do their job in the U.S. Postal Service in order to allow mail-in votes to be voted accurately. An important ideal of bureaucracy in our government is neutral competence --- where federal bureaucrats use their skillset to fulfill their job without being influenced by political issues. This ideal is imperative to having a successful election. This past election was very heated for many political issues not only tied to traditional political ideologies but issues also directly linked to humanitarian issues. If federal bureaucrats let these issues sway them from doing their jobs, the election would have not successfully happened. An unsuccessful election would mean that democracy would have not been upheld if the majority’s will was not reflected in the outcome. Many americans were aprehensive this past election because the liberal and conservative parties seemed more poloarized than ever. Our federal bureaucrats that continued their vital day to day jobs, without being swayed politically especially the days after the election when our country was anxiously waiting the outcome of the election should be acknowledeged.

Interests Groups

Interests groups have formed historically in response to change. These groups are created and organized by people sharing a common objective and can indirectly or directly influence American government policymakers. The American Constitution protects the right of groups to organize themselves, peacefully assemble and petition the Government to reconsider grievances. There are many types of interest groups that exist in America. There are interest groups that represent particular industries, environmental issues, labor interest, agriculture interests, consumer interests, senior citizen issues, professional interests, business interest and labor interests. These interests groups can represent private good as well as public goods. The difference is that a public good does not diminish the rest of the citizen's use of the good. A private good is defined as a good that once one person consumes them, no one else can consume the same good. For example, national defence is a public good and just because one citizen is protected doesn't take away protection from other citizens. An example of a private good would be a phone, when you are using your phone it means nobody else can use it simultaneously. This is important to understand because some interest groups advocate for policies or issues that will benefit others that do not participate in the interest group. There are also interest groups that seek policies that may only benefit the people in the interest group. For example, the oil industry may have a interest group that advocates for better policies that specifically benefit the development of oil as a energy resource in order to protect their own profits. While an environmental industry group may advocate for policies that protect an area from pollution but in the big picture, all citizens of the area will benefit from a healthier environment. Oftentimes, interest groups have a bad reputation because historically lobbyists from specific interest groups have used financial power or powerful political connections to influence congress members. This is concerning because regulating lobbyists has proven difficult and leads to many citizens feeling that interests groups do not have a equal voice. This is more a fact than a concern because the power of an interest group not only is determined by the issue they are advocating for but the financial support they receive. However, interest groups are also a form of representation where ideally anyone regardless of profession, gender, race and economic background can organize themselves in a way in which they can participate in the government system. In other words, average people are given the opportunity to join a interest group that reflects their interests or concerns. By joining an interest group, citizens are given a platform in which they can voice their views on policies to government officials. Not only are interest groups specialized on a particular issue, they also can bring public awareness to a policy issue and address detailed information about a policy that public officials can use when making policy choices. Another benefit of interest groups is that they are not apart of political parties. Political parties are generalized organizations focused on winning elections, operating the government and creating policies. In contrast, interest groups are focused on specific policy issues and are unlikely to divide divide the nation. Pluralist theory views interest groups as an aspect of a decentralized structure of government and makes space for each individual's interest to be presented in the policy making process. This theory also believe that interest groups can't dominate the political process because there are so many interest groups within America. The goal of a democracy is for the voices of the people to be represented in the government system and interest groups are a form of representation for the voices of average citizens to be heard.

Congress

The US congressional representation is organized in a unique way because it has a bicameral legislature. This means there are two separate chambers that make up Congress, The House and The Senate. This ideally balances out power between The House which represents the people as a whole and The senate that represents the states. The number of representatives in The House from each state is determined by the state’s population, therefore larger states have more House seats. Every ten years the U.S. The Census Bureau takes a census of the population in each state and this census determines if seats need to be reappointed. Every state regardless of population receives at least one house seat. The goal of this is that the population of each state is represented accurately in congress. The Senate is organized differently and each state only has two senate seats to fill. Popular representation of people is ideally reflected in The House and state representation is reflected in The Senate. Both The House and The Congress are a part of the legislative process. If legislation is introduced separate committees (usually subcommittees) the House and the Senate review the bill and if the bill is not pigeonholed and instead approved it will be reported to the full chamber. The idea is that the subcommittee can approve, add new amendments or draft a new bill before it reaches the full chamber. Floor debates are conducted differently in the House than the Senate because there are many more House members than members of the Senate. The bill will get voted on and if the bill word for word is passed in both chambers, the conference committee will create the final compromise on the bill before the bill is sent for presidential approval. The goal of this process and having both popular representation and state representation when creating new legislation. Ideally this would mean that any bill passed serves the interests of the American people (or the majority of people) as well as the state’s interest.

2020 Election Week

Election week of 2020 was filled with a lot of emotions such as doubt, fear, bewilderment, frustration and ultimately some relief. As I was looking at the votes being counted during the poles for each presidential candidate it was interesting to see how many voters (a small percentage) chose to vote for third party candidates. In Chapter 7 of the text it talks about the United States perpetuating a two-party system, a precedent that is believed to be a result of the first major political division that happened between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The two-party system that continues to prevail and prevailed this past week is also influenced by election laws and institutional barriers. This election week was not different from previous elections in the fact that the focus was on the democratic candidate and the republican candidate. The shocking part to me during the election this week was how close the popularity vote percentage wise were between the two candidates especially in the swing states. To me it was shocking because for me this election was beyond politics, it felt like to me people’s votes were also a reflection on how they felt about sexism, systematic racism and honestly human decency. I was relieved by the results. Historically, this election was a big deal because our first woman Vice President was elected and she is also the first person of color to be in that position. Her speech last night was amazing and all I can say is she opened doors for lots of future girls. She also brought hope to women such as my grandmother that the future will be brighter. My grandmother is an immigrant from India who has dedicated her life to making a better future for her own three daughters and six grandchildren. After hearing Kamala Harrris speak last night, she cried with happiness seeing a half indian, half aftican american woman be elected Vice President. When it comes to California state props, I was thrilled that prop 17 passed and that felons can vote once again. I do not believe in stripping human rights away from criminals. Felons in particular never made sense to me because once they have served their time in jail or prison there is no justification to continue to be punished once “justice has been served”. I was disappointed to see prop 22 pass that allows Uber and Lyft to classify employees as independent contractors. This was very frustrating to see because it allows the companies to be exempt from California Labor Laws and not give their employees health care benefits etc. I was not surprised by the outcome because this prop was backed by business oriented liberals and the commercials for this prop blasted every tv channel and media suggesting prop 22 was in the drivers best interest. The commercials advertised that if the prop passed it would allow drivers to continue to “work on their own time” but the truth is that was just a distraction. These commercials were funded by companies that had a personal interest in not having to provide benefits to employees. The five topics I would like to talk about in my final project for this class would be: The electoral vote and how it works Systematic racism within the history of our government Separation of church and state regarding the public school education system Why the United States is a democracy (historical information) What is federalism?

Elections

Reading chapter 8: Public Opinion and Voting and chapter 9: Campaigns and Elections was very interesting especially because the chapters were relevant with Election day a few days away. One thing I learned was there has been an increase of non voters over the last few years according to the text. I thought this was relevant because I believe this led to the outcome of the last election. The Pew Research center did a survey to determine why so many people chose not to vote. The survey’s results showed 70 percent of nonvoters didn’t vote because they felt uninformed about the candidates and 40 percent of non voters didn’t feel they had a duty to participate. Another option chosen by many nonvoters was that they felt their individual vote wouldn’t make a difference. All of these answers are answers I’ve heard from people that explained why they didn’t vote in our last election. These reasons are also reasons I’ve heard many say is why our current president is in office and it has been stressed by many that for participation is needed by every voter in this next election if they want to see a different outcome. Was shocked how many non-voters felt they were not well informed on the candidates. To me, that large of a percentage of people not feeling informed is very problematic in a country that relies on democracy to steer our country. Without voter participation, it is unlikely our government system will represent the people. My personal opinion is that a lot of confusion has to do with media which is talked about in chapter 9 of the text. Finally, I do believe that in our recent presidential debate that was broadcasted on TV, there is no doubt that the people were robbed from being informed and learning about the candidates. Instead, the debate was ego driven and didn’t allow the people to gain information but left the door open for more confusion. A lot of the media covering the candidates this year has not focused on informing the people but rather playing into the chaos by false news. Something that surprised me in chapter 8 was when the text was talking about geographic regions it mentioned that most white southerners were democrats because the Civil War and the outcome of it was blamed on republicans. For me, that was the last thing I was expecting to read. All the information I’ve gained over the years suggested that the south was a republican hotspot. Another surprise was reading that 45 percent of Americans consider themselves moderates and only 21 percent liberals and 35 percent as conservatives. This was news to me because if almost half of Americans consider themselves moderates, why is every election centered around liberals and republicans? In this current election climate there is an intense feeling of us versus them between the liberals and conservatives. This idea of “Us v.s Them” may not be new but the intensity of this concept has grown this year. Not only with elections happening but with a call to action by the movements such as Black Lives Matter that have also put our government officials under a microscope on whether they have every citizen's best interest at heart or if it’s limited to the wealthy and white individuals. In the text it talks about voter suppression and this has happened in this 2020 election. Some states not allowing mail in voting during a pandemic or making voting centers limited in areas that have more residents of color. In chapter 9 the text talks a lot about the expense of campaigns and how over the years, campaigns have become more expensive. One reason for this the text points out is front loading primaries. When primaries are rushed, it doesn’t give candidates time to raise money for their campaign on the road. The initial idea is that candidates would begin their campaign road and if more people liked their stances, the more money they could gain along the campaign trail to propel them. Now, primaries are being pushed to sooner dates which results in only the financially abundant candidates can stay in the race. The text states “the fear is that an accelerated schedule of presidential primaries will likely favor the richest candidates”(p.200). The reason this stood out to me because I feel that it says a lot that our current president is not a career politician but is considered one of the wealthiest people in America. Even though the text talked about the ways campaign donations are regulated, there are also legal loopholes, soft money and independent expenditures that make regulating campaign money seem more like an ideal. It was also a surprise to me that the text states half of a candidate's endorsements come from television advertisements. This surprised me mostly because I am in the younger generation and my personal experience is that most of the canidational information I’ve seen has actually come from social media platforms. Though I have learned about the electoral college once in school before, I learned a lot by reading about it in the text. The electoral college is a group of electors chosen by voters of each state. These electors represent the people of their state in the election. I didn’t realize that voters didn’t directly vote for candidates but instead the electors that will cast the vote. The number of electors from a state is equal to the number of state representatives in both chambers of Congress which was also news to me. Most states except Maine and Nebraska use the “winner takes all” system while crediting the votes during an electoral college. This means that the majority of the votes is the state's choice of candidate. I have heard many people call the electoral college an outdated system. I don’t feel as if I am informed enough to say that however I do think it says a lot that I only learned about the electoral college once in my whole k-12 education. This relates to this coming election because based off the last election, the electoral college does not necessarily depict the popular vote. Hilary Clinton won the popular vote last election but lost because of the electoral college. Regardless of my own political preference, it seems odd to me that we conduct two types of voter representation that result in opposing numbers. It seems that if popular vote and the electoral college don’t align there means something is wrong with the system.

The President's Role

The President of the United State has a number of roles they play while serving the country. A few terms that are often heard to refer to the President are "head of state" , "head of the government" , or "commander in chief". All these terms do refer to the President however they don't all have the same meaning. "Head of state" refers to the President's responsibility to participate in sybolic, ceremonial activities. An example of this is a President throwing the first pitch opening day for the Major Legue Baseball season. To be in thise role, it refers to the President having a responsibility of being the face and resprentative for the United States as a whole. The term "head of government" refers to the presidents role as chief executive. A President is granted the role as head of the executive branch of the federal government by the Constitution. An example of a President executing their role as chief executvie would be for them to make decisions on how to handle a national emergency such as riots (for example the BLM protests that were later described as riots). "Commander in cheif" refers to the powers the Constitution grants the President. The Constitution gives the President power to command the nation's armed forces. The President has the power to deploy the nations armed forces and shares power with the congress has the power to declare war and maintain the armed forces. And example of a President using their role as commander and chief is when they set up military governments to establish themselves in conquered land. There are a lot of articles that refer to Donald Trump's misues of his role as head of government. As stated before the head of government refers to the Presiden'ts role as chief executive and one example of this is the president has the power to "handle" national emergincies. A current national crisis has been the Covid-19 pandemic that has swept the globe. This article talks about a former head government's opinion of how Trump has handled his executive role as well as specifically how Trump has handled the pandemic. The reason I chose this article is because it aligns with my belief that it is a trusted job of a President to lead the people in times of crisis. And this responsibility of great magnitutde should not be taken lighly; the expectation of any President is that they make choices as well as speak to the public with their best interest at heart. In this article, the former head of the government's ethics office calls into question Trump's ethics. President's have posted on social media before however the author of this article points out the insanity in Trump's use of twitter. Specifically, the fact that Trump has been known to post tweets to the public that are misinformed. The example's used in the article are tweet's Trump posted about the Corona virus as the country began to shelter in place. One tweet was "Our Testing is the BEST in the World, by FAR! Numbers are coming down in most parts of our Country, which wants to open and get going again. It is happening, safely" which was not reflective of the reality of the state of America. Many citizens at this point were struggling to get tested for the virus as well as Covid-19 numbers in America were far worse than in other countries. I think this example is a misuse of Trump's role as a head of government; the people of the nation should be able to read his statements and be informed not misguided. Especially in a time of crisis where lives could be put at danger due to being misinformed. https://www.politicususa.com/2020/05/12/former-head-of-government-ethics-office-our-president-is-insane.html Whent it comes to Trump's role as the head of state, this article captures the reality of how seriously Trump percieves this responsibility. The head of state is the face and representative of our country. In this washington post article, the author talks about how 'The Crown' believes Trump is a weak head of state; this article caught my eye particularily because though this opinion is from another country's head of state, the United Kingdom has been an exemplary country when it comes to taking the role of the head of state very seriously. Though 'The Crown' is not perfect, there is an obvious sense of responsibility that comes with this symbolic role. When it comes to Trump, his actions do not suggest he see's his role as head of state as symbolic. As documented in the article, Trump's rhetoric rarely unites the people of our nation and his temperment and personality have been called into question. In my opinion, this is because he doesn't put this symbolic role's obligations before his own individualism. This in turn leads to him representing "who Trump is" to the world rather than "this is what the people of the United States want". As the article talked about, it says a lot that Trump picks and chooses which obligations to show up to; the behaviors do not reflect a strong head of state. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/25/crown-explains-why-trump-is-weak-head-state/ The last term, commander and chief, refers to the President's constitutional power to command the armed forces. The view of Trump's ability to be commander of chief has shifted from the Trump as a favorable choice to lead the forces to unfavorable. A lot of military leaders are concerned by Trump's behaviors as commander of chief. His behaviors have been characterized as unstrategized and unwilling to listen to experienced military officials' adivce as well as proffessional analysis. Throughout his term, Trump has criticized generals and other military officials; often blaming these people for military crisis. In addition to placing blame on others rather than taking responsibility as chief and commander, Trump has also involved himself in military areans that traditionally have run more independently. Trump's interventions have not been a overstep of power according to the constitution however they have caused tensions and chaos. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-08-31/half-of-the-military-disapproves-of-trump-as-commander-in-chief-poll

Recent Supreme Court Nomination & The Most Recent 2020 Presidential Debate

There are three tiers for the federal court system. The lowest being the U.S. District Courts, the second tier is the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the third and highest tier is The United States Supreme Court. There is only one Supreme Court that exists in the United states, under Article 111, Section 2 of the constitution, it states that there is only one national Supreme Court. Within The Supreme Court there is one chief justice and eight associate justices, therefore in total there are 9 justices. When The Supreme Court reviews cases they do not usually hear evidence, rather they go over the written record of a case. Attorneys can present oral arguments before the justices being "a conference" where they discuss the case privately. The opinion of the Court is usually written by the chief justice if they are a part of the majority decision; a majority decision is established during the conference and is made up of 5 justices in favor. The Court's decision is written and may conclude concurring opinions or it may include dissenting opinions; the dissenting opinions however do not change the majority decision made during the conference. The Supreme Court Justices are recommended by many people (other judges, state political leaders, senators etc), however the president is the one that considers the recommendations and chooses the person that will be reviewed by The Senate to be approved. Historically presidents choose someone that favors their beliefs in order to leave behind a trace of “why” they were voted into office in the first place. Ruth Ginsberg, a supreme court justice, passed away as of last week. The presidential elections have already begun, however our current president Trump has already selected someone to be considered. Ginsberg was the second woman to be appointed to The Court and served for 27 years. She has done a lot of remarkable service over her time and including launches a Women’s Rights Projects. It is not customary to nominate a justice during an election regardless of this, Trump is nominating Amy Barret. She is a social conservative and stands on a lot of issues the exact opposite of how Ginsberg did. Barret is a danger to all women seeking equality and protection of their individual rights. For example, she wants to Roe v. Wade case, in which the Supreme Court’s ruling protecting a woman’s right to get an abortion. Many can say this is not a surprise that this is Trump’s choice as a justice because he is known for disrespecting women constantly. From his words and actions, it is easy to assume Trump does not want to encourage progressive women or allow the current movement for women’s rights to continue. The reason her being in The Court is bigger than just a conservative view. If she were able to create a national law, it would be used in the future as a precedent. I saw a quote this week how Ginsberg opened doors for other women to walk through, including women like Barret, and Barret is going to close all those doors behind her for future women. I agree with this, and think her presence in The Court will be detrimental towards future generations of women. Another hot topic of the week was the presidential debate. I was able to watch the recording and prior to watching it myself, it was impossible to ignore the recaps and memes that flooded social media shortly after it was over. I wish I could say I was dismayed, but I was not. Trump not only acted as if the rules of a political debate didn’t apply to him, he steam rolled the whole debate. It felt like a joke and it was selfish, the point of the debate from my understanding is for voters to understand both candidates' stances on important topics. I felt like it was hard to hear stances as a voter because of the gaslighting and personal attacks that went on throughout the debate. I can say Trump showed a lot of true colors, attacking Biden’s son, not being able to say white supremacy is an issue or say he is against it (when he told people to stand by it felt like a threat of civil war) and it’s ironic he made fun of Biden for wearing a mask so much and then tested positive for Covid-19 the next day. My biggest concern about Trump is he doesn’t believe he needs to serve according to the rules, that he uses psychological manipulation on the stand and doesn’t have any sense of remorse. It is already known that Trump is on good terms with tyrants like Putin and Kim Jung-un; to me it truly looks like he wants to follow their lead and is a danger to the American quest for freedom. I do not believe Trump has any intention to protect citizen’s rights or any human right because he does not feel his could ever be taken away regardless of how his choices affect others. The theme of the debate to me was unfiltered disregard for America’s people and ego to be invincible. Anyone that views the role of being a leader of people as a self serving title rather than a service position is a danger to society.