WTP14ESSCOCH04
.pdf
School
Ohio University, Lancaster**We aren't endorsed by this school
Course
SOCIOLOGY 2305
Subject
Political Science
Date
Jan 4, 2025
Pages
25
Uploaded by BrigadierElement13428
WTP14 ESS CH04 CHAPTER OUTLINE Civil Liberties Learning Objectives1.Outline the founding debate about civil liberties and explain how civil liberties apply to the federal government and the states. 2.Explain how the Supreme Court has interpreted freedom of religion through the establishment and free exercise clauses. 3.Explain how the Supreme Court has interpreted freedom of speech, assembly, petition, and the press. 4.Explain how the Supreme Court has interpreted the right to bear arms. 5.Explain how the Supreme Court has interpreted the right to due process. 6.Describe how the Supreme Court has identified and interpreted the right to privacy. The Bill of Rights Originated with Opponents of the Constitution1.Civil libertiesare protections from improper government action. This contrasts with civil rights, which are obligations of government power. The Bill or Rights outlines many civil liberties and rights, and the expansion of civil liberties has come through litigation in the Supreme Court. 2.Despite the insistence of Alexander Hamilton that a bill of rights was both unnecessary and dangerous, adding a list of explicit rights was the most important item of business for the First Congress in 1789. 3.The Bill of Rights, generally considered to be the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, is made up of provisions that protect citizens from improper government action. 4.In 1833, the Supreme Court found that the Bill of Rights limited only the national government and not state governments. 5.Although the language of the Fourteenth Amendment seems to indicate that the protections of the Bill of Rights apply to state governments as well as to the national government, for the remainder of the nineteenth century the Supreme Court (with only one exception) made decisions as if the Fourteenth Amendment had never been adopted. 6.As of 1961, only the First Amendment and one clause of the Fifth Amendment had been selectively incorporatedinto the Fourteenth Amendment. After 1961, however, most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights were gradually incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and applied to the states. The First Amendment Guarantees Freedom of Religion1.The establishment clauseof the First Amendment has been interpreted in several ways, one being the strict separation of church and state. But there is significant disagreement about how high that wall is and of what materials it is composed.
2.The free exercise clauseprotects the right to believe and to practice whatever religion one chooses; it also involves protection of the right to be a nonbeliever. The Supreme Court has taken pains to distinguish between religious beliefs and actions based on those beliefs. The First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech and of the Press Ensure the Free Exchange of Ideas1.Freedom of speech and the press have a special place in American political thought. Democracy depends on the ability of individuals to talk to each other and to disseminate information and ideas. 2.The extent and nature of certain types of expression are subject to constitutional debate. The Supreme Court must balance the protection of political speech with issues such as national security and fairness in campaign finance. 3.Freedom of speech generally implies freedom of the press. With the exception of the broadcast media, which are subject to federal regulation, the press is protected under the doctrine against prior restraint(efforts by a governmental agency to block the publication of material it deems libelous or harmful in some other way; in other words, censorship). 4.Among the forms of speech that are absolutely protected are the truth, political speech, symbolic speech, and speech plus, which is speech plus a physical activity such as picketing. The forms of speech that are currently only conditionally protected include libel and slander; obscenity and pornography; fighting wordsand hate speech; and commercial speech. The Second Amendment Protects the Right to Bear Arms1.In constitutional terms, the Second Amendment may protect a citizen’s right to bear arms, but this right can be regulated by both state and federal law. 2.In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a District of Columbia law that was designed to make it nearly impossible for private individuals to legally purchase firearms. The Court declared in the Heller case that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for private use. 3.In 2010, the Supreme Court incorporated the Second Amendment and applied it to the states when it announced its verdicts in the cases of McDonald v. Chicago. The Court declared that the right to keep and bear arms was protected from state as well as federal action. Rights of the Criminally Accused Are Based on Due Process of Law1.The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth amendments, taken together, are the essence of the due process of law, the right of every citizen against arbitrary action by national or state governments. 2.The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. One of the most important procedures that has grown out of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment is the exclusionary rule, which prohibits evidence obtained during an illegal search from being introduced in a trial.
3.The Fifth Amendment requires a grand juryfor most crimes, protects against double jeopardy, and provides that you cannot be forced to testify against yourself. 4.Miranda v. Arizonaadvanced the civil liberties of accused persons not only by expanding the scope of the Fifth Amendment clause covering coerced confessions and self-incrimination but also by confirming the right to counsel, a provision of the Sixth Amendment. Together these make up the Miranda rule. 5.The Sixth Amendment requires a speedy trial and the right to witnesses and counsel. 6.The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. One of the greatest challenges in interpreting this provision consistently is that what is considered “cruel and unusual”varies from culture to culture and from generation to generation. The Right to Privacy Means the Right to Be Left Alone1.Another important aspect of the right to privacy is the possession of private property. The Fifth Amendment includes the takings clause, which extends to each citizen a protection against the "taking" of private property "without just compensation." The purpose of the takings clause is to put limits on the power of eminent domainthrough procedures that require a showing of a public purpose and the provision of fair payment for the taking of someone’s property. 2.In the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court found a right of privacyin a combination of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth amendments to the Constitution. This right was confirmed and extended in 1973 in the case of Roe v. Wade.3.Cases concerning the scope of right to privacy have included debates over birth control, abortion, and LGBTQ rights.
WTP14 ESS CH05 CHAPTER OUTLINE Civil Rights Learning Objectives 1.Define civil rights and describe the different strategies that lead to achieving civil rights. 2.Outline the key political and legal developments in the civil rights movement. 3.Explain how different social movements have expanded civil rights. 4.Describe key issues of civil rights that continue to impact American politics. What Are Civil Rights, and How Are They Achieved? 1.Civil rightsare guarantees of equal opportunity and protection for all citizens through obligations imposed on government power. 2.Civil rights mainly came about through social movements, which were made effective by enabling individuals to engage with others in collective action. 3.With the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, civil rights became part of the Constitution, where they are guaranteed to each citizen through “equal protection of the laws.” This equal protection clauselaunched a century of political movements and legal efforts to press for racial equality. 4.In using the equal protection clause to limit discrimination, part of the judicial decision-making process is to determine on whom the burden of proofis placed. 5.Levels of scrutiny, from lowest to highest: rational bias, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny. The Civil Rights Movement, 1600s-1960s 1.Despite the growth of slavery in the colonies, the institution of slavery was never universally accepted; it was deeply contested. Enslaved people resisted their inhumane treatment in a multitude of ways, including destroying tools, slowing down work, and even staging open revolts. 2.With roots before the revolutionary war, the abolitionist movement grew among White northerners in the 1830s. The movement’s strategies centered on swaying public opinion through speeches and the distribution of antislavery literature. 3.A blow to the movement came with the decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)which ruled enslaved people and all Black people were not citizens of the United States. 4.From 1896 until the end of World War II, the Supreme Court held that racial discrimination did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause as long as the facilities were equal, thus establishing the “separate but equal”rule,which prevailed through the mid-twentieth century. This “separate but equal” rule was a result of Plessy v. Ferguson. 5.Following Reconstruction, laws such as criminalizing racial intermarriage or segregating railroad travel were known as Jim Crow laws. These laws were enacted by southern states and discriminated against African Americans. 6.African Americans built organizations and devised strategies for asserting their constitutional rights. One such strategy, championed by the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP), sought to win political rights through political pressure and litigation. 7.The hopes of African Americans for achieving full citizenship rights initially seemed fulfilled when three constitutional amendments were adopted after the Civil War: the Thirteenth Amendmentabolished slavery; the Fourteenth Amendmentguaranteed equal protection under the law; and the Fifteenth Amendmentguaranteed voting rights for African Americans. 8.After World War II, the Supreme Court began to undermine the separate but equal doctrine, eventually declaring it unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.This decision marked the beginning of a difficult battle for equal protection in education, employment, housing, voting, and other areas of social and economic activity. 9.The first phase of school desegregation was met with such massive resistance in the South that 10 years after Brown, less than 1 percent of black children in the South were attending schools with whites. 10.The Brown decision not only altered the constitutional framework by indicating that racial discrimination violated the Constitution: it also signaled more clearly the Court’s determination to use the strict scrutinytest in cases related to discrimination, placing the burden of proof on the government. 11.Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed job discrimination by all private and public employers—including governmental agencies—employing more than 15 workers. 12.In 1965, Congress significantly strengthened legislation that protects voting rights by barring literacy and other tests as a condition for voting in southern states. In the long run, the laws extending and protecting voting rights could prove to be the most effective of all civil rights legislation, because increased political participation by minorities has altered the shape of American politics.13.Segregation can be defined in two ways. De jure meaning literally, “by law” refers to legally enforced practices such as school segregation before the 1960s. De facto meaning literally, “by fact” refers to practices that occur even when there is no legal enforcement such as school segregation in much of the United States today. Civil Rights Have Been Extended to Other Groups 1.The protections won by the African American civil rights movement spilled over to protect other groups as well, including women, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, disabled Americans, and gays and lesbians. 2.The movement toward women’s suffrage was formally launched in 1878 with the introduction of a proposed constitutional amendment in Congress. Parallel efforts were made in the states. Women’s organizations staged mass meetings, parades, petitions, and protests. 3.The Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920. 4.In the 1970s, the Supreme Court helped to establish gender discrimination as a major and highly visible civil rights issue. Although the Court refused to treat gender discrimination as the equivalent of racial discrimination, it did make it easier for plaintiffs to file and win suits on the basis of gender discrimination by applying intermediate scrutiny to cases involving education, sexual harassment, and employment. 5.Latino political strategy for securing civil rights has developed along two tracks. One is a traditional ethnic-group path of voter registration and voting along ethnic lines. The second is a legal strategy using the various civil rights laws designed to ensure fair access to the
political system. Since the 1960s, rights for Latinos have been intertwined with immigrant rights. 6.Asian Americans faced discriminatory citizenship and immigration regulations in the early to mid-twentieth century. The denial of basic civil rights to Japanese Americans culminated in the decision to forcibly remove Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese noncitizen residents from their homes and confine them in internment camps during World War II. Asian immigration increased rapidly after the 1965 Immigration Act, which lifted discriminatory quotas. 7.After the internment ended, Japanese Americans, fueled by the civil rights movement of the 1960s, formed their own movement, eventually securing an apology and monetary reparations. Their work culminated in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. 8.The political status of Native Americans was left unclear in the Constitution, and through the 1800s, many were killed or moved to reservations. In 1924 congressional legislation granted Native Americans citizenship, and certain protections of tribal sovereignty engendered by reservations have been a basis for further expansion of Native-American rights. 9.The concept of rights for the disabled began to emerge in the 1970s as the civil rights model spread to other groups. The movement achieved its greatest success with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, which guarantees equal employment rights and access to public businesses for people with disabilities. 10.In less than 50 years, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement has become one of the largest civil rights movements in contemporary America. In 1996, the Supreme Court, in Romer v. Evans, explicitly extended fundamental civil rights protections to gays and lesbians. In Lawrence v. Texas(2003), the Court struck down a Texas statute criminalizing certain types of intimate sexual conduct between consenting partners of the same sex, thus extending the right of privacy to sexual minorities. 11.In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodgesthat the Constitution's equal protection clause and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry in all states. Civil Rights Today1.By seeking to provide compensatory action to overcome the consequences of past discrimination, affirmative actionhas expanded the goals of groups championing minority rights. 2.Affirmative action has been a controversial policy. Opponents charge that affirmative action creates group rights and establishes quotas, both of which are inimical to the American tradition. Proponents of affirmative action argue that the long history of group discrimination makes affirmative action necessary and that efforts to compensate for some bad action in the past are well within the federal government's purview. 3.Cases involving affirmative action have centered on what level of scrutiny the courts should employ, and recent conflicts have landed affirmative action on state ballots. 4.Legal immigrants historically have faced different forms of discriminatory treatment, depending on their country of origin, Today, this discrimination continues, but so do efforts to resists and reform. 5.One priority for immigration advocacy groups has been the status of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and have little to no ties to their nation of birth.
6.Absent legislation, the Department of Homeland Security took matters into their own hands by instituting its own policy, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), instructing immigration officials to take no action to deport law-abiding people who as children entered the United States as children. 7.After 9/11, the United States launched a War on Terror, both on the grounds and through the airwaves that placed Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim Americans in the crossfire of anti-terrorist rhetoric. With the introduction of the War on Terror came an increase in Islamophobia. 8.Claims of unequal treatment in the criminal justice system fueled the growth of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. In 2020 frustration and rage exploded after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. In particular, the viral video of murder in broad daylight displayed the vulnerability of Black lives and illuminated the continued need to fight for greater civil rights protections. 9.As the racial justice movement churns forward, people will continue to draw on the outside and inside strategies of past movements and will innovate new strategies to address the challenges of today.
WTP14 ESS CH10 OUTLINE Congress Learning Objectives 1.Describe how Congress fulfills its role as a representative institution. 2.Describe the factors that structure congressional business. 3.Describe the regular order and "unorthodox”processes of how a bill becomes a law. 4.Identify the factors that influence which bills Congress passes. 5.Describe the powers that Congress uses to influence other branches of government. Congress Represents the American People1.Congress is the most important representative institution in American government. Each member's primary responsibility is to the district―that is, to his or her constituency(the people in the district from which an official is elected). 2.Congress is bicameral. The House and Senate play different roles in the legislative process. The Senate is more deliberative, whereas the House is characterized by greater centralization and organization. 3.House members are more attuned to localized narrow interests in society, whereas senators are more able to represent statewide or national interests. 4.A member of Congress may act as a delegate, who expresses the preferences of his or her constituents, or as a trustee, who is more loosely tied to constituents and empowered to make the decisions he or she thinks best. 5.Descriptive representationis when representatives have the same racial, gender, ethnic, religious, or educational backgrounds as their constituents. It is based on the principle that if two individuals are similar in background, character, interests, and perspectives, then one can correctly represent the other’s views. 6.Substantive representation is the sort of representation that takes place when constituents have the power to hire and fire their representatives. This is an incentive for good representation in cases when the personal backgrounds, views, and interests of the representative differ from those of his or her constituency. 7.Although there have been recent increases in the representation of minorities, Congress is not a sociological microcosm of American society. 8.Voters’ choices are restricted by who decided to run for office and which candidate has an edge over the others. 9.Incumbencyaffords members of Congress resources such as constituency service and “personal”relationships to help secure reelection. Incumbency can help a candidate by scaring off potential challengers. In general, an overwhelming percentage of incumbents who run are reelected. 10.Members of Congress often have an opportunity to provide direct benefits, or patronage, for their constituents. Members of Congress can supply benefits to constituents
by passing pork-barrel (or pork) legislation and then exchanging pork-barrel votes for votes on other issues. 11.Apportionment and redistrictingaffect who wins seats in Congress. The manipulation of electoral districts to serve the interests of a particular group is known as gerrymandering. Recent legal challenges and Supreme Court rulings have affirmed the redrawing of district lines for partisan ends. Congressional Organization Determines Power1.At the beginning of each Congress, Democrats and Republicans gather to select their leaders. The leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives is elected Speaker of the Houseby a strict party vote. 2.This gathering is typically known to House Republicans as the conference while House Democrats call theirs the caucus. 3.The elected leader of the majority party in either the House or Senate is known as the majority leader. In the House, minority party can also elect a minority leader. Each party also elects a whip to line up party members on important votes and to relay voting information to the leaders. 4.The committee system provides Congress with a second organizational structure that is more a division of labor than the party-based hierarchies of power. There are different kinds of committees: standing committees, select committees, joint committees, and conference committees. 5.Much of the hard work of deliberating, holding hearings, and “markup,” or the process of amending and rewriting a bill, takes place in the subcommittees. 6.Power within committees is based on seniority, although the seniority principle is not absolute. 7.Starting with reforms in the 1970s, which fragmented the power of the committee system, it has become more common for party-driven legislation to bypass the committees altogether. 8.Each member of Congress has a personal staff that deals with constituency requests and, increasingly, with the details of legislative and administrative oversight. Staff agencies support the work of Congress as a whole. Rules of Lawmaking Explain How a Bill Becomes a Law1.Committee deliberation is necessary before taking floor action on any bill. 2.Many bills receive little or no committee markup; they are allowed to “die in committee.”3.Bills presented out of committee in the House must go through the House Rules Committee before they can be debated on the floor. The Rules Committee allots the time for floor debate on a bill and the conditions under which a bill may (or may not) be amended, that is, under a closed rule or and open rule. 4.In the Senate, rules of debate are much less rigid. In fact, senators may delay Senate action on legislation by refusing to yield the floor; this tactic is known as a filibuster.Clotureends a filibuster.
5.Conference committees are often required to reconcile House and Senate versions of bills that began with similar provisions but emerged with significant differences. 6.After being adopted by the House and the Senate, a bill is sent to the president, who may choose to sign the bill or vetoit. The president can also pocket veto a bill by not signing it during the final 10 days of the legislative session. Congress can override a president’s veto by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. Roll-call votes can be used to record each legislator’s yes or no vote. 7.The foregoing discussion summarizes regular order in Congress. Regular order guarantees that a bill’s journey to becoming a law will be long and arduous.8.Today, instead of regular order, bills tend to follow a set of paths that are often called “unorthodox lawmaking.”9.Elements of this kind of lawmaking include frequent use of closed rules surrounding amendments and multiple referral, or the practice of referring a bill to more than one committee for consideration. Another element is the declining use of the conference committee which results in ping-ponging amendments back and forth between the relevant House and Senate committees to reconcile differences between bills or major measures without convening a conference committee at all. 10.Today important legislating is much less likely to follow regular order. Instead, the leadership exercises tight control over the process. This has led to Congress’srelying more on omnibus appropriations billsto pass appropriations bills and other major legislation. Who Influences Congressional Decision-Making?1.Creating a legislative agenda, drawing up a list of possible measures, and deciding among them is a complex process in which a variety of influences from inside and outside the government play important roles. 2.Even though most constituents pay little attention to politics, members of Congress do try to anticipate their policy views, especially in the face of reelection. 3.Interest groups can influence congressional decision making by mobilizing constituents, serving as watchdogs on congressional action, and supplying candidates with money. 4.Party discipline is still an important factor in congressional voting, despite its decline throughout the twentieth century. Party unity is typically greater in the House than in the Senate. A vote in which half or more of the members of one party take one position while at least half of the members of the other party take the opposing position is called a party unity vote. 5.Recent legislative stand-offs based on deep ideological polarization have increased prolonged stalemates or failure of bills altogether. Congress Does More Than Make Laws1.Congress has increasingly relied on oversightof how the executive branch carries out legislation. Oversight is carried out by committees or subcommittees of the Senate or the House, which conduct hearings and investigations to analyze and evaluate bureaucratic agencies and the effectiveness of their programs.
2.The Senate, through the constitutional power of advice and consent, approves or rejects presidential treaties and appointments. 3.Congress has the power of impeachment over members of the judicial branch and the executive, most famously the president.
WTP14 ESS CH11 OUTLINE The Presidency Learning Objectives1.Identify the expressed, implied, delegated, and inherent powers of the presidency. 2.Describe the institutional resources presidents have to help them exercise their powers. 3.Explain how modern presidents have become even more powerful. Presidential Power Is Rooted in the Constitution1.The framers thought a single executive would be energetic and thus better able to protect the nation’s interests. 2.The president’s expressed powers, which are granted by the Constitution, fall into five categories—military, judicial, diplomatic, executive, and legislative. 3.The position of commander in chiefmakes the president the highest military authority in the United States, with control of the entire defense establishment. The Constitution delegates to the president, as commander in chief, the obligation to protect every state against invasion and domestic violence. 4.The presidential power to grant reprieves, pardons, and amnesty involves power over all individuals who may be a threat to the security of the United States. 5.The power to receive representatives of foreign countries allows the president almost unconditional authority to determine whether a new ruling group can indeed commit its country to treaties and other agreements. Recently, presidents have increased the use of executive agreementsinstead of treaties. 6.The president’s executive power consists of the ability to appoint, remove, and supervise all executive officers and to appoint all federal judges (with Senate approval). 7.Another component of the president's power as chief executive is executive privilege—the claim that confidential communications between a president and close advisers should not be revealed without presidential consent. 8.The president’s legislative power consists of the constitutional requirement to deliver a State of the Union address and the president’s constitutional power to vetoany acts of Congress. The president can also pocket veto a bill by not signing it during the final 10 days of the legislative session. 9.Though not explicitly, the Constitution also provides the president with the power of legislative initiative, which implies the ability to formulate proposals for important policies. 10.Some powers of the president are known as implied powers; these are powers that are not directly stated as in the Constitution but are those powers the president has claimed are needed to allow the exercise of their power.
11.Powers given to the president by Congress are called delegated powers. Because of the expansion of government in the last century, Congress has voluntarily delegated a great deal of its own legislative authority to the executive branch. 12.Presidents have also claimed inherent powers, which are not expressed in the Constitution but are inferred from it. For example, though the president is commander in chief, only Congress can declare war. However, presidents have gone a long way in capturing this power for themselves. In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution as a response to presidential unilateralism, but presidents have generally ignored it. Presidents Claim Many Institutional Powers1.Collectively, the thousands of officials and staffers who work for, assist, or advise the chief executive could be said to make up the institutional presidency and to give the president a capacity for action that no single individual could duplicate. 2.The Cabinetis the designation for the heads of all the major federal government departments, but it is not a collective body. It meets but makes no decisions as a group. 3.The White House staff, which is composed primarily of analysts and advisers, has grown from an informal group of fewer than a dozen people to a new presidential bureaucracy. 4.A major part of the institutional presidency is the Executive Office of the President (EOP), which is larger than the White House staff and comprises the president’s permanent management agencies. The Office of Management and Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers both fall under this category. 5.The National Security Council (NSC)is composed of designated Cabinet officials who meet regularly with the president to give advice on national security. The staff of the NSC assimilates and analyzes data from all intelligence gathering agencies (such as the CIA and NSA). 6.As the institutional presidency has grown in size and complexity, most presidents of the past 25 years have sought to use their vice presidents as a management resource after the election. 7.First spouses have traditionally limited their activities to the ceremonial portion of the presidency, though some first spouses have been more involved in policy aspects of the presidency. Presidential Power Grew in the Twentieth Century1.Generally, presidents can expand their power in two ways: popular mobilization and reducing their dependence on Congress. 2.“Going public”as a source of presidential power has been especially significant in the past 50 years. Going public by using the Internet has changed how modern presidents govern, allowing them to broadcast policy ideas directly to citizens. But popular support for the president can be fickle and tends to decline over the course of a president’s administration. 3.Contemporary presidents have increased the administrative capabilities and power of their office by enhancing the reach and power of the Executive Office of the President, increasing White House control over the federal bureaucracy, and expanding the role of executive orders, signing statements, and other instruments of direct presidential governance.
4.Presidential power continues to be limited by Congress, which can decide not to fund presidential initiatives and to block presidential appointments.
WTP14 ESS CH12 OUTLINE The Bureaucracy Learning Objectives 1.Describe the characteristics and roles of bureaucrats and bureaucracies. 2.Explain civil service hiring, political appointments, and the use of federal contracting. 3.Explain how the president, Congress, and the judiciary try to manage the bureaucracy. What Is the Federal Bureaucracy?1.Bureaucracyis simply a form of organization. The specialization and repetition of bureaucracy are essential to the efficiency of any organization. 2.The primary tasks of bureaucracy are implementationof the laws passed by Congress, issuing rules that provide more specific indications of what congressional policy will mean, and enforcing the laws. 3.Because legislation often sets only broad parameters for government action, this requires bureaucracies to draw up much more detailed rules that guide the process of implementation and also to play a key role in enforcing the laws. 4.Congress delegates their power to the bureaucracy to carry out laws it passes. This can create a principal-agent problem. 5.The bureaucracy is large. It consists of 15 executive departments, which make up the Cabinet, as well as independent agencies, government corporations, and independent regulatory commissions, which are all part of the executive branch, even though they are not considered part of cabinet departments. Who Are Federal Bureaucrats? 1.Through civil reform, government has reduced political interference in the bureaucracy. A merit system determines who is hired and promoted within the bureaucracy. 2.Senior level officials are often political appointees. 3.In addition to political appointees, in many agencies there are top executives who are members of the Senior Executive Service (SES), a top management rank for career civil servants—and sometimes individuals from outside of government. 4.The bureaucracy has shrunk during the past 50 years. The national government is large, but the federal service has not been growing any faster than the economy or the society. Part of this decline is due to privatization. Managing the Bureaucracy1.Each expansion of the national government during the twentieth century was accompanied by a parallel expansion of presidential management authority, but the expansion of presidential power cannot guarantee accountability in the bureaucracy.
2.When a law is passed and its intent is clear, the accountability for implementation of that law is also clear. Then the president knows what to “faithfully execute,”and the responsible agency understands what is expected of it. 3.One of the most important EOP agencies is the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). All federal rules go through OMB. 4.Congress exercises control over the activities of executive agencies through oversighthearings and investigations. Steady, regular oversight is known as “police patrol”oversight. More reactive oversight is known as “fire alarm”oversight. 5.Inspector generals (IGs) are nonpartisan, independent organizations now located in most agencies, which investigate agency activities on Congress’s behalf.6.The bureaucracy is also subject to scrutiny from the judicial branch. 7.Bureaucratic agencies are also able to police themselves; whistleblowers can alert Congress or the media to wrongdoing. 8.An agency that is closely involved with the interests it regulates can be subject to regulatory captureif the relationship between the two gets too cozy.
WTP14 ESS CH13 OUTLINE The Federal Courts Learning Objectives 1.Identify the general types of cases and types of courts in America’s legal system.2.Describe the different levels of federal courts and the process of appointing federal judges. 3.Explain the Supreme Court’s judicial review of national law. 4.Describe the process by which cases are considered and decided by the Supreme Court. 5.Describe the factors that influence court decisions. The Legal System Settles Disputes1.Courts decide cases by hearing the facts on both sides of a dispute and applying the relevant law or principle to the facts. Courts have been given the authority to settle disputes, not only between citizens, but also between citizens and the government. The essence of the “rule of law”is that “the state”and its officials must be judged by the same laws as the citizenry. 2.Court cases in the United States proceed under two broad categories:criminal law and civil law. 3.In the area of criminal law, either a state government or the federal government is the plaintiffthat alleges that the defendanthas violated a statute that protects public health, safety, morals, or welfare. 4.Civil cases are those between individuals, groups, corporations, and other private entities, or between such litigants and the government, in which no criminal violation is charged. 5.In deciding cases, courts apply statutes (laws) and legal precedents(prior decisions). 6.By far, most cases are heard by state courts. State trial courtsare the first to hear a criminal or civil case, and defendants may appeal, if convicted, first to a state court of appealsand then to the state’s supreme court. 7.It should be noted that in both criminal and civil matters most cases are settled before trial through negotiated agreements between the parties. In criminal cases these agreements are called plea bargains. 8.Jurisdictionis the sphere of authority of a court. Cases involving federal laws, treaties with other nations, or the Constitution fall under the jurisdiction of the federal courts. 9.In the United States there are currently 94 district courts, which exercise jurisdiction over federal cases arising within each district. The judicial districts are organized into 11 regional circuits and the D.C. circuit; circuit courts exercise appellate jurisdiction over cases heard by the regional district courts. 10.Original jurisdiction, which is assigned by geography, the Constitution, or even Congress, refers to the authority to initially consider a case. 11.Appellate jurisdiction refers to the authority to hear appeals from a lower court’s decision. For a case to enter federal courts from state courts, the defendant must allege a violation of due process of lawor ask for a writ of habeas corpus.
The Federal Courts Hear a Small Percentage of All Cases 1.Federal district court routines and procedures are essentially the same as those of the lower state courts, but federal procedural requirements tend to be stricter. 2.The 12 U.S. courts of appeals review and render decisions in approximately 20 percent of all lower-court and agency cases. 3.The Supreme Court is the highest court in the country and the only federal court established by the Constitution. 4.The Constitution does not specify the number of justices who should sit on the Supreme Court; Congress has the power to change the Court’s size. Since 1869 there have been nine justices—one chief justiceand eight associate justices. 5.Federal judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. There are no formal qualifications for service as a federal judge, but presidents tend to appoint judges who possess legal experience, good character, and partisan and ideological views similar to their own. 6.Because the Supreme Court has so much influence over American law and politics, virtually all presidents have tried to select justices who share their political philosophies. 7.In its second procedural expansion of judicial power during the mid-twentieth century, the federal courts broadened the scope of remedies they could provide by permitting suits on behalf of broad categories or classes of persons in “class-action”cases, rather than just on behalf of individuals. The Power of the Supreme Court Is Judicial Review1.The Supreme Court’s power to review acts of Congress, although accepted as natural and rarely challenged, is not specifically granted by the Constitution. The power of judicial reviewwas asserted in the important early case of Marbury v. Madison (1803). 2.The Supreme Court’s power to review state action or legislation derives from the Constitution’s supremacy clause, although it is neither granted specifically by the Constitution nor inherent in the federal system. 3.As Congress has delegated power to federal agencies, the courts have been called on to decide whether the regulations adopted by federal agencies are consistent with Congress’s express or implied intent. 4.Federal courts also review assertions of presidential power in areas like foreign policy, war and emergency powers, legislative power, and administrative authority. Most Cases Reach the Supreme Court by Appeal1.Over the years, courts have developed specific rules that govern which cases within their jurisdiction they hear. These rules of access can be broken down into three categories: case or controversy, standing, and mootness.
2.Most cases reach the Supreme Court through a writ of certiorari;this is only to be granted when there are special and compelling reasons. In the Supreme Court, four of the nine justices must vote to accept a case in what is called the rule of four. 3.The solicitor generalcan influence the Court by screening cases before they reach the Supreme Court, submitting amicus curiaebriefs, and shaping the arguments used before the Court. 4.Lobbying groups and forces in society attempt to influence justices’ rulings on particular issues. 5.After the Court considers the reasoning on both sides as presented in briefsand oral argument, the justices discuss the case in conference and opinions are carefully drafted. Every opinionof the Supreme Court sets a major precedent for cases throughout the judicial system, and even dissenting opinionscan motivate future cases to come before the Court. Supreme Court Decisions Are Influenced by Activism and Ideology1.The Supreme Court always explains its decisions in terms of law and precedent. 2.To prevent arbitrary decision-making, the justices apply previous precedents; this process is known as stare decisis,a Latin phrase meaning “let the decision stand.”3.Supreme Court justices are influenced by institutional interests, the philosophies of judicial restraintand law, and political ideology. 4.The alternative to restraint is judicial activism, which advances the belief that judges should be more active in reviewing cases. 5.A substantial judicial revolution in several policy areas has strengthened and expanded the role of the federal judiciary since World War II, including school desegregation, legislative apportionment, criminal procedure, obscenity, abortion, and voting rights. 6.For much of American history, the power of the federal courts was subject to several limitations: the fact that courts cannot exercise power on their own initiative, the limited relief courts could provide, the lack of enforcement powers, political appointment, and the power of Congress to change the size and jurisdiction of federal courts.
WTP14 ESS CH14 OUTLINE Domestic PolicyLearning Objectives 1.Describe how the government uses fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies to influence the economy. 2.Describe the arguments for and against government intervention into the economy. 3.Trace the history of government programs designed to promote economic security. 4.Describe how education, health, and housing policies try to advance equality of opportunity. 5.Explain how contributory, noncontributory, and tax expenditure programs benefit different groups of Americans. The Government Shapes Economic Policy with Three Tools1.At the most basic level, government makes it possible for the economy to function efficiently by setting the rules for economic exchange and punishing those who violate the rules. 2.Fiscal policiesinclude the government’s taxing and spending powers. The federal tax system has several goals, from raising revenue for the government to achieving some redistribution. Taxes in the United States are both progressive and regressive. A tariff is a tax on imported goods. 3.During economic slowdowns the government may decide to stimulate the economy by increasing spending, as it did during the coronavirus pandemic, or by reducing taxes. 4.Conversely, if the economy is growing too fast, which might bring inflation (a consistent increase in prices), the government might cut back on spending or raise taxes. 5.Government spending that exceeds revenue is known as a budget deficit. The national debt is the total amount of money the government has borrowed. 6.Government can also use subsidies and contracting powerto promote certain economic goals. 7.Monetary policiesmanipulate the growth of the entire economy by controlling the availability of money to banks through the Federal Reserve System. 8.The federal government can establish conditions that regulate the operation of big businesses to ensure fair competition and can force large monopolies to break up into smaller companies using antitrust policy. In addition to economic regulation, the federal government can also impose conditions on businesses to protect workers, the environment, and consumers. 9.The trend since the late 1970s has been against regulation. Although the deregulationmovement resulted in a reduction in the number of regulatory laws, the 2008 financial crisis caused Congress to enact a range of new regulations on the financial industry. Economic Policy Making Is Inherently Political
1.Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the public has held the government responsible for maintaining a healthy economy. 2.Politicians disagree about what the priorities of economic policy should be. Both Democrats and Republicans want to promote economic growth, but Republicans stress the importance of maintaining economic freedom whereas Democrats are more willing to believe that economic prosperity requires government action. 3.There are different theories about whether, how much, and in what ways government should be involved in the economy. 4.Keynesians argue that government can stimulate the economy by increasing public spending and cutting taxes. 5.Proponents of laissez-faire capitalismargue that the economy will flourish with minimal or no government interference. 6.Proponents of supply-side economicsargue that reducing the government’s role in the economy, particularly through tax cuts, will promote investment and spur economic growth. 7.Because neither party wishes to cut big, expensive, popular programs and because tax increases have been so difficult to enact, budget deficits have grown, and smaller programs have been cut. 8.Economic regulation, like the minimum wage, attracts intense political conflict as businesses seek to decrease the government’s role while other interests press for stronger government action. The Welfare State Was Created to Address Inequality 1.Before 1935, the welfare system in America was composed of private groups rather than government. State governments gradually assumed some of the obligation to aid the poor. 2.The founding of the welfare statecan be dated to the Social Security Act of 1935; this act provided for both contributory and noncontributory welfare programs. 3.Contributory programs—such as Social Securityand Medicare, and unemployment insurance—are financed by taxation or other mandatory contributions by their present or future recipients. 4.Senior citizens’ purchasing power is protected by indexing, whereby benefits are raised annually by cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) tied to the rate of inflation. 5.Noncontributory programs—such Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—provide assistance to people through means testingrather than on any contribution they may have made. These programs provide what are called in-kind benefits—noncash goods and services that would otherwise have to be paid for in cash by the beneficiary. 6.In addition to contributory and noncontributory programs, much of the social welfare state is in the form of tax expenditureswhich mainly support middle- and upper-income Americans. Social Policies Open Opportunity 1.Education, health, and housing policies are three significant ways to break the cycle of poverty and foster equality of opportunity.
2.The education policies of state and local governments are the most important single force in the distribution and redistribution of opportunity in America. The No Child Left Behind Act, which President George W. Bush introduced, and President Barack Obama overhauled, greatly increased the federal role in education. 3.The Democrats passed comprehensive health care reform in 2010 in the form of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but the issue of health care reform remained at the forefront of public debate and election campaigns. 4.Even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that most of the ACA was constitutional, the act remains controversial, with proponents on the left arguing more and more for a single payer system, while opponents on the right advocate for a complete repeal of the act. 5.Federal housing policy has focused on promoting home ownership. The federal government has traditionally done much less to provide housing for low-income Americans who cannot afford to buy homes. 6.After the housing bubble burst in 2007, the federal government responded with a plan designed to slow the rising interest rates in order to stem the tide of foreclosures. Who Gets What from Social Policy?1.The two categories of social policy—contributory and noncontributory—generally serve different groups of people. The elderly and the middle class receive the most benefits from the government’s social policies, and children and the working poor receive the fewest. 2.The elderly are the beneficiaries of generous social policies, in part because they are perceived as being a deserving population and also because they have become a strong interest group. 3.The middle and upper classes benefit from social policies in many ways; one way is through the use of tax expenditures, which provide that certain payments made by employers and employees are not taxed by the government. 4.People who are working but are still poor or living just above the poverty line receive only limited assistance from government social programs. Although they may be seen as deserving, they receive only limited assistance because they lack organization and, therefore, political power. 5.Medicaid and TANF are programs aimed at the able-bodied, nonworking poor, but these people receive assistance only if they are parents caring for children. The unpopularity of such programs has prompted efforts to decrease spending in recent years. 6.Minorities, women (particularly single mothers), and children are disproportionately poor. Much of this poverty is the result of disadvantages that stem from the position of these groups in the labor market.
WTP14 ESS CH15 CHAPTER OUTLINE Foreign Policy Learning Objectives1.Explain how foreign policy is designed to promote security, prosperity, and humanitarian goals. 2.Describe the structure and roles of the major organizations and players in U.S. foreign policy–making. 3.Describe the means the United States uses to carry out foreign policy today. 4.Explain the foreign policy problems facing American policy makers today. The Goals of Foreign Policy1.Foreign policy refers to the programs and policies that determine America’s relations with other nations and foreign entities. Foreign policy includes diplomacy, military, and security policy; international human rights policies; and various forms of economic policy. 3.U.S. foreign policy has three goals: security, prosperity, and the creation of a better world. 4.Today, American security policy is concerned, not only with the actions of other nations, but also with the activities of terrorist groups and other hostile non-stateactors, as well as the security of food and energy supplies, transportation infrastructure, and cyberspace. 5.Unlike nation-states, which are countries with governments and fixed borders, terrorist groups have no fixed geographic location that can be attacked; hence the threat of retaliation doesn’t deter them.5.Throughout its history, the United States has adopted or consider several different security policies, including isolationism, appeasement, containment, deterrence, preventive war, and collective action and restraint. 6.The Cold Warwas the dominant factor of twentieth-century foreign policy. 7.America’s international economic policies are intended to expand employment opportunities in the United States, maintain access to foreign energy supplies at a reasonable cost, promote foreign investment in the United States, and lower the prices Americans pay for goods and services. 8.International human rights and disaster aid are also important U.S. foreign policy goals. American Foreign Policy Is Shaped by Government and Nongovernment Actors 1.The president and his chief advisers are the principal architects of U.S. foreign policy, but Congress, the bureaucracy, the courts, political parties, interest groups, and trade associations also contribute. 1.Most presidents have been domestic politicians, but after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush initiated a new foreign policy stance known as the Bush Doctrine, based on the idea that the United States should take preemptive action against threats to its national security.
2.Presidents can also make use of executive agreementsto partially bypass congressional power in foreign relations. Executive agreements are agreements made by the president with other countries that have the force of a treaty but do not require Senate ratification. 3.3.The key players in foreign policy in the bureaucracy are the National Security Council, the Departments of State and Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. 4.Although the Senate traditionally had more foreign-policy power than the House, since World War II, Congress as a whole has become a major foreign policy–maker. 5.Many types of interest groups help shape American foreign policy. These groups include economic interest groups, ethnic or national interest groups, human rights groups, and environmental interest groups. Tools of American Foreign Policy: Diplomacy, Money, and Force1.Diplomacyis the representation of a government to other foreign governments. Significant yet vulnerable, diplomacy is overshadowed by spectacular international events, dramatic initiatives, and meetings among heads of state or their representatives. 2.The United Nations (UN)is an instrument whose usefulness to American foreign policy can too easily be underestimated. 3.The international monetary structure, which consists of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), was created to avoid the economic devastation that followed World War I. 4.Some American economic aid has a humanitarian purpose, but a good deal of economic aid is designed to promote American security interests or economic concerns. Sanctions, on the other hand, are most often employed when the United States seeks to weaken what it considers a hostile regime. 5.After World War II, the United States recognized the importance of collective security and subsequently entered into multilateral collective security treaties and other bilateral treaties. 6.Military force is sometimes necessary, but it is a response of last resort because of its high cost in both financial and human terms and extreme risk. 7.Dispute arbitration, which allows neutral third parties to settle international disputes, maintains the flow of international trade by providing for the protection of property and contractual rights. Daunting Foreign Policy Issues Face the United States1. After the United States, Russia and China are the world’s greatest military powers.China is an economic power as well, with an economy that in some respects already outpaces America’s and continues to grow. China seems determined to expand its military capabilities and replace the United States as the dominant power in Asia. The United States has no desire to engage in a military conflict but, at the same time, would prefer to blunt China’s ambitionsand Russia’s challenges. 2. Iran and North Korea are not great powers, but both present challenges to the United States, especially in the realm of nuclear proliferation. Though a nuclear power, the Unites States has generally seen nuclear proliferation as leading to a more dangerous world, and has done
what it can to prevent more countries—especially those seen as opposed to the interests of the United States and its allies—from developing nuclear weapons. 3. Trade is one of the most contentious issues in international relations. 4. Global environmental policy is another matter for American policy makers. Generally, the United States supports various international efforts to protect the environment.