A Political Sociological View of State Government in Montana
My sociology background has given me a unique perspective on situations during my summer internship in the Montana Governor’s Office. By making observations about events around me using a political sociological lens, I often thought of questions I would not have had without my educational background. When I needed to choose a topic to discuss at length, I was pleased to find I remembered many of these questions I could answer for my paper. Unfortunately, what was more challenging than thinking of questions was narrowing my focus down to just one. Therefore I will attempt to answer multiple questions in this paper. Because my experience is only with the Montana state government,
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The Great Compromise showed a commitment by the framers to ensuring that no person’s vote be less important because of where they live. The Supreme Court used this and other cases to determine that “the right of suffrage is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society,” (Reynolds v. Sims). Today, it’s easy to assume that we have more equality in our voting system than ever. That conclusion is difficult to reach unfortunately when examining two things: campaign financing and state wealth and political position.
The Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission held that corporations have the same donation rights as individuals under the First Amendment. This case has allowed corporations and wealthy individuals to make large donations to the campaigns of various elected officials. Thanks in part to these donations, congress has moved at a glacial pace to pass any laws relating to campaign finance reform. Unlimited potential for donations allow corporations and wealthy individuals to play a key role in shaping
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A Montanan’s role in making decisions in regards to the United States is relatively small compared to someone from Iowa. While Iowans make educated decisions based on their personal values, they do not represent the feelings and beliefs of the United States as a whole. Perhaps while a candidate or their campaign strategy did not do well in the state caucuses and primaries of the early states such as Iowa or New Hampshire, had one of the rarely visited states like Montana’s or Hawaii’s primary been first the election could have turned out completely different. The election could unfold the same way, or maybe a particular candidate or strategy could do better in a specific region due to geographical and cultural differences that would shape the general and primary election. The point I’m making is that it is impossible to know if the election would turn out differently had the candidates been forced to focus on other states at the beginning of their
Samples proceeds to examine the connections between political visions and campaign finance. The Progressive vision of politics seeks to restrict and reform campaign finance and believes that economic interests of the elites corrupt politics, and have driven the debate about campaign finance. Progressives believe that government is the victim of the private interests of elites and the solution to their dangerous distinctiveness. Meanwhile, Madisonians believe that government is the problem, and that particular interests, interests of the minority have a right to be heard in the national debate regarding campaign
In the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations may spend as much money as they desire on political campaigns. The Supreme Court’s majority stated that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech protected not only people’s, but also corporation's, right to give these contributions. The problem with free-flowing money into elections is what had led to the Watergate scandal that accumulated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon. However, former Justice Stevens believes that Citizens United, “took a giant step in the wrong direction,” and that reasonable limits should be imposed, which they have been before (Stevens, 78). His proposed amendment to the Constitution aims to add these reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates receive, but would protect the limits by not allowing the First Amendment nor any other provision of the Constitution being used against it.
This is one of the many reasons why the Electoral College is unfair, past elections have shown that bigger populations have more electoral votes, concluding that smaller states’ votes become insignificant. This leaves people in question, is the Electoral College now based on where you live? Even though the purpose of the electoral college is to ultimately decide who will occupy the position of the president, there was an Electoral Commision of elite representatives, established to determine the 19th President, because of the situation the electoral college caused. The commission included five representatives from the House, another five associates from the Senate and five justices from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Justices in the Electoral Commission were David Dias
Throughout roughly the last one hundred years of U.S. history, one significant way lawmakers have attempted to address corruption within the government has been by implementing stricter regulations on the campaign finance system, while opponents of these regulations have argued they do not prevent corruption and have characterized them as limitations on freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution. From this, we see the problem is a tension between Congress’s authority to regulate and maintain fair and democratic elections and a disproportionate focus on freedom of speech. After examining current federal campaign finance laws, one would assume the United States has always had relatively weak laws in this field; however, that is not the
We see multiple successes of voting equality attempted through amendments, however, the Supreme Court’s decision on Shelby County v. Holder has pushed back years and years of effort for voting rights. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling was in Shelby County’s favor, stating that the Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional along with Section 5. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr, who wrote the majority’s opinion, said that the power to regulate election was reserved to the states, not the federal government. As a result to the court’s decision, the federal government can no longer determine which voting law discriminates and can be passed. After the case, many states had freely passed new voting laws; the most common voting law states passed
Since the Constitution’s conception, political scientists have argued about its effectiveness, fairness, and its democratic ideals. In fact, debates regarding these factors of the Constitution have become more common as it ages and new ideologies take hold in American culture. One modern-day critic of the Constitution, Robert A. Dahl, wrote a book entitled How Democratic Is the American Constitution in which the author exposes the undemocratic character of the U.S. Constitution. As a respected political scientist and professor at Yale University, Robert A. Dahl focusses his book on uncovering the Constitution’s flaws through valid information and real-life examples, creating a successful and persuasive piece. One argument that Dahl makes in
The documentary called The Hunting Grounds, had multiple concepts that relate to sociology. Using a sociological perspective, it was very prevalent to see the ways college campuses use patriarchy and gender stratification to keep women who have been sexually assaulted on campus from disclosing information or even getting help about these issues. Through the discrimination against women at these gender institutions the women formed a Feminist movement to bring awareness and help to the victims on campuses all around the world and to stop the assaults from reoccurring. The Hunting Grounds is a documentary that reveals the untold stories of women on college campuses and how these women have fought to have their voice heard about sexual assault on campuses. Sexual assault and rape on campuses has always been a major problem for colleges all over the world yet very little has been done to protect the students.
For the past century, voter turnout in American presidential elections has significantly declined, likely due to the fact that Americans do not believe their single votes are important. In light of more recent elections, political donations from corporations, identified or anonymous, have infringed upon traditional, American democracy. Although corporate donations to political campaigns have little effect on the public compared to the newly pivotal role of social media, these donations are founded upon a ruling that is classist, undemocratic, and corrupt, leading to unprincipled politics. This ruling is Citizens United, passed January 21, 2010.
Due to the increased prevalence of claims that corporations in the United States are buying and selling politicians through campaign donations, the Supreme Court has been forced to address campaign finance and campaign finance reform in the last several decades. Most people are aware of the highly controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling of 2010. However, the Supreme Court has handed down other important decisions that impact campaign finance, whether at the state or federal level, including Buckley v. Valeo (1976), McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), and several others. In most of these cases, the Supreme Court ascertained whether campaign spending and donations violated the Federal Election Campaign
The “Outsiders” made me think about the rules that groups give us are strongly founded on what they see as defiance. It made me think that some rules are given within a group are not remotely necessary and that we as a society are to blame for what is deemed as “socially acceptable”. Deviants may not even be actually deviants but that’s what they are labeled by society because they think, what the deviant did was wrong, which could be made up by what society thinks is okay behavior. The relation to this reading and the sociology course shows how society controls us and how they consider we should act. It reminded me of how society tells us as women that showing off our body parts is deemed as trashy and not lady like, but men can do so without
Alex Frost Values: Law & Society 9/23/2014 The Hollow Hope Introduction and Chapter 1 Gerald Rosenberg begins his book by posing the questions he will attempt to answer for the reader throughout the rest of the text: Under what conditions do courts produce political and social change? And how effective have the courts been in producing social change under such past decisions as Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education? He then works to define some of the principles and view points 'currently' held about the US Supreme court system.
Candidates tend to spend a large portion of their time in these types of states to try and convert independents and members of the opposite party to vote for them. Some people argue that this swing state idea defeats the electoral college principle of evening out the power among the states, since the swing states get special attention. The other main issue is that the Electoral College often does not align with the popular vote. This argues against the evening out of power since, it matters more that a candidate collects more states than more people’s votes (“Understanding the Presidential Election”). In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton secured the
Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others
Interactions amid the provinces and the federal government, from constitutional issues to the most irresistible topics bang up-to-date in the country, are indemnified beneath the umbrella of “Federalism”. Authorities are shared so that on some matters, the state governments are decision-holders, whereas on the other matters, national government grasps the autonomy. In last twenty-five years, the upsurge of federal fiats on both governments, local and state, has shifted the power amongst state and national governments. Now, the national government is beginning to have more governance over the state’s engagements.
Throughout the year we’ve learned and looked upon many different social views. The sociological concepts such as social interaction ,sex and gender, religion, race and ethnicity, and deviance are very important to society and have many social effects. My favorite tv show Law and Order(Special Victims Unit) covers and demonstrates these concepts in majority of the episodes. The show Law and Order consists of real life situations and issues which causes many different societal views or opinions throughout the show. Social interaction is one of the biggest sociological concepts.