Group Research Assignment

I have divided the class into four work groups of four or five students each.  Every group will assign each of its research questions to one of its members. Within each group, every student will ask another to review her or his paper. The reviewer’s name should appear on the paper, along with that of the author.

• Essays should be double‑spaced and no more than six pages long. (Use twelve-point type.)  I will not read past the sixth page.
• Use secondary sources to establish context. Use primary sources for the bulk of your research.  Seek information in scholarly journals and government publications.  Wherever possible, rely on hard data such as election returns and polling results. Do not just rely on news media accounts, which may be inaccurate.
• Cite your sources, using proper format, such as Turabian.
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Submit essays to the Sakai dropbox by 5 PM on Friday, 15 November. (Yes, you have two extra days.)  Papers will drop a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a letter grade after that. I will grant no extensions except for illness or emergency.

Arneson, Bare, Bell, Donyo

• Why did the Senate reject the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?  Does it have a chance at a comeback?
• Why did President Obama delay the ACA employer mandate?  Did he have the legal authority to do so?  Explain the controversy.
• Explain the fate of President Obama’s effort to expand Medicaid.  Consider state action and the Supreme Court decision in NFIB v. Sebelius.
• How did the presidential candidates use Twitter in 2012?

Gissinger, Lee, Lemmons, Rooney, Huesing

• Who supports and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative?  Is it gaining or losing ground?  Explain.
• Who is supporting the ABLE Act (HR 647/ S 313) and why?  What are its prospects for passage?
• In 2012, former governors lost Senate races in Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.  Why?  Consider the differences between senatorial and gubernatorial elections.
• Tell why disability advocates disagree with Teach for America on the issue of “highly qualified teachers.”  Explain what has happened in Congress, and describe prospects for future legislative action.
• Explain the fate of statewide marijuana ballot measures in 2012.

Cameron, Hidalgo-Wohlleben, McCracken, Hyatt, Miele

• Since the 1960s, some states have gone from being mostly Democratic to mostly Republican.  (Examples include Texas and Georgia.)  Others have gone the other way.  (Examples include Vermont and New Hampshire.)  Pick one state that has switched party allegiance and explain why. In your answer, pay careful attention to demographic and economic change.
• Why did the Kyoto Protocol never win Senate approval?
• What is likely to happen in McCutcheon v. FEC?
• Why did the Benghazi attack have so little impact on the 2012 election?  Might it affect Hillary Clinton if she runs for president?
• Explain the conflict between Louisiana and the federal government over the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Huang, Krey, Finn, Plummer, Straus

• Some say that Simpson-Mazzoli represented a failure of immigration reform.  How well did it work?
• On May 18, 2008, Barack Obama said, “We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.” How does his performance measure against that pledge?
• Tell how CMC alum Steve Bullock became governor of Montana.
• Explain the impact of Shelby County v. Holder.
• Explain allegations of vote suppression in the 2012 campaign.  Was there intentional vote suppression?  What was the impact on the election?

Parties, Continued

The Colbert Report
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Open Secrets on Outside Groups

Polarization and Parties

• 2012 Pew Survey
• 2013 ABC Poll

Polarization and PIG

• Trendlines
• Distribution (see Figure 4)

Intel

On Monday, Joshua asked how much the president may have known about spying on allies.  The New York Times reports:

The nation’s top spymaster said on Tuesday that the White House had long been aware in general terms of the National Security Agency’s overseas eavesdropping, stoutly defending the agency’s intelligence-gathering methods and suggesting possible divisions within the Obama administration.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, testified before the House Intelligence Committee that the N.S.A. had kept senior officials in the National Security Council informed of surveillance it was conducting in foreign countries. He did not specifically say whether President Obama was told of these spying efforts, but he appeared to challenge assertions in recent days that the White House had been in the dark about some of the agency’s practices.
...

Several current and former American officials said that presidents and their senior national security advisers have long known about which foreign leaders the United States spied on.
“It would be unusual for the White House senior staff not to know the exact source and method of collection,” said Michael Allen, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration and a former staff director for the House Intelligence Committee. “That information helps a policy maker assess the reliability of the intelligence.”

Mr. Allen, the author of a book about intelligence reform called “Blinking Red,” said this information often comes to the president during preparation for phone calls or meetings with the foreign leaders.

The intelligence community is pretty complicated




S.H.I.E.L.D. is not on the list but Agent Phil Coulson had an insight during a recent episode: ""It's amazing. Every year this part of our job gets easier. Between Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr, people are surveilling themselves."

Better representation in Congress

From the Maryland Public Policy Institute:

The Framers, in contrast, were wise and crafted American government so that a segment of the public would find it difficult to run political roughshod over another. Hence today’s stalemates and shutdowns, filibusters and partisan animosity, and Tea Parties and Occupy movements. Politicians and commentators lament this 'gridlock,' but in a diverse country, gridlock is good.

While gridlock is not ideal, it could be a reflection of a better representation of districts by their elected officials. Let us not be too quick to condemn Congress. It is possible that the current political gridlock is a sign of a more effective representation of constituents' needs and issues. More legislation is not necessarily a sign of progress. Congress members should be willing to fight for what their constituents want rather than follow every word of the party leaders. Gridlock can persist, considering that Congressmen have to fight for different districts, and Americans want different issues represented. We cannot rush to a conclusion that Congress in stalemate is a less able Congress. However, there is undeniable polarization of congressional districts due to repeated gerrymandering. This may be the real problem.

Constituents are changing. Unnatural geometric shapes are created to define congressional districts resulting in more polarized representations in Washington. California's redistricting is now controlled by an independent commission to prevent or minimize gerrymandering. However, in many other states, redistricting still remains a political opportunity to favor one or the other party. The practice of gerrymandering persists.

Should all states require redistricting to be controlled by nonpartisan, independent commission? What else may explain the increased polarization of elected officials and their constituents?

GOP primaries, from 2012 to 2016

After Hope and Change discusses in detail the Republican nomination process for the 2012 election. As in most primaries, each candidate ran to the far end of the spectrum. As Democratic candidates lean farther to the left, Republican candidates learn farther to the right. A clear frontrunner did not appear as quickly as Romney probably would have liked, with Santorum carrying enough states to prolong the process. The 2012 election primary season showed something deeper about the changing dynamics of the Republican party. For instance, one can argue that Santorum appealed to a different, if not separate, base than Romney did in the primary. Overgeneralizing and oversimplifying, we could say that the individual who values conservative social issues most in a selecting a candidates tended to prefer Santorum, while the individual focused on conservative fiscal policies tended to prefer Romney. While both of these ideas are fundamental to the GOP, the 2012 primary displayed a distancing between the two.

A recent article in the New York Times addresses how various prominent Republicans used the government shutdown to potentially position themselves in the 2016 primaries. It will be indeed interesting to see which aspect of the Republican platform will dominate the race. This very well could decide who will seize the nomination. Cruz? Rubio? Ryan? Paul? Christie? Bush? Only time can tell.

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Parties and Elections

• Party in the Electorate (PIE)
• Party Identification
• Party Registration
• Cinematic Map of Presidential Election Results
• Party in Government (PIG)
• Party Divisions in the House
• Party Divisions in the Senate
• State Government Control
• Party Organization (PO)
• DCCC
• NRCC
• DSCC
• NRSC
• DNC,
•  RNC
• Party Outside Organization (You figure out the acronym.)

Tocqueville on Elections of Members of Congress

Tocqueville discusses the House of Representatives in the early 1800s to be "obscure people whose names form no picture in one's minds. They are mostly village lawyers, tradesmen, or even men of the lowest classes. In a country where education is spread almost universally, it is said that the people's representatives do not always know how to write correctly." He goes on to contrast the House with the Senate whose members are "eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and noted statement."

It can be shocking to imagine this difference between the two houses of Congress. Tocqueville attributes this contrast to Senators being elected by state legislatures, an indirect form of universal suffrage.

This passage from Tocqueville poses some questions:

1. Would there be a wide contrast between senators and representatives today if the election of senators remained the way it was in the 1800s?
2. How great of a role does campaign finance play in preventing "obscure people" to have seats in Congress?
3. Tocqueville writes, "It is easy to see a time coming when the American republics will be bound to make more frequent use of election in two stages, unless they are to be miserably lost among the shoals of democracy." Why did American government go against what Tocqueville predicted?