![education. They expected that voters would cast their ballots in
accordance with this view. 18th-century republicans believed
that
elected representatives, once in office, should not be overly
responsive to public opinion; representatives were to exercise
independent judgment about how best to serve the public
interest,
taking into account the needs and interests of society rather than
the
moods and opinions of the people. They believed that such a
deliberative approach would not only protect liberty but result
in better
government decisions and policies.
The Founders’ Beliefs About The
Problems of Democracy
Eighteenth-century republicans, then, did not believe that the
people
could or should rule directly. While they favored a system that
allowed
the common people to play a larger role in public life than
existed
under other political systems of the day, they wanted to limit
the role of
the people far more than we would find acceptable today. They
worried that too much participation by the people would have a
bad
outcome. As James Madison put it in The Federalist No. 10,
“[Democracies] have ever been spectacles of turbulence and
contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal
security
or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in
their](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-138-320.jpg)
![independent powers. The supremacy clause in Article VI states
that the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States
shall be
the “supreme law of the land.” According to a doctrine known
as
preemption , states cannot act in certain matters when the
national
government has authority. However, Article I, Section 8,
enumerates
what kinds of laws Congress has the power to pass, and the
Tenth
Amendment declares that the powers not delegated to the
central
government by the Constitution or prohibited by the
Constitution to the
states are “reserved to the states [emphasis added] respectively,
or to
the people.” This provision is known as the reservation clause .
supremacy clause
The provision in Article VI of the Constitution
states that the Constitution and the laws and
treaties of the United States are the supreme
law of the land, taking precedence over state
laws and constitutions when they are in
conflict.
preemption
Exclusion of the states from actions that might
interfere with federal authority or statutes.
4](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-222-320.jpg)
![The merging of hard news and entertainment
in news presentations.
In many cases, “more entertaining” means that sensation and
drama
replaces careful consideration of domestic politics, public
policies, and
international affairs. For example, in 2014, CNN was criticized
by
some for its relentless coverage of the fate of Malaysia Airlines
Flight
370—a passenger jet that crashed somewhere in the Indian
Ocean for
reasons that are still not known. The New York Times cited a
CNN
network executive who “acknowledged [Flight 3370] was not
really a
story where reporters [had] been able to advance the known
facts
much. Instead, it [had] been fueled by a lot of expert analysis
based
17
18
on the little verifiable information that [had] been available,
speculation
about what might have happened to the plane and where it might
be
now, accompanied by all the visual pizazz the network [could]
bring to
bear.” Although there was little “news” to report, the story of
the lost](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-483-320.jpg)
![employees and that several MMS inspectors had examined
operations at companies where they hoped to work. Also
uncovered was the cozy relationship between oil rig inspectors
and drilling companies. Many instances came to light of MMS
inspection forms that had been filled out in pencil by industry
officials but later traced over in pen by inspectors. Equally
important, the MMS was entirely dependent on the technical
information provided by regulated companies, having neither
the personnel nor agency resources to develop information or
independent testing equipment and instruments “in-house.”
During the Coast Guard inquiry on the failure of the various
safety devices to work at the Deepwater Horizon platform,
Captain Hung Nguyen was astonished when he received a
simple “yes” answer from the MMS’s regional supervisor for
field operations to the following question: “So my
understanding
is that [the shear ram tool] is designed to industry standard,
manufactured by industry, installed by industry, with no
government witnessing oversight of the construction or the
installation. Is that correct?” With such vigorous industry
oversight in place, who needs more regulation?
In response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Obama
administration issued tough safety, financial, and environmental
regulations for the offshore drilling industry. After the election
of
Donald Trump, however, a president committed to de-
regulation as a way to unleash private enterprise, grow the
economy, and bring back jobs, regulatory rollbacks on offshore
drilling happened quickly. For example, under the direction of
its new director Scott Angelle, the Interior Department’s Bureau
of Safety and Environmental Enforcement issued new rules
giving drilling companies more time to replace faulty drilling](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-550-320.jpg)
![committees or subcommittees, a broad swath of rank-and-file
members, and key staff members. Because much of the action
in
Congress takes place in the committees and because senators
and
representatives are busy with a wide range of responsibilities,
cultivating relationships with important legislative and
committee staff
members is especially important for successful lobbyists. As
one
lobbyist put it, “If you have a staff member on your side, it
might be a
hell of a lot better than talking to the member [of Congress].”
Lobbyists are also expected to make substantial contributions to
the
campaign war chests of representatives and senators and to
persuade
their clients to do the same. One influential lobbyist is reported
to have
said that “about one-third of my day is spent raising money
from my
clients to give to people I lobby.”
Lobbying the Executive Branch
After bills become law, they must be carried out or
implemented. This
is done by the executive branch. In this process of
implementation,
career civil servants, political appointees in top executive
branch
bureaus and departments, and regulators have a great deal of
discretionary authority in deciding how to transform the wishes
of the
president and Congress into action on the ground. This happens
because Congress and the president usually legislate broad](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-588-320.jpg)
![Corporations
Economist and political scientist Charles Lindblom argued that
corporations wield such disproportionate power in American
politics
that they undermine democracy. He closed his classic 1977 book
Politics and Markets with this observation: “The large private
corporation fits oddly into democratic theory. Indeed, it does
not fit.”
Twenty years later, political scientist Neil Mitchell concluded
his book
The Conspicuous Corporation, which reported the results of
careful
empirical testing of Lindblom’s ideas, with the conclusion that
“business interests (in the United States) are not routinely
countervailed in the policy process. Their political resources
and
incentives to participate are usually greater than other
interests.”
Two decades after Mitchell, Benjamin Page and Martin
published their
ground-breaking data-driven study of distortions in American
democracy Democracy in America?, observing at one point that
“…
organized interest groups—especially business corporations—
have
much more clout [than ordinary citizens]” Let’s see why these
scholars
reached their somber conclusion about the privileged position of
business in American politics.
privileged position of business
The notion advanced by some political](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-619-320.jpg)
![getting smaller. This has happened because fewer Americans
than in
the 1950s were identifying as Democrats and more were
identifying as
Independents. While Democrats maintain an edge over
Republicans
in party identification, recall that there are no truly national
elections in
American politics. Consequently, election results are not merely
a
matter of which party has more people identified with it but also
where
those who identify with the party live.
If these trends continue, how might the landscape of American
politics
change?
Source: Data from American National Election Studies, and
Stanford University. ANES Time Series Cumulative Data
File (1948-2012). ICPSR08475-v15. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-
university Consortium for Political and Social Research
[distributor], 2015-10-23.,
http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08475.v15.
Figure 9.4 (see page 243) shows how Barack Obama and Mitt
Romney did in each county in the 2012 presidential election.
Vote
choice is a good (though imperfect) measure of party
identification.
The redder counties indicate where Romney won by a wide
margin;
the bluer counties, where Obama won by a wide margin; and the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-771-320.jpg)
![SOURCE: Cartograms produced in ArcMap 10.4.1 with the
Cartogram Geoprocessing tool using the
Newman-Gastner method [see details in Michael T. Gastner and
Mark E. J. Newman, “Diffusion-Based
Method for Producing Density-Equalizing Maps,” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 101
(2004): 7499–7504.]
Clinton did not perform as well as expected among women and
minorities, and suffered from lower voter turnout among
Democrats in some crucial states. Though 54 percent of
women supported Clinton, this was only up one point from
Obama’s percentage in the 2012 election, according to exit
polls. This, despite numerous comments made by Trump
during the campaign that were thought to alienate women, and
despite the historic nature of Clinton’s nomination. Further,
exit polls suggest that Clinton actually did eight points worse
among Hispanic voters than Obama did in 2012, though some
observers are suspicious that these numbers reflect the voting
reality. Finally, vote tallies seem to indicate that though overall
voter turnout was up a few percentage points from 2012,
African American voters in swing states, an important part of
the two Obama wins, were a slightly smaller segment of the
electorate than they were in 2012. This cost Clinton crucial
votes in large cities in swing states such as Milwaukee, Detroit,
and Philadelphia.
turnout
The proportion of either eligible or all
voting-age Americans who actually](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-817-320.jpg)
![serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” Campaigning
for
Congress in Illinois several decades later, Abraham Lincoln
argued
otherwise: “While acting as [your] representative, I shall be
governed
by [your] will, on all subjects upon which I have the means of
knowing
what [your] will is.” (If only he had had access to public
opinion polls!)
In practice, most members of Congress exhibit characteristics of
both
a trustee and delegate, but we can think about how the rules of
the
House and Senate affect representation styles. Senators with
six-year
terms face the electorate less often than members of the House,
and
they represent larger, more diverse constituencies, so they are
generally thought of as being more like trustees. As they get
closer to
the end of their terms and the prospect of facing the voters for
reelection, however, senators edge toward the delegate style.
Members of the House must run for reelection every two years
and
tend to be in constant campaign mode, which, along with
smaller, less
diverse constituencies, pushes them toward the delegate style of
representation.
THE DELEGATE VERSUS THE TRUSTEE
Abraham Lincoln (left) preferred the delegate model of
representation
by deferring to the opinions of his constituents on important](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/solvingequationsusingsquarerootsorthequadraticformulai-230119024926-56d0e8ca/85/Solving-Equations-using-Square-Roots-or-the-Quadratic-FormulaI-docx-954-320.jpg)
Solving Equations using Square Roots or the Quadratic FormulaI.docx
- 1. Solving Equations using Square Roots or the Quadratic Formula Initial Post Instructions Present a quadratic equation in the form ax2 + bx + c = 0 where a > 1. 1. How many solutions does your quadratic have based on the discriminant? 2. Pick TWO ways to find the specific solutions or show that there is no solution: a. Quadratic Formula b. Graphing c. Factoring d. Square Root Property e. Completing the Square 3. Why did you choose those two specific methods versus the others? 4. . Writing Requirements · APA format for in-text citations and list of references · Due Wednesday Revel enables students to read and interact with course material on the devices they use, anywhere and anytime. Responsive design allows students to access Revel on their tablet devices, with content displayed clearly in both portrait and landscape view.
- 2. Highlighting, note taking, and a glossary personalize the learning experience. Educators can add notes for students, too, including reminders or study tips Revel’s variety of writing activities and assignments develop and assess concept mastery and critical thinking. Superior assignability and tracking Revel’s assignability and tracking tools help educators make sure students are completing their reading and understanding core concepts. Revel allows educators to indicate precisely which readings must be completed on which dates. This clear, detailed schedule helps students stay on task and keeps them motivated throughout the course. Revel lets educators monitor class assignment completion and individual student achievement. It offers actionable information that helps educators intersect with their students in meaningful ways, such as points earned on quizzes and time on task.
- 3. THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY 2018 Elections and Updates Edition THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY 2018 Elections and Updates Edition Edward S. GREENBERG University of Colorado, Boulder Benjamin I. PAGE Northwestern University with assistance by David Doherty Loyola University Chicago Scott L. Minkoff SUNY New Paltz Josh M. Ryan Utah State University Executive Portfolio Manager: Jeff Marshall Content Producer: Mary Donovan Content Developer: Allison Collins Portfolio Manager Assistant: Christina Winterburn Product Marketer: Candice Madden Field Marketer: Alexa Macri Content Producer Manager: Amber Mackey Content Development Manager: Rebecca Green Art/Designer: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Digital Studio Course Producer: Tina Gagliostro
- 4. Full-Service Project Manager: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Compositor: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Printer/Binder: LSC Communications, Inc. Cover Printer: LSC Communications, Inc. Cover Design: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Cover Credit: José Miguel Hernández Hernández/Moment Open/Getty Images Acknowledgements of third party content appear on page 645, which constitutes an extension of this copyright page. Copyright © 2020, 2018, 2016 by Pearson Education, Inc. 221 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. For information regarding permissions, request forms and the appropriate contacts within the Pearson Education Global Rights & Permissions department, please visit www.pearsoned.com/permissions/. PEARSON, ALWAYS LEARNING, and Revel are exclusive trademarks owned by Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates, in the U.S., and/or other countries.
- 5. Unless otherwise indicated herein, any third-party trademarks that may appear in this work are the property of their respective owners and any references to third-party trademarks, logos or other trade dress are for demonstrative or descriptive purposes only. Such references are not intended to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, authorization, or promotion of Pearson’s products by the owners of such marks, or any relationship between the owner and Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates, authors, licensees or distributors. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Greenberg, Edward S., 1942– author. | Page, Benjamin I., author. Title: The struggle for democracy / Edward S. Greenberg, Benjamin I. Page ; with assistance by David Doherty, Scott L. Minkoff. Description: 12th edition, 2018 elections and updates edition. | Hudson Street, N.Y., NY : Pearson, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. http://www.pearsoned.com/permissions/ Identifiers: LCCN 2018040806| ISBN 9780135246429 | ISBN 0135246423
- 6. Subjects: LCSH: United States—Politics and government— Textbooks. | Democracy—United States—Textbooks. Classification: LCC JK276 .G74 2020 | DDC 320.473—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040806 1 18 Access Code Card ISBN-10: 0-13-520276-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-520276-0 Revel Combo Card ISBN-10: 0-13-558193-1 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-558193-3 Rental Edition ISBN-10: 0-13-524642-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-524642-9 Loose Leaf Edition ISBN-10: 0-13-522948-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-522948-4 Instructor’s Review Copy: ISBN-10: 0-13-524690-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-524690-0 Brief Contents
- 7. To the Student xv To the Instructor xvii PART I Introduction: Main Themes 1 Democracy and American Politics 1 PART II Structure 2 The Constitution 17 3 Federalism: States and Nation 44 4 The Structural Foundations of American Government and Politics 73 PART III Political Linkage 5 Public Opinion 102 6 The News Media 137 7 Interest Groups and Business Power 165 8 Social Movements 199 9 Political Parties 226 10 Voting, Campaigns, and Elections 256 PART IV Government and Governing 11 Congress 294 12 The Presidency 332 13 The Executive Branch 364
- 8. 14 The Courts 395 PART V What Government Does 15 Civil Liberties: The Struggle for Freedom 429 16 Civil Rights: The Struggle for Political Equality 463 17 Domestic Policies 493 18 Foreign and National Defense Policies 529 Appendix 564 Glossary 592 Endnotes 604 Photo Credits 645 Index 647 Contents To the Student xv To the Instructor xvii PART I Introduction: Main Themes 1 Democracy and American Politics 1 The Struggle for Democracy: Robert Moses and the Struggle of African Americans for Voting Rights 2 What Is Democracy? 2
- 9. The Origins of Democracy 3 Direct Versus Representative Democracy 5 The Benchmarks of Representative Democracy 5 Objections to Representative Democracy 10 How Do Government and Politics Work? 12 Identifying the Factors That Influence Government and Politics 12 Connecting the Factors That Influence Government and Politics: An Application 14 Understanding Government and Politics Holistically 15 PART II Structure 2 The Constitution 17 The Struggle for Democracy: Does the “Advice and Consent” of the Senate Matter? 18 The American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence 19 Key Ideas in the Declaration of Independence 20 Key Omissions in the Declaration of Independence 22 The Articles of Confederation: Our First Constitution 22
- 10. Provisions of the Articles 22 Shortcomings of the Articles 23 Factors Leading to the Constitutional Convention 24 What Worried American Notables and Why 24 The Constitutional Convention and a New Framework for Government 27 Who Were the Framers? 28 Consensus and Conflict at the Constitutional Convention 29 What the Framers Created at the Constitutional Convention 32 The Struggle to Ratify the Constitution 37 The Changing Constitution, Democracy, and American Politics 39 Changing the Constitution Through Formal Amendment 39 Changing the Constitution Through Judicial Review 39 Changing the Constitution Through Political Practices 40 Using the Democracy Standard: The Constitution: How
- 11. Democratic? 41 3 Federalism: States and Nation 44 The Struggle for Democracy: A Patchwork of Policies 45 Federalism as a System of Government 47 Federalism Defined 47 Comparing American Federalism 47 Federalism in the Constitution 48 Federal, State, and Concurrent Powers 49 The Roles of States in the National Government 50 Relations Among the States 51 The Evolution of American Federalism 52 The Ascendant Power of the National Government 53 Federalism Before the Civil War 55 Expansion of National Power Following the Civil War 56 Expansion of National Power in the Twentieth Century 58 Devolution and the Rethinking of Federal Power 60 The Reassertion of Federal Power After 2000 61
- 12. Recent Pushback Against National Power 63 Fiscal Federalism 63 Origin and Growth of Federal Grants 64 Types of Federal Grants 64 Federal Grants: Money and Control 65 Strong States Versus a Strong National Government 68 Strong States: Diversity of Needs 68 Strong National Government: The Importance of National Standards 68 Strong States: Closeness to the People 68 Strong National Government: Low Visibility of State Officials 68 Strong States: Innovation and Experimentation 68 Strong National Government: Spillover Effects and Competition 69 Using the Democracy Standard: American Federalism: How Democratic? 70 4 The Structural Foundations of American Government and Politics 73
- 13. The Struggle for Democracy: The Walmartization of American Manufacturing: Where Will All the Good Jobs Go? 74 America’s Population 76 America’s Population Is Growing 76 America’s Population Is Becoming More Diverse 77 America’s Population Is Moving West and South 81 America’s Population Is Growing Older 82 America’s Population Is Becoming Economically More Unequal 82 America’s Economy 87 Main Tendencies of Capitalism 88 Globalization, Technological Change, and Hypercompetition 89 America’s Political Culture 93 Individualistic 94 Distrustful of Government 96 Believers in Democracy and Freedom 96 Populist 97 Religious 97
- 14. Using the Democracy Standard: American Society, Economy, and Political Culture: How Democratic? 100 PART III Political Linkage 5 Public Opinion 102 The Struggle for Democracy: Vietnam: A Matter of Opinion? 103 Measuring Public Opinion 104 Public Opinion Polls 104 Challenges of Political Polling 105 Political Socialization: Learning Political Beliefs and Attitudes 108 How and Why People’s Political Attitudes Differ 110 Party Identification 110 Race and Ethnicity 111 Social Class 115 Geography 116 Education 116 Gender 118 Age 119
- 15. Religion 120 The Contours of American Public Opinion: Are the People Fit to Rule? 122 The People’s Knowledge About Politics 122 The People’s Attitudes About the Political System 124 The People’s Liberalism and Conservatism 128 The People’s Policy Preferences 128 The People’s “Fitness to Rule” Revisited 132 Using the Democracy Standard: Public Opinion: Does It Determine What Government Does? 133 6 The News Media 137 The Struggle for Democracy: War with the Watchdog 138 How News Organizations Operate 139 The Functions of the News Media in a Democracy 139 News Media Organizations 140 Profit Motives of the News Media 142 News-Gathering and Production Operations 144 Online News Media 150
- 16. Bias in the News 155 Ideological Bias 155 Nonideological Bias 157 Effects of the News Media on Politics 158 Agenda Setting 158 Priming 159 Framing 159 Fueling Cynicism 160 Fragmenting Comprehension 160 Using the Democracy Standard: The News Media: Do They Help or Hinder Democracy 162 7 Interest Groups and Business Power 165 The Struggle for Democracy: Disaster in the Gulf 166 Interest Groups in a Democratic Society: Contrasting Viewpoints 168 The Evils-of-Faction Argument 168 The Pluralist Argument 168 The Universe of Interest Groups 170 Private Interest Groups 170 Public Interest Groups 173
- 17. Interest Group Formation and Proliferation 174 The Constitution 174 Diverse Interests 175 A More Active Government 175 Disturbances 176 What Interest Groups Do 177 The Inside Game 177 The Outside Game 182 Interest Groups, Corporate Power, and Inequality in American Politics 185 Representational Inequality 185 Resource Inequality 186 Access Inequality 188 The Privileged Position of Corporations 190 Curing the Mischief of Factions 194 Using the Democracy Standard: Interest Groups: Do They Help or Hinder American Democracy? 196 8 Social Movements 199 The Struggle for Democracy: Women Win the Right to Vote: Why Did It Take So Long? 200
- 18. What Are Social Movements? 201 Major Social Movements in the United States 204 The Abolitionist Movement 204 The Populist Movement 204 The Women’s Suffrage Movement 205 The Labor Movement 205 The Civil Rights Movement 205 Contemporary Antiwar Movements 205 The Women’s Movement 208 The Environmental Movement 208 The Gay and Lesbian Movements 208 The Religious Conservative Movement 208 The Anti-Globalization Movement 209 The Tea Party Movement 209 The Occupy Wall Street Movement 210 The “Black Lives Matter” Movement 211 The Role of Social Movements in a Democracy 212 Encouraging Participation 212
- 19. Overcoming Political Inequality 213 Creating New Majorities 213 Overcoming Constitutional Inertia 213 Factors That Encourage the Formation of Social Movements 214 Real or Perceived Distress 214 Availability of Resources for Mobilization 215 A Supportive Environment 216 A Sense of Efficacy Among Participants 216 A Spark to Set Off the Flames 217 Tactics of Social Movements 218 Why Do Some Social Movements Succeed and Others Fail? 219 Low-Impact Social Movements 219 Repressed Social Movements 219 Partially Successful Social Movements 220 Successful Social Movements 221 Using the Democracy Standard: Social Movements: Do
- 20. Social Movements Make America More or Less Democratic? 223 9 Political Parties 226 The Struggle for Democracy: Populist Factions Take Hold for Republicans and Democrats 227 Political Parties in Democratic Systems 229 The American Two-Party System 231 The Rules of the Game 231 Minor Parties in American Politics 232 The American Two-Party System Since the Great Depression 234 The New Deal Party Era 235 The Dealignment Era 236 The Polarization Era 238 The Three Functions of Today’s Political Parties 239 Parties as Ideological Organizations 240 Parties as Electoral Organizations 244 Parties as Governing Organizations 248 Using the Democracy Standard: Political Parties: How Do Our Two Major Political Parties Affect Democracy? 253
- 21. 10 Voting, Campaigns, and Elections 256 The Struggle for Democracy: The Reasons for Trump’s Success 257 Elections and Democracy 259 The Prospective (or Responsible Party) Voting Model 260 The Electoral Competition Voting Model 260 The Retrospective (or Reward and Punishment) Voting Model 261 Imperfect Electoral Democracy 262 Which Party Model Works Best? 262 The Unique Nature of American Elections 263 Elections Are Numerous and Frequent 263 Election Procedure and Vote-Counting Inconsistencies 264 “First-Past-the-Post” Wins 264 Voting in the United States 265 Expansion of the Franchise 265 Direct Partisan Elections 266 Barriers to Voting and Low Voter Turnout 267 Reform Proposals and New Struggles over Voting Rights 269
- 22. Who Votes? 270 Income and Education 270 Race and Ethnicity 272 Age 272 Gender 272 Does It Matter Who Votes? 273 The Presidential Campaign 274 Preparing to Run and the Invisible Primary 274 The Presidential Primary System 276 The General Election Campaign 278 Money in General Elections 281 Election Outcomes 287 How Voters Decide 287 The Electoral College 288 Using the Democracy Standard: Voting, Campaigns, and Elections: Do Voting, Campaigns, and Elections Make Government Leaders Listen to the People? 291 PART IV Government and Governing 11 Congress 294 The Struggle for Democracy: The 2018 Midterm
- 23. Elections: Democrats Take Back the House But Lose Ground in the Senate 295 Constitutional Foundations of Congress 296 Enumerated and Implied Powers of Congress 296 Constraints on Congress 296 Basis for Representation in Congress 298 Is Congress Still Capable of Solving Big Problems? 298 Representation and Democracy in Congress 300 Two Styles of Representation 300 Member Demographics 301 Representation in the House: Reapportionment and Redistricting 303 Representation in the Senate 307 How Representative Is Congress? A Look Back at the Arguments 307 Congressional Elections 307 The Congressional Election Process 308 Who Runs for Congress? 308 Money and Congressional Elections 309 The Incumbency Factor 311
- 24. Do Congressional Elections Ensure Proper Representation? 312 The Congressional Legislative Process 313 Introducing a Bill 315 Referral to Committee 315 The Rules Committee 316 Floor Action on a Bill 316 Resolving Bicameral Differences 319 Presidential Action on a Bill 320 Party and Leader Influences on the Passage Process 320 Voting in Congress 323 Procedural and Substantive Votes 323 Partisan Polarization and Party-Line Voting in Congress 323 Congressional Oversight of the Executive Branch 325 Nominee Confirmations 326 Hearings and Investigations 326 Impeachment 327 Using the Democracy Standard: Congress: Is Congress
- 25. Out of Touch with the American People? 328 12 The Presidency 332 The Struggle for Democracy: The Presidency 333 The Expanding Presidency 334 The Framers’ Conception of the Presidency 335 The Dormant Presidency 336 The Twentieth Century Transformation 337 How Important Are Individual Presidents? 341 The Powers and Roles of the President 342 Chief of State 342 Domestic Policy Leader 342 Chief Executive 344 Foreign Policy and Military Leader 346 Party Leader 349 The President’s Support System 350 The White House Staff 350 The Executive Office of the President 351 The Vice Presidency 352 The Cabinet 353
- 26. The President and Congress: Perpetual Tug-of-War 354 Conflict by Constitutional Design 354 What Makes a President Successful with Congress? 355 The President and the People 357 Getting Closer to the People 358 Leading Public Opinion 358 Responding to the Public 359 Presidential Popularity 359 Using the Democracy Standard: The Presidency: Presidents and the American People 361 13 The Executive Branch 364 The Struggle for Democracy: A Changing Bureaucracy 365 How the Executive Branch Is Organized 366 Cabinet-Level Departments 367 Independent Regulatory Commissions 369 Independent Executive Agencies 369 Other Federal Bureaucracies 371
- 27. What Do Bureaucracies and Bureaucrats Do? 371 Executing Programs and Policies 371 Exercising Discretion 372 Regulating 372 Adjudicating 373 Discretion and Democracy 374 Who Are the Bureaucrats? 374 The Merit System 375 Political Appointees 376 How Different Are Civil Servants from Other Americans? 378 Political and Governmental Influences on Bureaucratic Behavior 378 The President and the Bureaucracy 378 Congress and the Bureaucracy 380 The Courts and the Bureaucracy 382 The Public and Press and the Bureaucracy 383 Interest Groups and the Bureaucracy 384 The American Bureaucracy: Controversies and Challenges 385
- 28. Hostile Political Culture 385 Incoherent Organization 386 Divided Control 387 Reforming the Federal Bureaucracy 387 Scaling Back Its Size 387 Becoming More Businesslike 390 Protecting Against Bureaucratic Abuses of Power 391 Increasing Presidential Control 391 Using the Democracy Standard: The Executive Branch: Does the Bureaucracy Advance or Hinder Democracy? 392 14 The Courts 395 The Struggle for Democracy: The Battle for the Courts 396 The Foundations of Judicial Power 398 Constitutional Design 398 Judicial Review 398 The Federal Court System: Jurisdiction and Organization 401 The Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts 401
- 29. The Organization of the Federal Court System 402 Appointment to the Federal Bench 406 Who Are the Appointees? 406 The Appointment Process 408 The Supreme Court in Action 410 The Norms of Operation 410 Control of the Agenda 411 Deciding Cases 412 Outside Influences on Supreme Court Decisions 414 The Supreme Court as a National Policy Maker 418 Structural Change and Constitutional Interpretation 418 The Debate over Judicial Activism 423 Using the Democracy Standard: The Courts: Does the Supreme Court Enhance American Democracy? 426 PART V What Government Does 15 Civil Liberties: The Struggle for Freedom 429 The Struggle for Democracy: Digital Surveillance and the War on Terror 430 Civil Liberties in the Constitution 431
- 30. Explicit Protections in the Constitution 431 Incorporation of the Bill of Rights 433 First Amendment Freedoms 434 Freedom of Speech 436 Freedom of the Press 439 Religious Freedom 441 Rights of the Accused 446 Unreasonable Searches and Seizures 447 Right to Counsel and Protections Against Self- Incrimination 448 Capital Punishment 450 Terrorism and the Rights of the Accused 454 Right to Privacy 456 Private Decisions 457 Private Communications 458 Using the Democracy Standard: Civil Liberties: So, Has the State of American Freedom Improved? 460 16 Civil Rights: The Struggle for Political Equality 463 The Struggle for Democracy: Civil Rights, African Americans, and the Police 464 The Status of Civil Rights Before 1900 465
- 31. An Initial Absence of Civil Rights in the Constitution 465 Civil Rights After Ratification of the Civil War Amendments 466 The Contemporary Status of Civil Rights for Racial and Ethnic Minorities 469 The End of Government-Sponsored Segregation and Discrimination 469 The Beginning of Government-Sponsored Remedies to Right Past Wrongs 471 The Contemporary Status of Civil Rights for Women 479 Intermediate Scrutiny 480 Abortion Rights 481 Sexual Harassment and Hostile Environments 482 American Women by Comparison 484 Broadening the Civil Rights Umbrella 485 The Elderly and People with Disabilities 485 Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender People 485 Using the Democracy Standard: Civil Rights: Is Equal Citizenship a Reality in the United States? 490
- 32. 17 Domestic Policies 493 The Struggle for Democracy: Environmental Regulation in a Polarized Era 494 Why Does the Federal Government Do So Much? 495 Managing the Economy 496 Providing a Safety Net 496 Economic Policy 497 The Goals of Economic Policy 497 The Tools of Economic Policy 500 The Federal Budget 503 The Budgeting Process 503 Federal Spending 504 Federal Revenues 506 Budget Deficits and the National Debt 508 Regulation 510 The Role of Regulation 510 The Recent History of Regulation 510 Federal Safety Net Programs 512 Types of Federal Safety Net Programs 512 Social Insurance Programs 513
- 33. Means-Tested Anti-Poverty Programs 515 Poverty in the United States 518 Health Care Policy 520 Key Components of the ACA 521 Challenges and Changes to the ACA 522 The American Safety Net in Context 523 Factors That Have Shaped the American Safety Net 523 Using the Democracy Standard: Domestic Policies: Do Americans Get the Economic Policies and Safety Net Programs They Want from Government? 525 18 Foreign and National Defense Policies 529 The Struggle for Democracy: The Syrian Nightmare 530 Foreign and National Security Policies and Democracy 532 Dimensions of America’s Superpower Status 533 American Superpower: Structural Foundations 533 American Superpower: Strategic Alternatives 542 What Goals for American Power? 542 How to Use American Power? Competing Viewpoints 543
- 34. Problems of the Post–Cold War World 544 Security Issues 544 Economic and Social Issues 552 Who Makes Foreign and National Defense Policies? 555 The President and the Executive Branch 556 Congress 559 Using the Democracy Standard: Foreign and National Defense Policies: What Role Do the People Play in Foreign and Defense Policy Making? 561 Appendix 564 Glossary 592 Endnotes 604 Photo Credits 645 Index 647 To the Student Why study American government and politics, and why read this textbook to do it? Here’s why: Only by understanding how our complex political system operates and how government works
- 35. can you play a role in deciding what government does. Only by understanding the obstacles that stand in your way as you enter the political fray, as well as the abundant opportunities you have to advance your ideas and values in the political process, can you play an effective role. You can learn this best, we believe, by studying what political scientists have discovered about American politics and government. Political science is the systematic study of the role that people and groups play in determining what government does; how government goes about implementing its policy decisions; and what social, economic, and political consequences flow from government actions. The best political science research is testable, evidence-based, and peer-reviewed—as free as possible from ideological and partisan bias as it can be. The Struggle for Democracy not only introduces you to that research but also gives you tools to decode the American political system, analyze its pieces, consider its linkages, and identify opportunities to make a difference. A simple but powerful framework will guide you in discovering how government, politics, and the larger society are
- 36. intertwined and how government policies are a product of the interactions of actors and institutions across these domains. Our hope and expectation is that The Struggle for Democracy will enable your success in your introduction to American government and politics course. But we are interested in more than your classroom experiences. We believe that knowing how politics and government work and how closely they conform to our democratic values will also enable a lifetime of productive choices. Put all naïveté aside, however. Making a mark on public policies is never easy. Like-minded individuals need to do more than vote. Those who gain the most from government policies have, after all, substantial resources to make certain that government treats them well. But you have resources to make changes, too. Beyond voting, opportunities for affecting change may come from your involvement in political campaigns, from using social media to persuade others of your views or to organize meetings and demonstrations, from participating in social movements, from contributing to groups and politicians who share your views, and from many more such avenues. So, much like waging war, making your voice heard requires that you know the “lay of the land,” including the weapons you have at
- 37. your disposal (we would call them political tools) and the weapons of those arrayed against you. But, much like peacemaking, you need to know how and when compromises can be reached that serve the interests of all parties. Lest all of the above seems too daunting, we also have tried to make this book enjoyable, accessible, and fun. If your experience in reading The Struggle for Democracy comes close to the pleasure we had in writing it, we have come as near as possible to achieving our goal. Meet Your Author EDWARD S. GREENBERG is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Research Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Ed’s research and teaching interests include American government and politics, domestic and global political economy, and democratic theory and practice, with a special emphasis on workplace issues. His multi-year longitudinal panel study, funded by the NIH, examining the impact of technological change and the globalization of production on Boeing managers and employees, is reported in more than a dozen journal articles and
- 38. in his book Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers (Yale University Press, 2010, co-authored with Leon Grunberg, Sarah Moore, and Pat Sikora). He is currently doing research on the global competition between Boeing and Airbus and its impact on people who work in these firms. To the Instructor Ben Page and I decided to write this book because, as instructors in introductory American government courses, we could not find a book that provided students with usable tools for critically analyzing our political system and making judgments about how well our government works. The Struggle for Democracy does not simply present facts about government and politics—it also provides several analytical and normative frameworks for putting the flood of facts we ask our students to absorb into a more comprehensible form. By doing so, I believe we have made it easier and more satisfying for instructors to teach the introductory course. Our goal all along was to create a textbook that treats students as adults, engages their intellectual and emotional attention, and encourages them to be active learners. Every element in this text is designed to promote the kind of critical thinking skills scholars
- 39. and instructors believe students need to become the engaged, active, and informed citizens that are so vital to any democracy. Over the next several sections, I show the elements we created to meet these objectives. Features Approach The Struggle for Democracy provides several analytical and normative frameworks for putting the flood of facts teachers ask their students to absorb into a more comprehensible form. Although all topics that are common and expected in the introductory American government and politics course are covered in this textbook, the two main focal points—an analytical framework for understanding how politics and government work and the normative question “How democratic are we?” (addressed in concluding remarks at the end of each chapter under the “Using the Democracy Standard” headline)— allow for a fresh look at traditional topics. This book pays great attention to structural factors—which include the American economy, social and demographic change in the United States, technological innovations and change, the American
- 40. political culture, and changes in the global system—and examines how they affect politics, government, and public policy. These factors are introduced in Chapter 4 —a chapter unique among introductory texts—and they are brought to bear on a wide range of issues in subsequent chapters. The Struggle for Democracy attends very carefully to issues of democratic political theory. This follows from a critical thinking objective, which asks students to assess the progress of, and prospects for, democracy in the United States and from a desire to present American history as the history of the struggle for democracy. For instance, Struggle examines how the evolution of the party system has improved democracy in some respects in the United States, but hurt it in others. Struggle also includes more historical perspective because it provides the necessary context for thinking comprehensively and critically about contemporary political debates. It shows, for example, how the expansion of civil rights in the United States is tied to important historical events and trends. Comparisons of developments, practices, and institutions in the United
- 41. States with those in other nations add another dimension to our understanding. We can better comprehend how our system of social welfare works, for example, when we see how other rich democratic countries deal with the problems of poverty, unemployment, and old age. COVERAGE In an effort to build a ground-up understanding of American politics and the policy outcomes it does (and does not) produce, the chapters in Struggle mirror the structure of our analytical pyramid framework. Part 1 includes an introduction to the textbook, its themes, and the critical thinking tools used throughout the book. Part 2 covers the structural foundations of American government and politics, addressing subjects such as the U.S. economy and political culture and its place in the international system; the constitutional framework of the American political system; and the development of federalism. Part 3 focuses on political linkage institutions such as parties, elections, public opinion, social movements, and interest groups that convey the wants, needs, and demands of individuals and groups to public officials. Part 4 concentrates on the central institutions of the national government, including the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Part 5 describes the kinds of
- 42. policies the national government produces and analyzes how effective government is at solving pressing social and economic problems. The analytical framework used in this book also means that the subjects of civil liberties and civil rights are not treated in conjunction with the Constitution in Part 2, which is the case with many introductory texts, but in Part 5, on public policy. This is because we believe that the real- world status of civil liberties and civil rights, while partly determined by specific provisions of the Constitution, is better understood as the outcome of the interaction of structural, political, and governmental factors. For example, the status of civil rights for gays, lesbians, and transgendered people depends not only on constitutional provisions but also on the state of public opinion, degrees of support from elected political leaders, and the decisions of the Supreme Court. PEDAGOGY The Struggle for Democracy offers unique features that help students better understand, interpret, and critically evaluate American politics and government. Chapter-opening stories provide useful frames of reference for defining why the principal topic of each chapter matters to the
- 43. citizens of our American democracy. A unique visual tool that maps out the many influences in the American political process and how they shape political decisions and policies, the Applying the Framework model makes clear that government, politics, and society are deeply intertwined in recognizable patterns. The framework simplifies complex associations, builds on the “deep structures” that underlay American politics and government—the economy, society, political culture, and the constitutional rules—and encourages holistic comprehension of American politics. More than one hundred figures and tables strengthen the narrative and help students extract meaning and insights from data that drive political decision making and government action. Timelines appear throughout this book to help students develop a sense of historical context and to clarify the chronology of a particular period. Timeline topics include federalism milestones and a history of the civil rights movement. Every chapter includes a marginal glossary of key terms to support students’ understanding of new and important concepts at first encounter. For easy reference, key terms from the marginal glossary are repeated at the end of each chapter and in the end- of- book glossary. Every chapter includes a Using the Democracy Standard section to help students consolidate their thinking about the American political system as a whole by using a normative democracy “yardstick” that asks students to assess the degree to which the United States has become more or less democratic.
- 44. Review the Chapter sections organized around chapter learning objectives is included at the end of each chapter to help students better understand and retain information and to think critically about the material. New to This Edition Key updates to The Struggle for Democracy include the following: Substantial coverage of the contentious 2018 national midterm elections with special attention to the partisan aspects of the election in Chapter 9 , the voting and campaign aspects in Chapter 10 , the consequences for Congress in Chapter 11 , and the impact on the presidency in Chapter 12 . Coverage throughout, but especially in Chapters 3 , 10 , 14 , 15 , 16 , and 17 , on important rulings by the Supreme Court on religious liberty, LGBTQ rights, congressional district gerrymandering, voting rights, and presidential powers. Consideration, especially in Chapter 12 , “The Presidency,” and Chapter 18 , “Foreign Policy and National Defense,” on the changing relationships with America’s traditional allies, efforts to tame the nuclear weapons and missile programs in North Korea and Iran, China’s emergence as a competing world power, and Russia’s growing military aggressiveness in Europe and the Middle East, as well as its continuing interference in the politics of democratic countries. Increased attention to the growing partisan bitterness in Washington and across much of the nation that affects how government addresses or fails to address virtually every major problem facing the nation whether it be energy, illegal immigration,
- 45. climate change, or the shrinking middle class (Chapters 5 , 9 , 10 , 11 , and 17 ). Questions of whether and to what degree income and wealth inequality has increased, and if it has, with what political and public policy consequences were thoroughly considered during this revision. We also look closely at globalization and technological change and their impact on Americans, with extensive research and analysis of particular note evident in Chapters 4 and 18 . The ways in which social, economic, and technological trends shape government action are also considered, including executive orders increasing border security, tightening immigration asylum processing, intensifying the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, and rolling back financial industry and environmental regulations (Chapters 4 , 15 , 17 , and 18 ). Photos in this edition were selected not only to capture major events from the last few years but to illustrate the relevancy of politics in our daily lives. They show political actors and processes as well as people affected by politics, creating a visual narrative that enhances rather than repeats the text. Each includes critical thinking questions that allow readers to engage with the material more intensely. The data in all of the figures and tables have been updated throughout with the intention of helping users think critically not only about political decisions in retrospect but also about pending
- 46. government action. Revel™ Revel is an interactive learning environment that deeply engages students and prepares them for class. Media and assessment integrated directly within the authors’ narrative lets students read, explore interactive content, and practice in one continuous learning path. Thanks to the dynamic reading experience in Revel, students come to class prepared to discuss, apply, and learn from instructors and from each other. Learn more about Revel at www.pearson.com/revel. Chapter-opening Current Events Bulletins feature author-written articles that put breaking news and current events into the context of American government. Examples include the 2016 elections in context, the strained relationship between the U.S. and Russia, and how Democratic turnout in the 2016 election helps to explain Trump’s victory. http://www.pearson.com/revel Captivating videos bring to life chapter content and key
- 47. moments in American government. Videos are incorporated into the chapters, where pertinent, and can also be easily accessed from the instructor’s Resources folder within Revel. ABC News footage and Smithsonian short documentary videos provide examples from both current and historical events. Examples of footage include FDR visiting the newly completed Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam), an NRA lobbyist’s proposition to put guns in schools one week after the Sandy Hook tragedy, important events in African Americans’ struggle for equality, how war and the preparation for war increased the role of the federal government, and President Obama’s struggle to make a case for air strikes in Syria. Pearson Originals for Political Science are compelling stories about contemporary issues. These short-form documentaries contextualize the complex social and political issues impacting the world today. In addition to helping students better understand core concepts, Pearson Originals inspire students to think critically as empowered citizens who can inspire social and political change. Explaining complex political issues in a simplified and entertaining way, Pearson Originals for Political Science help students become informed members of society. Videos in these short-form documentary series include Marijuana and Federalism: Who’s in Charge?; Who Should Be Allowed to Call Themselves “American”?; and What Is the Emoluments Clause and Why Should I Care About It? Pearson’s Politics Hidden in Plain Sight video series does exactly that—provides students with concrete examples of how politics influences the activities of their daily lives—from using their cellphones to going to a convenience store—in ways they likely had not previously noticed.
- 48. In addition, each chapter concludes with an author-narrated video subtitled “Why It Matters,” helping students to put chapter content in a real-world context. For example, Chapter 16, “Civil Rights: The Struggle for Political Equality,” concludes with a discussion of the real-life implications of affirmative action in college admission and on campus—a topic immediately relevant to today’s undergraduate students. Shared Media activities all allow instructors to assign and grade both pre-written and their own prompts that incorporate video, weblinks, and visuals and ask students to respond in a variety of formats, in writing or by uploading their own video or audio responses. Pre-written assignments around the Pearson Originals for Political Science videos are available. Interactive maps, figures, and tables featuring innovative Social Explorer technology allow for inputting the latest data, toggling to illustrate movement over time, and clicking on hot spots with pop- ups of images and captions. Examples include Figure 12.2 : Trends in Presidential Job Approval, 1946–2018 (line graph); Figure 9.2 : Presidential Elections, 1960 and 2012 (map); and Figure 11.2 : Women and Minorities in the U.S. Congress (bar chart).
- 49. Interactive simulations in every chapter (beginning with Chapter 2 ) allow students to explore critical issues and challenges that the country’s Founders faced and that elected officials, bureaucrats, and political activists still face today. Students apply key chapter concepts in realistic situations. For example, in Chapter 3 , students have the opportunity to imagine themselves as federal judges; in Chapter 8 , they lead a social movement; and in Chapter 15 , they are police officers. Interactive Conclusion and Review summaries using video, learning objectives, image galleries, and flashcards featuring key terms and definitions allow students to review chapter content. In addition, a common, recent events bulletin called “The Stuggle for Democracy in Context” appears in every chapter and briefly examines how recent events relate to the material presented in the text. Assessments tied to primary chapter sections, as well as full chapter exams, allow instructors and students to track progress and get immediate feedback. Integrated Writing Opportunities To help students reason and write more clearly, each chapter offers two varieties of writing prompts: Journal prompts in nearly every section across the narrative ask students to consider critical issues that are first presented
- 50. in a relevant photograph and associated photo caption. These questions are designed to reinforce one of the material’s primary goals: to equip students to engage critically with American government and thereby ensure a healthy, thriving democracy. Shared writing prompts, following each chapter’s Conclusion and Review section, encourage students to consider how to address the challenges described in the chapter in an essay format. For example, in Chapter 3 , students must argue for or against the proposition that the federal government should not provide funds to support large infrastructure projects, such as the construction and expansion of interstate highways. Through these shared writing prompts, instructors and students can address multiple sides of an issue by sharing their own views and responding to each other’s viewpoints. Essay prompts are from Pearson’s Writing Space, where instructors can assign both automatically graded and instructor- graded prompts. Writing Space is the best way to develop and assess concept mastery and critical thinking through writing. Writing Space provides a single place within Revel to create, track, and grade writing assignments; access writing resources; and exchange meaningful, personalized feedback quickly and easily to improve results. For students, Writing Space provides everything they need to keep up with writing assignments, access assignment guides and checklists, write or upload completed assignments, and receive grades and feedback—all in one convenient place. For educators, Writing Space makes assigning, receiving, and evaluating writing assignments easier.
- 51. It’s simple to create new assignments and upload relevant materials, see student progress, and receive alerts when students submit work. Writing Space makes students’ work more focused and effective, with customized grading rubrics they can see and personalized feedback. Writing Space can also check students’ work for improper citation or plagiarism by comparing it against the world’s most accurate text comparison database available from Turnitin. Learning Management Systems Pearson provides Blackboard Learn™, Canvas™, Brightspace by D2L, and Moodle integration, giving institutions, instructors, and students easy access to Revel. Our Revel integration delivers streamlined access to everything your students need for the course in these learning management system (LMS) environments. Single Sign-on: With single sign- on, students are ready on their first day. From your LMS course, students have easy access to an interactive blend of authors’ narrative, media, and assessment. Grade Sync: Flexible, on- demand grade synchronization capabilities allow you to control exactly which Revel grades should be transferred to the LMS gradebook. Revel Combo Card The Revel Combo Card provides an all-in- one access code and loose-leaf print reference (delivered by mail). Supplements Make more time for your students with instructor resources that offer effective learning assessments and classroom engagement. Pearson’s partnership with educators does not end with the
- 52. delivery of course materials; Pearson is there with you on the first day of class and beyond. A dedicated team of local Pearson representatives will work with you to not only choose course materials but also integrate them into your class and assess their effectiveness. Our goal is your goal—to improve instruction with each semester. Pearson is pleased to offer the following resources to qualified adopters of The Struggle for Democracy. Several of these supplements are available to instantly download on the Instructor Resource Center (IRC); please visit the IRC at www.pearsonhighered.com/irc to register for access. TEST BANK Evaluate learning at every level. Reviewed for clarity and accuracy, the Test Bank measures this book’s learning objectives with multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and essay questions. You can easily customize the assessment to work in any major learning management system and to match what is covered in your course. Word, BlackBoard, and WebCT versions available on the IRC and Respondus versions available upon request from www.respondus.com. PEARSON MYTEST This powerful assessment generation program includes all of the questions in the Test Bank. Quizzes and
- 53. exams can be easily authored and saved online and then printed for classroom use, giving you ultimate flexibility to manage assessments anytime http://www.pearsonhighered.com/irc and anywhere. To learn more, visit, www.pearsonhighered.com/ mytest. INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Create a comprehensive roadmap for teaching classroom, online, or hybrid courses. Designed for new and experienced instructors, the Instructor’s Manual includes a sample syllabus, lecture and discussion suggestions, activities for in or out of class, and essays on teaching American Government. Available on the IRC. POWERPOINT PRESENTATION Make lectures more enriching for students. The PowerPoint Presentation includes a full lecture outline and full-color images of maps and art. All PowerPoints are ADA compliant. LIVESLIDES Social Explorers are data-rich interactive maps and figures that enable students to visually explore demographic data to
- 54. understand how local trends impact them while improving data and statistical literacy. LiveSlides are dynamic lecture slides, which give you a direct path to all the Social Explorers within your Revel course. Available within Revel and on the IRC. Acknowledgments Heartfelt thanks and gratitude go to Ben Page, friend and long- time collaborator, who co-authored many editions of this book, though not this one. For over a year after I first broached the idea about our doing http://www.pearsonhighered.com/mytest a textbook together, we hashed out whether it was possible to write a textbook that would be consistent with our standards as teachers and scholars, offer a perspective on American government and politics that was unique in the discipline, and do well in the marketplace. Once we concluded that it was possible to produce a textbook that hit these benchmarks and that we passionately wanted to make happen, we spent more than two years writing what became the First Edition of The Struggle for Democracy. When Ben and I started this process, we
- 55. were only acquaintances. Over the years, in the process of collaborating on the publication of several editions of this textbook, we became and remain very good friends. Though Ben has not been an active co-author on this edition of Struggle, his brilliant insights, analytical approach, and elegant writing are visible on virtually every page, and it is why his name sits next to mine on the cover and the title page. Ben Page, of course, is one of the most brilliant, cited, visible, and admired political scientists in the world, and hardly needs additional praise from me. But, I will say that I feel extraordinarily lucky to have worked with him for a good part of my academic career. This edition of Struggle has been refreshed by and has benefited from the work of three extremely talented and energetic young political scientists, all former teaching assistants of mine in the large introductory course on American government and politics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and all now launched on their own academic careers as teachers and scholars. David Doherty of Loyola University Chicago, Josh Ryan of Utah State University, and Scott Minkoff of SUNY New Paltz, took on a substantial portion of the burden of producing this new edition of Struggle, each taking
- 56. responsibility for updating three chapters and each responsible for creating or modernizing chapter features that make this book such an exciting tool for student learning. I am grateful to each of them and hope and trust we will work together on future editions. I also want to thank the many students, teaching assistants, and faculty at the University of Colorado and other universities, colleges, and two-year institutions who have used this book over the years as a learning and teaching tool and who have let me know what worked and what didn’t work in previous editions. I appreciate their insight and candor. My thanks also go to my editor at Pearson Higher Education, Jeff Marshall, who has been a champion of this book and my principal guide into the brave new world of textbooks in the digital age. To Jeff and to all of his very smart and very capable colleagues at Pearson, I express my very special appreciation. Allison Collins, our developmental editor, who heroically kept David, Josh, Scott, and me on track, offered compelling suggestions for content updates, helped with everything from photo selection to the design of line art, and acted as liaison with the many people involved in the complex
- 57. process of getting this book out the door and into the hands of teachers and students. My thanks also go to Anju Joshi and her team at Lumina Datamatics; Megan Vertucci, Jennifer Jacobson, and Rebecca Green at Ohlinger Studios; the magnificent team at Social Explorer; and Tara Cook at Metrodigi. The shrewd and judicious contributions of these individuals to the production of Struggle are apparent on every printed page and on every digital screen. Thanks go to John Aughenbaugh, of Virginia Commonwealth University, Leslie Baker, of Mississippi State University, Anita Chadha, of the University of Houston, Downtown, Lisa Iyer, of Riverside City College, Stephanie Paul, of the University of Alabama, and Kevin Wagner, of Florida Atlantic University, who reviewed our work and supplied insights and expertise on this revision. We also wish to thank the many professors who gave their time to provide invaluable input during the following conferences and Pearson events: Spring 2018 Revel Editorial Workshops Christopher Hallenbrook,
- 58. Bloomsburg University; Ben Christ, Harrisburg Area Community College; Laci Hubbard−Mattix, Spokane Falls Community College −Pullman; Shobana Jayaraman, Savannah State University; Jeneen Hobby, Cleveland State University; John Arnold, Midland College; Reed Welch, West Texas A&M; Amanda Friesen, IUPUI; Thomas Ambrosio, North Dakota State; Ted Vaggalis, Drury University; Coyle Neal, Southwest Baptist University; Hanna Samir Kassab, Northern Michigan University; Julie Keil, Saginaw Valley State University; Henry Esparza, University of Texas at San Antonio; Sierra Powell, Mount San Antionio College; Edgar Bravo, Broward College; Alicia Andreatta, Angelina College; Robert Sterken, The University of Texas at Tyler; Jessica Anderson, University of Louisiana Monroe; Pat Frost, San Diego Miramar College; Scott Robinson, Houston Baptist University; Cessna Winslow, Tarleton State; Carrie Currier, Texas Christian University; Paul Jorgensen, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley; Steve Lem, Kutztown University; Meng Lu, Sinclair Community College; James Pearn, Southern State Community College; Blake Farrar, Texas State University; Carlin Barmada, NVCC;
- 59. Michael Chan, California State University, Long Beach; Mehwish, SUNY Buffalo State; Daniel Tirone, Louisiana State University; Richard Haesly, California State University, Long Beach; Hyung Park, El Paso Community College; Jesse Kapenga, UTEP; Stephanie A. Slocum −Schaffer, Shepherd University; Augustine Hammond, Augusta University; Shawn Easley, Cuyahoga Community College; Darius Smith, Community College of Aurora; Robert Glover, University of Maine; Carolyn Cocca, State University of NY, College at Old Westbury; Benjamin Arah, Bowie State University; Ahmet Turker, Pima Community College; Eric Loepp, UW−Whitewater; Holly Lindamod, University of North Georgia; Denise Robles, San Antonio College; Asslan Khaligh, Alamo−San Antonio College; Brandy Martinez, San Antonio College; Andrew Sanders, Texas A&M University, San Antonio; Mohsen Omar, Northeast Lakeview College; Heather Frederick, Slippery Rock University; Heather Rice, Slippery Rock University; Leslie Baker, Mississippi State University; Jamie Warner, Marshall University; Will Jennings, University of Tennessee; Arjun Banerjee, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Jonathan Honig, University of Tennessee; Rachel Fuentes, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Andrew Straight, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Margaret Choka, Pellissippi State Community College;
- 60. Christopher Lawrence, Middle Georgia State University; LaTasha Chaffin, College of Charleston; Jeff Worsham, West Virginia University; Cigdem Sirin −Villalobos, University of Texas at El Paso; Lyle Wind, Suffolk Community College; Marcus Holmes, College of William & Mary; Kurt Guenther, Palm Beach State College; Kevin Wagner, Florida Atlantic University; Eric Sands, Berry College; Shari MacLachlan, Palm Beach State College; Sharon Manna, North Lake College; Tamir Sukkary, American River College; Willie Hamilton, Mt. San Jacinto College; Linda Trautman, Ohio University−Lancaster; Dr. William H, Kraus, Motlow State Community College; Kim Winford, Blinn College; Lana Obradovic, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Doug Schorling, College of the Sequoias; Sarah Lischer, Wake Forest University; Ted Clayton, Central Michigan University; Steven Greene, North Carolina State University; Sharon Navarro, University of Texas at San Antonio; Curtis Ogland, San Antonio College; Henry Esparza, UT San Antonio; Mario Salas, UTSA; Robert Porter, Ventura College; Will Jennings, University of Tennessee; Haroon Khan, Henderson State University;
- 61. Brenda Riddick, Houston Community College; Julie Lantrip, Tarrant County College; Kyle C. Kopko, Elizabethtown College; Kristine Mohajer, Austin Community College (ACC); Dovie D. Dawson, Central Texas College; Joycelyn Caesar, Cedar Valley College; Daniel Ponder, Drury University APSA TLC 2018 Mujahid Nyahuma, Community College of Philadelphia; Tahiya Nyahuma, NCAT; Christopher Lawrence, Middle Georgia State University; Jason Robles, University of Colorado; Tim Reynolds, Alvin Community College; Marilyn C. Buresh, Lake Region State College; Frances Marquez, Gallaudet University; Natasha Washington, Liberal Arts and Communications; Jonathan Honig, University of Tennessee–Knoxville; Ayesha Ahsanuddin, University of Tennessee–Knoxville; Arjun Banerjee, The University of Tennessee– Knoxville; Jesse R. Cragwall, Tusculum College and Pellissippi State Community College; Ms. Amnah H. Ibraheem, University of Tennessee–Knoxville; Karl Smith, Delaware Technical Community College; Richard Waterman, University of Kentucky; Peggy R. Wright, ASU–Jonesboro; Christopher Hallenbrook, Bloomsburg University; Eric Loepp, UW–Whitewater; Robert Glover, University of Maine;
- 62. Heather Rice, Slippery Rock University; Shawn Easley, Cuyahoga Community College; Benjamin Arah, Bowie State University; Andrew Straight, University of Tennessee; Rachel Fuentes, University of Tennessee at Knoxville; Stephanie A. Slocum−Schaffer, Shepherd University; Will Jennings, University of Tennessee APSA 2017 Jooeun Kim, Georgetown; Leonard L. Lira, San José State University; Abigail Post, University of Virginia; Jamilya Ukudeeva, Chabot College; Shannon Jenkins, University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth; Matthew Platt, Morehouse College; Sara Angevine, Whittier College; Andy Aoki, Augsburg University; Stephen Meinhold, University of North Carolina–Wilmington; Manoutchehr Eskandari−Qajar, Santa Barbara City College; Clayton Thyne, University of Kentucky; Alice Jackson, Morgan State University; Mark Rom, Georgetown University; Krista Wiegand, University of Tennessee; Geoffrey Wallace, University of Washington; Precious Hall, Truckee Meadows Community College; Patrick Larue, University of Texas at Dallas; Margot Morgan, Indiana University Southeast; Patrick Wohlfarth, University of Maryland; Christian Grose, University of Southern California; Clinton Jenkins, George Washington University; Jeffrey W. Koch, US Air Force Academy and SUNY Geneseo; Albert Ponce, Diablo Valley College; Justin Vaughn, Boise
- 63. State University; Joe Weinberg, University of Southern Mississippi; Cindy Stavrianos, Gonzaga University; Kevan M. Yenerall, Clarion University; Katherine Barbieri, University of South Carolina; Elsa Dias, Metropolitan State University of Denver; Maria Gabryszewska, Florida International University; Erich Saphir, Pima Community College; Mzilikazi Kone, College of the Desert; Mary McHugh, Merrimack College; Joel Lieske, Cleveland State University; Joseph W. Roberts, Roger Williams University; Eugen L. Nagy, Central Washington University; Henry B. Sirgo, McNeese State University; Brian Newman, Pepperdine University; Bruce Stinebrickner, DePauw University; Amanda Friesen, IUPUI; LaTasha Chaffin, College of Charleston; Richard Waterman, University of Kentucky MPSA 2018 Adam Bilinski, Pittsburg State University; Daniel Chand, Kent State University; Agber Dimah, Chicago State University; Yu Ouyang, Purdue University Northwest; Steven Sylvester, Utah Valley University; Ben Bierly, Joliet Junior College; Mahalley Allen, California State University, Chico; Christian Goergen, College of DuPage; Patrick Stewart, University of Arkansas, Fayettville; Richard
- 64. Barrett, Mount Mercy University; Daniel Hawes, Kent State University; Niki Kalaf−Hughes, Bowling Green State University; Gregg R. Murray, Augusta University; Ryan Reed, Bradley University; Kimberly Turner, College of DuPage; Peter Wielhouwer, Western Michigan University; Leena Thacker Kumar, University of Houston−DTN; Debra Leiter, University of Missouri Kansas City; Michael Makara, University of Central Missouri; Ola Adeoye, University of Illinois–Chicago; Russell Brooker, Alverno College; Dr. Royal G. Cravens, Bowling Green State University; Vincent T. Gawronski, Birmingham−Southern College; Benjamin I. Gross, Jacksonville State University; Matthew Hitt, University of Northern Colorado; Megan Osterbur, New England College; Pamela Schaal, Ball State University; Edward Clayton, Central Michigan University; Ali Masood, California State University, Fresno; Joel Lieske, Cleveland State University; Patrick Wohlfarth, University of Maryland; Steven Greene, NC State; Will Jennings, University of Tennessee; Haroon Khan, Henderson State University; Kyle Kopko, Elizabethtown College; Hyung Lae Park, El Paso Community College; Linda Trautman, Ohio University–
- 65. Lancaster Part 1 Introduction: Main Themes Chapter 1 Democracy and American Politics AT LONG LAST, THE RIGHT TO VOTE The 1965 Voting Rights Act allowed African Americans in the Deep South to vote for the first time without fear. In this photo from the period, African Americans wait to enter the Haywood County Courthouse to register to vote, unimpeded by the brutalities and humiliations of Jim Crow. Passage of the act, an example of the struggle for democracy at work in American politics, put an end to a long history of refusing to protect the voting rights of minorities. Do measures such as voter ID requirements for voting, recently implemented in a number of states, and which mostly affect the youngest and oldest voters, rural people, and racial and ethnic minorities, suggest that the struggle for democracy must continue? Or does it mean that our democracy has matured and we no longer need worry about access to the voting booth?
- 66. Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy Robert Moses and the Struggle of African Americans for Voting Rights Although the right to vote is fundamental to democracy, African Americans in the South were not able to vote in any numbers until after 1965, despite passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which prohibited discrimination in voting on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. In Mississippi in the early 1960s, only 5 percent of African Americans were registered to vote, and none held elective office. In Walthall County, not a single African American was registered, although roughly three thousand were eligible. A combination of exclusionary voting registration rules, economic WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? Explain democracy as the standard by which American government and politics can be evaluated. HOW DO GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS WORK? Construct an analytical framework for examining how government and politics work. 1.1 1.2 1
- 67. pressures, hard and stubborn racial discrimination, and violence kept them from the polls. When the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) launched its Voter Education Project in 1961 with the aim of ending black political powerlessness in the Deep South, its first step was to create “freedom schools” in the segregated counties of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The first freedom school was founded in McComb, Mississippi, by a remarkable young man named Robert Parris Moses. Shrugging off repeated threats to his life, vicious assaults, arrests, fines, and public recriminations, Moses taught African American citizens about their rights under the law and sent them in droves to county registrars’ offices. Despite the voter registration efforts of Moses and other SNCC volunteers, African Americans in the Deep South would have to wait four more years—for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act—to exercise their constitutional right to elect representatives to govern in their names. The Voter Education Project, a key building block of a powerful and growing civil rights movement, along with many moral and political acts of defiance, did eventually force federal action to support the citizenship rights of African Americans in the South. Robert Moses and many other African Americans were willing to risk all they had, including their lives, to gain full and equal citizenship in the United States. They would, most assuredly, have been gratified by the election of Barack Obama in 2008 as the nation’s forty-fourth president. 2 * * * * *
- 68. The struggle for democracy is happening in many countries today, where people often fight against all odds for the right to govern themselves and to control their own destinies even as the rise of authoritarian nationalism in places such as Hungary, Poland, and Turkey has made their efforts more difficult. In the United States, democracy, although honored and celebrated, remains an unfinished project and may even be threatened. The continuing struggle to protect and expand democracy is a major feature of American history and a defining characteristic of our politics today. It is also a central theme of this book. 3 What is Democracy? Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better, or equal, hope in the world? —ABRAHAM LINCOLN, FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS Anarchists believe that people can live in harmony without any form of authority; however, most people believe that when living together in groups and communities, there is a need for an entity of some sort to provide law and order; to protect against external aggressors; and to provide essential public goods such as roads, waste disposal, education, and clean water. It is safe to say that most people do not want to live in places where there is effectively no government to speak of, as in Somalia, or where there is a failed
- 69. state, as in Haiti and Yemen. If government is both necessary and inevitable, certain questions are unavoidable: Who is to govern? How are those who govern encouraged to serve the best interests of society? How can governments be induced to make policies and laws that citizens consider legitimate and worth obeying? How can citizens ensure that those who govern carry out both laws and policies that the people want and do so effectively? In short, what is the best form of government? For a majority of Americans, the answer is clear: democracy. Explain democracy as the standard by which American government and politics can be evaluated. 1.1 anarchist One who believes that people are natural cooperators capable of creating free and decent societies without the need for government. Democracy’s central idea is that ordinary people want to rule themselves and are capable of doing so. This idea has proved enormously popular, not only with Americans, but with people all over the world. To be sure, some people would give top priority to other things besides self-government as a requirement for good society,
- 70. including such things as safety and security, the widespread availability of good jobs, or the need to have religious law and values determine what government does. Nevertheless, the appealing notion that ordinary people can and should rule themselves has spread to all corners of the globe, and the number of people living in democratic societies increased significantly for several decades until its recent setbacks in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and Venezuela where more autocratic governments have come to power, and in the United states and Western Europe where disillusionment with democracy has increased some. It is no wonder that a form of government based on the notion that people are capable of ruling themselves has enjoyed widespread popularity, especially compared with government by the few (by the 4 5 6 7 Communist Party in China and in Cuba, for example) or by a single
- 71. person (by dictator Kim Jong-un in North Korea). Some political thinkers argue that democracy is the form of government that best protects human rights because it is the only one based on a recognition of the intrinsic worth and equality of human beings. Others believe that democracy is the form of government most likely to produce rational policies because it can count on the pooled knowledge and expertise of a society’s entire population: a political version, if you will, of the wisdom of crowds, something like the wiki phenomenon. Still others claim that democracies are more stable and long-lasting because their leaders, elected by and answerable to voters, enjoy a strong sense of legitimacy among citizens. Many others suggest that democracy is the form of government most conducive to economic growth and material well-being, a claim with substantial scholarly support. (In the years ahead, the relative economic growth of India, a democracy, and China, a one-party- state, will be a real-world test of this proposition.) Still others believe that democracy is the form of government under which human beings, because they are free, are best able to develop their natural capacities and talents. There are many compelling reasons, then, why so many people have preferred democracy. Americans have supported the idea of self-government and have helped make the nation more democratic over the course of its history. Nevertheless, democracy in America remains an
- 72. aspiration rather than a finished product. The goal behind this book is to help you think carefully about the quality and progress of democracy in the United States. We want to help you reach your own judgments about 8 9 10 11 the degree to which politics and government in the United States make the country more or less democratic. You can then draw your own conclusions about which political practices and institutions in the United States encourage and sustain popular self-rule and which ones discourage and undermine it. To help you do this, we must be clear about the meaning of democracy. The Origins of Democracy Many of our ideas about democracy originated with the ancient Greeks. The Greek roots of the word democracy are demos, meaning “the people,” and kratein, meaning “to rule.” Greek
- 73. philosophers and rulers, however, were not uniformly friendly to the idea that the many could and should rule themselves. Most believed that governing required the greatest sophistication, intelligence, character, and training—certainly not the province of ordinary people. Aristotle expressed this view in his classic work Politics, in which he observed that democracy “is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property, and vulgar employments.” DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH Some scholars assert that fully functioning democracies are a prerequisite to economic growth, a claim that is supported by fast- growing India—symbolized in the top photo by the skyscraper boom in Mumbai’s business district—but belied by the Chinese example in the bottom photo. China, whose economic growth is without precedent— note the gleaming high-speed train and visually captivating skyline in Shanghai—is anything but a democracy ruled as it is by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and its paramount leader, Xi Jinping. Can you think of other examples that address the question of the relationship between economic growth in a society and its form of
- 74. government? Were Britain, France, Germany, and Japan democracies when they were in their most dynamic periods of economic activity? Or, do you believe that the relationship is the other way around, that economic growth makes it more likely that a society will become more democratic as its middle classes insist that they have a greater say in society’s affairs? If so, will China become more democratic in the long run? Instead, the Greeks preferred rule either by a select few (by an aristocracy, in which a hereditary nobility rules, or by a clerical elite, as in Iran today) or by an enlightened one, somewhat akin to the philosopher-king described by Plato in his Republic or as in England in the time of Elizabeth I. Democracy , then, is “rule by the people” or, to put it as the Greeks did, self-government by the many, as opposed to oligarchy (rule by the few) or monarchy (rule by the one). The idea that ordinary people might rule themselves represents an important departure from most historical beliefs. In practice, throughout human history, most governments have been quite undemocratic. 12
- 75. democracy A system of government in which the people rule; rule by the many as opposed to rule by one, or rule by the few. oligarchy Rule by the few, where a minority holds power over a majority, as in an aristocracy or a clerical establishment. monarchy Rule by the one, such as where power rests in the hands of a king or queen. Inherent in the idea of self-rule by ordinary people is an understanding that government must serve all its people and that ultimately none but the people themselves can be relied on to know, and hence to act in accordance with, their own values and interests. In this sense, democracy is more a set of utopian ideas than a description of real 13 societies. Until recently, examples of democracies or near- democracies over the course of human history have been few. Athens of the 5th century BCE is usually cited as the purest form of democracy that ever existed. There, all public policies were decided in periodic assemblies of Athenian citizens, though women, slaves,
- 76. and immigrants were excluded from participation. Nevertheless, the existence of a society where “a substantial number of free, adult males were entitled as citizens to participate freely in governing” proved to be a powerful example of what was possible for those who believed that rule by the people was the best form of government. A handful of other cases of popular rule kept the democratic idea alive across the centuries. Beginning in the 5th century BCE, for example, India enjoyed long periods marked by spirited and broadly inclusive public debate and discourse on public issues. In the Roman Republic, male citizens elected the consuls, the chief magistrates of the powerful city-state. In the Middle Ages, some European cities were governed directly by the people (at least by men who owned property) rather than by nobles, church, or crown. During the Renaissance, periods of popular control of government (again, limited to male property holders) occurred in the city-states of Venice, Florence, and Milan. 14 15 16
- 77. RULE BY THE FEW Although the elected president of Iran is influential in determining what the Iranian government does, real power in the country is exercised by an unelected clergy and the Revolutionary Guards, the country’s leading security force with considerable influence in the political sphere. The mullahs (or clerics), the ideological custodians of all Iranian institutions and debates, listen to presidential addresses for any slackening in ideological commitment. Is a system that is responsive, in theory, to the many but run, in reality, by the few likely to retain legitimacy over the long term? How might the people of Iran move their system to one where the majority rules rather than the few? Direct Versus Representative Democracy To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant direct democracy , rule by the common people exercised directly in open assemblies. They believed that democracy implied face-to-face deliberation and decision making about the public business. Direct democracy requires, however, that all citizens be able to meet together regularly to debate
- 78. and decide the issues of the day. Such a thing was possible in 5th century BCE Athens, which was small enough to allow all male citizens to gather in one place. Men had time to meet and to deliberate because women provided household labor and slaves accounted for most production. direct democracy A form of political decision making in which policies are decided by the people themselves, rather than by their representatives, acting either in small face-to- 17 face assemblies or through the electoral process as in initiatives and referenda in the American states. Because direct (participatory) democracy is possible only in small communities where citizens with abundant leisure time can meet on a face-to-face basis, it is an unworkable arrangement for a large and widely dispersed society such as the United States. Democracy in large societies must take the representative form, since millions of citizens cannot meet in open assembly. Representative democracy is a system in which the people select others, called representatives, to act on their behalf.
- 79. representative democracy Indirect democracy, in which the people rule through elected representatives; see liberal democracy. The Benchmarks of Representative Democracy 18 Democracy is rule by the many. What does this mean in a large society where representatives of the people make government policies? How can we know that the many are in charge when they are not themselves making decisions in public assemblies, as the ancient Athenians did? What features must exist in representative systems to ensure that those who govern do so on behalf of and in the interest of the people? This involves more than the existence of elections. After all, autocratic states such as Turkey, Egypt, and Russia hold elections. Three additional benchmarks are necessary to clarify our understanding of representative democracy in large societies: popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty, with the latter two being necessary for the first (that is to say, for popular sovereignty to work, political equality and political liberty must exist). A
- 80. society in which all three flourish, we argue, is a healthy representative democracy. A society in which any of the three is absent or impaired falls short of the representative democratic ideal. 19 DIRECT DEMOCRACY In small towns throughout New England, local policies and budgets are decided at regular town meetings, in which the entire town population is invited to participate. What are some advantages of town meetings? What might be the drawbacks? What other kinds of forums might there be where direct democracy is possible? Popular Sovereignty Popular sovereignty means that people are the ultimate source of government authority and that what the government does is determined by what the people want. If ultimate authority resides not in the hands of the many but in the hands of the few (as in an aristocratic order) or of the one (whether a benevolent sovereign or a ruthless dictator), democracy does not exist. Nor does it exist if government consistently fails to follow the preferences and to serve
- 81. the interests of the people. The following six conditions are especially important for popular sovereignty to flourish. popular sovereignty The basic principle of democracy that the people are the ultimate source of government authority and of the policies that government leaders make. Leaders Are Selected in Competitive Elections The existence of a close match between what the people want and what government does, however, does not necessarily prove that the people are sovereign. In an autocracy , for example, the will of the people can be shaped through coercion or propaganda to correspond to the wishes of the leadership. For influence to flow from the people to the leadership, some mechanism must ensure responsiveness and accountability to the people. The best mechanism ever invented to achieve these goals is the contested election, in which both existing and aspiring government leaders periodically face the people for judgment. Elections in which voters choose among competing candidates and political parties is one of the hallmarks of democratic political systems.
- 82. autocracy General term that describes all forms of government characterized by rule by a single person or by a group with total power, whether a monarchy, a military tyranny, or a theocracy. Elections Are Free and Fair If elections are to be useful as a way to keep government leaders responsive and responsible, they must be conducted in a fashion that is free and fair. By free, we mean there is no coercion of voters or election officials and no serious barriers that prevent people from running for office and voting. By fair, we mean, among other things, that election rules do not favor some parties and candidates over others, that ballots are accurately counted, and that there is no outside interference by other countries. People Participate in the Political Process A process is useful in conveying the will of the people and in keeping leaders responsive and responsible only if the people participate. If elections and other forms of political participation attract only a minority of the eligible population, they cannot serve as a way to understand what the broad public wants or as an instrument forcing leaders to pay attention to what the people want. Widespread
- 83. participation in politics—including voting in elections, contacting public officials, working with others to bring matters to public attention, joining associations that work to shape government actions, and more —is necessary to ensure not only that responsive representatives will be chosen, but that they will also have continuous incentives to pay attention to the people. Because widespread participation is so central to popular sovereignty, we can say that the less political participation there is in a society, the weaker the democracy. High-Quality Information Is Available If people are to form authentic and rational attitudes about public policies and political leaders, they must have access to accurate political information, insightful interpretations, and vigorous debate. These are the responsibility of government officials, opposition parties, opinion leaders, and the news media. If false or biased information is provided, if policies are not challenged and debated, or if misleading interpretations of the political world (or none at all) are offered, the people cannot form opinions in accordance with their values and interests, and popular sovereignty cannot be said to exist.
- 84. The Majority Rules How can the opinions and preferences of many individual citizens be combined into a single binding decision? Because unanimity is unlikely—so the insistence that new policies should require unanimous agreement for them to be adopted would simply enshrine the status quo—reaching a decision requires a decision rule of some sort. If the actions of government are to respond to all citizens, and each citizen is counted equally, the only decision rule that makes sense is majority rule , which means that the government adopts the policy that the most people want. The only alternative to majority rule is minority rule, which would unacceptably elevate the preferences and the interests of the few over the many. majority rule The form of political decision making in which policies are decided on the basis of what a majority of the people want. 20 VOTING IN A DANGEROUS PLACE In a burqa that completely covers her, a woman shows, by her inked finger, that she had cast a ballot in the April 2014 presidential
- 85. election in Afghanistan. Voter turnout was very high—more than 60 percent of eligible voters went to the polls—an outcome that surprised many observers because of Taliban threats to bomb polling places. Is voting, clearly important to people in Afghanistan and in other troubled spots around the globe, a sufficient condition for democracy, or must other conditions exist to ensure that political leaders act as representatives of the people? Government Policies Reflect the Wishes of the People The most obvious sign of popular sovereignty is the existence of a close correspondence between what government does and what the people want it to do. It is hard to imagine a situation in which the people rule but government officials continuously make policies contrary to the expressed wishes of the majority of the people; sovereign people would most likely react by removing such officials from power. But does the democratic ideal require that government officials always do exactly what the people want, right away, responding to every
- 86. whim and passing fancy of the public? This question has troubled many democratic theorists, and most have answered that democracy is best served when representatives and other public officials respond to the people after the people have had the opportunity to deliberate among themselves about the issues. We might, then, want to speak of democracy as a system in which government policies conform to what the people want over some period of time. Political Equality The second benchmark of representative democracy and a necessary condition for popular sovereignty to exist is political equality , the idea that each person, having an intrinsic value that is equal to that of other human beings, carries the same weight in voting and other political decision making. Imagine, if you will, a society in which one 21 22 person could cast a hundred votes in an election, another person fifty votes, and still another twenty-five votes, while many unlucky folks had only one vote each—or none at all. Democracy is a way of
- 87. making decisions in which each person has one, and only one, voice. political equality The principle that each person carries equal weight in the conduct of the public business. Most people know this intuitively. Our sense of what is fair is offended, for instance, when some class of people is denied the right to vote in a society that boasts the outer trappings of democracy. The denial of citizenship rights to African Americans in the South before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is such an example. We count it as a victory for democracy when previously excluded groups win the right to vote. 1965 Voting Rights Act A law that banned racial discrimination in voting across the United States; it gave the federal government broad powers to register voters in a set of states, mostly in the South, that had long practiced election discrimination, and required that such states pre-clear any changes in its election laws with the Department of Justice. Political equality also involves what the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution calls “equal protection,” meaning that everyone in a
- 88. democracy is treated the same by government. Government programs, for example, cannot favor one group over another or deny benefits or protections to identifiable groups in the population, such as racial and religious minorities. Nor should people be treated better or worse than others by law enforcement agencies and the courts. Taken together, political equality and equal treatment are sometimes called civil rights . civil rights Guarantees of equal treatment by government officials regarding political rights, the judicial system, and public programs. WORTH THE WAIT In the top photo, African Americans wait outside a polling station at a rural grocery store in Alabama in order to vote in the 1966 national election, something that was only possible because of the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that invalidated many practices by state governments designed to keep African Americans from voting. About 50 years later, African Americans voters helped to elect the first black U.S. president, Barack Obama. In the bottom photo, voters line up
- 89. early to participate in the 2016 general elections in Raleigh, NC. Are voting rights for African Americans in any danger today? If so, what role should the federal government take in ensuring that voting rights are protected? But does political equality require that people be equal in ways that go beyond having a voice in decision making and treatment by government? In particular, does democracy require that inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth not be too extreme? While many do not think this is the case, thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Rousseau, and Jefferson thought so, believing that great inequalities in economic circumstances almost always translate into political inequality. Political scientist Robert Dahl describes the problem in the following way: If citizens are unequal in economic resources, so are they likely to be unequal in political resources; and political equality will be impossible to achieve. In the extreme case, a minority of rich will possess so much greater political resources than other citizens that 23
- 90. they will control the state, dominate the majority of citizens, and empty the democratic process of all content. POLITICAL EQUALITY UNDER THE FLAG Although Americans enjoy formal political equality, some Americans, clearly, are more equal than others in their ability to mobilize resources that enable the exercise of real political influence. A homeless person sleeping on a park bench in Brooklyn, New York, though probably eligible to vote, is less likely than better off Americans to register, cast a ballot, circulate a petition, make a campaign contribution, or petition members of Congress or the administration. 24 What, if anything, can be done to ensure that policy makers hear from more than a limited number of better-educated and more affluent Americans? Later chapters will show that income and wealth are distributed in a highly unequal way in the United States, that the scale of this inequality has become dramatically more pronounced over the past
- 91. four decades, and that this inequality more often than not translates into great inequalities among people and groups in the political arena. For example, powerful groups representing the most privileged sectors of American society shape elections and legislation more than other Americans do. In such circumstances, the political equality benchmark is in danger of being violated. Political Liberty A third benchmark of democracy in representative systems, and a necessary condition for popular sovereignty to exist, is political liberty . Political liberty refers to basic freedoms essential to the formation and expression of majority opinion and its translation into public policies. These essential liberties include the freedoms of speech, of conscience and religion, of the press, and of assembly and association embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for example. Philosopher John Locke thought that individual rights and liberties were so fundamental to the good society that their preservation was the central responsibility of any legitimate government and that their protection was the very reason people 25 agreed to enter into a social contract to form government in the first place.
- 92. political liberty The principle that citizens in a democracy are protected from government interference in the exercise of a range of basic freedoms such as the freedoms of speech, association, and conscience. social contract The idea that government is the result of an agreement among people to form one, and that people have the right to create an entirely new government if the terms of the contract have been violated by the existing one. Without these First Amendment freedoms, as well as those freedoms involving protections against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, the other fundamental principles of democracy could not exist. Popular sovereignty cannot be guaranteed if people are prevented from participating in politics or if authorities crush any opposition to the government. Popular sovereignty cannot prevail if the voice of the people is silenced and if citizens are not free to argue and debate, based on their own ideas, values, and personal beliefs, and to form and express their political opinions. Political equality is violated if some people can speak out but others cannot. Voting without
- 93. liberty can lead to elected autocrats such as Vladimir Putin in Russia and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt, an outcome that is clearly undemocratic because, among other things, opposition voices have been silenced. For most people today, democracy and liberty are inseparable. The concept of self-government implies not only the right to vote and to run for public office, but also the right to speak one’s mind, to petition the government, and to join with others in political parties, interest groups, or social movements. Over the years, a number of political philosophers and practitioners have viewed liberty as threatened by democracy rather than as essential to it. It is our position that self-government and political liberty are inseparable, in the sense that the former is impossible without the latter. It follows that a majority cannot deprive an individual or a minority group of its political liberty without violating democracy itself. Objections to Representative Democracy 26 27
- 94. What we have been describing—a system of representative government characterized by popular sovereignty, political equality, and liberty—commonly is called liberal democracy . Not everyone is convinced that liberal democracy is the best form of government. What are the main criticisms that have been leveled against representative, or liberal, democracy as we have defined it? liberal democracy Representative democracy characterized by popular sovereignty, liberty, and political equality; see representative democracy. FEAR CAN UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY Political hysteria has periodically blemished the record of American democracy. Fear of communism, captured in this editorial cartoon, was widespread in the United States for much of the 20th century and led to the suppression of anti-establishment political groups by federal and state authorities who were acting, in their view, in the name of a majority of Americans. Why was such hysteria able to take hold in the United States? Can such political hysteria happen again?
- 95. The Threat of “Majority Tyranny” James Madison and the other Founders of the American republic feared that majority rule was bound to undermine freedom and threaten the rights of the individual. They created a constitutional system designed to protect certain liberties against the unwelcome intrusions of the majority. The fears of the Founders were not without basis. What they called the “popular passions” have sometimes stifled the freedoms of groups and individuals who have dared to be different. In the 1950s, for example, many people in the movie industry lost their jobs because of anticommunist hysteria whipped up by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others. For a time after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and after the attack in San Bernardino, California in 2015, Muslims became targets of popular hostility. Mexican American immigrants are routinely derided for taking jobs from others, especially in periods of high unemployment or when popular political leaders label them criminals. Although there have been instances in our history of majority tyranny , when, as in the South after Reconstruction, the majority has violated the citizenship rights of a minority, there is no evidence that the many consistently threaten liberty more than the few or the one. To put it another way, the majority does not seem to be a
- 96. special or unique threat to liberty. Violations against freedom seem as likely to come from powerful individuals, powerful groups, or government officials responding to vocal and narrow interests as from the majority of the people. 28 majority tyranny Suppression of the rights and liberties of a minority by the majority. Liberty is essential to self-government, and all who value democracy must guard against threats to liberty, whatever their origin. But we firmly reject the view that majority rule inevitably or uniquely threatens liberty. Majority rule is unthinkable, in fact, without the existence of basic political liberties. The Threat of the People’s Irrationality and Incompetence Political scientists have spent decades studying the attitudes and behaviors of U.S. citizens, and some of the findings are not encouraging. For the most part, the evidence shows that individual Americans do not care a great deal about politics and are rather poorly informed, unstable in their views, and not much interested in
- 97. participating in the political process. These findings have led some observers to assert that citizens are not well equipped for the responsibility of self-governance and that public opinion (the will of the majority) should not be the ultimate determinant of what government does. 29 30 Is the American public uninformed, unsophisticated, and unstable in its views? This is a serious charge that is addressed in various places throughout this book. We suggest that much of the evidence about individual opinions often has been misinterpreted and that the American public, taken in aggregate, is more informed, sophisticated, and stable in its views than it is generally given credit for, though there remains considerable room for improvement. The Threat of Majoritarian Democracy to Minorities We have suggested that, when rendering a decision in a democracy, the majority must prevail. In most cases, the minority on the losing side of an issue need not worry unduly about its well-being because
- 98. many of its members are likely to be on the winning side in future decisions about other matters. Thus, people on the losing side of one issue, such as welfare reform, may be part of the majority and winning side on another issue, such as how much to spend on education. In most policy decisions in a democracy, what prevents majority tyranny over a minority is that the composition of the majority and the minority is always shifting, depending on the issue. However, what happens in cases that involve race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, for example, where minority status is fixed? Many people worry about the possibility that the majority would then pose a threat. The worry that unbridled majority rule leaves no room for the claims of minorities has some historical foundations because 31 majorities have trampled on minority rights with alarming frequency. Majorities long held, for example, that Native Americans and African Americans were inferior and undeserving of full citizenship. Irish, Eastern European, Asian, and Latin American immigrants to our
- 99. shores, among others, have been subjected to long periods of intolerance, as have Catholics, Jews, and now Muslims. Gays and lesbians have been violently victimized. As Robert Dahl has convincingly argued, however, no evidence supports the belief that the rights of minorities are better protected under alternative forms of government, whether rule by the few (note the persecution of the Christian minority in China by the Communist ruling party) or by the one (note the persecution of Shia Muslims under the rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq). Dahl affirms that, given its other benefits, majority rule democracy is to be preferred. In any case, democracy, as we have defined it, requires the protection of crucial minority rights. Recall that majority rule is only one of the defining conditions of popular sovereignty and that popular sovereignty is only one of the three basic benchmarks of democracy, the others being political equality and political liberty. The position of minorities is protected in fully developed representative liberal democracies, in our view, by the requirements of equal citizenship (the right to vote, to hold public office, to be safe from violence, and to enjoy the equal protection of the law) and access to the full range of civil liberties (speech, press, conscience, and association). To the
- 100. extent that a majority violates the citizenship rights and liberties of minorities, society falls short of the democratic ideal. 32 * * * * * So, how democratic are we? After reading this chapter, it should be easy to see how and why the democratic ideal can be used as a measuring stick with which to evaluate American politics. We have learned that the fundamental attributes of liberal representative democracy are popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty. Each suggests a set of questions that will be raised throughout this book to encourage critical thinking about American political life. About popular sovereignty, we should ask: Do citizens participate in politics? Can citizens be involved when they choose to be, and are political leaders responsive? Do institutions, such as political parties, elections, interest groups, and social movements, effectively transmit what citizens want to political leaders? What is the quality of the public deliberation on the major public
- 101. policy issues of the day? Do the news media and political leaders provide accurate and complete information? Does government do what citizens want it to do? Does government effectively carry out the policies they have instituted in response to what the people want? About political equality, we should ask: Do some individuals and groups have persistent and substantial advantages over other individuals and groups in the political process? Is the political game open to all equally? Do government decisions and policies benefit some individuals and groups more than others? About political liberty, we should ask: Are citizens’ rights and liberties universally available, protected, and used? Are people free to vote? Can people speak openly and form groups freely to petition their government? Do public authorities, private groups, or the members of the majority threaten liberty or the rights of minorities? These questions will help us assess where we are and where we are going as a democracy. They will help us go past superficial evaluations based on the existence or nonexistence of this institution or that institution—for example, an elected legislature—and
- 102. allow us to raise questions about the quality of democracy in the United States and its prospects. Of popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty, none are attainable, of course, in perfect form. They are, rather, ideals to which our nation can aspire and standards against which we can measure everyday reality. Throughout this book, we will revisit these questions about the quality of democracy in the United States. * * * * * Throughout Struggle for Democracy, we will regularly revisit these topics. And, as a conclusion to each chapter, you will find a formal assessment for weighing how well American government and politics measure up to the democratic ideal. Jump forward to the “Using the Democracy Standard” section at the end of Chapter 2 for a preview. How Do Government and Politics Work? In addition to helping you answer questions about the quality and development of democracy in the United States, this text offers
- 103. an analytical framework for examining how American government and politics work. Identifying the Factors That Influence Government and Politics If we are to understand why things happen in government and politics —for example, the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act—we must begin with what biologists call taxonomy: placing things in their proper categories. Refer to the analytical framework in Figure 1.1 . We believe that each and every actor, institution, and process that influences what our politics are like and what our national government does can be placed into four main categories: (1) structure, (2) political linkage, (3) government, and (4) government action. Construct an analytical framework for examining how government and politics work. 1.2 FIGURE 1.1 THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK Various actors, institutions, and processes interact to influence what government does. Structural factors—the economy, society, the political culture, the international system, and constitutional rules— play a foundational role in shaping government actions. They
- 104. may influence the government directly, or, as is more often the case, they may exercise influence through political linkage—public opinion, the news media, interest groups, social movements, political parties, and elections. In a democratic society, government institutions—the presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the federal bureaucracy—should reflect these influences both in the policies they create and in the actions they take. © Edward S. Greenberg Structure Structural factors play key roles in determining what issues become important in politics and government, how political power is distributed in the population, and what attitudes and beliefs guide the behavior of citizens and public officials. This category includes the economy and society, the constitutional rules, the political culture, and the international system. These are the most fundamental and enduring factors that influence government and politics. They form the foundation on which all else is built. They are the most enduring parts of the American system, and the slowest to change. Political Linkage Political linkage factors transmit the wants and demands of
- 105. people and groups in our society to government officials and together help shape what government officials do and what policies they adopt. These include public opinion, political parties, interest groups, the news media, and elections. While not a formal part of government, they directly influence what sorts of people are chosen to be government officials and what these officials do once they are in office. 33 Government Government factors include all public officials and institutions that have formal, legal responsibilities for making public policy for the United States. These include Congress, the president and the executive branch, the federal bureaucracy, and the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. Government Action This is about what government does. This category includes the wide range of actions carried out by government: making laws, issuing rules and regulations, waging war and providing national defense, settling civil disputes, providing order, and more.
- 106. Connecting the Factors that Influence Government and Politics: An Application To understand how government and politics work in the United States, we must appreciate the fact that the structural, political linkage, and governmental categories interact with one another in a particular kind of way to determine what actions government takes. One way to see this is to look at these categories in action, using the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as an example (see Figure 1.2 ). The Voting Rights Act, which transformed the politics of the South, offered federal protection for African Americans who wished to vote and run for public office. Connecting and considering together the main factors of political life—structure, political linkage, and government—can help explain why government takes certain actions. FIGURE 1.2 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: PASSAGE OF THE 1965 VOTING RIGHTS ACT
- 107. © Edward S. Greenberg A conventional analysis of the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act might look solely at government, focusing attention on Congress and its members, on President Lyndon Johnson (who was the most vigorous proponent of the legislation) and his advisers, and on the Supreme Court, which was becoming increasingly supportive of civil rights claims in the mid-1960s. Knowing these things, however, would not tell us all that we need to know. To understand why Congress, the president, and the Court acted as they did in 1965, we would want to pay attention to the pressures brought to bear on them by political linkage actors and institutions: public opinion (increasingly supportive of civil rights), the growing electoral power of African Americans in states outside the South, and most important, the moral power of the civil rights movement inspired by people like Robert Moses and Martin Luther King Jr. Even knowing these things, however, would not tell us all. Our inquiry into the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have to go deeper to include structural factors: economic, cultural, and social change; constitutional rules; and the international position of the United States. For
- 108. example, economic changes in the nation over the course of many decades had triggered a “great migration” of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Over the long run, this population shift to states with large blocs of Electoral College votes, critical to the election of presidents, increased the political power of African Americans. Cultural change increased the number of Americans bothered by the second-class citizenship of African Americans, even as combat service in World War II and the Korean War led many black Americans to insist on full citizenship rights. Finally, the Cold War struggle of the United States against the Soviet Union played an important role. Many American leaders, recognizing the contradiction between asking for the support of people of color in Third World countries in the struggle against communism while treating African Americans in the United States as second-class citizens, sought an end to the system of official segregation in the South (known as Jim Crow ). Jim Crow Popular term for the system of legally sanctioned racial segregation that existed in the American South from the end of the 19th
- 109. century until the middle of the 20th century. We see, then, that a full explanation of why the 1965 Voting Rights Act happened (government action) requires that we take into account how governmental, political linkage, and structural factors interacted with one another to bring about significant change in American politics. Modeling complex government actions can be a challenging task, but application of an analytical framework can help. The framework developed for Struggle for Democracy (see Figure 1.1 ) is just such a tool. 34 Understanding Government and Politics Holistically This way of looking at things—that what government does can only be understood by considering structural, political linkage, and governmental factors—will be used throughout this book and will help bring order to the information presented. We will suggest that action by public officials is the product not simply of their personal desires (although these are important), but also of the influences and pressures brought to bear by other governmental institutions and by
- 110. individuals, groups, and classes at work in the political linkage sphere. Political linkage institutions and processes, in turn, can often be understood only when we see how they are shaped by the larger structural context, including such things as the national and global economies and the political culture. Keep in mind that, as in all complex systems, influence sometimes flows in the opposite direction, from government to political linkage actors and institutions to structural factors. For example, federal tax laws influence the distribution of income and wealth in society, government regulations affect the operations of corporations, and decisions by the courts may determine what interest groups and political parties are able to do. We will want to pay attention, then, to these sorts of influences in our effort to understand how the American political system works. Keep in mind as well that government actions do not necessarily hold for all time. Even laws can change, whether by passage of new laws or reinterpretation of existing ones. For example, after the Supreme Court in 2013 overturned an important section of the Voting Rights Act, a number of states controlled by Republicans quickly passed laws
- 111. that shortened the period for early voting and required IDs for access to the ballot in the name of stopping voter fraud. Critics pointed out that these statutes would lower turnout among the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and younger voters, all of whom tend to vote for Democrats. The courts in 2016 sided with the critics of these restrictive laws in a series of decisions in the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeal. Do not worry about remembering exactly which actors and influences belong to which category in our model; the book’s chapters are organized into sections corresponding to the categories. Do not worry, either, about exactly how the people and institutions in different categories interact with one another. This will become clear as you become more familiar with the American political process. Chapter 1 Review the Chapter What is Democracy? Democracy is a system of rule by the people, rooted in three fundamental principles: popular sovereignty (meaning that the people ultimately rule), political equality (meaning that each person has an equal say in determining what government does), and political liberty
- 112. (meaning that the people are protected from government interference in exercising their rights). Ensuring that all three aspects of democracy are available and practiced has played an important role in American history and remains an important theme in our country—as well as many other parts of the world—today. The United States is a liberal representative democracy— meaning that the people do not rule directly but through elected representatives and have broad civil and political rights, but the majority does not always get its way. Explain democracy as the standard by which American government and politics can be evaluated. 1.1 Because democracy holds a very special place in Americans’ constellation of values and is particularly relevant to judging political processes, it is the standard used throughout this text to evaluate the quality of our politics and government. How do Government and Politics Work? The organizing framework presented in this chapter visualizes the
- 113. world of American politics as a set of interrelated actors and influences—institutions, groups, and individuals—that operate in three interconnected realms: the structural, political linkage, and governmental sectors. This way of looking at American political life as an ordered, interconnected whole will be used throughout the remainder of the book. Construct an analytical framework for examining how government and politics work. 1.2 Learn the Terms 1965 Voting Rights Act A law that banned racial discrimination in voting across the United States; it gave the federal government broad powers to register voters in a set of states, mostly in the South, that had long practiced election discrimination, and required that such states pre- clear any changes in its election laws with the Department of Justice. anarchist One who believes that people are natural cooperators capable of creating free and decent societies without the need for government. autocracy General term that describes all forms of government characterized by rule by a single person or by a group with total power,
- 114. whether a monarchy, a military tyranny, or a theocracy. civil rights Guarantees of equal treatment by government officials regarding political rights, the judicial system, and public programs. democracy A system of government in which the people rule; rule by the many as opposed to rule by one, or rule by the few. direct democracy A form of political decision making in which policies are decided by the people themselves, rather than by their representatives, acting either in small face-to-face assemblies or through the electoral process as in initiatives and referenda in the American states. Jim Crow Popular term for the system of legally sanctioned racial segregation that existed in the American South from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. liberal democracy Representative democracy characterized by popular sovereignty, liberty, and political equality. majority rule The form of political decision making in which policies are
- 115. decided on the basis of what a majority of the people want. majority tyranny Suppression of the rights and liberties of a minority by the majority. monarchy Rule by the one, such as where power rests in the hands of a king or queen. oligarchy Rule by the few, where a minority holds power over a majority, as in an aristocracy or a clerical establishment. political equality The principle that each person carries equal weight in the conduct of the public business. political liberty The principle that citizens in a democracy are protected from government interference in the exercise of a range of basic freedoms such as the freedoms of speech, association, and conscience. popular sovereignty The basic principle of democracy that the people are the ultimate source of government authority and of the policies that government leaders make.
- 116. representative democracy Indirect democracy, in which the people rule through elected representatives; see liberal democracy. social contract The idea that government is the result of an agreement among people to form one, and that people have the right to create an entirely new government if the terms of the contract have been violated by the existing one. Part 2 Structure Chapter 2 The Constitution THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL Secretary of State John Kerry and the lead negotiators from Iran, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the European Union pose for photographers after reaching an international agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons program for a minimum of ten years in trade for the end to international economic sanctions. Whether the agreement was a good or bad deal for the United States and its allies became a central issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, with Republican Donald Trump strongly against it, and Democrat Hillary Clinton strongly for it. In 2018, President Trump withdrew the
- 117. United States from the agreement. Did the agreement slow the Iran nuclear weapons program while it was in effect? Would it have been better had President Obama entered into a formal treaty requiring Senate approval rather than settle for an agreement that was easy for President Trump to withdraw from? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Assess the enduring legacies of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION: OUR FIRST CONSTITUTION Describe the system of government established by our first constitution. FACTORS LEADING TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION Analyze the developments that led to the Constitutional Convention. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR GOVERNMENT Describe and evaluate the framework for government that the Constitutional Convention created.
- 118. THE STRUGGLE TO RATIFY THE CONSTITUTION Outline the arguments for and against ratification of the Constitution. THE CHANGING CONSTITUTION, DEMOCRACY, AND AMERICAN POLITICS 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 The Struggle for Democracy Does The “Advice and Consent” of The Senate Matter? In July 2015, the Obama administration reached an agreement with Iran, the European Union, Russia, China, Great Britain, and Germany to limit Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. The president did not submit the agreement to the Senate for ratification even though the Constitution specifies that the Senate must approve international treaties entered into by the president. Afterward, speaking in defense of the Obama administration’s actions at a Senate committee hearing, Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the Iran nuclear agreement was not a treaty requiring the “advice and consent” of the Senate, but simply a legally nonbinding international agreement entered into by the president on behalf of the United States, whose terms would be enforced by the signatories to
- 119. the agreement. Republicans, as well as some Democrats in Congress, were strongly opposed to the Iran nuclear deal arguing that it would only limit—not end—Iranian nuclear ambitions and would provide the regime additional financial resources to do mischief in the Middle East once economic sanctions were lifted. In an historically unprecedented step, taken several weeks before the agreement was signed by negotiators, a group of forty- Describe the processes by which the Constitution can be altered. 2.6 seven Republican senators went over the head of the president and expressed its opposition to the deal in an open letter to the leaders of Iran. The letter warned the Iranians that any international agreement negotiated by the president without the approval of the Senate could and likely would be nullified by a future Republican president with the stroke of a pen. In fact, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump lambasted the Iran nuclear deal, promising to withdraw from it if elected. Once he became president, President Trump refused on several occasions to certify that the Iranians were in compliance with the terms of the agreement, signaled on several occasions his intention to withdraw the United States from it entirely, which he did on May 8, 2018. * * * * * Presidents throughout our history have entered into many international agreements without asking the Senate’s
- 120. permission to do so. Legally non-binding international agreements and legally binding executive agreements have evolved over time into powerful instruments of presidential foreign and national defense policy making: the U.S.-brokered agreement with Russia to rid Syria of chemical weapons (2013) is an example of the former; Richard Nixon’s recognition of the Peoples’ Republic of China (1972) is an example of the latter. The practice of entering into international agreements without Senate consent has increased substantially in modern times for many reasons—a subject we examine in detail in a later chapter on the presidency. Divided government plays a role, especially in an era of hyper-partisanship like the present one when presidents wish to bypass a recalcitrant Senate. It is likely that the dim prospect of gaining treaty approval for an Iran nuclear deal in a hostile Republican-controlled Senate persuaded President Obama to pursue an international agreement with Iran, not a treaty. Constitutional scholars vary widely in their assessments of whether the Obama administration had the power, without Senate approval, to enter into an international agreement of this importance. It is easy to see why. Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, the portion that describes presidential powers, is only 223 words long and leaves a great deal of room for interpretation. Over the course of our history, presidents of both parties have interpreted the powers of the office quite expansively, resulting in a steady amplification of the primacy of the president’s role in a wide range of areas, but most especially in the conduct of foreign affairs and national defense. This change in the definition of the powers of the office has happened, even though the wording of Article II, Section 2 has not been amended in any way. This is one reason why many scholars describe our Constitution as a
- 121. “living constitution,” one that changes with the times and the needs of the United States. It is one of the ways our Constitution changes, in addition to formal amendments and Supreme Court decisions about the meaning of the document’s various provisions. One of the enduring debates in the United States is whether the Constitution’s meaning is unambiguous and unchanging, or whether many of its provisions are open to interpretation and the precedents created by the practices of public officials. We suggest in this chapter that the latter interpretation of the Constitution is closer to what has actually unfolded over the years. Thinking Critically about this Chapter This chapter is about the founding of the United States and the formulation of the constitutional rules that structure American politics to this day. Applying the Framework In this chapter, you will see how structural factors, such as the American political culture, economic developments, and the composition of the Constitutional Convention, shaped the substance of our Constitution. You will also see how the Constitution itself is an important structural factor that helps us understand how American government and politics work today. Using the Democracy Standard Using the concept of democracy outlined in Chapter 1 , you will be able to see how and why the framers were uneasy about democracy and created a republican form of government that, although based on popular consent, placed a number of roadblocks in the path of popular rule.
- 122. The American Revolution and The Declaration of Independence Initially, the American Revolution (1775–1783) was waged more to preserve an existing way of life than to create something new. By and large, American colonists in the 1760s and 1770s were proud to be affiliated with Great Britain and satisfied with the general prosperity that came with participation in the British commercial empire. When revolution broke out, the colonists at first wanted only to preserve their traditional rights as British subjects. These traditional rights of life, liberty, and property seemed threatened by British policies on trade and taxation. For example, rather than allowing American colonists to trade freely with whomever they pleased and to produce whatever goods they wanted, England restricted their freedom to do either in order to protect its own manufacturers. To pay for protection against raids by Native Americans and their French allies, England imposed taxes on a number of items, including sugar, tea, and stamps (required for legal documents, pamphlets, and newspapers). The imposition of these taxes without the colonists’ consent seemed an act of tyranny to many English subjects in America.
- 123. CLARION CALL FOR INDEPENDENCE Assess the enduring legacies of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. 2.1 1 At first, American leaders were reluctant to declare independence from Great Britain. One of the things that helped change their minds was Thomas Paine’s wildly popular—it is said that a higher proportion of Americans read it than any other political tract in U.S. history—and incendiary pamphlet Common Sense, which mercilessly mocked the institution of monarchy and helped undermine the legitimacy of British rule. What are some modern day examples of Paine’s pamphlet? Are the posts of influential bloggers or tweeters comparable? Although the initial aims of the American Revolution were quite modest, like most revolutions, it did not stay on the track planned by its leaders. It was sparked by a concern for liberty—understood as the
- 124. preservation of traditional rights against the intrusions of a distant government—but it also stimulated the development of sentiments for popular sovereignty and political equality. As these sentiments grew, so did the likelihood that American colonies would split from their British parent and form a system of government more to their liking. When the Second Continental Congress began its session on May 10, 1775—the First had met only briefly in 1774 to formulate a list of grievances to submit to the British Parliament—the delegates did not have independence in mind, even though armed conflict with Britain had already begun with the battles of Lexington and Concord. By the end of spring, pushed by the logic of armed conflict, an unyielding British government, and Thomas Paine’s incendiary call for American independence in his wildly popular pamphlet Common Sense, the delegates concluded that separation and independence were inescapable. In early June, the Continental Congress appointed a special committee, composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, to draft a declaration of independence. The document, mostly Jefferson’s handiwork, was adopted
- 125. unanimously on July 4, 1776. (See the timeline in Figure 2.1 for a review of the key events in the history of the American Revolution and the early republic.) Key Ideas in the Declaration of Independence The ideas in the Declaration of Independence are so familiar that we may easily miss their revolutionary importance. In the late 18th century, most of the world’s societies were ruled by kings with authority purportedly derived from God, subject to little or no control by the populace. Closely following John Locke’s ideas in The Second Treatise on Government, Jefferson’s ideas about legitimate 2 government sparked a responsive chord in people everywhere when they were first presented in the Declaration, and they remain extremely popular all over the world today. Jefferson argued the following points: 1. People possess rights that cannot be legitimately given away or taken from them: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
- 126. Pursuit of Happiness. FIGURE 2.1 TIMELINE OF THE FOUNDING OF THE UNITED STATES, 1774–1791 The British need for revenue to finance the operations of an empire created a crisis in America that eventually sparked a war for independence. After the Americans overthrew British rule, a new government and political system emerged. © Edward S. Greenberg 2. People create government to protect these rights: That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 3. If government fails to protect people’s rights or itself becomes a threat to them, people can withdraw their consent from that government and form a new one; that is, people may void the existing social contract and agree to a new one: That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. social contract
- 127. The idea that government is the result of an agreement among people to form one, and that people have the right to create an entirely new government if the terms of the contract have been violated by the existing one. UNALIENABLE RIGHTS Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, although he received a great deal of editorial help in writing the final document from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Despite the contradictions in his own life on matters of liberty and equality—he was, after all, a slave owner—the words in the Declaration have been instrumental in advancing the cause of freedom and democracy both in the United States and abroad. Do Jefferson’s words, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, still matter to many today? Key Omissions in the Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence carefully avoided addressing several controversial subjects, including slavery. Jefferson’s initial draft denounced the Crown for violating human rights by “captivating and carrying Africans into slavery,” but this language was considered too inflammatory and was dropped from subsequent versions.
- 128. The contradiction between the institution of slavery and the Declaration’s sweeping defense of self-government, “unalienable” individual rights, and equality (“all men are created equal”) was obvious to many observers at the time and is glaringly apparent to us today. The Declaration was also silent about the political status of women and the inalienable rights of Native Americans (referred to in the Declaration as “merciless Indian savages”) and African Americans, even those who were not slaves. Indeed, it is safe to assume that neither Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration, nor the other signers of the document had women, Native Americans, free blacks, or slaves in mind when they were fomenting revolution and calling for a different kind of political society. Interestingly, free blacks and women would go on to play important roles in waging war against Britain.3 The Articles of Confederation: Our First Constitution The leaders of the American Revolution almost certainly did not envision the creation of a single, unified nation. At most, they had in mind a loose confederation of states. This should not be
- 129. surprising. In the late 18th century, most Americans believed that a government based on popular consent and committed to the protection of individual rights was possible only in small, homogeneous republics, where government was close to the people and where fundamental conflicts of interest among the people did not exist. Given the great geographic expanse of the colonies, as well as their varied ways of life and economic interests, the formation of a single, unified republic seemed unworkable. confederation A loose association of states or territorial units in which very little or no power is lodged in a central government. Describe the system of government established by our first constitution. 2.2 Provisions of the Articles Our first written constitution —a document specifying the basic organization, powers, and limits of government passed by the Second Continental Congress in the midst of the Revolutionary War in 1777— created a nation that was hardly a nation at all. The Articles of Confederation created in law what had existed in practice from the time of the Declaration of Independence: a loose confederation
- 130. of independent states with little power vested in a central government, much like the United Nations today. Under the Articles, most important decisions were made in state legislatures. constitution The basic framework of law for a nation that prescribes how government is to be organized, how government decisions are to be made, and what powers and responsibilities government shall have. Articles of Confederation The first constitution of the United States, adopted during the last stages of the Revolutionary War, created a system of government with most power lodged in the states and little in the central government. The Articles of Confederation provided for a central government of sorts, but it had few responsibilities and virtually no power. It could make war or peace but had no power to levy taxes (even customs duties). It could not regulate interstate commerce nor deny states the right to collect customs duties. It had no independent chief executive to ensure that laws passed by Congress would be enforced, nor a national court system to settle disputes between states, nor the
- 131. means to provide for a sound national money system. The rule requiring that all national laws be approved by nine of the thirteen states, with each state having one vote in Congress, made lawmaking almost impossible, and defects were difficult to remedy because amending the Articles required unanimous approval. Shortcomings of the Articles Although the Articles of Confederation did what most of its authors intended—preserved the power, independence, and sovereignty of the states and ensured that the central government would not encroach on the liberty of the people—the confederation was not well equipped to handle many problems. Most important, the new central government could not finance its activities and was forced to rely on each state’s willingness to pay its annual tax assessment. Few states were eager to cooperate. As a result, confederation bonds and notes became almost worthless, dramatically undermining the creditworthiness of the new country. The central government was also unable to defend American interests in foreign affairs. Without a chief executive or a standing army,
- 132. and with the states holding veto power over actions of the central government, the confederation lacked the capacity to reach binding agreements with other nations or to deal with a wide range of foreign policy problems. These included the continuing presence of British troops in western lands ceded to the new nation by Britain at the end of the Revolutionary War, violent clashes with Native Americans on the western frontier, and piracy on the high seas. STARVING AT WINTER QUARTERS The principal reason why American military forces suffered so much at their winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, is that Congress, dependent on the voluntary willingness of states to pay taxes to the national government under the Articles of Confederation, could not provide adequate funds for the purchase of supplies and munitions. As a consequence, George Washington led his battered army to take up winter quarters at a strategically defensible location where he could forage for food and hang on to fight the British another day. How much does the well-being of any army, that of Washington or of
- 133. any other general, owe to good governance? The government also was unable to prevent the outbreak of commercial warfare between the states. As virtually independent nations with the power to levy customs duties, many states became intense commercial rivals and sought every possible advantage over neighboring states. New York and New Jersey, for instance, imposed high tariffs on goods that crossed their borders. This level of competition was an obstacle to the expansion of commercial activities and economic growth. Factors Leading to The Constitutional Convention Most of America’s economic, social, and political leaders were convinced by 1787 that the new nation and its experiment in self- government were in great peril. These concerns helped convince leaders in the states to select seventy-three delegates to attend a convention in Philadelphia, with the goal of creating a new government capable of providing both energy and stability. Only fifty- five delegates actually showed up. The convention officially convened on May 25, 1787, with George
- 134. Washington presiding. It met in secret for a period of almost four months. By the end of their deliberations, the delegates had hammered out a new constitutional framework that has served as one of the structural foundations of American government and politics to the present day. What Worried American Notables Analyze the developments that led to the Constitutional Convention. 2.3 and Why Historians now generally agree that the failings of the Articles of Confederation led most of the leading citizens of the confederation to believe that a new constitution was desperately needed for the fledgling nation. What is left out of many accounts of the Constitutional Convention, however, is the story of the growing concern among many of the most influential men in the confederation that the passions for democracy and equality among the common people set loose by the American Revolution were getting out of hand. During the American Revolution, the people often saw appeals for the defense of freedom and for the spread of the blessings of liberty as
- 135. inevitable rights to the means of government and to better livelihoods. The common people were convinced that overthrow of British rule would bring substantial improvements in their lives. 4 5 RULE BY THE ONE The one-man rule of repressive autocrats like Kim Jong-un, whose North Korean regime detains, tortures, and kills political opponents with impunity, is a form of tyranny that deeply worried the framers of the Constitution. The framers also tried to guard against tyranny by the few and by the many. What are the consequences for North Korean society that no mechanism ensures responsiveness and accountability of Kim’s leadership to the people? The Founders’ Beliefs About Republicanism Fervor for popular participation and greater equality is not what most of the leaders of the American Revolution had in mind. The
- 136. Founders were believers in a theory of government known as republicanism . (This is not a reference to the Republican Party or its members and supporters.) Like all republicans of the 18th century, the framers were seeking a form of government that would not only be based on the consent of the governed but would prevent tyranny , whether tyranny came from the misrule of a single person (such as a king or military dictator), a small group of elites (an aristocracy, a clerical theocracy, or a moneyed merchant class), or even the majority of the population. republicanism A political doctrine advocating limited government based on popular consent, protected against majority tyranny. tyranny The abuse of the inalienable rights of citizens by government. 6 7 The solution to the problem of tyranny for 18th-century republican thinkers was threefold:
- 137. 1. to elect government leaders 2. to limit the power of government 3. to place roadblocks in the path of the majority The election of representatives to lead the government, in their view, would keep potentially tyrannical kings and aristocratic factions from power while ensuring popular consent. Limiting the power of government, both by writing in a constitution what government could and could not do and by fragmenting governmental power, would prevent tyranny no matter who eventually won control, including the majority of the people. The influence of the majority could be limited by making only a portion of government subject to election by the people. Although 18th-century republicans believed in representative government—a government whose political leaders are elected by the people—they were not sympathetic to what we might today call popular democracy. For the most part, they thought that public affairs ought to be left to men from the “better” parts of society. The conduct of the public business was, in their view, the province of individuals with wisdom and experience, capacities associated mainly with people of social standing, substantial financial resources, and high levels of
- 138. education. They expected that voters would cast their ballots in accordance with this view. 18th-century republicans believed that elected representatives, once in office, should not be overly responsive to public opinion; representatives were to exercise independent judgment about how best to serve the public interest, taking into account the needs and interests of society rather than the moods and opinions of the people. They believed that such a deliberative approach would not only protect liberty but result in better government decisions and policies. The Founders’ Beliefs About The Problems of Democracy Eighteenth-century republicans, then, did not believe that the people could or should rule directly. While they favored a system that allowed the common people to play a larger role in public life than existed under other political systems of the day, they wanted to limit the role of the people far more than we would find acceptable today. They worried that too much participation by the people would have a bad outcome. As James Madison put it in The Federalist No. 10, “[Democracies] have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their
- 139. lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” (See Table 2.1 for a summary of the differences between 18th-century republicanism and democracy as defined in Chapter 1 .) TABLE 2.1 A COMPARISON OF 18TH-CENTURY REPUBLICANISM AND THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL 8 9 Eighteenth-Century Republicanism The Democratic Ideal Government Based on popular consent Based on popular consent Has limited mandate Has unlimited mandate (does whatever the people want) Safeguards rights and liberties, with a special emphasis on property rights
- 140. Safeguards rights and liberties, with no special emphasis on property rights Rule by the people Indirect, through layers of representatives Direct or indirect, through layers of representatives The people defined Narrowly defined, by education, property holding, and social standing Broadly defined Eligibility for elective office Narrow eligibility, confined to a
- 141. privileged stratum of the population Broad eligibility Model for elective representatives “Trustees” of the public good “Delegates” of the people’s wishes Majority rule Barriers to majority rule exist Majority rule prevails © Edward S. Greenberg An Excess of Democracy in the States Worries that untamed democracy was on the rise were not unfounded. In the mid-1780s, popular assemblies (called conventions) in several states kept tabs on state legislatures and issued instructions to legislatures concerning which bills to pass. Both conventions and instructions struck directly at the heart of the republican conception of the legislature as a deliberative body made up of representatives shielded from popular opinion. The constitution of the state of Pennsylvania was also an affront
- 142. to republican principles. Benjamin Rush, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, described it as “too much upon the democratic order.” This constitution replaced the property qualification to vote with a very small tax (thus allowing many more people to vote), created a unicameral (single-house) legislative body whose members were to be elected in annual elections, mandated that legislative deliberations be open to the public, and required that proposed legislation be widely publicized and voted on only after a general election had been held (making the canvassing of public opinion easier). To many advocates of popular democracy, including Thomas Paine, the Pennsylvania constitution was the most perfect instrument of popular sovereignty. To others, like James Madison, the Pennsylvania case was a perfect example of popular tyranny exercised through the legislative branch of government. The Threat to Property Rights in the States 10 11 12 13
- 143. One of the freedoms that 18th-century republicans wanted to protect against the intrusions of a tyrannical government was the right of the people to acquire and enjoy private property. Developments toward the end of the 1770s and the beginning of the 1780s seemed to put this freedom in jeopardy. For one thing, the popular culture was growing increasingly hostile to privilege of any kind, whether of social standing, education, or wealth. Writers derided aristocratic airs; expressed their preference for unlettered, plain-speaking leaders; and pointed out how wealth undermined equal rights. In addition, legislatures were increasingly inclined to pass laws protecting debtors. For example, Rhode Island and North Carolina issued cheap paper money, which note holders were forced to accept as payment for debts. Other states passed stay acts, which forbade farm foreclosures for nonpayment of debts. Popular opinion, while strongly in favor of property rights (after all, most of the debtors in question were owners of small farms), also sympathized with farmers, who were hard- pressed to pay their debts with increasingly tight money, and believed —with some reason—that many creditors had accumulated notes speculatively or unfairly and were not, therefore, entitled to full repayment. One reason American notables wanted a new constitutional
- 144. order was their belief that an excess of democracy in the states under the Articles of Confederation was leading to a devaluation of the money supply. As several states began to print cheap paper money, they may have had good cause to worry. More than a few historical examples of hyperinflation (what happens when money loses its value) suffice. In Germany after World War I, where currency became almost worthless, 14 grocers were obliged to accept wheelbarrows full of bills for the purchase of small tins of oatmeal. What ultimately pushed American notables over the edge was the threat of insurrection. Shays’s Rebellion, named for its leader, Daniel Shays, occurred in western Massachusetts in 1786, when armed men took over courthouses in order to prevent judges from ordering the seizure of farms and the incarceration of their owners in debtors’ prison for the nonpayment of state taxes. The crisis in western Massachusetts was the result of a near “perfect storm” of developments: plummeting prices for crops, a dramatic
- 145. increase in state taxes to pay off Revolutionary War debts, and Governor James Bowdoin’s insistence that note-holders be paid in full by the state (mostly financial speculators who had bought up the state debt for pennies on the dollar). Unlike most other states in similar circumstances, Massachusetts did not take action to help its debt- ridden farmers. While other states passed legislation postponing tax and mortgage payments, Massachusetts instead raised taxes and insisted on full and timely payment with forfeiture of farms and jail penalties for noncompliance. Although the state succeeded in putting down the rebellion and reopening the courts, it required the dispatch of the state militia, two pitched battles, and arrests of most of the leaders of the insurrection. SHAYS’S REBELLION Shays’s Rebellion aimed at easing financial pressures on debt- ridden small farmers by closing state courts to prevent foreclosure hearings from taking place. Here, Daniel Shays encourages his fellow citizens to close the courts.
- 146. Why did the Shays’s Rebellion push American leaders to propose a constitutional convention? Are big changes in forms of government always triggered by some form of social protest? The Constitutional Convention and a New Framework for Government Most of the new nation’s leading citizens were alarmed by the apparent inability of state governments to maintain public order under the Articles of Confederation. Shays’s Rebellion confirmed national leaders’ worst fears about the dangers of ineffective state governments and popular democracy spinning out of control, unchecked by a strong national government. As George Washington said, “If government cannot check these disorders, what security has a man?” It was in this climate of crisis in 1786 that twelve delegates from five states meeting in Annapolis issued a call for a convention to correct the flaws in our first constitution. Rather than amend the Articles of Confederation, however, the delegates who gathered at the subsequent convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 did a very surprising thing: they wrote an entirely new constitution. Who Were the Framers? Describe and evaluate the framework for government that the
- 147. Constitutional Convention created. 2.4 15 16 Most of America’s economic, social, and political leaders were convinced by 1787 that the new nation and the experiment in self- government were in great peril. These concerns helped convince leaders in the states to select seventy-three delegates to attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (only fifty-five actually showed up for its deliberations). The goal was to create a new government capable of providing both energy and stability. The convention officially convened in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, with George Washington presiding. It met in secret for a period of almost four months. By the end of their deliberations, the delegates had hammered out a constitutional framework that has served as one of the structural foundations of American government and politics to the present day. The delegates to the convention were not common folk. There were no common laborers, skilled craftspeople, small farmers, women, or
- 148. racial minorities in attendance. Most delegates were wealthy men: holders of government bonds, real estate investors, successful merchants, bankers, lawyers, and owners of large plantations worked by slaves. They were, for the most part, far better educated than the average American and solidly steeped in the classics. The journal of the convention debates kept by James Madison of Virginia shows that the delegates were conversant with the great works of Western philosophy and political science. With great facility and frequency, they quoted Aristotle, Plato, Locke, and Montesquieu. Finally, they were a group with broad experience in American politics—most had served in their state legislatures—and many were veterans of the Revolutionary War. Judgments about the framers, their intentions, and what they produced vary widely. Historian Melvin Urofsky writes that “few gatherings in the history of this or any other country could boast such a concentration of talent.” On the other hand, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African American member of the Court, once claimed that the Constitution was “defective from the start”
- 149. because the convention at which it was written did not include women or blacks. The most influential criticism of the framers and what they created was mounted in 1913 by Progressive historian Charles Beard in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. Beard boldly claimed that the framers were engaged in a conspiracy to protect their immediate and personal economic interests. He suggested that those who controlled the convention and the ratification process after the convention were owners of government bonds and notes who were interested in a government that could pay its debts, merchants interested in protections of commerce, and land speculators interested in the protection of property rights. 17 18 19 20 VENERATING THE CONSTITUTION Americans generally believe that the U.S. Constitution, fashioned by the framers in Philadelphia in 1788, is one of the main reasons
- 150. the American system of government has proved so enduring. Here, a family looks at the original document at the National Archives. What reasons other than the Constitution might explain why our system has endured? Beard has had legions of defenders and detractors. Historians today generally agree that Beard overemphasized the degree to which the framers were driven by desires to “line their own pockets,” failed to credit their more noble motivations, and even got many of his facts wrong. So a simple self-interest analysis is not supportable. But Beard 21 was probably on the mark when he suggested that broad economic and social-class motives were at work in shaping the actions of the framers. This is not to suggest that they were not concerned about the national interest, economic stability, or the preservation of liberty. It does suggest, however, that the ways in which they understood these concepts were fully compatible with their own positions of economic and social eminence. It is fair to say that the Constitutional
- 151. Convention was the work of American notables who were authentically worried about the instability and economic chaos of the confederation as well as the rise of a democratic and equalitarian culture among the common people. However, we must also acknowledge that the framers were launched on a novel and exciting adventure, trying to create a form of government that existed nowhere else during the late 18th century. The success of their efforts was not guaranteed. They were, in effect, sailing in uncharted waters, guided by their reading of history and of republican philosophy, by their understanding of the nature of the unwritten English constitution, and by their experience with colonial governments before the Revolution and state governments after the Revolution. Consensus and Conflict at the Constitutional Convention 22 The delegates to the convention were of one mind on many fundamental points. Most important, they agreed that the Articles of Confederation had to be replaced with a new constitution.
- 152. Most of the delegates also agreed about the need for a substantially strengthened national government to protect American interests in the world, provide for social order, and regulate interstate commerce. Such a government would diminish the power and sovereignty of the states. Supporters of the idea of a strong, centralized national government—such as Alexander Hamilton—had long argued this position. By the time of the convention, even such traditional opponents of centralized governmental power as James Madison had changed their minds. As Madison put it, some way must be found “which will at once support a due supremacy of the national authority, and leave in force the local authorities so far as they can be subordinately useful.” But the delegates also believed a strong national government was potentially tyrannical and should not be allowed to fall into the hands of any particular interest or set of interests, particularly the majority of the people, referred to by Madison as the “majority faction.” The delegates’ most important task became finding a formula for creating a republican government based on popular consent but a government not unduly swayed by public opinion and popular democracy. As
- 153. Benjamin Franklin put it, “We have been guarding against an evil that old states are most liable to, excess of power in the rulers; but our present danger seems to be a defect of obedience in the subjects.” 23 24 The Great Compromise By far, the most intense disagreements at the convention concerned the issue of representation in Congress, especially whether large or small states would wield the most power in the legislative branch. The Virginia Plan , drafted by James Madison, proposed the creation of a strong central government dominated by a powerful bicameral (two- house) Congress controlled by the most populous states: Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The Virginians proposed that seats in the national legislature be apportioned to the states on the basis of population and that the legislature be vested with the power to appoint executive and judiciary branches and to veto state laws. The smaller states countered with a set of proposals drafted by William Paterson
- 154. of New Jersey (thereafter known as the New Jersey Plan ), the central feature of which was a unicameral national legislature with seats equally apportioned among the states and with representatives selected by state legislatures. The New Jersey Plan envisioned a slightly more powerful national government than the one that existed under the Articles of Confederation, but one that was to be organized on representational lines not unlike those in the Articles, in which each of the states remained sovereign and equal. The Virginia Plan, by contrast, with its strong national government run by a popularly elected legislature, represented a fundamentally different kind of national union, one in which national sovereignty was superior to state sovereignty.25 Virginia Plan Proposal by the large states at the Constitutional Convention to create a strong central government with power in the government apportioned to the states on the basis of population. New Jersey Plan Proposal of the smaller states at the Constitutional Convention to create a government with slightly more power in a central government than under the Articles, with the states equally represented in a
- 155. unicameral national legislature. Debate was so intense that no decision could be reached on the floor of the convention. As a way out of this impasse, the convention appointed a committee to hammer out a compromise. The so- called Committee of Eleven met over the Fourth of July holiday while the convention was adjourned. It presented its report, sometimes called the Great Compromise and sometimes the Connecticut Compromise (because it was drafted by Roger Sherman of that state), on July 5, 1787. Adopted on July 16, the compromise broke the deadlock at the convention and allowed the delegates to turn their attention to other matters. Connecticut Compromise Also called the Great Compromise; the compromise between the New Jersey and Virginia plans formulated by the Connecticut delegates at the Constitutional Convention; called for a lower legislative house based on population size and an upper house based on equal representation of the states. The key part of the Connecticut Compromise established a two- chamber legislative branch, with each chamber based on a different principle of representation. Each state’s representation in the House of
- 156. Representatives would be based on its relative population size, with the proviso that no state would have fewer than one representative. Representation in the House, because it very nearly mirrors the distribution of the American population among the states, can fairly be called democratic, based on the principle of one person, one vote. The Senate, on the other hand, would be based on equal representation— each state would have two senators regardless of its population size— giving disproportionate political power to low-population states. In 26 2010, for example, more than 37 million people lived in California, while about 560,000 people lived in Wyoming—yet each state had then, as always, two senators. Each California senator represented, therefore, more than 18.5 million people, while each Wyoming senator represented only about 280,000. In terms of representation in 2010, when the last census of the American population occurred, each person in Wyoming had sixty-six times the power in the Senate as each person in California had. This divergence from the democratic ideal for representation in the U.S. Senate is shown dramatically
- 157. in two cartograms (see Figure 2.2 ). FIGURE 2.2 PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS The cartogram on the left shows states drawn in proportion to the number of representatives each has in the House of Representatives. Because representation in the House is based roughly on population, the largest numbers of representatives come from more populous states—California, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania—as one would expect in a democratic system. Equal representation of each state in the Senate, combined with vast population differences among the states, however, leads to serious representational distortions, from a democratic theory point of view. The cartogram on the right shows the representational power of the people in each state in the Senate, measured as the number of senators—always two—divided by state population size. The most populous states—California, New York, Texas, and Florida— almost disappear, while less populous states—Wyoming, Montana, Delaware, and the two Dakotas—loom large. SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Census Apportionment Results,
- 158. December 2010. Slavery Despite great distaste for the institution of slavery among many delegates—it is said that Benjamin Franklin wanted to insert a provision in the Constitution condemning slavery and the slave trade but was talked out of it for fear of splintering the convention — slavery was ultimately condoned in the Constitution, although only indirectly; the word slavery, in fact, does not appear in the Constitution at all. But even without using the word, the legal standing of slaves is affirmed in the Constitution in three places. First, the delegates agreed, after much heated debate, to count three-fifths of a state’s slave population (referred to as “three-fifths of all other Persons”) in the calculation of how many representatives a state was entitled to in the House of Representatives (Article I, Section 2, paragraph 3). Much harm came of this; counting noncitizen slaves for purposes of representation in the House increased the power of the slave states in Congress as well as the number of their electoral votes in presidential elections. This imbalance would continue until 1865, when the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified after the war, ended slavery in the
- 159. United States. Second, it forbade enactments against the slave trade until the year 1808 (Article I, Section 9). Third, it required nonslave states to return runaway slaves to their owners in slave states (Article IV, Section 2, paragraph 3). 27 THE FRAMERS RETAIN SLAVERY One of the framers’ great shortcomings was their inability or unwillingness to include language in the Constitution that would abolish slavery. What were some of the consequences that stemmed from the framers allowing slavery in our new nation? Today, many Americans are bothered by the fact that a significant number of the delegates to a convention whose goal was to build a nontyrannical republic were themselves slaveholders (although a few, including George Washington, had provisions in their wills freeing their slaves). To understand more fully why the delegates not only did not abolish slavery but fashioned provisions that would protect the institution, apply the framework (see Figure 2.3 ).
- 160. FIGURE 2.3 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: CONDONING SLAVERY IN THE CONSTITUTION © Edward S. Greenberg The Presidency The Virginia Plan called for a single executive, while the New Jersey Plan called for a multi-person executive. In the spirit of cooperation that pervaded the convention after the Connecticut Compromise, the delegates quickly settled on the idea of a single executive. They could not agree, however, on how this executive should be selected. Both sides rejected direct election of the chief executive by the people, of course, because this would be “too much upon the democratic order,” but they locked horns over the Virginia Plan’s method of selection: by the vote of state legislatures. The compromise that was eventually struck involved a provision for an Electoral College that would select the president. In the Electoral College, each state would have votes equal in number to its total of representatives and senators in Congress. Selection of electors was left to state legislatures.
- 161. (Electoral College votes are determined today by popular vote in each state.) Elected members of the Electoral College would then cast votes for president. Should the Electoral College fail to give a majority to any person, which most framers assumed would usually happen given the likelihood of three or more candidates, the House of Representatives would choose the president, with each state having one vote (Article II, Section 1, paragraphs 2 and 3). Electoral College Representatives selected in each of the states, their numbers based on each state’s total number of its senators and representatives; a majority of Electoral College votes elects the president. What the Framers Created at the Constitutional Convention The Constitution of the United States deserves a careful reading. Each word and phrase tells something important about how American government works. If you keep in mind how the document is organized, it will help you understand the structure of the Constitution, locate specific provisions, and understand what kind of government
- 162. the framers created. (A brief outline of constitutional provisions is provided in Table 2.2 .) TABLE 2.2 READING THE CONSTITUTION Article What It’s About What It Does Preamble The Purpose of the Constitution • Declares that “we the people” (not just the separate states) establish the Constitution Article I The Legislative Branch • Provides for a House of Representatives, elected by the people and apportioned according to population • Provides for a Senate, with equal representation for each state
- 163. • Discusses various rules and procedures, including the presidential veto • Enumerates specific powers of the Congress, concluding with the necessary and proper clause • Limits the powers of Congress • Limits the powers of the states Article II The Executive Branch • Vests executive power in a single president • Describes the Electoral College scheme for electing presidents indirectly (changed, in effect, by the development of a party system) • Describes the qualifications, removal, compensation, and oath of office for the presidency • Describes presidential powers and duties • Provides for impeachment Article III The Judicial
- 164. Branch • Vests judicial power in a Supreme Court, letting Congress establish other courts, if desired • Provides for a limited original jurisdiction and (subject to congressional regulation) for broader appellate jurisdiction (i.e., jurisdiction to review lower court decisions) • Specifies a right to jury trials • Defines treason, ruling out certain punishments for it Article IV Interstate and • Requires that full faith and credit be given other states Federal Relations • Requires that fugitives (slaves) be delivered to authorities • Provides for the admission of new states and the regulation of new territories • Guarantees a republican form of government to the states Article V Amending the Constitution
- 165. • Provides two ways of proposing amendments to the Constitution and two ways of ratifying them • Forbids amendments that would attempt to change equal state suffrage in the Senate, that would (before 1808) prohibit the slave trade, or that would change the apportionment of taxes Article VI Miscellaneous • Assumes the debts of the Confederation • Makes the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States the supreme law of the land • Requires an oath by U.S. and state officials Article VII Ratification of the Constitution • Provides that the Constitution will be established when ratified by nine state conventions © Edward S. Greenberg A Republican Form of Government
- 166. Recall that 18th-century republican doctrine advocated a form of government that, while based on popular consent and some popular participation, places obstacles in the path of majoritarian democracy and limits the purposes and powers of the government to prevent tyranny. Elections and Representation Republican government is based on the principle of representation, meaning that public policies are made not by the people directly but by the people’s elected representatives acting in their stead. Under the rules of the Constitution, the people elect the president and members of Congress, although in the case of the presidency and the Senate, they are elected indirectly (through the Electoral College and state legislatures, respectively). The upshot, then, is that government policies at the national level are mostly made either directly or indirectly by elected officials. (The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, transferred election of senators from state legislatures to the people.) This filters the voices of the people by encouraging the election to office of those “whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and to
- 167. schemes of injustice.” This guarantees a degree of popular consent and some protection against the possibilities of tyrannical government arising from misrule by the one or by the few, given the electoral power of the many, but the many are still several steps removed from direct influence over officials. Federalism 28 The Articles of Confederation envisioned a nation structured as a loose union of politically independent states with little power in the hands of the central government. The Constitution fashioned federalism , a system in which some powers are left to the states, some powers are shared by the states and the central government, and some powers are granted to the central government alone. federalism A system in which significant governmental powers are divided between a central government and smaller territorial units, such as states. The powers in the Constitution tilt toward the center, however. This recasting of the union from a loose confederation to a more
- 168. centralized federal system is boldly stated in Article VI, Section 2, commonly called the supremacy clause : supremacy clause The provision in Article VI of the Constitution that states that the Constitution and the laws and treaties of the United States are the 29 supreme law of the land, taking precedence over state laws and constitutions when they are in conflict. This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The tilt toward national power is also enhanced by assigning important powers and responsibilities to the national government: to regulate commerce, to provide a uniform currency, to provide uniform
- 169. laws on bankruptcy, to raise and support an army and a navy, to declare war, to collect taxes and customs duties, to provide for the common defense of the United States, and more. (See Article I, Section 8.) Especially important for later constitutional history is the last of the clauses in Section 8, which states that Congress has the power to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” to carry out its specific powers and responsibilities. We shall see later how this elastic clause (also known as the necessary and proper clause) became one of the foundations for the growth of the federal government in the 20th century. elastic clause Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, also called the necessary and proper clause; gives Congress the authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated responsibilities. The Constitution left it up to each of the states, however, to determine qualifications for voting within their borders. This left rules in place in all the states that denied the right to vote to women, slaves, and Native Americans; it left rules untouched in many states that denied the vote to free blacks and to white males without property. Most
- 170. states removed property qualifications by the 1830s, establishing universal white male suffrage in the United States. It would take many more years and constitutional amendments to remove state restrictions on the voting rights of women and racial minorities. Limited Government The basic purpose of the U.S. Constitution, like any written constitution, is to define the purposes and powers of government. Such a definition of purposes and powers automatically places a boundary between what is permissible and what is impermissible. By listing the specific powers of the national government (as in Article I, Section 8) and specifically denying others to the national government (as in Article I, Section 9, and in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights ), the Constitution limited what government may legitimately do. Bill of Rights The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, concerned with the protection of basic liberties. Checks on Majority Rule Afraid of unbridled democracy, the framers created a
- 171. constitution by which the people rule only indirectly, barriers are placed in the path of majorities, and deliberation is prized over conformity to majority opinion. As political philosopher Robert Dahl writes, “To achieve their goal of preserving a set of inalienable rights superior to the majority principle . . . the framers deliberately created a framework of government that was carefully designed to impede and even prevent the operation of majority rule.” James Madison, often called the father of the Constitution because of his prominent role at the convention and his reportage and commentaries on the debates there, wrote in The Federalist # 63 that the key feature of the new form of government the Constitution created was “… the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity from any share” in deciding specific 30 31 government policies. Let us see what the framers did to try to dilute the power of the majority in the national government. Of the three branches of government, the framers made only a part of
- 172. one of them subject to election by the direct vote of the people: the House of Representatives (Article I, Section 2, paragraph 1). They left the election of the president to an Electoral College, whose members were selected by state legislatures and not by the direct vote of the people. They gave the responsibility of electing senators to state legislatures (since changed by the Seventeenth Amendment). They placed selection of federal judges in the hands of the president and the Senate. They arranged, as well, that representatives, senators, and presidents would serve for different terms (two years for representatives, four years for presidents, and six years for senators), and be beholden to different constituencies. These incongruities in terms of office, constituencies, and methods for selecting members of each of the branches were intended to ensure that popular majorities, at least in the short run, would be unlikely to overwhelm those who govern. Finally, the framers rejected the advice of radical democrats, such as Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, to allow the Constitution to be easily amended. Instead, they created an amending process that is exceedingly cumbersome and difficult (see Figure 2.4 ). Thus, the framers designed a system in which majority opinion, although given some play (more than anywhere in the
- 173. world at the time), was largely deflected and slowed, allowing somewhat insulated political leaders to deliberate at their pleasure. 31 32 FIGURE 2.4 AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION With two ways of proposing a constitutional amendment and two ways of ratifying one, there are four routes to changing the Constitution. In all but one case (the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed Prohibition), constitutional amendments have been proposed by Congress and then ratified by state legislatures. © Edward S. Greenberg Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances During the American Revolution, American leaders worried mainly about the misrule of executives (kings and governors) and judges. As an antidote, they substituted legislative supremacy in state constitutions and in the Articles of Confederation, thinking that placing power in an elected representative body would make government effective and nontyrannical. By 1787, the men who drafted the
- 174. Constitution, though still leery of executive and judicial power, were more concerned about the danger of legislative tyranny. To deal with this problem, the framers turned to the ancient notion of balanced government, popularized by the French philosopher Montesquieu. The central idea of balanced government is that concentrated power of any kind is dangerous and that the way to prevent tyranny is first to fragment governmental power into its constituent parts— executive, legislative, and judicial—and then place each into a separate and independent branch. In the U.S. Constitution, Article I (on the legislative power), Article II (on the executive power), and Article III (on the judicial power) designate separate spheres of responsibility and enumerate specific powers for each branch. We call this the separation of powers (see Figure 2.5 ). separation of powers The distribution of government legislative, executive, and judicial powers to separate branches of government. FIGURE 2.5 SEPARATION OF POWERS AND CHECKS AND BALANCES
- 175. The framers of the Constitution believed that tyranny might be avoided if the powers of government were fragmented into executive, legislative, and judicial components and if each component resided in a separate branch of government. To further protect against tyranny, they created mechanisms by which the actions of any single branch could be blocked by either or both of the other branches. © Edward S. Greenberg To further ensure that power would not be exercised tyrannically, the framers arranged for the legislative, executive, and judicial powers to check one another in such a way that “ambition . . . be made to counteract ambition.” They did this by ensuring that no branch of the33 national government would be able to act entirely on its own without the cooperation of the others. To put it another way, each branch has ways of blocking the actions of the others. We call the constitutional provisions that accomplish this objective checks and balances . Figure 2.5 shows in detail how each separate branch of the federal government can be checked by the other two. In this constitutional scheme, each branch has power, but none is able to exercise all of its
- 176. powers on its own, without some concurrence and cooperation from the other two. checks and balances The constitutional principle that each of the separate branches of government has the power to hinder the unilateral actions of the other branches as a way to restrain an overreaching government and prevent tyranny. The Foundations For a National Free Enterprise Economy The framers believed that property rights —the right to accumulate, use, and transfer private property—was one of the fundamental and inalienable rights that governments were instituted to defend, so they looked for ways to protect it. They also believed that the obstacles to trade allowed under the Articles of Confederation were threatening the emergence of a vibrant national economy in which most of them were involved. property rights The freedom to use, accumulate, and dispose of a valuable asset subject to rules established by government. Property rights are protected in several places in the Constitution.
- 177. Article I, Section 10, forbids states to impair the obligation of contracts, to coin money, or to make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. In other words, the states could no longer help debtors by printing inflated paper money, forgiving debts, or otherwise infringing on the property of creditors, as had happened in such places as Rhode Island and North Carolina under the Articles of Confederation. Article IV, Section 1, further guarantees contracts by establishing that states must give “full faith and credit” to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state, which means that one could no longer escape legal and financial obligations in one state by moving to another. In addition, the Constitution guaranteed that the U.S. government would pay all debts contracted under the Articles of Confederation (Article VI, Section 1). Article IV, Section 2, paragraph 3, even protected private property in slaves by requiring states to deliver escaped slaves back to their owners. Besides protecting private property, the framers took additional steps to encourage the emergence of a national economy based on free enterprise . Article I, Section 8, grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce (thus ending the chaos of
- 178. individual state regulations), to coin money and regulate its value (thus establishing a uniform national currency), to establish uniform laws of bankruptcy, and to protect the financial fruits of invention by establishing patent and copyright laws. At the same time, Article I, Sections 9 and 10, broke down barriers to trade by forbidding states from imposing taxes or duties on other states’ exports, entering into foreign treaties, coining money, or laying any imposts or duties on imports or exports. THE IDEAL ECONOMIC MODEL In this artist’s conception of commerce on the Delaware River looking west from Camden, New Jersey, to East Philadelphia, circa 1836, we see the emergence of a national free enterprise system based on trade. The framers recognized that the obstacles to trade allowed under the Articles of Confederation were an impediment to their own economic futures as well as that of America. What did the framers envision as the ideal economic model for the new republic? An urban model that thrived on industry, commerce, and new technology or one that used slave labor to produce agricultural staples? Or, a combination of both?
- 179. free enterprise An economic system characterized by competitive markets and private ownership of a society’s productive assets; a form of capitalism. It took a little while for a national free enterprise system to emerge and flower in the United States because of the existence of an entirely different sort of economy in the slave South. Although free enterprise was thriving in the northern and western states by the 1820s, it took the destruction of slavery during and after the Civil War to create a free enterprise economy for the country as a whole. The Struggle to Ratify The Constitution Congress had instructed the delegates to the convention to propose changes to the Articles of Confederation. Under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation, such alterations would have required the unanimous consent of the thirteen states. To follow such a course would have meant instant rejection of the new constitution, because Rhode Island, never friendly to the deliberations in
- 180. Philadelphia, surely would have voted against it, and one or two additional states may well have joined Rhode Island. Acting boldly, the framers decided that ratification would be based on guidelines specified in Article VII of the unratified document they had just written, namely, approval by nine states meeting in special constitutional conventions. Congress agreed to this procedure, voting on September 28, 1787, to transmit the Constitution to the states for their consideration. The battle over ratification was heated, and the outcome was far from certain. That the Constitution eventually carried the day may be partly attributed to the fact that the Federalists (those who supported the Constitution) did a better job of making their case than did the Anti- Federalists (those who opposed the Constitution). Their intellectual Outline the arguments for and against ratification of the Constitution. 2.5 advantages were nowhere more obvious than in the eighty-five articles written for New York newspapers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (under the common pen name “Publius”) in defense of the Constitution. Later collected and
- 181. published as the Federalist Papers (which Thomas Jefferson judged to be “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written”), these articles strongly influenced the debate over ratification and remain among the most impressive commentaries ever written about the U.S. Constitution. Federalists Proponents of the Constitution during the ratification fight; later, also the political party of Hamilton, Washington, and Adams. Anti-Federalists Opponents of the Constitution during the fight over ratification; the political orientation of people like Patrick Henry. 34 Anti-Federalist opposition to the Constitution was based on fear of centralized power and concern about the absence of a bill of rights. Although the Federalists firmly believed that a bill of rights was unnecessary because of the protection of individual rights in existing state constitutions and the many safeguards against tyranny in the federal Constitution, they promised to add one during the first session of Congress. Without this promise, ratification would probably
- 182. not have happened. (The Federalists kept their word. The 1st Congress passed a bill of rights in the form of ten amendments to the Constitution (see Table 2.3 ), and the amendments were eventually ratified by the required number of states by 1791.) TABLE 2.3 THE BILL OF RIGHTS Amendment Freedoms, Rights, Protections, Guarantees Amendment I Freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly Amendment II The right to bear arms Amendment III Prohibition against quartering of troops in private homes Amendment IV Prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures
- 183. Amendment V Rights guaranteed to the accused: requirement for grand jury indictment; protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination; guarantee of 35 due process Amendment VI Right to a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury, to cross- examine witnesses, and to have counsel Amendment VII Right to a trial by jury in civil suits Amendment VIII
- 184. Prohibition against excessive bail and fines and against cruel and unusual punishment Amendment IX Traditional rights not listed in the Constitution are retained by the people Amendment X Powers not denied to them by the Constitution or given solely to the national government are retained by the states or the people © Edward S. Greenberg Even with the promise of a Bill of Rights, ratification of the Constitution was a close call. Most of the small states quickly approved it, attracted by the formula of equal representation in the Senate, and the Federalists orchestrated a victory in Pennsylvania before the Anti- Federalists realized what had happened. After that, ratification became a struggle. Rhode Island voted no. North Carolina abstained because of the absence of a bill of rights and did not vote its approval until 1790. In the largest and most important states, the vote
- 185. was exceedingly close. Massachusetts approved by a vote of 187– 168; Virginia, by 89–79; and New York, by 30–27. The struggle was especially intense in Virginia, where prominent, articulate, and influential men were involved on both sides of the ratification decision. The Federalists could call on George Washington, James Madison, John Marshall, and Edmund Randolph. The Anti-Federalists countered with George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry was particularly passionate, saying that the Constitution “squints towards monarchy.” Although New Hampshire technically put the Constitution over the top, being the ninth state to vote approval, proponents of ratification did not rest easily until Virginia and New York, the two most populous states, approved it. JAMES MADISON, PUBLIUS During the fight to ratify the Constitution, James Madison helped publish a series of essays with the purpose of persuading the voters of New York to endorse the Constitution.
- 186. The Changing Constitution, Democracy, and American Politics The Constitution is the basic rulebook for the game of American politics. Constitutional rules apportion power and responsibility among governmental branches, define the fundamental nature of the relationships among governmental institutions, specify how individuals are to be selected for office, and tell how the rules themselves may be changed. Every aspiring politician who wants to attain office, every citizen who wants to influence what government does, and every group that wants to advance its interests in the political arena must know the rules and how to use them to their best advantage. Because the Constitution has this character, we understand it to be a fundamental structural factor influencing all of American political life. It is why we have placed it in the structural base of our pyramid- shaped analytical model (see Figure 1.1 ). Like all rules, however, constitutional rules can and do change over time, which is why we sometimes speak of the “living Constitution.” Constitutional changes come about in three specific ways: (1) formal amendment, (2) judicial interpretation, and (3) enduring political practices.
- 187. Describe the processes by which the Constitution can be altered. 2.6 Changing the Constitution Through Formal Amendment The Constitution may be formally amended by use of the procedures outlined in Article V (again, refer to Figure 2.4 ). This method has resulted in the addition of twenty- seven amendments since the founding, the first ten of which (the Bill of Rights) were added within three years of ratification. That only seventeen more amendments have been added since 1791 suggests that this method of changing the Constitution is extremely difficult. Over the years, proponents of constitutional amendments that would guarantee equal rights for women, ban same-sex marriages, and ban the burning of the American flag have learned how difficult it is to formally amend the Constitution; none of these amendments were added, despite public opinion polls reporting majorities in favor of them. Seen in this light, the cumbersome method for formally amending the Constitution is an important barrier to democracy. On the other hand, several formal amendments have played an important role in expanding democracy
- 188. in the United States by ending slavery; extending voting rights to African Americans, women, and young people between the ages of 18 and 20; and making the selection of senators the business of voters, not state legislatures. Changing the Constitution Through 36 Judicial Review The Constitution is also changed by decisions and interpretations of the U.S. Supreme Court found in the written opinions of the justices. In Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Court claimed the power of judicial review —the right to declare the actions of the other branches of government null and void if they are contrary to the Constitution— even though such a power is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. In two more examples, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court supported a claim for the existence of a fundamental right to privacy even though such a right is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Many conservatives believe that such actions by the Supreme Court are illegitimate because they go beyond the original intentions of the framers or
- 189. cannot be justified in the written provisions of the Constitution. Many others disagree, believing that the Court has and must interpret the Constitution in light of changing circumstances that the framers could not have envisioned. judicial review The power of the Supreme Court to declare actions of the other branches and levels of government unconstitutional. VOICING CONCERNS AT THE COURT The Constitution has evolved over the years in three ways: through the amendment process, through evolving political practices, and through the Supreme Court’s changing interpretation of the Constitution’s meaning. Here, antiabortion protesters demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court building on the anniversary of the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to demand a reversal of that landmark decision. How does the Constitution protect both the Supreme Court’s decision and these people’s public protest of it? How likely is it that the present Supreme Court will listen to these and other voices and overturn Roe?
- 190. Changing the Constitution Through Political Practices The meaning of the Constitution also changes through changing political practices which end up serving as precedents for political actors. Political parties, party primaries, and presidential nominating conventions are not mentioned in the Constitution, for example, but it would be hard to think about American politics today without them. It is also fair to say that the framers would not recognize the modern presidency, which is now a far more important office than they envisioned, a change that has been brought about largely by the political and military involvement of the United States in world affairs, tied to vigorous assertion of the office’s diplomatic and commander-in- chief powers by many presidents, and the widespread demand that the president do something during economic crises. The Constitution does not specify, for example, that the Treasury secretary, acting for the president, can force the merger of failing financial firms as was done in the last months of the George W. Bush presidency in the depths of a recession. Nor would the framers have predicted the increasing use of signing statements , by which a president can alter the meaning of a bill even while signing it into law. Nor did they envision the flood of executive orders from Presidents Obama and
- 191. Trump, many of which were issued to bypass the legislative process in Congress. Needless to say, all three ways of changing the Constitution are politically contentious, meaning that not all Americans necessarily agree with particular changes in the meaning of the Constitution, and sometimes they have taken to the streets, the voting booth, and the courts to express their displeasure. signing statement A document sometimes issued by the president in connection with the signing of a bill from Congress that sets out the president’s understanding of the new law and how executive branch officials should carry it out. Throughout this book you will see many examples of these three forms of constitutional change that have shaped our current understanding of the meaning of the Constitution and its many provisions. You also will learn that the third factor, changing political practices—itself a product of social and cultural change and pressure from the American people, as shown in our pyramid-style analytical model (Figure 1.1 )—is at least as important as amendments and judicial rulings in adjusting the Constitution to its times. Using the Democracy Standard 37
- 192. The Constitution: How Democratic? Scarred by the failings of the Articles of Confederation, the framers endeavored to create a republic that would offer representative democracy without the threat of majority tyranny. Consequently, they wrote a number of provisions into the Constitution to control the purported excesses of democracy. These include the separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches; checks and balances to prevent any of the branches from governing on its own; federalism to fragment government powers between a national government and the states; an appointed federal judiciary with life tenure charged with, among other things, protecting private property; selection of the president by the Electoral College; election of members of the Senate by state legislatures with each state having two senators no matter the size of states; and a process for changing the Constitution that makes it exceedingly easy for small numbers of people in Congress and a very few states to block amendments favored by a majority of Americans. Although the framers had every intention of creating a republic and of holding democracy in check, the tide of democracy has gradually transformed the original constitutional design. For example, the Seventeenth Amendment created a Senate whose members are elected directly by the people. In addition, the Supreme Court has extended civil rights protections to racial and ethnic minorities, and the presidency has become both more powerful and more attentive to majority opinion. By
- 193. formal amendment, through judicial interpretations, and through changing political practices, government has been fashioned into a more responsive set of institutions that often—but not always—heed the voice of the people. Yet despite these changes, the American system of government remains essentially “republican” in nature, with the majority finding it very difficult to prevail. Provisions of the Constitution, designed to keep the majority in check, effectively provide minorities with disproportionate power in government. Five times in our history, presidents have taken office without having won a majority of the popular vote (John Quincy Adams, 1825; Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877; Benjamin Harrison, 1889; George W. Bush, 2001; Donald Trump, 2016). And while the Seventeenth Amendment has made the election of senators more democratic, the Senate itself— which provides equal representation to all states regardless of population—remains skewed toward smaller population states, thus serving as a major barrier in the translation of what the American people want into what government does. As we will see in later chapters, the ability of private and privileged groups to use the many blocking points provided by the 38 Constitution has grown, often frustrating majority interests and demands. “REPUBLICAN” IN NATURE The Electoral College, whatever its virtues might be, is
- 194. an important anti-democratic feature of our Constitution. Five times during our history, it has enabled a candidate to be elected president who has had fewer popular votes than his opponent. George W. Bush celebrated his Electoral College victory in the disputed 2000 presidential election with 500,000 fewer popular votes than Al Gore. In 2016, Republican Donald Trump was elected president, though he received almost 3 million fewer votes nationally than his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Why would the framers consider it desirable that a professed democracy keep the majority in check? Chapter 2 Review the Chapter The American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence The American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence helped establish the ideas of self-government and inalienable individual rights as the core of the American political ideology. The Articles of Confederation: The First Constitution The first constitution joining the American states was the Articles of Confederation. Under its terms, the states were organized into a loose
- 195. Assess the enduring legacies of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. 2.1 Describe the system of government established by our first constitution. 2.2 confederation in which the states retained full sovereignty and the central government had little power. Factors Leading to the Constitutional Convention Defects in the Articles of Confederation, along with fears that democratic and egalitarian tendencies were beginning to spin out of control, prompted American leaders to gather in Philadelphia to amend the Articles. The delegates chose instead to formulate an entirely new constitution. The Constitutional Convention and a New Framework For Government Analyze the developments that led to the Constitutional Convention. 2.3 Describe and evaluate the framework for government that the Constitutional Convention created. 2.4
- 196. The framers created a constitutional framework for republican government, including representative elections, separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism. The Connecticut Compromise settled the tensions between large and small states by giving states equal representation in the Senate and representation based on population in the House of Representatives. The framers condoned and protected slavery in several constitutional provisions. The framers created the legal foundations for a thriving commercial republic. The Struggle to Ratify the Constitution The Constitution was ratified in an extremely close vote of the states after a hard-fought struggle between the Federalists, who wanted a more centralized republicanism, and the Anti-Federalists, who wanted small-scale republicanism. The promise by the Federalists to introduce amendments specifying the rights of Americans in the 1st Congress helped swing the vote in favor of ratification in a number of key states.
- 197. Outline the arguments for and against ratification of the Constitution. 2.5 Despite its “close shave,” the Constitution became very popular among the American people within only a few years of the ratification fight. The Changing Constitution, Democracy, and American Politics The Constitution changes by three processes: amendments to the document, judicial interpretations of the meaning of constitutional provisions, and the everyday political practices of Americans and their elected leaders. Because the American people continue to struggle for democracy, the Constitution has become far more democratic over the years than was originally intended by the framers. Describe the processes by which the Constitution can be altered. 2.6 Learn the Terms Anti-Federalists Opponents of the Constitution during the fight over ratification;
- 198. the political orientation of people like Patrick Henry. Articles of Confederation The first constitution of the United States, adopted during the last stages of the Revolutionary War, created a system of government with most power lodged in the states and little in the central government. Bill of Rights The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, concerned with the protection of basic liberties. checks and balances The constitutional principle that each of the separate branches of government has the power to hinder the unilateral actions of the other branches as a way to restrain an overreaching government and prevent tyranny. confederation A loose association of states or territorial units in which very little or no power is lodged in a central government. Connecticut Compromise Also called the Great Compromise; the compromise between the New Jersey and Virginia plans formulated by the Connecticut delegates at the Constitutional Convention; called for a lower legislative house based on population size and an upper house based on equal representation of the states.
- 199. constitution The basic framework of law for a nation that prescribes how government is to be organized, how government decisions are to be made, and what powers and responsibilities government shall have. elastic clause Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, also called the necessary and proper clause; gives Congress the authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated responsibilities. Electoral College Representatives selected in each of the states, their numbers based on each state’s total number of its senators and representatives; a majority of Electoral College votes elects the president. federalism A system in which significant governmental powers are divided between a central government and smaller territorial units, such as states. Federalists Proponents of the Constitution during the ratification fight; later, also the political party of Hamilton, Washington, and Adams. free enterprise
- 200. An economic system characterized by competitive markets and private ownership of a society’s productive assets; a form of capitalism. judicial review The power of the Supreme Court to declare actions of the other branches and levels of government unconstitutional. New Jersey Plan Proposal of the smaller states at the Constitutional Convention to create a government with slightly more power in a central government than under the Articles, with the states equally represented in a unicameral national legislature. property rights The freedom to use, accumulate, and dispose of a valuable asset subject to rules established by government. republicanism A political doctrine advocating limited government based on popular consent, protected against majority tyranny. separation of powers The distribution of government legislative, executive, and judicial powers to separate branches of government. signing statement A document sometimes issued by the president in connection with the signing of a bill from Congress that sets out the president’s understanding of the new law and how executive branch officials
- 201. should carry it out. social contract The idea that government is the result of an agreement among people to form one, and that people have the right to create an entirely new government if the terms of the contract have been violated by the existing one. supremacy clause The provision in Article VI of the Constitution that states that the Constitution and the laws and treaties of the United States are the supreme law of the land, taking precedence over state laws and constitutions when they are in conflict. tyranny The abuse of the inalienable rights of citizens by government. Virginia Plan Proposal by the large states at the Constitutional Convention to create a strong central government with power in the government apportioned to the states on the basis of population. Chapter 3 Federalism: States and Nation California Governor Jerry Brown (D) speaks at the 2017 World Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany. Brown, a strong advocate for
- 202. environmental protection, opposed President Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Climate Accord and has responded by advocating for more state-level environmental regulations that help meet global climate change goals. What are some of the challenges of having conflicting environmental policies at the state and federal levels? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy A Patchwork of Policies The term federalism describes the relationship between the federal (or national) government and all the state governments. The unique system of federalism in the United States provides each state with a certain amount of autonomy. The precise amount of autonomy that states have has been the source of FEDERALISM AS A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT Define federalism and explain why we have it. FEDERALISM IN THE CONSTITUTION Explain the constitutional foundations of federalism. THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN FEDERALISM Trace the evolution of American federalism. FISCAL FEDERALISM Analyze how federal grants structure national and state
- 203. government relations. STRONG STATES VERSUS A STRONG NATIONAL GOVERNMENT Evaluate the arguments for and against a strong national government. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 considerable debate since the country’s founding. While this debate rarely makes headlines, it has profound implications for the laws Americans are subject to. Questions related to federalism have been central to slavery, civil rights, social policy, economic policy, and many other aspects of American life and liberty. Today, the country faces a set of questions about federalism that are impacting everything from immigration to public health to the protection of the environment. federalism A system in which significant governmental powers are divided between a central government and smaller territorial units, such as states. Consider the case of marijuana. The U.S. Controlled Substances Act
- 204. of 1970 makes it illegal to possess or distribute marijuana. However, in recent years public opinion on marijuana has shifted—as of October 2017, 61 percent of Americans support legalization compared to 36 percent just a decade ago—and some states have sought alternative policies. Nine states and Washington, DC, have fully legalized marijuana (in some cases via state-wide vote), and many others have legalized it for medical use. Citizens and lawmakers in these states have argued that its widespread use and medicinal effects justify legalization. Legalization advocates also say that arresting small-time marijuana users is not worth the resources, and the ability to tax the sale of marijuana creates a lucrative revenue stream for the states. Opponents of legalization argue that no public health benefit comes from increased access to drugs and that marijuana has the potential to lead to more serious drug abuse. The states that have legalized marijuana (see Figure 3.0 ) are now operating in direct contradiction to federal law. During the Obama administration, these states were allowed to continue their policies so
- 205. long as there was no evidence that marijuana was ending up in the hands of minors or crossing state lines. But this was a choice made by the Obama administration, and early in the Trump administration there were indications that things would change. Trump, though, has elected to continue the Obama-era approach—in part on the counsel of fellow Republican, Senator Cory Gardner, who represents Colorado where marijuana was legalized for recreational use in 2012. Colorado raised over $247 million in taxes on marijuana in 2017 alone— almost all of that money will go to help fund public education in the state. FIGURE 3.0 MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION MAP Now consider the case of climate change. Since taking office in January 2017, President Trump and his administration have taken actions to reverse the environmental policy trajectory of the Obama administration. The most public of those actions was Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord—a 2015 agreement among 195 countries to reduce carbon emissions to combat global climate change. But the actions have gone beyond leaving the Paris Accord. According to the New York Times,
- 206. the Trump administration has rolled back at least 25 environmental rules created during the Obama presidency with many more rollbacks in the pipeline. These overturned rules include regulations that restricted oil drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, restricted coal mining on public lands, required oil and gas companies to report their methane emissions, funded UN programs to reduce carbon emissions in developing countries, and required federal agencies to mitigate environmental impacts on new projects among many others. As you will learn later in the book, decisions about this type of environmental policy making are generally understood to be within the authority of the president. However, states also have a range of policy tools at their disposal for combating climate change. These include funding the development of clean energy, forcing companies to increase their use of clean energy, and setting certain pollution emissions standards. Following Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Accord, the governors of Washington State, New York, and California responded by announcing a “US Climate Alliance” aimed at upholding the Paris Accord plus additional reductions—they have since been joined by additional states.California, in particular, has long
- 207. used its economic power (alone it has an economy roughly as big as France) to be a state-level environmental leader willing to challenge the federal government. California officials have vowed to fight many of the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks in court and continue to set their own ambitious environmental goals. Since 2009, California has operated under a waiver from the federal government that allows it to set its own vehicle carbon emissions standards. These standards (which require auto manufacturers to almost double the fuel efficiency of their vehicles by 2025) are substantially more aggressive than the Trump administration would prefer and, because California is such a large market, tend to impact vehicles sold nationwide. The President and his administration retain the authority to revoke that waiver if they so choose. The patchwork of policies and the federal-state tensions that exist under federalism are on full display in both of the above examples. Where you live impacts the drug laws you are subject to, and who the president is impacts how drug laws are enforced. Likewise,
- 208. different states are making different commitments to dealing with climate change, commitments that may even be at odds with national economic priorities. Thinking Critically about this Chapter This complex mixture of state and national government authority and responsibilities highlighted in the chapter-opening story is an important characteristic of American federalism today and in the past. Applying the Framework In this chapter, you will learn how and why federalism is one of the most important structural factors that affect American politics and government and shape public policy. You will learn how federalism influences our entire system, from the divisions in Congress to presidential decisions. You will also learn how federalism itself has changed over time. Using the Democracy Standard Using the evaluative tools introduced in Chapter 1 , you will be able to judge for yourself whether federalism enriches or 1 diminishes democracy in the United States. Federalism as a System of Government The United States has lots of governments. We not only have a federal (or national) government, but also governments in each
- 209. of the fifty states and in each of thousands of smaller governmental units such as counties, cities, towns, and school districts. Each level of government has its own governing system. Just as the national government has a legislature (Congress), an executive (the President), a bureaucracy, and a court system so too does each state have its own legislature (sometimes called the state assembly), bureaucracy, executive (governor), and court system responsible for making, executing, and interpreting state laws. State governments play a particularly important role in the American political system owing to their prominent place in the Constitution— that role is discussed throughout this chapter. Local governments are legal creations of state governments: They can be created, changed, or abolished by state legislatures. Despite being subsidiary to their respective state government, local governments also play a critical role: They are frequently responsible for (or involved with) providing services essential to our daily lives—services such as roads, trash collection, parks, schools, and policing. Define federalism and explain why we have it.3.1
- 210. All these levels of government are organized and related to one another in a particular way and together form what is known as a “federal system.” The federal system is part of the basic structure of U.S. government, deeply rooted in our Constitution and history. As a structural part of our analytical framework introduced in Chapter 1 , you should understand the federal system as helping to form the foundation on which all American policy actions are built. Federalism Defined Federalism is a system under which significant government powers are divided between the central government and smaller units of government, such as states or provinces. Neither one completely controls the other; each has some room for independent action. A federal system can be contrasted with two other types of government: a confederation and a unitary government. In a confederation , the constituent states get together for certain common purposes but retain ultimate individual authority and can veto major central governmental actions. The United Nations and the American government under the Articles of Confederation are examples of confederations. In a unitary system , the central government has all the power and can change its constituent units or tell them what to do. China, Japan, Turkey,
- 211. Iran, and France have unitary governments, as do a substantial majority of nations around the world. These three different types of governmental systems are contrasted in Figure 3.1 . confederation A loose association of states or territorial units in which very little power or no power at all is lodged in a central government. unitary system A system in which a central government has complete power over its constituent units or states. FIGURE 3.1 TYPES OF POLITICAL SYSTEMS A majority of countries have unitary systems (A), in which the central government controls state and regional governments. The United States, however, has a federal system (C), in which the central government has power on some issues, the states have power on other issues, and the central and state governments share power on yet others. In a confederation (B), the central institutions have only a loose coordinating role, with real governing power residing in the constituent states or units.
- 212. Comparing American Federalism Some of the elements of federalism go back in history at least as far as the Union of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1579, but federalism as it exists today is largely an American invention. American federalism emerged from the way in which the states declared independence from Britain—first becoming, in effect, separate countries, then joining to form a confederation, and then uniting as a single nation. Recall that the framers of the Constitution turned to federalism as a middle- ground solution between a confederation form of government (which was deemed a failed model based on their experience under the Articles of Confederation) and a unitary form of government (which, owing to their disparate interests and time as colonies, a majority of states found unacceptable). Federalism was consistent with the 18th- 2 century republicanism of the framers in that it fragmented government power. Federalism tends to be found in nations that are large in territory and
- 213. in which the various geographical regions are fairly distinctive from one another in terms of religion, ethnicity, language, and forms of economic activity. Such is the case with the United States. From the early days of the republic, the slave-holding and agriculture- oriented South was quite distinct from the mercantile Northeast, and many important social, economic, and political differences persist today. Illinois is not Louisiana; the farmers of Iowa differ from defense and tech workers in California. States today also vary in their approaches to public policy, their racial and ethnic composition, and their political cultures. In Federalist No. 10 , Madison argued that this size and diversity made federalism especially appropriate for the United States. Federalist No. 10 One of a series on essays written by James Madison (others were written by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay), urging the people of New York to support ratification of the Constitution. In No. 10, Madison defended republican government for large states with heterogeneous populations and expressed his fear of majorities and his abhorrence of political parties.
- 214. While the American system of federalism was truly exceptional at the founding, other large and diverse countries have adopted federalism in the years since. Canada also has a federal system. In Canada, the farmers of the central plains are not much like the fishers of Nova Scotia, and the French-speaking (and primarily Catholic) residents of Quebec differ markedly from the mostly English-speaking Protestants of the rest of the country. Spain’s federal system has helped the country to deal with deep divisions along ethnic and language lines (as in the distinctive Basque and Catalán regions). Other important federal systems include such large and richly diverse countries as India, Pakistan, Russia, and Brazil. In all of these countries, the central government remains the most powerful governing force, but federalism gives diverse and geographically concentrated groups the degree of local autonomy they want by providing them with the authority to pursue some of their own policies. 3 Federalism in the Constitution Federalism is embodied in the U.S. Constitution in three main ways: (1) the powers expressly given to the national government, (2)
- 215. the powers expressly given to the states, and (3) the role given to states in shaping and choosing national officials and in amending the Constitution. For a summary of the provisions in the Constitution that address federalism issues, see Table 3.1 . TABLE 3.1 CONSTITUTIONAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FEDERALISM Federalism Issue Constitutional Provision Meaning The Powers of the Federal Government Supremacy of the national government Article VI (supremacy clause) Federal laws and the Constitution take
- 216. precedence over state laws and state constitutions. Enumerated powers of the national government Article I, Section 8 Powers of the federal government are laid out specifically in the Constitution. Explain the constitutional foundations of federalism.3.2 Limitations on the powers of the national government Article I, Section 9
- 217. Article IV, Section 3 Eleventh Amendment Strict limitations on the power of the federal government are laid out specifically in the Constitution (e.g., no suspension of habeas corpus). The Powers of the States Original limitations on the powers of the states Article I, Section 10 The Constitution places strict limitations on the power of states in particular areas of activity (e.g., states can’t coin money).
- 218. Amended limitations on the powers of the states Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments (Civil War Amendments) States are compelled to uphold civil liberties and civil rights of people living within their borders. Reservation of powers to the states Tenth Amendment Powers not specifically spelled out are reserved to the states or to the people (e.g., police powers).
- 219. Ratification of the Constitution Article VII The role of states in national affairs is clearly laid out. Rules for voting and electing representatives, senators, and the president are defined so that state governments play a part. Amendment of the Constitution Article V Election of congressional representatives Article I, Sections 2 and 4 Election of senators
- 220. Article I, Section 3, and Seventeenth Amendment Election of president Article II, Section 1 (however, see Twelfth Amendment) Relations Among the States Full faith and credit among states Article IV, Section 1 (full faith and credit clause)
- 221. Constitutional rules ensure that states must respect each other’s legal actions and judgments (e.g., states can’t reopen cases closed in other states). The rights of state citizens Article IV, Section 2 (privileges and immunities clause) Citizens from other states have the same rights and privileges as a state’s own citizens (e.g., evading financial obligations). Federal, State, and Concurrent Powers Although the Constitution makes the central government supreme in certain matters, it also makes clear that state governments have
- 222. independent powers. The supremacy clause in Article VI states that the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States shall be the “supreme law of the land.” According to a doctrine known as preemption , states cannot act in certain matters when the national government has authority. However, Article I, Section 8, enumerates what kinds of laws Congress has the power to pass, and the Tenth Amendment declares that the powers not delegated to the central government by the Constitution or prohibited by the Constitution to the states are “reserved to the states [emphasis added] respectively, or to the people.” This provision is known as the reservation clause . supremacy clause The provision in Article VI of the Constitution states that the Constitution and the laws and treaties of the United States are the supreme law of the land, taking precedence over state laws and constitutions when they are in conflict. preemption Exclusion of the states from actions that might interfere with federal authority or statutes. 4
- 223. reservation clause Part of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution that says those powers not given to the federal government and not prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved for the states and the people. The Constitution specifically enumerates the national (federal) government’s powers, including the authority to levy taxes, regulate interstate commerce, establish post offices, declare war, and to make laws “necessary and proper” for carrying out those powers. The Constitution then declares that all other legitimate government functions may be performed by the states, except for a few things, such as coining money or conducting foreign policy (which are forbidden by Article I, Section 10). This leaves a great deal in the hands of state governments, including licensing lawyers, doctors, and drivers; regulating businesses within their boundaries; chartering banks and corporations; providing a system of family law; providing a system of public education; and assuming the responsibility for building roads and highways, and registering cars. Under terms of the reservation clause, states exercise what are called their police powers to protect the health, safety, and general well-being of people living in their states. Police powers have allowed states to make decisions independent of the federal government and other states on matters such as stem-cell research, the death penalty,
- 224. emissions of greenhouse gases, the regulation of abortion services, and financial regulations. police powers Powers of a government to protect the health, safety, and general well-being of its people. Powers that both the federal and state governments hold are called concurrent powers . Some of these concurrent powers include the power to levy taxes, to borrow money for public purposes, and to spend money for the protection and well-being of their populations. With both independent national and state powers and responsibilities, as well as concurrent powers and responsibilities, the Constitution is not crystal clear about the exact shape of federalism, leaving ample room for the meaning of federalism to change with the times, the preferences of the American people, and the calculations of political leaders. Figure 3.2 shows which powers and responsibilities go with which level of government. concurrent powers Powers under the Constitution that are shared by the federal government and the states.
- 225. FIGURE 3.2 FEDERAL, STATE, AND CONCURRENT POWERS The Constitution makes the federal government supreme in certain matters and grants independent powers to the states, but the federal government and the states also share powers. Powers that both the federal government and the states hold are called concurrent powers. The Roles of States in the National Government Various provisions in the Constitution assign a special position for the states in the national government. Article VII declares that the Constitution was “done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the states present” (emphasis added) and stipulates that the Constitution would go into effect, not when a majority of all Americans voted for it, but when the conventions of nine states ratified it. Article V similarly addresses the distinct role of states in amending the Constitution. Only when three-quarters of states ratify (via state convention or state legislature) an amendment is the Constitution duly amended. Article IV, Section 3 makes clear that no states can be combined or divided into new states without the consent of the state legislatures concerned.
- 226. The Constitution also provides special roles for the states in the selection of national officials. The states decide who can vote for members of the U.S. House of Representatives (Article I, Section 2) and who draws the boundaries of House districts. Each state is given two senators (Article V) who were, until 1913, to be chosen by state legislatures rather than by the voters until altered by the Seventeenth Amendment, which puts the election of senators in the hands of the people. States also play a key part in the complicated Electoral College system of choosing a president in which each state has votes equal to the number of its senators and representatives combined, with the president elected by a majority of electoral votes, not by a majority of popular votes (Article II, Section 1). Relations Among the States The Constitution also regulates relations among the states. These state-to-state relations are sometimes called horizontal federalism . Article IV of the Constitution is particularly important in regard to relations among states (refer again to Table 3.1 ). For example, each state is required to give “full faith and credit” to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other
- 227. state. This means that private contractual or financial agreements among people or companies in one state are valid in all the other states and that civil judgments by the courts of one state must be recognized by the others. Because of the full faith and credit clause , people in one state cannot evade financial obligations—for example, credit card debts and alimony or child support payments—by moving to another state. horizontal federalism Term used to refer to relationships among the states. full faith and credit clause The provision in Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution which provides that states must respect the public acts, laws, and judicial rulings of other states. Prior to the Supreme Court declaring same-sex marriage legal nationwide, in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), same-sex marriage was an example of a policy that varied by state with significant consequences. Some states had enacted laws legalizing it, others had been forced into accepting it by way of court rulings, and still others had banned it. During the pre-Obergefell period, questions persisted
- 228. about whether same-sex marriages should be legally recognized in states without same-sex marriage and whether same-sex partners would be eligible for federal benefits entitled to spouses. Worried about the contestability of these questions, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 denying federal benefits (e.g., Social Security) to spouses in same-sex marriages and allowing states to decide whether to recognize their marriages. Later, in U.S. v. Windsor (2013), the Supreme Court struck down the portion of DOMA that denied federal benefits to those in same-sex marriages. In its Obergefell decision, which affirms that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not even up to states to make a determination about whether same-sex couples could marry. As a result, the debate about whether states must accept other states’ same-sex marriages based on the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause was rendered moot. Article IV also specifies that the citizens of each state are entitled to all the “privileges and immunities” of the citizens in the several states. That means that whatever citizenship rights a person has in one state apply in the other states as well. For example, out-of-state residents 5
- 229. have the same access to state courts as in-state residents as well as an equal right to own property and to be protected by the police. However, the Supreme Court has never clearly defined the meaning of “privileges and immunities” nor has it been entirely consistent in applying them in practice. Agreements among a group of states to solve mutual problems, called interstate compacts , require the consent of Congress. The framers inserted this provision (Article I, Section 10) into the Constitution as a way to prevent the emergence of coalitions of states that might threaten federal authority or the union itself. Interstate compacts in force today cover a wide range of cooperative state activities. For example, New York and New Jersey entered into and Congress approved a compact to establish the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. Similarly, seven Western states formed the Colorado River Compact in 1922 to allocate water rights to the states along the river’s basin. Other compacts among states include agreements to cooperate on pollution control, crime prevention, regional transportation needs, and disaster planning. interstate compacts Agreements among states to cooperate on solving mutual problems; requires approval by Congress.
- 230. THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE, NEW YORK CITY The George Washington Bridge spans the Hudson River and connects New York City with New Jersey. With over 106 million cars crossing it every year, it is among the world’s busiest bridges. It is owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—a special government, created via an interstate compact, which manages major transportation infrastructure throughout the New York Metropolitan Area, including bridges, tunnels, airports, bus stations, and trains. What is the benefit of states creating interstate compacts to manage infrastructure? The Evolution of American Federalism From the very beginnings of the United States, two political philosophies have contended with one another over the nature of American federalism and the role of the central government. Tension between these two philosophies, which are generally referred to as the nationalist position and the states’ rights position, has been and
- 231. remains a critical aspect of American democracy. The United States initially adhered largely to a states’ rights position but it has transitioned to a more nationalist approach. The Nationalist Position Proponents of the nationalist position believe that the Constitution represents a compact among the states that creates a single national community of the people and their government. They point to the words in the preamble and to the clear expression of the purposes for which the people formed a new government: nationalist position Trace the evolution of American federalism.3.3 The view of American federalism that holds that the Constitution created a system in which the national government is supreme, relative to the states, and that it granted government a broad range of powers and responsibilities. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
- 232. ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. The nationalist position also embraces the provisions in the Constitution that endow the central government with expansive responsibilities, including the commerce clause, the supremacy clause, and the necessary and proper clause (also known as the elastic clause). Proponents of the nationalist position, such as Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt, advocated for an active national government with the capacity and the will to tackle whatever problems might emerge to threaten the peace and prosperity of the United States or the general welfare of its people. necessary and proper clause 6 Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, also known as the elastic clause; gives Congress the authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers and the responsibilities mentioned in the Constitution’s preamble. The States’ Rights Position Proponents of the states’ rights position argue that the Constitution was framed as a compact among the states, with the
- 233. states and the national government as coequal. Proponents of states’ rights note, for instance, that the Constitution was written by representatives of the states, that it was ratified by the states and not by a vote of the public, and that the process for amending the Constitution requires the affirmative votes of three-fourths of the states, not three-fourths of the people. They also point to the Tenth Amendment’s reservation clause, which stipulates that powers not given to the national government nor denied to the states reside in the states and in the people. states’ rights position The view of American federalism that holds that the Constitution created a system of dual 7 sovereignty in which the national government and the state governments are sovereign in their own spheres. Proponents of the states’ rights position have argued that the Constitution created a form of government in which the national government is strictly limited in size and responsibility and in which states retain broad autonomy in the conduct of their own affairs. Popular among states’ rights proponents is the concept of dual federalism , which suggests that each level of government is sovereign in its own sphere. Thomas Jefferson, John C.
- 234. Calhoun, Southern secessionists, the Southern resistors to the civil rights movement, and members of today’s House Freedom Caucus are associated with this view of American federalism. Despite the success of the nationalist position (discussed in more depth below), the states’ rights view has always been and remains a vital position from which to oppose power concentrated in Washington. dual federalism A system of federalism in which state and national powers are neatly divided between the national and state governments. Most powers of the national government are not shared with the states, and most powers of the states are not shared with the national government. Traditionally, conservatives in the United States have tended to support states’ rights, while liberals have been more supportive of a strong national government. But the reality is that federalism is a political issue just like any other and people aim to leverage it to achieve their desired policy goals. Liberals used federal power over the states to help achieve civil rights and national environmental regulation in the 1960s and 1970s. In the Trump era, liberals are trying
- 235. to leverage state’s rights arguments to pursue more aggressive climate change policies and protect undocumented immigrants. Likewise, conservatives have long fought for states’ rights on education and social policy but in the post-9/11 era champion federal power on many national security and immigration issues. The Ascendant Power of the National Government It took a long time after the adoption of the Constitution for the present federal system to emerge. Ebbs and flows in the nature of the relationship between the states and the national government and in the relative power of the states and the national government have been present since the founding. However, economic crises, national8 security needs, and the Supreme Court’s support for national policies eventually led to the national government becoming the more dominant governmental power. Economic Crises Lead to National Power One reason the national government has established primacy is that economic crises put pressure on the federal government to do something to fix the national economy. The Great Depression in the 1930s is the primary example, but even today, most expect the president, Congress, and the Federal Reserve Bank to manage national economic affairs—something the states cannot do for
- 236. themselves. More recently, most Americans expected the national government to do something to solve the financial crisis, Great Recession, and jobless recovery of 2008–2012. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama responded by using federal dollars to bail out troubled banks and create government programs to boost economic growth. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT HEARINGS ON TARP BAILOUT Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (right), called to testify in front of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel (left), played an important role in managing the national response to the financial crisis. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), created under the Bush administration and continued under Obama, was established to ensure that major financial institutions did not collapse during the Great Recession. Before her election to the Senate in 2012, Elizabeth 9 Warren (left) served as chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel. What role should the federal government play in ensuring that major banks remain in business during difficult economic times?
- 237. National Security Demands Lead to National Power A second reason that the national government has, over time, increased its authority over states is that preparing for war, waging war, and ensuring national security spur national-level actions. Only the national government can raise an army, generate sufficient revenues to pay for military campaigns, engage in intelligence collection, and coordinate the resources of the nation to make sustained war possible. It is no accident, then, that each of our major wars has served to enhance the power of government in Washington. Supreme Court Support Leads to National Power A third reason for the ascension of federal power is that the Supreme Court has tended to support the federal government’s efforts to solve complex national problems. Over the course of the country’s history, a number of problems emerged that most political leaders and the public believed could be solved more effectively by the national government rather than by fifty separate state governments. Some of these problems included:
- 238. Anti-competitive practices of corporations Unsafe foods, drugs, and consumer products Persistent poverty Air and water pollution Denial of civil rights For much of American history, these problems were not understood to be the domain of the national government. In the late 19th century, the U.S. Supreme Court resisted the growth in federal power to regulate business. In 1895, for example, the Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act could not forbid monopolies in manufacturing, since manufacturing affected interstate commerce only “indirectly.” In 1918, the Court struck down as unconstitutional a national law regulating child labor. During the 1930s, the Court declared unconstitutional such important New Deal measures as the National Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act.10 The balance began to shift in 1937, when the Court became a centralizing force, upholding essential elements of the New Deal, including the Social Security Act (which created Social Security) and the National Labor Relations Act. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court said that Congress has very broad powers under the
- 239. commerce clause to regulate the economic activities of states, even if such activities are only indirectly related to interstate commerce. Since that time, almost all acts of Congress to make nationwide policy changes —such as making federal highway construction grants to states contingent on states raising their drinking age to 21—have been upheld by the Supreme Court or gone unchallenged. Federalism Before the Civil War In the late 1790s, when John Adams was president, Thomas Jefferson’s party, the Democratic Republicans, deeply resented the Alien and Sedition Acts, which the Federalists used to punish political dissent. In response, Jefferson and Madison secretly authored the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which declared that the states did not have to obey unconstitutional national laws and left it to the states to decide what was unconstitutional. In this case, the Democratic Republicans, representing the more agricultural South, were advocating states’ rights and the principle of dual federalism against a national government run by the more merchant-oriented Federalists of the Northeast. About a decade later, however, the merchants of New England used the Southerners’ own arguments to oppose President
- 240. Madison’s War of 1812 against Britain, which they felt interfered with their trade. Neither of these efforts at nullification prevailed. nullification An attempt by states to declare national laws or actions null and void. In the early years of the United States, one crucial question about federalism concerned who, if anyone, would enforce the supremacy clause. Who would make sure that federal laws and the Constitution were actually the “supreme law of the land”? The U.S. Supreme Court gradually and haltingly settled this question. Only after the strong- willed and subtle John Marshall became chief justice and, in 1803, established the Supreme Court’s authority to declare national laws unconstitutional (called “judicial review”; discussed in detail in Chapter 14 ) did the Supreme Court turn to the question of national power relative to the states. In Fletcher v. Peck (1810), it established the power of judicial review over states: the ability to hold a state law unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution. Chief Justice Marshall cleverly avoided explicit discussion of the Court’s power of judicial review over state laws. He simply took it for granted and used
- 241. it. The Supreme Court also provided crucial legal justification for the expansion of federal power in the historic case of McCulloch v. 11 Maryland (1819), which affirmed the supremacy clause and asserted that Congress had broad powers under the “necessary and proper” clause. McCulloch involved action by the state of Maryland to impose a tax on a federal institution, the Bank of the United States. The state of Maryland argued that the creation of the bank had been unconstitutional, exceeding the powers of Congress, and that, in any case, states could tax whatever they wanted within their own borders. But Chief Justice Marshall upheld the constitutionality of the bank’s charter and its immunity from state taxation and, in the process, made a major statement justifying extensive national authority. In his majority opinion, Marshall declared that the Constitution emanated from the sovereign people who had made their national government supreme to all rivals within the sphere of its powers, and those powers must be construed generously if they were to be sufficient for the
- 242. “various crises” of the age to come. Congress, declared Marshall, had the power to charter the bank under Article I, Section 8, which authorized Congress to make all laws “necessary and proper” for carrying into execution its named powers. Moreover, Maryland’s tax was invalid because “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” which would defeat the national government’s supremacy. Justice Marshall’s broad reading of the necessary and proper clause laid the foundation for an expansion of what the national government could do in the years ahead. He made it clear that states would not be allowed to interfere. (See Figure 3.3 for a timeline of critical turning points that contributed to the rise in power of the national government relative to the states.) 12 OUR CIVIL WAR Confederate General Robert E. Lee (front left) surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant (right), bringing an end to the Civil War in 1865. The Civil War settled an important principle of American federalism: The nation is indissoluble and no state or group of states can decide on its own to withdraw from it.
- 243. Why is this principle of an indissoluble nation, established over 150 years ago, still essential for understanding federalism in the United States? Expansion of National Power Following the Civil War The Civil War profoundly affected the relationship between the states and the national government. First, the unconditional Southern surrender decisively established that the Union was indissoluble; states could not withdraw or secede. Second, passage of the Civil War Amendments resulted in constitutional changes that subordinated the states to certain new national standards, enforced by the central government. For example, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and the Fifteenth gave former male slaves and their descendants a constitutional right to vote. (This right was enforced by the national government for a short time after the Civil War; it was then widely ignored until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.) Civil War Amendments The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, adopted
- 244. immediately after the Civil War, each of which represented the imposition of a national claim over that of the states. Most importantly, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) included broad language limiting state power in a number of areas: it declared that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The due process clause eventually became the vehicle by which the Supreme Court ruled that many civil liberties in the Bill of Rights, which originally protected people only against the national government, also provided protections against the states (see Chapter 15 ). And the equal protection clause eventually became the foundation for protecting the rights of African Americans, women, and other categories of people against discrimination by state or local governments (see Chapter 16 ). due process clause The section of the Fourteenth Amendment that prohibits states from depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property “without due process of law,” a guarantee against arbitrary government action.
- 245. equal protection clause The section of the Fourteenth Amendment that provides for equal treatment by government of people residing within the United States and each of its states. FIGURE 3.3 TIMELINE: LANDMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF U.S. FEDERALISM Over the course of American history, the power of the national government over the states has slowly increased. This timeline documents many of the major court cases, laws, crises, and events in the history of federalism that contributed to this transition. Expansion of National Power in the Twentieth Century At the turn of the 20th century, the activities of the national government expanded greatly. Indeed, national powers expanded so much that they now touch on almost every aspect of daily life and are thoroughly entangled with state government activities. The Turn of the 20th Century and World War I During the late 19th century, the national government was increasingly active in administering western lands, subsidizing economic
- 246. development (granting railroads enormous tracts of land along their transcontinental lines, for example), helping farmers, and beginning to regulate business, particularly through the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom domestic legislation—including the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914—spurred even greater national government involvement in social and economic issues, as did the great economic and military effort of World War I. During that war, for example, the War Industries Board engaged in a form of economic planning whose orders and regulations covered a substantial number of the nation’s manufacturing firms. The New Deal and World War II Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s was essential to the expansion of national power. In response to the Great Depression, the New Deal created many new national regulatory agencies to supervise various aspects of business, including communications (the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC), airlines (the Civil Aeronautics Board, or CAB), financial markets (the Securities
- 247. and Exchange Commission, or SEC), utilities (the Federal Power Commission, or FPC), and labor–management relations (the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB). The New Deal also brought national government spending to such areas as welfare and economic relief, which had previously been reserved almost entirely to the states, and established the Social Security old-age pension system (discussed more in Chapter 17 ). President Roosevelt saw that in many cases, the states that needed the most help during the Great Depression also had the fewest resources to enact policies that would help solve them. Due to its much larger tax base than the states, the national government is able to better afford expensive social welfare and economic development programs that states simply cannot.13 New Deal The social and economic programs of the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. World War II involved a total economic and military mobilization to fight Germany and Japan. Directing that mobilization, as well as collecting taxes to support it, planning for production of war materials, and bringing on board the employees to accomplish all of this,
- 248. was centered in Washington, DC—not in the states. The Post-War Period Through the 1970S Ever since World War II, the federal government has spent nearly twice as much per year as all of the states and all localities put together. The federal government has continued to increase its authority relative to the states for the reasons mentioned above: funding and protecting national security, dealing with economic crises, and solving complex problems. During the height of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, America increased its defense spending drastically. And President Johnson’s Great Society programs, designed both to alleviate poverty and politically empower the poor and racial minorities, increased federal spending on programs that the national government had not previously been involved with and created a more complex entanglement between the national government and the states. Federal expenditures on defense and on programs like Medicare (health insurance for the elderly) and Medicaid (health insurance for the poor) have trended consistently upward since the end of World War II (see Figure 3.4 ). The long-term success of many of the Great Society programs has been a source of considerable debate, but one thing is for sure: they positioned the national government as the primary source of policy for tackling
- 249. deeply-rooted socioeconomic problems. FIGURE 3.4 FEDERAL EXPENDITURES ON NATIONAL DEFENSE AND HEALTH CARE (IN MILLIONS OF 2016 DOLLARS) Federal defense spending has been on a steady rise since the end of World War II and the same can be said of expenditures on health. This increasing level of spending has contributed to the primacy of the national government over the states. SOURCE: Data from White House, Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Table 3.1, Outlays by Superfunction and Function: 1940–2021. Two other trends during this period involved the imposition of national standards on the states. The first trend was the regulatory revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. During the regulatory revolution, Congress passed laws mandating state action on myriad issues, including new environmental standards (e.g., Clean Air Act of 1970, Clean Water Act of 1972) and new consumer protection standards (e.g., Truth in Lending Act of 1968, Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970). The second trend in the centralization of federal authority was also
- 250. critical for the preservation of democratic values: the passage of the The Civil Rights Act of 1964 . In the Civil Rights Act, the national government asserted a power to forbid discrimination in restaurants and other places of public accommodation across the country. The power for the national government to do this was premised on a very broad reading of the commerce clause which allows the national government to regulate interstate commerce. Supporters argued that people involved in transactions are engaged in interstate commerce (for example, restaurants serve food imported from out of state; hotels buy bedding, towels, flooring, and bathroom fixtures from companies in a variety of states) and thus that national government could regulate them. State economies are so closely tied to each other that by this standard, practically every economic transaction everywhere affects interstate commerce and is therefore subject to national legislative power. This understanding of the commerce clause is a major structural part of American federalism and created the foundation for government action. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
- 251. A law that banned discrimination based on race, sex, or national origin in public accommodations such as hotels, restaurants, and conveyances and gave the Attorney General the power to sue local and state governments that maintained racially segregated schools. SIGNING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by his side. The Civil Rights Act, a seminal legislative accomplishment in American history, established equal opportunities for African Americans. Many of the law’s provisions relied on a broad conception of national power under American federalism. In what way did the federal government’s enactment of national civil rights legislation pose a challenge to the previously understood distributions of power between the state and federal governments? Devolution and the Rethinking of Federal Power During the 1980s and 1990s, devolution —the idea that some of the powers and responsibilities of the national government ought to be distributed back to the states—became popular. President
- 252. Ronald Reagan made this one of the hallmarks of his administration, as did George H. W. Bush, who followed him in office. President Bill Clinton, a former governor of the state of Arkansas, was also an enthusiastic devotee of devolution. The public seemed to be on board with this change at the time too. Polls showed, for example, that a substantial majority of Americans believed that state governments were more effective and more trustworthy than the government in Washington and more likely to be responsive to the people. And Americans said that they wanted state governments to do more and the federal government to do less. devolution The delegation of authority over government programs from the federal government down to state and/or local governments. 14 The Clinton Administration The hallmark moment in devolution occurred when President Clinton worked with the Republican majority in 1995 and 1996 to completely overhaul the nation’s welfare system. America’s traditional welfare
- 253. system, created in 1935 almost as an afterthought to Social Security, had grown to the point that it provided cash payments to families of one in nine children in the United States by 1995. Although the program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), did not supplement family incomes by much and represented but a tiny portion of the federal government’s budget, AFDC was never very popular with the public and grew even less popular in the 1980s and the 1990s. The new welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) , gave states responsibility for their own welfare programs and provided them with much of the money necessary to operate them. However, the federal government imposed some requirements on state programs, such as requiring recipients to find work within a certain period. The analytical framework in Figure 3.5 examines the structural, political linkage, and governmental factors that contributed to this major policy change —an important moment for federalism. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Federal welfare program that provides income and services to poor families via state block grants. The program has benefit time limits and a work requirement.
- 254. FIGURE 3.5 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: WELFARE REFORM The Rehnquist Court During the height of devolution’s popularity, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, also supported increasing the power of the states and decreasing that of the national government. It overruled a number of federal actions and laws on the grounds that Congress had exceeded its constitutional powers, reversing more than half a century of decisions favoring an increased federal government role. For example, in United States v. Lopez (1995), the Supreme Court overturned federal legislation banning guns from the area around schools and legislation requiring background checks for gun buyers, arguing that both represented too broad a use of the commerce power in the Constitution. The Court used similar language in 2000 when it invalidated part of the Violence Against Women Act (United States v. Morrison) and in 2001 when it did the same to the Americans with Disabilities Act (Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett). In the last years of Rehnquist’s leadership the Court retreated a bit
- 255. from this states’ rights position, supporting federal authority over that of the states on issues ranging from the use of medical marijuana to the juvenile death penalty, affirmative action, and gay rights. In each of these areas, several states wanted to go in more liberal directions than the rest of the country—such as using affirmative action to create diversity in government hiring and contracting—but the Court affirmed the more restrictive federal statutes. The Reassertion of Federal Power After 2000 Talk of devolution subsided after the Clinton presidency ended in 2000. Republican George W. Bush, who followed Clinton into the Oval Office in January 2001, had signaled during the presidential campaign that he was willing to use the federal government to serve conservative ends. He termed his position “compassionate conservatism,” suggesting that he would use the power of the office to try to, among other things, end abortion, protect family values, enhance educational performance, and do more to move people from welfare to jobs. While preserving his traditional Republican conservative credentials on a number of fronts—cutting taxes, for
- 256. example, and pushing for looser environmental regulations on businesses—Bush gave a big boost to the power, cost, and scope of the federal government. Most important was his support of the No Child Left Behind educational reform legislation, which imposed testing mandates on the states, and a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, which substantially increased the cost of the program. Mandatory Medicaid spending by the states also expanded during the Bush presidency. 15 THE FEDERAL ROLE IN PUBLIC EDUCATION For most of American history, education was understood to be entirely the responsibility of state and local governments. This began to change with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which distributed federal money to states which they were to allocate to public schools in need. Since 1965, the role of the federal government in education has expanded considerably, with more funding and more requirements going along with that funding. With the well-known No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, federal involvement in public education reached new heights. That federal role was then reduced some in the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act. What are
- 257. the pros and cons of the federal government setting educational standards that apply to the whole country? The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the subsequent global “war on terrorism,” and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan further focused the nation’s attention on the powers of national leaders in Washington, D.C. As in all wartime situations during our country’s history, war and the mobilization for war require centralized coordination and planning. This tendency to embrace nationalism during times of war has been further exaggerated by the need for enhancing homeland security post-9/11. Since 9/11, the national government in Washington is playing a larger role in law enforcement, intelligence gathering, bank oversight (to track terrorist money), public health (to protect against possible bioterrorism), and more. Many of these federal activities were continued by Barack Obama when he assumed office in 2008 and will remain in place for the foreseeable future. The economic crisis that began in 2008, sometimes called the Great Recession, generated an expanded role for the national government
- 258. relative to the states in economic affairs. In the last months of the Bush presidency, Congress passed a $700 billion rescue package for financial institutions that gave the Treasury secretary broad powers to rescue and reorganize banks and investment firms even as the Federal Reserve (the Fed), under the leadership of Ben Bernanke, undertook its own rescue and reorganization efforts. This rescue greatly expanded the role of the federal government in managing the economy. When Barack Obama became president, he not only continued to support the efforts of the Treasury and the Fed to bolster the national economy, but insisted on the sale of Chrysler and the managed bankruptcy of General Motors as conditions of the rescue. Within 30 days of Obama’s inauguration, Congress passed a new $787 billion stimulus bill, which did a great deal to shore up state budgets, almost all of which were, by that time, in crisis. Obama’s stimulus was a combination of tax cuts and new expenditures on programs that, among other things, extended benefits for the unemployed; funded new research and development into alternative energy sources; put money into school construction (and, thereby, kept teachers on the job); massively increased spending on infrastructure projects for roads, bridges, and canals; and helped
- 259. the states pay for some of their rising Medicaid outlays. President Barack Obama tours a Michigan plant that manufactures diesel transmissions. Preventing the collapse of the American auto industry was an important part of President Obama’s effort to bring an end to the Financial Crisis and begin an economic recovery. From a federalism perspective, why would the federal government providing help to auto companies that are on the brink of bankruptcy be controversial? Recent Pushback Against National Power There has been considerable pushback against recent increases in national power, suggesting that the states remain significant actors in the American system. The anti-tax, anti–big government Tea Party movement was a major force in local, state, and national elections through the Obama presidency. Republican governors even turned down federal grants to fund high-speed rail and other infrastructure projects in their states. While Tea Party voices in the Republican
- 260. Party have gotten less attention amid Trump’s populist and nationalist rhetoric, they remain a critical faction within the Republican Party— particularly in the House of Representatives. The recent pushback against national power is most evident at the Supreme Court. In 2012 the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) that forced states to expand their Medicaid programs or face a drastic cut in federal funding. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that there is a limit to how coercive Congress can be with the states using its spending power. The decision had important real- world consequences as eighteen states have since opted not to 16 17 expand their Medicaid programs. Estimates indicated that more than 3 million low-income people are not eligible for government- funded health insurance as a result. As you read in the opening story of the chapter, the flow of power to Washington over time has recently triggered a reaction among
- 261. the public and in statehouses across the country. Regulatory burdens, intensifying budgetary demands, and a sense that important national problems are being ignored and mishandled has led to a rather extraordinary revitalization of innovation at the state level. Over the last decade, several states passed laws allowing, and sometimes subsidizing, new kinds of biomedical research. Others passed minimum wage legislation, while others legislated gas mileage requirements for cars and trucks. Many legislated incentives for companies and consumers to use energy more efficiently and find alternative fuel sources. 18 19 Fiscal Federalism As you learned in the previous section, today’s federalism is very different from what it was in the 1790s or early 1800s. One major difference is that the national government is dominant in many policy areas; it calls many shots for the states. Another difference is that state and national government powers and activities have become deeply intertwined and entangled. The old, simple metaphor for federalism was a “layer cake”—a system of dual federalism in
- 262. which state and national powers were neatly divided into separate layers, with each level of government going its own way, unencumbered by the other. A much more accurate metaphor for today’s federalism is a “marble cake” in which elements of national and state responsibilities swirl around each other, without clear boundaries. This intermixing of responsibilities is frequently referred to as “cooperative federalism .” cooperative federalism Federalism in which the powers and responsibilities of the states and the national government are intertwined and in which they Analyze how federal grants structure national and state government relations. 3.4 20 21 work together to solve common problems; said to have characterized the 1960s and 1970s. Much of this “swirling” of federal and state governments is a product of fiscal federalism : the financial links among the national and state
- 263. governments, primarily via grants-in-aid that transfer money from the national government to state governments. These grants-in- aid have been used to increase national government influence over what the states and localities do. The grants have grown from small beginnings to form a substantial part of state government budgets. In the following sections, you will learn how and why this trend began, what kinds of grants have and are being made, and how they affect national–state relationships. fiscal federalism That aspect of federalism having to do with federal grants to the states. grants-in-aid Funds from the national government to state and local governments to help pay for programs created by the national government. Origin and Growth of Federal Grants National government grants to the states began at least as early as the 1787 Northwest Ordinance. The U.S. government granted land for government buildings, schools, and colleges in the Northwest Territory
- 264. and imposed various regulations, such as forbidding slavery there. During the early 19th century, the federal government provided some land grants to the states for roads, canals, and railroads, as well as a little cash for militias; after 1862, it helped establish agricultural colleges. Some small cash-grant programs were begun around 1900 for agriculture, vocational education, and highways. However, it was during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, that federal grants to the states really took off. Such programs as President Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate highway system and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society poured money into the states. After a pause during the Reagan presidency, grants began to increase again in the 1990s (see Figure 3.6 ). Federal grants to the states increased because presidents and Congress sought to deal with many nationwide problems—especially transportation, education, HIV/AIDS, 22 23 poverty, crime, and air and water pollution—by setting policy at the national level and providing money from national tax revenues, while
- 265. having state and local officials carry out the policies. The spike in grants in 2010 was tied to various efforts by the federal government to stimulate the economy during the Great Recession, including assistance to states for Medicaid, unemployment insurance, education, and infrastructure. FIGURE 3.6 THE GROWTH IN FEDERAL GRANTS-IN-AID TO STATES AND LOCALITIES AS A PERCENT OF TOTAL FEDERAL SPENDING Federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments as a percentage of federal spending have grown steadily since 1970, except during the Reagan presidency in the first half of the 1980s. Grants to states peaked in 2010 and 2011 as federal assistance to the states 24 increased to address problems caused by financial collapse and economic recession. SOURCE: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2019: Historical Tables, Table 12.1. Types of Federal Grants Over the years, many of the new programs were established through categorical grants , which give the states money but also clearly specify the category of activity for which the money has to be
- 266. spent and define how the program should work. For example, Lyndon Johnson’s antipoverty initiatives—in the areas of housing, job training, medical assistance, and more—funneled substantial federal money to states and localities but attached strict rules on how the money could be used. categorical grants Federal aid to states and localities clearly specifying what the money can be used for. Responding to complaints from the states and seeking to reduce federal government power to better fit their ideas about the proper role of government, Republican presidents Nixon and Ford succeeded in convincing Congress to loosen centralized rules and oversight, first instituting block grants (which give money for more general purposes, such as secondary education, and with fewer rules than categorical grant programs). In 1972, Congress enacted President Nixon’s general revenue sharing plan, which distributed money to the states with no federal controls and allowed states to use the money as they saw fit. Revenue sharing ended in 1987 when even proponents of a smaller federal government realized that giving money to the states with “no strings attached” meant that
- 267. elected officials in the federal government were losing influence over policies in which they wanted to have a say. block grants Federal grants to the states to be used for general activities. Categorical and block grants often provide federal money under an automatic formula related to the statistical characteristics of each state or locality (thus the term “formula grant”), such as the number of needy residents, the total size of the population, or the average income level. Disputes frequently arise when these formulas benefit one state or region rather than another. Because statistical counts by the Census affect how much money the states and localities get, Census counts themselves have become the subject of political conflict. 25 Federal Grants: Money and Control Most contemporary conflicts about fiscal federalism concern money and control. Below, we frame the principal arguments that fuel these debates in terms of conditions on aid, mandates, and
- 268. preemption. Conditions on Aid Categorical grant-in-aid programs require that states spend federal money only in certain restricted ways. Even block grants have conditions attached to them. Indeed, both types of grants are frequently referred to as conditional grants . In theory, these conditions are “voluntary” because states can refuse to accept the aid. But in practice, there is no clear line between incentive and coercion. Because states cannot generally afford to give up federal money, they normally must accept the conditions attached to it. conditional grants Federal grants with provisions requiring that state and local governments follow certain policies in order to obtain funds. President Lyndon Johnson signs a bill creating the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) into law in 1965. These programs were part of Johnson’s Great Society initiative. They provide federal funds to organizations and individuals to produce research, complete original work, facilitate teaching, and develop institutions focused on furthering our understanding of history, language, literature, and art among
- 269. many other topics and endeavours. In the last several decades, the NEH and the NEA have become controversial with liberals in support and conservatives in opposition to their continued funding. Why would liberals and conservatives disagree about the federal government’s support of the NEH and NEA? As noted above, some of the most important provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act are those that specify that no federal aid of any kind can be used in ways that discriminate against people on grounds of race, gender, religion, or national origin. Thus, the enormous program of national aid for elementary and secondary education, which began in 1965, became a powerful tool for forcing schools to desegregate. To take another example, in 1984 the federal government used federal highway money to encourage states to raise the minimum age for drinking to 21. A state that failed to adopt this standard risked losing billions of dollars in federal funding that could be used to build and maintain its highway system. Recently, the Supreme Court has been more inclined to entertain challenges to grant programs deemed unduly coercive.
- 270. WISCONSIN STATE EMPLOYEES PROTEST PLAN TO REDUCE UNION POWER At the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, thousands protested Republican Governor Scott Walker’s plan to strip public-sector unions of their collective bargaining rights. In the end, Walker’s plan prevailed and the state’s public-sector unions (which represent teachers and other government workers) lost considerable power. What is the connection between fiscal federalism and concerns from state employees about their ability to collectively negotiate their wages, benefits, hours, and conditions with the state? Mandates The national government often imposes a mandate , or demand, that states carry out certain policies even when little or no national government aid is offered. (An “unfunded mandate” involves no aid at all or less aid than compliance will cost.) Mandates have been especially important in the areas of civil rights and the environment. Most civil rights policies flow from the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or from national legislation that imposes uniform national standards.
- 271. Environmental regulations also flow from the national government since problems of dirty air, polluted water, and acid rain spill across state boundaries. The Supreme Court ruled in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation (2013) that the EPA has the authority to set standards that account for how air pollution travels from one state to another. National legislation and regulations have required state governments to provide costly special facilities for the disabled, to set up environmental protection agencies, and to limit the kinds and amounts of pollutants that can be discharged. The states often complain bitterly about federal mandates that require state spending without providing the money necessary to carry them out. mandate A formal order from the national government that the states carry out certain policies. Cutting back on these “unfunded mandates” was one of the main promises in the Republicans’ 1994 Contract with America. The congressional Republicans delivered on their promise early in 1995 with a bill that had bipartisan support in Congress and that President
- 272. Clinton signed into law. However, unfunded mandates have continued to proliferate because the law did not ban them but only forced Congress to monitor them (e.g., requiring cost–benefit analyses). unfunded mandates Requirements imposed by the federal government on the states to perform certain actions, with not enough money provided to fulfill the requirements. Today’s governors continue to be concerned by the substantial costs imposed on the states by the rising cost of supporting Medicaid and testing requirements that began under the No Child Left Behind Act (some of these testing pressures were relaxed in the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced No Child Left Behind in 2015). Pressures on state budgets became especially pronounced during the Great Recession when revenues from sales and other taxes plummeted because of the national economic downturn. In 2013, hard-fought budget agreements between Congress and President Obama to address the problem of federal deficits cut federal spending 26 across a wide range of programs, including money to keep teachers and first responders from being laid off and to help with
- 273. Medicaid. These federal cuts plunged many states even farther into the red. Many responded by making deep cuts in education, in social programs for the poor, and in programs for maintaining and improving infrastructure (roads, bridges, and dams, for example). Several governors, such as Governor Walker of Wisconsin, tried to tame public employee unions or rescind the collective bargaining rights of state workers. BUT LET ME TELL YOU, MR. PRESIDENT State governors and presidents have not always seen eye-to-eye on the issues. During the Obama administration, the level of conflict among Republican state leaders and the president reached a fever pitch over health care and immigration reform. Here, Arizona governor Jan Brewer, whose state passed harsh anti-immigration measures in 2010 designed to purge undocumented immigrants from the state, defended the legislation as a state-level response to a problem that the federal government was, in Brewer’s estimation, neglecting. The Supreme Court later overturned most of the measures as an unconstitutional state intrusion on federal authority in U.S. v.
- 274. Arizona (2012). Why is immigration enforcement the responsibility of the federal government and not the state governments? Preemption The doctrine of preemption, based on the supremacy clause in the Constitution and supported by a series of Supreme Court decisions, says that federal treaties, statutes, and rules must prevail over state statutes and rules when the two are in conflict. For example, in U.S. v. Arizona (2012), the Supreme Court preempted the portions of Arizona’s tough immigration law, including one that required immigrants to carry documentation of their legal residency at all times, ruling that immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government. However, even when national laws preempt state laws, the national government may still choose not to interfere. As you read in the opening story of this chapter, this has been the case in states that have decided to legalize marijuana use despite federal laws prohibiting it. Strong States Versus a Strong National Government
- 275. From the framing of the U.S. Constitution to the present day, people have offered many strong arguments for different power balances under federalism. Federalism is not just about abstract theories, it is also about who wins and who loses valuable benefits. People’s opinions about federalism often depend on their interests, their ideologies, and the kinds of things they want government to do. The following discussion presents arguments in favor of strong state governments and arguments in favor of a strong national government. Strong States: Diversity of Needs The oldest and most important argument in favor of decentralized government is that in a large and diverse country, needs and wants and conditions differ from one place to another. Why not let different states enact different policies to meet their own needs? The border state of Arizona, feeling overwhelmed by illegal immigrants, has tried to pursue its own policy agenda on immigration (though some of its Evaluate the arguments for and against a strong national government. 3.5 efforts have been preempted). And social welfare policies vary
- 276. considerably by state, with more liberal states tending to offer a larger safety net than conservative states on programs such as cash assistance (TANF) and Medicaid. Strong National Government: The Importance of National Standards The needs or desires that different states pursue may not be worthy ones. Political scientist William Riker has pointed out that, in the past, one of the main effects of federalism was to let white majorities in the Southern states enslave and then discriminate against black people, without interference from the North. Additionally, when large states like California make certain policy changes (such as vehicle emissions standards), they can impact national companies who are then forced to adjust nationwide. Perhaps it is better, in some cases, to insist on national standards that apply everywhere. Strong States: Closeness to the People It is sometimes claimed that state governments are closer to ordinary citizens, who have a better chance to know their officials, to be aware 27
- 277. of what they are doing, to contact them, and to hold them responsible for what they do. Strong National Government: Low Visibility of State Officials Geographic closeness may not be the real issue. More Americans are better informed about the federal government than they are about state governments, and more people participate in national than in state elections. When more people know what the government is doing and more people vote, they are better able to insist that the government do what they want. For that reason, responsiveness to ordinary citizens may be greater in national government. Strong States: Innovation and Experimentation When the states have independent power, they can try out new ideas. Individual states can be “laboratories of democracy ” If the experiments work, other states or the nation as a whole can adopt their ideas, as has happened on such issues as allowing women and 18-year-olds to vote, fighting air pollution, reforming welfare, and dealing with water pollution. In 2006, California passed a law
- 278. committing itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and that law eventually became the basis of the EPA’s national regulations. Similarly, Massachusetts passed a law in 2006 mandating health insurance coverage for every person in the state, and that became the model for the Affordable Care Act. And many states have also acted on gun control in ways that the national government has not: such as those that force domestic abusers to surrender their guns. laboratories of democracy The ability of states in the U.S. federal system to experiment with policy ideas; the success or failure of state policies can then be a template for national policy action. 28 29 SPEWING POLLUTION Industrial pollution, such as these untreated emissions from this coal- burning power plant in Tennessee, often affects people of more than one state and requires the participation of the national government to clean up the mess and prevent recurrences.
- 279. What role should the federal government take in environmental issues in situations where pollution spreads from one state into other states? Likewise, when the national government is controlled by one political party, federalism allows the states with majorities favoring a different party to compensate by enacting different policies. This aspect of diversity in policymaking is related to the Founders’ contention that tyranny is less likely when government’s power is dispersed. Multiple governments reduce the risks of bad policy or the blockage of the popular will; if things go wrong at one governmental level, they may go right at another. Strong National Government: Spillover Effects and Competition Diversity and experimentation in policies may not always be good. Divergent regulations can cause bad effects that spill over from one state to another. When factories in the Midwest spew out oxides of nitrogen and sulfur that fall as acid rain in the Northeast, the northeastern states acting on their own can do nothing about it.
- 280. Only nationwide rules can solve such problems. Similarly, it is very difficult for cities or local communities in the states to do much about poverty or other social problems. If a city raises taxes to pay for social programs, businesses and the wealthy may move out of town and poorer residents may move in, impoverishing the city and reducing the government’s ability to pay for those programs in the first place. Using the Democracy Standard American Federalism: How Democratic? 30 Federalism is one of the basic foundations of the Constitution of the United States and key structural attributes of American government. Along with the separation of powers and checks and balances, its purpose, from the framers’ point of view, was to make it impossible for any person or group (and, most especially, the majority faction) to monopolize the power of government and use it for tyrannical purposes. By fragmenting government power among a national government and fifty state governments and by giving each of the states some say on what the national government does, federalism makes it difficult for any faction, minority, or majority, to dominate government. On balance, federalism has served the intentions of the framers by toning down the influence of majoritarian
- 281. democracy in determining what the national government does—even while maintaining the principle of popular consent. Federalism constrains democracy in at least five ways: 1. It adds complexity to policymaking and makes it difficult for citizens to know which elected leaders to hold responsible for government actions. 2. Many policy areas, including education and voting eligibility, are mainly the responsibility of the states, where policymakers are insulated from national majorities, although not from majorities in their own states. 3. Small-population states play a decisive role in the constitutional amending process, where states of all sizes count equally. 4. Small and large states have equal representation in the Senate, meaning that senators representing a minority of the population can block actions favored by senators representing the majority. 5. State politics are much less visible to the public; citizens are much less informed about what goes on in state governments where many important policies are made, and thus, popular participation tends to be lower. All of this makes state-level politics especially vulnerable
- 282. to the influence of special interests and those with substantial political resources. Because the well- organized and the affluent have extra influence, political equality and popular sovereignty face pretty tough challenges in many of the states. In the end, the story of federalism is not entirely about the persistence of the framer’s initial 18th-century republican constitutional design. The democratic aspirations of the American people have also shaped federalism and turned it into something that might not be entirely familiar to the framers. We noted in this chapter how the nature of federalism has changed over the course of American history, with the national government assuming an ever-larger role relative to the states. Much of this, we have suggested, has been brought about by the wishes of the American people as expressed through linkage factors such as elections, public opinion polls, and social movements. Repeatedly, Americans have said they want a national government capable of taking policy actions on a broad range of problems, including economic difficulties (such as depressions, recessions, and inflation); persistent poverty; environmental degradation; unsafe food, drugs, and other consumer products; racial and ethnic discrimination; and foreign threats to the United States. Over the years, public officials and candidates have responded to these popular aspirations, altering federalism in the process. Chapter 3 Review the Chapter
- 283. Federalism as a System of Government Federalism is a system under which political powers are divided and shared between the state and federal governments and is a key structural aspect of American politics. Federalism in the United States was the product of both important compromises made at the Constitutional Convention and 18th- century republican doctrines about the nature of good government. Federalism in the Constitution There is no section of the Constitution where federalism is described in its entirety. Rather, federalism is constructed from scattered clauses Define federalism, and explain why we have it.3.1 Explain the constitutional foundations of federalism.3.2 throughout the document that describe what the federal government may do and not do, how relations among the states are structured, the role of the states in amending the Constitution and electing the president, and how the states are represented in the national government.
- 284. The U.S. Constitution specifies the powers of the national government and reserves all others (except a few that are specifically forbidden) to the states. Concurrent powers fall within the authority both of the national government and the states. The Evolution of American Federalism The story of American federalism is the story of the increasing power of the federal government relative to the states. The trend toward national power is lodged in the “supremacy,” “elastic,” and “commerce” clauses in the Constitution and propelled by war and national security demands, economic troubles and crises, and a range of problems that no state could handle alone. Trace the evolution of American federalism.3.3 Fiscal Federalism Contemporary federalism involves complex “cooperative” relations among the national and state governments in which federal grants-in- aid play an important part. Except for the Reagan years, grant totals have grown steadily; they took a big jump upward as the country
- 285. battled the Great Recession and jobless recovery in the 2008– 2012 period, then leveled out after the anti-tax, anti-government, deficit- reducing agenda came to dominate congressional politics. The national government also influences or controls many state policies through mandates and through conditions placed on aid. Coercive conditions on grants to states have recently been reconsidered by the Supreme Court. Strong States versus a Strong National Government Analyze how federal grants structure national and state government relations. 3.4 Evaluate the arguments for and against a strong national government. 3.5 Arguments in favor of a strong national government are based on a need for national standards, resources to provide respond to social problems, and needs for uniformity. Arguments in favor of strong states are based on a diversity of needs, closeness to the people, experimentation, and innovation.
- 286. Learn the Terms Affordable Care Act (ACA) The far-reaching health care reform law passed in 2010. The Act was aimed at increasing access to health insurance for all Americans and driving down the rising, burdensome cost of health care in the United States. block grants Federal grants to the states to be used for general activities. categorical grants Federal aid to states and localities clearly specifying what the money can be used for. Civil Rights Act of 1964 A law that banned discrimination based on race, sex, or national origin in public accommodations such as hotels, restaurants, and conveyances and gave the Attorney General the power to sue local and state governments that maintained racially segregated schools. Civil War Amendments The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, adopted immediately after the Civil War, each of which represented the imposition of a national claim over that of the states. concurrent powers Powers under the Constitution that are shared by the federal
- 287. government and the states. conditional grants Federal grants with provisions requiring that state and local governments follow certain policies in order to obtain funds. confederation A loose association of states or territorial units in which very little power or no power at all is lodged in a central government. cooperative federalism Federalism in which the powers and responsibilities of the states and the national government are intertwined and in which they work together to solve common problems; said to have characterized the 1960s and 1970s. devolution The delegation of authority over government programs from the federal government down to state and/or local governments. dual federalism A system of federalism in which state and national powers are neatly divided between the national and state governments. Most powers of the national government are not shared with the states, and most powers of the states are not shared with the national government. due process clause The section of the Fourteenth Amendment that prohibits states
- 288. from depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property “without due process of law,” a guarantee against arbitrary government action. equal protection clause The section of the Fourteenth Amendment that provides for equal treatment by government of people residing within the United States and each of its states. federalism A system in which significant governmental powers are divided between a central government and smaller territorial units, such as states. Federalist No. 10 One of a series on essays written by James Madison (others were written by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay), urging the people of New York to support ratification of the Constitution. In No. 10, Madison defended republican government for large states with heterogeneous populations and expressed his fear of majorities and his abhorrence of political parties. fiscal federalism That aspect of federalism having to do with federal grants to the states. full faith and credit clause The provision in Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution which provides that states must respect the public acts, laws, and
- 289. judicial rulings of other states. grants-in-aid Funds from the national government to state and local governments to help pay for programs created by the national government. horizontal federalism Term used to refer to relationships among the states. interstate compacts Agreements among states to cooperate on solving mutual problems; requires approval by Congress. laboratories of democracy The ability of states in the U.S. federal system to experiment with policy ideas; the success or failure of state policies can then be a template for national policy action. mandate A formal order from the national government that the states carry out certain policies. nationalist position The view of American federalism that holds that the Constitution created a system in which the national government is supreme, relative to the states, and that it granted government a broad range of powers and responsibilities.
- 290. necessary and proper clause Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, also known as the elastic clause; gives Congress the authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers and the responsibilities mentioned in the Constitution’s preamble. New Deal The social and economic programs of the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. nullification An attempt by states to declare national laws or actions null and void. police powers Powers of a government to protect the health, safety, and general well-being of its people. preemption Exclusion of the states from actions that might interfere with federal authority or statutes. reservation clause Part of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution that says those powers not given to the federal government and not prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved for the states and the people. states’ rights position
- 291. The view of American federalism that holds that the Constitution created a system of dual sovereignty in which the national government and the state governments are sovereign in their own spheres. supremacy clause The provision in Article VI of the Constitution states that the Constitution and the laws and treaties of the United States are the supreme law of the land, taking precedence over state laws and constitutions when they are in conflict. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Federal welfare program that provides income and services to poor families via state block grants. The program has benefit time limits and a work requirement. unfunded mandates Requirements imposed by the federal government on the states to perform certain actions, with not enough money provided to fulfill the requirements. unitary system A system in which a central government has complete power over its constituent units or states.
- 292. Chapter 4 The Structural Foundations of American Government and Politics GLOBAL BOEING Two new Boeing 787 Dreamliners await delivery to Air India and All Nippon Airways. Indian and Japanese companies are not only customers for the new aircraft but also suppliers and partners in its design and production. Do such global arrangements cause jobs to depart the United States or help to create new ones? What should government do to encourage further job growth in the United States? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy The Walmartization of American Manufacturing: Where Will All the Good Jobs Go? Fifty-six thousand jobs is a lot of leverage, and Boeing executives were anxious to use it to influence elected officials in Washington state and labor unions at the company. The jobs were tied to the newly announced Boeing 777X, a stretched and more fuel-efficient version of the Boeing 777, at the time, the most popular best-selling twin-aisle big jet ever produced. Airline carriers were so impressed with the new plane that they
- 293. AMERICA’S POPULATION Describe the effect of recent demographic trends on American politics. AMERICA’S ECONOMY Discuss how the American economy shapes government and politics. AMERICA’S POLITICAL CULTURE Describe the values and beliefs that make up American political culture and how they affect politics and government. 4.1 4.2 4.3 placed more than 300 orders for the 777X at the 2013 Dubai air show before Boeing had built a single plane. But where would Boeing choose to assemble the new plane? Where would the good engineering and production jobs land, so to speak? According to most observers, the logical place would be Boeing’s plant in Everett, Washington, where the current 777 and the 787 Dreamliners are assembled. Everett has a highly educated and trained workforce with extensive experience in design, engineering, building, final assembly, and testing. Everett also has the advantage of being near the Port of Seattle, where parts and sections from Boeing’s main Japanese supplier enter the country. But before agreeing to manufacture the 777X in Everett, Boeing wanted special subsidies from the state of Washington and major concessions from the International Association of Machinists (IAM), Local 751, which represents most of its production employees in the
- 294. Puget Sound area. Unless satisfied on both counts, Boeing spokespersons said they would look elsewhere to assemble the new plane. Washington complied. In a one-day special session of the legislature, the state agreed to grant Boeing, among other things, almost $9 billion in tax breaks over sixteen years, the most generous series of tax subsidies ever granted to an American corporation by a state—even though Boeing was very profitable at the time (and remains so). Though the IAM had a contract in effect until 2016, Boeing insisted that the union revise it on a “take it or leave it” basis. Boeing’s proposal, sweetened by a one-time $10,000 payment to each employee, would stretch to 2024, increase employee health insurance premiums, freeze pensions, and limit pay increases to 1 percent every other year, regardless of company profitability or the inflation rate. Boeing said these contract changes were required if the company was to keep its long- term labor costs down and remain competitive with Airbus, the other major commercial aircraft producer. While Boeing had been rapidly increasing the efficiency of airplane production and lowering its costs through automation, the rapid introduction of computer technology and robots to the production line, and global sourcing and partnering with companies in other countries—especially on the 787 Dreamliner—rival Airbus was doing the same things, so executives felt justified in demanding more from their production employees. After IAM District 751 members voted down the proposal by a two-to-one margin, Boeing made good on its threat, inviting other states and communities to bid for the 777X assembly
- 295. operation. Many did. Scared by the prospect of permanently losing jobs in the Puget Sound area, local Democratic leaders and state officials pressed Local 751 to reconsider its contract vote. It refused to do so until a second vote on the contract was ordered by officials from the national office of the machinists union. The contract was approved by a very narrow margin on the second vote. Under the terms of the new contract, machinists at Boeing are worse off than before Boeing made its bold threat to leave Everett. Boeing was able to take on one of the most powerful remaining unions in the United States and win. It not only gained a more favorable contract with the IAM that stretched to the year 2024, but it proceeded to shift much of the work on the 787 model to its nonunion plants in North Charleston, South Carolina. And, despite the subsidies from the state of Washington and contract concessions by the IAM to keep the 777X in the state, Boeing announced in late 2013 that much of the engineering and design work on the new 777X would happen outside the Puget Sound area, with nonunion South Carolina among the main winners of these new jobs. The machinists who assemble airplanes are among the last production workers in the United States who, because of their unions and the generous wages and benefits that come with union protection, have been able to live middle-class lifestyles. This may now be at risk as Boeing has every incentive to employ the same bargaining tactics in the future when it comes to decisions about where to assemble new or upgraded airplane models. Whatever one thinks of unions, whether for them or against them in terms of economic efficiency, it is undeniable that the decline of labor unions in the private sector —now only about 6 percent of private-sector workers, down from 33 percent in the mid-1950s—is one of the main reasons why the middle class is being steadily hollowed out.
- 296. * * * * * 1 Many Americans rightly are worried about whether the nation’s high standard of living can be maintained and whether they can continue to provide for themselves and their families. Many at Boeing and other companies are worried that the opportunity to live a middle-class lifestyle is threatened by jobs that are disappearing because of global and domestic (such as the shift of many activities to nonunion South Carolina) sourcing, automation, and the increased sophistication and use of computer technology and robots in the workplace. When they are worried about such matters, Americans tend to turn to their elected officials and candidates for solutions. Some want outsourcing to be stopped or regulated. Others want government to provide health insurance so that they will not be left in the lurch when companies downsize their workforces. Still others want more retraining and education assistance. Others want lower taxes and fewer regulations to help the competitiveness of American companies like Boeing. Still others want their government to be tougher with economic competitors in Europe and Asia and to do a better job of keeping low-wage immigrants out of the country. Whatever the particulars might be, it is inevitably the case that big economic and technological changes, and the choices corporations make in the face of such changes, find expression in the political arena and shape what government does. What to do about such things is part of the continuing debate between Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives. What can and should government do to encourage further job growth in the United States, especially jobs that can provide
- 297. 2 3 wages that are high enough to provide the foundation for solid middle class lifestyles? It is evident that a number of forces are at work in the United States today, ranging from globalization to technological change, corporate labor and production policies, and government actions, that are shrinking the middle class. We can see the rising threat to the middle class even among the highly trained and skilled employees at Boeing, one of the nation’s most successful and visible companies. Thinking Critically about this Chapter Many changes in American society, culture, economy, and our place in the world are shaping and reshaping American politics and government. Tracking change at the structural level of our analytical model and examining how change is influencing American politics and what government does is the focus of this chapter. Applying the Framework In this chapter, you will learn about the most important demographic characteristics of the American population (race, ethnicity, geographical location, occupation, and income), about the U.S. economy and how it is evolving and changing, and about the core beliefs of Americans—sometimes referred to as the American political culture. Together with the constitutional rules you have learned about in previous chapters, you will see how these structural factors have a great deal to do with what issues dominate the political agenda, how political power is distributed in the population, and what ideas
- 298. Americans bring to bear when grappling with complex public policy issues. Using the Democracy Standard Popular sovereignty, political equality, and liberty require a supportive economic and social environment. These include (but are not confined to) such things as a well-educated population; a sizable middle class with access to resources, allowing its members to participate in public affairs; and a culture that values and protects liberty. In this chapter, you will begin to learn whether or not such an environment exists. America’s Population Where we live, how we work, our racial and ethnic composition, and our average age and standard of living have all changed substantially over the course of our history. Each change, it goes without saying, has influenced and continues to influence American government and politics. A discussion of the most important of these demographic characteristics follows. demographic Pertaining to the statistical study and description of a population. America’s Population Is Growing
- 299. Unlike most other rich democracies, the United States continues to experience significant population growth. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population grew almost 11 percent between Describe the effect of recent demographic trends on American politics. 4.1 2000 and 2015, to a total of almost 325 million people. This leaves the United States as the third most populous country in the world, trailing only China at 1.41 billion and India at 1.34 billion. During the same period, other countries experienced stagnant growth—Germany did not grow at all—or their populations actually declined, as in Japan and Russia. U.S. population growth has been the product both of a higher- than-replacement birthrate (more people are being born than dying) and of immigration. The Census estimates that we will continue to grow for a long time into the future (see Figure 4.1 ). (However, the Trump administration’s crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration will affect projections about what the American population might look like by mid-century.) Both births and immigration are important for economic growth and fiscal health. When a
- 300. country’s population grows, most economists believe, more people become part of the working, tax-paying population, helping to cushion the burden on national budgets of those who have retired, and more businesses are formed to service the needs of new and growing households. FIGURE 4.1 CHANGE IN TOTAL POPULATION: 2014–2060 4 Unlike many of our political and economic partners and rivals, the U.S. population is projected to continue to grow at a healthy clip in the coming decades. This growth is a product of above replacement- rate fertility among the native-born population and an increase in the number of immigrants to the United States. By and large, economists, social scientists, and policy makers believe a growing population is a good thing for a country because it is considered a necessary condition for a growing and dynamic economy. If Donald Trump’s policies to slow down both legal and illegal immigration are successful, net international migration and total change in the U.S. population may be somewhat lower than shown here. SOURCE: Sandra L. Colby and Jennifer M. Ortman,
- 301. “Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060, Current Population Reports (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, March, 2015), 3. Some worry, however, that population growth in a rich country like the United States must at some point run up against the limits of available resources, such as oil, and that the natural environment will be hurt as more people invariably produce more pollutants, perhaps contributing to global climate change. Of course, an increase in population need not lead to such outcomes if businesses and consumers use more efficient and less polluting forms of energy, such as natural gas, which is in generous supply because of the revolution in fracking, and use and dispose of other resources in more environmentally friendly ways. How to do this and what the relative roles government and the private sector should play in accomplishing these outcomes is a recurring element of political debate in the United States today. America’s Population Is Becoming More Diverse Based on a long history of immigration, ours is an ethnically, religiously, and racially diverse society. White European
- 302. Protestants, African slaves, and Native Americans, who made up the bulk of the U.S. population when the first census was taken in 1790, were joined by Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany in the 1840s and 1850s (see Figure 4.2 ) and the Chinese in the 1870s, drawn by jobs in railroad construction. Around the turn of the 20th century, immigrants from eastern, central, and southern Europe raised the ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity of America. Today, most immigrants are from Asia and Latin America, with people from Mexico representing the largest single component (25 percent of all immigrants between 1965 and 2015 came from Mexico ). Starting in the 1990s, the number of immigrants from the Middle East and other locations with Muslim populations has been significant. More than 1 million people from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia immigrated to the United States between 2000 and 2015, bringing their total to about 2.8 million. The number of immigrants from majority Muslim countries declined sharply after Donald Trump became president in 2017. 5 6
- 303. 7 FIGURE 4.2 IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES, BY DECADE, 1820–2010 Measuring how many immigrants reside in the United States in different ways gives rise to quite different interpretations of its scale. Measured in total numbers, the country has more immigrants today than at any time in its history. However, looking at immigrants as a percentage of the total population is a much more revealing statistic. As the figure demonstrates, immigrants as a percentage of the population was highest in the middle and late 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century but fell after that as stringent immigration laws came into force. Even with the high numbers of immigrants who have come into the country in the 1990s and 2000s, the number of immigrants as a percentage of population remains historically lower than its high point in the early 20th century (though it has been increasing steadily from its low point in the 1930s). Donald Trump was elected President in part on his plans to reduce both illegal and
- 304. legal immigration, so this graph may begin to look different in the coming years if his promises to build a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border and to deport more undocumented people from the United States actually become policy. SOURCE: Source: Data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, “Table 1: Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status: Fiscal Years 1820 To 2014”. As a result of these immigration streams, the percentage of foreign- born people residing in the United States has more than quadrupled since 1965, reaching almost 15 percent of the population in 2015, about 45 million people. This is very close to the 15 percent foreign born population in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Although the foreign-born population is concentrated in a handful of states—mainly California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas—and in a handful of cities and localities—mainly Miami, New York, Los Angeles–Long Beach, Orange County, Oakland, and Houston—the presence of new immigrants is felt almost everywhere in America, including the Midwest (Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin) and the Deep South (North Carolina and Georgia, especially).
- 305. The natural outcome of this history of immigration is substantial racial and ethnic diversity in the American population. Although the largest segment of the population in the United States is still overwhelmingly non-Hispanic white (61.3 percent in 2016, as shown in Figure 4.3 ), diversity is growing every year because of continuing immigration (though this has slowed substantially since the 2007 financial 8 collapse) and differential birthrates among population groups. Immigrants are younger than the resident population and tend to have larger families. In 2013, for the first time, births among non- Hispanic whites fell below 50 percent of total births in the United States. Hispanics are now the nation’s largest minority group, accounting for 17.8 percent of the U.S. population—with most of the recent growth coming from births rather than immigration—and are projected to account for almost 27.5 percent by 2060. The African American population is the second largest minority group at 13.3 percent of people in the United States and will grow to about 15 percent by 2060. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing group in percentage terms;
- 306. they make up 5.7 percent of the population, a figure projected to increase to 9.7 percent by 2060. Demographers predict that these trends will continue and that current minority groups, taken together, will become the majority of the U.S. population by 2050, though non- Hispanic whites will remain the largest single group for a long time after that. 9 10 11 FIGURE 4.3 Estimated Changes in the Racial and Ethnic Composition of the U.S. population, percentages Non-Hispanic whites will remain the largest segment of the U.S. population for the foreseeable future, though this segment will fall below 50 percent in the 2040s. SOURCE: Sandra L. Colby and Jennifer M. Ortman, Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060 (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, March, 2015), Table 2, http://www.census.gov/population/projections/data/national/201 5/summarytables.html.
- 307. The most recent wave of immigration, like all previous ones, has added to our rich linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions; it has also helped revitalize formerly poverty-stricken neighborhoods in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. Immigrants from Asia and Europe especially have also made a mark in science and technology, earning a disproportionate share of PhDs in the sciences as well as technology patents, and are responsible for creating some of the most innovative high-technology companies (e.g., Comcast, Google, SpaceX, WhatsApp, Yahoo!, and YouTube). Because immigrants tend to be younger and have more children than non- immigrants, they have slowed the rate at which the American population is aging, particularly when compared with the rapidly aging populations of Japan, Russia, China, and most of Europe. But immigration also has generated political and social tensions at various times in our history, including today. The arrival of immigrants who are different from the majority population in significant ways has often sparked anti-immigration agitation and demands that public officials stem the tide. Nativist (antiforeign) reactions to Irish
- 308. Catholic immigrants were common throughout the 19th century. Anti- Chinese agitation swept the western states in the 1870s and 1880s. Alarm at the arrival of waves of immigrants from eastern, southern, and central Europe in the early part of the last century led Congress virtually to close the doors of the United States in 1921 and keep them closed until the 1950s. URBAN RENEWAL Immigrants to the United States have revitalized urban neighborhoods across the country, as this street scene in Flushing, Queens, New York, affirms. Can national legislation help to harness the energies and skills of immigrant populations, or is the cultivation of newcomers as a potential component of economic development strictly a local matter? Hispanic immigration—about one-half of immigrants to the United States are from Latin America—has caused unease among some Americans, even though it has slowed dramatically since 2007. In
- 309. 2015, according to a Pew survey, 50 percent of Americans said that immigrants today are making the economy and crime worse (but improving food, music, and the arts). When comparing different immigrant groups, 37 percent of Americans expressed negative views about immigrants from Latin America compared to only 9 percent for those from Europe and 11 percent for those from Asia. (Immigrants from the predominantly Muslim Middle East are viewed even more negatively than those from Latin America). Republicans especially say they are worried about illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America (though the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States reached its peak in 2005 and has been declining steadily since then ) and strongly oppose a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. In a 2015 poll, 63 percent of Republicans said the U.S. government should stop the flow of illegal immigrants and deport those who are living here, compared to 29 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of independents. In the Republican Party, concerns about illegal immigration were once mainly the province of Tea Party conservatives and are now more widespread. One 2018 poll showed, for example, that 77 percent of Republicans wanted a wall built on the Southern border to keep undocumented immigrants out of the country compared to only 10 percent of Democrats. By a margin of 55- 35,
- 310. declared Republicans even supported President Donald Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents among people trying to illegally enter the U.S. at the southern border, a policy overwhelmingly rejected by declared Democrats and Independents. 12 13 14 15 16 MAKING READY FOR DEPORTATION Suspected undocumented immigrants are gathered together at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Headquarters in Tucson for possible deportation back to Mexico. Deportations reached record numbers under the Obama administration but nonetheless failed to quell Republican critics despite the fact that the number of immigrants from Mexico living in the United States has declined steadily since 2007. As a result, immigration reform legislation went nowhere during the Obama’s presidency or Trump’s presidency. Deportations increased after Donald Trump came to office, as he had promised
- 311. during the presidential campaign. What other levers of government might the Obama administration have pulled to push immigration reform forward? Donald Trump made the discomfiture about immigration a central element in his campaign to win the GOP nomination for president. He jumped to a lead among likely Republican voters at the start of the GOP nomination process in 2015 by demeaning illegal Mexican immigrants, claiming that he would build a wall across the entire border, when he became president, and get Mexico to pay for it. Proposing that people here illegally be deported also helped him stay ahead in the GOP polls. Strikingly, none of the Republican presidential aspirants was willing, during the 2015–2016 nomination cycle, to support a so-called “pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants, though several said they would agree to a pathway to legal status of some sort. After he became president, Donald Trump carried through. He announced, for example, that he was ending President Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created in 2012 that protected against deportation roughly 700,000 children
- 312. brought to the country illegally by their parents. Trump gave Congress six months to create a successor program that would protect “Dreamer” children so long as Congress also provided funding for a border wall to stop the flow of immigrants as well as additional resources to deport non-DACA individuals in the country illegally. To no one’s surprise, Congress failed to pass a new DACA bill but the program held on for some time under court order as the issue played out in the federal courts with the issue bound to be ruled on by the Supreme Court. The Trump administration did a number of other things to prevent further immigration and to decrease the number of undocumented aliens living in the United States. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for example, ordered immigration judges to increase the number of cases they processed annually and made how they performed in this aspect of their jobs a factor in determining their salaries. Trump also ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be more vigorous in its activities. It worked. During the first nine months of the new administration, ICE arrests for immigration violations rose 42 percent
- 313. above Obama-era arrests. Arrests of undocumented immigrants who had committed no other crime save that of being here illegally tripled under Trump. Finally, the Trump administration cut back substantially on the number of refugee applications it processed and how many were granted refugee status, reaching a forty year low in 2017. In addition to a wide split between Republicans and Democrats on what to do about illegal immigration and what the status of undocumented immigrants should be in the future, where immigrants settle is also very important for American politics and government policies. For example, states and localities with high concentrations of immigrants must find additional monies for social services, health care, and education in order to serve a growing and changing population, though the taxes paid by immigrants, whether legal or illegal, help pay for these things. A less well-known impact of immigrant populations is the increase that destination states gain in 17 Congress, where apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives is calculated on the basis of a state’s entire adult population regardless of legal status. And, because each state’s
- 314. Electoral College vote is the sum of the number of its representatives in the House and its two senators, high-immigration states play a larger role in presidential elections than they might if only adult citizens and legal aliens were counted in population surveys. America’s Population Is Moving West and South During the first decade of the 21st century, Americans continued a decades-long trend of moving to the South and West (see Figure 4.4 ). The Great Recession slowed down this process a bit— Americans had trouble selling their homes and moving elsewhere because of the housing market collapse—but did not stop them. While the Northeast and Midwest still grew from 2000 to 2010—3 percent and 4 percent, respectively—these regions were outpaced by the South and the West, each of which expanded by 14 percent. The population shift to the South and West has led to changes in the relative political power of the states. Following each census from 1950 to 2000, states in the East and the upper Midwest lost congressional seats and presidential electoral votes. States in the West and the South—often referred to as the Sun Belt because of their generally pleasant weather—gained at the expense of those other regions. After the 2010 census, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York,
- 315. Massachusetts, Louisiana, New Jersey, Illinois, and Michigan lost House seats and electoral votes; Florida, Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Utah, Washington, and Nevada picked up seats and electoral votes, and Texas was the big winner with four. FIGURE 4.4 THE CENTER OF AMERICAN POPULATION The mean center of the American population has gradually moved west and south over the course of our history, from near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland in 1790 to near Plato, Missouri, in the most recent census. This change in the center of population has given western and southern states more power in the Senate and in the Electoral College. SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, “Mean Center of Population for the United States: 1790 to 2010.” America’s Population Is Growing Older One of the most significant demographic trends in the United States and in other industrialized countries is the aging of the population. In 1800, the median age of the United States was just under 16; today, it is a bit more than 35. By 2030, it will be about 38. The proportion of
- 316. the population older than age 65 has been growing, while the proportion between the ages of 18 and 64 has been shrinking. Today, 13 percent of Americans are elderly. In addition, the number of the very aged—older than 85—is the fastest-growing age segment of all. By 2030, this figure is likely to rise to about 20 percent. Meanwhile, the proportion of the population in the prime working years is likely to fall from 62 percent today to about 58 percent in 2030. Thus, an increasing proportion of Americans is likely to be dependent and in need of services, and a shrinking proportion is likely to comprise taxpaying wage or salary earners, though, to be sure, more Americans who are older than 65 are staying employed, both for financial reasons and to stay active and engaged. The United States is aging much less rapidly, however, than other countries and regions, primarily because of the younger age profile and higher fertility of its minority group populations. Aging is happening much more rapidly in Japan, South Korea, Italy, Russia, China, and much of Europe, for example. 18 19 20
- 317. Because the population is aging, the question of how to finance Social Security and Medicare is likely to remain important politically for the foreseeable future. The voting power of the elderly is likely to make it difficult for elected officials to substantially reduce social insurance programs for Americans who are older than 65. Meanwhile, the tax load on those still in the workforce may feel increasingly burdensome. Also, more and more middle-aged people are trying to figure out how to finance assisted-living and nursing home care for their elderly parents. How these issues will play out in the political arena in the near future will be interesting. America’s Population Is Becoming Economically More Unequal The United States enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world, consistently ranking among the top countries in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and ranked tenth in 2016 on the UN’s Human Development Index, which takes into account education and life expectancy as well as per capita GDP. Luxembourg, Denmark, Switzerland, Singapore, Qatar, and Norway are the other countries always in the running for the top per
- 318. capita GDP spot. Along with the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, and Sweden rank highest every year on the Human Development Index. However, the high standard of living represented by these numbers is not shared equally by all Americans. Indeed, we 21 22 rank very poorly relative to other high income, high human development countries on the degree to which our high standard of living is shared across different groups and classes. gross domestic product (GDP) Monetary value of all goods and services produced in a nation each year, excluding income residents earn abroad. Income Inequality Overall, median household income in the United States—the household in the exact middle of the income distribution of all households measured in constant dollars—has grown only modestly over the past four decades, even as the size of the American economy has grown substantially. While the overall economy has grown substantially, median household income is about where it
- 319. was in 1998 (see Figure 4.5 ). This growing gap suggests that households in the middle have not been reaping the rewards of America’s economic growth despite a recent uptick in median family income starting in 2015. A growing economy paired with a relatively stagnant median household income suggests that incomes across American society must be becoming more unequal. Research shows that this is indeed the case. 23 FIGURE 4.5 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND GDP (IN CONSTANT 2016 DOLLARS), 1967–2016 While the size of the American economy increased by over 1,300 percent between 1967 and 2016, median household income increased by only 130 percent; that is, the overall economy grew at ten times the pace as the income of the median household. The only significant increases in median household income—defined as the household in the exact middle of the income distribution—came in the second half of the 1960s, the mid-to-late 1980s, and the 1990s. The combination of a growing economy and stagnant median household income
- 320. leads to growing inequality as the fruits of growth go to the top income earners. How might the slow gains in household income for most Americans and growing income inequality affect how people act politically and what they may want from government? SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables (Table H-5), U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. median household income The midpoint of all households ranked by income. To be sure, the degree of income inequality has always been higher in the United States than in other rich democracies, but it has become even more pronounced over the past four decades or so. By 2016, the top quintile (the top 20 percent) of households took home 51.5 percent of national income (see Figure 4.6 ), the second highest share ever recorded. Also noticeable is the drop in the share of national income enjoyed by the bottom 60 percent of the population, and the stagnation of the second highest quintile. The winners are the upper 20 percent. But the real winners, however—not shown in
- 321. this quintiles graph—are the households at the very, very top. In 2016, the top 1 percent of households took home almost 24 percent of national income, the highest share in the U.S. since pre–Great Depression 1928. 24 25 FIGURE 4.6 U.S. HOUSEHOLD INCOME DISTRIBUTION BY QUINTILES, 1970 VERSUS 1996 VERSUS 2016 Income inequality has been increasing in the United States, reaching levels not seen since the 1920s. A standard way to measure income inequality is to compare the proportion of national income going to each 20 percent (quintile) of households in the population. Especially striking is the shrinking share of the bottom 60 percent, the lack of improvement among the second highest quintile over four-and- a-half decades, and the increasing share of the top 20 percent. SOURCE: Bernadette D. Proctor, Jessica L. Semega, and Melissa A. Kollar, Income and Poverty in the United States
- 322. (Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, Current Population Reports), September 2016. The median household incomes of African Americans and Hispanics (any race) increased significantly between 2015 and 2016 to $39,490 for the former and $47,675 for the latter, though each was well below the median household incomes of Asian Americans ($81,431) and non-Hispanic Whites ($65,041). Meanwhile, white non-college- educated men were hit hard for reasons we will explore below. Men working full time in 2014 made on average and in constant dollars less than they made in the mid-1970s. Wealth Inequality Wealth (assets such as real estate, stocks and bonds, art, bank accounts, cash-value insurance policies, and so on) is even more unequally distributed than income though harder to pin down. As far as scholars and government statisticians have been able to determine, wealth distribution became slightly more equal during the Great Recession when stocks, mostly owned by upper-income groups, took a beating. But since the recovery, the wealthy have regained their pre-recession share of national economic and financial assets. Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the leading scholars on income and wealth inequality, show that the upper 5 percent of wealth
- 323. holders controlled over 35 percent of all privately held assets in the United States in 2016, the highest level since the 1920s (see Figure 4.7 ). The top 1 percent controlled almost 20 percent of national wealth almost reaching levels last seen in the 1920s. The top 0.1 percent held about 8 percent of national wealth, near record levels as 26 well. The wealthier are getting wealthier, particularly in the United States. FIGURE 4.7 PERCENTAGE OF WEALTH HELD BY THE WEALTHIEST AMERICANS (TOP 5%, 1%, AND .1%) 1917–2015. At various times in American history, the wealthiest Americans have controlled different percentages of the country’s total wealth. This graph shows these changes over time, focusing on the richest 5 percent, 1 percent, and 0.1 percent of the population. The more wealth held by the top earners, the less is held in a proportional sense by everyone else (the 95, 99, and 99.9 percent). As the graph 27 demonstrates, the wealthiest Americans hold more of the
- 324. nation’s wealth than at any time since the 1920s. Do you think this is a fair outcome of a properly functioning economy? If not, what should we do about it? Should government be more involved in solving this problem or has it helped create the current problem? SOURCE: Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 1 (2003), pp. 1–39; (tables and figures updated to 2015, June 2016). Poverty In 1955, almost 25 percent of Americans fell below the federal government’s official poverty line . Things improved a great deal after that, dropping to 11.1 percent in 1973. During the first decade of the 21st century, however, things took a dramatic turn for the worse. By 2012, 15 percent of Americans were officially below the government’s poverty line, the highest since 1993. There was marked improvement in the overall poverty rate during the last two years of the Obama administration. By 2016, the poverty rate fell to 12.7 percent. (See Figure 4.8 .) 28 29
- 325. FIGURE 4.8 POVERTY BY RACE In 2016, a family of four making less than $24,000 per year (this amount is adjusted based on family size) was considered by the federal government to be living poverty. Currently, more than four million Americans (roughly 12 percent) are living on wages that put them below the poverty line. As the graph below shows, poverty rates are much lower now than in the 1960s, when nearly one-quarter of the U.S. population lived in poverty. However, two additional things should also stand out in this graph. First, following significant declines in poverty rates in 1960s, the percentage of the population that lives in poverty has remained fairly steady. Second, black and Hispanic people are about twice as likely as white people to be living in poverty in present day America. The reasons for this are complex, but it should be noted that compared to the middle and upper classes, those living in poverty have very few voices advocating for them in government. SOURCE: United States Census Bureau, Historical Poverty Tables (Table 2), https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/historical/peopl
- 326. e.html poverty line The federal government’s calculation of the amount of income families of various sizes need to stay out of poverty. In 2016, it was $24,300 for a family of four. Is poverty a problem? Here is why many people think so: A distressingly large number of Americans live in poverty— using the standard government poverty line measure, almost 40.6 million in 2016, a record number. The poverty rate is unlikely to fall much unless there is sustained job growth, especially in jobs that will be available to low-skill workers who make up the bulk of the poor. This seems unlikely. The poverty rate in the United States remains substantially higher than in other rich democracies. The distribution of poverty is not random. As evidenced in Figure 4.8 , poverty is concentrated among racial minorities and single- parent, female-headed households, and their children. For example, in 2016, more than 22 percent of African Americans and 19.4 percent of Hispanic Americans lived in poverty (although a sizable middle class has emerged in both communities), compared with 8.8
- 327. percent of non-Hispanic whites and 10.1 percent of Asians. Of children under the age of 18, 18 percent lived in poverty, as do 26.6 percent of single-parent, female-headed households. Poverty in the United States has proved to be surprisingly persistent. After a period of improvement after Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” was launched, the rate rebounded steadily to its current level by 1992 and has stayed there for quite some time. Most importantly, there have been few federal government initiatives, other than the Child Nutrition Program or the Earned Income Tax Credit, to solve the problem. The reason why government has paid little attention to poverty reduction has to do with certain cultural notions about poverty, changes in manufacturing jobs, the almost nonexistent political influence of the poor and those who advocate for them, and a political environment that focuses on the problems of the middle class. To sharpen and extend your understanding of the problem of persistent poverty in America, turn to Figure 4.9 , an application of our analytical framework. 30 31
- 328. FIGURE 4.9 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: WHY GOVERNMENT DOES LITTLE TO REDUCE POVERTY © Edward S. Greenberg Some Political Implications of Rising Economic Inequality A number of problems have become more salient as overall economic inequality has increased. When the economic situation of average Americans is improving, Americans tend to express satisfaction with their situation and confidence in elected leaders. This was true for much of the three- decade long period from the end of World War II in 1945. When economic times become more difficult for average Americans, their satisfaction with the status quo, confidence in the political system, and trust in government declined. In the weeks just prior to the November 2016 presidential election, 67 percent of Americans said they believed the nation “was generally headed in the wrong direction.” In this context, it is hardly surprising that non- mainstream, populist GOP candidate Donald Trump won the presidential election, probably helped by the fact that many Democrats who favored populist Senator Bernie Sanders over Hilary Clinton did not turn out to vote. High poverty levels also are politically consequential. While the
- 329. poor have little voice in the American political system, poverty tends to be linked to a range of socially undesirable outcomes, including crime, drug use, and family disintegration, which draws the attention of other citizens who want government to do something about these problems. The cause of poverty reduction has also drawn the attention of many Americans who are offended on moral and religious grounds by the extent of the poverty that exists in what is still the world’s largest economy. Money is important in how different people and groups bring influence to bear in American politics and in shaping what 32 33 government does. It is quite troubling, then, to see the extent to which income and wealth are flowing in such a manner that rich are becoming richer. We shall examine how the rich are playing an ever more important role in our political and government system in Chapters 7 and10 . America’s Economy Virtually everything discussed so far in this chapter is shaped by the nature of the American economy. The growth, diversification, and geographic dispersion of the American population, for example,
- 330. can be traced directly to economic changes. The way we earn our livings, our standard of living, and the distribution of income and wealth in our nation are closely connected to the operations of our economic institutions. Even important elements of American political culture, as we shall soon see, are associated with our economy and how it works. America’s economy is one in which the productive assets of society (e.g., land, machinery, factories and offices, financial capital, and so on) are privately owned and where most decisions about how to use them are made, not by the government, but by individuals and firms. For the most part, prices for products and services are set by buyers and sellers in the market, as are incomes and profits to individuals and firms. Such a system is often called capitalism . Although the role of government today varies quite considerably among countries with capitalist economies, they all see protecting property rights, creating the legal framework for allowing markets to operate, providing currencies for market transactions, and providing law and order as a minimum set of government responsibilities. Discuss how the American economy shapes government and politics.
- 331. 4.2 34 capitalism An economic system characterized by private ownership of productive assets where most decisions about how to use these assets are made by individuals and firms operating in a market rather than by government. Main Tendencies of Capitalism Capitalism has three particularly important tendencies each of which has political consequences. 1. Capitalist economies are tremendously productive. It is no mystery that societies with the highest standards of living and the most wealth—usually measured by gross domestic product —are capitalist in one form or another. Unlike the former command economies of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites of the post–World War II era, and China and India until quite recently, capitalism rewards entrepreneurial risk-taking, innovation, and responsiveness to consumer preferences. Productivity gains and economic growth tend to follow, at least over the long run. The tremendous economic performance of China and India in the current period is related to their loosening of many state controls on individuals and firms, opening up to world markets, and doing more to protect property rights (though China still has a long
- 332. way to go on this last dimension). One result is that by every measure of well-being, people in the United States and in most of the rest of the world are better off than they have ever been before in human history. 2. Capitalist economies tend to produce substantial income and wealth inequalities. Capitalism is a system that rewards those who win in the marketplace. It is an economic system that tends to pay off for those with high skills, entrepreneurs and firms that successfully innovate, and those who satisfy consumers. Big income gains over time are converted by individuals into property assets such as residential and commercial real estate, jewelry and art, and stocks and bonds. Over the long run, as economist Thomas Piketty has demonstrated, property grows at a faster pace than the overall economy and average incomes, meaning that inequality of property ownership grows inexorably over time. The wealthy not only generate additional income for themselves and their families from their holdings but give their heirs a leg up in the next round by passing on their estates, their greater access to quality education, and their social and economic connections. Where there are winners, of course, there are also losers—that is, individuals and firms who do not do well in the competitive market. It is not surprising, then, that fast-growing capitalist economies such as China and India are experiencing a rising tide of income and wealth inequality. Inequality is also characteristic of the United States, western Europe, Australia, 35 36 and New Zealand. Where capitalist countries differ considerably, of course, is the degree to which government
- 333. acts to alter this situation by redistributing income and wealth, by imposing high tax rates on high-income earners and delivering programs that provide generous educational, unemployment, retirement, and medical benefits for all. The United States does less of this than any other rich capitalist country. 3. Capitalist economies are unstable. Capitalist economies are subject to business cycles, alternating periods of high and low (or even negative) economic growth. In the former, firms, investors, and those who have jobs all tend to gain, to one degree or another; in the latter down period, rewards to firms, investors, and workers grow only slowly, stagnate, or even decline. Historically, capitalism has experienced these fluctuations around a general upward trend of economic growth. One reason for this overall growth, despite periods of negative growth, seems to be that in bad times, inefficient and ineffective firms fall by the wayside and innovative and nimble firms emerge better positioned for the next phase of growth. During the Great Depression, for example, big technical advances were made in radio, television, and automobiles. At times, the up and down cycles can become quite extreme, a so-called boom-and-bust pattern. The biggest bust of the 20th century in American capitalism was the Great Depression of the 1930s, when industrial production fell by half and unemployment at one point reached 31 percent. The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, which represents the biggest 37 38 economic downturn since the Great Depression and whose effects still trouble the American economy, followed the
- 334. bursting of a gigantic real estate bubble (fueled by a flood of easy credit) and the collapse of the financial industry. Globalization, Technological Change, and Hypercompetition For roughly three decades following the end of World War II in 1945, the American version of capitalism enjoyed unparalleled and unchallenged success. By 1975, for example, eleven of the largest fifteen corporations in the world were American; by 1981, 40 percent of the world’s total foreign direct investment was accounted for by the United States. During this period, most major industries in the United States were dominated by three or four firms—such as GM, Ford, and Chrysler, known as the “Big Three,” in autos—that mass-produced commodities such as steel, cars, and refrigerators. Facing little domestic or foreign competition in the U.S. market and protected in their market dominance by federal regulators, major companies enjoyed substantial and stable profits over many years. Because they could easily pass on their costs in the prices they charged consumers, corporations were happy to enter into contracts with labor unions that provided good wages and benefits for their employees as well as employment stability and predictability for themselves. One result was
- 335. 39 an impressive expansion of the middle class and a general rise in the American standard of living. labor union An organization representing employees that bargains with employers over wages, benefits, and working conditions. ENERGY INNOVATION Although the practice is controversial, primarily because of environmental concerns, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has helped make possible an oil and natural gas production boom in the United States after decades of worry about importing more and more energy to meet U.S. demand for power. Why is innovation an important characteristic of capitalist economies, and does government have a role in encouraging it? These workers in Mead, Colorado, might have a one-word answer for you—jobs. Are there other explanations? The New American Economy
- 336. The relatively protected and stable world of the post–World War II corporation is gone, replaced by a form of capitalism where major companies face intense and unrelenting competition at home and abroad. Their changed situation was brought about by a set of near- simultaneous transformations across a broad front that accelerated the introduction of labor-saving technologies and the pace of globalization . For example, the digital revolution brought advances in computer hardware and software and the explosive growth in the Internet. Dramatic improvements in the speed and costs of moving raw materials and commodities here and abroad included containerized trucking and shipping, bigger and faster jet planes, high- speed trains, and improved highways. A strong move in the United States, beginning in the 1970s and picking up steam after that, deregulated a broad range of industries (including shipping, banking, securities, and telecommunications, among others) in hopes of fighting inflation and improving American competitiveness in the face of the galloping economies of Japan, the so-called Asian Tigers, and the European Union. And, finally, a number of international agreements came into force that diminished barriers to trade and investment across national borders.
- 337. globalization The tendency of information, products, and financial capital to flow across national borders, with the effect of more tightly integrating the global economy. Globalization is the term often used to describe this new world where goods, services, and money flow easily across national borders. In this new world, companies can and must produce and sell almost anywhere and seek hard-working and talented employees where they can find them. They can also find subcontractors and partner companies in diverse geographical locations to supply them with parts, as Boeing does for the airplanes it assembles, or with finished products, as Walmart does to supply its many stores. With the infrastructure provided by global financial markets and services, investors can move money to those places and into those companies wherein they believe they can get the highest rate of return. Customers, having a wider range of choices, increasingly insist on the 40 best possible products at the lowest possible prices and will switch where they shop with breathtaking speed to make sure this happens. GLOBALIZATION
- 338. Production and distribution of most manufactured products is now global, a trend that has been accelerated by a wide range of technological changes, including containerization, an example of which is shown in this massive container shipping complex in Hamburg, Germany. How does globalization shape the issues that concern the American public, and how does it affect what government does? 41 With many emerging markets, new industry-spawning technologies, fickle investors and customers, and ample investment capital for new companies, large companies everywhere face fierce competition. Growth and profitability, even survival, for many of them, are no longer routine as they were for much of the postwar period. Some formerly powerful companies simply disappeared (including TWA, Eastern, and Pan Am among American airlines), giving way to more innovative and nimble challengers (e.g., JetBlue and Southwest), while others were forced to dramatically change their business model (e.g., Kodak shifting from film to digital photography and IBM focusing on IT services after offloading its computer manufacturing division to the
- 339. Chinese company Lenovo). Even the most powerful companies today dare not stand pat for fear of losing out to new competitors. Microsoft, for example, must figure out how to compete with Apple in the smartphone, laptop, and tablet markets and with Google and Amazon in cloud-based software model for enterprise computing. Apple cannot afford to rest on its considerable laurels when Amazon is pushing hard to become the main supplier of cloud computing capacity. Amazon is pushing hard to become the place where people everywhere do their shopping, battling not only Walmart but several giant Chinese firms. Amazon, Netflix, HBO, Disney, and others are in intense competition to be the main suppliers of original content for streaming. Big coal companies such as Peabody Energy must rise to the challenge of natural gas, which is cleaner and cheaper than coal. To a great extent, globalization and rapid technological innovation have been good for Americans (and for people generally around the world). For example, they have helped drop prices for consumer42 goods, ranging from consumer electronics to computers, furniture, and clothing, and brought new, exciting, and useful products to
- 340. market. But globalization and hypercompetition, in association with the introduction of labor-saving technologies, also have had negative impacts. In a global economy where companies are fighting for advantages over other companies, costs become a factor, and many choose to become “lean and mean.” What this means for companies is trimming or eliminating health care and retirement plans and shedding employees as part of their competitive strategies. Because of costs, they feel they must do so; because of productivity-enhancing technological changes that allow them to produce more with fewer employees, they can do so. For example, Google announced in late 2013 that it was investing heavily in robotics to make supply-chain distribution channels faster and more efficient, with need for fewer and fewer workers. As the engineer in charge of the project noted with some amazement, “There are still people who walk around in factories and pick things up in distribution centers and work in the back rooms of grocery stores.”43 WHERE DID ALL THE WORKERS GO? Polls show that a majority of Americans believe that jobs losses in
- 341. manufacturing are the product of globalization and trade. However, a majority of economists believe that automation and computerization have decreased the need for as many workers as before, as can be seen in this modern Amazon fulfillment center where product orders are filled for shipping. Where do you stand on this extremely important debate? Do you believe there are public policies that might allow us to enjoy the benefits of globalization, trade, automation, and computerization, yet create plentiful and well-paying jobs at the same time? Some companies believe they must outsource to lower-cost suppliers and shift some operations to other locations to be closer to overseas customers. This happened first with basic manufacturing (think cars and steel), then with back-office low-skilled service activities (think call centers and mortgage processing services), and increasingly today with highly skilled work in design engineering, research and development, advanced manufacturing, and some medical services (medical records, radiology, and the like). Faced with this combination of labor-saving, computer-based technologies and globalization, jobs have been lost and employees have lost much of their
- 342. bargaining power with employers. President Donald Trump has long believed that globalization, as embodied in free trade agreements, globally distributed manufacturing, and the extensive movement of labor across national boundaries to fill available jobs, has hurt Americans. Carrying out his pledge to “make America great again,” he began a tariff fight in 2018 raising rates against foreign steel and aluminum products imported from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, and against a wide range of products imported to the United States from China. It is too early to tell whether these changes in tariff policies will fundamentally change the nature of globalization as each country raises tariff rates against American products or whether it will represent but a bump on the road to fuller global economic integration. The Troubled Middle Class 44 45 Because of these transformations, the American middle class is in trouble. This is true no matter how we define the middle class,
- 343. whether strictly by income (say the middle three quintiles shown in Figure 4.6 ), occupation (say blue-collar manufacturing and extractive industry workers and white-collar and service workers in either the private or public sectors), or lifestyle, say those who live in safe neighborhoods with good public schools, hold relatively steady jobs, make enough to take an occasional vacation, purchase or lease a late model new or used car, put a little away for retirement, and pay for college for their children. This lifestyle concept of middle class is what has traditionally been called the American Dream. In terms of income, as you learned, the three middle quintiles have actually fallen behind where they were in the middle 1970s. In terms of occupation, a wide variety of popular news outlets, government reports, and scholarly articles have pointed to the diminished prospects for blue-collar workers and white-collar workers whose jobs can and have been reduced by automation and robotization. Average wages and salaries for the middle class have lagged behind the rate of growth in the economy and the increase in overall productivity since the mid-1980s. From the late 1990s to the present, incomes for those whose formal education ended with their high school diploma and for those with some college but without a bachelor’s degree
- 344. stagnated or fell. In terms of lifestyle, the likelihood of gaining the American Dream seems ever more remote to Americans. For example, fewer people are covered by pensions or other retirement plans that their employers 46 contribute to. Jobs are less stable and predictable than during the three decades following WWII because of outsourcing, technological change, and increased trade. The costs of health care and health care insurance have risen dramatically as has the cost of a two-year or four-year college education. Middle-aged (35–54), non-Hispanic whites whose education does not go past high school have been hit especially hard, and it is reflected in how long they live. Unlike middle-aged African Americans, Hispanics, the college-educated, and people in other rich democracies whose death rates have declined substantially and steadily since 2000, theirs has increased. That is to say, the death rate of white, middle- aged
- 345. people in the United States—defined as the number of annual deaths per 100,000 people—has gotten worse rather than improved like that of other groups over the past decade and a half. This may be related to the loss of stable, well-paid manufacturing jobs in the country once filled by people with only a high school education which has hit whites in the 35–54 age group especially hard. It is this group more than any other demographic that has experienced a decline in its overall living standard and an increase in behaviors associated directly or indirectly with a shorter life span: more suicides, increased drug and alcohol abuse, weight gain, and family disintegration. 47 48 UNACCUSTOMED TO HANDOUTS During the long jobless recovery that followed the Great Recession, many people who had long considered themselves ordinary middle- class citizens found that they needed charitable help to get by. Under what economic circumstances would this middle class family need to carry home a bag of groceries from a food bank?
- 346. A troubled middle class tends to be an angry and fearful middle class, and this has important consequences for American politics. The sense that the country and the economy are going in the wrong direction and that government leaders have ignored the American middle class may explain part of the volatility of recent elections in which one party and then the other is swept into power to “clean up the mess” in Washington or a state capital. It may partially explain why voters are increasingly prone to elect hard partisans to office who offer easily digestible explanations of who is to blame for stagnant or declining living standards. It may partially explain the rising incivility in our civic life, where angry confrontations have become more common, whether in school board meetings or town hall-type meetings in congressional districts.49 America’s Political Culture Evidence suggests that Americans share a core set of beliefs about human nature, society, and government that is very different from the
- 347. core beliefs of people in other societies. To be sure, we are a vast, polyglot mixture of races, religions, ethnicities, occupations, and lifestyles, and we are increasingly riven by partisanship that some suggest will undermine in the long run Americans’ broad agreement on core beliefs. Nevertheless, one of the things that has always struck foreign observers of the American scene, ranging from Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America, 1835 and 1840) to James Bryce (The American Commonwealth, 1888) and John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (The Right Nation, 2004), is the degree to which a broad consensus seems to exist on many of the core beliefs that shape our attitudes and opinions, our ways of engaging in politics, and what we expect of our government, and how different the elements of this consensus are from political cultural elements in other countries. To be sure, consensus on core beliefs does not mean that people always agree on what government should do in particular situations. Thus, people who agree that government’s role should be limited might disagree on what specific things government should do (say, national defense or school lunch programs). Though people in Describe the values and beliefs that make up American political culture and how they affect politics and government.
- 348. 4.3 50 51 other societies share some of the core beliefs of Americans, the package of core beliefs is truly exceptional. Understanding our political culture —the set of core beliefs about human nature, society, and government—is important for understanding American politics and government. Why? Because the kinds of choices Americans make in meeting the challenges posed by a changing economy, society, and post–Cold War world depend a great deal on the core beliefs Americans hold about human nature, society, economic relations, and the role of government. In Chapter 5 , we examine in some detail how Americans pass on these core beliefs to each new generation—a process called political socialization. In the remainder of this chapter, we look at the content of these core beliefs. political culture The set of core beliefs in a country that help shape how people behave politically and what they believe government should do. Individualistic
- 349. Americans believe that individuals have, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, unalienable rights, meaning that individual rights take priority over rights that might be attributed to society or government. Indeed, the very purpose of government, following John Locke’s ideas in The Second Treatise on Government (1690) and Thomas Jefferson’s in the Declaration of Independence (1776), is to protect these rights. In formal, legal terms, this has meant that Americans have worked hard to protect the constitutional rights of speech, belief, and association (among others). In a more informal sense, this has meant an abiding belief among Americans in the importance of personal ambition and choosing one’s own life goals and way of life. American individualism also is expressed as a belief that one’s fate is (and ought to be) in one’s own hands, rather than it being the product of impersonal social and economic forces beyond one’s own control. In particular, one’s fortunes are tied to one’s own efforts. Those with talent, grit, and the willingness to work hard, Americans believe, are more likely than not to end up on top; those without at least some of
- 350. these qualities are more likely to wind up at the bottom of the heap. Americans tend to assume that people generally get what they deserve in the long run, though the troubles hitting the middle class are beginning to erode this belief, with increasing numbers of Americans saying that hard work no longer pays off. ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL In Japan, commitment to the work team and the company are more important cultural values than in the United States. These Japanese supermarket workers start their day as a team. What might be some economic advantages and disadvantages to the Japanese all-for-one, one-for-all viewpoint? Americans also are more likely to believe that people are naturally competitive, always striving to better themselves in relation to others. Popular literature in America has always conveyed this theme, ranging from the Horatio Alger books of the late 19th century to the many contemporary self-help books with keys to “getting ahead,” “making it,” and “getting rich.” The French have been known to refer to this celebration of the competitive individual over the community as
- 351. the “Anglo-Saxon disease” (thus including the English) and profess to want no part of it in continental Europe. This core belief about individualism affects American attitudes toward many issues, including inequality and what should be done about it. Americans overwhelmingly endorse the idea of “equality of opportunity” (the idea that people ought to have an equal shot in the competitive game of life), for instance, yet they also overwhelmingly reject the idea that people should be guaranteed equal rewards, especially if this outcome comes from actions by government. Not surprisingly, Americans tend to look favorably on government programs that try to equalize opportunity—Head Start, education programs of various kinds, school lunch programs, and the like—but are less favorable to welfare-style programs that seem to redistribute income from the hard-working middle class to individuals who are considered “undeserving.” Not surprisingly, given this core belief, Americans are less likely to support government efforts to equalize matters than people in other rich democracies (see Figure 4.10 ), especially if efforts to equalize outcomes in society involve imposing limits on individual striving and achievement.
- 352. 52 53 54 55 FIGURE 4.10 INDIVIDUALISM Compared to those who live in other rich democracies, Americans are the least likely to want government to play a major role in determining life’s economic outcomes and the most likely to believe that individuals are mainly responsible for such outcomes. How does this aspect of American political culture influence what people expect of the government? SOURCE: Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, “The American-Western European Values Gap,” Pew Research Center, November 17, 2011, updated February 29, 2012. Distrustful of Government From the beginning, Americans have distrusted government.
- 353. The framers created a republican constitutional system precisely because they distrusted government and were trying to create a set of constitutional rules that would deny government the means to act in mischievous or evil ways. Americans have long believed that when governments are imbued with too much power, they are tempted to interfere with private property, individual rights, and economic efficiency. Distrust of government remains attractive to most Americans today, even though most Americans expect government to do far more than the framers ever imagined, such as providing Social Security, Medicare, and environmental protection and trying a variety of measures to get the country out of economic recessions. In this respect—distrusting government yet supporting a range of programs that seem essential to the public’s well-being—Americans are conflicted, to some extent, being what some have called ideological conservatives and operational liberals. As Ben Page and Lawrence Jacobs put it, “most Americans are philosophical conservatives but also pragmatic egalitarians. They look to government for help in ensuring that everyone has genuine equal opportunity plus a measure of economic security with which to exercise that opportunity.” But distrust of government increases when the help provided by government does not, in reality, seem to help or seems to help
- 354. those 56 who are already powerful and privileged, as in the bank and financial institution bailouts in the middle of the Great Recession. Distrust of government remains the “default” position of a majority of Americans. Even when they support particular government programs, they worry that government is getting too big, too expensive, and too involved in running things. During the health care debate in 2009, for example, a Pew Research Center survey discovered that a majority supported each major element of the Democrats’ health care package, but only 34 percent favored the package as a whole, with widespread concern that the bill created too much government control. As one commentator put it, “Americans are looking to the government for help, but they still don’t like the government.” This core belief is not universally shared. In Germany, Sweden, and France, for example, where governments have always played an important role in directing society and the economy, people are much more likely to trust the
- 355. intentions and trustworthiness of their national governments even when they disagree with political leaders on particular government policies, though this trust has eroded in the face of the refugee crisis that hit Europe in 2016 and the loss of manufacturing jobs similar to the trend in the United States. Believers in Democracy and Freedom 57 58 59 Certain beliefs about what kind of political order is most appropriate and what role citizens should play shape the actual daily behavior of citizens and political decision makers alike. At the time of the nation’s founding, democracy was not highly regarded in the United States. During our history, however, the practice of democracy has been enriched and expanded, and democracy has become an honored term. While regard for democracy is one of the bedrocks of the American belief system today, Americans have not necessarily always behaved democratically. After all, African Americans were denied the vote and other citizenship rights in many parts of the nation until the
- 356. 1960s. Americans seem to see this disconnect between ideal and reality. A recent Pew Research Center survey shows that while Americans support democracy as a general principle as the best way to organize government, most say that our present political system falls way short of the mark. Foreign visitors have always been fascinated by the American obsession with individual “rights,” the belief that, in a good society, government leaves people alone in their private pursuits. Studies show that freedom (also called liberty) is at the very top of the list of American beliefs and that it is more strongly honored here than elsewhere. From the very beginning, what attracted most people to the United States was the promise of freedom in the New World. Many came for other reasons, to be sure: a great many came for strictly economic reasons, some came as convict labor, and some came in chains as slaves. But many who came to these shores seem to have 60 61 62
- 357. done so to taste the freedom to speak and think as they chose, to worship as they pleased, to read what they might, and to assemble and petition the government if they had a mind to do so. As in many cases, however, to believe in something is not necessarily to act consistently with that belief. There have been many intrusions on basic rights during our history. Later chapters address this issue in more detail. Populist The term populism refers to the hostility of the common person to concentrated power and the powerful. While public policy is not often driven by populist sentiments (for the powerful, by definition, exercise considerable political influence), populism has always been part of the American core belief system and has sometimes been expressed in visible ways in American politics. populism The belief that the common person is every bit as good as someone with wealth and power. One of the most common targets of populist sentiment has been concentrated economic power and the people who exercise it.
- 358. The Populist movement of the 1890s aimed at taming the new corporations of the day, especially the banks and the railroads. Corporations were targets of popular hostility during the dark days of the Great Depression and in the 1970s, when agitation by consumer and environmental groups made the lives of some corporate executives extremely uncomfortable. Populism is a staple of contemporary conservatism in the United States, with its attacks on Hollywood, the media, and academic elitists. Members of the modern Tea Party movement directed their anger at bankers and bank bailouts, big government and taxes, and bicoastal elites who fail, they believe, to appreciate the values of ordinary Americans. Occupy Wall Street supporters also denigrated Wall Street and a government that seemed to consistently come to its aid. Donald Trump—though the latter is notoriously wealthy—based his populist appeals during his successful election campaign battle in 2016 against Washington elites, including the leaders of his own political party. Bernie Sanders’s run for the Democratic nomination was focused on Wall Street greed and government policies that favored the wealthy. Populism celebrates the ordinary person. Given this widespread belief, it behooves political candidates in America to portray themselves as ordinary folks, with tastes and lifestyles very much like everyone else’s. How else might one explain private school-
- 359. educated and aristocratically born-and-bred George H. W. Bush expressing his fondness for pork rinds and country and western music during the 1988 presidential campaign? His son, George W. Bush—a student at 63 a prestigious prep school, an undergraduate at Yale, and an MBA student at Harvard—wanted to be seen (and perhaps saw himself) as a hard-working rancher on his Texas spread. Donald Trump, though very wealthy, likes to speak of himself as an ordinary guy from Queens, New York, with a fondness for fast food. Religious The United States is, by any measure, a strikingly religious society. Polls conducted over the past three or four decades show that more Americans believe in God, regularly attend church, and say that religion is important in their lives, than people in most of the other rich democracies (see Figure 4.11 ), though there is mounting evidence that the category “no religious affiliation” is rising among younger Americans. This commitment to religion has existed from the beginning of the republic and is integrally related to the
- 360. practice of politics in the United States—something that often baffles foreign observers. Most important, political leaders in the United States have invoked religious sentiments in their public pronouncements, and Americans have come to expect religious references when leaders talk about public matters. During election contests, most American politicians at some point talk about their faith and their belief in God, something that is almost unheard of in other rich democracies. Prayer breakfasts are quite common in the White House, whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. Such events do not occur at 10 Downing Street in Great Britain or at the Élysée Palace in France. 64 65 FIGURE 4.11 RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT An international survey found that America is among the more religious rich democracies. How might this affect the kinds of policies that Americans want government to create? SOURCE: Win-Gallup International Global Index of Religiosity
- 361. and Atheism (2012), http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf. PRAYING BEFORE DOING BATTLE Public displays of piety by political leaders are common and expected in the United States, something quite rare in other rich democracies. Here, President Obama and Republican congressional leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor say a prayer together before holding a contentious meeting on issues dividing the president and congressional Republicans in 2013. How does the strong religious culture of the United States affect the kinds of public policies we have here compared to other countries? Religious faith affects politics in important ways. First, it influences which issues become part of political debate and election campaigns. For example, school prayer and the teaching of evolution have not been part of the political debate in many other democracies as they have here. Second, religious belief has been important in drawing ideological lines. While churches and religious believers have often
- 362. been on the liberal side of the political divide, to be sure—note the substantial involvement of religious leaders, organizations, and believers in the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements— strong religious beliefs are most associated with conservative tendencies in American politics. Public opinion polls show that the most religiously committed Americans (of all denominations) are also the most conservative Americans on issues ranging from abortion to prayer in the schools, social welfare, and military spending; church attendance, in the end, is a better predictor of party affiliation than income. This suggests that conservative ideas based in religious belief have a head start over liberal beliefs on a wide range of public issues. Using the Democracy Standard American Society, Economy, and Political Culture: How Democratic? Throughout this book, we have examined a number of structural factors that influence American politics. This chapter examined the main features of American society, its economy, its political culture, and its place in the world and considered how each influences important aspects of politics and government in the United States. All of these structural factors are interrelated. Constitutional rules are substantially shaped by our
- 363. beliefs about the nature of the individual, society, and government, which make up our political culture. Our political culture, in turn—with its celebration of the market, competitive individualism, and private property— is perfectly attuned to a capitalist economy. How the economy operates and develops has a lot to do with the American people (where people live, what kind of work they do, and so on), as does the nation’s place in the world. The demographic characteristics of the American population trigger their own effects; the populace’s level of education and skill has a lot to do with American economic performance, for instance. The interplay of these factors—and the ways in which they are interpreted and played out through government policy and action—affects the quality and nature of democracy in the United States. But there is some disagreement on whether or not the American political structure, created by economics, culture, and social realities, fosters democracy. On the one side, some argue that American society is open, diverse, and filled with opportunity for those who are ambitious and hard working. Economic growth is raising the living standards of the population (if modestly for most), which bodes well for democracy; note the evidence that high living standards and democracy seem to go together. Also, economic, technological, and social changes—including the Internet, ease of travel, medical advances, and more—are allowing more and more people to develop their unique abilities and capacities, to become informed, to link together with others who share their public concerns, to get involved in community and political affairs, and to have their
- 364. voices heard by public officials. Most importantly, perhaps, these developments make it possible for Americans to shape their own lives, improving their situations and those of their families, without the help of government. In short, equality of opportunity and technological and social changes are making American society more hospitable to democracy. Yet others counter that the American society fails to live up to the promise of equal opportunity and access to government, making it, in fact, far less democratic than other wealthy democracies. The economic system of the United States, while incredibly productive, distributes wealth and income in a highly unequal way, leaving the very few at the top with the lion’s share. This leads to substantial inequalities in political power and influence among different income and wealth groups as well as dividing Americans along ethnic, racial, religious, and regional lines. Such divisions undermine democracy because economic inequality always spills over into political inequality. To make matters worse, the American political culture celebrates an extreme form of individualism and antigovernment sentiment that makes it hard for Americans to agree on a way to use government to best serve public purposes. Chapter 4 Review the Chapter America’s Population The most important changes in the American population are its
- 365. diversification along ethnic, religious, and racial lines and its relocation the Sun Belt. These changes have enhanced the political influence of the southern and western states in Congress and in presidential elections. Minority racial and ethnic groups have gained political influence as their numbers have grown. Income and wealth in the United States are more unequally distributed than in any other rich democracy and are becoming more so. Poverty increased during the 2000s and stayed there since, and median household income has been stagnant from the late 1990s to the present. Describe the effect of recent demographic trends on American politics. 4.1 America’s Economy The American economy is a capitalist economy that has evolved from a highly competitive, small-enterprise form to one that is corporate- dominated and with a global reach. The American economy has shown itself to be highly efficient
- 366. and wealth producing, resulting in a high standard of living, yet it has also produced high levels of income and wealth inequality and periods of economic instability and financial difficulties. The political responses to difficult economic times like the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Great Recession and jobless recovery of 2008–2012, have increased the role of government in society and the economy. Globalization, technological change, and hypercompetition between firms has transformed the American economy. The middle class has been hard hit by emerging trends in the new American economy. America’s Political Culture Discuss how the American economy shapes government and politics. 4.2 Americans believe strongly in individualism, limited government, and free enterprise. Beliefs about democracy, liberty, the primacy of the common people, and a strong religious orientation also help define the
- 367. political culture. The political culture shapes American ideas about what the good society should look like, the appropriate role for government, and the possibilities for self-government. Describe the values and beliefs that make up the American political culture and how they affect politics and government. 4.3 Learn the Terms capitalism An economic system characterized by private ownership of productive assets where most decisions about how to use these assets are made by individuals and firms operating in a market rather than by government. demographic Pertaining to the statistical study and description of a population. globalization The tendency of information, products, and financial capital to flow across national borders, with the effect of more tightly integrating the global economy. gross domestic product (GDP) Monetary value of all goods and services produced in a nation each year, excluding income residents earn abroad.
- 368. labor union An organization representing employees that bargains with employers over wages, benefits, and working conditions. median household income The midpoint of all households ranked by income. political culture The set of core beliefs in a country that help shape how people behave politically and what they believe government should do. populism The belief that the common person is every bit as good as someone with wealth and power. poverty line The federal government’s calculation of the amount of income families of various sizes need to stay out of poverty. In 2016, it was $24,300 for a family of four. Part 3 Political Linkage Chapter 5 Public Opinion AWAITING EVACUATION A marine waits for a medical evacuation helicopter during the bloody battle for Hill 937 in Vietnam near the Laos border. Over the
- 369. course of the conflict in Vietnam, rising casualties and limited success undermined public support for the war and led to an eventual change in U.S. policy and an American withdrawal. What role should the public play in making decisions about when the country goes to war? Should we trust the president and other policy makers to make these decisions for us? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy Vietnam: A Matter of Opinion? On August 2, 1964, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. destroyer Maddox, while on “routine patrol” in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam, had undergone an “unprovoked attack” by three North Vietnamese PT boats. Two days later, the Pentagon reported a “second deliberate attack.” MEASURING PUBLIC OPINION Describe public opinion research and modern methods of polling. POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION: LEARNING POLITICAL BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES Explain how the agents of socialization influence the development of political attitudes. HOW AND WHY PEOPLE’S POLITICAL ATTITUDES
- 370. DIFFER Describe the forces that create and shape political attitudes. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION: ARE THE PEOPLE FIT TO RULE? Assess whether the public is capable of playing a meaningful role in steering public policy. 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 In a nationwide television broadcast, President Lyndon Johnson declared that these hostile actions required retaliation. Five days later, on August 7, the Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution by a vote of 98–2, thus approving “all necessary measures” to repel any armed attack and to assist any ally in the region. A legal basis for full U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War had been established. Surveys indicated that 48 percent of the public supported military action; only 14 percent wanted the United States to negotiate a settlement or get out of Vietnam. Years later, the Pentagon Papers, a study commissioned by the Pentagon and leaked by defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg, revealed that the Maddox was part of a secret, large-scale effort to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime that included attacks on coastal villages and defense installations. The number of U.S. troops in Vietnam rose rapidly, reaching more than 530,000 by the end of 1968, and casualties increased correspondingly, with just over 30,000 Americans
- 371. killed by the end of that year. Television news began to display weekly casualty counts in the hundreds, along with pictures of dead American soldiers arriving home in body bags. As politicians put it, the war became expensive in “American blood and treasure.” Although in 1965 only 24 percent of Americans said sending troops to Vietnam had been a mistake, by December 1967, pressure to end the war was mounting. About as many people (45 percent) agreed as disagreed with the proposition that it had been a “mistake” to send troops to Vietnam. 1 2 Then catastrophe struck. In January 1968, during Vietnam’s Tet holiday, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, which comprised massive attacks throughout South Vietnam, including an assault on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The American public was shocked by televised scenes of urban destruction, bloody corpses, and marines bogged down in the rubble in the ancient city of Hue. After Tet, criticism of the war mushroomed—by October 1968, 54 percent of Americans said the war had been a mistake, and only 37 percent said it had not. President Johnson, staggered by a surprisingly strong vote for antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, withdrew as a candidate for reelection. Anger over Vietnam continued to roil the American public throughout the remainder of the presidential campaign and contributed to the election defeat of the Democrats in November. After taking office in January 1969, Richard Nixon began withdrawing troops from Vietnam, with the aim of gradually turning the fighting over to South Vietnamese forces. Soon, the
- 372. American public called for more rapid troop reductions, telling pollsters they wanted America out of Vietnam even if it led to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. The shift in mood was propelled, no doubt, by rising American casualties, numerous congressional hearings on the conduct of the war, and massive antiwar demonstrations. By mid-1973, most American troops were gone from Vietnam. * * * * * The Vietnam story shows how opinion is affected by events and their representation in the news media and how government officials can sometimes lead or manipulate opinion, especially when it concerns obscure matters in faraway lands. The story also suggests that public opinion, even on foreign policy matters, can sometimes have a strong effect on policy making. The complex interaction among public opinion, the news media, elected officials, and foreign policy on Vietnam in the 1960s is not very different from what happened with the war in Iraq. A substantial majority of the public, believing Bush administration claims about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (since proven untrue), supported the invasion of that country in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. By 2006, however, a majority of Americans were telling pollsters that the war was a mistake, a shift in mood propelled by mounting American casualties, a lack of progress in achieving either democracy or stability in Iraq, and news about the mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. The shift in public attitudes on Iraq was a major factor in the Democratic Party’s victory in the 2006 congressional elections and Barack Obama’s first presidential win, in 2008. Thinking Critically about this Chapter
- 373. This chapter is about public opinion, how it is formed, and what effect it has on American politics and government. Applying the Framework You will learn in this chapter how structural factors—including historical events, political culture, and economic and social change—as well as family and community socialization—shape public opinion. You will also learn how public opinion influences the behavior of political leaders and shapes many of the policies of the federal government. Using the Democracy Standard Based on the standard of democracy, public opinion should play an important role in determining what government does. However, you will see that while there is some evidence that public opinion can affect policy outcomes, questions remain about how well public opinion can be measured, how prepared citizens are to steer policy, and how and when public officials respond to what the public thinks. Measuring Public Opinion Public opinion is particularly important in a democracy if we understand democracy to be fundamentally about the rule of the people. For the people to rule, they must have their voice heard by those in government. Elections are one way to identify what the people want, but candidates often state their positions on a broad array of policy matters during campaigns. Thus, the fact that a
- 374. voter chose one candidate over another does not necessarily mean they support all of the positions that candidate adopted during the campaign. A more direct way to figure out what policies the people want is to survey them directly. Decades ago, people who wanted to find out anything about public opinion had to guess, based on what their barbers or taxi drivers said, on what appeared in letters to newspaper editors, or on what sorts of one-liners won cheers at political rallies. But the views of one’s personal acquaintances, letter writers, or rally audiences may be quite different from those of the public as a whole. Similarly, angry people who call in to radio talk shows or rant on Reddit may hold views that are not typical of most Americans. Fortunately, social scientists have developed some fairly reliable tools for measuring the opinions of large groups of people like the American public. Describe public opinion research and modern methods of polling. 5.1 Public Opinion Polls A scientific survey eliminates much of the guesswork in
- 375. measuring public opinion. A scientific survey consists of systematic interviews conducted by trained professional interviewers who ask a standardized set of questions of a seemingly small number of randomly chosen Americans. A national survey usually polls between a thousand and fifteen hundred people. However, such surveys, if conducted properly, can reveal with remarkable accuracy what the broader public is thinking. scientific survey A survey conducted using probability sampling to measure the attitudes of a representative sample of the public. The secret of success is to make sure that the sample interviewed is representative of the entire population; that is, that the proportions of people in the sample who are young, old, female, college- educated, black, rural, Catholic, southern, western, religious, secular, liberal, conservative, Democratic, Republican, and so forth, are all about the same as in the U.S. population as a whole. If the sample is not representative of the broader population, surveys may produce inaccurate estimates of what the public wants. This potential problem was infamously illustrated by a survey conducted by Literary
- 376. Digest before the 1936 presidential election. That survey predicted that Republican Alf Landon would defeat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a landslide. Although Literary Digest surveyed millions of Americans, they surveyed a highly unrepresentative sample consisting of Literary Digest subscribers, automobile owners, and people with telephones. Magazine subscriptions and automobiles were luxuries at the time. As it turned out, wealthy Literary Digest subscribers were much more likely to support Landon than the general population. Ultimately Roosevelt defeated Landon handily, winning over 60 percent of the vote nationwide. Survey researchers typically identify a sample of respondents that is representative by interviewing a random sample of the population; this is called probability sampling . This approach ensures that each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected for an interview. Then survey researchers can tally all of the responses to a given question and compute the percentages of people answering one way or another. Statisticians use probability theory to estimate how much the survey’s results are likely to differ from what the whole population would say if asked the same questions. Findings from a
- 377. random sample of fifteen hundred people have a 95 percent chance of accurately reflecting the views of the whole population within about two or three percentage points. When survey results are reported, this sampling error is typically labeled the margin of error.3 probability sampling A survey technique designed so that every individual in a population of interest (e.g., the American public) has an equal chance of being included in the pool of survey respondents. sampling error Statistical uncertainty in estimates associated with the fact that surveys do not interview every individual in a population of interest. Challenges of Political Polling Those who use poll results—including citizens encountering political polls in newspapers and on television—should be aware of the following challenges researchers who conduct polls must grapple with, and what competent pollsters try to do about them. Issues of Sampling One set of challenges scholars and survey professionals worry
- 378. about are tied to the factors that make it difficult to draw a truly random sample that is representative of the entire population. In some cases, the problems seem to be getting worse: Telephone surveys are the most commonly used method for conducting surveys, but because Americans are inundated by phone calls from advertisers who may try to disguise themselves as researchers, they have become less willing to answer pollsters’ questions. In addition, many Americans screen calls and refuse to pick up the phone when they do not recognize the caller’s number. One study found that response rates to telephone surveys have fallen from about 36 percent in 1997 to 9 percent in 2016. More than half of all Americans have cut their reliance on landlines and use only cell phones. Many people who pay for plans with a limited number of minutes each month do not want to use up their monthly allotment talking to pollsters. In addition, federal law requires that pollsters dial cell numbers manually, so pollsters cannot use autodialing technology to make these calls. Instead, they must hire people to dial phone numbers, making cell phone calls more expensive. The Internet, it would seem, offers a promising new way to conduct public opinion surveys. However, most online surveys fall prey to the problem of nonrandom sampling. Not all Americans own computers and not all computer owners regularly use the Internet.
- 379. Even if everyone did have a computer with Internet access, it would be difficult to identify a random sample of people to interview. Some firms are working on ways to overcome these 4 5 obstacles through statistical techniques and innovative sampling procedures, but polling professionals and scholars continue to debate how to best leverage the power of the internet to measure public opinion. These days, telephone surveys are by far the most common way that professional survey firms conduct polls. The top academic and commercial polling firms use repeated callbacks and samples that combine cell and landline phone numbers to address some of the polling challenges just discussed, but the changing technology environment may mean that the challenges of surveying a random sample of people over the phone will get worse before they get better. However, the samples these organizations use appear to closely reflect how the whole population would have responded if everyone in the United States had been asked the same questions at the moment the survey was carried out. This is demonstrated by the fact that surveys conducted just before an election typically predict the outcome of the election extremely well. For example, although many pundits characterized polling in the run-up to the 2016
- 380. presidential election as a massive failure, on the eve of the election, national polls indicated that Hillary Clinton had a lead of approximately 3–4 percentage points nationwide. Although she lost the election because she failed to win enough states to prevail in the Electoral College, she won the popular vote by about 2 percentage points. In other words, the results of national polls in 2016 did quite well at predicting the share of the vote each candidate ended up winning nationally. There is no doubt that some state level polls in the 2016 election overestimated Clinton’s support, but, there is reason to suspect that 6 these errors were tied to factors such as the difficulty of predicting which respondents will actually turn out to vote, rather than fundamental problems with targeting a representative sample of the public. However, it is crucial to be vigilant when reading polling results to ensure that results have been produced by quality researchers who can be relied on to use best practices, even if such practices are more expensive for them. A good rule of thumb is to see which polls public opinion scholars and other specialists in American
- 381. politics rely on most. CAN ONLINE SURVEYS “WORK”? Some firms are working on ways to field online surveys that yield accurate estimates of public opinion. For example, YouGov is a web- based survey firm with a diverse pool of millions of panelists who have agreed to complete surveys about topics ranging from their favorite foods and companies to their attitudes about current events. When 7 they conduct a survey they invite a pool of individuals from their panel that has characteristics that mirror those of the national public to participate. They then use statistical techniques to correct for any remaining differences between those who complete the survey and the broader public. This approach is far cheaper than telephone or face-to-face surveys and the conclusions these surveys reach about public opinion are generally similar to those found using more traditional methods. However, because respondents are not actually drawn from the public at random, some worry that respondents may not be truly representative of the broader public. For example,
- 382. although an online survey may include an appropriate number of Hispanic respondents, these respondents may have characteristics or attitudes that are systematically different from those of the broader Hispanic American population. Telephone surveys face a number of daunting challenges. Which do you think we should be more skeptical of: the results of telephone surveys or the results of carefully conducted online surveys? Issues of Wording The wording of questions is important because the way a question is phrased can affect the way it is answered. Consider the following issues of wording: Attaching the name of a president to a survey question—as in “Do you support President Trump’s proposal to reduce environmental regulations?”—can affect how people respond. In this case, those who like President Trump may voice greater support for cutting environmental regulations than they would if the president were not mentioned. “Closed-ended” or “forced-choice” questions, which ask respondents to choose from a list of answers, do not always reveal
- 383. what people are thinking on their own or what they would come up with after a few minutes of thought or discussion. So, responses to these questions may not accurately capture how people feel about political matters. Some scholars also believe that closed-ended questions create situations for people to express opinions about matters on which they really don’t have opinions because they can simply choose a prepared answer from a list of options. For these reasons, “open-ended” questions are sometimes asked in order to yield more spontaneous answers, and small discussion groups or “focus groups” are brought together to observe opinions that emerge when people talk among themselves about topics that a moderator introduces. Issues of Intensity and Timing Often, while the wording of a question may be perfectly acceptable, answers may not capture the relative intensity of respondents’ feelings about some policy or political issue. Pollsters attempt to address this shortcoming by building intensity measures into responses offered to survey participants. Most commonly, pollsters provide more than simple “agree or disagree” answer options, including instead a set of five to seven options ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly 8
- 384. disagree.” At other times, surveys ask respondents to rank the importance of certain problems or policies. THE POLLSTERS GET IT WRONG Harry Truman ridicules an edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune that proclaims his Republican challenger, Thomas Dewey, president. Opinion polls stopped asking questions too early in the 1948 election campaign, missing Truman’s last-minute surge. Top pollsters today survey likely voters right to the end of the campaign. Can you think of any recent examples where a candidate appeared to have a comfortable lead in the polls, only to see it melt away in the weeks leading up to Election Day? The importance of considering the intensity of people’s preferences can be illustrated with an example. Over the past several years, several high profile mass shootings—including the 2017 shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that left dozens dead and hundreds injured and the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—have brought renewed attention to gun policy. A substantial majority of Americans support policies like background checks
- 385. for gun purchases, but these policies typically fail to become law. Why? Consider the analytical framework shown in Figure 5.1 , which focuses attention on structural, political linkage, and government factors that help answer that question. One explanation may be that Americans who support background checks for gun purchases are less likely to base their vote on where a candidate stands on that issue than those who oppose expanding these checks. If so, pollsters must try to account for this if they wish to understand how public opinion is likely to affect gun control policy. FIGURE 5.1 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: WHY SO LITTLE FEDERAL GUN LEGISLATION? © Edward S. Greenberg The timing of a survey can also be important. For elections, in particular, polling needs to happen as close to Election Day as possible in order not to miss last-minute switches and surges. Most famously, survey organizations in 1948 predicted a comfortable victory for Republican Thomas Dewey over Democratic president Harry Truman, feeling so confident of the outcome that they stopped polling several weeks before Election Day, missing changes in public
- 386. sentiments late in the campaign. Similarly, in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, pollsters and pundits may have failed to fully appreciate late shifts in voter preferences in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan because polling in those states was relatively sparse.9 Political Socialization: Learning Political Beliefs and Attitudes Most Americans share certain core values about the nature of human beings, society, and the political order. These core beliefs— including beliefs in individualism, limited government, and a market economy, among others—make up the American political culture. In addition to their overarching core beliefs, Americans also have political attitudes about the specific political issues of the day, including attitudes about government policies, public officials, political parties, and candidates. Public opinion refers to the political attitudes expressed by ordinary people and considered as a whole— particularly as revealed by polling surveys. core values Individuals’ views about the fundamental nature of human beings, society, the economy, and the role of government; taken together, they constitute the political culture.
- 387. Explain how the agents of socialization influence the development of political attitudes. 5.2 political attitudes Individuals’ views and preferences about public policies, political parties, candidates, government institutions, and public officials. public opinion The aggregated political attitudes of ordinary people as revealed by surveys. The opinions and attitudes revealed by public opinion polls do not form in a vacuum. A number of important factors—among them families, schools, churches, the news media, and social groups with which individuals are most closely associated—significantly influence our political beliefs and attitudes. Political scientists refer to the process by which individuals acquire these beliefs and attitudes as political socialization . The instruments by which beliefs and attitudes are conveyed to individuals in society (such as our families, schools, and so on) are called agents of socialization . political socialization
- 388. The process by which individuals come to have certain core beliefs and political attitudes. agents of socialization The institutions and individuals that shape the core beliefs and attitudes of people. Political socialization is a lifetime process in the sense that people engage in political learning throughout the life-course. However, childhood and adolescence seem to be particularly important times for people’s incorporation of core beliefs and general outlooks about the political world, especially party identification, ideological leanings, and racial and ethnic identity, though scholars are beginning to believe that early adulthood is almost as important. The family plays a particularly important role in shaping the outlooks of children. It is in the family—whether in a traditional or nontraditional family—that children pick up their basic outlook on life and the world around them. It is mainly from their family, for example, that children learn to trust or distrust others, something that affects a wide range of political attitudes later in life. It is from the family, and the neighborhood where the family lives, that children learn about which
- 389. 10 11 ethnic or racial group, social class or income group, and religion they belong to and begin to pick up attitudes that are typical of these groups. In dinner table conversations and other encounters with parents, children also start to acquire ideas about the country—ideas about patriotism, for example—and their first vague ideological ideas: whether government is a good or bad thing, whether taxes are a good or bad thing, and whether certain people and groups in society (welfare recipients, rich people, corporations, and the like) are to be admired or not. Most important, because it represents the filter through which a great deal of future political learning takes place, many children adopt the political party identifications of their parents— especially if the parents share the same party identification and are politically engaged. One study surveyed seniors who graduated from high school in 1965 and then re-interviewed those same people in 1997. In spite of the momentous political events that occurred over those 32 years—including the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War, Roe v. Wade decision, and end of the Cold War—almost two-
- 390. thirds of seniors who shared their parents’ party affiliation in 1965 reported identifying with the same party in 1997. Schools are also important as agents of political socialization. In the early grades, through explicit lessons and the celebration of national symbols—such as the flag in the classroom, recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, pictures on the walls of famous presidents, patriotic pageants, and the like—schools convey lessons about American identity and patriotism. Schools may also teach children about the 12 political process by sponsoring mock presidential elections and elections to student government. Most students in most school districts also take courses in American history and American government and continue learning about participation through student government. Popular culture—movies, music, and advertising—also shapes the budding political outlooks of young people. To be sure, most of the messages coming from the popular culture have more to do with style, fashion, and other matters that are not explicitly political. But popular culture also can convey political messages. For example, many
- 391. musicians embed political messages in their lyrics and themes of sleazy politicians and untrustworthy or corrupt elected officials are quite common in Hollywood movies. 13 LEARNING ABOUT DEMOCRACY Children gain many of their initial ideas about the American political system in their elementary school classrooms. In those early grades, children gain impressions about the nation, its most important symbols (such as the flag), and its most visible and well-known presidents. They also learn the rudiments of democracy. How might greater efforts to encourage young Americans to be active participants in the American political system change political outcomes in the United States? Political socialization does not stop when children become adults. Substantial evidence shows that a college education affects people’s outlooks about public policies and the role of government. People with a college education, for example, are more likely to support government programs to protect the environment. We know that people’s political outlooks are shaped by major events or
- 392. developments that affect the country during their young adult years. In the past, such events have included the Great Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement and the countercultural revolution of the 1960s, the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The Great Recession and housing crash that began in late 2007 may similarly shape long-term outlooks as sustained economic troubles have derailed many people’s hopes of attaining the American Dream. The effect of these events and developments seems most pronounced for young people who are just coming to have a sense of political awareness. Political scientists identify this phenomenon as a generational effect . Thus, young 14 people coming of age politically during the 1960s turned out to be much more liberal throughout their lives than young people coming of age during the 1950s or during the Reagan years. generational effect The long lasting effect of major political events —particularly those that occur when an individual is coming of age politically—on people’s political attitudes.
- 393. How and Why People’s Political Attitudes Differ As we learned in the previous section, a broad range of socialization agents—from the media and popular entertainment to government leaders and the schools—reinforce one another to shape our ideas about what it means to be an American and to live in the United States. However, a variety of other forces, including how we think about who we are as individuals, where we live, and other life experiences, shape our general political outlooks and our specific attitudes in distinctive ways. In this section, we explore some of the most significant factors that define and often divide us in our political views. Party Identification One of the most influential political characteristics shaped by the process of socialization is party identification. More than any other factor, party identification—whether people think of themselves as Democrats, Republicans, or Independents—structures how people see the political world. Party identification also plays a powerful role in
- 394. Describe the forces that create and shape political attitudes.5.3 15 determining which government polices people support. When researchers measure people’s party identification in surveys, they typically first ask respondents whether they think of themselves as Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or something else. Those who do not identify as Democrats or Republicans are then asked whether they think of themselves as being closer to the Republican or Democratic Party. Researchers refer to those who say they feel closer to the Republican Party as Republican leaners and those who say they feel closer to the Democratic Party as Democratic leaners. Interestingly, these partisan leaners tend to behave remarkably similarly to those who unreservedly identify as Democrats or Republicans—for example, Republican leaners tend to support the same policies and vote for the same candidates as “regular” Republicans. partisan leaners Individuals who say they do not identify as Democrats or Republicans, but say they feel closer to either the Democratic or Republican Party. As discussed below, political issues are often complex and few
- 395. people have time to become fully informed about every issue. One of the reasons party identification is such a powerful force in American 15 16 politics is that many people look to communications from members of their preferred party for guidance about how to make sense of complicated political questions. When a new political issue is being debated, people who identify as Democrats may rely on cues from Democratic leaders and choose to adopt the position supported by most Democrats. Similarly, a growing body of research finds that partisans are inclined to take whatever position is at odds with that taken by the opposing party. For example, Democrats are inclined to say they oppose policies that they hear Republicans support and support policies they hear Republicans oppose. Over the past several decades, Democratic and Republican politicians have taken positions that are further and further apart, and Democratic and Republican voters have largely followed suit. More than in the
- 396. past, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to vote for Republican candidates, to approve of Republican presidents, and to favor policies associated with the Republican Party. Thus, Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to support big business and to oppose stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, and abortion. Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to support government programs that are designed to help the poor and racial minorities, that protect LGBTQ rights, that regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and that support abortion on demand. There is still some debate about exactly how polarized the American public has become, but there is little doubt that Democrats and Republicans tend not to see eye to eye on many of the issues of the day. Table 5.1 documents big differences between Republicans 17 18 and Democrats on some of the major issues of the day, and Figure 5.2 shows that the differences between them are growing ever wider—Republicans increasingly identify as conservatives while more and more Democrats identify themselves as liberal. Today, Republicans and Democrats—particularly those who are most committed and active—face each other across a wide chasm.
- 397. TABLE 5.1 PARTISANSHIP AND ISSUE POSITIONS Republicans Democrats % Identifying as conservative 70% 17% % Who say the government in Washington ought to reduce the income differences between the rich and the poor 23% 69% % Who say the government should help people with medical bills 23% 69% % Who say the law should require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she can buy a gun 58% 80% % Who favor legalizing marijuana 43% 66% % Who say a woman should be able to have an abortion for any reason 30% 53% Source: General Social Survey (2016).
- 398. FIGURE 5.2 TRENDS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARTY IDENTIFICATION AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY Party identification and political ideology are becoming more closely related. Republican identifiers—already more conservative than Democratic Party identifiers in the 1970s—have become dramatically more likely to identify themselves as conservative. At the same time, Democrats are becoming more liberal. This deep ideological divide between the parties has become a key feature of modern American politics and contributes to much of the incivility and intensity of public affairs in recent years. This growing gap between Democrats and Republicans shows up across a wide range of issues. SOURCE: General Social Survey, Cumulative Data File (1972– 2016). Race and Ethnicity Polling reveals significant differences in political attitudes across racial and ethnic lines. Although historically white ethnic groups like the Irish used to have distinctive political preferences, these differences between white Americans of different ethnic backgrounds have largely
- 399. disappeared. In contrast, white and African Americans differ substantially in their political attitudes. Hispanics and Asian Americans also have some distinctive political opinions. African Americans On most core beliefs about the American system, few differences are discernible between African Americans and other Americans. Similar percentages of each group believe, for example, that people can get ahead by working hard, that providing for equal opportunity is more important than ensuring equal outcomes, and that the federal government should balance its budget. Equal numbers say they are proud to be Americans and believe democracy to be the best form of government. On a range of other political issues, however, the racial divide looms large, particularly with respect to what role government should play in helping people and making America more equal. Partisanship is one important area where African Americans differ from whites. African Americans stayed loyal to the Republican Party (the party of Lincoln and of Reconstruction) long after the Civil War. Like many Americans, they became Democrats in large proportions in 19
- 400. 20 the 1930s during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal greatly expanded the federal government’s role in providing safety nets for the poor and unemployed. During the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, African Americans began to identify overwhelmingly as Democrats and continue to do so today. In 1960, about 58 percent of white Americans and 72 percent of black Americans identified as Democrats or said they leaned toward the Democratic Party—a difference of about 14 percentage points. These days, the gap in partisanship between white and black Americans is massive. In 2016, African Americans were the most solidly Democratic of any group in the population: 72 percent said they were Democrats or independents who leaned toward the Democrats, compared with only 39 percent of white Americans—a gap of over 30 percentage points (see Figure 5.3 ). Fewer than 10 percent of African Americans identify as Republicans or Republican “leaners.” In 2016, 88 percent of African Americans voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton; only 8 percent supported Republican Donald Trump.21
- 401. FIGURE 5.3 PARTY IDENTIFICATION AMONG VARIOUS DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS, 2016 This figure displays how partisanship varies across demographic groups in the United States. We include “partisan leaners” with partisan respondents. Party identification varies across demographic groups. Most notably, black Americans overwhelmingly identify as Democrats. SOURCE: General Social Survey (2016). African Americans also tend to be more liberal than whites on a range of policy matters (see Figure 5.4 ). More also identify themselves as liberals than as conservatives or moderates, a pattern almost exactly reversed among whites. African Americans, too, are more likely than Americans in general to favor government regulation of corporations and to favor labor unions. This liberalism springs, in part, from African Americans’ economically disadvantaged position in American society and the still real effects of slavery and discrimination. FIGURE 5.4 THE RACIAL AND ETHNIC DIVIDE Public opinion polls reveal substantial differences in attitudes
- 402. across racial and ethnic groups on some issues, but less of a gap on others. 22 23 (Figure shows percent agreeing with each statement.) SOURCE: Data from General Social Survey (2016). Divisions with white Americans are most apparent on matters that focus particularly on black Americans. For example, 80 percent of African Americans but only 47 percent of whites think the government spends too little on improving the conditions of Blacks in the country. Similarly, while 43 percent of black Americans say that, because of past discrimination, blacks should be given preference in hiring and promotion, only 17 percent of white Americans support this idea. Black Americans also tend to report lower levels of trust in government institutions like law enforcement. Following a string of heavily covered incidents where police officers were accused of unjustly killing a black suspect, only 30 percent of black Americans reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the police—lower than any other group.
- 403. Hispanic Americans Hispanics—people of Spanish-speaking background—are the fastest- growing ethnic group and the largest minority group in the nation. As a whole, the Hispanic population identifies much more with the Democrats than with the Republicans; among this group, Democrats enjoy a 53 percent to 19 percent advantage over Republicans (refer again to Figure 5.3 ). However, the Hispanic population itself is quite diverse. Cuban Americans, many of them refugees from the Castro regime, have generally tended to be conservative, Republican, strongly anticommunist, and skeptical of government programs. 24 25 However, some evidence suggests that support for Republicans is waning among Cuban Americans. One study of Cubans living in the Miami area found that between 1995 and 2008, the share of Cubans identifying as Republican dropped from 73 to 51 percent—a dramatic drop given that party identification tends to be quite stable. This said, in the 2016 election, 54 percent of Cuban voters in Florida supported Trump. By contrast, only 26 percent of non-Cuban
- 404. Latinos in Florida reported voting for Trump. The much more numerous Americans of Mexican, Central American, or Puerto Rican ancestry are mostly Democrats and quite liberal on economic matters. In 2016, exit polls indicated that 65 percent of the Hispanic vote went to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Republican sponsorship and support for laws to crack down on illegal immigrants and on people who help them in Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama, among other states, may make this group view Democrats even more favorably in the future. This said, although many speculated Donald Trump’s harsh rhetoric about Mexican immigrants could do long-term damage to the Republican Party’s standing among Hispanic voters, exit polls showed that he fared better among Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did in 2012. Another factor that may be relevant is that, because Hispanics are predominantly Roman Catholic, one may expect them to be more conservative—and hence more attracted to the Republican Party—on social issues. On some issues, this is true. For example, Hispanics tend to be more conservative than Americans in general when it comes to the issue of abortion. However, on other issues—like those pertaining to homosexuality—their
- 405. preferences are similar to those of the rest of the population. 26 27 Asian Americans Asian Americans, a small but growing part of the U.S. population— about 6 percent of the population as of 2017—come from quite diverse backgrounds, with origins in the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, Japan, China, or elsewhere. As a group, Asian Americans are more educated and economically successful than the general population but are less likely to vote and express an interest in politics than people of equal educational and financial status. Though there is only sparse systematic research on the politically relevant attitudes of Asian Americans, we do know the following: On social issues, Asian Americans are somewhat more conservative than are other Americans; for example, a majority supports the death penalty and opposes same-sex marriage. On the role of government, they are more liberal, however. For example, a small majority supports efforts to provide universal health care. Importantly, though once split fairly
- 406. evenly between Republican and Democratic identifiers, they have been trending more Democratic in recent elections; in 2016, 65 percent voted for Clinton. Social Class Compared with much of the world, the United States has had little political conflict among people of different income or occupational groupings. In fact, few Americans have thought of themselves as members of a social “class” at all, but when asked to place 28 themselves in a class by survey researchers, more than half say they are middle class. Things may be changing, however, after the decades-long growth in inequality and rising popular anger with Wall Street. One survey in early 2015 reported that about 60 percent of Americans now think that the rich benefit most from government policies. Only 19 percent said policies benefit the poor most and a paltry 8 percent said the middle class benefits most from government policies. Since the time of the New Deal, low- and moderate-income people
- 407. have identified much more strongly with Democrats than with Republicans. Upper-income people have typically been more likely to identify as Republicans. Surveys conducted in 2016 indicated that about 50 percent of individuals in households making less than $30,000 a year identify as Democrats or Democratic leaners, compared with only 25 percent who identify as Republicans. In contrast, individuals living in households earning more than $75,000 a year are about equally likely to identify as Republicans or Democrats. People in union households have long favored the Democrats and continue to do so. About six in ten people in union households say they favor the Democrats. However, in 2016, exit polls showed that Clinton had won only 51 percent of the vote among voters from union households, compared with 43 percent who voted for Trump. It is important to be aware that the proportion of Americans who are members of labor unions is quite low compared with the proportion of the populations of other rich countries and has been steadily declining. 29 30 Lower-income people have some distinctive policy preferences.
- 408. Not surprisingly, they tend to favor more government help with jobs, housing, medical care, and the like, whereas the highest-income people, who would presumably pay more and benefit less from such programs, tend to oppose them. To complicate matters, many lower- and moderate-income people favor Republican conservative positions on such social issues as abortion, law and order, religion, civil rights, education, and gay rights, doing so primarily for religious and cultural reasons. Another group, non–college-educated, moderate- income white men, are less likely than in the past to identify with Democrats. Furthermore, some high-income people—especially those with postgraduate degrees—tend to be very liberal on lifestyle and social issues involving sexual behavior, abortion rights, free speech, and civil rights. They also tend to be especially eager for government action to protect the environment. But on the whole, upper-income people have been more likely than others to favor Republicans and conservative economic policies, while moderate- and lower-income Americans have been more likely to favor Democrats and liberal economic policies. 31
- 409. 32 ORGANIZED LABOR ON BOARD Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who run for and hold elective office can generally count on the support of union members, especially public sector employees. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 in San Francisco represents a large contingent of organized labor, including nurses, hospital staff, nursing home care providers, janitors, security guards, and dispatchers. How might Republicans enhance their appeal to labor? Geography Region is an important factor in shaping public opinion in the United States. Each region is distinctive, with the South especially so. Although southern distinctiveness has been reduced somewhat because of years of migration by southern blacks to northern cities, the movement of industrial plants and northern whites to the Sun Belt, and economic growth catching up with that of the North, the legacy of slavery and segregation, a large black population, and late industrialization have made the South a unique region in American politics.
- 410. Even now, white southerners tend to be somewhat less enthusiastic about civil rights than are northerners. Southern whites also tend to be more conservative than people in other regions on social issues, such as school prayer, crime, and abortion, and supportive of military spending and a strong foreign policy (although they remain fairly liberal on economic issues, such as government-sponsored health insurance, perhaps because incomes are lower in the South than elsewhere). The Northeast is the most liberal of any region on social and economic issues, and people from this region tend to identify as Democrats. On most policy issues and party identification, Midwesterners, appropriately, are about in the middle between the South and the Northeast. Pacific Coast residents resemble northeasterners in many respects, but people from the Rocky Mountain states, with the exception of those in Colorado and New Mexico, tend to be quite conservative, with majorities opposed to, for example, a big government role in health insurance. 33 34
- 411. These regional differences should not be exaggerated, however. Long-term trends show a narrowing in regional differences on many core beliefs and political attitudes. This is the outcome of years of migration of Americans from one region to another and the rise of a media and entertainment industry that is national in scale, beaming messages and information across regional lines. In addition, a focus on differences across regions and states can lead us to overlook stark variation within states—particularly pronounced differences in attitude between those living in rural and urban areas. We illustrate this important distinction in Figure 5.5 . FIGURE 5.5 35 36 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS BY COUNTY, 2016 This map shows presidential election results from 2016 at the county level. Notice how some states that we that we often think about as liberal—e.g., California and New York—have many counties where Trump won more votes than Clinton. Conversely, Texas—often thought of as a “deep red” state—has several counties
- 412. (primarily in urban areas) where Democratic candidates tend to do well. SOURCE: Data from Dave Leip, Election 2016, Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. State-level election outcomes suggest that the Northeast and West Coast are overwhelmingly Democratic, while the South and much of the middle of the country are predominantly Republican. However, although Illinois is a reliably “blue” (Democratic) state, this tendency is primarily driven by the huge number of Democratic voters in the Chicago area. Similarly, Texas is often thought of a “red state,” but Houston is a liberal leaning city and was one of the first cities in the country to elect an openly gay mayor. Education The level of formal education that people reach is closely related to their income level because education helps people earn more and because the wealthy can pay for more and better schooling for their children. This said, a substantial education gap in party affiliation has opened up over the past few years. Americans with less than a college degree are about evenly split between identifying as
- 413. Democrats and Republicans. However, 52 percent of those with a four-year college degree now identify as Democrats, with only 36 percent identifying with the Republican Party. As recently as 1994 these numbers were exactly reversed, with 54 percent of college graduates identifying as Republicans and only 39 percent identifying as Democrats. Among those who pursued education beyond a four- year degree the gap is even more pronounced: 63 percent identify as Democrats and only 31 percent identify as Republicans (in 1994 this group was evenly split between Democratic and Republican identifiers). Within every income stratum of the population, college- educated people are somewhat more liberal than others on noneconomic issues such as race, gay rights, and the environment. They are also more likely than other people in their same income stratum to favor multilateralism in international affairs, favoring the use of diplomacy, multination treaties, and the United Nations to solve global problems. Education is also generally considered the strongest single demographic predictor of participation in politics. College- educated people are much more likely to say that they vote, talk about politics, go to meetings, sign petitions, and write letters to officials than
- 414. people who have attained only an elementary or a high school education. The highly educated know more about politics. They know what they want and how to go about getting it—joining groups and writing letters, faxes, and e-mail messages to public officials. 37 38 Gender A partisan “gender gap” first appeared in the 1980s and persists today, with the percentage of women who identify as Republicans or Republican leaners notably lower than the percentage of men who identify as Republicans. The differences show up in elections; in 2016, only 42 percent of women voted for Republican Donald Trump, compared with 53 percent of men. However, although the partisan gender gap is real and persistent—women identify more with the Democrats and are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates—the scale of the gap generally has not been enormous, leading some scholars to suggest that the gender gap issue has been exaggerated. For example, many commentators—and many pre- election polls—suggested that the gender gap in the 2016 general
- 415. election would be particularly pronounced due to some of Donald Trump’s highly publicized comments about women. However, exit polls indicated that the gender gap was not dramatically different from the gap in the 2012 and 2008 elections. This said, polling data suggest that the gender gap has widened over the past few years. For example, analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center found that in 2017, 56 percent of women identified as Democrats or Democratic leaners, while only 37 percent identified as Republicans or Republican leaners. In sharp contrast, among men, Republicans hold a 48 to 44 percent advantage in party identification. Exit polls showed that almost 60 percent of women (compared to 47 percent of men) voted for the Democratic candidate in the 2018 midterm elections. 39 40 Women also differ somewhat from men in certain policy preferences (see Figure 5.6 ). Women tend to be somewhat more supportive of spending on education and policies that protect the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. Women tend to be more opposed to violence,
- 416. whether by criminals or by the state and tend to be more supportive of gun control policies than men. Over the years, women have been more likely than men to oppose capital punishment and the use of military force abroad and favored arms control and peace agreements. Perhaps surprisingly, the gender gap on the issue of abortion is quite small. FIGURE 5.6 THE GENDER GAP Although surveys find some differences between the political attitudes of men and women, they tend to be modest and do not appear across all issues. (Figure shows percent agreeing with each statement.) 41 42 SOURCE: Data from General Social Survey (2016). Age Younger citizens are less likely to identify with a political party than are older cohorts, although those who do are more likely identify with the Democratic Party. One particularly striking pattern that has emerged in the past few years is that the gender gap has become
- 417. enormous among Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996). Women in this age group identify as Democrats, rather than Republicans, by a margin of 70 to 23 percent. Although men in this age group are also more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans, the gap is much smaller: 49 to 41 percent. The young and the old also differ on certain matters that touch their particular interests: the draft in wartime, the drinking age, and, to some extent, Social Security and Medicare. But the chief difference between old and young has to do with the particular era in which they were raised. Those who were young during the 1960s were especially quick to favor civil rights for African Americans, for example. In recent years, young people have been especially concerned about environmental issues and income inequality and are much less supportive than other Americans of traditional or conservative social values on transgenderism, the role of women in society, and legalization of marijuana. More than any other age cohort, Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 support the idea of government-sponsored universal health insurance and permitting same-sex marriage. Figure 5.7 shows the relationship 43
- 418. 44 45 between people’s demographic characteristics and their political attitudes, including how younger and older Americans differ in their feelings about a number of policy matters. FIGURE 5.7 THE AGE GAP On some issues, like gun laws, there is little evidence of a divide between the attitudes of older and younger Americans. On others, like legalizing marijuana, surveys find huge differences. (Figure shows percent agreeing with each statement.) SOURCE: General Social Survey (2016). America’s youngest voters were particularly attracted to the Democrats’ youthful presidential candidate, Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012, with 66 percent voting for him in his first election and 60 percent voting for him in his second run for office. In 2016, although he did not secure the Democratic nomination, presidential candidate
- 419. Bernie Sanders—a self-described Democratic Socialist—was able to mount an unexpected challenge to Hillary Clinton, largely with the help of younger voters. A GENERATION EFFECT IN THE MAKING Major political and social events that occur when young people are coming of age can leave a lasting impression. Here, two children look on as hundreds of thousands of protesters converged on Washington, D.C. in March of 2018 to demand stricter gun laws. What current political and social events do you think will have enduring effects on young people’s political attitudes and behaviors? 46 Often social change occurs by generational replacement in which old ideas, like the Depression-era notion that women should stay at home and “not take jobs away from men,” die off with old people. But it is worth noting that older Americans are not necessarily entirely fixed in their views. Like other Americans, those older than 60 have become, over the past decade or so, more tolerant of homosexuality and more supportive of the idea of women pursuing careers.
- 420. Religion Religious differences along denominational lines are and have always been important in the United States. However, the differences between religiously observant people of all denominations and more secular Americans are becoming wider and more central to an understanding of contemporary American politics. Roman Catholics, who constitute about 24 percent of the U.S. population, provide a useful illustration of this pattern. Catholics were heavily Democratic after the New Deal but now resemble the majority of Americans in their party affiliations—pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Although Catholics have tended to be especially concerned with family issues and to support measures that promote law and order and morality (e.g., anti-pornography laws), many Americans who identify as Catholic disagree with long-held Church teachings on reproduction, supporting birth control and the right to have abortions in about the same proportion as other Americans. 47 48 LIBERAL BELIEVERS
- 421. Although they are a distinct minority among believers, an increasing number of religiously committed people of all denominations take liberal positions on matters such as global warming, economic inequality, and immigration reform. In December 2013, religiously motivated activists petitioned Congress to bring comprehensive immigration reform to a vote by carrying crosses across the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol. How does the use of explicitly religious symbols by political activists affect your view of religion as it relates to public policy? In contrast, the extent of an individual’s religious belief and practice— such as how frequently they attend religious services—is strongly associated with his or her political attitudes. The religiously49 committed, no matter the religious denomination, are far more likely to vote Republican (see Figure 5.8 ) and to hold conservative views than those who are less religiously committed. The gap between the religiously committed and other Americans—particularly those who say they never or almost never go to church—on matters of party identification, votes in elections, and attitudes about social issues has
- 422. become so wide and the debates so fierce that many have come to talk about America’s culture wars. On a range of issues— including Supreme Court appointments, abortion, LGBTQ rights, prayer in the public schools, and the teaching of evolution—passions on both sides of the divide have reached what can only be called a white-hot fever pitch. To be sure, much of the noise in the culture wars is generated by leaders of and activists in religiously affiliated organizations and advocacy groups, who perhaps exaggerate the degree to which Americans disagree on core beliefs and political attitudes. But, the battle between the most and least religiously observant and committed has helped heat up the passions in American politics because each group has gravitated to one or the other political party—the former to the Republicans and the latter to the Democrats—and become among the strongest campaign activists and financial contributors within them. 50 51 FIGURE 5.8
- 423. RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2016 (PERCENTAGE VOTING FOR EACH CANDIDATE) In the 2016 presidential election, 56 percent of individuals who reported attending religious services once a week or more voted for Trump, whereas only 40 percent of these people reported voting for Clinton. In contrast, 62 percent of those who said they never attend religious services reported voting for Clinton; Trump won only 31 percent of the votes from those who never attend religious services. SOURCE: “Election 2016: Exit Polls.” New York Times, November 8, 2016, accessed November 11, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/elect ion-exit-polls.html. The Contours of American Public Opinion: Are the People Fit to Rule? Now that we know more about how public opinion is measured and why people hold certain core beliefs and political attitudes, we can turn to the role of public opinion in a society that aspires to be a democracy. Many observers of American politics now and in the past have had little confidence in the abilities of the average person to
- 424. understand vital public issues or to rationally engage in public affairs. If, as they have feared, ordinary citizens are uninformed, prone to rapid and irrational changes in their political attitudes, and easily led astray, there is not much reason to assume that public opinion can or ought to play a central role in deciding what government should do. Madison, Hamilton, and other framers of our government worried a great deal that the public’s passions and opinions would infringe on liberty and be susceptible to radical and frequent shifts. Journalist and statesman Walter Lippmann agreed, approvingly quoting Sir Robert Peel, who characterized public opinion as “that great compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy and newspaper paragraphs.” Assess whether the public is capable of playing a meaningful role in steering public policy. 5.4 52 53 Modern survey researchers have not been much kinder. The first voting studies, carried out during the 1940s and 1950s, turned up appalling evidence of public ignorance, lack of interest in
- 425. politics, and reliance on group and party loyalties rather than judgment about the issues of the day. Repeated surveys of the same individuals found that their responses seemed to change randomly from one interview to another. Philip Converse, a leading student of political behavior, coined the term nonattitudes to convey the fact that, on many issues of public policy, many Americans seem to have no real views or true opinions but simply offer “doorstep opinions” to satisfy interviewers. What should we make of this? If ordinary citizens are poorly informed and their views are based on whim, or if they have no real opinions at all, it hardly seems desirable—or even possible—that public opinion should determine what governments do. Both the feasibility and the attractiveness of democracy seem to be thrown into doubt. When we examine exactly what sorts of opinions ordinary Americans have, however, and how those opinions form and change, we will see that such fears may be somewhat exaggerated. The People’s Knowledge About Politics Several decades of polling have shown that most ordinary
- 426. Americans neither know nor care a lot about politics. Nearly everyone knows some basic facts, such as the name of the capital of the United States 54 55 and the length of the president’s term of office, but surveys often find that only about two-thirds of adults know which party has the most members in the House of Representatives. Only about 30 percent know that the term of a U.S. House member is two years, and only about one-half know that there are two U.S. senators from each state. Barely one in four Americans can explain what is in the First Amendment. Furthermore, people have particular trouble with technical terms, geography, abbreviations, and acronyms like NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement). Americans do not have detailed knowledge about important public policies nor about the way our economy works. Only 40 percent know that our main source of electricity comes from coal, and only 29 percent can name the federal program the government spends the most on (Medicare).
- 427. 56 57 AN ATTENTIVE PUBLIC President Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court—Neil Gorsuch —was confirmed by the Senate in April of 2017. Supreme Court justices play a key role in our political system and President Trump has touted his court appointments as major achievements. However, a survey conducted only a few months after he was confirmed found that only 45 percent of the public could even identify Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice. Why might the public lack knowledge about the players in our political system? What does the public need to know in order to fulfill its role in a democracy? People also consistently and dramatically underestimate the degree of income and wealth inequality that exists in the United States and fail to understand how tax policies affect “who gets what” in American society. Many Americans do not even know if they receive benefits from particular government programs, including many young people
- 428. who have federal student loans. Forty-four percent of Social Security beneficiaries and 40 percent of those with Medicare do not realize these are government-run insurance programs. One recent New York Times poll discovered that many Americans critical of government benefit programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and unemployment insurance, receive benefits from these very same programs but are unable either to recognize or to explain the evident contradiction. And there has been no improvement in Americans’ political knowledge over the past several decades, despite the 58 59 explosion of new information sources on the Internet and on television. Some have argued what most Americans do not know may not be vital to their role as citizens. If citizens are aware that trade restrictions with Canada and Mexico have been eased, does it matter that they recognize the NAFTA acronym? How important is it for people to know about the two-year term of office for the U.S. House of
- 429. Representatives, as long as they are aware of the opportunity to vote each time it comes along? Perhaps most people know as much as they need to know in order to be good citizens, particularly if they can form opinions with the help of better-informed cue givers whom they trust (experts, political leaders, media sources, informed friends, interest groups, and so on) or by means of simple rules of thumb that simplify and make the political world more coherent and understandable. To be sure, consequences flow from people’s lack of political knowledge and attention. When policy decisions are made in the dark, out of public view, interest groups often influence policies that an informed public might oppose. Although organized efforts to alert and to educate the public are valuable, low levels of information and attention are a reality that must be taken into account. Perhaps it is simply unrealistic to expect everyone to have detailed knowledge of a wide range of political matters. By the same token, perhaps it should also not be expected that the average American have an elaborately worked-out political 60 61
- 430. ideology , a coherent system of interlocking attitudes and beliefs about politics, the economy, and the role of government. You yourself may be a consistent liberal or conservative (or populist, or socialist, or libertarian), with many opinions that hang together in a coherent pattern, but surveys show that most people have opinions that vary from one issue to another—conservative on some issues, liberal on others. Surveys and in-depth interviews indicate that people’s opinions are often linked by underlying themes and values but not necessarily in the neat ways that the ideologies of leading political thinkers would dictate. political ideology A coherently organized set of beliefs about the fundamental nature of good society and the role that government ought to play in achieving it. It is no surprise, then, that most individuals’ expressed opinions on issues tend to be unstable. Many people give different answers to the same survey question just weeks after their first response. Scholars have disagreed about what these unstable responses mean, but
- 431. uncertainty and lack of information very likely play a part. 62 Even if the evidence leads to the conclusion that individual Americans are politically uninformed and disengaged, it does not necessarily follow that the opinions of the public, taken as a whole, are unreal, unstable, or irrelevant. We would counter that the collective whole is greater than its individual parts. Even if there is some randomness in the average individual’s political opinions—even if people often say things off the top of their heads to survey interviewers—the responses of thousands or millions of people tend to smooth over this randomness and reveal a stable aggregate public opinion . Americans’ collective policy preferences are actually quite stable over time. That is, the percentage of Americans who favor a particular policy usually stays about the same, unless circumstances change in important ways, such as a major war or economic depression. In addition, even if most people form many of their specific opinions by deferring to others whom they trust rather than by compiling their own mass of political information, the resulting public opinion need not be ignorant or unwise because trusted leaders may themselves take
- 432. account of the best available information. Finally, there is mounting evidence that Americans’ collective policy preferences react rather sensibly to events, to changing circumstances, and to the quality of the information available to them, so that we can speak of a rational public . So, at the individual level, we may not be impressed with the capacities or rationality of the public. But when we aggregate individual attitudes and understandings, that is, put them together and look at averages over time, we are on somewhat firmer ground in suggesting a sort of public rationality.63 aggregate public opinion The political attitudes of the public as a whole, expressed as averages, percentages, or other summaries of many individuals’ opinions. rational public The notion that collective public opinion is rational in the sense that it is generally stable and consistent and that when it changes it does so as an understandable response to events, to changing circumstances, and to new information. The People’s Attitudes About the Political System
- 433. At the most general level, Americans are proud of their country and its political institutions. In 2017 for example, 75 percent of all Americans said they were either very or extremely proud to be an American, in spite of a sharp decline in national pride among Democrats following Donald Trump’s election. In 2011, about one-half of Americans said64 they believed “our culture is superior to others,” compared to only a little more than one-fourth of the French. In addition, in 2009 about seven in ten Americans said they felt that it is important to vote. The People’s Trust in the Government Despite Americans’ expressed pride of country, there are recent indications that people have become more pessimistic about the ability of the country to solve its problems. One indicator of the American public’s rising pessimism is the steady decline in what pollsters call “trust in government.” For example, at the end of 2017 the Pew Research Center, reporting results from its own polls and other leading surveys, put the level of “trust in government”— those who say they trust government to do the right thing “always” or “most of the time”—at around 19 percent, down from the 40 percent average
- 434. for most of the 1980s and the 70 percent trust in government levels during the 1960s (see Figure 5.9 ). This is perhaps no surprise given the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the decades-long stagnation in income for most Americans, growing income and wealth inequality, the Great Recession and slow job recovery, and persistent threats of government shutdowns. 65 66 67 FIGURE 5.9 PUBLIC TRUST IN GOVERNMENT This graph shows the percentage of Americans who answered “just about always” or “most of the time” to the question: How much of the time do you trust the government in Washington? SOURCE: Data from Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Trust in Government, 1958–2017,” Pew Research Center, November 23, 2015, based on polling by Gallup, the Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times, and CNN.
- 435. The People’s Opinions about the Direction of the Country Another way in which both pollsters and scholars assess the general mood of the country is by asking questions about whether we are moving in the right direction or the wrong direction. In October of 2018, Gallup reported that although only 38 percent of Americans were “satisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time,” this was the highest level of satisfaction recorded since the start of the financial crisis that started in the year before President Obama’s election in 2008. The modest uptick in satisfaction may reflect gradually improving economic conditions. Of course these results mean that most Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going. Congressional Approval Ratings One more important aspect of happiness or unhappiness with government is a judgment about how well Congress is doing. For much of the past four decades or so, the proportion of Americans disapproving of the job Congress is doing has been twice as high as the proportion approving Congress’s job performance. Things became
- 436. especially bad in the last year of the Bush administration when Congress authorized unpopular bailouts of financial institutions and approval has remained low since then. In late 2018, Congress’s approval was hovering just below 20 percent. In fact, one poll conducted in 2013 found that Americans reported having a higher 68 69 opinion of cockroaches, root canals, lice, and traffic jams than of Congress. Presidential Approval Ratings Another indicator of government performance is the presidential job approval rating , or how well Americans judge the president to be doing his or her job. The public’s evaluations of presidents’ handling of their jobs depend on how well things are actually going. The state of the economy is especially important: when the country is prosperous and ordinary Americans are doing well and feeling confident about the future, the president tends to be popular; when there is high inflation or unemployment or when general living standards remain stagnant, the president’s popularity falls.
- 437. presidential job approval rating The percentage of Americans who believe the president is doing a good job. Pollsters have been asking Americans for many decades whether they approve or disapprove of the way presidents are doing their jobs. The percentage of people saying they approve is taken as a crucial indicator of a president’s popularity (see Figure 12.2 for more on presidential approval dynamics). Typically, presidents enjoy a 70 “honeymoon period” of public good will and high approval ratings immediately after they are elected. After that, their approval fluctuates with particular events and trends. For example, Lyndon Johnson’s approval fluctuated with events in Vietnam, and George H. W. Bush reached a then-record 89 percent approval in March 1991 in the aftermath of the Gulf War but fell below 30 percent by the summer, an unprecedented collapse. Oddly, Bill Clinton enjoyed the highest job approval ratings of any recent president for the final two years of the presidential term, in spite of the fact that the Republican- controlled House of Representatives impeached him. George W. Bush’s job
- 438. approval reached a record peak of 90 percent in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, by fall 2008 his approval hovered in the mid-20s—the lowest presidential approval rating in fifty years. President Barack Obama began his term in early 2009 with a job approval rating in the mid-60s; by summer 2012, his rating had fallen to the mid-40s. In 2016, as he was preparing to leave office, his approval rating had climbed above 50 percent. In a departure from past patterns, President Donald Trump entered office with a historically low approval rating—only 45 percent of respondents approved of his performance (a ceiling in approval that he had not broken by the summer of 2018)—suggesting that much of the public was not willing to grant him the traditional honeymoon. These trends in trust in government, the direction of the country, and evaluations of the job performance of Congress and the president by the public seem sensible and rational. They reflect the difficulties many Americans have been living through, the attention of the news media to the country’s economic challenges and Washington’s 71 governing problems, and the ferocious manner in which the
- 439. parties have waged political combat over the causes and solutions to the nation’s problems. With the rise of the Tea Party soon after President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, pessimism about government and the economy and discomfiture with the direction of the country turned into outright anger. Tea Party adherents voice anger about illegal immigrants, government deficits, bailouts and loan guarantees to financial institutions, and a growing national government involved in everything from propping up financial institutions and auto companies to mandating health insurance coverage. Much like earlier manifestations of populist-style anger, cultural, media, and academic elites are handy targets for seemingly supporting many of the disruptive changes in the country. And Tea Party supporters were particularly exercised about programs that, in their view, direct government benefits to the “undeserving,” those unwilling to work or who have just come into the country. Though the Tea Party movement was encouraged and partially organized by conservative talk radio and cable television personalities such as Glenn Beck (then on Fox News), its rise reflected many people’s real concerns about the state of the country. Their enthusiastic support of the Republican Party in 2010—and a lack of similar enthusiasm among groups in the Democratic Party base—helped the GOP make historic gains in
- 440. that year’s national, state, and local elections. 72 POPULIST APPEALS Donald Trump’s campaign regularly invoked populist rhetoric that laid blame for an array of social ills at the feet of politicians and other “elites.” This language resonated with a public that has come to distrust elites and the government in general. Should we worry that so few people trust in the government or is it a good thing for people to be skeptical of their elected officials? In 2011, populist anger took shape on the left of the political spectrum with the rise and rapid spread of the Occupy Wall Street protests about rising income and wealth inequality, high unemployment, and sluggish job growth, particularly for young people. Unlike the Tea Party, this movement wanted government to do more. Widespread dissatisfaction with the government in Washington left an imprint on both of the 2016 presidential nomination contests. Republican Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders
- 441. each leveraged voters increasing cynicism about the political system to their advantage. Trump regularly gave voice to the sentiments of many citizens by condemning Washington elites as a corrupt class, more interested in dishing out favors to donors and friends than in stemming the flow of undocumented immigrants. On the Democratic side, Senator Bernie Sanders mounted an unexpectedly strong challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton. Throughout the campaign he criticized Clinton for her ties to Wall Street and implied that these ties would leave her unable to serve the public rather than wealthy elites. The People’s Liberalism and Conservatism Although most Americans do not adhere to a rigid political ideology of the sort posited by political philosophers, they do divide on the role they believe government should play. To complicate matters, Americans generally divide along two dimensions when it comes to government: one related to government’s role in the economy, the other related to government’s role in society. Some Americans—those we usually label economic conservatives —tend to put more
- 442. emphasis on economic liberty and freedom from government interference; they believe a free market offers the best road to economic efficiency and a decent society. Others—whom we usually label economic liberals —stress the role of government in ensuring equality of opportunity, regulating potentially damaging business practices, and providing safety nets for individuals unable to compete in the job market. Government regulation of the economy and spending to help the disadvantaged are two of the main sources of political dispute in America; they also make up a big part of the difference between the ideologies of liberalism and of conservatism. However, this accounts for only one of the two dimensions. It is also useful to distinguish between social (or lifestyle) liberals and social (or lifestyle) conservatives , who differ on government’s role in society and have varying views on such social issues as abortion, prayer in the schools, homosexuality, pornography, crime, and political dissent. Those who favor relatively unconstrained free choices and strong protections for the rights of the accused are often said to be socially liberal, while those preferring government enforcement of order and traditional values are described as socially conservative. economic conservatives
- 443. People who favor private enterprise and oppose government regulation of business. economic liberals People who favor government spending for social programs and government regulation of business to protect the public. social (or lifestyle) liberals People who favor civil liberties, abortion rights, and alternative lifestyles. social (or lifestyle) conservatives People who favor traditional social values; they tend to support strong law-and-order measures and oppose abortion and gay rights. It should be apparent that opinions on economic and social issues do not necessarily go together. Many people are liberal in some ways but conservative in others. A marijuana legalization activist, for example, would likely be a social liberal but might also be a small business owner and an economic conservative when it comes to taxes and regulation of business. An evangelical minister preaching in a poor community might be a social conservative on issues such as pornography but an economic liberal when it comes to government programs to help the disadvantaged. This said, as the parties have polarized over the past several decades, an increasing share of
- 444. Americans have begun to report attitudes that are either consistently liberal or consistently conservative. The People’s Policy Preferences According to democratic theory, one of the chief determinants of what governments do should be what the citizens want them to do, that is, citizens’ policy preferences. Figure 5.10 shows that public opinion on what government should do is either relatively unchanging or has changed in response to fairly well-understood developments in American society. These trends are consistent with the notion that, in the aggregate, public opinion tends to be quite stable and, perhaps, rational. 73 FIGURE 5.10 SHARE OF PUBLIC SAYING WE SPEND TOO LITTLE IN SIX POLICY AREAS Large, fairly stable majorities of Americans have said that the government is spending too little on health care and education, but over the years relatively few have said we spend too little on defense, welfare, or foreign aid.
- 445. SOURCE: General Social Survey, Cumulative Data File (1972– 2016). Spending Programs By and large, while more Americans describe themselves as conservative or moderate than as liberal, many want government to do a great deal to address societal needs. One might say that a majority of Americans are philosophical conservatives and moderates but operational liberals. Figure 5.10 shows that over the years, Americans have been consistent in their positions on a range of things they want from government. For example, large and rather stable numbers of Americans think the government is spending “too little” on health care and improving education. By contrast, few people think too little is being spent on foreign aid or the military and defense; many more think too much is being spent. Except for disaster relief, such as for the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, foreign aid is generally unpopular. (The reason may be, in part, that few realize how little is spent on foreign aid—only about 1 percent of the annual federal budget is devoted to economic and humanitarian assistance. When the spending level is made clear, support for foreign aid rises sharply.) Finally, although relatively few Americans say the government is spending too little on welfare, when surveys ask about spending on “aid to the poor” rather than “welfare,” substantial
- 446. majorities say we are spending too little. Many polls show that the public also gives consistent supermajority support to Social Security, Medicare, and environmental protection programs. Substantial majorities have said for many years that they want the government to pay for more research on diseases such as cancer and AIDS and to “see to it” that everyone who wants to work can find a job. When public opinion changes, it usually does so for understandable reasons. In 2008, more Americans than before said they wanted the government to increase regulation of Wall Street, whose unregulated speculation helped bring on the Great Recession. Similarly, as Figure 74 75 5.10 illustrates, public support for defense spending spiked during the early 1980s when Cold War rhetoric was particularly prominent and the USSR was widely viewed as a serious threat to national security and again in the early years of the new century as the war on
- 447. terrorism was launched in response to 9/11. Social Issues On some social issues, American public opinion has been remarkably stable; on others, the past several decades have seen massive shifts in public attitudes. As Figure 5.11 shows, views about abortion have remained quite consistent over many years, even in the face of the furious cultural war that swirls about the issue. FIGURE 5.11 TRENDS IN ATTITUDES ABOUT SOCIAL ISSUES On some issues—most notably abortion and gun policy— American attitudes have remained relatively stable for the last several decades. However, attitudes about same-sex marriage, the role of women in society, and marijuana legalization have changed rapidly. SOURCE: General Social Survey, Cumulative Data File (1972– 2016). As the nation has become more educated and its mass entertainment culture more open to diverse perspectives and ways of life, public opinion has become more supportive of civil liberties and civil rights for women and minorities. Since the 1940s and 1950s, for
- 448. example, more and more Americans have come to favor integrating school, work, housing, and public accommodations. By 2002, less than 10 percent of Americans supported laws against interracial marriage—a dramatic drop from the early 1970s when almost 40 percent of the public supported such bans. According to the General Social Survey, over the past several decades, public support for same-sex marriage has skyrocketed, from only 12 percent supporting it in 1988 to 59 percent supporting it in 2016. By 2018, Gallup found that 67 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage. Many have cited this trend in public sentiment as playing an important role in the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling striking down state laws that banned same- sex marriage. On a number of other issues, Americans support positions favored by social conservatives. Large majorities, for example, have consistently favored allowing organized prayer in public schools, banning pornography, preventing flag burning, punishing crimes severely, and imposing capital punishment for murder. In addition, 62 percent of Americans said in 2010 that they approved police questioning anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally, the heart of the
- 449. controversial law passed in Arizona; in 2012, the Supreme Court upheld this section of that law. 76 77 Foreign Policy and National Security In the realm of foreign policy and national security, public opinion sometimes changes rapidly in response to crises and other dramatic events. Major international events affect opinions, as was evident in the discussion of public reactions to the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, which opens the chapter. The percentage of Americans saying that the United States was wrong to invade Iraq steadily increased as the news from there got worse. Confidence in the effectiveness of American foreign and military policies declined sharply between 2005 and 2007. This seems understandable, given events on the ground. But often foreign policy opinions are quite stable. Since World War II, for example, two-thirds or more of those giving an opinion have usually said that the United States should take an “active part” in world affairs. The percentage supporting a U.S. role has remained relatively high but declined somewhat by 2011.
- 450. The public has generally been quite hesitant to approve the use of troops abroad, however, unless the threat to the United States is tangible. For example, in 1994, just before U.S. troops were sent as peacekeepers to Bosnia, 56 percent of the public opposed the idea and only 39 percent were in favor. Opposition faded as the operation began to look less risky. The public strongly supported the use of the military to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and initially supported President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, when only 23 percent of those surveyed said the United States “made a mistake sending troops to Iraq.” By summer 2010, the proportion of the public who thought it was a mistake had soared to 55 78 79 80 81 82 percent. Support for the armed conflict in Afghanistan was lower by late 2014, more than 10 years after it began; only 38 percent of
- 451. Americans said it was “worth fighting.” Although the American public shows some signs of being “war weary,” a CBS poll conducted in late 2015 illustrates that the public is still willing to support military action overseas. Although 83 percent of respondents said they were either somewhat or very concerned “that U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria will lead to a long and costly involvement there,” 75 percent supported U.S. airstrikes against ISIS militants who occupy those countries. That same poll found that 50 percent supported sending ground troops to fight ISIS. After Donald Trump ordered airstrikes against a Syrian air force base in early 2017, polls showed that a comfortable majority of the public supported the strikes. Although relatively few Americans embrace pure isolationism —the view that the United States should not be involved abroad and should only pay attention to its own affairs—the public (and political and economic leaders, as well) is divided over whether its involvement in the world should take a unilateralist or a multilateralist form. Unilateralists want to go it alone, taking action when it suits our purposes and not necessarily seeking the approval or help of international organizations such as the United Nations or regional
- 452. organizations such as NATO. Unilateralists are also uncomfortable with entering into too many international treaties. Multilateralists, on the other hand, believe that the protection of American interests requires continuous engagement in the world but do not think that the 82 83 84 United States has the resources or ability to accomplish its ends without the cooperation of other nations or international and regional organizations. According to most surveys, roughly two out of three Americans are in the multilateralist camp, telling pollsters they oppose unilateral U.S. military intervention in most cases and support cooperation with the United Nations and NATO and international treaties on human rights, the environment, and arms control. In this regard, they are considerably more multilateralist than American legislative and executive branch officials. isolationism The policy of avoiding involvement in the affairs of other countries and multilateral institutions.
- 453. unilateralist The stance toward foreign policy that suggests that the United States should “go it alone,” pursuing its national interests without seeking the cooperation of other nations or multilateral institutions. 85 multilateralist The stance toward foreign policy that suggests that the United States should seek the cooperation of other nations and multilateral institutions in pursuing its goals. The People’s “Fitness to Rule” Revisited This examination of collective public opinion, its evident stability on a wide range of issues over time, and why it sometimes changes on some issues leads us to conclude that confidence in the role of the public in the American political system is warranted. The evidence demonstrates that collective public opinion is quite stable and sensible when it comes to core beliefs and attitudes about government, the parties, and policy preferences. The evidence further shows that when collective public opinion does change, it does so for
- 454. understandable reasons: dramatic events, new information, or changes in perspective among American leaders. The conclusion we draw is a simple yet powerful one: the American people are fit to rule. 86 Using the Democracy Standard Public Opinion: Does it Determine What Government does? We have argued that a crucial test of how well democracy is working is how closely a government’s policies match the expressed wishes of its citizens. Some scholars claim that, yes, the government generally acts in ways that reflect public opinion. But others argue that public officials sometimes ignore public opinion; that public opinion is often heavily manipulated by government leaders so that it tends to reflect rather than influence government action; and that the public is inattentive and has no opinions on many important policy issues, leaving political leaders free to act on their own. The Case for Public Opinion As the opening case about the Vietnam War suggests, at least under some circumstances, public opinion significantly affects policy making. Another example that supports “government responsiveness” to public opinion is President Bush’s attempt, in 2005, to privatize Social Security, which was blocked by congressional
- 455. opponents and backstopped by strong public support for the current system. Many authoritative scholarly assessments indicate a statistical correlation between public opinion and government action. One assessment found that U.S. policy coincides with opinion surveys of public wants about two-thirds of the time. Another survey found that, when public opinion changes by a substantial and enduring amount and the issue is prominent, government policy moved in the same direction 87 percent of the time within a year or so afterward. Yet another influential study showed that, as substantial swings in the national political mood occurred over the past half-century—from a liberal direction, to a conservative direction, and back again over the years— public policy has followed accordingly, being more activist in liberal periods and less activist in conservative periods. Finally, a careful review of thirty studies concluded that public opinion almost always has some effect on what government does and is, in highly visible cases, a decisive factor in determining the substance of government policy. The Case Against Public Opinion A strong statistical correlation between public opinion and government policy does not, however, prove that public opinion causes government policies. There are a 87 88 89
- 456. 90 number of reasons why a correlation may not imply a “causal relationship” between public opinion and policy. Public opinion and government policies may move in the same direction because some third factor affects them both in the same way. For example, after news networks and major newspapers highlighted the near-genocidal situation in the Darfur region of Sudan, in the mid-2000s, the public and policy makers were persuaded that action was needed. Interest groups, too, may simultaneously sway public opinion and government officials, as financial industry groups did when they convinced both that deregulation, the source of disastrous losses in 2008, would be a good thing. It may be that political leaders shape public opinion, not the other way around, a reversal of the causal arrow wherein officials act to gain popular support for policies that they, the officials, want. Such efforts can range from outright manipulation of the public— the Tonkin Gulf incident and the “weapons of mass destruction” rhetoric used to raise support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 —to conventional public relations tactics carried out every day by well- equipped government communications offices, press secretaries, and public liaison personnel. 91 92
- 457. 93 94 Still another possibility, supported by several recent studies, is that policy makers only behave in accordance with the wishes of the public at large in situations where what the broader public wants is aligned with the preferences of wealthy Americans and well-funded interest groups. In other words, the public at large may often get what it wants, but only because they happen to share the policy-preferences of these elites. The Mixed Reality It is probably reasonable to affirm that public opinion often plays an important role in shaping what government does and that political leaders do pay attention to public opinion, pandering, some would say, to public whims rather than exercising leadership. It is no mystery why. Spending time and money polling relevant constituencies eventually translates into votes. Staying on the right side of public opinion—giving people what they want—is how office seekers and office holders gain and keep their positions. But, as we have seen, the public does not always have informed opinions about important matters, leading scholars to suggest that public opinion plays different roles in shaping government policy—some roles are important and some are less so, depending on conditions. Public opinion seems to matter most when
- 458. 95 issues (1) are highly visible (usually because there has been lots of political conflict surrounding the issue) and (2) are about matters that most directly affect the lives of Americans and about which reliable and understandable information is readily accessible. When economic times are tough—during a recession, for example—no amount of rhetoric from political leaders, the news media, or interest groups is likely to convince people “that they never had it so good.” By the same token, many foreign policy questions are distant from people’s lives and involve issues about which information is scarce or incomplete. Under these conditions, government officials act with wide latitude and shape what the public believes rather than respond to it. In addition, some issues, such as tax legislation and deregulation, are so obscure and complex that they become the province of interest groups and experts, with the public holding ill-formed and not very intense opinions. Many scholars convincingly argue that the combined influence of other political actors and institutions, including political parties, interest groups, the news media, and social movements, has far more of an effect than public opinion on what government does. It is probably reasonable to say that the influence of public opinion on government is significantly less than the statistical studies suggest (e.g., the “two-thirds” rule)
- 459. for the reasons given: the impact of third factors on both opinion and government and the significant amount of influence government officials have over popular opinion, and the powerful influence of the wealthy and large interest groups on elected officials and the public. And it is hard to avoid noticing the many times government acts almost exactly contrary to public opinion—Congress’s decision to go ahead with the impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton in late 1998 and early 1999 in the face of strong public opposition comes to mind, as does inaction on gun control alluded to earlier. More recently, the massive tax cut passed by Republicans in late 2017 was enacted in spite of public opposition to the law. Similarly, President Trump’s vigorous calls to build a wall on the border with Mexico run counter to the fact that polls consistently show that most Americans oppose building the wall. 96 Chapter 5 Review the Chapter Measuring Public Opinion Public opinion consists of the core political beliefs and political attitudes expressed by ordinary citizens; it can be measured rather accurately through polls and surveys. Today, most polling is done by telephone. The foundation of a legitimate survey is that respondents in a sample are randomly selected.
- 460. The increased use of cell phones makes it more difficult to develop a random sample. Political Socialization: Learning Political Beliefs and Attitudes Describe public opinion research and modern methods of polling. 5.1 People learn their political attitudes and beliefs from their families, peers, schools, and workplaces as well as through their experiences with political events and the mass media. This process is known as political socialization. Changes in society, the economy, and America’s situation in the world affect political attitudes and public opinion. How and Why People’s Political Attitudes Differ Opinions and party loyalties differ according to race, religion, region, urban or rural residence, social class, education level, gender, and age. Blacks, city dwellers, women, and low-income people tend to be particularly liberal and Democratic; white Protestants,
- 461. suburbanites, males, and the wealthy tend to be more conservative and Republican. The Contours of American Public Explain how the agents of socialization influence the development of political attitudes. 5.2 Describe the forces that create and shape political attitudes.5.3 Opinion: Are the People Fit to Rule? The democratic ideals of popular sovereignty and majority rule imply that government policy should respond to the wishes of the citizens, at least in the long run. An important test of how well democracy is working, then, is how closely government policy corresponds to public opinion. Political knowledge among the public is low, but cue-givers allow people to make fairly rational decisions about their policy preferences. Public opinion, considered in the aggregate as a collection of randomly selected respondents, tends to be stable, measured, and rational over the years. Some political scientists call this the
- 462. “rational public.” Assess whether the public is capable of playing a meaningful role in steering public policy. 5.4 Learn the Terms agents of socialization The institutions and individuals that shape the core beliefs and attitudes of people. aggregate public opinion The political attitudes of the public as a whole, expressed as averages, percentages, or other summaries of many individuals’ opinions. core values Individuals’ views about the fundamental nature of human beings, society, the economy, and the role of government; taken together, they constitute the political culture. economic conservatives People who favor private enterprise and oppose government regulation of business. economic liberals People who favor government spending for social programs and government regulation of business to protect the public. generational effect
- 463. The long lasting effect of major political events—particularly those that occur when an individual is coming of age politically—on people’s political attitudes. isolationism The policy of avoiding involvement in the affairs of other countries and multilateral institutions. multilateralist The stance toward foreign policy that suggests that the United States should seek the cooperation of other nations and multilateral institutions in pursuing its goals. partisan leaners Individuals who say they do not identify as Democrats or Republicans, but say they feel closer to either the Democratic or Republican Party. political attitudes Individuals’ views and preferences about public policies, political parties, candidates, government institutions, and public officials. political ideology A coherently organized set of beliefs about the fundamental nature of good society and the role that government ought to play in achieving it. political socialization
- 464. The process by which individuals come to have certain core beliefs and political attitudes. presidential job approval rating The percentage of Americans who believe the president is doing a good job. probability sampling A survey technique designed so that every individual in a population of interest (e.g., the American public) has an equal chance of being included in the pool of survey respondents. public opinion The aggregated political attitudes of ordinary people as revealed by surveys. rational public The notion that collective public opinion is rational in the sense that it is generally stable and consistent and that when it changes it does so as an understandable response to events, to changing circumstances, and to new information. sampling error Statistical uncertainty in estimates associated with the fact that surveys do not interview every individual in a population of interest. scientific survey
- 465. A survey conducted using probability sampling to measure the attitudes of a representative sample of the public. social (or lifestyle) conservatives People who favor traditional social values; they tend to support strong law-and-order measures and oppose abortion and gay rights. social (or lifestyle) liberals People who favor civil liberties, abortion rights, and alternative lifestyles. unilateralist The stance toward foreign policy that suggests that the United States should “go it alone,” pursuing its national interests without seeking the cooperation of other nations or multilateral institutions Chapter 6 The News Media WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION The Bush administration sold the American people on the invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had developed nuclear and biological weapons that threatened the region and the world. British government sources later said that the intelligence was “cooked” to support the invasion—there were no such military
- 466. capabilities—but the new information failed to become important news in America’s media. Why would a story suggesting that policy-makers were not completely honest with the public receive so little attention in the media? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy War with the Watchdog It had all the makings of a major news story that would rock Washington and trigger a major rethinking of war policies in Iraq. All the pieces appeared to be in place. In an article published on April 30, 2005, the prestigious British newspaper, The Times of London, reported the minutes of a secret meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top military and intelligence officials that featured a report by a British intelligence operative that Washington officials had “cooked the books” to justify the invasion of Iraq in spring 2003. The HOW NEWS ORGANIZATIONS OPERATE Discuss the functions, structure, and operations of the news media. BIAS IN THE NEWS Evaluate news organizations’ ideological and nonideological biases. EFFECTS OF THE NEWS MEDIA ON POLITICS Analyze the impact of the media on public opinion and political behavior.
- 467. 6.1 6.2 6.3 1 operative had been at several prewar meetings with White House and Pentagon officials where it was evident, he claimed, that the decision for war already had been made and that intelligence information about Saddam Hussein’s purported “weapons of mass destruction” program and ties to the 9/11 terrorists was organized and interpreted to build a case for going to war. In his words, the “facts were being fixed around the policy.” As news stories go, the seeming blockbuster turned out to be a dud. The story failed to merit a lead on any of the network newscasts. While the story of the so-called Downing Street memo appeared on the front page of the Washington Post, it was there for only a single day. Other newspapers relegated it to the inside pages. For the most part, the story was “ . . . treated as old news or a British politics story” rather than a story about Americans being misled into war by the Bush administration, something that might call into question the entire enterprise. The liberal blogosphere jumped on the issue, but the story failed to stir more mainstream media attention or action from congressional Democrats, who were in the minority in both the House and Senate and unsure about what position to take on the war in the upcoming 2006 elections. When Representative John Conyers (D-MI) sought to bring attention to the misuse of intelligence information to encourage the Iraq war by holding an “informational hearing”
- 468. (being in the minority, the Democrat Conyers could not schedule an official set of hearings), the Washington Post treated it as a joke; the headline read “Democrats Play House 2 3 to Rally Against the War” and opened with the line, “In the Capitol basement yesterday, long suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe.” Similarly, in an article published in early 2006—roughly three years after the invasion of Iraq—the New York Times reported a British press story, based on a memo written by a Blair aide who had attended a prewar January 2003 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush at the White House, where the president had made it clear to the British leader that he was determined to go to war even without evidence that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction or had links to Al Qaeda. (At the same time, the president was making numerous statements that he had not made up his mind about an invasion and was making every effort to solve the issue diplomatically in cooperation with the United Nations and close allies.) While the revelation elicited a few comments from Democratic leaders and some blog activity, it didn’t get a mention on CBS, NBC, or Fox News, and no follow-up stories appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, or USA Today. Around the same time this story about the Bush–Blair meeting came and went with hardly a murmur, a feeding frenzy was swirling around an unfortunate incident in which Vice President Richard Cheney accidentally shot a long-time friend in the face while hunting. Although the friend was not seriously injured,
- 469. for four or five days after the accidental shooting, every type of news media outlet—including the network and cable news networks, news magazines, local and national newspapers, 4 news websites, and blogs—ran full coverage on the story, examining every nuance and speculating about why it happened, why an official press release about it was delayed for a few hours, and what it might all mean. Late-night comedy hosts had a field day with the story for months. * * * * * Many critics claim the news media are biased and cannot be relied on to tell an objective story. Other critics claim that the mainstream news media in particular are becoming irrelevant in the face of the Internet, with its multiple information and opinion sources. We suggest that the principal problems of the news media concern underreporting stories that might help American citizens better understand events and trends that affect their lives, including those involving government and political leaders, and excessive attention to stories that involve sensation, entertainment, or scandals. This chapter is about the news media and why certain things become news we pay attention to while other things, many of them very important to public conversations about government policies and the direction of the country, do not. Thinking Critically about this Chapter In this chapter, we turn our attention to the diverse news media in the United States to learn how they are organized, how they
- 470. work, and what effects they have on the quality of our political life. Applying the Framework In this chapter, you will learn about the role the news media play in influencing significant actors in the political system, including citizens and elected leaders. You also will learn how the news media can shape what government does. And you will learn how the news media are influenced by changes in technology and business organization. Using the Democracy Standard Using the tools introduced in Chapter 1 , you will be able to evaluate the degree to which the news media advance democracy in the United States or hinder it. You will be able to judge whether the media promote popular sovereignty, political equality, and liberty. Finally, you will see how certain changes in the media may be cause for concern in terms of the health of democracy. How News Organizations Operate The central idea of democracy is that ordinary citizens should control what their government does. However, citizens cannot hope to control officials, choose candidates wisely, speak intelligently with others about public affairs, or even make up their minds about which policies they favor without good information about politics and policies.
- 471. Most of that information must come through the news media, whether newspapers, radio, television, or, increasingly, the Internet. How well democracy works, then, depends partly on how well the news media fulfills three essential roles or functions. The Functions of the News Media in a Democracy One function of the news media in a democracy is that of watchdog . The Founders, although not entirely enamored of democracy, nevertheless fully subscribed to the idea that a free press is essential for keeping an eye on government and for checking its excesses. The First Amendment to the Constitution (“Congress shall Discuss the functions, structure, and operations of the news media. 6.1 make no law . . . abridging the freedom . . . of the press”) helps ensure that the news media will be able to expose misbehavior without fear of censorship or prosecution. That the press should warn the public of official wrongdoing is fundamental to the practice of democracy. How else can citizens hold officials accountable for setting things right?
- 472. watchdog The role of the media in scrutinizing the actions of government officials. At times, news organizations’ efforts to fulfill their watchdog role frustrates government officials. President Donald Trump repeatedly expressed disdain for the news media on the campaign trail. Since taking office he has continued to attack the media for what he views as unfair coverage. He has often referred to major news organizations such as CNN as “fake news,” and, in a tweet on May 9, 2018, implied that any negative coverage of him was inherently “fake” saying “. . . despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake) . . .” Notably, he has typically relied on Twitter to communicate this perspective to the public—a channel of communication that allows him to circumvent the journalists who he says are eager to attack him unfairly. 5 A second function of the news media in a democracy is to make
- 473. the public’s electoral choices clear. The media serve to clarify what the political parties stand for and how the candidates shape up in terms of personal character, knowledge, experience, and positions on the issues. Without such information, it is difficult for voters to make intelligent choices. Similarly, a third function of the news media is to present a diverse, full, and enlightening set of facts and ideas about public policy. Citizens need to know about emerging problems that will need attention and how well current policies are working, as well as the pros and cons of alternative policies that might be tried. In a democracy, government should respond to public opinion, but that opinion should be reasonably well informed. Understanding whether news organizations provide citizens with the kinds of information they need for democracy to work properly requires an understanding of how the media are organized and function. In the remainder of this chapter, we focus on news media organizations and journalists with an eye toward better understanding the influences that affect the content of their news product and how the news shapes politics and government in the United States. News Media Organizations The mainstream or traditional news media are the collection of
- 474. nationally prominent newspapers (such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post), national news magazines (such as Time and The Week), TV network and cable news organizations, local newspapers, and local TV news operations. These organizations gather, analyze, and report politically important events, developments, and trends. This is usually done with the help of wire services such as the Associated Press (AP) and Reuters— agencies that provide news outlets with news stories and accompanying photos. wire services Organizations such as the Associated Press and Reuters that gather and disseminate news to other news organizations. Corporate Ownership Some television stations and newspapers—especially the smaller ones—are still owned locally by families or by groups of investors, although they account for a rapidly declining share of the total. Most of the biggest stations and newspapers, however, as well as television and cable networks, are owned by large media corporations, some of which, in turn, are subsidiaries of enormous conglomerates.
- 475. Mergers across media lines have accelerated in recent years, leaving a handful of giant conglomerates. Disney, for example, owns not only its theme parks, movie production and distribution operations, and 6 sports teams, but the ABC television network, local TV and radio stations in the nation’s largest cities, cable television operations, and book publishers. Rupert Murdoch’s family owns News Corp. and 21st Century Fox, companies that own local TV stations in many of the nation’s largest cities, cable and satellite operations (including Fox News), the 20th Century Fox film company, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and major newspapers in Great Britain and Australia, a stable of magazines and journals, HarperCollins and Harper Morrow book companies, and radio and TV operations in Europe and Asia. In June 2018, a federal judge approved the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, giving AT&T control of an array of media properties including CNN and HBO. This ruling was expected to lead to a flurry of additional media mergers including, perhaps, an attempt by Disney to buy 21st Century Fox.7
- 476. DISNEY MAKES A BID TO BUY 21ST CENTURY FOX In late 2017, Disney announced a deal to buy much of 21st Century Fox. In addition to an array of television channels and movie franchises, the deal would give Disney a controlling stake in the streaming service Hulu. Does the prevalence of media empires diminish the number of viewpoints that citizens get to consider when news is reported, or is there sufficient alternative information from other outlets? So, behind the apparent proliferation of news sources—new magazines, online news and opinion operations, cable television news and commentary, handheld devices with links to the Web, and the like —is substantial concentration of ownership and dense interconnections among the vast cornucopia of news and entertainment outlets. This process of companies coming to control an increasingly large share of the media—either through buying up companies or merging—is referred to as media consolidation . Some have even used the term media monopoly to suggest the severity of the situation. However, most scholars are reluctant to go that far, believing that much competition remains among the giant firms. media consolidation The process of a small number of companies coming to own an increasingly large share of
- 477. 8 the media outlets by purchasing outlets or merging with other media companies. Many of the key decisions about how much media consolidation will be permitted are made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) —a federal agency set up to regulate national and international communications to ensure at least some competition between media companies. In 2015 the FCC signaled that they are concerned about excessive media consolidation by playing a key role in ending a plan for two massive media companies—Comcast and Time Warner—to merge. However, this hardly signaled an end to the trend toward greater consolidation: A year later they approved a $65 billion bid by telecommunications company Charter Communications to buy Time Warner. A month later Comcast bought animation studio DreamWorks for almost $4 billion. Many observers expect that recent rule change by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will open the door to greater consolidation by reducing limits on the number of media outlets a company can own within a single media market. This said, in the summer of 2018 the FCC signaled that the
- 478. Sinclair Broadcast Group would not be allowed to purchase Tribune Media Company, suggesting that there are limits to the amount of consolidation the agency is willing to tolerate. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 9 10 11 12 Federal agency set up to regulate media companies with an eye toward ensuring competition and protecting consumers. Scholars disagree about the effects of corporate ownership and increased media concentration. A few see efficiency gains and an increase in the output and availability of information. Others argue that allowing greater consolidation of media outlets is the only way smaller newspapers and TV stations can survive in an increasingly competitive media environment. But some critics maintain that the concentrated corporate control of our media adds dangerously to the already strong business presence in American politics. They worry
- 479. that media corporations are so large, powerful, and interconnected that voices that challenge the economically and politically powerful are unlikely to be aired. Others are concerned that the concentration of media ownership may lead to less diversity of news and opinion or a failure to provide citizens with substantive information about politicians and public policies, preferring instead to focus on entertaining audiences due to an excessive focus on the bottom line. Still others worry that news organizations will relinquish their watchdog role and pull their punches when reporting about the activities of their corporate parents or partners. Will ABC News go easy on problems at Disney, for example, which owns ABC? Might NBC fail to report on negative stories about its parent company General Electric? For example, although GE made more than $5 billion in profits in 2010, it paid no federal taxes—a story some noted was conspicuously absent from NBC news coverage. Uniformity and Diversity Whoever owns them, most newspapers and television stations depend largely on the same sources for news. Political scientist Lance Bennett points out that while there is a growing diversity of
- 480. news outlets in the United States—more specialized magazines, television channels, and newspaper home pages on the Web—news sources are contracting. That is to say, much of what comes to us over a multitude of media avenues originates in fewer and fewer centralized sources. Local radio stations increasingly buy headlines for their brief on-the-hour updates from a handful of headline service providers. Television news increasingly buys raw video footage, for in- house editing and scripting, from a handful of providers, including Independent Television News (ITN), rather than having their own reporters and film crews on the ground. The Associated Press, or AP, supplies most of the main national and international news stories for newspapers and local news (although Reuters is increasingly important)—even those that are rewritten to carry a local reporter’s byline. Most of what appears on network and on cable television stations as news, too, is pulled from AP wires, although stations often take their lead on the major stories of the day from the major national newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. National and local television news organizations depend on centralized news and video suppliers, with fewer of them using their own reporters. This is why viewers are likely to see the
- 481. 13 14 15 same news (and sports) footage on different stations as they switch channels, although each station adds its own “voiceover” from a reporter or news anchor. In most cases, the person doing the voiceover has no direct relationship to the story. Profit Motives of the News Media Media companies, like other companies, are in business to make a profit. This is entirely appropriate in general terms but has some important and unfortunate consequences for how media companies create and disseminate the news. Generating original, in-depth reports is costly. According to one seasoned newsman, “a skilled investigative reporter can cost a news organization more than $250,000 a year in salary and expenses for only a handful of stories.” Thus, for many newspapers and television news organizations, pursuing profits means closing down foreign bureaus and cutting the number of reporters focused on government affairs in Washington or the economy and financial system.
- 482. Infotainment Additionally, for many traditional news organizations, there are market pressures to alter their news coverage to appeal to audiences who are more interested in entertainment than public affairs and want their news short, snappy, and sensational. Together with the multiplication of news outlets and increasing competition for audience share, the 16 desire to attract viewers, readers, or listeners has led to an invasion of entertainment values into political reporting and news presentation. The best way to gain and retain an audience, media executives have discovered, is to make the news more entertaining and that the worst sin one can commit is to be boring. This trend toward mixing news and entertainment—often referred to as infotainment —is especially common in evening local news broadcasts, where coverage of politics, government, and policies that affect the public have been “crowded out by coverage of crime, sports, weather, lifestyles, and other audience-grabbing topics.” infotainment
- 483. The merging of hard news and entertainment in news presentations. In many cases, “more entertaining” means that sensation and drama replaces careful consideration of domestic politics, public policies, and international affairs. For example, in 2014, CNN was criticized by some for its relentless coverage of the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370—a passenger jet that crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean for reasons that are still not known. The New York Times cited a CNN network executive who “acknowledged [Flight 3370] was not really a story where reporters [had] been able to advance the known facts much. Instead, it [had] been fueled by a lot of expert analysis based 17 18 on the little verifiable information that [had] been available, speculation about what might have happened to the plane and where it might be now, accompanied by all the visual pizazz the network [could] bring to bear.” Although there was little “news” to report, the story of the lost
- 484. aircraft clearly entertained and engaged viewers, leading to a massive surge in CNN’s ratings. Some have argued that Donald Trump’s success in the 2016 Republican primaries and caucuses was, in part, a product of his ability to take advantage of media outlets’ insatiable desire to attract viewers, listeners, and readers. The real estate magnate and former reality television star’s often outlandish rhetoric earned him massive media attention. One report found that by the end of February 2016, candidate Jeb Bush had spent substantially more than his Republican opponents on media, devoting $82 million to television advertising. Although Trump had spent only $10 million on advertising by this stage, the report found that he had garnered almost $2 billion in free media in the form of extensive news coverage. His closest Republican opponent—Ted Cruz—had earned only $313 million in free media. Conflict When news organizations do cover political topics, they tend to prioritize stories that feature conflict. The current culture wars between liberals and conservatives over issues such as abortion, affirmative action, religious values, and teaching evolution in schools are perfect grist for the conflict-as-infotainment mill. Thus, a current
- 485. staple of cable and broadcast television public affairs programming is the 19 20 21 gathering of pundits from both sides of the cultural and political divide arguing with one another for 30 or 60 minutes, often in a rather uncivil fashion. And, because bringing together shouting pundits is far cheaper than sending reporters into the field to gather hard news, this form of news coverage is becoming more and more common, especially in the world of cable TV. It is not at all clear that journalism that relies on heated exchanges of claims and counter-claims improves public understanding of candidates, political leaders, or public policies. Conflict and contest are also evident in coverage of campaigns, where the media concentrate on the “horse-race” aspects of election contests, focusing almost exclusively on who is winning and who is losing the race and what strategies candidates are using to gain ground or to maintain a lead. When candidates talk seriously about issues, the media regularly focus on analyzing the strategy the candidate appears to have adopted, rather than the pros and cons
- 486. of the policy positions they adopt. The perpetual struggle between Congress and the president, built into our constitutional system, is also perfect for the profit-seeking news industry, especially if the struggle can be personalized. Negativity and Scandal Journalists are also eager to cover scandals involving political leaders and candidates of all stripes. Although the catalyst for these stories may be leaks from inside the government; negative ads aired by rival candidates, political parties, or advocacy groups; or postings to 22 partisan and ideological blogs, they often are picked up by major news media outlets and developed further—occasionally with great gusto. These stories are especially compelling to the news media when even the appearance of wrongdoing in the personal lives of prominent people creates dramatic human interest stories. Sex scandals dogged Bill Clinton for most of his presidency and contributed to his eventual impeachment. Sex or financial scandals also claimed, among others, Senator Gary Hart (D-CO), former House Speakers Jim Wright (D-
- 487. TX), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Mark Foley (R-FL), Larry Craig (R-ID), and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, whose staff in 2009 reported that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was in Argentina visiting his mistress. More recently Senator Al Franken resigned after intense coverage of accusations that he had groped several women, as did Governor Eric Greitens of Missouri in the wake of an array of financial and sex scandals. Stories about Donald Trump authorizing payments to mistresses in the run-up to the election have also been a regular feature of the media landscape during his presidency. Identifying and sharing information about politicians’ misdeeds are arguably important aspects of the media’s watchdog role. On the other hand, some argue that the media sometimes overplays this role and is too quick to blow scandals out of proportion, thereby, heedlessly destroying political careers. News-Gathering and Production Operations 23 The kind of news that the media report is affected by news- gathering and production operations. Much depends on where reporters are,
- 488. what sources they talk to, and what sorts of video are available. Limited Geography The vast majority of serious national news comes from surprisingly few areas of the country. A huge share of news comes from Washington, D.C., the seat of the federal government, and New York City, the center of publishing and finance in the United States. The major television networks and most newspapers cannot afford to station many reporters outside Washington, D.C. or New York. The networks usually add just Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston or Dallas. A recent analysis found that this geographic concentration of reporting has intensified with the growing importance of online reporting. Specifically, it found that “73 percent of all internet publishing jobs are concentrated in either the Boston-New York- Washington-Richmond corridor or the West Coast crescent that runs from Seattle to San Diego and on to Phoenix.” When stories break in San Francisco or Seattle, news organizations can rush reporters to the area or turn to part-time “stringers” (local journalists who file occasional reports) to do the reporting. Some significant stories from outside the main media centers simply do not make it into the national news. While a few newspapers have strong regional bureaus, the majority rely heavily on wire service reports of news from
- 489. elsewhere around the country for content and for cues in deciding what stories to publish. 24 Because so much expensive, high-tech equipment is involved, and because a considerable amount of editing is required to turn raw video into coherent stories, most television news coverage is assigned to predictable events—news conferences and the like—long before they happen, usually in one of the cities with a permanent television crew. For spontaneous news of riots, accidents, and natural disasters, special video camera crews can be rushed to the location, but they usually arrive after the main events occur and have to rely on “reaction” interviews or aftermath stories. This is not always true; occasionally television news organizations find themselves in the middle of an unfolding series of events and can convey its texture, explore its human meaning, and speculate about its political implications in particularly meaningful ways. This was certainly true of television coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and its immediate aftermath in 2005. In addition, as we discuss later in
- 490. this chapter, news outlets increasingly present video footage of unfolding events submitted by citizens who happen to be at the scene of a newsworthy event. Dependence on Official Sources Most political news is based on what public officials say. This fact has important consequences for how well the media serve democracy. Beats and Routines A newspaper or television reporter’s work is usually organized around a particular beat , which he or she checks every day for news stories. Most political beats center on some official government institution that regularly produces news such as a local police station or city council, the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, an American embassy abroad, or a country’s foreign ministry. beat The assigned location where a reporter regularly gathers news stories. Many news reports are created or originated by officials, not by reporters. Investigative reporting of the sort that Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward did to uncover the Watergate scandal, which led to the impeachment and resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, is rare because it is so time-consuming and expensive. Most
- 491. reporters get most of their stories quickly and efficiently from press conferences and the press releases that officials write, along with comments solicited from other officials. One pioneering study by Leon Sigal found that government officials, domestic or foreign, were the sources of nearly three-quarters of all news in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Moreover, the vast majority, 70 to 90 percent of all news stories, were drawn from situations over which the newsmakers had substantial control: press conferences (24.5 percent), interviews (24.7 percent), press releases (17.5 percent), and official proceedings (13 percent). More recent research suggests that the situation described by Sigal remains relatively unchanged. Beats and news-gathering routines encourage a situation of mutual dependence by reporters (and their news organizations) and government officials. Reporters want stories; they have to cultivate access to people who can provide stories with quotes or anonymous leaks. Officials want favorable publicity and to avoid or counteract unfavorable publicity. Thus, a comfortable relationship tends to develop. Even when reporters put on a show of aggressive questioning at White House press conferences, they usually
- 492. work hard to stay on good terms with officials and to avoid fundamental challenges of the officials’ positions. Cozy relationships between the Washington press corps and top government officials are further encouraged by the fact that the participants know each other so well, often living in the same neighborhoods, attending the same social gatherings, and sending their children to the same private schools. 25 26 27 A LEAKY WHITE HOUSE? A string of highly publicized leaks frustrated President Trump during the first year of his administration. For example, in August 2017, the Washington Post published leaked transcripts of Trump’s phone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia. To what extent should there be secrecy in government? Does a democracy require complete openness? DARNED REPORTERS Richard Nixon resigned his presidency in August 1974 rather
- 493. than face a trial in the Senate following his impeachment in the House after investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post uncovered evidence of the president’s close involvement in illegal spying on his political opponents. Nixon’s efforts to cover-up these activities—the political scandal that came to be known as Watergate—proved to be his undoing. Did the news media play an important role in enhancing American democracy during Watergate, or did reporters like Woodward and Bernstein go too far? While often decried by officials hurt by a damaging revelation, the leak is an important part of news gathering that is useful both to journalists and officials, and so is a part of the normal currency of journalist–official working relationships. Indeed, Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate story got its start with leaks from the anonymous “Deep Throat,” revealed in 2005 to be Mark Felt, deputy director of the FBI during the Nixon administration. Most commonly, leaking is a way for officials to float policy ideas, get themselves noticed and credited with good deeds, undercut rivals in other government agencies, or report real or imagined wrongdoing.
- 494. President Trump has regularly complained about leaks from within his administration. His administration has also ramped up efforts to prosecute leakers that began during the Obama administration. In June 2018, it was revealed that federal law enforcement officials had seized a New York Times reporter’s phone and e-mail records as part of an investigation into a former Senate aide accused of leaking classified information to reporters. Groups that advocate for a free press sharply criticized the seizure of the reporter’s records, calling it “a fundamental threat to press freedom” and arguing that it could have a chilling effect on reporters’ efforts to provide the public with accurate information about the government’s actions. President Trump countered by arguing that the government cannot tolerate leaks of classified information. Although the Trump administrations’ efforts may reduce the frequency of leaks, because the practice is so common and useful for both reporters and leakers, it is unlikely that any administration can fully stop the flow of leaks to the press. Thus leaks are likely to remain central to how news is made. 28 leak Inside or secret information given to a
- 495. journalist or media outlet by a government official. Government News Management The news media’s heavy reliance on official sources means that government officials are sometimes able to control what journalists report and how they report it—a practice often referred to as news management . Every president and high-ranking official wants to help reporters spin a story in a way that is most useful or favorable to the office holder. The Reagan administration was particularly successful at picking a “story of the day” and having many officials feed that story to reporters, with a unified interpretation. The Clinton administration tried to do the same but was not disciplined enough to make it work. President George W. Bush’s administration pushed the news management envelope the farthest, eventually acknowledging that it had paid three journalists to write favorable stories, encouraged executive agencies to create news videos for media outlets without revealing the source of the videos, and allowed a political operative to be planted among the accredited White House press corps to ask questions at presidential news conferences. President Obama’s team ran an extensive news management operation using many of the same Internet-based tools honed during his nomination and
- 496. election 29 30 31 campaigns to get his administration’s story out, partially bypassing the traditional news media. But he also generated a great deal of criticism when his press aides announced in 2009 that the president and his administration would have nothing more to do with Fox News because the network, in their view, failed to separate its news reporting and (strongly conservative) editorial functions. Obama later softened his stance and even agreed to be interviewed by Fox News stalwart Bill O’Reilly prior to the Super Bowl in 2011. This push and pull between President Obama and Fox News highlights the tension presidents and other political leaders face: on one hand, they want to control how their message is conveyed to the public; on the other, they must rely on news outlets to get their message out. President Trump’s approach to dealing with the press has been unusually blunt. As of late 2017,
- 497. out of the 39 interviews President Trump granted to major media outlets, 19 were on Fox. The runner up—the New York Times— had interviewed Trump only four times.32 Additionally, when confronted with a negative story about his administration he often simply characterizes the report as “fake.” news management The attempt by those in political power to put the presentation of news about them and their policies in a favorable light. spin The attempt by public officials to have a story reported in terms that favor them and their policies; see news management. Managing images in press reports is also important. Every administration in the modern era has tried to manage public perceptions by staging events that convey strong symbolic messages. For example, George W. Bush announced that the invasion of Iraq had been successfully concluded not in a press release but from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln on May 2, 2003, in front of a massive sign “Mission Accomplished,” after landing in a jet on its runway. Barack Obama told Americans about his new strategy in Afghanistan not from his desk in the Oval Office but in a
- 498. televised address in front of the cadets at West Point. Of course, news management doesn’t always work as planned. When the war in Iraq took a bad turn, Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” came to seem false and hollow to many Americans, and the president’s popularity took a dramatic plunge. With fewer American casualties in Afghanistan—by 2012, most of the fighting there was being done by Special Forces units and drone aircraft—President Obama was more insulated from the effects of bad war news. Military Actions Dependence on official sources is especially evident in military actions abroad. Because it is wary of the release of information that might help an adversary or undermine public support for U.S. actions—as happened during the Vietnam conflict—the Defense Department tries to restrict access of reporters to military personnel and the battlefield and provide carefully screened information for use by the news media. Information management was especially evident during the 1991 Gulf War to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, with its carefully
- 499. stage- managed news briefings at U.S. military headquarters in Saudi Arabia featuring video of “smart” weapons, Defense Department organization of press pools to cover parts of the war, and tight restrictions on reporters’ access to the battlefields in Kuwait and Iraq. During the rapid advance on Baghdad to topple Hussein’s regime in 2003, the Defense Department encouraged coverage of combat by journalists embedded in combat units, although administration officials continued to exercise control over information about the big picture during the initial stages of the war. In the end, however, the administration was unable to control news about military and civilian casualties during the long occupation, the difficulties of helping to create a new constitution and government for that country, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Too many journalists and news organizations from around the world were reporting on events there—and too many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians were posting what they were seeing and experiencing to blogs—for the administration and military officials to be able to control the news.
- 500. Newsworthiness Decisions about what kinds of news to print or televise depend largely on professional judgments about what is newsworthy. Exactly what makes a story newsworthy is difficult to spell out, but experienced editors make quick and confident judgments of what their audiences (and their employers) want. If they were consistently wrong, they would probably not remain in their jobs for very long. NEWS FROM THE FIELD News from the battlefield reaches the public from soldiers who comment about their experiences and observations online and on social media, potentially undermining security concerns. To what extent does a soldier’s online presence help or hinder the public’s understanding of U.S. engagements in armed conflict abroad? In practice, newsworthiness seems to depend on such factors as novelty, drama and human interest, relevance to the lives of Americans, high stakes (physical violence or conflict), and celebrity. As the term news story implies, news works best when it can be framed as a familiar kind of narrative: an exposé of greed, sex, or corruption; conflict between politicians; or a foreign affairs crisis. On television, of course, dramatic or startling film footage helps make a
- 501. story gripping. Important stories without visuals are often pushed aside for less important stories for which visuals exist. This need for visual content can often lead to missing very big stories in the making. For example, though experts had been worried for many years about the safety of New Orleans, and had been publishing their research results in specialized journals for some time, the news media did not pay much attention until the levees broke when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Templates On many important stories, a subtle “governing template” may prevail —a sense among both reporters and editors that news stories must take a generally agreed-upon slant to be taken seriously and to make it into the news broadcast or the newspaper. This is not because of censorship but because of the development of a general agreement among news reporters and editors that the public already knows what the big story looks like on a range of issues—filling in the details is what is important. Take reporting from China as an example. For
- 502. many years, editors wanted to hear only about economic prosperity, emerging democratic freedoms, and happy peasants liberated from the economic and personal straightjacket of the Maoist collective farm system. After the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square were brutally repressed by the People’s Liberation Army, however, reporters say it became almost impossible to write anything positive about China because the prevailing template about China had changed. As China became a very important trading partner, stories about the Chinese economic miracle have proliferated (as well as some worrying about China as a potential economic, diplomatic, and military rival and as a source of tainted goods). The template for covering China has become more difficult to discern since President Trump’s election. Trump has repeatedly accused China of unfair trade practices and imposed substantial tariffs on Chinese imports. However, China appears to be uniquely positioned to facilitate any resolution to the challenges posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. Episodic Foreign Coverage Very few newspapers other than the New York Times can afford to station reporters abroad. Even the Times and the networks and wire
- 503. services cannot regularly cover most nations of the world. They keep reporters in the countries of greatest interest to Americans— those that have big effects on American interests or enjoy close economic or cultural ties with the United States, such as Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Israel, Russia, and China—and they have regional bureaus in Africa and Latin America. In many countries, however, they depend on 33 “stringers.” During major crises or big events, the media send in temporary news teams, such as the armies of reporters that swarmed to Bosnia and Kosovo during the conflicts there. The result is that most media devote the majority of their attention to limited areas of the world, dropping in only occasionally on others. Foreign news, therefore, tends to be episodic—viewers are presented with a brief window into a foreign affairs issue but given little in the way of contextual information to help them make sense of what is going on. An unfamiliar part of the world, such as the Darfur region of the Sudan, suddenly jumps into the headlines with a dramatic story of
- 504. ethnic cleansing, or elsewhere a coup, an invasion, or a famine comes as a surprise to most Americans because they have not been prepared by background reports. Strikingly, one study found that only 0.2 percent of news coverage in the United States in 2011 was about sub-Sahara Africa. A story about Darfur may be covered heavily for a few days or weeks, but if nothing new and exciting happens, the story grows stale and disappears from the media. Even stories in regions of the world where the United States is directly involved are often covered episodically. For example, the civil war in Syria has been raging for several years, and the United States has been actively involved in the conflict. However, coverage of Syria has been spotty: events in Syria may be front page news one day and then receive virtually no coverage for weeks or months. Most viewers are left with little more understanding of the country than they began with. Thus, they find it difficult to form judgments about U.S. foreign policy. 34 35 Interpretation
- 505. Political news may not make much sense without an interpretation of what it means. Under the informal rules of objective journalism , taught in university journalism schools and practiced by the nation’s leading newspapers and network news programs, however, explicit interpretations by journalists are to be avoided, except for commentary or editorials labeled as such. Thus, even if a reporter knows that an official is lying, he or she typically will not say so directly but will, instead, find someone else who will say so for the record. In news stories, most interpretations are left implicit (so that they are hard to detect and argue with) or are given by so-called experts who are interviewed for comments. Often, particular experts are selected by print, broadcast, and telecast journalists because the position the experts will take is entirely predictable. objective journalism News reported with no evaluative language and with opinions quoted or attributed to a specific source. Experts are selected partly for reasons of convenience and audience appeal: scholars and commentators who live close to New York City or Washington, D.C., who like to speak in public, who look good on
- 506. 36 camera, and who are skillful in coming up with colorful quotations on a variety of subjects, are contacted again and again. They often show up on television to comment on the news of the day, even on issues far from the area of their special expertise. In many cases, these pundits are simply well-known for being on television often and are not experts on any subject at all. The experts and commentators featured in the media are often ex-officials. Their views are usually in harmony with the political currents of the day; that is, they tend to reflect a fairly narrow spectrum of opinion close to that of the party in power in Washington, D.C., or to the prevailing “conventional wisdom” inside the Beltway. pundits Somewhat derisive term for print, broadcast, and radio commentators on the political news. WAITING FOR HELP These women refugees from the genocidal conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan wait for a
- 507. daily food ration. The conflict in Darfur displaced almost 2 million people, with most living in dreadful conditions; however, news coverage of Darfur and the state of its people was spotty. When a celebrity or prominent politician visited refugees or when a demonstration took place in a major city in Europe or the United States, attention picked up but afterward faded into the background. Why isn’t media coverage of international crises more consistent? Online News Media Thus far, we have primarily focused our attention on traditional news outlets. However, in recent years, we have seen a rapid expansion of access to the Internet and use of social media, along with substantial growth in the number of online sources of political information. These dynamics have transformed the news media landscape and provide interested citizens with virtually unlimited access to information, news, and analysis as well as with opportunities to express their own views on public issues by doing things like commenting on and sharing political information on Facebook and Twitter.37
- 508. At the same time that Internet use has expanded at an exponential rate, there has been a decline in the audience for the most traditional news outlet: newspapers. For decades, people have consistently reported that television is their main source of news over newspapers and news magazines, but the Internet closing fast. As shown in Figure 6.1 , the gap between the share of people who say they often get news online and those who say they often watch news on TV is closing rapidly. In 2016, 57 percent of Americans said they often watch TV news compared to 38 percent who said they often get news online. In just one year, this 19 percentage point gap narrowed to only 7 percent. As Figure 6.1 illustrates, this change was driven largely by increased consumption of online news by older Americans. As more and more people choose to get their news online, some other types of outlets—especially print newspapers—have seen declines in their audiences. The collapse of the print newspaper business has been striking. Total print advertising revenue for newspapers plummeted from almost $50 billion in 2000 to less than $20 billion in 2016.38 FIGURE 6.1 WHERE PEOPLE GET THEIR NEWS
- 509. Surveys that ask respondents whether they “often” consume news from television and the Internet find that in recent years, people have turned increasingly to the Internet as a source of news, while decreasing somewhat in their reliance on television and newspapers. Although the Internet still trails television as people’s main source of news, it is closing the gap, largely because older Americans increasingly use online news sources. NOTE: Bars indicate percentage of respondents who said they “often” get news online or on television. SOURCE: Pew Research Center, “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017,” September, 2017. SIGHTING POPE FRANCIS Phones with cameras together with social media sites like Instagram and Twitter make it easy for anyone to play the role of a reporter. These technologies and services allow individual citizens to share photos and other first-hand information about politicians and public figures with their friends, followers, and acquaintances as well as with traditional news outlets. In what ways have smartphone technologies and apps refashioned how Americans engage in political life?
- 510. Research by media scholars shows that the mainstream news organizations, taken as a whole, remain the most important set of institutions for setting the agenda of American politics and shaping how we interpret what is going on in politics and government. Despite the rapid rise and development of alternatives to the mainstream media, the mainstream news media retain their central role in the gathering and reporting of serious political and governmental news. There are a number of reasons the mainstream or traditional news organizations remain central to political news. For one thing, much of the rich and diverse information on the Internet, whether in the form of advocacy organization websites, political blogs, citizen journalism, or academic and government reports, only reach small and fragmented audiences and usually have an impact only when and to the extent they can attract the attention of the mainstream news media. Bloggers’ unearthing of news anchor Dan Rather’s sloppy reporting on President George W. Bush’s National Guard service during the Vietnam War, for example, only mattered once the story began to run in the nation’s leading newspapers and on network and cable news networks. Tens of thousands of bloggers voice their views every
- 511. day, but few gain an audience. One scholar, using a vast database to chronicle the number of daily hits on blogger sites, has determined that only 10 to 20 of them have a readership of any size. Of the 5,000 most-visited political blog sites, for example, the top 5 accounted for 28 percent of all blog visits, while the top 10 accounted for almost half. Also, half of the top 10 bloggers are or were at one time professional journalists.39 An additional piece of evidence that traditional news outlets continue to play a central role in the contemporary news media landscape is that the most visited online news sites are overwhelmingly tied to traditional print or television outlets including CBS News, ABC News, the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, and Fox News. BLOGGING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION Both the Republican and Democratic conventions allocate space not only to the mainstream media but also to digital journalists who produce content for the Web instantaneously. To what extent does live reporting and instantaneous publishing enhance the quality of political information available to the public?
- 512. Similarly, the news that most political bloggers write about and the bits of news that get passed around on social-networking sites come 40 mainly from material that has been collected by reporters in the traditional news sector. The grist for commentary at the most popular political sites, including the liberal-leaning Huffington Post and Salon, and conservative-leaning sites such as The Blaze and The Daily Beast, comes mainly from traditional news organizations and the major wire services. Unfortunately, one of the most important political consequences of the explosion of online media and social networking may be tied to the proliferation of fabricated stories—fabricated stories posted online by individuals looking to make money from online advertising by drawing traffic to a website. It is far easier to set up a website than it is to establish a print newspaper or cable news channel. Thus, in contrast to reporters at the New York Times or Fox News, individuals behind online outlets often have no reputation to worry about, leaving them free to post blatant falsehoods with little fear of consequences. This is
- 513. not to say that traditional news outlets never make errors in their reporting. Rather, when they do they are typically quick to correct the error and apologize because they have clear incentives to maintain a reputation for conveying accurate information. In one striking example of the ease with which false information can be spread via online sources, during the 2016 campaign, teenagers living in the small town of Veles, Macedonia—thousands of miles from the United States—made tens of thousands of dollars posting bogus stories to their websites and working to make them go viral on social media. These fake news stories and others like them were shared by millions of people during the campaign. In fact, some analysis indicates that the most popular fake news stories were shared more widely than the most popular stories from mainstream outlets. What seems on the surface, then, to be a massive expansion in the amount of political news in reality is an expansion in the number of ways in which news is distributed and, perhaps, a proliferation of factually incorrect online information that is not news at all. An exponential growth in commentary on news from the same set of
- 514. sources is not the same thing as an expansion in the size or quality of the core of political news. As far as scholars have been able to tell, the bulk of original, in-depth stories is still produced by traditional news outlets. To be sure, this appears to be changing. Some mainstream media organizations have been quite aggressive in using citizen reporters to gather and submit news stories—see CNN’s iReport website— while new technologies allow people to arrange Facebook posts and tweets, often of a political nature, into chronological narratives to be reposted elsewhere. Mainstream media also use new digital sources of information as sources for constructing their own news stories, as when in 2010 the New York Times reported about and released much of the raw diplomatic cables gathered by WikiLeaks under the leadership of its founder, Julian Assange. During the 2016 election, WikiLeaks made news again by leaking a flood of hacked e- mails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. 41 42
- 515. Reporting from nontraditional news outlets—including satirical news programs—also appears capable of having a surprising amount of political impact if shared widely via social media. When John Oliver, the comedic host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, aired an in- depth story on net neutrality (the practice of Internet service providers treating all Internet traffic equally), he unleashed a tidal wave of public support that appeared to play a role in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) adoption of net-neutrality rules in 2015. The goal of these new net-neutrality regulations? To preserve an “open” Internet by preventing broadband providers from speeding or slowing traffic to certain locations or through certain apps based on the willingness of those providers to pay higher prices. However, other factors—outlined in Figure 6.2 , where we apply our structural- linkage-government framework—led to the FCC rescinding these rules in June 2018. This example illustrates the potential for media to affect government actions by informing and mobilizing the public. It also shows that this influence is often limited by other forces including the power of well-funded interest groups and the changes in bureaucratic appointees that often follow presidential elections.
- 516. FIGURE 6.2 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: NET NEUTRALITY © Edward S. Greenberg NEWS WITH LAUGHS Although they are billed as comedy shows, programs like The Daily Show (Comedy Central), and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (pictured; HBO) have become an important source of news— particularly for younger Americans. Occasionally these programs bring attention to obscure or forgotten issues. As we illustrate in Figure 6.2 , in some cases these shows appear to affect which policies the government implements. However, the ability of media like this to shape policy outcomes is limited by electoral forces and the efforts of interest groups. What role should satirical news programs play in keeping the American public informed? Should we expect them to adhere to the journalistic standards we set for traditional journalists? The news media have changed greatly over our history and continue
- 517. to change ever more rapidly. That said, while people can get their news and commentary from many different places ranging from the Internet to cable television, talk radio, and television satire and comedy programs, mainstream news organizations remain the most important set of institutions in the American political news system, even if they are fighting for their lives in an economic sense. It is the reason we mostly focus on the mainstream news media in this chapter, asking how well they play the role assigned to them by democratic theorists. Bias in the News Few topics arouse more disagreement than the question of whether the mass media in the United States have a liberal or conservative bias —or any bias at all. Researchers have found evidence that news outlets vary in the ideological slant they bring to bear when reporting a story. However, these differences in ideological leanings are not simply the product of journalists’ personal political preferences. More broadly, it is difficult to pin down exactly what perfectly “unbiased” reporting would look like. bias Deviation from ideal standards such as representativeness or objectivity.
- 518. Ideological Bias Evaluate news organizations’ ideological and nonideological biases. 6.2 Many liberal critics believe the news media favor Republicans and the business establishment, while many conservative critics believe the news media are unfair to Republicans and favor liberal social causes. Almost half of all Americans believe there is “a great deal” of bias in news coverage and two-thirds say most news organizations fail to do a good job separating fact from opinion. Much, of course, is in the eye of the beholder; experimental research shows that when people with different political allegiances are exposed to the exact same news accounts, they each believe the stories are biased against their favored positions and candidates. Partisan differences in how people evaluate the news media are also evident in polls that show a sharp divergence in Democrats’ and Republicans’ assessments of whether criticism from news organization “keeps leaders from doing their jobs” or “keeps them from doing things that shouldn’t be done.” Just a few years ago, most Democrats and Republicans said this criticism primarily fulfills
- 519. a watchdog function by keeping leaders from doing things they shouldn’t be done. However, in 2017 support for this view surged among Democrats (to 89 percent) and plummeted among Republicans (to 42 percent). Although the historical trend suggests that partisans are more inclined to see the media as a watchdog when the president is from the opposing party, it seems likely that the huge gap that emerged in 2017 is, at least in part, attributable to President Trump’s repeated claims that news organizations attack him unfairly. 43 44 45 46 47 STUNNED BY KATRINA Many conservative commentators charged that the news media focused on poor African Americans in New Orleans as the main victims of Hurricane Katrina when, in fact, the range of victims was much more diverse and living across a broader swath of Gulf Coast states.
- 520. Is this photograph of Katrina’s victims a fair or biased representation of the disaster? It is quite difficult—perhaps impossible—to pinpoint what an “unbiased” story would look like. This is particularly true given that media reports are typically quite brief, while the topics they cover are complex and contentious. Should a story about a proposal to raise the minimum wage cite statistics on income inequality, or would that introduce a “liberal bias”? Should research suggesting that raising the minimum wage may increase unemployment be cited, or would that introduce a “conservative bias”? What if some studies suggest that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment, and others find that it would reduce unemployment? Journalists must make choices about what facts and perspectives to present in the limited space they are provided. Some may see a decision to include a particular fact as biased, while others may see excluding that fact as indicative of bias. Though it is difficult to agree on what it would mean for a particular news report to be unbiased, researchers have conducted
- 521. innovative studies that provide ways to assess how liberal or conservative a news outlet is compared with other outlets. In one fascinating study, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro analyzed the language used by Democratic and Republican representatives in Congress to identify words and phrases that Democrats used commonly but Republicans did not (and vice versa). For example, Democrats and Republicans typically use different terms to refer to a federal tax on paid on multimillion dollar estates after the owner dies. Democrats overwhelmingly referred to this as the “estate tax,” presumably to highlight the fact that the tax only applies to wealthy individuals and evoke images of homes with dozens of rooms and horse stables. In contrast, Republicans used the term “death tax,” perhaps to present the tax as something that could affect everyone or to frame the policy as the government taxing people even after they are dead. The researchers then assessed how often various newspapers used these terms. This allows them to construct a measure of media slant: newspapers that use language similar to that used by Republican 48 elected officials are considered more conservative; those that use
- 522. language used by Democrats are more liberal. Again, it is important to note that although studies like this can identify variation in newspapers’ slant, they cannot point to a particular outlet as “unbiased.” However, the findings from a study like this do suggest that news outlets vary in their ideological leanings. This raises the question of why this is the case. What factors might affect the ideological leanings of news outlets? We consider three explanations. Liberal Reporters Surveys of reporters’ and journalists’ opinions suggest that these individuals tend to be somewhat more liberal than the average American on certain matters, including the environment and such social issues as civil rights and liberties, affirmative action, abortion, and women’s rights. This is especially true of those employed by certain elite media organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and PBS. It may be that reporters’ liberalism has been reflected in the treatment of issues such as global warming, same-sex marriage, and abortion. This said, in recent years more conservative reporters and newscasters have gained prominence, especially on cable news programs. There is, however, little or no systematic evidence that
- 523. reporters’ personal values regularly affect what appears in the mainstream news media. Journalists’ commitment to the idea of objectivity helps them resist temptation, as do critical scrutiny and rewriting by editors. In any 49 50 case, the liberalism of journalists may be offset by their need to rely on official sources, their reliance on experts who are either former officials or associated with centrist or conservative think tanks, and the need to get their stories past editors who are accountable to mostly conservative owners and publishers. Nonetheless, some suspect that the increasing geographic concentration of news organizations in urban areas may affect reporting. This concentration is particularly pronounced with respect to organizations that publish online. Analysis of publicly available data show that “90 percent of all Internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 percent of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 percentage points.” Even if journalists actively work to avoid allowing their own preferences to shape their reporting, the fact that so
- 524. many live and work in heavily Democratic areas may color their perceptions of what life is like for most Americans. Not-So-Liberal Owners and Corporations The owners and top managers of most news media organizations tend to be conservative and Republican. This is perhaps not surprising. The shareholders and executives of multi-billion-dollar corporations tend not to be interested in undermining the free enterprise system, for example, or, for that matter, increasing their own taxes, raising labor costs, or losing income from offended advertisers. These owners and managers ultimately decide which reporters, newscasters, and editors to hire or fire, promote or discourage. Journalists who want to get ahead, therefore, may have to come to terms with the policies of the people who own and run media businesses.51 Maintaining a Reputation for Quality A final factor that may affect the ideological slant of a news outlet is closely connected to the profit motive. News organizations that do not attract and maintain an audience do not make money and, ultimately, fail. Thus, when reporting on politics, a news outlet may strive
- 525. to present stories in a way that they believe their audience will interpret as being high quality. One way to convey quality to an audience may be to avoid presenting stories in a way that challenges their existing beliefs. For example, a 2013 survey found that among people who cited Fox News as their primary source of news, 94 percent identified themselves as Republicans or Republican leaners, and 97 percent disapproved of President Obama’s job performance. If Fox News presents stories that cast a Democratic president in a favorable light, these viewers may see it as a sign that liberal bias has infiltrated what had previously been a “high-quality” outlet and tune out. Likewise, an MSNBC viewer may be put off by unflattering or critical reports about a Democratic president. Put simply, a desire to gain and retain audience—rather than the ideological preferences of reporters or owners—may be a key driver of ideological media bias. Nonideological Bias The questions of whether and why mainstream news outlets may be ideologically biased are not easily answered. However, other biases in reporting may also be consequential. Some of these biases include
- 526. 52 53 reporters’ dependence on official sources and the eagerness with which journalist pursue sensational stories—matters examined earlier in this chapter. Another is the bias or set of biases generated by the marketplace. News media organizations are business enterprises or part of larger corporate entities and are in business to make a profit for themselves or their corporate parents. This may lead them to gather and present news in a way that is at odds with their role as watchdogs and providers of relevant policy information in a democratic society. In the domain of foreign affairs, reporting typically adopts a pro- American, patriotic point of view, where the United States is presented in a favorable light and its opponents in an unfavorable light. This tendency is especially pronounced in news about military conflicts involving U.S. troops, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it can be found as well in a wide range of foreign affairs news reports, including those
- 527. concerning conflicts with other governments on trade, arms control, immigration, and intellectual property rights (patents and copyrights). This nationalistic perspective, together with heavy reliance on U.S. government news sources, means that coverage of foreign news generally harmonizes well with official U.S. foreign policy. Thus, the media tend to go along with the U.S. government in assuming the best about our close allies and the worst about official “enemies.” When the United States was assisting Iraq in its war against Iran during the 1980s, for example, Saddam Hussein was depicted in a positive light; during the 1991 Gulf War and the Iraq War that started 12 years later, media characterizations of him turned dramatically negative. In foreign policy crisis situations, the reliance on official news sources means that the media sometimes propagate government statements that are false or misleading, as in the announcement of unprovoked attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Secret information can also be controlled by the government. And political leaders know that the news media will be cautious in its criticism when troops are deployed and put in
- 528. harm’s way. It is important to point out that when the use of American armed forces abroad drags on beyond expectations and goals are not met (as in the conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the broader Middle East), the news media can and do become negative in their coverage. This may simply reflect the mood change among nonadministration leaders and the public, or it might be a reaction among journalists and news organizations to their own initial uncritical coverage of administration policies. Effects of the News Media on Politics Over time, social scientists have gone from speculating that the news media dramatically and directly influence citizens’ political views to believing that media have only “minimal effects” on people’s attitudes. Each of these possibilities has been discredited in favor of a more nuanced understanding of how news media affect the public. The contents of the news media do make a difference; they affect public opinion and policymaking in a number of ways, including
- 529. setting the agenda for public debate, priming particular issues, and framing how issues are understood. This said, it is important to bear in mind that the dramatic differences in attitudes between, say, regular viewers of Fox New and the MSNBC audience seem to be driven primarily by self-selection—a tendency for people to seek out news sources that fit with their existing political preferences—rather than the power of the media to change people’s minds. News reports may also affect people’s broader orientation toward the political world by fostering cynicism or a fragmented understanding of the political world. Analyze the impact of the media on public opinion and political behavior. 6.3 54 55 Agenda Setting Several studies have demonstrated an effect known as agenda setting . The topics that get the most coverage in the news media at any point in time end up being the issues that most people tell pollsters are the most important problems facing the country. This
- 530. correlation does not result just from the news media’s reporting what people are most interested in; it is a real effect of what appears in the news. In controlled experiments, people who are shown doctored television news broadcasts emphasizing a particular problem (e.g., national defense) mention that problem as being important more often than people who have seen broadcasts that have not been tampered with. Another line of research has shown that news media polling often is used as the basis for reporting about what the American people want regarding a certain policy (say, intervening in a civil war in Liberia) when few Americans know or care about the subject matter of the opinion survey. The polling story, if it is picked up by other news media outlets, bloggers, and pundits, however, then becomes part of the general news landscape and sparks interest among much of the public about that subject. It becomes part of the public agenda. agenda setting The way media outlets can affect people’s opinions about what issues are important. 56 57
- 531. Of course, media managers do not arbitrarily decide what news to emphasize; their decisions reflect what is happening in the world and what American audiences care about. If there is a war or an economic depression, the media report it. But some research has indicated that what the media cover sometimes diverges from actual trends in problems. Publicity about crime, for example, may reflect editors’ fears or a few dramatic incidents rather than a rising crime rate. When the two diverge, it seems to be the media’s emphasis rather than real trends that affects public opinion. When the media decide to highlight a human rights tragedy in “real time,” such as “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo, public officials often feel compelled to act, as Bill Clinton did when he was president. (This is sometimes called the CNN effect.) When the media ignore equally troubling human tragedies, such as the genocide in Darfur, public officials feel less pressure to intervene. One scholarly study shows that in the foreign policy area, media choices about coverage shape what presidents pay attention to. But influences go in both directions. News media scholar Lance Bennett suggests that journalists and the news organizations they work for are closely attuned to the relative power balance in Washington between
- 532. Democrats and Republicans, and between liberals and conservatives, and focus on matters that are of most concern to those in power at any particular time. Thus, Social Security reform becomes an important issue in the press when important political actors want to talk about it. The same is true for other issues, whether it’s taxes or nuclear threats from countries such as Iran and North Korea. 58 59 60 Priming Beyond affecting which issues are on the public agenda, media reports can affect which considerations people give weight to when evaluating political leaders. By repeatedly drawing attention to a particular issue news reports may foster a situation where matters related to that issue come to mind particularly readily when people are asked to make political judgments. This priming phenomenon can be illustrated with an example. Imagine a situation where news outlets are devoting substantial attention to issues related to national defense. In this context, matters related to national defense are
- 533. likely to be at the top of many people’s minds—that is, they are likely to be primed. When asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president’s performance overall they may give particularly strong weight to their assessments of a president’s handling of defense issues. priming The way heavy media coverage of a particular topic can lead citizens to give greater weight to that topic when evaluating politicians and making other political judgments. 61 62 Framing Experiments also indicate that how the media report a story can lead to framing effects . Specifically, the way a story is reported can affect how people think about political problems or who they blame for social problems. Several commentators noticed during the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, for example, that TV news stories framed their reports of whites left with nothing as “foraging for food and supplies,” while those of African Americans were framed as looting.
- 534. There are reasons to believe that public impressions of what was going on in the city were affected by this coverage. To take another example, whether citizens ascribe poverty to the laziness of the poor or to the nature of the economy depends partly on whether the news media run stories about poor individuals (implying, through framing, that they are responsible for their own plight) or stories about the effects of economic recessions and unemployment. framing effects The way news organizations can affect how people think about an issue by presenting it in a particular way or situating it in a particular context. 63 64 The way news media frame stories can also affect people’s policy preferences. One study found, for example, that the public is more likely to favor government programs to help African Americans when the news media frame racial problems in terms of failures of society to live up to the tradition of equality in the United States. The public is
- 535. less supportive of these programs when the news media frame the origins of racial problems in terms of individual failures to be self- reliant and responsible. Another study found that changes in the percentages of the public that favored various policies could be predicted quite accurately by what sorts of stories appeared on network television news shows between one opinion survey and the next. News from experts, commentators, and popular presidents had especially strong effects. This is not to say that readers, viewers, and listeners blindly accept the way issues are framed in media reports. People are rarely exposed to a single way of framing a given issue or event. Different outlets and commentators, as well as friends, relatives and other discussion partners, are likely to frame an issue in different ways. This may dampen the effects of being exposed to any particular frame. Fueling Cynicism Americans are quite cynical about the political parties, politicians, and most incumbent political leaders. To some extent, this has been true since the founding of the nation. Nevertheless, scholars and political 65
- 536. 66 67 commentators have noted a considerable increase in negative feelings about the political system over the past two decades or so. Many scholars believe that news media coverage of American politics has a great deal to do with this attitude change. As the adversarial-attack journalism style and infotainment have taken over political reporting, serious consideration of the issues, careful examination of policy alternatives, and dispassionate examination of the actions of government institutions have taken a back seat to a steady diet of charges about personal misbehavior and political conflict. In the end, the message delivered by the mass media is often that politicians’ positions on policy issues are driven by special-interest maneuvering, that political leaders and aspiring political leaders never say what they mean or mean what they say, and that all of them have something in their personal lives they want to hide. Furthermore, news reports feed the public a constant stream of messages about the failure of government: programs that don’t work, wasteful spending, lazy and incompetent public employees,
- 537. looming government deficits, and people receiving benefits they don’t deserve. Though not entirely absent, stories about government working in a way that enhances the well-being of Americans are less common, probably because such stories are not terribly dramatic. Mail gets delivered every day into the remotest regions of the country, for example, while cars and trucks make heavy use of the interstate highway system. The Center for Disease Control stays on constant alert for dangerous pathogens, and park rangers keep watch on our national parks. 68 Fragmenting Comprehension Most communications scholars agree that the media coverage of political news has certain distinctive features that result from characteristics of the mass media, including the prevailing technology and organization of news gathering, corporate ownership, and the profit-making drive to appeal to mass audiences. These characteristics of the media mean that news, especially on television, tends to be episodic and fragmented rather than sustained, analytical, or dispassionate. In other words, information comes in bits and pieces,
- 538. out of context, and without historical background. This may or may not be what people want—some scholars suggest that the people, in fact, do not want hard news at all; others suggest that they want hard news, but they want it with a strong dose of entertainment. Regardless, it is what they get. 69 IS EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE “NEWSWORTHY”? Employees at federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) work year-round to protect the public from diseases, unsafe drugs, and tainted food. Yet we rarely hear anything about these agencies unless something has gone wrong. How might the media’s tendency to focus on negative stories affect public attitudes about the government? However, it is important to point out that the news media often do deep and thorough investigative reporting that matters. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Bloomberg/Businessweek, for example, each did in-depth stories in late 2009 and early 2010
- 539. on lobbying and big campaign contributions by large financial firms who tried, with some success, to turn back regulatory reforms in Congress not to their liking. But the pressure to stick to infotainment is relentless, and all news organizations feel it in one way or another. Using the Democracy Standard The News Media: do they help or Hinder Democracy? The framers favored a form of government based on the consent of the governed but one in which most of the governed played only a limited and indirect role in political life. They believed government was best run by talented, educated, and broad-minded individuals who attained office through indirect elections based on a limited franchise and whose governing decisions were not directly dictated by the people. According to such an understanding of the ideal form of government, there was no pressing need for news media to educate the general public and prepare it for active participation in politics. For the framers, the purpose of the news media —newspapers, in their day—was to serve as a mechanism allowing economic, social, and political leaders to communicate with one another and to help them deliberate on the issues of the day. For democratic theorists, the people are expected to play a more central role in governance, and the news
- 540. media play an accordingly larger role in preparing the people to participate. An accurate, probing, and vigorous news media are essential building blocks for democratic life to the extent that the broad general public cannot be rationally engaged in public affairs without them. In this respect, the spread of the news media in the United States—and the penetration of millions of homes by newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet—has undoubtedly enriched democracy. It has made it much easier for ordinary citizens to form policy preferences, to judge the actions of government, and to decide whom they want to govern them. News media thus tend to contribute to political equality. When citizens, political leaders, and special-interest groups know what is going on, they can have a voice in politics. Moreover, interactive media and media-published polls help politicians hear that voice. Scholars and media critics who want the news media to be highly informative, analytical, and issue oriented, however, are often appalled by the personalized, episodic, dramatic, and fragmented character of most news stories, which do not provide sustained and coherent explanations of what is going on. Still other critics worry that constant media exposés of alleged official wrongdoing or government inefficiency, and the mocking tone aimed at virtually all political leaders by journalists and talk-radio hosts, have fueled the growing political cynicism of the public. To the extent that this is true—that they tend to trivialize, focus on scandal and entertainment, and offer fragmented and out-of-context political and governmental information—the news media are not serving democracy as well as they might.
- 541. However, things may not be quite as bad as they appear. For one thing, for those truly interested in public affairs, there is now more readily accessible information than at any time in our history. For those willing to search for it, there is now little information relevant to public affairs that can be kept hidden, ranging from official government statistics to academic and other expert studies. Additionally, the American people have demonstrated an admirable ability on many occasions to sift the wheat from the chaff, to glean the information they need from the background noise. On balance, then, the news media have probably helped advance the cause of democracy in the United States and helped transform the American republic into the American 70 democratic republic. There is no doubt, however, that the news media could also do a considerably better job than they do at the present time. Chapter 6 Review the Chapter How news Organizations Operate One function of the news media in a democracy is to serve as a watchdog over government, uncovering government corruption and keeping government officials accountable to the public. Other important functions are to help citizens evaluate
- 542. candidates for public office and to think about what kinds of government policies might best serve the public interest. The shape of the news media in the United States has been determined largely by structural factors: technological developments; the growth of the American population and economy; and the development of a privately owned, corporation-dominated media industry. New Internet-based media have not replaced traditional reporting and news organizations. For the most part, these new media use materials gathered by old media. Discuss the functions, structure, and operations of the news media. 6.1 News gathering is limited by logistics. Most news gathering is organized around New York City, Washington, D.C., and a handful of major cities in the United States and abroad. Most foreign countries are ignored unless there are crises or other big stories to communicate. Bias in the News Although media outlets do vary in their ideological leanings it is usually
- 543. difficult to pin down exactly what “unbiased” report would look like given the complexity of many of the political issues reporters cover. Some scholars have argued that much of the variation in the ideological slant of news reporting can be attributed to the profit motive—outlets strive to present news in a way that will be appealing to viewers, listeners, or readers. American news outlets tend to have a pro-American bias, particularly when it comes to reporting on foreign affairs. Effects of the News Media on Evaluate news organizations’ ideological and nonideological biases. 6.2 Politics News media stories have substantial effects on the public’s perceptions of problems, its interpretations of events, its evaluations of political candidates, and its policy preferences. The news media affects the public not only by providing information but also by setting the agenda, priming, framing, fueling the public’s cynicism, and fragmenting people’s understanding of news and
- 544. events. Analyze the impact of the media on public opinion and political behavior. 6.3 Learn the Terms agenda setting The way media outlets can affect people’s opinions about what issues are important. beat The assigned location where a reporter regularly gathers news stories. bias Deviation from ideal standards such as representativeness or objectivity. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Federal agency set up to regulate media companies with an eye toward ensuring competition and protecting consumers. framing effects The way news organizations can affect how people think about an issue by presenting it in a particular way or situating it in a particular context. infotainment The merging of hard news and entertainment in news presentations.
- 545. leak Inside or secret information given to a journalist or media outlet by a government official. media consolidation The process of a small number of companies coming to own an increasingly large share of the media outlets by purchasing outlets or merging with other media companies. news management The attempt by those in political power to put the presentation of news about them and their policies in a favorable light. objective journalism News reported with no evaluative language and with opinions quoted or attributed to a specific source. priming The way heavy media coverage of a particular topic can lead citizens to give greater weight to that topic when evaluating politicians and making other political judgments. pundits Somewhat derisive term for print, broadcast, and radio commentators on the political news. spin The attempt by public officials to have a story reported in terms
- 546. that favor them and their policies; see news management. watchdog The role of the media in scrutinizing the actions of government officials. wire services Organizations such as the Associated Press and Reuters that gather and disseminate news to other news organizations. Chapter 7 Interest Groups and Business Power DISASTER IN THE GULF Risky behavior by drilling companies, pressure from parent oil company BP, and lax government regulatory oversight all contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. By all accounts, it represented the most serious environmental disaster in American history, with effects still being felt in the Gulf region to this day. What can and should be done to prevent similar disasters in the future? Chapter Outline and Learning
- 547. Objectives The Struggle for Democracy Disaster in the Gulf INTEREST GROUPS IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY: CONTRASTING VIEWPOINTS Compare and contrast opposing viewpoints about the role of interest groups in a democracy. THE UNIVERSE OF INTEREST GROUPS Describe different types of interest groups. INTEREST GROUP FORMATION AND PROLIFERATION Explain why interest groups form and proliferate. WHAT INTEREST GROUPS DO Analyze the methods and activities interest groups use to influence political outcomes. INTEREST GROUPS, CORPORATE POWER, AND INEQUALITY IN AMERICAN POLITICS Describe the inequalities of the interest group system. CURING THE MISCHIEF OF FACTIONS Assess the effectiveness of regulations designed to control interest groups. 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6
- 548. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico was ripped apart by a series of spectacular explosions that killed eleven oil rig workers and unleashed the largest marine drilling oil spill in American history. The rig, owned by the Transocean Corporation and leased to oil giant BP (British Petroleum), was finishing the final phases of drilling a well more than a mile beneath the platform when the disaster struck. The temporary cement cap that topped off the well failed, releasing an out-of-control mixture of natural gas and crude oil and setting off an inferno. By 2017, seven years after the explosion and massive oil spill, the full environmental effects had not yet been fully determined though scientists agreed that only 25 percent of the spill has been accounted for. Much of the spilled oil remains on the ocean floor and continues to adversely affect many animal and plant species. How did it happen? We know that BP, putting cost saving before safety, insisted that platform operator Transocean take a number of risky and ill-advised operational steps. Although Transocean engineers and many workers aboard the Deepwater rig apparently expressed concerns about these decisions, production never slowed. BP executives pushed Transocean to finish on time and under budget so that it could temporarily cap the well and move on to other drilling opportunities. Oil executives who later testified at a congressional hearing on the spill agreed that BP should have done more onsite testing of critical blowout preventers at Deepwater Horizon but admitted that they were similarly 1
- 549. negligent because of costs to suspend operations while testing —about $700 a minute. The blowout had political origins as well. For years prior to the drilling disaster, federal and state regulations on the oil and gas industries had been rolled back, fewer people worked for government agencies with oversight responsibilities, and fewer mid-level government bureaucrats, given the deregulatory orthodoxy that held sway in the economics profession, the Republican Party and portions of the Democratic Party, and among corporate executives, were willing to take on the industry. One revelation arising from congressional testimony about the spill, for example, was how few rules the Minerals Management Service (MMS) had issued regarding deep-ocean drilling and how often MMS failed to enforce the few rules that were in place. There was also evidence of what political scientists call “agency capture.” When a regulatory agency designed to regulate an industry in the public interest instead comes to act as a partner with that industry, agency capture is at work. Possible future employment for regulators, dependence of regulators on industry for the technical information, long-term relationships among regulators and firms, and overt gift-giving encourage common points of view among regulators and the regulated. For example, congressional hearings and an Interior Department inspector general’s report in 2010 revealed that energy companies paid for meals and hotel stays, elaborate 2 vacations, and tickets to premium athletic events for MMS
- 550. employees and that several MMS inspectors had examined operations at companies where they hoped to work. Also uncovered was the cozy relationship between oil rig inspectors and drilling companies. Many instances came to light of MMS inspection forms that had been filled out in pencil by industry officials but later traced over in pen by inspectors. Equally important, the MMS was entirely dependent on the technical information provided by regulated companies, having neither the personnel nor agency resources to develop information or independent testing equipment and instruments “in-house.” During the Coast Guard inquiry on the failure of the various safety devices to work at the Deepwater Horizon platform, Captain Hung Nguyen was astonished when he received a simple “yes” answer from the MMS’s regional supervisor for field operations to the following question: “So my understanding is that [the shear ram tool] is designed to industry standard, manufactured by industry, installed by industry, with no government witnessing oversight of the construction or the installation. Is that correct?” With such vigorous industry oversight in place, who needs more regulation? In response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Obama administration issued tough safety, financial, and environmental regulations for the offshore drilling industry. After the election of Donald Trump, however, a president committed to de- regulation as a way to unleash private enterprise, grow the economy, and bring back jobs, regulatory rollbacks on offshore drilling happened quickly. For example, under the direction of its new director Scott Angelle, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement issued new rules giving drilling companies more time to replace faulty drilling
- 551. equipment, eased maintenance requirements for drilling rigs, and loosened inspection requirements for blowout preventers on the ocean floor. Angelle, a long-time friend of the oil and gas industry—whose failed bid for the governorship of Louisiana was heavily funded by energy companies—said in a 2017 speech to oil and gas company executives in Houston that “help is on the way.” * * * * * Some of what the federal government does in the United States is influenced by what the general public wants it to do. Elected and other public officials often pay attention to things such as public opinion polls and news media characterizations of popular preferences. Later chapters of this book will describe how political leaders often must be responsive to the electorate if they want to gain and retain their elected offices. But it is also the case that a wide array of private interest and advocacy groups, with business leading the way, play an enormously important, although less visible, role in determining what government does and influencing who wins and who loses from public policies. Some commentators go so far as to suggest that Washington is now run by a massive and powerful interest group industry that either clogs the governmental machinery— with a multitude of dispersed special interests vetoing government actions they oppose, whether legislation or administrative rule-making and enforcement—or gets their way most of the time on government actions that directly affect them. Conservative New York Times commentator David Brooks has called this system “interest group capitalism.”
- 552. Thinking Critically about this Chapter This chapter is about the important role interest groups play in American government and politics, how they go about achieving their ends, and what effects they have in determining government policies in the United States. Applying the Framework You will see in this chapter how interest groups, in combination with other political linkage institutions, help convey the wishes and interests of people and groups to government decision makers. You will also learn how the interest group system we have in the United States is largely a product of structural factors, including our constitutional rules, political culture, social organization, and economy. Using the Democracy Standard Interest groups have long held an ambiguous place in American politics. To some, interest groups are “special” interests that act without regard to the public interest and are the instruments of the most privileged parts of American society. To others, interest groups are simply another way that people and groups in a democratic society use to make their voices heard by government leaders. Using the democracy standard, you will be able to evaluate these two positions. 3 Interest Groups in a Democratic Society: Contrasting Viewpoints Interest groups are private organizations and voluntary associations that seek to advance their interests by trying to influence
- 553. what government does. They are not officially a part of government. Nor are they political parties that try to place candidates carrying the party banner into government offices, though interest groups play an important role in U.S. elections. Interest groups are formed by people or firms that share an interest or cause that they are trying to protect or advance with the help of government. The interests and causes they press on government range from narrowly targeted material benefits (e.g., passage of a favorable tax break or the issuance of a helpful regulation) to more broadly targeted outcomes for society at large (e.g., new rules on auto emissions or abortion availability). To do this, interest groups try to influence the behavior of public officials, such as presidents, members of Congress, bureaucrats, and judges. The framers knew that interest groups were inevitable and appropriate in a free society but were also potentially harmful, so as they wrote the Constitution the framers paid special attention to interest groups. Compare and contrast opposing viewpoints about the role of interest groups in a democracy. 7.1 4
- 554. interest groups Private organizations or voluntary associations that seek to influence public policy as a way to protect or advance their interests. The Evils-of-Faction Argument The danger posed by interest groups to good government and the public interest is a familiar theme in American politics. They are usually regarded as narrowly self-serving, out for themselves, and without regard for the public good. This theme is prominent in The Federalist No. 10, in which James Madison defined factions (his term for interest groups and narrow political parties) in the following manner: “A number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” The “evils-of-faction” theme recurs throughout our history, from the writings of the “muckrakers” at the turn of the 20th century to news accounts and commentary on the misdeeds of the leaders of the financial industry in the 2008 financial
- 555. collapse as portrayed in the Academy Award nominated film The Big Short (2015). 5 factions James Madison’s term for groups or parties that try to advance their own interests at the expense of the public good. The Pluralist Argument According to many political scientists, however, interest groups do not hurt democracy and the public interest but are instead an important instrument in attaining both. This way of looking at American democracy is called pluralism and takes the following form (also see Figure 7.1 ): FIGURE 7.1 THE PLURALIST VIEW OF AMERICAN POLITICS 6 In the pluralist understanding of the way American democracy works, citizens have more than one way to influence government leaders. In addition to voting, citizens also have the opportunity to
- 556. participate in organizations that convey member views to public officials. Because of weak political parties, federalism, checks and balances, and the separation of powers, access to public officials is relatively easy. pluralism The political science position that American democracy is best understood in terms of the interaction, conflict, and bargaining of groups. Free elections, while essential to a democracy, do not adequately communicate the specific wants and interests of the people to political leaders on a continuous basis. These are more accurately, consistently, and frequently conveyed to political leaders by the many groups and organizations to which people belong. Interest groups are easy to create; people in the United States are free to join or to organize groups that reflect their interests. Because of federalism, checks and balances, and the separation of powers, government power in the United States is broadly dispersed, leaving governmental institutions remarkably porous and open to the entreaties of the many and diverse groups that exist in society. Because of the ease of group formation and the accessibility of government, all legitimate interests in society can have their views taken into account by some public official. Farmers and business
- 557. owners can make themselves heard; so, too, can consumers and workers. Because of this, the system is highly democratic and responsive. BOSSES OF THE SENATE In the late 19th century, many Americans thought of the Senate as the captive of large corporate trusts and other special-interest groups, as depicted in this popular cartoon, “Bosses of the Senate,” with fat cat representatives of the steel, copper, iron, and coal industries, as well as Standard Oil, looming over the chamber. How has the public’s view of the Senate changed, if at all, since this cartoon was issued? Is there any basis for believing that the situation today is substantially different from that of the late 19th century? Pluralists see interest groups, then, not as a problem but as an additional tool of democratic representation, similar to other democratic instruments such as public opinion and elections. In this and other chapters, we will explore the degree to which this position is valid.
- 558. The Universe of Interest Groups What kinds of interests find a voice in American politics? A useful place to start is with political scientist E. E. Schattschneider’s distinction between “private” and “public” interests. Although the boundaries between the two are sometimes fuzzy, the distinction remains important. Private interests are organizations and associations that try to gain protections or material advantages from government for their own members rather than for society at large. For the most part, these represent economic interests of one kind or another. Public interests are organizations and associations that try to gain protections or benefits for people beyond their own members, often for society at large. Some are motivated by an ideology or by the desire to advance a general cause—such as animal rights or environmental protection—or by the commitment to some public policy—gun control or an end to abortion. (These types of public interest groups often are called advocacy groups .) Some represent the nonprofit sector, and some even represent government entities, such as state and local governments. private interests Describe different types of interest groups.7.2 7
- 559. Interest groups that seek to protect or advance the material interests of their members. public interests Interest groups that work to gain protections or benefits for society at large. advocacy groups Interest groups organized to support a cause or ideology. Private and public interest groups come in a wide range of forms. Some, including AARP, are large membership organizations with sizable Washington and regional offices. Some large membership organizations have passionately committed members active in their affairs—such as the National Rifle Association (NRA)—while others have relatively passive members who join for the benefits the organization provides—such as the American Automobile Association (AAA), with its well-known trip assistance and auto buying and leasing service. Other groups are trade associations whose members are business firms. Still others are rather small organizations without members; are run by professionals and sustained by foundations and wealthy donors; and have sizable mailing, Internet, and
- 560. telephone lists for soliciting contributions—the Children’s Defense Fund and the National Taxpayers Union come to mind. These are examined in more detail in the sections that follow and in Table 7.1 . TABLE 7.1 THE DIVERSE WORLD OF INTEREST ASSOCIATIONS Interest Interest Subtypes Association Examples Private Interests (focus on protections and gains for their members) Business Corporations that lobby on their own behalf Boeing Google Koch Industries Microsoft Trade associations Chemical Manufacturers Association Health Insurance Association of America Peak business organizations Business Roundtable Federation of Small
- 561. Businesses The professions Doctors American Medical Association Dentists American Dental Association Accountants National Society of Accountants Lawyers American Bar Association Labor Unions International Association of Machinists Union federations AFL-CIO Public Interests (focus on protections and gains for a broader public or for society as a whole) Ideologies and causes Environment Environmental Defense Fund Pro-choice National Abortion Rights Action League Pro-life National Right to Life Committee
- 562. Anti-tax Americans for Tax Reform Civil rights National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Human Rights Campaign Nonprofits Medical American Hospital Association Charitable American Red Cross Governmental entities State National Conference of State Legislatures Local National Association of Counties Private Interest Groups Many different kinds of private interest groups are active in American politics. Business Because of the vast resources at the disposal of businesses and because of their strategic role in the health of local, state, and national economies, groups and associations representing businesses wield enormous power in Washington. Large corporations such as Boeing,
- 563. Microsoft, Koch Industries, and Google are able to mount their own lobbying efforts and often join with others in influential associations, such as the Business Roundtable. Medium-sized businesses are well represented by organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Even small businesses have proved to be quite influential when joined in associations such as the National Federation of Independent Business, which has helped keep increases in the federal minimum wage well below the overall rate of growth in the economy and business profits for well over two decades. Agriculture and agribusinesses (fertilizer, seed, machinery, biotechnology, and food-processing companies) have more than held their own over the years through organizations such as the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Farm Machinery Manufacturer’s Association and through scores of commodity groups, including the American Dairy Association and the National Association of Wheat Growers. lobbying Effort by an interest or advocacy group to influence the behavior of a public official. The Professions Several associations represent the interests of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, and accountants. Because of the prominent
- 564. social position of professionals in local communities and their ability to make substantial campaign contributions, such associations are very influential in the policy-making process on matters related to their professional expertise and concerns. For example, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Dental Association (ADA) lobbied strongly against President Clinton’s health care proposal and helped kill it, but they changed their tune in 2010, by backing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (perhaps because this law promised to bring health insurance coverage to an additional 32 million people.) The Trial Lawyers Association has long been a major financial contributor to the Democratic Party and has been active in blocking legislation to limit the size of personal injury jury awards. Labor Although labor unions are sometimes involved in what might be called public interest activities (such as supporting civil rights legislation and pushing for an increase in the federal minimum wage), their main role in the United States has been to protect the jobs of their members and
- 565. to secure good wages and benefits for them. Unlike labor unions in many parts of the world, which are as much political and ideological organizations as economic, American labor unions have traditionally focused on so-called bread-and-butter issues. As an important part of the New Deal coalition that dominated American politics well into the late 1960s, labor unions were influential at the federal level during the years when the Democratic Party controlled Congress and often won the presidency. labor union An organization representing employees that bargains with employers over wages, benefits, and working conditions. TINA FEY ON THE PICKET LINE AT NBC HEADQUARTERS In 2007, a long strike by television and film writers to gain concessions from the networks and film studios on use of writers’ materials on the Internet was successful, partly because of the strong support it received from leading actors and performers, including actress and comedienne Tina Fey—a writer and a member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Despite successes such as this one, union membership has been steadily declining in the United States. What accounts for declining union membership?
- 566. Although organized labor is still a force to be reckoned with in electoral politics, most observers believe that the political power of labor unions has eroded in dramatic ways over the past several decades. Organized labor’s main long-range problem in American politics and its declining power relative to business in the workplace is its small membership base; in 2017, only 10.7 percent of American wage and salary workers—and only 6.5 percent of private-sector workers, the lowest percentage since 1916—were members of labor unions, compared with 35 percent in 1954. The long but steady decline in union membership in the private sector is explained by a number of things. First, there has been a dramatic decline in the proportion of American workers in manufacturing, the economic sector in which unions have traditionally been the strongest. Fewer manufacturing workers are needed now than in the past because of outsourcing, gains in productivity (more can be manufactured with fewer workers), and pressures on companies to cut operating costs in a hypercompetitive global economy. Second, business firms have become much less willing to tolerate unions and have become much more sophisticated at efforts to decertify unions and undermine union organization drives. The long-term decline of private-sector
- 567. labor unions was vividly on display in the successful campaign by business groups to pass so-called “right-to-work” laws in 2012 in Indiana and Michigan, historically important manufacturing states with strong labor unions. GOP control of the legislatures and governorships in both states after the 2010 elections made passage of these laws possible; right-to-work laws say that workers cannot be forced to join a union or pay dues to a union as a condition of getting or keeping a job and have long been considered anathema to organized labor. 8 9 10 11 RECALL GOVERNOR WALKER Teachers and other public sector workers and sympathizers took over the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda in 2011 to protest Governor Scott Walker’s plan to end collective bargaining rights for state government employees. Walker was successful in passing the new law and survived a state-wide effort to recall him from office in 2012.
- 568. To add insult to injury for state employees, Walker won reelection in 2014. How might state government employees without collective bargaining rights express their interests to their supervisors and managers? The overall decline in labor union membership would have been more precipitous were it not for the substantial levels of unionization among public-sector workers, such as teachers, firefighters, police, and civil servants, 35 percent of whom belonged to unions in 2014. Today, there are more public-sector workers than private-sector workers in labor unions in the United States. Though stable for several decades, union density in the public sector has been undercut recently, no doubt a product of successful efforts to pass laws weakening public- sector labor unions in Wisconsin and Michigan, historically strong union states. In 2018, in the case Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers, in a case largely funded by conservative advocacy groups and business interest groups, the Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to public sector unions when it ruled that these unions could no longer collect dues from non- member
- 569. public employees who benefit from union bargaining on wages, benefits, and working conditions. Organized labor, whether representing public sector or private sector workers, is clearly on the defensive and less influential in American politics than it has been. Public Interest Groups Public interest groups or associations try to get government to act in ways that will serve interests that are broader and more encompassing than the direct economic or occupational interests of their own members. Such groups claim to be committed to protecting and advancing the public interest, at least as they see it. 12 13 One type of public interest group is the advocacy group. People active in advocacy groups tend to be motivated by ideological concerns or a belief in a cause. Such advocacy groups have always been around, but a great upsurge in their number and influence has taken place since the late 1960s. In the wake of the civil rights and women’s movements, it is hardly surprising that a number of associations have
- 570. been formed to advance the interests of particular racial, ethnic, and gender groups in American society. The National Organization for Women (NOW) advocates policies in Washington that advance the position of women in American society. Similarly, the NAACP and the Urban League are advocates for the interests of African Americans. The evangelical Christian upsurge led to the creation of such organizations as the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, the National Right to Life Committee, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council. The gay and lesbian movement eventually led to the creation of organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Most advocacy groups retain a professional, paid administrative staff and are supported by generous donors (often foundations), membership dues, and/or donations generated by direct mail campaigns. While some depend on and encourage grassroots volunteers and some hold annual membership meetings through which members play some role in making association policies, most advocacy associations are organizations without active membership involvement (other than check writing) and are run by lobbying and public education professionals. 14
- 571. 15 Two other types of public interest groups play a role in American politics, although usually a quieter one. First, associations representing government entities at the state and local levels of our federal system attempt to influence policies made by lawmakers and bureaucrats in Washington. The National Association of Counties is one example, as is the National Governors Association. Second, nonprofit organizations and associations try to influence policies that advance their missions to serve the public interest. Examples include the American Red Cross and the National Council of Nonprofit Associations. Interest Group Formation and Proliferation Nobody knows exactly how many interest groups exist in the United States, but there is wide agreement that the number began to mushroom in the late 1960s and grew steadily thereafter. We can see this increase along several dimensions. The number of groups listed in the Encyclopedia of Associations, for example, has lengthened from about 10,000 in 1968 to about 24,000 today. In addition, the
- 572. number of officially registered lobbyists numbered more than 11,000 in 2017 and roughly double that number in Washington, D.C. are lobbyists if one includes people who lobby but have chosen not to register for one reason or another. One estimate is that about 260,000 people in Washington and its surrounding areas work in the lobbying sector in law, public relations, accounting, and technology. Although lobbying Congress is only a part of what interest groups do, these associations and other lobbyists spent around $3.1 billion on lobbying efforts in Washington in 2017. That amount was almost double what was spent for lobbying in 2000. lobbyist Explain why interest groups form and proliferate.7.3 16 17 A person who attempts to influence the behavior of public officials on behalf of an interest group. There are a number of reasons why so many interest groups exist in the United States. In the following paragraphs, we consider how
- 573. constitutional rules, the country’s diverse interests, its active government, and disturbances in the social, economic, and policy environment all contribute to the formation and growth of interest groups in the United States. The Constitution The constitutional rules of the political game in the United States encourage the formation of interest groups. For example, the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to speak freely, to assemble, and to petition the government—all essential to citizens’ ability to form organizations to advance their interests before government. In addition, the government is organized in such a way that officials are relatively accessible to interest groups. Because of federalism, checks and balances, and the separation of powers, there is no dominant center of decision making as there is in unitary states such as the United Kingdom and France. In unitary states, most important policy decisions are made in parliamentary bodies. In the United States, important decisions are made by many officials, on many matters, in many jurisdictions. Consequently, there are
- 574. many more places where interest group pressure can be effective; there are more access points to public officials. LOBBYING GRIDLOCK The rise of the lobbying and private contractor industries in Washington has made the D.C. metropolitan area one of the fastest- growing and wealthiest regions in the United States. On the downside of this transformation, of course, are substantial increases in traffic and lengthier commuting times. Why, one might ask, is Washington so often the scene of snarling gridlock of the political variety? Some might blame the lobbyists and a government grown too big because of them. Would you? Diverse Interests Being a very diverse society, there are simply myriad interests in the United States. Racial, religious, ethnic, and occupational diversity is pronounced. Also varied are views about abortion, property rights, prayer in the schools, and environmental protection. Our economy is also strikingly complex and multifaceted and becoming more so. In a free society, these diverse interests usually take organizational
- 575. forms. For example, the computer revolution spawned computer chip manufacturers, software companies, software engineers, computer magazines and blogs, Internet services, technical information providers, computer component jobbers, Web designers, social media sites, and countless others. Each has particular interests to defend or advance before government, and each has formed an association to try to do so. Thus, software engineers have an association to look after their interests, as do software and hardware companies, Internet access providers, digital content providers, industry writers, and so on. After Google went public in 2004, the company opened its own Washington office to ensure its interests were protected before both Congress and important regulatory agencies against competing interests such as Microsoft and wireless phone carriers such as Verizon and Sprint. Facebook opened a Washington, D.C., office in 18 19 2010, another indication that many of Silicon Valley’s technology firms are actively cultivating influence in Washington. A More Active Government
- 576. The U.S. government does far more today than it did during the early years of the republic. As government takes on more responsibilities, it quite naturally comes to have a greater effect on virtually all aspects of economic, social, and personal life. People, groups, and organizations are increasingly affected by the actions of government, so the decisions made by presidents, members of Congress, bureaucrats who write regulations, and judges are increasingly important. It would be surprising indeed if, in response, people, groups, and organizations did not try harder to influence the public officials’ decisions that affect them. During the long, drawn-out deliberations in Congress in 2009 and 2010 that resulted in new rules for banks and the financial industry, bank and financial industry lobbyists flooded Capitol Hill to make sure that the most onerous provisions—for example, a limit on the size of banks so they would not be “too big to fail”—did not make it into the final bill. Some part of the growth in lobbying by business firms and industry and trade groups may be tied to the emergence of hypercompetition in the global economy, where even giant enterprises such as Microsoft must fight to protect their positions not only against
- 577. competitors but against threatening actions by one or more government agencies. For many years, the Seattle-based company has been fighting antitrust 20 actions initiated by the U.S. Justice Department and the European Union Commission and has dramatically enhanced its lobbying presence in Washington (and Brussels) and increased its campaign contributions. Some groups form around government programs to take advantage of existing government programs and initiatives. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with its large budget for new homeland defense technologies, stimulated the formation of new companies to serve this market, as well as new trade associations— including the Homeland Security Industries Association—to represent them. Until the Obama administration cracked down on them, for-profit higher education institutions such as the University of Phoenix received about 90 percent of their funding from the federal student loan program and other forms of federal aid, and the industry has lobbied heavily against proposals to tie federal dollars to
- 578. measures of performance such as graduation rates and job placement. Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary under Donald Trump, has issued rules to ease the regulatory burden on these educational companies. Disturbances The existence of diverse interests, the rules of the game, and the importance of government decisions and policies enable and encourage the formation of interest groups, but formation seems to happen only when interests are threatened, usually by some change in the social and economic environment or in government policy. This 21 22 23 is known as the disturbance theory of interest group formation. To take one example, Focus on the Family, a conservative religious advocacy group, was formed when many evangelical Christians began to feel threatened by what they considered to be a rise in family breakdown, an increase in the number of abortions, the sexual revolution, and the growing visibility of gay, lesbian, and transsexual people in American life. The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding
- 579. same- sex-marriage further spurred the activities of existing religious lobbying organizations and the formation of new ones, such as the National Organization for Marriage. disturbance theory A theory positing that interest groups originate with changes in the economic, social, or political environment that threaten the well- being of some segment of the population. 23 LOBBYING FOR ETHANOL Corn farmers and organizations that represent them have been very successful in convincing Americans and their elected officials to pass laws requiring that ethanol from corn be added to gasoline and to keep out—mainly by the imposition of high tariffs—more efficiently produced ethanol from other countries, especially Brazil, which uses sugarcane and switchgrass. Billboards along major highways such as this one near Boone, Missouri, have been very effective tools of public persuasion in this campaign by corn and domestic ethanol producers, but they also deploy many other tools.
- 580. Besides billboards, what are some other powerful tools that interest and advocacy groups use to influence public opinion? PRO-LIFE YOUTH Marching in front of the Supreme Court to protest abortion on the anniversary of the Court’s historic Roe v. Wade (1973) decision has become a yearly ritual of pro-life groups. The religious young people in this photograph, mobilized by the Generation Life organization in opposition to the Roe decision, represent a new generation ready to take up the cause. Are demonstrations, both for and against a woman’s right to choose, likely to change the opinions of very many people about abortion? Are there other tactics that might be more effective? What Interest Groups do Interest groups, whether public or private in nature, are in the business of conveying the policy views of individuals and groups to public officials. There are two basic types of interest group activity: the inside game and the outside game. The inside game—the older and more familiar of the two—involves direct, personal contact
- 581. between interest group representatives and government officials. Some political scientists believe this inside game of influencing the actions of those who make and carry out government policy in Washington— representatives and senators, judges, and regulators—is the thing that big interest groups and business corporations care about the most in politics and where they put most of their political resources. As they put it, “For powerful groups the center of action is in Washington, not the swing states.” The outside game involves interest group mobilization of public opinion, voters, and important contributors to bring indirect pressure to bear on elected officials. Increasingly today, the most powerful interest groups use both inside and outside methods to influence which policies government makes and carries out. Analyze the methods and activities interest groups use to influence political outcomes. 7.4 24 25 The Inside Game
- 582. When lobbying and lobbyists are in the news, the news generally is not good. In early 2006, “super-lobbyist” Jack Abramoff pled guilty to three felony counts for fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe public officials; he was then convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Prosecutors had amassed evidence that he had funneled millions on behalf of his clients to a long list of representatives and senators, mostly on the Republican side of the aisle, for campaign war chests and elaborate gifts, including vacations. The inside game of lobbying—so named because of the practice of interest group representatives talking to legislators in the lobbies outside House and Senate committee rooms—does not customarily involve bribing legislators. Rather, it is more the politics of insiders and the “good ol’ boy” network (although, increasingly, women also are part of the network). It is the politics of one-on-one persuasion, in which the skilled lobbyist tries to get a decision maker to understand and sympathize with the interest group’s point of view or to see that what the interest group wants is good for the politician’s constituents. Access is critical if one is to be successful at this game. inside game The form of lobbying in which representatives of an interest or advocacy group try to persuade legislators, executive branch
- 583. officials, and/or regulators to support actions favored by that group. Many of the most successful lobbyists are recruited from the ranks of retired members of the House and Senate, congressional staff, and high levels of the bureaucracy. Almost 30 percent of outgoing lawmakers, for example, are hired by lobbying firms or hang out their own lobbying shingle. Eric Cantor, for example, the once- powerful Republican House Majority Leader who surprisingly lost his seat in 2014 to a Tea Party challenger, now lobbies for the investment bank Moelis & Company. In 2015, forty-eight former staffers of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were registered as lobbyists as were thirty-six who had worked for Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV). The promise of lucrative employment based on their skills—and especially on their many contacts—is what keeps so many of them around Washington after they leave office or quit federal employment. The inside game seems to work best when the issues are narrow and technical, do not command much media attention or public
- 584. passion, and do not stir up counter-activity by other interest groups. This is not to say that interest groups play a role only on unimportant matters. Great benefit can come to an interest group or a large corporation from a small change in a single provision of the Tax Code or in a slight change in the wording of a regulation on carbon emissions or what percentage of deposits banks must keep in reserve. Enron was very 26 27 28 successful at getting Congress to remove federal oversight on many of its energy-trading and acquisitions activities. These stayed well out of public view until they came to light after Enron’s spectacular collapse in 2001. STAFFERS TO THE RESCUE Staffers play an important role in the life of Congress, and many go on to important careers as lobbyists, knowing as they do the ins- and-outs of the legislative branch. Here, a few of Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-
- 585. NY) aides trail the senator and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch on their way to an oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Schumer’s staffers likely have assembled a set of questions and statements for the senator to use during the hearing. Do you think congressional staffers should be allowed to lobby their former colleagues and acquaintances in the legislative branch after they have left public service? Why? Lobbyists from advocacy groups also play the inside game, often with great skill and effect. For example, many environmental regulations have been strengthened because of the efforts of skilled lobbyists from the Sierra Club. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is virtually unbeatable on issues of gun control. But it is inescapably the case that lobbyists representing business and the wealthy are far more numerous and deployed on a wider range of issues than those of any other interest, as we will show later in the chapter. Political scientist E. E. Schattschneider has pointed out that the inside game—traditional lobbying—is pretty much outside the view of the public. That is to say, the day-to-day details of this form of lobbying
- 586. are not the stuff of the evening news, nor the fodder of open political campaigns or conflict; such lobbying largely takes place behind closed doors. Lobbying Congress In Congress, lobbyists are trying to accomplish two essential tasks for those who hire them: First, have bills and provisions in bills that they favor passed; second, keep bills and provisions of bills that they do not like from seeing the light of day. The essence of this inside game in Congress is twofold. First, members of interests groups remind key actors of the electoral consequences for opposing what the group 29 wants. No group is better at this game than the NRA, which has been deeply involved not only in blocking bills it opposes but in helping to write NRA-friendly provisions even in the few gun control bills that Congress has passed over the last two decades. After the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings—which left twenty children and six teachers dead—prompted widespread calls for gun control, NRA lobbyists worked for a time with Democratic Senator Joe
- 587. Manchin on a bill to extend background checks for those making gun purchases. The NRA refused, however, to consider bans on assault rifles and large clips for such weapons, and pressed constantly to water down background checks. Though it was successful in these efforts, the NRA eventually withdrew its support, and the bill failed to break the sixty-vote threshold for Senate bills. Senators facing an election in closely contested states were reluctant in the end to provoke NRA opposition.30 PLANNING STRATEGY Two lobbyists meet at the Capitol to talk over their inside game plan for the day. They must decide which senators, representatives, and staffers to see and which arguments to pitch in support of their clients’ agendas. Why is the inside game so central to the day-to-day operation of American government and politics? The second key to the inside game is the cultivation of personal relationships with people who matter—Senate and House leaders, other influential and well-placed legislators, chairpersons of important
- 588. committees or subcommittees, a broad swath of rank-and-file members, and key staff members. Because much of the action in Congress takes place in the committees and because senators and representatives are busy with a wide range of responsibilities, cultivating relationships with important legislative and committee staff members is especially important for successful lobbyists. As one lobbyist put it, “If you have a staff member on your side, it might be a hell of a lot better than talking to the member [of Congress].” Lobbyists are also expected to make substantial contributions to the campaign war chests of representatives and senators and to persuade their clients to do the same. One influential lobbyist is reported to have said that “about one-third of my day is spent raising money from my clients to give to people I lobby.” Lobbying the Executive Branch After bills become law, they must be carried out or implemented. This is done by the executive branch. In this process of implementation, career civil servants, political appointees in top executive branch bureaus and departments, and regulators have a great deal of discretionary authority in deciding how to transform the wishes of the president and Congress into action on the ground. This happens because Congress and the president usually legislate broad
- 589. policies, leaving it to executive branch bureaus and agencies to promulgate 31 32 33 procedures, rules, and regulations to fill in the details of how laws will actually work in practice and how the mandates of regulatory agencies will be accomplished. So, for example, while Congress appropriates monies for the Army Corps of Engineers, for the most part, decision makers in the Corps decide which specific levee and river dredging projects will be funded. Lobbyists for big contractors and for state and local governments try to make sure they have a regular presence with the Corps’s top officials and staffers. Because of the technical complexity of many of the issues that come before them, regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have been granted broad leeway in promulgating rules designed to
- 590. meet the goals the president and Congress have set for them. The rules they issue have the force of law unless Congress or the courts subsequently overturn these rules (which is very hard for Congress to do). Congress rarely passes legislation involving details of television and radio broadcasting, for example, leaving regulatory decisions to the FCC. Because of this, the National Association of Broadcasters focuses its time and energies on the FCC, trying to establish stable and friendly relationships with them. The payoffs can be quite high for lobbying executive branch agencies like the FCC. In 2003, for example, large media company and news organization leaders and lobbyists met with the top staff of the FCC in a successful effort to get the agency to loosen rules on ownership so that big companies could grow even bigger. As shown in the chapter-opening story, oil and gas rig operators successfully lobbied President Trump’s Interior Department to loosen economic, safety, and environmental regulations affecting their operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The key to success in lobbying the executive branch is similar to that of lobbying Congress: personal contact and cooperative long- term
- 591. relationships that a civil servant, a department or bureau leader, or a regulator finds useful. Interest group representatives can convey technical information, for example, provide the results of their research, help a public official deflect criticism, and show that what the group wants is compatible with good public policy and the political needs of the official. Lobbying the Courts Interest groups sometimes lobby the courts, although not in the same way as they lobby the other two branches. A group may find that neither Congress nor the White House is favorably disposed to its interests and will bring a test case to the courts. For example, during the 1940s and 1950s, the NAACP realized that improving the lot of African Americans was very low on the agenda of presidents and members of Congress, so it turned to the courts for satisfaction. The effort eventually paid off in 1954 in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision. As reported above, public employee unions were dealt a blow in 2018 when the Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector unions cannot compel non-member public employees to help pay for union-led wage, benefit, and working conditions bargaining. The case was formally brought by an Illinois welfare case worker, but was backed and financed by several
- 592. 34 conservative, anti-union groups such as the National Right-to- Work Legal Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. test case A case brought by advocacy or interest groups to try to force a ruling on the constitutionality of some law or executive action. Interest groups sometimes lobby the courts by filing amicus curiae (“friends of the court”) briefs in cases involving other parties. In this kind of brief, a person or an organization that is not a party to the suit may file an argument in support of one side or the other in the hope of swaying the views of the judge or judges. Major controversies before the Supreme Court on such issues as abortion, free speech, or civil rights attract scores of amicus curiae briefs. For example, for District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), in which the Court ruled that Americans have an individual right under the Constitution to own a gun, supporters and opponents of gun control filed a total of nineteen amicus briefs. amicus curiae
- 593. Latin for “friend of the court”; a legal brief in which individuals not party to a suit may have their views heard in court. Interest groups also get involved in the appointment of federal judges. Particularly controversial appointments, such as the Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork in 1987 (many women’s and civil rights interests considered him too conservative), Clarence Thomas in 1992 (he was opposed by liberal and women’s groups), and Samuel Alito in 2005 (Democrats and liberals considered him much too conservative on a wide range of issues), drew interest group attention and strenuous efforts for and against the nominees. Though they ultimately failed, conservative groups mobilized in 2009 to block the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Court; liberal groups tried but failed to block the appointments of Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. CELEBRATING A HISTORIC COURT DECISION Dick Heller—here signing his autograph on the placards of gun rights advocates in front of the Supreme Court in June 2008—won his suit against the city government of Washington, D.C., in a case that
- 594. established a constitutional right to own a firearm. The legal and financial resources that made his suit possible were provided by the NRA and other anti–gun control organizations. Why are gun lobbies such a powerful force in American politics? The Outside Game An interest group plays the “outside game” when it tries to mobilize local constituencies and shape public opinion to support the group’s goals and to bring that pressure to bear on elected officials. Defenders of the status quo mostly depend on the inside game; those who are trying to change existing policies or create new legislation are more likely to use the outside game. By all indications, the outside game —sometimes called grassroots lobbying —has been growing steadily in importance in recent years. This may be a good development for democracy, and here is why. Although groups involved in the outside game often try to hide their true identities— Americans for Fair Drug Prices, for example, may well be funded by the pharmaceutical industry—and while some groups involved in the outside game have far more resources than others, it is still the case
- 595. that this form of politics at least has the effect of expanding and heightening political conflict. This may serve to bring more issues out into the open and subject them to public scrutiny—what Schattschneider has called the “socialization of conflict.” outside game Similar to “grassroots lobbying”; that form of lobbying in which interest and advocacy groups try to bring outside pressure to bear on legislators, bureaucrats, and/or regulators. 35 36 37 grassroots lobbying The effort by interest groups to mobilize local constituencies, shape public opinion to support the group’s goals, and bring that pressure to bear on elected officials. Mobilizing Membership Those interest groups with a large membership base try to persuade their members to send letters and to make telephone calls to senators and representatives when an important issue is before Congress. They sound the alarm, using direct mail and, increasingly, e- mail and social media. They define the threat to members; suggest a way to
- 596. respond to the threat; and supply the addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of the people to contact in Washington. Members are grouped by congressional district and state and are given the addresses of their own representatives or senators. The NRA is particularly effective in mobilizing its considerable membership whenever the threat of federal gun control rears its head. Environmental organizations such as Friends of the Earth and Environmental Defense sound the alarm to people on their mailing lists whenever Congress threatens to loosen environmental protections. Organizing the District Members of Congress are especially attuned to the individuals and groups in their states or districts who can affect their reelection prospects. The smart interest or advocacy group, therefore, not only will convince its own members in the state and district to put pressure on the senator or congressional representative, but it will also make every effort to be in touch with the most important campaign contributors and opinion leaders there. Republicans who have been elected to office are especially wary of groups like the Club for Growth and American Crossroads that target any in the party who support tax increases and more government spending and threaten to put money
- 597. into the campaigns of their primary election opponents. Democrats who have been elected to office are wary of bucking labor unions and pro-choice groups for the same reasons. Shaping Public Opinion “Educating” the public on issues that are important to the interest group is one of the central features of new-style lobbying. The idea is to shape opinion in such a way that government officials will be favorably disposed to the views of the interest group. These attempts to shape public and elite opinion come in many forms. One strategy is to produce and distribute research reports that bolster the group’s position. Citizen groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Food Research and Action Center have been very adept and effective in this area. Another strategy is media advertising. Sometimes this takes the form of pressing a position on a particular issue, such as the Teamsters 38 Union raising the alarm about open borders with Mexico, focusing on the purported unsafe nature of Mexican trucks roaming American
- 598. highways. Sometimes it is “image” advertising, in which some company or industry portrays its positive contribution to American life. Thus, large oil companies often feature their regard for the environment in their advertising, showing romantic forest scenes or a pristine beach, with nary a pipeline, a tanker, or a refinery in sight. In the effort to shape public opinion, the well-heeled interest group will also prepare materials that will be of use to radio and television broadcasters and to newspaper and magazine editors. Many produce opinion pieces, magazine articles, television spots and radio “sound bites,” and even television documentaries. Others stage events to be covered as news. For example, the environmentalist group Greenpeace puts the news media on full alert before attempting to disrupt a whaling operation. Finally, interest and advocacy groups, using the latest computer technology, identify target groups to receive information on particular issues. Groups pushing for cuts in the capital gains tax rate, for instance, direct their communications to holders of the American Express card or to addresses in ZIP code areas identified as upper- income neighborhoods. Most have their own websites and publish position papers and other materials there. Many arrange postings to friendly blogs in hopes of further disseminating their message.
- 599. Some will use their websites and e-mail to organize e-mails to lawmakers from their constituents. Many interest and advocacy groups have 39 40 made big commitments to the use of social media and smartphone apps to spread their message. Getting Involved in Campaigns and Elections Interest groups try to increase their influence by getting involved in political campaigns. Many interest groups issue report cards indicating the degree to which members of the House and Senate support the group’s positions on a selection of key votes. Report card ratings are distributed to the members of the interest or advocacy group and to other interested parties in the hope that the ratings will influence voting behavior. To better their reelection chances, Republican members of Congress try to receive high scores from conservative groups like the National Taxpayers Union; Democrats seek high scores from liberal groups like the League for Conservation
- 600. Voters. Figure 7.2 shows how a prominent Republican, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and a prominent Democratic, Senator Diane Feinstein of California, were graded by a small sample of conservative and liberal advocacy organizations. 41 FIGURE 7.2 INTEREST GROUP REPORT CARDS, A SELECT SAMPLE Some interest groups issue “report cards” for members of Congress. Here we show ratings for six senators from three states from the 115th Congress, three Republicans and three Democrats. Note the widely divergent scores for Democratic and Republican senators from the same states. Liberal groups like Americans for Democratic Action and the League of Conservation Voters tend to see Democratic legislators as better aligned with their group’s goals and, therefore, rate them more favorably. In contrast, conservative groups like the American Conservative Union and National Taxpayers Union tend to rate Republican legislators more favorably. If you were deciding who to vote for in a House or Senate election in your state, would you find interest and advocacy group legislative report cards useful to you? What other information would help you decide?
- 601. SOURCE: Data from legislative ratings of Americans for Democratic Action, the League of Conservation Voters, the American Conservative Union, and the National Taxpayers Union. THE FOX GUARDING THE CHICKEN COOP Scott Pruitt, shown here at his Senate confirmation hearings in January 2017, was President Trump’s first head of the Environmental Protection Agency. When he was a representative from Oklahoma, his campaigns were heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry, and as Attorney General of Oklahoma, he brought several lawsuits against the EPA for being over-zealous in issuing environmental regulations. During his short tenure as head of the EPA, he rolled back scores of environmental regulations he deemed unfriendly to oil, gas, and coal. Is there any way to minimize the appointment of people to head regulatory agencies who are opposed to the basic missions of these agencies? Or is this simply the outcome of a democratic process where the president can appoint whomever he desires to carry out what he promised during his election campaign?
- 602. Interest and advocacy groups also encourage their members to get involved in the electoral campaigns of candidates who are favorable to their interests. Groups often assist campaigns in more tangible ways —allowing the use of their telephone banks; mail, telephone, and e- mail lists; computers; and the like. Some interest groups help with fund-raising events or ask members to make financial contributions to candidates. Interest groups also endorse particular candidates for public office. The strategy may backfire and is somewhat risky, for to endorse a losing candidate is to risk losing access to the winner. Nevertheless, it is fairly common now for labor unions, environmental organizations, religious groups, business groups, and liberal and conservative ideological groups to make such endorsements. Interest groups are also an increasingly important part of campaign fund-raising. The rise of super PACs and 501c organizations are especially noteworthy, injecting super-rich individuals and companies directly into the middle of electoral campaigns. For example, the energy industry played a crucial fund-raising and messaging function during the 2016 elections and helped elect a unified Republican government in Washington, D.C. One outcome was Scott
- 603. Pruitt’s appointment by President Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency where he helped roll back regulations on fuel mileage requirements for cars, restrictions on waste dumping in streams by coal companies, the use of certain hazardous chemicals, and greenhouse gas emissions from plants and factories. Though Pruitt was forced out because of ethics violations, most of his regulatory decisions remained in force. We focus more on this topic in the next section and more extensively later in the book. Interest Groups, Corporate Power, and Inequality in American Politics Overall, between the inside game and the outside game, interest groups have a diverse set of tools for influencing elected officials, bureaucrats in the executive branch, judges, and the public. The number of groups capable of deploying these tools is large and growing every year. On the surface, it might look like the proliferation of interest groups has enhanced the democratic flavor of our country, allowing more and more Americans to have their interests represented. But not all scholars and students of politics agree that this is so. An obvious problem with the view that the interest group system
- 604. enhances democracy by multiplying the number of interests whose voice is heard in the political process is that a substantial part of the American population is not organized into groups for political purposes. They do not have access to interest group organizations and resources at all. This is a critical disadvantage for the unorganized. Though some of their views might count every two to four years at election time, or occasionally when and if they become involved in social movements, for the most part the unorganized go unheard and unheeded. Not surprisingly, the unorganized tend to be Describe the inequalities of the interest group system.7.5 the most disadvantaged among the American population: the poor, those with less education, and members of minorities. For political scientist E. E. Schattschneider, the main flaw in the pluralist (or interest group) heaven is “that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper class accent.” We would amend this, based on our reading of the evidence, in the following way: the flaw in the pluralist heaven is “that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper class and corporate accent.” Figure 7.3 is a schematic of how
- 605. this works in shaping what government does. If this observation about an “upper class and corporate accent” is accurate, then political equality is undermined by the interest group system, and democracy is less fully developed than it might be, even taking into account the new importance of the outside game (which, as we have said, tends to “socialize conflict”). In this section, we look at economic inequalities in the interest group system and evaluate their effects. 42 43 44 FIGURE 7.3 THE MANY WAYS PRIVILEGED ACTORS INFLUENCE WHAT GOVERNMENT DOES Privileged groups influence all three stages of the policy process, including elections and public opinion (arrow at left); which policies are made within the legislative, executive, and judicial branches (arrow at bottom); and how laws, rules, and regulations are carried out (arrow at
- 606. right). Representational Inequality Power in the American political system goes to the organized and to those among the organized who have the most resources and the best access to decision makers in government. We start by noting that not all segments of American society are equally represented in the interest group system. The interest group inside lobbying game in Washington, D.C., is dominated, in sheer numbers and weight of activity, by business corporations, industry trade associations, and associations of the professions, although liberal and conservative advocacy groups also lobby. One group, organized labor, although still a powerful player in Washington, has lost much of its lobbying clout in recent years, mainly because of declining membership. In 2005, the passage of several pro-business bills that labor strongly opposed—namely, bills making it more difficult to declare bankruptcy and to bring class-action lawsuits in state courts—showcases labor’s declining fortunes. The vast majority of advocacy groups, even those that perceive themselves as liberal and lean toward the Democrats,
- 607. attract members and contributors who have much higher incomes, more elite occupations, and more education than the general public. Not surprisingly, given those whom these advocacy groups represent, they tend to focus less on issues of poverty, jobs, and income inequality—the traditional purview of labor unions—and more on “quality of life” issues such as environmental protection, consumer protection, globalization, women’s rights, racial and ethnic civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, and civil liberties. Resource Inequality 45 46 The most economically well-off parts of American society are business corporations and financial institutions, corporate and financial institution executives and top managers, heads of private equity and hedge funds, and professionals. As firms, they are the most important actors; as individuals, they account for a disproportionately large share of income and wealth in the United States. It is hardly surprising that interest groups representing them can afford to spend far more
- 608. than other groups can to hire professional lobbying firms, form their own Washington liaison office, place advertising in the media, conduct targeted mailings on issues, mobilize their members to contact government officials, and pursue all of the other activities of old- and new-style lobbying. Lobbying in Washington is heavily dominated by lobbyists and lobbying firms that represent business. For example, registered lobbyists for the various drug companies typically total more than the combined membership of the House and Senate; according to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2015 there were 1,367 registered and active lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry. The story is the same in other industries. More than three thousand lobbyists worked to keep provisions of the Dodd-Frank bill from being too onerous—it was passed in 2010 to prevent a recurrence of the 2008 financial collapse—killing provisions keeping banks from becoming “too big to fail,” including higher capital requirements. After passage of the new law, financial industry lobbyists turned their attention to the rule-making executive branch agencies charged with administering Dodd-Frank and managed to slow down the process considerably. Anger at the financial community was so high, however, and enough regulators were worried about dangerous bank
- 609. 47 48 49 practices, that the industry could not prevent adoption in 2013 of the “Volker rule” (named after the former Fed chair who advocated for it) that separated trading and commercial banking, disallowing financial institutions from speculating in the stock market with their customers’ money. TWO-BILLION-DOLLAR LOSING BET One of the leading advocates of letting the banking industry regulate itself is Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who was compelled to answer for the bank’s solvency problems before Congress. Under his watch, JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion of its depositors’ money on a single day in May 2012 after it placed a risky bet in the unregulated derivatives market. Should Congress and the executive branch increase regulations designed to prevent banks from taking too many risks with depositors’ assets, or are such matters best left to those running financial
- 610. institutions? In 2018, the GOP-led House and Senate, with the help of many Democrats, exempted small to medium-sized banks from the Dodd Frank regulations, leaving only ten giant banks subject to Dodd- Frank regulations. President Donald Trump played a key role in undermining a central pillar of Dodd Frank when he appointed Tea Party conservative Mike Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency tasked with protecting consumers from predatory lenders and customer gouging by banks (secret fees imposed on their customers, and more). During his first year, Mulvaney stopped investigations into the Equifax data breaches and dropped on-going Bureau lawsuits against predatory payday lenders. The lopsided lobbying situation in Washington is shown in Table 7.2 , which reports the amount of money spent by different sectors of American society on lobbying activities. It is worth noting that nonbusiness groups and associations—listed in the table as other, ideological/single-issue, and organized labor—spent only a small fraction of what was spent by business in 2017. TABLE 7.2 MAJOR SPENDING ON FEDERAL LOBBYING, 2017 (BY INDUSTRY SECTOR)
- 611. Sector Total Spending Health $562,953,377 Finance/Insurance/Real Estate $522,000,556 Miscellaneous Business $507,229,505 Communications/Electronics $410,204,273 Energy/Natural Resources $318,390,189 Transportation $246,265,195 Other Business Groups $222,872,893 Ideology/Single-Issue $150,328,803 Agribusiness $132,127,200 Defense $124,891,961 Construction $63,027,130 Labor $47,821,117 SOURCE: Based on Center for Responsive Politics, Influence and Lobbying, Ranked Sectors, 2017. Corporate, trade, and professional associations as well as wealthy individuals can contribute to a dizzying array of organizations that
- 612. support candidates, parties, and issues during political campaigns. Among the most important targets for politically oriented contributions are political action committees (PACs) , 527 and 501c social welfare organizations, and super PACS. PACs are regulated, donations are on the public record, and caps exist on how much can be given to candidates in federal elections and to party committees. 527, 501c, and super PAC organizations, often labeled “outside money,” are largely unregulated and have no limits on how much money can be raised from individuals, corporations, and labor unions or spent to influence the outcome of elections. These relatively new forms of campaign organizations were made possible by the hollowing out of campaign finance laws by two Supreme Court cases, Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and Speechnow.org v. FEC (2010), in which the Court ruled that many of these laws and rules written under them violated the free speech rights of corporations, unions, and individuals. These organizations have come to play an ever- larger role in funding presidential and congressional elections and in shaping public opinion about public issues. political action committee (PAC)
- 613. An entity created by an interest group whose purpose is to collect money and make contributions to candidates in federal elections. The Citizens United decision turned heavily on the doctrine that corporations are “persons” with the same rights and privileges as any 50 51 natural person residing in the United States, including free speech. Several scholars have pointed out that this doctrine has been pushed for a very long time in the courts by legal firms representing corporations in a broad set of cases. It need hardly be pointed out that the decades-long effort required a staying power based on access to substantial financial resources not available to most individuals, advocacy groups, or labor unions. Interestingly, corporations have managed to avoid criminal prosecution even when they have broken the law because criminal punishment is relevant only to “natural” persons. This is why none of the key players that brought about the financial collapse in 2008 have gone to jail. Corporate, trade, and professional donors have dominated all
- 614. forms of campaign finance organizations during recent election cycles, though labor unions have also had a big presence. PACs representing the least-privileged sectors of American society are notable for their absence. As former Senator (R-KS) and presidential candidate Bob Dole once put it, “There aren’t any poor PACs or food stamp PACs or nutrition PACs or Medicaid PACs.” Notably, very wealthy individuals, not interest groups, have written the biggest checks for super PACs. During the 2011–2012 election cycle, the super PAC “Winning Our Future,” funded entirely by gambling magnate Sheldon Adelman, contributed more than $17 million to help Newt Gingrich win the Republican nomination (it did not work). In all, super PACs spent roughly $610 million in that cycle, two-thirds on Republican and conservative candidates and causes. Interestingly, though receiving less largess than Republicans, Democratic candidates for federal office also depend a great deal on contributions from business and the 52 53 54
- 615. 55 wealthy. This may be one reason why Democrats recently have focused more on issues such as abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage, and voting rights (where they and Republicans are deeply divided) and less on social welfare and protecting unions. Access Inequality Inequalities of representation and resources are further exaggerated by vast inequalities in access to government decision makers. Powerful interest organizations and lobbying firms that primarily represent business, professionals, and the wealthy have the resources to employ many former regulators and staff from independent regulatory agencies, former members of Congress and congressional staff, and top employees of other federal executive departments, including many from the Department of Defense and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). They are hired partly for their technical expertise but also for the access they can provide to those with whom they formerly worked. Bloomberg Businessweek reported, for example, that firms hired sixty former staffers from Congress in 2011 to work solely on successfully convincing Congress to give tax breaks to big, global companies on profits earned abroad.
- 616. Access inequality may also be seen in the ability of some groups to play a central role in the formation and implementation of government policies based on their membership in informal networks within the government itself. One kind of informal network is an iron triangle , which customarily includes a private interest group (usually a 56 57 corporation or trade association), an agency in the executive branch, and a committee or subcommittees in Congress, which act together to advance and protect certain government programs that work to the mutual benefit of their members. Most scholars believe iron triangles have become less important in American government. The second type of informal network, called an issue network, is understood to be more open and inclusive than an iron triangle. Issue networks are said to be coalitions that form around different policy areas that include a range of public and private interest groups and policy experts as well as business representatives, bureaucrats, and legislators. Iron triangles suggest a closed system in which a small
- 617. group of actors controls a policy area. Issue networks suggest a more fluid situation with more actors and visibility, where control of policy making is less predictable. iron triangle An enduring alliance of common interest among an interest group, a congressional committee, and a bureaucratic agency. issue networks Broad coalitions of public and private interest groups, policy experts, and public officials that 58 form around particular policy issues; said to be more visible to the public and more inclusive than iron triangles. Nonetheless, corporations, trade associations, and associations of professionals not only play a prominent role in issue networks but also participate in those iron triangles that are still around. These are especially prominent in shaping and carrying out public policies in the areas of agriculture, defense procurement, public lands, highway construction, and water. Large-scale water projects—dams, irrigation, and levees, for example—are supported by farm, real estate
- 618. development, construction, and barge-shipping interest groups; members of key Senate and House committees responsible for these projects, who can claim credit for bringing jobs and federal money to their constituencies; and the Army Corps of Engineers, whose budget and responsibilities grow apace as it builds the projects. Another iron triangle is shown in Figure 7.4 . 59 FIGURE 7.4 THE IRON TRIANGLE: THE COZY POLITICS OF DEFENDING AMERICA In an iron triangle, an alliance based on common interests, is formed among a powerful corporation or interest group, an agency of the executive branch, and congressional committees or subcommittees. In this example from the defense industry, an alliance is formed among parties that share an interest in the existence and expansion of defense industry contracts. Most scholars think iron triangles are less common today than in the past, though they are alive and well in a number of policy areas, including the one illustrated here. The Privileged Position of
- 619. Corporations Economist and political scientist Charles Lindblom argued that corporations wield such disproportionate power in American politics that they undermine democracy. He closed his classic 1977 book Politics and Markets with this observation: “The large private corporation fits oddly into democratic theory. Indeed, it does not fit.” Twenty years later, political scientist Neil Mitchell concluded his book The Conspicuous Corporation, which reported the results of careful empirical testing of Lindblom’s ideas, with the conclusion that “business interests (in the United States) are not routinely countervailed in the policy process. Their political resources and incentives to participate are usually greater than other interests.” Two decades after Mitchell, Benjamin Page and Martin published their ground-breaking data-driven study of distortions in American democracy Democracy in America?, observing at one point that “… organized interest groups—especially business corporations— have much more clout [than ordinary citizens]” Let’s see why these scholars reached their somber conclusion about the privileged position of business in American politics. privileged position of business The notion advanced by some political
- 620. scientists that the business sector, most especially the large corporate sector, is 60 61 consistently and persistently advantaged over other interests or societal actors in bringing influence to bear on government. Remember that corporations and business trade associations representing groups of corporations enjoy many advantages over others in the political process. The largest corporations are far ahead of their competitors in the number of lobbyists they employ, the level of resources they can and do use for political purposes, their ability to shape public perceptions and opinions through such instruments as issue advertising and subsidization of business-oriented think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the CATO Institute, and the ease of access they often have to government officials. An additional source of big-business power is the high regard in which business is held in American society and the central and honored place of business values in our culture. Faith in private enterprise gives special advantages to the central institution of private
- 621. enterprise, the corporation. Any political leader contemplating hostile action against corporations must contend with business’s special place of honor in the United States. To be sure, scandals involving large business enterprises such as Enron, Wells Fargo, Equifax, and BP can tarnish big business now and then, but in the long run, as President Coolidge is known to have once famously said, “The business of America is business.” Business corporations are also unusually influential because the health of the American economy—and thus the standard of living of the people—is tied closely to the economic well-being of large corporations. It is widely and not entirely unreasonably believed that what is good for business is good for America. Because of corporations’ vital role in the economy, government officials tend to interpret them not as “special interests” but as the voice of the national interest and to listen more attentively to their demands than they do to those of other sectors of American society. Some companies are so important for the overall operation of the American and global economies that they are considered “too big to fail,” such as AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, and General Motors, among others, which were bailed out in 2008 and 2009 even when their downfall was from
- 622. self-inflicted wounds. To take another example, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans defended their massive 2017 tax cut bill— where at least two-thirds of cuts went to business—as a way to stimulate the economy and create more jobs. In this sense, corporations enjoy an especially privileged position in American politics. Corporations are also powerful because their mobility is an important counterweight to any government effort (local, state, or national) to raise taxes or impose regulations that business deems especially onerous. Increasingly, large corporations are able to design, produce, and market their goods and services all over the world; they are not irrevocably tied to a single location. If government threatens their interests, large corporations can credibly counter with a threat to move all or part of their operations elsewhere. In this new global economic environment, political leaders are increasingly of a mind to maintain a friendly and supportive business climate. The broad political reach of big business is illustrated by the Koch Network, a collection of groups organized by Robert and Charles
- 623. Koch, the owners of the multi-billion dollar, privately-held Koch Industries. The brothers Koch have founded and provide most of the funding for organizations such as the CATO Institute and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which propagate libertarian and small government ideas and doctrines; Citizens for a Sound Economy and the American Energy Alliance, which advocate for low taxes and deregulation and try to debunk the idea of global warming; the Koch Seminars, which annually bring together business, cultural, and government leaders to learn about the merits of private enterprise and the evils of big government; and Americans for Prosperity to organize and mobilize Republican and Republican-leaning voters at election time. The Koch Network also includes Themis/i360 to gather voter data and Aegis Strategic to advise pro-free market, pro-small government Republican candidates. Robert and Charles Koch and Koch Industries also contribute to political campaigns of favored Republican candidates as well as to various campaign funding organizations such as 501s, 527s, and super PACs. Such a broad political operation, one that perhaps rivals the Republican Party itself, requires the inspiration and financial support of two of the richest people in the world whose combined net worth far outpaces the net
- 624. worth of the richest person in the world, Bill Gates. 62 63 Another way to see the influence of business corporations in our national political life is to look at the story of the increasingly business- friendly decisions of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts. Recent research demonstrates that the Roberts Court is the most pro-business Court since the end of Second World War. In fact, five of the ten most pro-business justices since that time were members of the Roberts Court until the death of Justice Scalia (in February 2016) reduced that number to four for a short time. (The historical tilt toward business was restored in early 2017 when business-friendly conservative Neil Gorsuch joined the Court.). Even justices with consistently liberal votes on civil rights, civil liberties, and social justice matters—Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor—have sided with business in 40 percent of the cases involving issues ranging from anti-trust and copyrights to union and employee rights. Further evidence of business success before the Court involves the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of our most important business
- 625. advocacy associations, whose judicial success has been growing steadily. Before the Burger Court (1981–1993), the chamber was on the winning side of cases 43 percent of the time, grew to a 56 percent win rate during the Rehnquist years (1994–2004), and 70 percent during the Roberts years spanning 2006–2014. In 2017, after Gorsuch joined the Court, the U.S. Chamber was on the winning side in 13 out of 17 cases, or almost 80 percent of the time. The Court is likely to be even more favorable to business with Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment in 2018. We can best understand the pro-business 64 65 66 decisions on the Roberts Court, a story told in Figure 7.5 , through an application of our analytical framework. FIGURE 7.5 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: HOW HAS BUSINESS FARED ON THE ROBERTS COURT? SOURCE: Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, and Richard A. Posner, “How Business Fares in the Supreme Court,”
- 626. Minnesota Law Review 97, no. 1 (2012); Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, and Richard A Posner, “When It Comes to Business, the Right and Left Sides of the Court Agree,” University Journal of Law and Policy 54 (September 16, 2013), pp. 33–55. Also see Tom Donnelly, “Roberts at Ten: Chief Justice Roberts and Big Business,” (Washington, D.C.: The Constitutional Accountability Center, issue brief, July 30, 2015). © Edward S. Greenberg Large corporations do not, of course, run the show entirely. Although they have the most resources, for instance, these resources do not translate automatically into real political influence. For example, one interest group may have enormous resource advantages over other interest groups but may use its resources ineffectively. Or an interest group with great resources may be opposed by a coalition of other interest groups that together are able to mobilize impressive resources of their own. A powerful interest group may also find that an elected politician is not cooperative because the voters in the district are of a different mind from the interest group. So even with this immense set
- 627. of resources, business power does not automatically and inevitably translate into political power. Nor does business always get its way in Washington. There are many issues of great importance on which business in general, or one corporation in particular, loses in the give-and-take of politics. There are times when business finds itself squared off against powerful coalitions of other interest groups (labor, consumer, and environmentalist groups, let us say). Corporations have not gotten their way on loosening immigration controls or expanding the pool of H1-B visas, something that would have allowed them access to a larger pool of cheap labor had they won on the former and a pool of highly skilled scientific and technical workers had they won on the latter. On many occasions, corporations also find themselves at odds with one another on public policy issues. Thus, Internet service providers, computer and handheld device makers, software developers, and the music and film industries are locked in a battle 67 over the ease of file-sharing and royalty compensation for distributed copyrighted material.
- 628. Corporations are most powerful when they can build alliances among themselves. When corporations feel that their collective interests are at stake, however—as on taxes, regulation, labor law, and executive compensation—they tend to come together to form powerful and virtually unbeatable political coalitions. Large corporations and the wealthy—the vast majority of the top 1 percent derive their wealth from their positions as corporate executives, hedge fund managers, and the leaders of financial firms, so corporations and the wealthy can be understood as one and the same—recently have won some notable long-term victories: 1. The long-term tax rates on the super-wealthy have declined since the 1960s (see Figure 7.6 ). 68 69 FIGURE 7.6 INCOME TAX RATES FOR THE WEALTHIEST AMERICANS Income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, particularly the super-wealthy, have dropped dramatically since 1960. The drops occurred not only when Republicans were in control in Washington, but during the Democratic Carter administration and during periods when Democrats controlled Congress and
- 629. Republicans held the presidency. The data suggest that the political influence of rich Americans has been fairly constant— regardless of the party heading the government. Because of cuts in estate tax and corporate tax rates in the 2017 tax cut law, average tax rates for the wealthiest Americans are likely to decline. SOURCE: Data prior to 2002 are from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “How Progressive Is the U.S. Federal Tax System?” Working Paper 12404, National Bureau of Economic Research (July 2006), Table A3. All other data are authors’ calculations based on Internal Revenue Service tax rate tables. 2. The 2017 tax cut bill’s main benefits went to wealthy Americans and U.S. corporations, so long-term rates on them likely will continue to fall in the future. Indeed, in 2018, corporate tax returns as a share of the economy was the lowest it had been in three quarters of a century. 3. The minimum wage has hardly increased at all over the past three decades and trails annual increases in the cost of living. 4. The financial services industry was deregulated (with disastrous results in 2008). 5. Laws were passed shielding corporate executives from lawsuits by stockholders, thereby allowing executive compensation to skyrocket in the 1990s and 2000s.
- 630. 6. IRS audits of top income earners decreased over the past three decades even as audits of the working poor recently increased (those who use the Earned Income Tax Credit). 7. The National Labor Relations Board became less willing during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s to penalize corporations for illegal anti-union activities. 8. Though the published corporate tax rate was 35 percent, the effective rate prior to the 2017 tax cut law (reduced to 21 percent under the new law)—what large, profitable corporations 70 actually pay as a percentage of their earnings—was only 12.6 because of credits, exclusions, and shelters. 9. Using the Congressional Review Act, which allows each new Congress the authority to rescind Executive Branch rules issued late in a president’s term, the GOP Congress and President Trump in early 2017 did away with rules restricting coal company dumping in streams and requiring energy companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments. These “wins” on important government policies that advance corporations’ interests support political scientist David Vogel’s observation that “when business is both mobilized and unified, its political power can be formidable.” Until recently, interest group specialists in political science had not been able to empirically demonstrate links between things like money spent in lobbying
- 631. or campaign contributions and specific votes in Congress or major federal policy developments. But a growing body of ground- breaking empirical research shows that what the government in Washington does is overwhelmingly tied to the wishes of the wealthiest Americans and interest groups that represent our largest corporations and not to the wishes of average citizens. In our view, the best way to think about corporations in American politics is to see their power waxing and waning within their overall privileged position. Corporate power may be greater at certain times and weaker at other times, but it is always in a game in which, most of the time, corporations enjoy advantages over other groups in society. If corporations feel that their collective interests are at stake— as when 71 72 73 74 labor unions are particularly aggressive or when government’s
- 632. regulatory burden is perceived to be too heavy—and they are able to present a united front, they are simply unbeatable. This cannot be said about any other sector of American society.75 Curing the Mischief of Factions Americans have worried about the “mischief of factions” ever since James Madison wrote about them in The Federalist No. 10. Over the years, various things have been tried to control the purported negative effects of these special interests. Disclosure has been the principal tool of regulation. In 1946, Congress imposed a requirement (in the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act) that all lobbyists working in Congress be registered. The Lobby Disclosure Act of 1995 requires a wider range of political actors to register as lobbyists and makes them report every six months on which policies they are trying to influence and how much they are spending to do it. Reformers have also tried to regulate some of the most troublesome abuses of the politics of factions. Sections of the Ethics in Government Act (1978) aim at the so-called revolving door in which former government officials become lobbyists for interests with whom
- 633. they formerly dealt in their official capacity. A 1995 measure specifies that former U.S. trade representatives and their deputies are banned for life from lobbying for foreign interests. The 2007 measure increases the one-year waiting period in the 1995 measure to two years and adds representatives and senators to those who must wait. Assess the effectiveness of regulations designed to control interest groups. 7.6 76 revolving door The common practice in which former government officials become lobbyists for interests with whom they formerly dealt in their official capacity. Reformers have also tried to control the effects of interest group money in politics. The McCain–Feingold bill, passed in 2002, was designed to limit the use of soft money—contributions made directly to political parties for educational and campaign purposes—but it left a huge loophole for nonprofit, advocacy 527 organizations—so named because of their location in the Tax Code—to use unlimited amounts
- 634. of money to support or oppose candidates and issues, the only restrictions at the time of passage being a ban on radio and television advertising for a period before elections. It also increased the amount people could give to PACs. As described above, however, the Supreme Court has invalidated many key provisions of campaign finance laws, and political deadlock between Democrats and Republicans on the Federal Election Commission has crippled the Commission’s ability to examine and issue regulations regarding newly prominent entities such as 501s and super PACs. The upshot is that that interest and advocacy groups have virtual free rein in financing candidates and advocating policies in federal election campaigns. Another measure passed in 2007 requires congressional leaders to identify all earmarks in appropriations bills and post them to the Internet at least forty-eight hours before their consideration by the full House and Senate, along with information about their sponsors and intended purposes. The same measures require lobbyists to certify that no one in their firm or organization has provided gifts to members of Congress or their staffs and post this to a site on the Internet. In addition, the measures require lobbyists to file and post
- 635. quarterly reports online of their lobbying activities in Congress. earmarks Budget items that appropriate money for specific pet projects of members of Congress, usually done at the behest of lobbyists, and added to bills at the last minute with little opportunity of deliberation. The 2007 lobbying reform measure was passed in the wake of the corruption conviction of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, revelations of widespread influence peddling by lobbyists who formerly worked in Congress or the executive branch agencies, and the explosion of special interest earmarks in appropriations bills. Most keen Washington observers remain unconvinced that these rules will diminish in a major way the influence of privileged interest groups in shaping what government does. Like water seeking its own level, it may be that powerful and wealthy interests will find a way to have their needs and wishes attended to in one way or another. Using the Democracy Standard Interest Groups: Do they Help or Hinder American Democracy? There is no doubt that the interest group system plays an important role in shaping what government does in
- 636. the United States; elected officials pay lots of attention to them, for all the reasons explored in this chapter. Whether the interest group system advances or retards democracy, however, can only be determined by knowing which sectors of the American population are represented by interest groups and how well interest groups represent the people they claim to be representing. There is considerable disagreement regarding the role that interest groups play in American politics and governance. Many believe the interest group system enhances democracy because it gives individuals and groups in American society another tool to keep elected and appointed officials responsible and responsive to their needs, wants, and interests. Political parties are important for making popular sovereignty work, to be sure, but being broad and inclusive umbrella organizations, they often ignore the interests of particular groups. And, although elections are essential for keeping public officials on their toes, they happen only every two to four years. Proponents of this pluralist view argue that the day-to-day work of popular sovereignty is done mainly by interest groups. In addition, pluralists point to the rise of advocacy groups— supported by thousands of ordinary people with ordinary incomes—as an indication that the interest group system is being leveled, with a wider range of groups representing a broad swath of the population now playing a key role in the political game. However, more than ample evidence suggests that narrow, special, and privileged interests dominate the
- 637. interest group world and play the biggest role in determining what government does in the United States. The powerful interest groups that play the largest role in shaping public policies in the United States represent, by and large, wealthier and better-educated Americans, corporations, and other business interests and professionals, such as doctors and lawyers. In this view, the proliferation of interest groups, mostly in the form of associations and firms that represent business, has made American politics less and less democratic. This inequality of access and influence violates the democratic principle of political equality, with less influence in the hands of ordinary Americans. Thus, some argue, the present interest group system poses a real threat to democratic ideals. Chapter 7 Review the Chapter Interest Groups in a Democratic Society: Contrasting Viewpoints Americans have long denigrated special interests as contrary to the public good. Many political scientists, however, see interest groups as an important addition to the representation process in a democracy, enhancing the contact of citizens with government officials in the periods between elections.
- 638. The Universe of Interest Groups Private interests are organizations and associations that try to gain protections or material advantages from government for their own Compare and contrast opposing viewpoints about the role of interest groups in a democracy. 7.1 Describe different types of interest groups.7.2 members rather than for society at large. For the most part, these represent economic interests of one kind or another. Public interests are organizations and associations that try to gain protections or benefits for people beyond their own members, often for society at large. Public interests are motivated by ideological or issue concerns. Interest Group Formation and Proliferation There has been a significant expansion in the number of public interest or citizen groups since 1968. The United States provides a rich environment for interest groups because of our constitutional system, our political culture, and
- 639. the broad responsibilities of our government. Interests tend to proliferate in a complex and changing society, which creates a diversity of interests. Government does more than it did in the past and affects the interests of various people, groups, and firms who organize to exert influence over laws and regulations. Explain why interest groups form and proliferate.7.3 What Interest Groups do One way interest groups attempt to influence the shape of public policy is the inside game: interest group representatives are in direct contact with government officials and try to build influence on the basis of personal relationships. The outside game is being played when an interest group tries to mobilize local constituencies and shape public opinion to support the group’s goals and to bring that pressure to bear on elected officials. Interest Groups, Corporate Power, and Inequality in American Politics
- 640. Some groups, especially corporations, trade associations, high- income professionals, and the wealthy, have more resources to put into lobbying officials and better access to them than other groups. The business corporation enjoys what has been called a “privileged position” in American society that substantially enhances its influence Analyze the methods and activities interest groups use to influence political outcomes. 7.4 Describe the inequalities of the interest group system.7.5 on government policies. Business corporations and the wealthy made big gains in a number of important areas of government policy during the past two decades, particularly on policies related to taxes, financial deregulation, and executive compensation. Curing the Mischief of Factions Lobbying reform has focused on requiring interest and advocacy groups to report on their lobbying activities, trying to control the revolving door, and limiting what private and public interest groups are
- 641. allowed to spend in elections. Assess the effectiveness of regulations designed to control interest groups. 7.6 Learn the Terms advocacy groups Interest groups organized to support a cause or ideology. amicus curiae Latin for “friend of the court”; a legal brief in which individuals not party to a suit may have their views heard in court. disturbance theory A theory positing that interest groups originate with changes in the economic, social, or political environment that threaten the well- being of some segment of the population. earmarks Budget items that appropriate money for specific pet projects of members of Congress, usually done at the behest of lobbyists, and added to bills at the last minute with little opportunity for deliberation. factions James Madison’s term for groups or parties that try to advance their own interests at the expense of the public good.
- 642. grassroots lobbying The effort by interest groups to mobilize local constituencies, shape public opinion to support the group’s goals, and bring that pressure to bear on elected officials. interest groups Private organizations or voluntary associations that seek to influence public policy as a way to protect or advance their interests. iron triangle An enduring alliance of common interest among an interest group, a congressional committee, and a bureaucratic agency. issue networks Broad coalitions of public and private interest groups, policy experts, and public officials that form around particular policy issues; said to be more visible to the public and more inclusive than iron triangles. labor union An organization representing employees that bargains with employers over wages, benefits, and working conditions. lobbying Effort by an interest or advocacy group to influence the behavior of a public official. lobbyist
- 643. A person who attempts to influence the behavior of public officials on behalf of an interest group. pluralism The political science position that American democracy is best understood in terms of the interaction, conflict, and bargaining of groups. political action committee (PAC) An entity created by an interest group whose purpose is to collect money and make contributions to candidates in federal elections. private interests Interest groups that seek to protect or advance the material interests of their members. privileged position of business The notion advanced by some political scientists that the business sector, most especially the large corporate sector, is consistently and persistently advantaged over other interests or societal actors in bringing influence to bear on government. public interests Interest groups that work to gain protections or benefits for society at large.
- 644. revolving door The common practice in which former government officials become lobbyists for interests with whom they formerly dealt in their official capacity. test case A case brought by advocacy or interest groups to try to force a ruling on the constitutionality of some law or executive action. Chapter 8 Social Movements DEMANDING THE RIGHT TO VOTE Women’s struggle to gain the vote blew hot and cold for more than 130 years, but persistence paid off at last in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. How might one explain why such a basic democratic right— votes for women—was so long in coming? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy
- 645. Women Win the Right to Vote: Why did it take so long? Meeting at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, a group of women who had been active in the abolitionist movement to end WHAT ARE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS? Define social movements and who they represent. MAJOR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES Discuss the important social movements that have shaped American society. THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN A DEMOCRACY Evaluate how social movements make U.S. politics more democratic. FACTORS THAT ENCOURAGE THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Identify the factors that give rise to social movements. TACTICS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Identify tactics commonly used by social movements. WHY DO SOME SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SUCCEED AND OTHERS FAIL? Determine what makes a social movement successful. 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6
- 646. slavery issued a declaration written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaiming that “all men and women are created equal, endowed with the same inalienable rights.” The Seneca Falls Declaration, much like the Declaration of Independence on which it was modeled, then presented a long list of violations of rights. It remains one of the most eloquent statements of women’s equality ever written, but it had no immediate effect because most politically active women (and men) in the abolitionist movement believed that their first order of business was to end slavery. Women’s rights would have to wait. After the Civil War destroyed the slave system, women’s rights leaders such as Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone pressed for equal citizenship rights for all, white and black, male and female. They were bitterly disappointed when the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified after the war, declared full citizenship rights for all males born or naturalized in the United States, including those who had been slaves, but failed to include women. Women’s rights activists realized they would have to fight for rights on their own, with their own organizations. Women’s rights organizations were formed soon after the Civil War. For more than two decades, though, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) feuded over how to pressure male politicians. Susan B. Anthony (with the NWSA) and Lucy Stone (with the AWSA) were divided by temperament and ideology. Anthony favored pressing for a broad range of rights and organized dramatic actions to expose men’s hypocrisy. At an 1876 centennial celebration of the United States in Philadelphia, Anthony and several other women marched onto the platform, where the emperor of Brazil and other dignitaries
- 647. sat, and read the declaration aloud. Stone favored gaining the vote as the primary objective of the rights movement and used quieter methods of persuasion, such as petitions. In 1890, the two main organizations joined to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). They dropped such controversial NWSA demands as divorce reform and legalized prostitution in favor of one order of business: women’s suffrage. The movement was now focused, united, and growing more powerful every year. In 1912, NAWSA organized a march to support a constitutional amendment for suffrage. More than five thousand women paraded through the streets of Washington before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. The police offered the marchers no protection from antagonistic spectators who pelted them with rotten fruit and vegetables and an occasional rock, despite the legal parade permit they had obtained. This lack of protection outraged the public and attracted media attention to the suffrage movement. Almost immediately after the United States entered World War I in April 1917 with the express purpose of “making the world safe for democracy,” women began to picket the White House, demanding that full democracy be instituted in America. One demonstrator’s sign quoted directly from President Wilson’s war message, “We shall fight . . . for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government,” and asked why women were excluded from American democracy. As the picketing at the White House picked up numbers and intensity, the police began arresting large groups of women. Other women took their places. The cycle continued until local jails were filled to capacity. When suffragists began
- 648. a hunger strike in jail, authorities responded with forced feedings and isolation cells. By November, public outrage forced local authorities to relent and free the women. By this time, public opinion had shifted in favor of women’s right to vote. In the years surrounding U.S. entry into the war, other women’s groups worked state by state, senator by senator, pressuring male politicians to support women’s suffrage. After two prominent senators from New England were defeated in 1918 primarily because of the efforts of suffragists and prohibitionists, the political clout of the women’s groups became apparent to most elected officials. In June 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, and the necessary thirty-six states ratified it the following year. By uniting around a common cause, women’s organizations gained the right to vote for all women. * * * * * The struggle for women’s suffrage (i.e., the right to vote) was long and difficult. The main instrument for winning the struggle to amend the Constitution to admit women to full citizenship was a powerful social movement that dared to challenge the 1 status quo, used unconventional tactics to gain attention and sympathy, and demanded bravery and commitment from many women. Although few social movements have been as effective as the women’s suffrage movement in reaching their primary goal— winning the vote for women—other social movements have
- 649. also played an important role in American political life. This chapter is about what social movements are, how and why they form, what tactics they use, and how they affect American political life and what government does. Thinking Critically about this Chapter This chapter is about the important role of social movements in American government and politics. Applying the Framework You will see in this chapter how social movements are a response to structural changes in the economy, culture, and society and how they affect other political linkage actors and institutions—such as parties, interest groups, and public opinion—and government. Most important, you will learn under what conditions social movements most effectively shape the behavior of elected leaders and the content of government policies. Using the Democracy Standard At first glance, because social movements are most often the political instrument of numerical minorities, it may seem that they have little to do with democracy, which is rooted in majority rule. You will see in this chapter, however, that social 2 movements play an especially important role in our democracy, principally by broadening public debate on important issues and bringing outsiders and nonparticipants into the political arena.
- 650. What are Social Movements? Social movements are loosely organized collections of ordinary people, working outside normal political channels, to get their voices heard by the public at large, the news media, leaders of major institutions, and government officials in order to promote, resist, or undo some social change. They are different from interest groups, which are longer lasting and more organized. Interest groups, for example, have permanent employees and budgets and are more committed to conventional and nondisruptive methods of galvanizing support, such as lobbying and issue advertising. They are different from political parties, whose main purpose is to win elective offices for candidates who campaign under the party banner and to control government and what government does across a broad range of policies. Social movements are more ephemeral in nature, coming and going as people feel they are needed, sometimes leaving their mark on public policies, sometimes not. What sets social movements apart from parties and interest groups is their focus on deeply felt causes and their tendency to act outside normal channels of government and politics, using unconventional and often disruptive tactics. Some scholars call social movement politics “contentious politics.” When suffragists disrupted meetings, went on hunger strikes, and marched to demand the right to vote, they were
- 651. engaged in contentious politics. The most important such social movement in Define social movements and who they represent.8.1 3 4 recent times was the civil rights movement, which pressed demands for equal treatment for African Americans on the American public and elected officials, primarily during the 1960s. social movements Loosely organized groups with large numbers of people who use unconventional and often disruptive tactics to have their grievances heard by the public, the news media, and government leaders. This general definition of social movements requires further elaboration if we are to understand the totality of their role in American politics. Social movements are the political instrument of political outsiders. Social movements often help people who are outside the political mainstream gain a hearing from the public and from political decision makers. The women’s suffrage movement forced the
- 652. issue of votes for women onto the public agenda. The civil rights movement did the same for the issue of equal citizenship for African Americans. Gays and lesbians forced the country to pay attention to issues that had long been left “in the closet.” Insiders don’t need social movements; they can rely instead on interest 5 groups, political action committees (PACs), lobbyists, campaign contributions, and the like to make their voices heard. Christian conservatives, who were outsiders at one time largely ignored by the cultural and political establishment, are now a political force comprising many well-established interest groups, such as the Family Research Council, with remarkable influence within the Republican Party. Their grassroots movement to resist the general secularization of American life and to promote their vision of religious values in American life was built at first around local churches and Bible reading groups and often took the form of protests, whether at abortion clinics or at government locations where some religious symbol (like a manger scene at Christmastime) was ordered removed by the courts because it violated the principle of separation of church and state. STRIKING FOR JUSTICE Farmers rarely use the protest tactic, but these poor farmers
- 653. from Minnesota, facing financial ruin because of a collapse in commodity prices during the Great Depression, felt they needed to do something dramatic to call attention to their plight. The federal government, in the form of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, responded with a series of largely successful commodity price and relief programs that saved many family farms. Is the federal government today as responsive as it was in the past to such protests? Social movements are generally mass grassroots phenomena. Because outsiders and excluded groups often lack the financial and political resources of insiders, they must take advantage of what they have: numbers, energy, and commitment. They depend on the participation of large numbers of ordinary people to act in ways that will move the general public and persuade public officials to address issues of concern to those in the movement. The extraordinary protests against gun violence that created the “March for our lives” demonstrations in Washington, DC, and in other American cities large and small in March, 2018, were initiated by students from Sherman Douglas High School in Florida most of whom were not old enough to vote. Social movements are populated by individuals with a shared sense of grievance. People would not take on the considerable
- 654. risks involved in joining others in a social movement unless they felt a strong, shared sense of grievance against the status quo and a desire to bring about social change. Social movements tend to form when a significant number of people come to define their own troubles and problems, not in personal terms but in more general social terms (the belief that there is a common cause for all of their troubles), and when they believe that the government can be moved to take action on their behalf. Because this is a rare combination, social movements are very difficult to organize and sustain. Social movements often use unconventional and disruptive tactics. Officials and citizens almost always complain that social movements are ill-mannered and disruptive. For social movements, that is precisely the point. Unconventional and disruptive tactics help gain attention for movement grievances. While successful movements are ones that eventually bring many other Americans and public officials over to their side, it is usually the case that other Americans and public officials are not paying attention to the issues that are of greatest concern to movement participants, so something dramatic needs to be done to change the situation. But they do occur. For example, The “#MeToo” protests against sexual harassment and assault, going viral in late
- 655. 2017 after revelations of harassment and assault by prominent men in Hollywood, corporations, and government, spurred hundreds of thousands of people across the nation to take to the streets to have their voices heard. #METOO MOVEMENT ON THE MARCH The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016—a man accused by several women of sexist behavior and sexual assault—and revelations in 2017 of the widespread sexual harassment and assault by male government, political, entertainment, and cultural leaders, helped spark the rise of the MeToo movement. Here women march in Beverly Hills, California in November 2017 to protest these behaviors and to demand equal treatment in the workplace. In a democratic country where citizens have the right to vote, why do people sometimes resort to unconventional and disruptive behavior to try to influence politics and government policies? How can such tactics be justified? Social movements often turn into interest groups. Although particular social movements eventually fade from the political scene, for reasons we explore later, the more successful ones create organizations that carry on their work over a longer period of time. Thus, the women’s movement spawned the National Organization for Women, while the environmental movement
- 656. created organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Nature Conservancy. The movement of Christian evangelicals spurred the creation of groups such as the Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee. Major Social Movements in the United States Many social movements have left their mark on American political life and have shaped what government does in the United States. The Abolitionist Movement This movement, the objective of which was to end slavery in the United States, was most active in the northern states in the three decades before the outbreak of the Civil War. Its harsh condemnation of the slave system helped heighten the tensions between the North and the South, eventually bringing on the war that ended slavery. Proponents’ tactics included antislavery demonstrations and resistance (sometimes violent) to enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, which required all states to identify, capture, and return runaway slaves to their owners. The Populist Movement Discuss the important social movements that have shaped American society. 8.2
- 657. The Populist movement was made up of disaffected farmers of the American South and West in the 1880s and 1890s who were angry with business practices and developments in the American economy that were adversely affecting them. Their main grievance was the concentration of economic power in the banking and railroad industries, both of which favored (with loans on better terms, cheaper shipping rates, and the like) larger customers. The aim of the movement was to force public ownership or regulation of banks, grain storage companies, and the railroads. Small demonstrations at banks and at foreclosed farms were part of their repertoire, but they also used the vote. For a short time, they were quite successful, winning control of several state legislatures, sending members to Congress, helping to nominate William Jennings Bryan as the Democratic candidate for president in 1896, and forcing the federal regulation of corporations (e.g., in the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887). The Women’s Suffrage Movement This movement, active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, aimed to win women the right to vote. As discussed earlier, in the opener to this chapter, the women’s suffrage movement
- 658. won its objective when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920. We also saw that the tactics of the movement were deliberately disruptive and unsettling to many. The Labor Movement In the years after it was formed, the labor movement represented efforts by working people to protect jobs, ensure decent wages and benefits, and guarantee safe workplaces. The periods of greatest militancy—when working people took to the streets and the factory floors to demand recognition of their unions—were in the 1880s, the 1890s, and the 1930s. (The movement’s militancy during the Great Depression, joined with that of other groups pressing for a more activist government committed to social justice, led to the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935.) The labor movement eventually forced the federal government to recognize the right of working people to form labor unions to represent them in negotiations with management. However, labor unions, the fruit of this successful movement, have been steadily losing members, especially in the private sector, where only 6.5 percent of employees were members of unions in 2017.
- 659. The Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement began in the mid-1950s and reached the peak of its activity in the mid-1960s. It gradually lost steam after that (see Figure 8.1 ) but remains one of the most influential social movements on record, having pressed successfully for the end of formal segregation in the South and many (but not all) discriminatory practices across the nation. The primary weapons of the movement were mass demonstrations and nonviolent civil disobedience , a conscious refusal to obey a law considered unfair, unjust, or unconstitutional, courting arrest by the authorities and assault from others, without offering resistance, as a way to highlight injustice and gain broader public sympathy. In 1968, the outbreak of violence in urban centers after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and, at the same time, the rise in prominence of black power advocates like Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, who rejected nonviolence as a basic principle, marked the end of the movement for many people. civil disobedience Intentionally breaking a law and accepting the consequences as a way to publicize the
- 660. unjustness of the law. Contemporary Antiwar Movements Antiwar movements have accompanied virtually every war the United States has waged, including U.S. military interventions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The anti–Vietnam War movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s used a wide variety of tactics to end the war, from mass demonstrations to voting registration and nonviolent civil disobedience. Fringe elements turned to violence as the war 6 7 escalated, as exemplified by the Days of Rage vandalism along Chicago’s Gold Coast mounted by a radicalized wing of Students for a Democratic Society and the bombing of a research lab at the University of Wisconsin in which a graduate student was killed. An anti–Iraq War movement quickly formed in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The movement’s most dramatic political act was the organization of massive demonstrations across the world on February 15, 2003. In the United States, demonstrations
- 661. took place in 150 cities. In New York, the crowd converged on the headquarters of the United Nations, filling 20 city blocks along First and Second Avenues. Demonstrations against intervention also took place around the world, especially in western Europe (see Figure 8.2 ). The massive demonstrations did not convince President Bush to put off the Iraq invasion, however. The movement lost support after the invasion of Iraq in April 2003, as troops went into battle and patriotic feelings rose, but the subsequent insurgency, and the high cost to the United States of the insurgency in lives and money, rekindled the movement in late 2005. Changing public opinion on the war, some of it perhaps attributable to the antiwar demonstrations, helped set the stage for the Republicans’ big losses in the 2006 congressional elections. 8 FIGURE 8.1 TIMELINE: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (1954–1968) The civil rights movement lasted only for a decade and a half but it profoundly changed American life, influencing the passage of
- 662. landmark national, state, and local legislation for equal rights; a turnabout in the judicial interpretation of the constitutionality of state- sanctioned separation of the races in schools, transportation, and public accommodations; and the opening up of channels of social mobility for many African Americans. This timeline shows landmark events in the history of this movement. FIGURE 8.2 DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST THE INVASION OF IRAQ Roughly 16 million people worldwide gathered over the weekend of February 13–15, 2003, to protest the coming invasion of Iraq by the United States. Researchers at Worldmapper found evidence of protest demonstrations in ninety-six of the world’s mapped countries and territories. The map below, which depicts each country’s demonstrators as a proportion of the total number of demonstrators worldwide, shows that the largest demonstrations took place in Europe. Purple shading indicates that country’s government opposed the war, while green shading indicates that country’s government supported the war, with darker colors indicating that a greater
- 663. percentage of the country’s population protested the war. The map demonstrates the mixed effects of protests. In some of the countries with the largest protests—Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and the United Kingdom—the government supported the war in Iraq. Roll over each country to see the percentage of the population that responded positively to the statement of, “Yes, the United States plays a positive role for peace in the world.” It is worth noting, however, that the map’s estimates of the size of demonstrations are just that— estimates— though whenever possible, the researchers depended on more than a single source, leaning toward academic, press, and official estimates rather than those of the demonstration organizers. SOURCE: Worldmapper, “International Demonstrations,” Map No. 361; www.worldmapper.org. Used with permission. The Women’s Movement This movement has been important in American life since the late 1960s. Its aim has been to win civil rights protections for women and to broaden the participation of women in all aspects of American society, economy, and politics. Although it did not win one of its main objectives—passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution that guaranteed equal treatment for men
- 664. and women by all levels of government—the broad advance of women on virtually all fronts in the United States attests to its overall effectiveness. (The movement has been sufficiently successful, in fact, that it helped trigger a countermovement among religious conservatives of all denominations who were worried about purported threats to traditional family values.) The most recent iteration of this movement has been the widespread “Me Too” demonstrations around the nation against sexual harassment and assault. Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that equality of rights shall not be abridged or denied on account of a person’s gender; it failed to win the approval of the necessary number of states. The Environmental Movement The environmental movement has been active in the United States since the early 1970s. Its aim has been to encourage government regulation of damaging environmental practices and to raise the environmental sympathies of the public. While the vitality of the movement has waxed and waned over the years, the public’s strong support for environmental regulation suggests that it has been
- 665. unusually successful. Although its proponents have sometimes used disruptive and even violent tactics, the movement has depended more on legal challenges to business practices and the creation of organizations to lobby in Washington. Rising concerns among many Americans about global climate change have revitalized the movement and enhanced its influence. However, after the election of Donald Trump, many environmental protection regulations were rolled back by his appointees in the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Gay and Lesbian Movements These movements began in earnest in the late 1960s. Their aim was to gain the same civil rights protections under the law enjoyed by African Americans and other minority groups and to gain respect from the public. Their actions ranged from patient lobbying and voting to mass demonstrations and deliberately shocking actions by groups such as ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). These movements were fairly successful with protections granted to LGBTQ Americans nationally and locally and the right to same-sex marriage affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2015.
- 666. The Religious Conservative Movement Religious conservative movements have occurred at several different moments in American history and have been very influential. These movements have brought together strongly religious people trying to infuse American society and public policies with their values. The contemporary movement of religious conservatives falls within this tradition and has become very important in American politics, especially on the issues of abortion, school prayer, educational curriculum, and marriage equality. The pro-life (anti-abortion) movement is part of this larger religious conservative movement. Its main objective is to end the legal availability of abortion in the United States. Religious conservatives have become especially influential in the Republican Party. One need only consider the candidacies of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee—religious conservatives all—who sought the Republican nomination for president in 2016. Though not a particularly religious person himself, Donald Trump vigorously supported the Christian conservative agenda after assuming office in 2017, including
- 667. the administration’s support for religious freedom cases in federal courts. He also elevated conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2017 and 2018. ANARCHISTS CONFRONT POLICE Police and demonstrators face off during an anti-World Trade Organization protest in Seattle in 1999. For the most part, people in the anti-globalization movement have used disruptive but nonviolent methods to express their grievances against the purported apocalypse of globalization. A radical anarchist element in the movement, however, has often turned its destructive ire on property and the symbols of government as a tactic and, in the process, has lost support among the public for the movement’s goals. Does violent protest ever work in a democracy? The Anti-Globalization Movement In 1999, an emergent anti-globalization movement announced itself with demonstrations in Seattle targeted at the World Trade Organization (WTO), whose trade ministers were meeting to fashion an agreement to further open national borders to trade and foreign investment. The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, but some demonstrators turned violent. The movement is extremely
- 668. diverse and includes people who are worried about the effects of globalization on the environment, income inequality in the United States and elsewhere, food safety, labor rights, sweat shops, unfair trade, and national sovereignty. The movement remains intermittently active, with protesters showing up en masse at large WTO gatherings, as well as those hosted by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum (which meets annually in Davos, Switzerland), and the G8. Note that while the anti-globalization movement has usually been of the left-wing variety—at the presidential campaign level, think of Senator Bernie Sanders—there also are right- wing varieties embodied in Donald Trump’s strongest supporters, who want to protect the borders against immigrants, remove undocumented people from the United States, and keep corporations from moving American jobs overseas. 9 TEA’D OFF The Tea Party movement, deeply opposed to President Obama and his agenda for an energetic government to solve the economic crisis
- 669. and longer-term problems like health care, became a force to be reckoned with in American politics only months after the president’s inauguration. When people thronged to Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., in April 2009, to express their anger at passage of the economic “stimulus package,” what ideological differences with the Obama administration compelled their attendance? The Tea Party Movement The Tea Party movement exploded onto the American political scene on tax deadline day, April 15, 2009, with demonstrations in scores of locations around the country denouncing bank bailouts, the Democrats’ health care reform effort, rising government deficits, taxes and regulations, illegal immigration, and, for many among the participants, the legality of the Obama presidency. Urged on by conservative talk radio hosts and the intense coverage of their activities by Fox News and funded by the energy fortune of brothers David and Charles Koch, the Tea Party staged a series of demonstrations across the country and mobilized in August 2009 to flood and take over health care town hall meetings held by Democratic members of Congress. By 2010, it had become a major force within
- 670. the Republican Party, defeating many establishment candidates with Tea Party adherents and helping Republicans win control of legislatures and governorships in many states and U.S. House of Representatives. The movement seems to represent a modern- day angry populism directed against an activist federal government that, in the view of movement activists and followers, has been taking too many taxes from hardworking people and saddling the country with huge debts, all for programs that support the undeserving poor (people unwilling to work) and those who are in the country illegally. (See Figure 8.3 for how Tea Party sympathizers differ from other Americans and other Republicans.) 10 FIGURE 8.3 TEA PARTY PROPRONENTS ON THE ISSUES Polls show that while Tea Party identifiers are overwhelmingly Republican, they are from the most conservative wing of the party, with stronger anti-government and anti-immigration views than mainstream Republicans. Their views diverge even farther from those of all registered voters. An opinion poll conducted right after the Tea Party’s rise to prominence in the 2010 national elections demonstrates
- 671. that a determined minority can be successful in very low turnout elections such as party primaries and off-year congressional elections when there is no presidential contest. Source: Data from Scott Clement and John C. Green, “The Tea Party and Religion,” Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Project, Pew Research Center, February 23, 2011. The Occupy Wall Street Movement Organized almost wholly through social media, Occupy Wall Street came to public attention in September 2011 when protestors staged an encampment protest at Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street section of New York City. Occupy sites rapidly spread from New York to other cities and communities across the country. Though the message of the movement was somewhat garbled because of the many diverse groups it attracted, a common underlying theme alleged economic unfairness, asserting the failure of government to do anything about diminished job prospects, stagnant wages, crippling student loan debt, declining living standards, or rising income and wealth inequality while bailing out banks whose top executives raked in bonus upon bonus. The movement meme, “We are the 99 percent,” contends that most of the gains of economic growth over the past two decades have flowed only up, to the
- 672. top 1 percent. Some labor unions joined the protests, and many celebrities voiced support and made contributions. Because the movement believed in occupation-style action—in setting up tents, feeding stations, libraries, first-aid centers, and the like in public-space encampments—police eventually moved in to clear away demonstrators, with officials citing safety and sanitation concerns as their motivation. In New York, closing down the Occupy site was relatively peaceful; in Oakland and Berkeley evictions proved to be more violent. Though the movement has receded from view recently, its issues—from anger at Wall Street to the hollowing out of the middle class—are sufficiently consistent with the views of a substantial number of Americans to suggest that it will reappear from time to time. As the Zuccotti Park occupation moved into its second month, a Pew poll showed that 39 percent of Americans said they agreed with the movement’s goals, more than said they supported the Tea Party’s (32 percent). Echoes of the Occupy Wall Street movement were prominent in Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS The Occupy Wall Street movement was formed not only to protest
- 673. rising income inequality and dim job prospects for young workers but to highlight the possibilities of community, and all it entails. Protesters formed their own cleaning crews when public officials suggested that sanitation concerns would force occupiers out of their Zuccotti Park encampment. 11 Has Occupy Wall Street had a lasting or only a fleeting impact? The “Black Lives Matter” Movement Black Lives Matter started in July 2013 as a hashtag tweeted by three community organizers to express their concern about a spate of high- profile acts of police violence involving white officers and African American victims. The hashtag—#BlackLives-Matter—quickly evolved into a grass roots and highly decentralized social movement of significant political importance. The movement is demanding policy changes that include restrictions on the use of deadly force by the police, police training in racial bias, better recordkeeping of the incidence of police brutality, criminal justice reform, and the hiring of more police officers that reflect minority communities.
- 674. Black Lives Matter has all the markings of a social movement: it is comprised of political outsiders, it leverages the numbers, energy, and commitment of those who are aggrieved, and it has used unconventional and disruptive tactics to gain attention. Black Lives Matter has held protests and marches in cities across the country, and movement leaders have not been afraid to confront political candidates directly. While the movement claims no partisan affiliation, activists have sought attention from Democratic candidates who have more potential than Republican candidates to be allies in their cause. 12 13 BLACK LIVES MATTER Here, in 2016, demonstrators march to protest yet another shooting by police of an unarmed African American man under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement has influenced some political leaders and police administrators to change a range of police tactics, but it has also sparked a strong counter-attack from those who believe the movement unfairly criticizes police and puts them in
- 675. danger. How do you feel about this contemporary conflict? Are movements like this good for democracy or do they disrupt daily life too much and create social divisions that make compromise less likely? Explain. For their part, certain Democratic candidates for elective office have expressed tentative support for the movement. In a private meeting with movement leaders during her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton acknowledged the problems that black Americans face but did not agree that the problems originate from inherently racist policies. Her response reflected a concern among some liberals who sympathize with the cause but believe that the movement’s rhetoric and tactics are too divisive. Alternatively, Republican candidates in the 2015–2016 election cycle used opposition to Black Lives Matter to rally their own support. In an attempt to position themselves favorably with law-and-order voters who are protective of police and with voters who don’t believe that black Americans are subject to discrimination, they argued that the movement vilifies law enforcement and prioritizes
- 676. the lives of black Americans over all others. 14 The Role of Social Movements in a Democracy At first glance, social movements may not seem to conform very well to democratic principles. First, social movements usually start out as small minorities, whereas democracy requires majority rule. Second, social movements often use disruptive tactics—though rarely overtly violent ones—to announce their grievances when many “legitimate” democratic channels already exist (e.g., voting, petitioning, and the public expression of views). This section discusses how social movements can (and often do) help make American politics more democratic. Encouraging Participation Social movements may increase the level of popular involvement and interest in politics. In one sense, this is true simply by definition: social movements are the instruments of outsiders. Thus, the women’s suffrage movement convinced many middle-class women that their activities need not be confined exclusively to home, family,
- 677. church, Evaluate how social movements make U.S. politics more democratic. 8.3 and charity work and encouraged them to venture into political life by gathering petitions or joining demonstrations demanding the vote for women. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement encouraged southern African Americans, who had long been barred from the political life of their communities, to become active in their own emancipation. The religious evangelical movement spurred the involvement of previously politically apathetic evangelicals. The pro-immigration movement may yet spur increased political participation by Hispanic citizens. Social movements also encourage popular participation by dramatizing and bringing to public attention a range of issues that have been ignored or have been dealt with behind closed doors. Their contentious actions make these movements’ members highly visible because, they offer irresistible fare for the television camera. This ability to make politics more visible—called broadening the scope of conflict by political scientist E. E. Schattschneider —makes
- 678. politics the province of the many rather than the few. scope of conflict Refers to the number of groups involved in a political conflict; a narrow scope of conflict involves a small number of groups, and a wide scope of conflict involves many. 15 Overcoming Political Inequality Social movements also sometimes allow individuals and groups without substantial resources to enter the game of politics. Many social movements are made up of people who do not have access to the money, time, contacts, or organizational resources that fuel normal politics. The ability of those without resources to disrupt the status quo by mobilizing thousands to take to the streets to voice their demands—what sociologists call mass mobilization —is a powerful political tool for the seemingly politically powerless. In the right circumstances, the disruptive politics of social groups can become as politically useful as other conventional resources, such as money or votes. mass mobilization The process of involving large numbers of
- 679. people in a social movement. Creating New Majorities When social movements, the province of numerical minorities, persuade enough citizens that what they want is reasonable, they 16 may, over time, help create new majorities in society. Before the 1930s, for instance, only a minority of Americans may have been convinced that labor unions were a good idea. The Great Depression and a vigorous, militant labor movement changed the opinion of the nation, thus providing the basis for federal laws protecting the right of working people to unionize. In another example, such issues as gender-based job discrimination and pay inequity were not important to the general public until they were brought center stage by the women’s movement. The anger about sexual harassment and assault that encouraged the rise of the “Me Too” phase of the women’s movement increased the number of women seeking elective office at the local, state, and national levels during the 2018 election cycle.
- 680. Great Depression The period of economic crisis in the United States that lasted from the stock market crash of 1929 to America’s entry into World War II. Overcoming Constitutional Inertia Sometimes it takes the energy and disruption of a social movement to overcome the anti-majoritarian inclinations of our constitutional 17 system. Political scientist Theodore Lowi is particularly perceptive on this issue: Our political system is almost perfectly designed to maintain an existing state of affairs. Our system is so designed that only a determined and undoubted majority could make it move. This is why our history is replete with social movements. It takes that kind of energy to get anything like a majority…. Change comes neither from the genius of the system nor from the liberality or wisdom of its supporters and of the organized groups. It comes from new groups or nascent groups—social movements—when the situation is most
- 681. dramatic. It is important to note that many of the social reforms of which most Americans are proudest—women’s right to vote, equal citizenship rights for African Americans, Social Security, collective bargaining, and environmental protection—have been less the result of “normal” politics than of social movements started by determined and often disruptive minorities. 17 18 19 Factors that Encourage the Formation of Social Movements Social movements do not appear out of nowhere. There are reasons why they form. A certain combination of factors seems necessary for a social movement to develop. Real or Perceived Distress Safe, prosperous, respected, and contented people generally have no
- 682. need of social movements. By contrast, those whose lives are difficult, unsafe, threatened, or disrespected often find social movements an attractive means of calling attention to their plight and of pressing for changes in the status quo. Social distress caused by economic, social, and technological change helped create the conditions for the rise of most of the major social movements in American history. Western and southern farmers who suffered great economic reverses during the latter part of the 19th century engendered the Populist movement. The virtual collapse of the industrial sector of the American economy during the 1930s, with Identify the factors that give rise to social movements.8.4 20 21 historically unprecedented levels of unemployment and widespread destitution, catalyzed the labor movement. The perception that religious and family values have been declining in American life has given rise to the Christian conservative movement. For many women
- 683. who were entering the job market in increasing numbers during the 1960s and 1970s, discriminatory hiring, blocked career advancement —in the form of the “glass ceiling” and the “mommy track”— and unequal pay made participation in the women’s movement irresistible. Discrimination, police harassment, and violence spurred gay, lesbian, and transsexual people to turn to “contentious politics.” The AIDS epidemic added to their distress and stimulated further political participation. The purported threat of mass illegal migration to the United States triggered the rise of the Minutemen, armed volunteers with white nationalist leanings to help control the border with Mexico, and a more general movement dedicated to stopping immigration and deporting undocumented people that contributed to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. The Great Recession, rising student loan debt, and the slow job recovery that followed sowed the seeds for the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left and the Tea Party movement on the right. 22 23 24
- 684. ON THE BORDER Their apparel notwithstanding, these men are not federal agents but members of the Minutemen Militia, private citizens who run freelance patrols along the southern U.S. border, claiming action is needed to counter an invading army of illegal immigrants. Do vigilante actions of groups like the Minutemen help or hurt the anti- immigration cause? Ironically, the rise of one social movement demanding a change in how its people are regarded and treated often triggers the rise of a countermovement among people who come to feel distressed in turn. Thus, the women’s and gay and lesbian movements were powerful stimulants for the rise of the Christian conservative movement, whose proponents worried that traditional family values were under assault. Civil rights advances and the diversification of the American population, much of these facilitated by or perceived to be facilitated by the federal government, contributed to the rise of scattered anti-
- 685. government and anti-diversity white power groups and militias. Some of their actions have included the bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh and associates that killed 168 people and the neo-nazi and alt-right demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2017 where counter-demonstrators were attacked with many resulting in injuries and one death. Availability of Resources for Mobilization Although social strain and distress are almost always present in any society, social movements occur, it seems, only when aggrieved people have sufficient resources to organize. A pool of potential leaders and a set of institutions that can provide infrastructure and money are particularly helpful. The grievances expressed by the labor movement had existed for a long time in the United States but not until a few unions developed—generating talented leaders like John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther and widespread media attention—did the movement take off. The nonviolent civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. found traction in the 1960s partly because network newscasts, which had just increased from fifteen to thirty minutes,
- 686. 25 26 filled out their programming schedules with the drama of civil rights demonstrations and the sometimes violent responses to them. The women’s movement’s assets included a sizable population of educated and skilled women, a lively women’s press, and a broad network of meetings to talk about common problems. The Christian conservative movement could build on a base of skilled clergy, an expanding evangelical church membership, religious television and radio networks, and highly developed fund-raising technologies. The anti-globalization and anti–Iraq War movements, highly decentralized and organizationally amorphous, strategically used social networking and mobile communications to spread information, raise money, and organize demonstrations here and abroad. PUSHING FEMINISM 27 28
- 687. Ms. magazine, during its heyday in the 1970s, was a major force in attracting educated women to the women’s movement. Gloria Steinem co-founded, edited, and wrote for the magazine. She had already established her journalism credentials before publishing Ms. and relied on her extensive contacts in the field to ensure a successful launch. Could a publication like Ms. have as much impact today in the age of the Internet as it did in the 1970s? A Supportive Environment The rise of social movements also requires the times to be right, in the sense that a degree of support and tolerance for a movement’s goals must exist among the public and society’s leaders. The civil rights movement took place when support for more equality for African Americans was growing (even in parts of the then-segregated South) and the bad effects of segregation on American foreign policy worried national leaders. Christian conservatives mobilized as the Republican Party was looking at social values and practices to detach traditional Democratic voters from their party. The labor movement’s upsurge
- 688. during the 1930s coincided with the electoral needs of the Democratic Party. The women’s movement surged in the early 1970s when public opinion was becoming much more favorable toward women’s equality. In 1972, two out of three Americans—the same proportion that said they believed that issues raised by the women’s movement were important—supported the proposal for an Equal Rights 29 30 31 Amendment. Two years before the Court’s landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage, homosexuality had become widely accepted in American society, even among self-identified Christians; large majorities of Christians in 2013 said that homosexuality should be accepted by society, including 70 percent of Catholics and 66 percent of mainline Protestants. The Pew Research Center reported in 2017 that 62 percent of Americans said they supported the right of same-sex couples to marry; the percentage among Americans under the age of 30 was much higher, at 72 percent. Even among self- identified Christians, large majorities now say that homosexuality
- 689. should be accepted by society, including 70 percent of Catholics and 66 percent of mainline Protestants. Occupy Wall Street almost surely reflected a widespread sentiment that there is too much income inequality in the country and that government mostly helps the wealthy (54 percent of Americans agreed). Especially important for a social movement is acceptance of their concerns and demands among elites. A group of corporate leaders in the 1930s, for example, believed that labor peace was crucial for ending the Great Depression and making long-term economic stability possible and openly supported labor union efforts to organize industries and enter into labor-management contracts. As noted earlier, in the 1950s and 1960s, American political leaders— concerned that widespread reports of violence and discrimination against African Americans were undermining U.S. credibility in the struggle against the Soviet Union for the loyalties of people of color in Asia, Africa, and Latin America—were ready for fundamental changes in race relations in the South and supported the civil rights movement. 31 32 33
- 690. 34 35 Leaders of the film, music, and television industries, whether for reasons of belief or economic gain, have increased the visibility of LBGT performers and experiences in their productions. A Sense of Efficacy Among Participants People on the outside looking in must come to believe that their actions can make a difference and that other citizens and political leaders will listen and respond to their grievances. Political scientists call this I-can-make-a-difference attitude a sense of political efficacy . Without a sense of efficacy, grievances might explode into brief demonstrations or riots, but they would not support a long- term effort, commitment, and risk. political efficacy The sense that an individual can affect what government does. It may well be that the highly decentralized and fragmented nature of our political system helps sustain a sense of efficacy because movements often find places in the system where they will be
- 691. heard 36 by officials. For example, Christian conservatives have had little effect on school curricula in unitary political systems like that of Great Britain, where educational policy is made centrally, so few try to do anything about it. In the United States, however, they know they can gain the ear of local school boards and state officials where conservative religious belief is strong. For their part, LGBTQ activists have been able to convince public officials and local voters to pass antidiscrimination ordinances in accepting communities—such as San Francisco, California, and Boulder, Colorado—and to win cases in several state courts. TELEVISION WITH ATTITUDE The ensemble dramedy Orange Is the New Black had multiple LBGT characters in leading and support roles when it premiered in 2013. But what came first, change on television or change in society? Did wider societal acceptance of LGBTQ people make it
- 692. possible for Netflix to “green light” Orange, or have Hollywood writers and producers led society to alter its attitudes? Some scholars have suggested that a strong sense of common identity among protest groups contributes to efficacy. Knowing that one is not alone, that others see the world in common ways and have common concerns, is often the basis for people’s willingness to join social movements. Growing LGBTQ identity seems to be an important component of the rising political self-confidence of this movement. The same can be said for Christian conservatives and Tea Party activists. A Spark to Set Off the Flames Social movements require, as we have seen, a set of grievances, resources to form and sustain organization, a supportive environment, and a sense of political efficacy, but they also seem to require some dramatic precipitating event (or series of events)—a catalyst— to set them in motion. As the chapter-opening story illustrates, passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects the citizenship rights of males, galvanized the early women’s suffrage movement. The 1969 Stonewall rebellion—three days of rioting catalyzed by police harassment of patrons of a popular gay bar in New York City’s
- 693. Greenwich Village and Rosa Parks’s simple refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus in 1957 inspired countless acts of resistance afterward among gays and lesbians and African Americans. In 2006, Latinos were moved to action after the House passed a bill making illegal immigrants felons, subjecting longtime undocumented immigrants to deportation, and beefing up control of the U.S.–Mexican border. CNBC reporter Rick Santelli’s rant on television about President Obama’s plan to provide mortgage payment assistance to people who were about to lose their homes helped launch the Tea Party in 2009. News of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s long history of sexual harassment and assault, coupled with news of sexual misdeeds by male leaders in government, the media, and a broad range of private corporations, was the spark for the massive “#Me Too” demonstrations in late 2017. Tactics of Social Movements Because they often represent people and groups that lack political power, social movements tend to use unconventional tactics, disruption, and dramatic gestures to make themselves heard. The
- 694. women’s suffrage movement, as already discussed, used mass demonstrations and hunger strikes to great effect. The labor movement invented sit-down strikes and plant takeovers as its most effective weapons in the 1930s. Pro-life activists added clinic blockades and the harassment of patients, doctors, and employees to the protest repertoire. The Occupy Wall Street movement learned to commandeer publicly prominent urban spaces such as parks and squares. The most effective tool of the civil rights movement was nonviolent civil disobedience. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the strongest advocate for and popularizer of this strategy, having borrowed it from Mahatma Gandhi, who used it as part of the campaign that ended British colonial rule in India after World War II. A particularly dramatic and effective use of this tactic took place in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, when four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at a “whites only” lunch counter in a Woolworth’s store and politely asked to be served. When asked to leave, they refused. They remained calm Identify tactics commonly used by social movements.8.5 37 38
- 695. even as a mob of young white men screamed at them, squirted them with ketchup and mustard, and threatened to lynch them. Each day, more students from the college joined them. By the end of the week, more than a thousand black students had joined the sit-in to demand an end to segregation. These actions ignited the South. Within two months, similar sit-ins had taken place in nearly sixty cities across nine states; almost four thousand young people, including a number of white college students from outside the South, had spent a night in jail for their actions. Their bravery galvanized blacks across the nation and generated sympathy among many whites. The student sit-in movement also spawned a new and more impatient civil rights organization, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). For his part, Dr. King led a massive nonviolent civil disobedience campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, demanding the end of segregation in the schools in addition to the racial integration of public services, especially public transportation. Nonviolent demonstrators, many of them schoolchildren, were assaulted by snarling police dogs, electric cattle prods, and high-pressure fire
- 696. hoses that sent demonstrators sprawling. Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor filled his jails to overflowing with hundreds of young marchers, who resisted only passively, alternately praying and singing “We Shall Overcome.” The quiet bravery of the demonstrators and the palpable sense among the nation’s leaders that matters were quickly spinning out of control convinced President John Kennedy to introduce historic civil rights legislation for congressional consideration on June 11, 1963. racial integration Policies that encourage the interaction of different races in schools, public facilities, workplaces, and/or housing. BIRTH OF A NEW TACTIC The infant United Auto Workers organized a strike in early 1937 at a plant of America’s top auto maker General Motors, in Flint, Michigan. Rather than put a picket line at the factory gates, which could easily be breached by police and replacement workers, the Flint UAW sat in place, daring the police to provoke violence inside the plant where
- 697. irreplaceable auto-building equipment would be at risk. The sit- down strike lasted for almost six weeks and was entirely successful, with GM ultimately recognizing the UAW as the sole bargaining agent for its manufacturing workers. Are sit-down strikes a viable tactic for people trying to form labor unions today? This is not to say that unconventional and disruptive tactics always work. No matter how peaceful, some tactics fail to strike the right chord. And, at times, fringe elements within movements do things so rancorous that the movement itself is discredited. In the late 1960s, urban riots and the rise of African Americans committed to black power undermined the broad popularity of the civil rights movement. The anti-globalization movement has been similarly undermined by its anarchist wing, which, committed to violence against property and to confrontations with police, draws attention from television cameras, whether in Seattle, Washington, or Davos, Switzerland. Why do Some Social Movements Succeed and Others Fail?
- 698. Social movements have had a significant effect on American politics and on what government does. Not all social movements, however, are equally successful, and here is why: The proximity of the movement’s goals to American values. Movements that ask for fuller participation in things that other Americans consider right and proper—such as voting and opportunities for economic advancement—are more likely to strike a responsive chord than movements that demand a redistribution of income from the rich to the poor. The movement’s capacity to win public attention and support. Potential movements that fail to gain attention, either because the news media are not interested or because there is little sympathy for the cause the movement espouses, never get very far. Things become even more problematic when a social movement stimulates the formation of a counter–social movement. The movement’s ability to affect the political fortunes of elected leaders. Politicians tend to pay attention to movements that can affect their electoral fortunes one way or another. If support for the aims of a movement will add to their vote totals among movement Determine what makes a social movement successful.8.6 39
- 699. members and a broader sympathetic public, politicians likely will be more inclined to help. If opposition to the movement is a better electoral strategy, politicians are likely to act as roadblocks to the movement. COURAGE UNDER FIRE In 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, under the leadership of Chief of Public Safety “Bull” Connor, peaceful civil rights demonstrators protesting segregation were met with fire hoses, police billy clubs, snarling police dogs, and jail. The national and international outcry over the treatment of peaceful protestors contributed to passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which ended most forms of de jure segregation in the United States. Are there any social movements today that will have an impact as equally momentous as that of the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Low-Impact Social Movements The poor people’s movement, which tried to convince Americans to enact policies that would end poverty in the United States, failed to make much of a mark in the late 1960s. This social movement
- 700. was never able to mobilize a large group of activists, had little support among the general public because of its fairly radical proposals for income redistribution, and was unable to disrupt everyday life significantly or to affect the electoral prospects of politicians. The modern women’s movement, while successful in a number of areas, was unable to win passage of a proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution banning discrimination on the grounds of gender. The ERA failed to receive the votes of three- fourths of the states by the 1979 deadline, mainly because the effort to ratify it stirred up a countermovement among religious conservatives in every religious denomination. Repressed Social Movements Social movements committed to radical change tend to threaten widely shared values and interests of powerful individuals, groups, 40 41 42 and institutions. As a result, they rarely gain widespread popular
- 701. support and almost always arouse the hostility of political leaders. Such movements, too, often face repression of one kind or another. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, the labor movement was hindered by court injunctions forbidding strikes and boycotts, by laws against union formation, by employer- hired armed gangs, and by the National Guard and the U.S. armed forces. In 1877, sixty thousand National Guardsmen were mobilized in ten states to break the first national railroad strike. Ten thousand militiamen were called into action to break the strike against Carnegie Steel in 1892 in Homestead, Pennsylvania, which resulted in the arrest of sixteen strike leaders on conspiracy charges and the indictment of twenty-seven labor leaders for treason. Partially Successful Social Movements Some social movements have enough power and public support to generate a favorable response from public officials but not enough to force them to respond in more than partial or halfhearted ways. President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to social movement pressures for strong antipoverty measures during the Great Depression, but the Social Security Act, ultimately, fell far short of movement expectations.
- 702. 42 43 44 President Reagan was willing to co-opt pro-life movement rhetoric and to appoint judges sympathetic to its cause but was unwilling to submit anti-abortion legislation to Congress. Christian conservatives enjoyed some legislative successes during the height of their power in the 1990s, and they were important voices in the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court in 2005, but they failed to achieve some of their primary objectives: enactment of a law to ban late-term (in their words, “partial birth”) abortions, passage of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, and removal of Bill Clinton from the presidency. LUDLOW MASSACRE, 1914 Siding with mine owners against striking miners in Ludlow, Colorado, the governor ordered the state’s national guard to clear the camp where miners and their families were living, forced out of their tiny homes owned by the company, Colorado Fuel and Iron. Joined by company guards and security forces, the national guard attacked
- 703. the camp with canon, rifles, bayonets, and fire, killing more than two dozen people, including women and children. John D. Rockefeller Jr. owned the company and was roundly criticized for the attack and was called before Congress to testify. Notwithstanding the bad publicity, the violent action worked, for it broke the back of the miners’ union in the West. Would the use of violence against strikers have been possible had the public and elites been more sympathetic to unions? Movements can be partially successful even if no new laws are passed. Other measures of success include increased respect for members of the movement, changes in fundamental underlying values in society, and increased representation of the group in decision- making bodies. The women’s movement has had some of this kind of success though much remains to be done. Although the Equal Rights Amendment (the movement’s main goal) failed, women’s issues came to the forefront during these years and, to a very substantial degree, the demands of the movement for equal treatment and respect made
- 704. significant headway in many areas of American life though sexual harassment and assault remain a painful reality. Issues such as pay equity, family leave, sexual harassment, and attention to women’s health problems in medical research are now a part of the American political agenda. Women have made important gains economically and are becoming more numerous in the professions, corporate executive positions (although only 20 percent of corporate board members and 6 percent of CEOs of S&P 500 companies in the United States were female in 2017), and political office. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major political party, though she later lost in the presidential race to Donald Trump. During the 2018 election cycle, a record number of 45 46 women entered races for public office at all levels in the political system, local, state, and federal. Successful Social Movements
- 705. Social movements that have many supporters, win wide public sympathy, do not challenge the basics of the economic and social orders, and wield some clout in the electoral arena are likely to achieve a substantial number of their goals. The women’s suffrage movement is one of the best examples. The civil rights movement is another, yielding after years of struggle the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned segregation in places of public accommodations such as hotels and restaurants, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act , which put the might of the federal government behind efforts to allow African Americans to vote and hold elected office. These enactments helped sound the death knell of the “separate but equal” doctrine enunciated in the infamous Plessy decision (1896) and engineered the collapse of legal segregation in the South. 1965 Voting Rights Act A law that banned racial discrimination in voting across the United States; it gave the federal government broad powers to register voters in a set of states, mostly in the South, that had long practiced election discrimination, and required that such state pre-clear any changes in its election laws with the Department of Justice.
- 706. The Voting Rights Act was particularly important in transforming the politics of the South. Black registration and voting turnout increased dramatically all over the region during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Elected black officials filled legislative seats, city council seats, the mayors’ offices in large and small cities, and sheriffs’ offices. Between 1960 and 2011, the number of elected black officials in the United States increased from a mere 40 to more than 10,500. In the years after passage of the Voting Rights Act, some white politicians, tacking with the new winds of change, began to court the black vote. George Wallace, who first became famous by “standing in the schoolhouse door” to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama and who once kicked off a political campaign with the slogan, “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever,” actively pursued the black vote in his last run for public office. To be sure, being successful in achieving specific policy goals may not in the end make matters better for a group across the board. Though the civil rights movement achieved its legislative goals— passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 guaranteeing equal treatment
- 707. in public accommodations and the 1965 Voting Rights Act protecting African Americans’ right to vote—the social and economic condition of African Americans today lags behind that of other Americans. This is 47 true with respect to educational attainment, income and wealth, and life expectancy. As we have seen in other places in this book, the Supreme Court has allowed the states to whittle away at African American voting rights. And the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement happened because African American males were much more likely than any other demographic group to die at the hands of the police. Gays and lesbians reached one of their major goals in 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that laws in states that banned same-sex marriage or that refused to recognize the marriages of same-sex partners performed in other states violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Obergefell, in short, established marriage as a fundamental right that states could not violate. The Obergefell decision followed an earlier
- 708. ruling, United States v. Windsor (2013). In Windsor, the Supreme Court said that a piece of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)— which denied federal benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, joint- return status, veterans’ benefits, and inheritance rights to same- sex couples—was unconstitutional. DOMA was enacted in 1996 in response to a state Supreme Court ruling in Hawaii that same- sex marriage was legal in that state. In the Windsor case, dissenting justice Antonin Scalia complained that the broad language of the majority opinion, which granted homosexuals “equal liberty and basic dignity,” would inevitably open the door in the future to overturning bans on same-sex marriage in all other states. He was right. Windsor in 2013 paved the way for the Obergefell decision of 2015, a case where again Scalia dissented. 48 Change of this magnitude is deserving of additional analysis. By applying our analytical framework to the reversal of DOMA (see Figure 8.4 ), we can piece together the structural, political linkage, and government factors that led first to the Supreme Court’s ruling in
- 709. Windsor and two years later to that in Obergefell. Especially important in this analysis is the impact of gay and lesbian activists, their increasing political influence as an organized social movement, and the transformation of public opinion on issues concerning gay and lesbian rights. FIGURE 8.4 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: OVERTURNING THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT (DOMA) © Edward S. Greenberg Using the Democracy Standard Social Movements: Do Social Movements make America More or Less Democratic? The story of American democracy has been shaped by social movements—from the first stirrings of rebellion in the British colonies to the emancipation of African American slaves to the granting of the right to vote to women. But in a nation that is supposed to be governed by majority rule, expressed primarily through elections, are social movements that empower minorities truly democratic? Just what role do social movements play in a democracy? In a perfect democratic society, social movements would
- 710. be unnecessary; change would happen through political linkages like elections and public opinion and through party and interest group activity. Indeed, a democracy that depended entirely on social movements to bring needed change would not work very effectively at all. But in an imperfect and incomplete democracy like ours, social movements play a valuable and important role, creating an additional linkage between portions of the American public and their government. Social movements affect our democracy in several ways. First, social movements represent a way—a difficult way, to be sure—by which political outsiders and the politically powerless can become players in the political game. Our constitutional system favors the status quo—federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances make it extremely difficult to institute fundamentally new policies or to change existing social and economic conditions. Moreover, the primacy of the status quo is further entrenched by the political power of economically and socially privileged groups and individuals who generally resist changes that might undermine their positions. Movements present a way for outsiders to gain a hearing for their grievances, work to win over a majority of their fellow citizens, and persuade elected leaders to take action. Equal citizenship for women and for African Americans, for example, would not have happened at all, or would have been much longer in coming, if not for the existence of social movements demanding change. Thus, social movements are valuable tools for ensuring that popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty—the
- 711. key ingredients in a democracy as we have defined it— are more fully realized. In some cases, at least theoretically, social movements can pose a threat to democracy. Small minorities who credibly threaten social disruption might occasionally force elected officials to respond to their demands, even though the majority does not favor such action. Some social movements, moreover, push policies that run counter to democratic ideals, making them dangerous for democracy if they take hold. Anti-immigrant movements, for example, tried to deny citizenship rights to people from China and southern and eastern Europe earlier in our history. But threats to the fundamentals of democracy emanating from social movements seem minor compared to the persistent inequalities that arise from other quarters, including interest groups, which we considered in Chapter 7 . Chapter 8 Review the Chapter What are Social Movements? Social movements emphasize rather dramatically the point that the struggle for democracy is a recurring feature of our political life. Social movements are mainly the instruments of political outsiders with grievances who want to gain a hearing in American politics.
- 712. Major Social Movements in the United States Social movements, by using disruptive tactics and broadening the scope of conflict, can contribute to democracy by increasing the visibility of important issues, encouraging wider participation in public Define social movements and who they represent.8.1 Discuss the important social movements have shaped American society. 8.2 affairs, often creating new majorities, and sometimes providing the energy to overcome the many anti-majoritarian features of our constitutional system. The Role of Social Movements in a Democracy Social movements often produce changes in government policies. Social movements try to bring about social change through collective action. Movements can also serve as a tension-release mechanism for aggrieved groups even when major policy shifts do not happen.
- 713. Social movements have had an important effect on our political life and in determining what our government does. Some of our most important legislative landmarks can be attributed to them. Social movements do not always get what they want. They seem to be most successful when their goals are consistent with the central values of the society, have wide popular support, and fit the needs of political leaders. Evaluate how social movements make U.S. politics more democratic. 8.3 Factors that Encourage the Formation of Social Movements Social distress caused by economic, social, and technological change often creates the conditions for the rise of social movements in the United States. Social distress that encourages the formation of social movements comes from change that proves difficult and unsafe for people, threatens their way of life or basic values, and lessens the respect they feel from others. Social movements can be a means for calling attention to the
- 714. plight of their members and pressing for changes in the status quo. Tactics of Social Movements Social movements use unconventional and often disruptive tactics to attract attention to their causes. Identify the factors that give rise to social movements.8.4 Identify tactics commonly used by social movements.8.5 A social movement tends to be most successful when the political environment is supportive, in the sense that at least portions of the general population and some public officials are sympathetic to that movement’s goals. Movement ideas often are taken up by one of the major political parties as it seeks to add voters. To the degree that parties attract new voters and change the views of some of their traditional voters because of social movement activities, elected officials are more likely to be receptive to responding to grievances. Social movements sometimes spark counter–social movements, which, if strong enough, can make government leaders reluctant to
- 715. address grievances. Why Do Some Social Movements Succeed and Others Fail? Social movements that have many supporters, win wide public sympathy, do not challenge the basics of the economic and social orders, and wield some clout in the electoral arena are most likely to achieve their goals. Determine what makes a social movement successful.8.6 Learn the Terms civil disobedience Intentionally breaking a law and accepting the consequences as a way to publicize the unjustness of the law. Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that equality of rights shall not be abridged or denied on account of a person’s gender; it failed to win the approval of the necessary number of states. Great Depression The period of economic crisis in the United States that lasted from the stock market crash of 1929 to America’s entry into World War
- 716. II. mass mobilization The process of involving large numbers of people in a social movement. political efficacy The sense that an individual can affect what government does. racial integration Policies that encourage the interaction of different races in schools, public facilities, workplaces, and/or housing. scope of conflict Refers to the number of groups involved in a political conflict; a narrow scope of conflict involves a small number of groups, and a wide scope of conflict involves many. social movements Loosely organized groups with large numbers of people who use unconventional and often disruptive tactics to have their grievances heard by the public, the news media, and government leaders. 1965 Voting Rights Act A law that banned racial discrimination in voting across the United States; it gave the federal government broad powers to register voters in a set of states, mostly in the South, that had long practiced election discrimination, and required that such state
- 717. pre- clear any changes in its election laws with the Department of Justice. Chapter 9 Political Parties DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH CAROLINA In a shocking upset, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote. He won traditionally Democratic states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, by speaking to the economic and social anxieties of disaffected white voters in rural areas. What economic and social issues were most important to voters who supported Trump’s candidacy? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy Populist Factions take hold for Republicans and Democrats American politics is controlled by two political parties: the more
- 718. liberal Democratic Party and the more conservative Republican Party. Despite their differences, the 2016 presidential election and the first two years of the Trump presidency have revealed POLITICAL PARTIES IN DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS Explain how parties can enhance popular sovereignty and political equality in democratic systems. THE AMERICAN TWO-PARTY SYSTEM Explain why America has a two-party system. THE AMERICAN TWO-PARTY SYSTEM SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION Trace the evolution of political parties in America since the Great Depression. THE THREE FUNCTIONS OF TODAY’S POLITICAL PARTIES Identify three organizational functions of today’s American parties. 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 similar tensions within both parties, most notably, the tension between traditional party voices and populist voices. While the populist voices in the Republican and Democratic parties have different visions for America, they are both particularly frustrated with politics as usual, do not trust party leaders, want government to be more responsive to ordinary people, and are looking for more radical solutions to American economic and social problems than have traditionally been offered.
- 719. The Republican Party has long included those who prioritize fiscal conservatism (e.g., lower taxes and smaller government) and those who prioritize social conservatism (e.g., opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage). These two groups, which often overlap, have worked together as the core of the Republican Party for decades. Early in the Obama presidency, a vocal subset of Republicans emerged with socially conservative, anti-elite values, and a very strong belief that government should stay out of their lives and take less of their money. This group came to be known as the “Tea Party” and, within Congress, the “Freedom Caucus.” For much of the Obama presidency, there was tension within the Republican Party between traditional Republicans and the Tea Party, with Tea Party supporters resisting any compromise with the Democrats. The last several years have shown us that the Tea Party was merely a precursor to a larger more significant rift in Republican Party politics. Led by Donald Trump, a group we will call “Populist Nationalist Republicans” has come to be the dominant force in the Republican Party. Populist Nationalist Republicans prioritize anti-elite, anti-immigrant, anti-free-trade, and law and order principles. While Populist Nationalist Republicans may also support small government and socially conservative values, they play second fiddle to more populist concerns. Many of these people are former Tea Partiers who sympathized with Trump’s message but, as an analysis by political scientist Dan Hopkins showed, Trump’s core supporters are more pro-choice and less concerned about government spending than traditional Republicans.
- 720. Going back to his campaign for the presidency, Trump has served as a galvanizing force for people (including some who did not think of themselves as Republicans) who have come to feel deeply abandoned by the American economy. Trump was particularly popular in cities and towns that had been hurt by the rise of automation and outsourcing that contributed to the decline of the American manufacturing industry. This alienation appears to have run deeper and been more widespread than many observers thought before election day—widespread enough for Trump to have won states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that have supported Democrats in presidential elections for some time. The maps on the next page offer some evidence of this by comparing the 2012 and 2016 Presidential election results in the Rust Belt by county. Sliding the bar you will see that these counties were considerably more supportive of the Republican candidate in 2016 than they were in 2012. 1 Research by political scientist Diana Mutz has also shown that support for Trump was caused by a cultural anxiety among certain white Christian men who feel that the racial and ethnic diversification of America has put their historically dominant status at risk. Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-globalization message meshed with a growing sentiment in many parts of America that the country is “not what it used to be” and that elected politicians in Washington do not care about them. According to studies done by the Pew Research Center, Trump’s strongest supporters were predominantly white men without college degrees who believe that things are worse off today than they were fifty years ago. They tend not to see racial diversity as an important goal and believe that undocumented immigrants are likely to commit crimes and take jobs away from
- 721. Americans. Despite these intra-party differences, at least 80 percent of Republicans have approved of the job Trump is doing since he took office and most Republicans in Congress have supported him. Indeed, both sides of the party have worked together to put a conservative justice on the Supreme Court and rollback Obama-era policies such as the health insurance mandate and a wide range of environmental regulations. However, we should be careful not to let this cooperation obscure the complexities of what is going on. The rejection of certain foundational conservative ideals and expectations of presidential behavior by Trump and his supporters has left many traditional Republicans feeling like strangers in their own party. For example, after President Trump fulfilled his campaign promise 2 3 4 to remove the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain (R-AZ) remarked, “I just think we made a terrible mistake… These are challenging times, and I have to go my own way.” John Boehner, who was the Republican Speaker of the House from 2011 to 2015 remarked in 2018 that, “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.” 2012 VS. 2016 ELECTION MAPS: CLOSE-UP ON THE MIDWEST This map compares Presidential election results in 2012 and
- 722. 2016 in Rust Belt states by county. By sliding the bar, you can see how different the voting patterns were in the two elections. Much of what was blue (signifying Democratic support) in 2012 became red (signifying Republican support) in 2016. While many of the larger Rust Belt cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee continued to support the Democrat in this election, 5 6 more suburban counties outside these cities trended much more Republican than they had in recent elections. These suburban shifts gave Donald Trump the votes he needed to win Rust Belt states and the presidency. While Republican control of government has brought Republican tensions to the surface, Democrats have been able to appear mostly united in opposition to the whole of the Republican Party. Nevertheless, the populist-liberal and moderate wings of the Democratic Party are at odds. More populist working-class liberal Democrats who are concerned about free trade, globalization, and under-regulation of the financial sector are facing off against more upper-middle-class Democrats and wealthy donors who are less concerned about these issues and more focused on achieving liberal social and environmental goals. This tension was most evident in the 2016 Democratic primary where Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic Socialist senator from Vermont, challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sanders united more liberal and disaffected Democrats around his liberal platform, disgust with Wall Street, and skepticism of free trade. As 2020 approaches and the party is forced to choose a
- 723. new presidential candidate, the intra-party conflicts are likely to take center stage once again. A study conducted by the Washington Post in March of 2016 showed that supporters of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were especially likely to agree with statements, such as “It doesn’t really matter who you vote for because the rich control both political parties” and “The system is stacked against people like me.” The Republican and Democratic Parties clearly have different visions for America, but they are facing some of the same challenges from within. Thinking Critically about this Chapter This chapter is about American political parties, how they evolved, what they do, how they work, and how their actions affect the quality of democracy in the United States. Applying the Framework You will see in this chapter how parties work as political linkages that connect the public with government leaders and institutions. You also will see how structural changes in the American economy and society have affected how our political parties function. Using the Democracy Standard Political parties are, in theory, one of the most important instruments for making popular sovereignty and majority rule a reality in a representative democracy—particularly in a system of checks and balances and separated powers such as our own. Evaluating how well our parties carry out these democratic responsibilities is one of the main themes of this chapter.
- 724. Political Parties in Democratic Systems As we learned in previous chapters, the framers worried about the possible pernicious effects of factions, a category that included interest groups and political parties. According to noted historian Richard Hofstadter, the Founders believed that political parties “create social conflicts that would not otherwise occur, or to aggravate dangerously those that would occur.” And yet, political parties formed fairly quickly after the founding in response to disagreements about the role of the national government. Today, most political thinkers believe that political parties are essential to democracy. So, what are political parties and why are they essential? A political party is “a group organized to nominate candidates, to try to win political power through elections, and to promote ideas about public policies.” In representative democracies, parties are the principal organizations that recruit candidates for public office, run their candidates in competitive elections, and try to organize and coordinate the activities of government officials under party banners and programs. In going about the business of electing people to
- 725. office and running government, political parties make it possible for the Explain how parties can enhance popular sovereignty and political equality in democratic systems. 9.1 7 8 9 people to rule by helping them to mobilize majorities and gain power. As renowned political scientist E. E. Schattschnieder once put it, “If democracy means anything at all it means that the majority has the right to organize for the purpose of taking over the government.” political party A group organized to nominate candidates, to try to win political power through elections, and to promote ideas about public policies. In theory, political parties can carry out a number of functions that make popular sovereignty and political equality possible: Parties can keep elected officials responsive. Competitive party elections help voters choose between alternative policy
- 726. directions for the future. They also allow voters to make judgments about past performance and decide whether to allow a party to continue in office. Alternatively, a party can adjust its platform to better reflect the preferences of voters. Parties can stimulate political interest and participation. Parties seek to win or retain power in government by mobilizing voters, bringing issues to public attention, and educating the public on issues of interest to the party. By carrying out these functions, political parties can stimulate interest in politics and public affairs 9 10 11 12 and increase participation. The competition that occurs between parties also attracts attention and gets people involved. Parties can ensure accountability. Parties can help make office holders more accountable. When things go wrong or promises are not kept, it is important for citizens to pinpoint responsibility even when the multiplicity of government offices and branches makes it challenging to do so. Political parties can simplify this difficult task by allowing for collective responsibility. Citizens can pass judgment
- 727. on the governing ability of a party as a whole and decide whether to retain party incumbents or to throw them out of office. Parties can make sense of complex political issues. Because most people lack the time or resources to learn about every candidate or every issue on the ballot at any period in time, party labels and party positions act as useful shortcuts for cutting through complexities and reaching decisions that are consistent with one’s own values and interests. Parties can make government work. The U.S. system of separation of powers and checks and balances was designed to make it difficult for government to act quickly. Political parties can encourage cooperation among public officials who, as members of the same party, benefit from their party’s collective success. In doing so, parties have the potential to help facilitate government action. platform 13 14 A party’s statement of its positions on the issues of the day passed at the quadrennial national convention. The remainder of the chapter explores whether America’s
- 728. political parties execute these responsibilities to democracy. We will see that American political parties fulfill many of the democracy- supporting roles listed above. But we also will see that rising cohesion within America’s political parties, intensified competition between them, and the influence of advocacy groups is making it more difficult to achieve the kinds of cooperation needed to allow our political system to address the most important problems facing the nation today. BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN TOURS THE COUNTRY Bernie Sanders, running on the slogan “A Future to Believe In,” offered Hillary Clinton more of a challenge for the 2016 Democratic nomination than she expected. Despite Clinton’s sizable lead, Sanders’ dedicated followers urged him to stay in the race and continue to press Clinton from the left. Sanders eventually bowed out and Clinton, as the presumptive nominee, was able to give Sanders a position on the DNC’s Platform Committee which helps solidify the party’s official position on all major issues. Sanders used this position to force more liberal platform language on trade agreements and nuclear proliferation among other issues. How important are party platforms for shaping government action?
- 729. The American Two-Party System More than any other nation in the world, the United States comes closest to having a “pure” two-party system , in which two parties vie on relatively equal terms to lead a government. To understand why this is true, we need to examine the rules that structure elections and compare the American system to multiparty systems . Multiparty systems, which we see in most Western democracies, tend to have three or more viable parties that compete to lead government. two-party system A political system in which two parties vie on relatively equal terms to win national elections and in which each party governs at one time or another. multiparty system A political system in which three or more viable parties compete to lead the Explain why America has a two-party system.9.2 government; because a majority winner is not always possible, multiparty systems often have coalition governments where governing
- 730. power is shared among two or more parties. The Rules of the Game The rules that organize elections are a structural factor in determining what kind of party system the government has. Which rules are chosen, then, have important consequences for a nation’s politics. Here we look at two types of electoral systems and consider how they impact the number of major political parties in the country. Proportional Representation Although people in the United States do not use proportional representation (PR) to elect their representatives, people in most Western democratic nations do. In PR systems, citizens typically vote for the party rather than the candidate and parties are represented in the legislature in proportion to the percentage of the popular vote the party receives in the election. In a perfect PR system, a party winning 40 percent of the vote would get 40 seats in a 100-seat legislative body, a party winning 22 percent of the vote would get 22 seats, and so on. Because parties win seats so long as they can win a portion of the popular vote, even small parties with narrower appeals have a
- 731. reason to maintain their separate identities in a PR system. Voters with strong views on an issue or with strong ideological outlooks can vote for a party that closely represents their views. Legislatures in PR systems thus tend to be made up of representatives of many parties that reflect the diverse views of the country. proportional representation The awarding of legislative seats to political parties to reflect the proportion of the popular vote each party receives. Israel and the Netherlands come very close to having pure PR systems. However, most Western European nations depart in various ways from the pure form. Many, for instance, vote for slates of party candidates within multimember electoral districts, apportioning seats in each district according to each party’s percentage of the vote. In Germany, seats in the Bundestag (the lower house of the national parliament) are filled by a combination of elections from single- member districts and a party’s share of the nationwide vote. Most democracies that use proportional representation also have a minimum threshold (often 5 percent) below which no seats are awarded to a party. For example, 21 parties ran in the 2013 Norwegian elections with only eight of them garnering enough support to win parliamentary seats.
- 732. Single-Member Plurality Elections Now let’s look at elections in the United States, which are organized on a single-member plurality basis. Single-member districts — like House congressional districts or states for Senators—are districts where only one person is elected. A plurality election means that the winner is the person that receives the most votes, not necessarily a majority of the votes. Single-member plurality elections, often referred to as “winner-take-all” or “first past the post” elections, create a powerful incentive for parties to coalesce and for voters to support one of the two major parties. plurality Occurs when a candidate receives more votes than any other candidate in an election but still less than a majority. single-member districts Districts where the voters elect only one person to represent them. In single-member plurality systems, the person with the most votes (even if they do not have the majority) wins the election. A French political scientist named Duverger was the first to document
- 733. that single-member plurality systems are almost always also two-party systems—we call this phenomenon “Duverger’s Law .” Duverger observed two interconnected reasons that two parties dominate in single-member plurality systems. Both reasons have to do with the inability of minor parties to gain adequate support. First, in winner- take-all elections, there is no reward for coming in second (as there would be in a PR election), so minor parties gain little by running expensive campaigns that they know they are unlikely to win. Second, voters are not inclined to support minor parties because they do not believe their votes will translate into actual representation— people fear that a vote for a minor party candidate is a “wasted vote” that would be better cast in support of the major party candidate they most closely align with. With little incentive to run candidates and the limited backing of voters, minor parties in single-member plurality systems have difficulty attracting enduring support. Duverger’s Law The phenomenon that electoral systems based on single-member plurality districts are almost always dominated by only two parties. 15
- 734. This phenomenon also helps us to understand why disaffected factions within either the Republican or Democratic Parties are unlikely to strike out on their own. They realize that the probability of gaining political office is very low and they have a better chance of influencing change from within. The Tea Party candidates in recent elections are a good example. Knowing they had little chance on their own, they ran as Republicans and pushed the already strongly conservative Republican Party establishment in an even more conservative direction. Note that the most important office in American government, the presidency, is elected in what is, in effect, a single-member- district (the nation). The candidate who wins a majority of the nation’s votes in the Electoral College wins the presidency. A party cannot win a share of the presidency: it is all or nothing. In a parliamentary system, where the executive power is generally lodged in a cabinet and parties may have to cooperate to maintain power, several parties are more likely to be represented within the executive structure. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
- 735. CNN anchor John King considers the potential electoral college outcomes for the 2008 presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain. How does having a single-member plurality system impact who wins the Electoral College vote for president? Restrictions on Minor Parties Once a party system is in place, the dominant parties often establish rules that make it difficult for other parties to get on the ballot. These rules vary considerably by country but are particularly strict in the United States, where a number of formidable legal obstacles (such as requirements to obtain a large number of signatures and early filing deadlines) stand in the way of third parties and independent candidates getting on ballots. In addition, the requirements for ballot access are different in every state. The two main parties, with party organizations in place in each state and well-heeled national party committees, are able to navigate this legal patchwork with ease while new and small parties find it quite difficult. The federal government’s partial funding of presidential campaigns has made the situation of third parties even more difficult.
- 736. Major-party candidates automatically qualify for federal funding once they are nominated. Minor-party candidates must attract a minimum of 5 percent of the votes cast in the previous general election to be eligible for public funding. In recent decades, only the Reform Party, among a legion of minor parties, has managed to cross the threshold to qualify for federal funding. Because the Green Party’s candidate, Ralph Nader, won only 2.74 percent of the national vote in the 2000 election, the Greens were not eligible for federal funding for the 2004 election. This hobbled its 2004 presidential candidate, David Cobb, who hardly registered at the polls, winning about 0.1 percent of the vote. Showings like this for minority parties have continued like this. In 2016, Green Party nominee Jill Stein recorded 1.07 percent of the 16 17 vote, though Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson managed 3.28 percent. Minor Parties in American Politics Minor parties have played a less important role in the United
- 737. States than in virtually any other democratic nation and have become even less important over time. In our entire history, only a single minor party (the Republicans) has managed to replace one of the major parties. Only six (not including the Republicans) have been able to win even 10 percent of the popular vote in a presidential election, and only seven have managed to win a single state in a presidential election. In countries with PR systems, minor parties play a much more important role because they are likely to have at least some representation in the legislature and can work with the bigger parties to make policy. STRIVING FOR 5 PERCENT OF THE VOTE Ralph Nader, a serial third-party candidate, ran for president in 1996 and 2000 as the candidate of the Green Party and again in 2008 as an Independent. His best performance came in 2000, when he and running-mate Winona LaDuke won 2.74 percent of the national vote. Below the 5 percent threshold necessary to secure federal funding for the Green Party in that election, Nader’s showing in Florida was still sufficient to tip the election in favor of George W. Bush.
- 738. What rules have stifled the growth of the third parties in American politics? Minor parties come in a number of forms: Protest parties sometimes arise as part of a social movement. The Populist Party, for instance, grew out of the western and southern farm protest movements in the late 19th century. The Green Party is an offshoot of the environmental and anti-globalization movements. Ideological parties are organized around coherent sets of ideas. The Socialist parties—there have been several—have been of this sort, as has the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. In 2000, the Green Party ran on an anti-corporate, anti-globalization platform. Single-issue parties are barely distinguishable from advocacy groups. What makes them different is their decision to run candidates for office. The now-defunct Prohibition Party and the Free-Soil Party were single-issue parties, as was Ross Perot’s “balanced budget” Reform Party in 1996. Splinter parties form when a faction in one of the two major parties bolts to run its own candidate or candidates (e.g., the Bull Moose Progressive Party of Teddy Roosevelt formed after Roosevelt split with Republican Party regulars in 1912).
- 739. Minor parties do a number of things in American politics. Sometimes, they articulate new ideas that are eventually taken over by one or both major parties. Ross Perot’s popular crusade for a balanced budget during his 1992 campaign helped nudge the major parties toward a budget agreement that, for a while, eliminated annual deficits in the federal budget. It is also the case that third parties can sometimes change the outcome of presidential contests by changing the outcome of the electoral vote contest in the various states. In 1992, a substantial portion of the Perot votes were cast by people who otherwise would have voted Republican, allowing Bill Clinton to win enough states to beat George H. W. Bush. In 2000, a substantial portion of the Ralph Nader votes in Florida were cast by people who otherwise would have voted Democratic, allowing George W. Bush to win Florida’s electoral votes and the presidency over Al Gore.18 The American Two-Party System Since the Great Depression In the United States, two parties—the Democratic Party and the
- 740. Republican Party—have dominated the political scene since the Civil War. But even though the same two parties have dominated for a long time, the parties are anything but static. In this section we look at how this dynamic two-party system has changed over the last several generations. Before doing so, though, it is worth briefly considering where today’s parties came from. Political party scholar Marjorie Randon Hershey argues that there have really only been five major parties in the history of the United States. For a party to be “major,” it must have led at least one of the branches of the national government at one time or another. The origins of those parties (including the Democrats and Republicans) are summarized in Table 9.1 . However, the Democrats and Republicans have changed markedly since their births. The Democratic Party was founded in opposition to debt, government spending, and federal intervention into the affairs of the states and became the pro-slavery party before the Civil War. The Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery and supported government intervention in the economy. As you will see, those positions largely reversed in the 20th century when the Democrats Trace the evolution of political parties in America since the Great Depression.
- 741. 9.3 became the big government pro-civil rights party and the Republicans became the limited government party that tapped into the fears of anti- civil rights advocates. TABLE 9.1 MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY Years Active Name of Party Party Origins 1788– 1816 Federalist Party The champion of the new Constitution and strong national government, it was the first American political institution to resemble a political party, although it was not a full-fledged
- 742. party. Its strength was rooted in the Northeast and the Atlantic Seaboard, where it attracted the support of shopkeepers, manufacturers, financiers, landowners, and other established families of wealth and status. Limited by its narrow electoral base, it soon fell before the success of the Democratic- Republicans. 1800– 1832 Democratic- Republican Party Many of its leaders had been strong proponents of the Constitution but opposed the extreme nationalism of the Federalists. This was a party of the small farmers, workers, and less privileged citizens, plus southern planters, who preferred the authority of the state governments and opposed centralizing power in the national government. Like its leader, Thomas Jefferson, it shared many of the ideals of the French
- 743. Revolution, especially the extension of the right to vote and the notion of direct popular self-government. 1832– Present Democratic Party Growing out of the Jacksonian wing of the Democratic- Republicans, it was the first really broad-based, popular party in the United States. On behalf of a coalition of less-privileged voters, it opposed such business-friendly policies as national banking and high tariffs. It also welcomed the new immigrants (and sought their votes) and opposed nativist (anti-immigrant) sentiment. 1834– 1856 Whig Party This party, too, had roots in the old Democratic- Republican
- 744. Party, but in the Clay–Adams faction and in opposition to the Jacksonians. Its greatest leaders, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, stood for legislative supremacy and protested the strong presidency of Andrew Jackson. For its short life, the Whig Party was an unstable coalition of many interests, among them nativism, property, and business and commerce. 1854– Present Republican Party Born as the Civil War approached, this was the party of Northern opposition to slavery and its spread to the new territories. Therefore, it was also the party of the Union, the North, Lincoln, the freeing of slaves, victory in the Civil War, and the imposition of Reconstruction on the South. From the Whigs it also inherited a concern for business and industrial expansion. Source: Marjorie R. Hershey, Party Politics in America, 14th ed., © 2011, p. 15. Reprinted and electronically
- 745. reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Scholars have identified a number of party eras in the United States to help us to better understand why parties are powerful at particular moments in history and how the two-party system has changed over time. Each era is different in one or more important ways from the others. The transition from one era to the next is generally referred to as a realignment . There is some disagreement among scholars of the American party system about exactly when party eras began 19 and ended; however, realignments are always reflective of shifting voting coalitions in the country. Though scholars have identified several party eras before the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, we focus on the three party eras since then: The New Deal Party Era, the Dealignment Era, and the Polarization Era (see Figure 9.1 ). Taken together, these three eras tell the story of contemporary American political parties as they developed around the New Deal,
- 746. reshuffled around civil rights and international conflicts, and settled into the combative ideological camps we see today. realignment The process by which one party supplants another as the dominant party in a two-party political system. FIGURE 9.1 TIMELINE: PARTY ERAS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900– PRESENT American politics has been characterized by a series of relatively stable political party eras punctuated by periods of transition— some sudden, others much more drawn out—from one party era to another. Since 1900, there have been four eras in party politics. The New Deal Party Era In the years leading up to the Great Depression, American government was primarily controlled by Republicans—mind you, a quite different Republican party than we see today. The period featured politics that had moved somewhat beyond the issues of Civil War Reconstruction and the focus was largely on Progressive concerns like the regulation of large corporations, labor issues,
- 747. and women’s suffrage, as well as the First World War. The Great Depression, however, changed the political context and led to the New Deal Party Era . New Deal Party Era The party era lasting from the Great Depression to the late 1960s during which the Democrats, originally led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, dominated government and supported an expansion of federal government powers and responsibilities aimed at steering the economy out of the Great Depression and through the Second World War. Behind the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the modern Democratic Party formed and dominated the American political landscape from 1933 until the late-1960s. During that period, Democrats won seven of nine presidential elections, controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives for all but four years, and prevailed in a substantial majority of governorships and state legislatures across the nation. Democratic dominance was built on an alliance of workers, Catholics, Jews, unionists, small- and medium- sized farmers, urban dwellers, southerners, and blacks that came to be known as the New Deal coalition . The New Deal coalition supported an expansion of federal government powers and
- 748. responsibilities, particularly in the areas of old-age assistance, aid for the poor, encouragement of unionization, subsidies for agriculture, and regulation of business. New Deal coalition The informal electoral alliance of working- class ethnic groups, Catholics, Jews, urban dwellers, racial minorities, and the South that was the basis of the Democratic party dominance of American politics from the New Deal to the early 1970s. The Dealignment Era The New Deal coalition began to slowly disintegrate in the 1968 election (won by Republican Richard Nixon) and finally collapsed in 1980 when the Republicans captured the presidency and the Senate. What emerged was not a dominant Republican Party but, rather, two parties on relatively equal footing. This form of change in which a dominant party declines without another taking its place is called dealignment . dealignment A gradual reduction in the dominance of one political party without another party supplanting it.
- 749. The change in the party system was triggered by three major developments. First, strong support by the Democratic Party for the 20 civil rights movement—which brought new antidiscrimination laws, busing to achieve school integration, and, eventually, minority set- asides for government contracts and affirmative action programs in higher education—caused many white southerners to switch their loyalties from the Democrats to the Republicans. These same positions caused African Americans and Northeastern Republicans to become loyal to the Democrats. The result was that the South, long a Democratic stronghold, became a clear Republican stronghold. This is evidenced in Figure 9.2 , which compares the results of the 1960 and 2016 presidential elections. In the 1960 election, the Democrat John F. Kennedy captured much of the conservative South and much of the liberal Northeast. In 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won no southern states other than Virginia. FIGURE 9.2 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 1960 AND 2016
- 750. These maps show the results of the 1960 and 2016 presidential elections. As you can see, the electoral map has changed markedly over the last 56 years. In the 1960 election, the Democrat John F. 21 Kennedy captured much of the conservative South and much of the liberal Northeast. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won no southern states other than Virginia (though the votes in Florida and North Carolina were very close). The change in the map reflects the shifting voting coalitions that occurred during the Dealignment Era in which rural Southerners changed their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican and many Northeast and West Coast Republicans became Democrats. How have the changes that have come in each of the party eras impacted Presidential elections? FDR ADDS TO HIS COALITION The wealthy and patrician Franklin D. Roosevelt attracted a wide range of common people to his Democratic Party, including industrial workers, poor farmers, and farm laborers. In this photograph, he talks
- 751. with Georgia farmers during his campaign for the presidency in 1932. What are the similarities and differences between the coalition that Roosevelt built in the 1930s and the coalition that Trump built in 2016? Second, as the Democratic Party became accepting of feminists, gays, and lesbians, it also supported their efforts for equal rights and a strict separation between church and state. Consequently, religious conservatives, who had embraced the Democratic Party for its support of social welfare programs, abandoned it for the Republican Party, which supported more conservative religious values and a closer relationship between church and state. Third, while the Vietnam War was fought with the support of both Republicans and Democrats, it was the Democratic Party that embraced the anti-war sentiment toward the end of the war. In response, the Republican Party seized the opportunity to be the party that favored a strong national defense. This caused many Democrats who supported a strong military and an aggressive foreign policy to drift toward the Republicans and it set the stage for the Republican Ronald Reagan to campaign on large increases in military spending. After 1980, the pace of Democratic decline began to pick up,
- 752. with Democrats losing their big advantage in control of governorships and state legislatures, as well as in party identification —fewer people (most notably, in the South) were connecting and identifying with the Democratic Party. Democrats also began to lose control in Congress, first in the Senate and then the House after the 1994 elections. This period was characterized by growing parity between the parties and the existence of divided government —one party in control of the presidency and the other with a majority in at least the House or Senate (sometimes both). Divided government was also typical in the states, where Democrats and Republicans divided the governor’s office and one or two chambers of state legislatures. Because each party contained a small wing within it open to cooperation with the other party—conservative Democrats, mainly from the South, and liberal Republicans, mainly from the Mid-Atlantic and New England states—a certain degree of bipartisanship was possible, especially on foreign and defense policies. party identification The sense of belonging to a political party; in
- 753. the United States this is typically identifying as a Republican or Democrat. divided government Control of the executive and legislative branches by different political parties. bipartisanship Members of opposing political parties, usually elected officials, acting cooperatively in order to achieve a public policy goal. The Dealignment Era stands out as being different from the New Deal Party Era (and those eras which preceded it) because it was not dominated by one party. In this case, while the dominant Democratic Party lost its overall lead, the Republican Party did not emerge as the unchallenged, across-the-board leader—the parties were fairly equal with respect to both party identification and offices held. Dealignment Era The party era that lasted from the late 1960s to the early 1990s that was characterized by a gradual reduction in the dominance of the Democratic Party without another party becoming truly dominant. 22
- 754. The Polarization Era The current party era began to take shape in the mid-1990s and is characterized by the contemporary partisan environment. We call this the Polarization Era . The term “polarization ” refers to the way in which the Democratic and Republican parties are becoming increasingly ideologically different from and hostile toward each other —embracing substantially different visions for the country and an unwillingness to compromise. The exact date this started is hard to pin down, but two developments are particularly important. First, there was the historic victory for Republicans in the congressional elections of 1994 in which they gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1946, with much of the credit going to a unified conservative surge led by Republican House leader Newt Gingrich (R- GA) and supported by an array of conservative think tanks, media, and advocacy groups. Second, there was the successful effort in 1998 by House Republicans to impeach Democratic president Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from an investigation into charges of sexual harassment by the President. In a party-line vote in the Senate, Clinton fell just short of being
- 755. removed from office. At the time, a majority of Americans opposed his impeachment. Polarization Era The party era that began in the 1990s in which the Democratic and Republican parties became increasingly ideologically different from and hostile toward each other— embracing substantially different visions for country and an unwillingness to compromise. polarization The process by which political parties have become more internally consistent in ideology and more ideologically distant from one another; in the U.S. the Republican party has become more conservative and the Democratic party more liberal. By the time of the historic and disputed 2000 Bush–Gore presidential election, the Polarization Era was solidly in place. Since then, elections at all levels of government have been fought by two well- funded and strategically deft parties. The central electoral strategy of the parties has increasingly focused on using emotional appeals to turn out one’s own party base voters on Election Day and gaining just enough independents to tip the balance. Adding to the divisiveness is
- 756. the fact that most election outcomes in state and national races have become extremely close, with Democratic and Republican votes closely divided, and control of government seemingly hanging in the balance at every election. In the governing process, bipartisanship largely left the scene; consultations across the aisles in Congress and between the president and Congress during periods of divided government became rare. So wedded are the parties to core policy positions that compromise with the other party have come to be seen as traitorous. Underlying it all has been a fundamental settling in of a new electoral geography defined by the shift of the South to the Republicans and the Northeast and coastal West to the Democrats. Of course, American politics is no stranger to partisanship; Democratic and Republican leaders have always been in the business of making the other party look bad. It’s good politics. However, most veteran observers of American politics agree that things are getting worse. Democrats and Republicans in Washington and across the country have become engaged in increasingly bitter disputes over many issues. Incivility has become the order of any day on which party
- 757. leaders and elected officials deal with one another. Opponents in Congress accuse each other of being liars and cowards instead of colleagues, and, more often than not, those who try to work together are vilified by their co-partisans. There is some debate about whether this party polarization is just an elite affair or a true reflection of the views in the mass electorate. One leading scholar has pointed out that while party office holders, 23 24 activists, and advocacy groups associated with each party have become more internally unified and partisan, the public at large remains fairly moderate or middle-of-the-road on most issues that deeply divide the parties from one another. Other leading scholars have simultaneously noticed that informed and active voters have become more ideologically polarized in recent years. AT THE BOILING POINT Republican members of Congress show their displeasure with President Barack Obama during his 2009 address to Congress in which he outlined his health care reform proposal. Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, in the center of the photo, shocked
- 758. much of the country when he shouted out “you lie” in response to the president’s statement that his plan would not insure immigrants illegally in the country. While the incident was roundly criticized and 25 26 Wilson later apologized, it demonstrates the poisonous level of party division that has prevailed in Washington. Does heightened partisanship serve a useful purpose in our system of government, or does it make successful self-government less likely? What accounts for the intense polarization of American politics today? Scholars and journalists have lots of ideas on this. Many point to the explosion in the number and influence of liberal and conservative advocacy groups that demand unity on bedrock issues such as tax rates and immigration restrictions as well as social-media bubbles that prevent exposure to alternative viewpoints. Others point to the increased number of “safe” congressional districts that allow most representatives to win elections without considering the opinions of
- 759. voters from the other party. These safe congressional districts come from carefully redrawn district lines and from an increasingly sorted public where Democrats are more likely to live near Democrats and Republicans are more likely to live near Republicans. Still others suggest that our presidential primary system forces candidates to play too much to their party bases. Candidates get partisans angry with the other party and fearful of a world where the other party controls government—something that has become even easier in the age of social media. The Trump presidency may eventually alter the nature of the Polarization Era. While the liberal versus conservative divide remains very strong and meaningful, the country may also be splitting along lines related to attitudes about trade and immigration. These are 27 28 issues that have not traditionally fit neatly into the Democrat and Republican categories. For example, Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican President George W. Bush were all supporters of free trade and paths to citizenship for
- 760. undocumented immigrants. The Republican Trump, however, built his coalition on opposition to free trade and the deportation of undocumented immigrants. The Three Functions of Today’s Political Parties Though our multi-branch representative system has led two major parties to be more decentralized and free-wheeling than parties in other wealthy democracies, they remain powerful, organized forces in American politics—linkages that help to transmit the demands of the public by taking sides on issues and supporting candidates. However, the Republican and Democratic Parties are not “organizations” in the usual sense of the term. Rather, they are loose networks of local and state parties, campaign committees, candidates and office holders, donors, interest and advocacy groups, and, of course, voters. Unlike a corporation, a bureaucratic agency, a military organization, or even a political party in most other countries, the official leaders of major American parties cannot issue orders that get passed down a chain of command. Even popular, charismatic, and skillful presidents have had
- 761. nearly as much trouble controlling the many diverse and independent groups and individuals within their own parties as they have had dealing with the opposition. George W. Bush discovered this in his second term, when a significant number of Republican members of the House and Senate, loyal followers throughout his first term, Identify three organizational functions of today’s American parties. 9.4 abandoned him because of his plans for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Today, each party has a stable core of voters concerned about particular issues and committed to particular government policies. The result is a system where the parties are quite different from one another. We can view today’s Democratic and Republican Parties as serving three related organizational purposes. The first is as an ideological organization that functions as a home to voters with similar political preferences. The second is as an electoral organization that works to get members of the party elected to office. And the third is as a governing organization that helps elected officials in government work together to achieve common policy goals.
- 762. Parties as Ideological Organizations A political ideology is a coherently organized set of beliefs about the fundamental nature of good society and the role that government ought to play in achieving it. Today, the Republican and Democratic Parties each represent one side of the liberal–conservative ideological spectrum. While Americans of all political stripes hold a range of core beliefs about free enterprise, individualism, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are clear (see Table 9.2 ). The Republican Party tends to endorse economically and socially conservative positions. With respect to the economy, Republicans oppose the regulation of business, generous safety nets, and higher taxes. And on the social side, Republicans tend to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, tends to endorse economically and socially liberal positions. For example, Democrats tend to support a strong government role in guiding the economy, safeguarding the environment, and protecting the civil rights of ethnic, racial, and gay and lesbian minorities. In embracing opposing sides of
- 763. the ideological spectrum, parties serve as important mental cues that help people to quickly see different sides of issues and associate themselves with the one they prefer—political psychologists often refer to these mental cues as heuristics . This association of liberalism with the Democrats and conservatism with the Republicans is growing stronger all the time, with the gap in outlooks between the two parties growing ever larger. political ideology A coherently organized set of beliefs about the fundamental nature of a good society and the role government ought to play in achieving it. conservative 29 30 The political position, combining both economic and social dimensions, that holds that the federal government ought to play a very small role in economic regulation, social welfare, and overcoming racial inequality, that abortion should be illegal, and that family values and law and order should guide public policies. liberal The political position, combining both
- 764. economic and social dimensions, that holds that the federal government has a substantial role to play in providing economic justice and opportunity, regulating business in the public interest, overcoming racial discrimination, protecting abortion rights, and ensuring the equal treatment of gays and lesbians. heuristics Simple mental rules people use to make decisions and judgments quickly. TABLE 9.2 DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ON DOMESTIC ISSUES Issue Democratic Party Republican Party Taxes Tends to favor higher taxes (particularly on the wealthy) as a way of funding government programs and redistributing wealth to those in need Tends to favor lower taxes as a way of keeping more money in the hands of individuals and businesses Government
- 765. Spending Tends to favor government spending as a way of stimulating the economy and helping the poor Tends to favor the reduction of government spending in an effort to stimulate the economy and reduce the role of government in people’s lives Social Programs Tends to favor social programs like welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as a way to help the poor and prevent poverty Tends to oppose programs like welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and
- 766. Medicaid, arguing that they lead to dependency and would be better handled by the private market Abortion Tends to support a woman’s right to an abortion and reducing obstacles to obtaining one Tends to oppose a woman’s right to abortion and supports increased obstacles to obtaining one Same-Sex Marriage Tends to support same-sex marriage Tends to oppose same-sex marriage Church- State
- 767. Relationship Tends to favor no role for religion in government matters Tends to support religious influence in certain government matters Immigration Tends to favor more open immigration policies and support for illegal immigrants already in the country Tends to favor more restrictive immigration policies and increased efforts to remove illegal immigrants from the country Party Membership and Identification What does it mean to be a Republican or a Democrat in the United States? Americans do not join parties by paying dues or carrying membership cards. To Americans, political party membership may mean nothing more than voting most of the time for the candidate of
- 768. one party over the other or choosing to become a candidate of a particular party. Or membership may mean contributing money to, or otherwise helping in, a local, state, or national campaign of a party candidate. These are indeed loose criteria for membership, looser criteria than for virtually any other organization that might be imagined. Despite the loose membership criteria, a majority of Americans say they identify with or lean toward being a Democrat or Republican. Every major polling organization asks people a form of this question: “In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent?” Pollsters then typically ask people who identify as Republican or Democrat whether they consider themselves strong or weak Republicans or Democrats. Independents are asked if they generally lean toward a major party, that is, whether they tend to vote for candidates of one party or the other. Party identification has proven to be a very powerful thing in American politics. Growing evidence suggests that many people take on a party identification before assessing issues or candidates. While many people may identify with the party that most closely represents
- 769. their views, there are also many for whom the party they have already identified with actually shapes their views. The consequences of party identification are thus very important. First, the party one identifies with impacts which candidates the person votes for. Party identifiers almost always vote for candidates who wear their preferred party’s label. In 2012, for example, 93 percent of self-identified Republicans voted for Mitt Romney for president, while 92 percent of Democrats voted for Barack Obama. Second, party identification helps determine people’s political attitudes on a wide range of issues; for a majority of Americans, party identity is a stable and powerful shaper of one’s overall political identity. People use the party label to organize their thinking about politics and to guide them in voting, in judging new policy proposals, and in evaluating the government’s performance. And third, how the parties stand relative to one another in the affections of the American people has a lot to do with who wins elections and, thereby, determines which party controls the presidency, Congress, and, eventually, the federal courts. This distribution, which changes over time, clearly and definitively affects what government does. 31
- 770. 32 33 Beginning with Roosevelt’s highly popular New Deal in the 1930s and continuing into the 1970s, the Democratic lead over Republicans among party identifiers was substantial, making Democrats the majority party in U.S. politics for fifty years. At times, the Democratic advantage over Republican identifiers was on the order of 35 percentage points. During the Dealignment Era of the late 1960s through the 1980s, Democrats gradually lost this big lead as Southern and religious Democrats turned to the Republican Party and an increasing number of people began identifying as Independents (no party affiliation). Since the early 2000s, the Democratic lead over the Republican identifiers has become much smaller. Democrats currently maintain a slight edge over Republicans in party identification (see Figure 9.3 ). FIGURE 9.3 TRENDS IN PARTY IDENTIFICATION, 1952–2016 Over the past 65 years, the percentages of those who call themselves Democrats and those who call themselves Republicans has been
- 771. getting smaller. This has happened because fewer Americans than in the 1950s were identifying as Democrats and more were identifying as Independents. While Democrats maintain an edge over Republicans in party identification, recall that there are no truly national elections in American politics. Consequently, election results are not merely a matter of which party has more people identified with it but also where those who identify with the party live. If these trends continue, how might the landscape of American politics change? Source: Data from American National Election Studies, and Stanford University. ANES Time Series Cumulative Data File (1948-2012). ICPSR08475-v15. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter- university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2015-10-23., http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08475.v15. Figure 9.4 (see page 243) shows how Barack Obama and Mitt Romney did in each county in the 2012 presidential election. Vote choice is a good (though imperfect) measure of party identification. The redder counties indicate where Romney won by a wide margin; the bluer counties, where Obama won by a wide margin; and the
- 772. purple counties, where the election was close. The strongest Republican support is found among whites (particularly in the South and in the Rocky Mountain West), conservative Christians and the most religiously committed (those who express a belief in God and say they regularly attend religious services) among all denominations, business people (whether small business owners or top executives in large corporations), economic and social conservatives, those in rural areas, and those with the highest incomes. The strongest Democratic support lies in cities and is found among African Americans, Jews, non-Cuban Hispanics, those secular in belief, those with postgraduate degrees, union households, economic and social liberals, those on the West Coast and in the Northeast, and those with lower incomes. Democrats also find strong support among teachers and other government employees at the local, state, and national levels and among those living in university towns and in science and technology research centers such as the Silicon Valley, Austin, Seattle, Boulder, the Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill research triangle in North Carolina, and the Route 128 corridor around Boston and Cambridge.
- 773. FIGURE 9.4 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS BY COUNTY, 2012 Party identification and support for presidential candidates tend to be geographically consistent. Republicans (the red counties) are concentrated in the South, lower Midwest, and the Rocky Mountain West. Democrats (the blue counties) are concentrated in the cities along the East and West Coast and the Upper Midwest. On the West Coast and in the Mid-Atlantic, the Northeast, and the upper Midwest. 34 But the map also shows that much of the country is made up of areas that have both Democrats and Republicans (the light blue and light red areas) which tend to be in suburban areas outside major cities. In the 2016 presidential election, many of the light blue counties in the midwest turned light red, helping to lead Donald Trump to his Electoral College victory. Note: Alaska and Hawaii are not to scale. Source: CQ Press, Voting and Elections Collection. As you can see in Figure 9.4 , large (and fairly densely populated) parts of the country are made up of more lightly shaded counties
- 774. (both light red and light blue). These areas, which contain a mix of Democrats and Republicans—help to explain how small changes in voter turnout and the ability to attract independent partisan leaners —those who say they are independents but lean fairly consistently toward one party or another—have had big effects on who wins and loses presidential and congressional contests. To capture leaners, there has always been strong pressure on candidates to tone down matters of ideology and “get out the vote” in general elections. Barack Obama’s strong “get out the vote” effort among Democrats and independents helped him win in 2008 and 2012. Similar Republican efforts in 2010 led to huge GOP gains in Congress, governorships, and state legislative chambers across the country. And, as you read in the opening story, when the Republicans won the Presidency and retained control of Congress in 2016, they did so on the unexpected back of Donald Trump who brought some former Obama supporters in the blue and light blue parts of the Rust Belt into his anti-trade, anti-immigrant coalition. 35 partisan leaners Individuals who say they do not identify as
- 775. Democrats or Republicans, but say they feel closer to either the Democratic or Republican Party. Among party identifiers, some are especially strong supporters of the party and its candidates. Each party has a set of core supporters— often called the party base—and activists on which it can count for votes and campaign contributions. In recent years, Republicans and Democrats have increasingly tried to win elections by first mobilizing these core supporters—in a process often called “rallying the base”— by focusing on issues and symbolic gestures that will bring them to the polls, then trying to win a majority among voters not automatically predisposed to one party or the other (such as Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and of course, independents). In a situation in which Republican and Democratic core supporters are about equal in strength, winning even a small majority among these less partisan groups while mobilizing one’s own partisans is the key to winning elections. While Democratic and Republican identifiers are moving farther apart on which policies they support, the distances are even greater between Democratic and Republican active partisans, those Republican and Democratic identifiers who not only vote but
- 776. are 36 37 engaged in other party- and candidate-support activities, such as making campaign contributions, attending candidate meetings, making phone calls, knocking on doors to get out the party vote, and putting bumper stickers on their cars. Democratic active partisans are more likely than ordinary Democrats to hold very liberal views on issues, and Republican active partisans are more likely than ordinary Republicans to hold very conservative views on issues. Independents The percentage of people who say they are independents—that is, those who say they are unaffiliated with any party—has steadily increased, from the low 20s in the 1960s to the high 30s today. However, some scholars maintain that these figures exaggerate the rise of independents because many independents are leaners. For example, in 2014, 48 percent of independents indicated that they leaned Democratic and 39 percent indicated they lean Republican. Still, there has clearly been a decline in the proportion of Americans who want to identify outright with either of the two major
- 777. parties. Interestingly, while a growing percentage of the American population calls itself independent, views about public policies in the United States are becoming increasingly polarized along party lines. This polarization is, in part, the result of partisans voting more often than independents; consequently, a greater number of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans and fewer moderates in either party are elected. Independents tell journalists, pollsters, and scholars that they are fed up with the general nastiness in politics and government 38 39 40 ineffectiveness that seems to be associated with the intensification of partisanship in the political life of the country. Parties as Electoral Organizations Among the primary objectives of any political party is to attract as many voters as possible in order to prevail in elections. But contrary to
- 778. what might be expected, each party is not a single entity dedicated to this goal. Rather, each party is a broad coalition of national, state, and local party organizations that work together to recruit and elect candidates. Parties are organizations run by a combination of elected officials, career political operatives, party activists, and loyal supporters. In addition, each party is closely allied with a network of advocacy groups that support the same causes. Unlike a traditional organization and unlike political parties in other democracies, the American Democratic and Republican Parties have a network organization rather than a hierarchical organization. This means that various elements of the parties (including official committees, political action committees, interest groups, campaigns, and other related entities) are relatively independent from one another and act in concert on the basis of shared interests, sentiment, ideology, fund-raising, and the desire to win elections. (See Figure 9.5 for a graphical representation of these ideas.) Critical to this is that the official party organizations neither control the nomination of candidates running under the party label, nor the flow of money that funds electoral campaigns, nor the behavior of office holders once 41
- 779. 42 elected. Party organizations have become, in effect, campaign machines in the service of candidates running for elected office. As such, many scholars have come to describe American political parties as “candidate-centered” (as opposed to “party-centered”). FIGURE 9.5 PARTY ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES: HIERARCHICAL V. NETWORK The graphic on the left shows a hypothetical hierarchical organizational chart of the Republican and Democratic Parties as if they were structured hierarchically. It would be a mistake, however, to think of our national parties this way. The graphic on the right, which depicts our national parties as a network of organizations with no central authority or chain of command, is closer to reality. Prior to World War II, party nominations were mostly controlled by major party players at state and national nominating conventions. 43
- 780. Party elites used this power to select candidates to influence their positions and campaign strategies. Since then, nominations have become more traditionally democratic: voters voice their support for the candidate they want nominated for their party in primary elections and caucuses. The Democratic and Republican party organizations now exist to help candidates in these efforts, not to order them about. Nominations, therefore, tend to come to those best able to rally voters by raising money, gaining media access, forming crack campaign organizations, and winning the support of powerful interests and advocacy groups. The 2010 and 2012 elections exemplify the extent to which American elections are candidate-centered. In these elections, Tea Party insurgents enjoyed great success in wresting nominations for congressional and gubernatorial seats away from candidates favored by Republican Party leaders. National Party Committees and Conventions Democratic and Republican national committees conduct the official business of the parties. The national committees are made up of elected committeemen and committeewomen from each state, a sizable staff, and a chairperson, but they rarely meet. The real business of the committee is run by the party chair and their committee staff. National party committee chairs exercise little power
- 781. when a president from their party is in office, because party chairs are compelled to take direction from the White House. When the opposition controls the presidency, party chairs exercise more 44 influence in party affairs, although the extent of that power is still not very great. BARACK OBAMA GIVES THE KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT 2004 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION In 2004, Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. At the time he was in the middle of his first election to represent Illinois in the Senate. Obama was lauded for the speech in which he told his personal story and laid out his vision for a more hopeful politics: “It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a mill worker’s son who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.” The speech launched Obama onto
- 782. the national stage and set the stage for his successful 2008 presidential run. What role do national conventions play besides serving as a forum nominating presidential candidates? Although the national committees have little direct power, they have become increasingly important as campaign service organizations for party candidates running for national and state offices. In addition to making substantial financial contributions to campaigns, they do a wide variety of things that help candidates. Their in-house TV and radio studios produce ads tailored to the particular district or state where the ads will air. They maintain large email address contact lists from which to disseminate information on party positions and to make appeals for contributions, increasingly using sophisticated data- mining techniques to target messages narrowly to different groups of people. Press releases are prepared as are campaign-oriented sound bites and video clips for local broadcast. Each national party committee also produces training courses for potential candidates, complete with how-to manuals and videos. Each also publishes content for the web and for social media and solicits financial
- 783. contributions for the party and for candidates. They also funnel campaign money to state and local party organizations, with the bulk going to states where competition between the parties is closest. To carry out these activities, both the national party committees have steadily increased the number of employees in their national offices in order to become highly professional campaign organization, filled with skilled people uniquely able to wage first-rate electoral campaigns. 45 46 The party committees are also responsible for organizing the national party conventions that meet every four years to nominate presidential and vice-presidential candidates, write a party platform, revise party rules, and bring together party members of varying statures and persuasions. During the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, Bernie Sanders fell short of the nomination but his strong campaign yielded him influence in the crafting of the party’s platform. Conventions generate substantial media attention as they feature nationally televised speeches—including the acceptance of the party’s nomination for President.
- 784. In 2016, the Republicans and Democrats put on very different conventions. The Republican convention depicted the country as being on a dangerously wrong path and post-convention analysis indicated that it was not perceived as a unifying party event. For example, in a national speech, Trump’s former primary opponent Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) took the unusual step of not endorsing the party’s nominee. While the 2016 Democratic convention had its own problems (supporters of Bernie Sanders were frequently heard booing Clinton), it depicted a country that was on the right trajectory and was viewed as a more uplifting and unifying event with Sanders himself strongly endorsing Clinton for the presidency. American parties tend to write political platforms that differ significantly from one another in both ideology and tone. Scholars discuss persistent differences in party platforms in terms of rhetoric, issues, and policies advocated. For example, Republicans tend to talk more about opportunity and freedom, whereas Democrats worry more about poverty and social welfare. A presidential nominee need not adhere either to the letter or to the spirit of a party platform, although most
- 785. nominees stay fairly close to platforms most of the time (usually because a winning candidate’s supporters control the platform- writing committee). State and local party organizations may nominate whomever they choose to run for public office and may or may not support key planks in the national party’s platform. Congressional Campaign Committees Almost as old as the national party committees, but entirely independent of them, are four congressional campaign committees— one Republican and one Democratic committee for the House and for the Senate. Congressional campaign committees help members of Congress raise money, provide media services, conduct research, and do whatever else party members in Congress deem appropriate. Increasingly, congressional campaign committees have turned their attention to identifying and encouraging quality party candidates to run in districts and states where competition between the parties is close. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), later President Obama’s chief of staff and currently mayor of Chicago, performed this function particularly well during his time as head of the Democratic House Campaign Committee. Many gave him the credit for the Democrats retaking control of the House from the Republicans in the 2005–2006 election
- 786. cycle. Congressional campaign committees are controlled by party members in Congress, not by party chairs, national committees, or even presidents. Much like national party committees, congressional 47 campaign committees have become highly professionalized and well- funded. State Party Organizations As you would expect in a federal system, separate political party organizations exist in each state. Although tied together by bonds of ideology, sentiment, and campaign money, state party organizations are relatively independent of one another and of the national party. State parties play a particularly important role in finding and supporting candidates for state-level offices like governor, state attorney general, and state assembly. 2016 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEES ACCEPT PARTY NOMINATIONS The highlight of each party’s presidential nominating convention comes when the presumptive nominees officially accept their party’s nomination for President with a primetime speech. It signals the official
- 787. end of the primary season and the beginning of the general election campaign. In 2016, Donald Trump (the Republican nominee) and Hillary Clinton (the Democratic nominee) gave very different addresses. Trump’s speech depicted America as being on a dangerous path with respect to security, immigration, and globalization. Clinton offered a more optimistic message about the current state of the country—embracing a continuation of President Obama’s work. How have the messages of the Democratic and Republican parties changed in recent years? How was Trump’s message in 2016 48 different than Republican nominees that preceded him? Interest Groups and Advocacy Groups INTEREST GROUPS WIELD (AND DON’T WIELD) THEIR RESOURCES David Koch (right) and Richard Trumka (left) lead interest groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Billionaires David Koch and his brother Charles Koch founded Americans for Prosperity to promote fiscally conservative (and often libertarian) principles and candidates.
- 788. However, the Kochs and their advocacy group remained fairly quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign owing to philosophical disagreements with Republican nominee Donald Trump. Still, Americans for Prosperity remained committed to funding down- ballot Republican campaigns. Richard Trumka is the President of the AFL- CIO, one of the largest labor unions in the country with about 12.5 million members. Unions like the AFL-CIO have typically supported Democratic candidates. And despite Donald Trump’s appeal to many anti-free trade voters, Trumka and the AFL-CIO used their financial resources and membership to support Hillary Clinton and other Democrats in 2016. How do groups like the AFL-CIO and Americans for Prosperity fit into the party networks? Interest groups and advocacy groups are not technically part of formal party organizations but are so deeply involved in party affairs that it is hard to draw a line between them and official party organizations. Some have even argued that networks of conservative interest and advocacy groups, such as American Crossroads (founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove), the American Action Network, and Americans for Prosperity (backed by the energy billionaire
- 789. Koch brothers) have taken over much of the fund-raising, campaign- messaging, and candidate-recruiting role of the Republican National Committee. Organized labor (e.g., AFL-CIO, SEIU) as well as left- leaning advocacy groups such as MoveOn.org (which is heavily funded by billionaire George Soros) have a similar relationship with the Democratic Party. 49 interest group A private organization or voluntary association that seeks to influence public policy as a way to protect or advance its interests. In recent years, many of these groups have worked hard to push the parties and candidates into more ideological and partisan directions— something that has undoubtedly contributed to the shape of the Polarization Era. For example, MoveOn.org and the National Education Association push Democrats to be more assertive in pursuing a more liberal policy agenda and in championing the candidacy of people they favor. On the other side, conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth and the National Rifle Association (NRA) get Republican candidates to pledge to lower taxes, expand gun rights, and oppose citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
- 790. Party Activists Party activists are the prominent, though often unelected, members of the party who influence party decisions and participate in major party events. The activists of one party are quite different in their views from activists of the other party as well as from most voters and the general public. A study of the 2004 Republican and Democratic National Conventions found that the delegates to the convention (party activists) were different than typical party voters on an array of issues including health care, the environment, abortion, social-spending programs, and same-sex marriage (see Table 9.3 ). For example, 40 percent of Republican voters valued universal health care over tax cuts but only 7 percent of Republican delegates felt similarly (instead, valuing tax cuts over universal health care). Likewise on the Democratic side, there was more opposition to the War in Iraq among Democratic delegates than Democratic voters. party activist Prominent, though often unelected, members of political parties who influence party decisions and participate in major party events.
- 791. TABLE 9.3 COMPARING THE 2004 NATIONAL PARTY CONVENTION DELEGATES TO OTHER AMERICANS 50 Delegates to Democratic National Convention Democratic Voters All Voters Republican Voters Delegates to Republican National
- 792. Convention Percent saying it 94 90 67 40 7 is more important to provide health care coverage for all Americans than to hold down taxes. Percent saying that the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq. 2 14 37 70 80 Percent saying
- 793. protecting the environment should be a higher priority for the government than developing new sources of energy. 25 30 21 9 3 Percent saying abortion not be permitted rather than available to all or limited some. 3 16 24 37 43 Percent saying 55 49 34 11 6
- 794. Source: New York Times/CBS News poll, September 1, 2004. Parties as Governing Organizations The Republican and Democratic Parties exist not only as a network of candidates, activists, contributors, and interest and advocacy groups but also as critical organizational systems in government. Parties help elected officials stay organized—primarily in Congress—so that they can work together to achieve common policy goals. Just like the electorate, however, the partisan composition of government fluctuates. These fluctuations have a major impact on the ability of government to respond to policy problems and pass new laws. Percent saying gay couples be allowed to legally marry. 55 49 34 11 6 As we discussed in the section on the Polarization Era, parties in Congress have recently become more ideologically different and increasingly concerned with ensuring that members support the
- 795. party line. One veteran observer even claims that today, “Political leaders on both sides now feel a relentless pressure for party discipline and intellectual conformity more common in parliamentary systems than through most of American history.” Tea Party activists’ pressure on Republican candidates in 2010 and 2012 helped make the GOP even more conservative than it has been. Senator Orrin Hatch (R- UT), perhaps sensing the same fate for himself as that which befell his long-time colleague and fellow conservative Robert Bennett— who was defeated by a Tea Party-backed candidate in his bid for his party’s senatorial nomination in Utah in 2010—began to vote even more consistently conservative in the Senate. In 2010 and 2011, Hatch averaged a score of 99.5 from the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth, well above his lifetime score of 78 previously awarded to him by that group. During the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney, a fairly moderate Republican for most of his career, took on a much more conservative ideological hue in the course of gaining the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2012, repudiating his previous positions on issues such as immigration, health insurance mandates, and affirmative action.
- 796. Figure 9.6 shows how moderate or extreme the parties in the House of Representatives have been going back to 1879. The higher the line, the more conservative the party was that year; the lower the line the more liberal the party was that year. Notice that since the 1980s, both parties have been becoming more extreme (the 51 Democrats becoming more liberal and the Republicans becoming more conservative). However, the Republicans have become significantly more conservative than the Democrats have become liberal. This is the Polarization Era playing out in Congress. FIGURE 9.6 POLARIZATION BETWEEN THE PARTIES IN THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1879–2015 On this graph, the farther above 0 a point appears, the more conservative the House Republicans were in that year. The farther below 0, the more liberal the House Democrats were in that year. The farther apart the plotlines, the greater the “distance,” or degree of polarization, between the average Democrat and the average Republican in the House. If the plotlines were ever to meet, it would suggest that party members in those years were effectively the
- 797. same. Since the 1960s, notice that both parties have been becoming more extreme. Indeed, the graph demonstrates that we are witnessing a historically polarized era in Congress, with Republicans having become significantly more conservative and Democrats having become more liberal. Source: Data from Royce Carroll, Jeff Lewis, James Lo, Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, First Dimension DW-NOMINATE Scores, Voteview. (Voteview, a research portal of Professor Keith T. Poole, collects data on every member of the U.S. House of Representatives since the founding and uses a sophisticated formula for determining how liberal or conservative each member is.) Divisions between the Parties Fearful of the tyrannical possibilities of vigorous government, the framers designed a system in which power is so fragmented and competitive that effectiveness is sometimes compromised. The constitutionally designed conflict between the president and Congress is more likely to be bridged when there is unified government — when a single party controls both houses of Congress and the presidency—as the Democrats did during much of the 1960s and the first two years of Obama’s presidency, as the Republicans did between 2001 and 2006 (when Bush was in office), and as it is now
- 798. during the first years of the Trump presidency. When the parties are strong and unified, this bridging can occur even when one party controls the Congress with the tiniest of margins. On the other hand, periods of divided government often result in gridlock . When 52 Republicans and Democrats each control a branch of the federal government, very little gets done. For example, during the last two years of President Obama’s first term and all of his second term, when Republicans controlled one or both of the two chambers of Congress, the policy-making process significantly stalled. unified government Control of the executive and legislative branches by the same political party. gridlock A situation in which things cannot get done in Washington, usually because of divided government. It matters a great deal whether Democrats or Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, because the public policies that parties put into effect when they win control of government have real and lasting consequences. When in power, Republicans and
- 799. Democrats produce different policies on taxes, corporate regulation, scientific research, gun control, and social welfare—with Democrats 53 favoring more liberal policies and Republicans favoring more conservative policies. Which bills become law, the composition of the federal judiciary, and the actions taken by executive branch agencies are also effected by party control of the federal government (see Figure 9.7 ). FIGURE 9.7 PARTY DIVISIONS IN CONGRESS, 1935–PRESENT The chart shows partisan control of the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1935 to the present. Red periods indicate Republican control, and blue periods indicate Democratic control. The horizontal bars indicate the strength of the partisan majority in the House and Senate: the bigger the blue bar, the larger the Democratic majority; the bigger the red bar, the larger the Republican majority. Note the extended period of Democratic control of the House during much of
- 800. the 20th century and the slim majorities since the middle of the Clinton administration. © Edward S. Greenberg The differences between both the parties became apparent to everyone in 2013 when the government failed to pass a “continuing resolution” on the federal budget. Every year, Congress must pass and the President must sign appropriations bills that fund the government. When it fails to do this, the government shuts down until it does—furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal employees. The framework pyramid below (Figure 9.8 ) articulates why the government could not pass something as essential as its budget in 2013. In short: deep policy disagreements between the parties (and within the Republican Party) could not be reconciled. Many Republicans saw a government shutdown as a way to force the Democratic Senate and President Obama into policy concessions. The Democrats never agreed to those concessions, and the government reopened 17 days later with roughly the same spending policies it had before the shutdown. FIGURE 9.8 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: THE 2013 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN Divisions within the Parties
- 801. While differences between Democrats and Republicans have become more pronounced, and while ideological and policy cohesion within the parties has been increasing, especially in the GOP, important disagreements within each party remain. Parties are not perfectly unified. Fissures have existed for some time in the Republican Party, with the fault lines historically lying between economic conservatives, whose main priority is lower government spending and lower taxes, and social conservatives, who emphasize “family values” and religious beliefs. However, the Republican Party has become even more fractured in recent years with the emergence of the Tea Party and now the Populist Nationalists. Among economic conservatives there is a split between those who recognize that a long-term budget solution for the country must involve some revenue enhancements as well as cuts in government spending and those in the Tea Party wing who believe that cutting spending and taxes is paramount and that every action must be taken to win that goal even if it means default on the public debt and a shutdown of the government. But division in the party doesn’t end with the budget as was readily apparent
- 802. during the 2016 Republican presidential primary in which anti-immigrant populist Donald Trump, Tea Party evangelical Ted Cruz, and more establishment candidates like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush all had their own considerable constituencies. As was discussed in the opening story of this chapter, the populist message championed by Trump has become a strong force in the party, but many traditional Republicans remain concerned about that trajectory. Divisions are also evident in the Democratic Party—though they are currently less pronounced—particularly between the liberal base and the more moderate office holders. The liberal wing of the party, for example, was not happy with many actions and policies of President Obama that seemed to hug the middle of the public policy spectrum: continuing many Bush-era policies on bailouts and financial industry regulation; giving in to many Republican congressional demands to cut government spending without getting much in the way of tax increases on top income groups; supporting global free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership; failing to close the detainee facilities at Guantanamo Bay; and continuing for a
- 803. number of years the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, this division was evident in the Democratic presidential primary between the more centrist Hillary Clinton and the quite liberal Bernie Sanders. This intra- party disagreement also had consequences for the general election as it likely decreased enthusiasm for Clinton during the 2016 general election campaign. Using the Democracy Standard Political Parties: How Do Our Two Major Political Parties Affect Democracy? You will recall that many theorists believe that vigorous and healthy political parties are essential for democracy. Parties are essential because, in theory at least, they are among the principal political institutions that help make popular sovereignty and political equality a reality. They are able to do so because they: 1. Keep elected officials responsive and responsible to the broad public. 2. Stimulate political interest and participation among ordinary Americans. 3. Embrace a broad range of groups from all economic and social levels of the population. 4. Simplify voter choices.
- 804. 5. Make government work for the people by overcoming the intrinsic problems of separation of powers and checks and balances. In contrast, the framers worried about the effects of political parties on republican government for all the same reasons. They were not at all inclined to involve all groups in political life, nor were they interested in stimulating widespread interest and participation by ordinary Americans. And they most certainly were not in favor of any institution, such as a party faction, that might overcome the constraints on national government that they had so very consciously created. The framers might rest a bit easier knowing that our political parties have never been quite able to fulfill their democratic promise. The constitutional system the framers built does its job well, making it hard for unified parties, or even unified governments, swept into power by electoral majorities, to get their way. In the Senate, for example, a unified minority party representing a minority of Americans (because each state gets two senators no matter the size of its population) can block important bills favored by the majority party (and a majority of Americans). Today, even with the internal fights over the future of both major parties, the Democrats and Republicans are increasingly ideologically distinctive and clear on the policy alternatives they offer to the public. This means voters know what they will get when they put a party into office, even if party positions and candidates are impacted by the preferences and actions of advocacy groups and rich
- 805. donors. Of course, the downside to this polarization is that it increases the likelihood of gridlock and dysfunction in the system. Despite all of this, our parties are the primary democratic mechanism we have for allowing voters to decide on a program for the government and to collectively hold elected officials responsible, even if imperfectly. Chapter 9 Review the Chapter Political Parties in Democratic Systems Theoretically, the electoral activities of political parties facilitate popular sovereignty by making it easier for citizens to hold elected leaders accountable for their promises and actions. While our constitutional system was designed to make it difficult for government to act decisively, political parties can offset this indecision by encouraging cooperation among public officials who benefit from their party’s collective success. However, recent polarization has made cooperation between parties more infrequent. The American Two-Party System Explain how parties can enhance popular sovereignty and political equality in democratic systems. 9.1
- 806. Explain why America has a two-party system.9.2 The American party system is unique among the Western democracies because it is a relatively pure two-party system and has been since the 1830s. America has single-member plurality elections which incentivize people to vote for major party candidates and not vote for minor party candidates (even if they support their ideas). The American Two-Party System Since the Great Depression The modern Democratic Party formed during the New Deal Era. During this period Democrats, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, supported an expansion of federal government powers and responsibilities aimed at steering the economy out of the Great Depression. This began a period of Democratic dominance that lasted until the 1970s. During the Dealignment Era, Democratic dominance declined and party membership resorted around civil rights, feminism, and foreign affairs. Conservative Southerners left the Democratic Party and joined the Republican Party.
- 807. Trace the evolution of political parties in America since the Great Depression. 9.3 The current Polarization Era is characterized by Democratic and Republican parties that are increasingly ideologically different from and hostile toward each other—embracing substantially different visions for country and an unwillingness to compromise. Neither party is dominant. The Three Functions of Today’s Political Parties American parties serve as ideological organizations that function as a home to voters with similar political preferences. They help inform citizens on public policy issues and connect them with the candidates that represent their views. American parties serve as electoral organizations comprised of career political operatives, party activists, loyal supporter, and advocacy groups. They cooperate and complete to help get their candidates in office and their concerns heard. American parties are candidate- centered. There is little power in the national party organizations to affect the behavior of individual candidates and office holders.
- 808. American parties are governing organizations that help elected officials organize so that they can work together to achieve common Identify three organizational functions of today’s American parties. 9.4 policy goals and remain in office. Learn the Terms bipartisanship Members of opposing political parties, usually elected officials, acting cooperatively in order to achieve a public policy goal. conservative The political position, combining both economic and social dimensions, that holds that the federal government ought to play a very small role in economic regulation, social welfare, and overcoming racial inequality, that abortion should be illegal, and that family values and law and order should guide public policies. dealignment A gradual reduction in the dominance of one political party without another party supplanting it.
- 809. Dealignment Era The party era that lasted from the late 1960s to the early 1990s that was characterized by a gradual reduction in the dominance of the Democratic Party without another party becoming truly dominant. divided government Control of the executive and legislative branches by different political parties. Duverger’s Law The phenomenon that electoral systems based on single-member plurality districts are almost always dominated by only two parties. gridlock A situation in which things cannot get done in Washington, usually because of divided government. heuristics Simple mental rules people use to make decisions and judgments quickly. interest group A private organization or voluntary association that seeks to influence public policy as a way to protect or advance its interests. liberal The political position, combining both economic and social dimensions, that holds that the federal government has a
- 810. substantial role to play in providing economic justice and opportunity, regulating business in the public interest, overcoming racial discrimination, protecting abortion rights, and ensuring the equal treatment of gays and lesbians. multiparty system A political system in which three or more viable parties compete to lead the government; because a majority winner is not always possible, multiparty systems often have coalition governments where governing power is shared among two or more parties. New Deal Party Era The party era lasting from the Great Depression to the late 1960s during which the Democrats, originally led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, dominated government and supported an expansion of federal government powers and responsibilities aimed at steering the economy out of the Great Depression and through the Second World War. partisan leaners Individuals who say they do not identify as Democrats or Republicans, but say they feel closer to either the Democratic or Republican Party. party activist
- 811. Prominent, though often unelected, members of political parties who influence party decisions and participate in major party events. party identification The sense of belonging to a political party; in the United States this is typically identifying as a Republican or Democrat. platform A party’s statement of its positions on the issues of the day passed at the quadrennial national convention. plurality Occurs when a candidate receives more votes than any other candidate in an election but still less than a majority. polarization The process by which political parties have become more internally consistent in ideology and more ideologically distant from one another; in the U.S. the Republican party has become more conservative and the Democratic party more liberal. Polarization Era The party era that began in the 1990s in which the Democratic and Republican parties became increasingly ideologically different from and hostile toward each other—embracing substantially different visions for country and an unwillingness to compromise.
- 812. political ideology A coherently organized set of beliefs about the fundamental nature of a good society and the role government ought to play in achieving it. political party A group organized to nominate candidates, to try to win political power through elections, and to promote ideas about public policies. proportional representation The awarding of legislative seats to political parties to reflect the proportion of the popular vote each party receives. realignment The process by which one party supplants another as the dominant party in a two-party political system. single-member districts Districts where the voters elect only one person to represent them. In single-member plurality systems, the person with the most votes (even if they do not have the majority) wins the election. two-party system A political system in which two parties vie on relatively equal terms to win national elections and in which each party governs at one time or another.
- 813. unified government Control of the executive and legislative branches by the same political party. Chapter 10 Voting, Campaigns, and Elections THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT TRUMP In a shocking upset, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College, despite losing the popular vote. He won traditionally Democratic states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, by speaking to the economic and social anxieties of disaffected white voters in rural areas. What specific economic and social factors were most important to voters who preferred Trump to Clinton? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy The Reasons for Trump’s Success
- 814. When voting began on the morning of November 8, 2016, professional political prognosticators gave Hillary Clinton anywhere from a 65 percent to 95 percent chance of winning the election. In online futures markets, the odds were about ELECTIONS AND DEMOCRACY Evaluate three models of how elections can lead to popular control. THE UNIQUE NATURE OF AMERICAN ELECTIONS Distinguish American elections from those in other countries. VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES Analyze the importance of political participation in elections. WHO VOTES? Identify demographic factors that increase the likelihood of voting. THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN Outline the process of campaigns for the presidency. ELECTION OUTCOMES Assess how presidential elections are decided. 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 nine to one against Trump, meaning one could have made almost $9 for every dollar invested in a Donald Trump win. On
- 815. the morning of November 9, 2016, Donald Trump was the president-elect with 304 electoral votes—though he lost the national vote—in what will surely go down as one of the biggest political upsets in American history. How did Trump do it? Political scientists and observers have sought to answer that question over the last two years, and a few main explanations have emerged. First, more so than other recent Republican presidential candidates, he received an enormous amount of support from working-class white voters. He also managed to hold onto more traditional Republican voters, faring well among college-educated whites and suburban voters, including suburban women (contrary to pre- election polls). 67 percent of non-college educated whites voted for Trump, an astonishing number, while 49 percent of college educated whites did so as well. In fact, in many states, he performed better among whites overall than Mitt Romney did as the Republican nominee in 2012. Older voters went for Trump, as expected, while crucially, he attracted significant support from voters in small cities and rural areas. Trump carried 62 percent of voters in these areas, and 50 percent of voters in suburbs (Clinton won only 45 percent of these voters). His anti-elite and economic populism message appeared to resonate in struggling, working-class counties in Rust Belt states. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in particular, none of which had voted for a Republican since at least 1988, broke for Trump, giving him a path to an Electoral College win 1 that virtually no one saw coming. Along with these states, he won most of the other battleground states by one or two percentage points, including Florida, North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio. Figure 10.1 shows two maps, where states are scaled
- 816. by their number of eligible voters. The top map colors states based on which candidate won, while the bottom colors states by the percentage of voters supporting Donald Trump. Dark blue indicates fewer votes for Trump and more votes for Clinton, dark red indicates the state voted heavily for Trump, and shades of purple indicate the state was closely split between the two candidates. FIGURE 10.1 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS BY STATE These maps of the 2016 presidential election results are called “Cartograms.” Each state has been resized to reflect the voting eligible population of the state such that more populous states are made bigger and less populous states are made smaller. When you adjust the size of the states like this, states that are big in area but small in population (like Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas) get considerably smaller. Likewise, a geographically small but large population state like New Jersey gets bigger. The first map allows you to not only see who won the state (red for Donald Trump and blue for Hillary Clinton) but also how influential that state is in the presidential election process. In the second map, states are shaded based on how much support Trump and Clinton each got. Very red states went strongly for Trump, very blue states went strongly for Clinton, and the purple states were evenly divided. This reveals how win/lose election results can obscure just how close the 2016 election was. Note that Maine splits its electoral college votes by congressional district, with Donald Trump winning one of the four.
- 817. SOURCE: Cartograms produced in ArcMap 10.4.1 with the Cartogram Geoprocessing tool using the Newman-Gastner method [see details in Michael T. Gastner and Mark E. J. Newman, “Diffusion-Based Method for Producing Density-Equalizing Maps,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (2004): 7499–7504.] Clinton did not perform as well as expected among women and minorities, and suffered from lower voter turnout among Democrats in some crucial states. Though 54 percent of women supported Clinton, this was only up one point from Obama’s percentage in the 2012 election, according to exit polls. This, despite numerous comments made by Trump during the campaign that were thought to alienate women, and despite the historic nature of Clinton’s nomination. Further, exit polls suggest that Clinton actually did eight points worse among Hispanic voters than Obama did in 2012, though some observers are suspicious that these numbers reflect the voting reality. Finally, vote tallies seem to indicate that though overall voter turnout was up a few percentage points from 2012, African American voters in swing states, an important part of the two Obama wins, were a slightly smaller segment of the electorate than they were in 2012. This cost Clinton crucial votes in large cities in swing states such as Milwaukee, Detroit, and Philadelphia. turnout The proportion of either eligible or all voting-age Americans who actually
- 818. vote in a given election; the two ways of counting turnout yield different results. Not only did Donald Trump win the presidency, Republicans also performed well in the congressional elections. In the 2 3 Senate, Republicans were defending nine seats considered to be competitive, while Democrats were worried only about losing retiring Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s in Nevada. Based on these numbers alone, most thought Democrats would gain the seats necessary to become the majority. Shockingly, only two Republican senators, Mark Kirk in Illinois, and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire lost their seats. In the House, expected Democratic gains of up to 15 seats never materialized, with Democrats gaining fewer than 10. These results indicate that, despite pre-election polls, Donald Trump had coattails that benefited down-ballot Republicans. * * * * * The first two years of Trump’s presidency have been tumultuous, to say the least. Republicans did manage to achieve two significant policy goals. First, they passed an enormous tax cut, a long-held priority of many Republican members of Congress, including then-Speaker Paul Ryan. At the same time, they repealed the individual mandate component of Obamacare. The effects of this are still uncertain, but it represents an important step toward weakening the law. Other attempts to repeal the entirety of the legislation, however,
- 819. failed. President Trump and congressional Republicans also successfully sat Neil Gorsuch, a respected and ideologically conservative judge, to the seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia in November of 2016, as well as filling Anthony Kennedy’s seat on the bench with Brett Kavanaugh. On the other hand, President Trump remains historically unpopular for 4 a new president, despite a relatively strong economy and no major foreign crisis. A number of scandals have dogged the President, most notably one conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into relationships between the Trump Campaign and Russian officials. There has been enormous turnover among President Trump’s staff and executive branch officials, many of whom have had scandals of their own. With Democrats seizing control of the House, expect a slew of investigations into the president’s administration and his business dealings. Democrats will have subpoena power and have already suggested they will seek the release of President Trump’s tax returns, along with conducting investigations into connections between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Investigations will be carried out by the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, among others, and the leaders of those committees are no fans of the president. Democrats will also seek to protect the Mueller investigation, though exactly what actions they will take remain unclear. The president’s firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions the day after the election suggests that his conflict with the FBI and the Mueller probe will only increase during the 116th Congress. Thinking Critically about this Chapter
- 820. The story of the 2016 presidential election focuses our attention on the issue of democratic control of the national government through the electoral process and on the degree to which the public participates in this key activity of the representative democratic process. Applying the Framework You will see in this chapter that elections are affected by the different rates of participation of groups in American society and how structural factors such as constitutional rules, unequal access to resources, and cultural ideas help determine why some groups participate more than others. You will also learn how elections affect the behavior of public officials. Using the Democracy Standard We suggest in this chapter that elections are the lynchpin of any discussion about the democratic quality of any system of government because they are, in theory, what makes popular sovereignty possible. You will see in this chapter that while elections in the United States do much to make our system democratic, they fall short of their democratic promise. Elections and Democracy Elections are fundamental to democratic politics, the chief means by which citizens control elected officials, who in turn, run the government. Many important struggles for democracy in the United States have involved conflicts over the right to vote. But can elections actually ensure that elected officials do what the people want?
- 821. Democratic theorists have suggested several ways that elections in a two-party system like the one found in the United States can bring about popular control of government. We will discuss three of these ways, indicating how each works in theory and in practice. The remainder of this chapter is concerned with the actual process of American elections, and with attempting to answer the question of whether elections ensure the public exercises appropriate control over elected officials. The Prospective (or Responsible Party) Voting Model Evaluate three models of how elections can lead to popular control. 10.1 5 The prospective voting model requires that parties stake out different positions on the issues of the day and that informed voters cast ballots based on these differences. In this way, parties are responsible because they offer a “real choice” on important issues and once elected, they work to implement their stated policies. prospective voting model
- 822. A theory of democratic elections in which voters decide what each party will do if elected and choose the party that best represents their own preferences. responsible party model The notion that a political party will take clear and distinct stands on the issues and enact them as policy once elected to office. Theory For this model to work, each political party must be unified; each must take clear policy positions that differ significantly from those of the other party; citizens must accurately understand party positions and vote on them; and the winning party, when it takes office, must implement the policies it advocated. If all these conditions are met, then the party with the more popular policy positions wins, and the policies enacted into law are what the majority of the voters want. Potential Problems Responsible parties have the potential to increase the frequency and intensity of political conflict because the winning party has little reason to compromise with the losing party, even when its margin of victory is razor-thin. The party in power will try to pass the policies it
- 823. wants, ignoring the objections or suggestions of the minority party. Although responsible parties make choices at the ballot box easier for voters, the result, quite often, is gridlock if one party is not able to win the presidency and a majority or supermajority in both congressional chambers (something that cannot happen in a parliamentary system but happens frequently in our presidential system). In fact, parties in this country have become more polarized and are more closely approximating the responsible party model, but the political reality over the last two decades has been a dramatic increase in partisan warfare. This has made it difficult for Congress and the president to accomplish even the most mundane tasks, such as funding the government, and has led to intense fights over important issues such as health care and Supreme Court seats. American voters dislike partisan fighting and gridlock, which leads to lower trust in the other party and government overall. There is a growing perception in this 6 7 country that as a result of highly “responsible” parties,
- 824. Congress is unable to address major national problems. The Electoral Competition Voting Model In the electoral competition voting model , parties compete for votes by taking the most popular position on an issue. They do so by trying to appeal to the voter in the middle of the political spectrum, called the median voter . Both parties, according to the electoral competition voting model, are therefore likely to end up standing for the same policies: those favored by the most voters. electoral competition voting model A theory of elections in which parties move toward the median voter or the center of the political spectrum in order to capture the most votes. median voter 8 The voter at the exact middle of the political issue spectrum. The Theory This theory relies on the assumption that citizens can be arranged along a single dimension from liberal to conservative as shown in
- 825. Figure 10.2 , that most voters are ideologically centrist, and that voters prefer the party or candidate who is closest to their own beliefs. FIGURE 10.2 ELECTORAL COMPETITION MODEL The electoral competition voting model suggests that, as campaigns progress, parties move toward the median voter (where most votes are to be found) in pursuit of election wins. Different issues have been important at different times in American history, but there is substantial evidence that most of them can be placed on a single economic-social dimension. (Issues having to do with race and slavery are the notable exception.) And, despite appearances, many political scientists believe that most Americans are centrists at heart (though that may be changing). Parties are thought of as vote-seeking entities without particular ideological preferences, so in order to appeal to the most number of voters, they will take positions at the median of the economic-social dimension, where exactly one-half the voters are more liberal and one-half are more conservative. It can be shown mathematically that the party that captures the median voter will always win the election, meaning
- 826. if either party took a position even a little bit away from the median, the other party would win more votes. Compare this theory to the responsible party model. According to the electoral competition model, parties are forced to move to the middle (as Figure 10.2 signifies) rather than to the extremes, as the responsible party model predicts. Also, in this theory, it should not matter which party wins the election because the policies a majority of voters want will be enacted. Democratic representation, according to the electoral competition model, is assured by the dynamics of party competition. The Potential Problems The most important criticism of the electoral competition model is that a number of pressures exist which prevent parties from moving to the middle. Parties need the backing of financial contributors for campaign money, and candidates need the backing of party activists during 9 10 primary elections. Both groups, contributors and activists, tend to be more extreme than the average voter and will only support the
- 827. party if it too supports extreme policy positions. Individual candidates who are more ideologically extreme may win a primary election when only voters who belong to the party can participate, and these same candidates may be unwilling or unable to moderate their positions during the general election, when all voters participate. Because American political parties have little control over what individual candidates say and do, there is virtually no way a party can force its own candidates toward the center. It is quite common to see extreme candidates run in a general election, something that would not be predicted by the electoral competition model (but would be by the responsible party model). Relatedly, as the American electorate polarizes, voters may not be distributed in such a uniform fashion as depicted in Figure 10.2 . Instead, they may lie more toward the ideological edges of the spectrum. This arrangement might encourage parties to become more extreme. Still, the conditions necessary for the electoral competition voting model are close enough to the truth that the model does work, to an extent, in real elections. Extreme candidates who do manage to win a primary tend to do poorly in general elections, especially when the electorate is large and diverse (such as in senate or presidential
- 828. campaigns), creating a powerful incentive for parties and their candidates to remain near the median over the long-term. Indeed, electoral competition is probably one of the main ways elected officials are influenced by public opinion. The Retrospective (or Reward and Punishment) Voting Model A third model by which elections might bring about popular control of government is the retrospective voting model , also known as the electoral reward and punishment model . This model suggests that voters make retrospective evaluations about how well the party in power has governed during the previous few years and then decide if they approve of the party’s performance and want its members to continue in office. retrospective voting model (or electoral reward and punishment model) A theory of democratic elections in which voters look back at the performance of a party in power and cast ballots on the basis of how well it did in office. The Theory According to the model, voters simply make retrospective, or backward-looking judgments, about how well incumbents have
- 829. performed. Voters reward success by reelecting officials and punish failure by voting for the other party. The result is that politicians who want to stay in office have strong incentives to promote prosperity and to address the problems that occur, such as a bad economy, rising inflation, or threats from a foreign country. This reward-and- punishment model of democratic control has the advantage of simplicity. It requires very little of voters: they do not need to have well-informed policy preferences, and do not need to analyze campaign platforms. Instead, they only make a judgment of how well or poorly things have been going in the country. For example, voters seem to have punished Republicans in 2008, expressing their displeasure with George W. Bush over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bad economy, while voters punished Obama and the Democrats in 2010 for not fixing the economy and for passing a controversial health care law, the Affordable Care Act. FACING THE NATION 11 12
- 830. President Obama is seen shortly after addressing the nation on the 2009 global financial crisis. Voters often punish the president during periods of poor economic performance. The Potential Problems The reward and punishment model is simple in theory, but it is also a rather blunt instrument. It removes unpopular political leaders, but only after (and not before) disasters happen, without guaranteeing that the next leaders will be any better. The retrospective voting model also requires that politicians are able to anticipate the effects of future policies and correct problems that have occurred. In fact, often when the majority party is punished and the other party takes over, it too is unable to solve the important problems of the day and is eventually voted out of office, replaced with the previous majority. This model may also encourage politicians to produce deceptively positive, but temporary results that arrive just in time for Election Day and then fade away. Imperfect Electoral Democracy Each of the three models of popular control exists to some extent in American elections, though no model works perfectly under all
- 831. conditions. On occasion, the models converge and help produce an election that is enormously consequential for the direction of the 13 nation as in the 1932 election, which elevated Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency. The election of 1932 was held during the Great Depression, one of the greatest crises the country has ever faced: the unemployment rate reached nearly 33 percent, banks failed, and deflation (when money becomes worth less and less) set in. At the political level, the public demanded action, but the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover was unwilling to respond to the crisis. Hoover and members of Congress believed the federal government should not be involved in fixing the economy. Franklin Roosevelt and congressional Democrats were swept into office as he laid out a clear vision of how to fix the economy which differed from the majority Republicans (responsible party government model). Voters were also extremely dissatisfied with the policies of Hoover and demanded a change (retrospective voting
- 832. model). The resulting government action, as demonstrated in this chapter’s Applying the Framework model (see Figure 10.3 ), was a large and sweeping program of public works projects and government spending meant to stimulate the economy and pull the country out of the Great Depression. The economy improved, albeit slowly, but voters responded by electing a Democratic president for the next four election cycles. FIGURE 10.3 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: A CONSEQUENTIAL ELECTION AND A NEW DEAL FOR AMERICA © Edward S. Greenberg Which Party Model Works Best? None of the three models works well enough to guarantee perfectly democratic outcomes. In certain respects, they conflict: responsible parties and electoral competition, for example, tend to push in opposite directions. In other respects, all three models require conditions that are not met in reality. Perhaps the most important problem with all three models is
- 833. that they cannot ensure government responsiveness to all citizens unless all citizens have the right to vote and exercise that right. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans cannot or do not go to the polls and many states have recently passed laws making it more difficult for many citizens to vote. These stricter voting requirements demand very specific forms of identification that some types of people do not have, or impose strict residency requirements, making college students, for example, return home to vote. These laws are new and their effects are an ongoing area of research, but they are most likely to affect poor people and racial minorities. For these individuals, their voices are not heard; political equality is not achieved. The Unique Nature of American Elections . American elections differ quite dramatically from those of most other democratic countries. The differences are the result of rules— mainly found in the Constitution but also in federal statutes and judicial decisions—that define offices and describe how elections are to
- 834. be conducted. The distinguishing features of elections in the United States are discussed in the sections that follow. Elections Are Numerous and Frequent In some sense, we are “election happy” in the United States. We not only elect the president and members of Congress (senators and representatives), but because of federalism, we also elect governors, other state officials (like attorneys general and lieutenant governors), state legislators, and (in most states) judges. In addition, all of the top officials of counties, cities, and towns are elected by the people, as Distinguish American elections from those in other countries10.2 are school boards and the top positions in special districts (e.g., water or conservation districts). All in all, we fill about 500,000 elective offices, and for many of these offices, there are both primary and general elections, along with special elections if an office is vacated. Many state and local ballot initiatives add to the length and complexity of American elections. This leads some political scientists to
- 835. believe that Americans suffer from ballot fatigue , when individuals stop participating simply because they are tired of voting. ballot fatigue The exhaustion of voter interest and knowledge in elections caused by election frequency and the length and complexity of ballots. Election Procedure and Vote- Counting Inconsistencies Unlike most other countries where elections are run by the national government, states are mostly in charge of elections, introducing more variation into the process and putting the management of elections into the hands of state and county officials. Though the federal 14 government exercises some control over the voting process through laws such as the 1965 Voting Rights Act and a 2002 law allowing the use of provisional ballots on Election Day, state-run elections create procedural differences across the country. States have different rules regarding voter registration, the resolution of election disputes, how
- 836. absentee and early ballots are handled, and the types of election devices used (paper ballots, either counted by hand or scanned, computerized touch screen systems, and more.) “First Past the Post” Wins Winners in most elections in the United States are determined by who wins the most votes—not necessarily a majority—in a particular district. This type of election is often called “first-past-the- post,” as in a horse race where the winner is the first past the finish line, or a single- member plurality election, so named because only one person running in each district wins. These elections include congressional elections and presidential contests for electoral votes in each of the states. We do not have proportional representation or multi-member districts (where multiple people are elected from the same district), nor do we have “run-off” elections between the top two vote-getters in presidential or congressional elections to ensure a majority winner. If no candidate wins an absolute majority (more than 50 percent of the vote), the winner is the candidate who wins a plurality , simply the most votes out of all the candidates. In fact, presidential candidates often win only a plurality rather than a majority. Bill Clinton won only 43 percent of the vote in 1992 because of the strong showing of a
- 837. 15 third party candidate, H. Ross Perot (who won 19 percent of the popular vote but no electoral votes). Though Bill Clinton won a plurality, consider that 56 percent of ballots were cast for Perot or the Republican nominee, incumbent president George H. W. Bush! Donald Trump won a plurality in enough states to win the Electoral College, but lost the national vote total. In France and Finland, by way of contrast, a second election is held if no candidate wins a majority in the first round of voting for the president. This type of election ensures that the person who is elected comes to office with majority support. The United States is one of the relatively few countries with a strict single-member plurality system for most offices and is an important distinguishing feature of our elections. plurality Occurs when a candidate receives more votes than any other candidate in an election but still less than a majority. PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN INDIA Prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won the highest office in the
- 838. world’s largest democracy in parliamentary elections that spanned more than a month to accommodate India’s hundreds of millions of eligible voters. What factors differentiate our elections from parliamentary systems? Voting in the United States In this section, we turn our attention to political participation, especially voting. Individuals participate in politics in many ways: by donating time or money to a campaign, posting a yard sign, or even discussing politics with friends and family. All of these activities are important, but voting is considered the most basic act of political participation. For elections to be democratic—whether in the prospective, electoral competition, or retrospective voting models—elections must not only have high participation, individuals in all social groups in the population (e.g., across race, gender, income, occupation, religion, ethnicity, region, and so on) must have the same ability to vote, or else the principle of political equality would be violated. Expansion of the Franchise
- 839. Until passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments after the Civil War it was up to each state to determine who within its borders was eligible to vote. In the early years, many of the states limited the legal right to vote—called the franchise —quite severely by prohibiting many types of people, including slaves, Native Americans, Analyze the importance of political participation in elections.10.3 women, and white men without property, from voting. One of the most important developments in the political history of the United States, an essential part of the struggle for democracy, has been the expansion of the right to vote. The extension of the franchise has been a lengthy and uneven process, spanning more than 200 years. Still, more Americans now have the right to vote than ever before, though the limitations states place on exercising the right to vote continues to be an important debate. franchise The legal right to vote; see suffrage. 16
- 840. AT THE POLLS Early U.S. elections were poorly organized and hard to get to. In addition, only a small proportion of the population was eligible to vote. In this painting (The County Election by George Caleb Bingham), a group of white men, the only people with the right to vote in most places in the United States at the time, wait to vote in the presidential election of 1824 at a polling station in Saline County, Missouri. How would the demographics of eligible voters change in the United States throughout the 19th Century? White Males The first barriers to fall were those concerning property and religion. So strong were the democratic currents during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency (1801–1809) and in the years leading up to the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 that by the time he assumed office in 1829, property, taxpaying, and religious requirements had been dropped in all states except North Carolina and Virginia. That left suffrage , or the ability to vote, firmly in place for most adult white males in
- 841. the United States. Most of Europe, including Britain, did not achieve this degree of democracy until after World War I. suffrage The legal right to vote; see franchise. African Americans, Women, and Young People Despite the early expansion of the right to vote, the struggle to expand the franchise to African Americans, women, and young people proved difficult and painful. Ironically, universal white male suffrage was often accompanied by the removal of voting rights from black freedmen, even in states that did not permit slavery. It took the bloody Civil War to free the slaves and the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1870) to extend the right to vote to all black males, both 17 North and South. Southern states were still hostile to voting rights for African Americans and Congress essentially forced the South to accept all of the Civil War Amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth) as a pre-condition of reentering the Union. Despite the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, efforts by the South to
- 842. disenfranchise blacks continued, and were helped by Supreme Court rulings, resulting in widespread discrimination and disenfranchisement by the end of the 19th century. These rulings allowed practices such as poll taxes and literacy tests, which were applied selectively as a way of denying the right to vote to African Americans. These limitations remained in place until the 1960s civil rights movement and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Though many states allowed women the right to vote, especially in the West, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) nationalized the right for all women in all states. The franchise was granted to 18 to 20-year-olds with the passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment was passed near the end of the Vietnam War. Support for the amendment grew out of demands that individuals old enough to fight and die for the country in war were also old enough to cast votes. The result of these changes at the state and national levels was an enormous increase in the proportion of Americans who were legally eligible to vote: from about 23 percent of the adult population in 1788– 1789 to nearly 98 percent by the beginning of the 1970s—
- 843. practically all citizens above the age of 18, except people who have recently moved to another state, people in mental institutions, and incarcerated felons (and, in many states, former felons). Direct Partisan Elections Another voting trend has involved the direct election of government officials, replacing the old indirect methods that insulated officials from the public. At the same time, the development of a well-defined two- party system has clarified choices for citizens and increased competition between the parties, promoting democratic accountability among elected officials. The election of the president, even with the existence of the Electoral College , has become more directly democratic. By the time of the presidential campaign of 1800, which pitted Jefferson’s Democratic- Republicans against the Federalists, most state legislatures had stopped picking the presidential electors themselves (as the Constitution permits). Instead, the legislatures allowed a popular vote for electors, most of whom were pledged to support the presidential candidate of one party or the other. The passage of the Twelfth
- 844. Amendment in 1804 further clarified the process by requiring each elector to select only one candidate. By discontinuing the process in which the vice president was elected separately from the president, elections in which the vice president could belong to a party different from the party of the president ended. Electoral College Representatives selected in each of the states, their numbers based on each state’s total number of its senators and representatives; a majority of Electoral College votes elects the president. This system, odd and cumbersome as it is, is very similar to the process used today and it almost always ensures that American citizens choose their president more or less directly, though two recent exceptions have left some wondering whether splits between the Electoral College and the popular vote will become more common. In the 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but Republican George W. Bush captured a majority of the electoral votes after the Supreme Court ruled in Bush’s favor on who should receive Florida’s 25 electoral votes. Again in 2016, the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, lost the popular vote (by almost 3 million ballots) but won the Electoral College. He
- 845. did so by very narrowly winning a number of states while badly losing a few large population states such as California. In fact, a shift of only about 80,000 votes across three states would have resulted in the election of Hillary Clinton. By 1840, the parties had started nominating presidential candidates in national party conventions instead of in congressional party caucuses. Later still, the parties began letting voters select many convention delegates directly in state primary elections or through party caucuses in which party supporters hold area meetings to vote on their preferred candidate. The result is that the presidential nominees are largely selected by voters in the states, rather than party officials. The important role of primaries and caucuses in nominating party candidates for elected office enhances democratic control of government, although we will see that some antidemocratic features remain. party convention A gathering of delegates who nominate a party’s presidential candidate.
- 846. Another form of direct elections occurred with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Previously, U.S. senators were selected by state legislatures rather than directly by the people, leading to charges of corruption in the late 1800s when it appeared that many well-connected and wealthy individuals were “buying” senate seats from the state legislatures. Since 1913, all members of the Senate have been subject to direct election by the voters. Taken together, the expansion of the franchise and the development of direct, two-party elections have represented major successes in the struggle for democracy. But, problems remain on the voting participation front. Barriers to Voting and Low Voter Turnout The disturbing fact is that today proportionally fewer people vote than during most of the 19th century. Since 1912, only about 50 to 65 percent of Americans have voted in presidential elections (see Figure 10.4 ) and still fewer in other elections: 40 to 50 percent in off- year (non-presidential-year) congressional elections and as few as 10 to 20
- 847. percent in primaries and local elections, although the exact number depends on how turnout is measured. In addition, turnout in presidential elections remains well below turnout in other democratic countries. In Western Europe, turnout rates regularly top 75 percent, and in Australia, where voting is required by law, turnout is, unsurprisingly, over 90 percent. FIGURE 10.4 THE RISE AND FALL OF TURNOUT IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, 1789–2016 Turnout in presidential elections rose sharply during the 19th century —except during the “Era of Good Feelings” (1815–1825) when there was no party competition and little interest in politics among the public —but declined in the 20th century. In 2004, turnout increased dramatically, but only to a level typical of the 1950s and 1960s. NOTE: From 1920, the Census Bureau has calculated voting turnout as the percentage of the voting-age population voting, not as a percentage of the total voting-eligible population. SOURCE: McDonald, Michael P. 2016. “2016 General Election Turnout Rates” United States Elections Project. Accessed at: http://www.electproject.org/2016g on November 11, 2016.
- 848. Why do so few Americans vote compared to other democracies? It is not because Americans dislike participating or are inherently anti- democratic. Instead, political scientists have identified a number of possible structural factors about the way we conduct elections. It seems clear that the difficulty and effort required to vote in this country is an important cause of our relatively low turnout. Registration Requirements In the United States, only citizens who take the initiative to register in advance are permitted to vote in an election. Most commonly, the registration period is ten to thirty days before an election. Many people do not remember to register in advance, do not have the required paperwork, or do not understand how to go about registering. For example, people who move, either within a state or to another state, must find the appropriate election official, produce certain documents, and complete paperwork, all months in advance of an election which they may not even be thinking about. As a result, many do not register in time, lowering turnout, according to one study, by 9 percentage points. In most European countries with high turnout rates, the government, rather than individual citizens, is responsible for
- 849. deciding who is listed as eligible to vote and registers them automatically. Turnout is much higher among registered voters, so a number of states have taken steps to make registration easier. Allowing for same 18 19 day registration, as seventeen states have now done, seems to be effective in increasing turnout by anywhere from three to seven percentage points. In Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2016, where same-day registration is in effect, turnout was 74 percent and 69 percent, respectively, similar to turnout in other rich democracies, though these are both states with strong political cultures. Other reforms designed to make registration easier include the National Voter Registration Act (known commonly as the “Motor Voter” law). The National Voter Registration Act requires states to allow people to register in places where they are already in contact with their state governments, such as at welfare offices and at motor vehicle licensing offices. Election Day Timing Unlike most European countries, Election Day in the United
- 850. States is held during the week and it is not a national holiday. Unfortunately, holding elections on Tuesdays when most people have to work or attend school reduces voter turnout. Further, even for those people who are able to take time off work to go vote, driving to the polling place and waiting in a long line may be too time consuming. In other words, the inconvenience of voting also discourages many people from voting. States have taken some steps to address these problems. These include allowing an extended voting period—usually called early voting—which allows voters to cast a ballot in the days leading up to Election Day (37 states now have some form of early voting). Other 20 21 22 23 states have experimented with mail-in ballots, which allows voters to simply fill out a ballot and mail it back to the state before
- 851. Election Day. These reforms are designed to reduce the barriers to voting and increase voter turnout. Too much Complexity As suggested earlier, when voters go to the polls in the United States, they must make voting choices for a multitude of federal, state, and local offices and often decide on constitutional and policy measures put on the ballot by state legislatures (individually called a referendum or collectively, referenda ) or the public (called an initiative ), especially in states such as California and Colorado where these are common. Research demonstrates that many potential voters are simply overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues and the number of choices they must make in the voting booth leading some to stay home. referendum Procedures available in some states by which state laws or constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature are submitted to the voters for approval or rejection. 24 initiative Procedures available in some states for citizens to put proposed laws and constitutional amendments on the ballot for
- 852. voter approval or rejection. Reform Proposals and New Struggles over Voting Rights A growing body of political science research suggests social pressures, exerted by friends on Facebook, for example, encourages individuals to vote. Conversely, the risk of being exposed as a nonvoter to friends or neighbors is also successful at motivating individuals to vote. Political scientists have found that voting is habit forming—when an individual votes once, they receive a positive psychological feeling and are more likely to vote again in the future. Finally, for first-time voters, being reassured that their vote is private and they will not have to defend their ballot to poll workers or other officials makes it more likely they will vote. This knowledge will increase the use of technology and social media as a way of encouraging voting, especially among young people, who are less likely to vote but are among the most active users of new technology. 25 26 27 28
- 853. States are also making changes to how they conduct elections. Reforms, such as same day registration, early voting, and mail- in balloting are becoming more and more common. All of these making voting less time consuming and more convenient, which improves turnout. Online voting, while not yet widely implemented, seems to be just around the corner. New Voting Barriers Though much has been done to make registration and voting easier, there is a countermovement that seeks to make registration and voting harder for many. The fight over registration requirements and voting access is largely a fight between the two parties. Recently, Democrats have sought an expanded electorate, believing that those least likely to vote—lower-income and less educated people, college students, and racial and ethnic minorities—are more likely to vote for them. Claiming they are interested in rooting out voter fraud in our present system, but also wishing to take away Democratic votes, Republicans have been pushing hard to more tightly regulate the voting process. In many states controlled by Republicans after their 2010 electoral landslide, Republican officials passed laws requiring government-
- 854. issued photo IDs for voting, while many of them, including Ohio and Florida, also cut back the length of early voting periods. Maine ended same-day registration. Alabama and Kansas now require proof of citizenship. Florida and Iowa no longer allow ex-felons (those who have already served their time) to vote. Other states, such as Wisconsin and Tennessee, have sought to make it harder for college students to vote by not allowing the use of college identification cards as a valid form of voter identification, among other limitations. One organization counts twenty-three states that have passed restrictive voting laws since 2010. It remains to be seen what the turnout effects of these changes will be and many states face lawsuits over their requirements, but no one doubts that these changes will keep many eligible citizens from voting, especially those most likely to cast their ballots for Democrats. REGISTERING TO VOTE The Motor Voter Law passed by Congress in 1993 is meant to encourage registration by allowing citizens to register when completing their application for a driver’s license or when receiving other common government services.
- 855. 29 What types of additional reforms made to registration requirements would encourage voting? Other Possibilities Political scientists, journalists, and political practitioners have suggested a number of other possible reasons for low turnout. For example, it may be that the increase in negative advertising, increasing partisanship, and the growing incivility of American politics overall are adding to cynicism about the political system and politicians, causing Americans to turn away in disgust or despair. There has been some speculation that the time available to Americans for political participation has declined either because of longer working hours or because of the availability of other diversions, most especially television and the Internet. Unfortunately, scholars still are tussling with these issues; there is much disagreement among them about the extent to which these factors affect voting turnout.30 Who Votes? Voting in the United States varies a great deal according to people’s
- 856. income, education, age, and ethnicity. This means that some kinds of people have more representation and influence with elected officials than others, and, other things being equal, they are more likely to have their preferences and interests reflected in what government does. Income and Education For the most part, politically active people tend to be those with higher incomes and more formal education. In the 2016 presidential elections, about 74.5 percent of those with incomes of $100,000 or above said they had voted, but only 46.4 percent of those with incomes under $50,000 said they had done so (see Figure 10.5 ). About 73.9 percent of those earning postgraduate degrees reported that they had voted, but only 47 percent of high school graduates and 29 percent of those who had not graduated from high school had done so. Some statistical analyses have indicated that the most important factor determining whether people vote is their level of formal Identify demographic factors that increase the likelihood of voting. 10.4 31 32
- 857. education. Even when accounting for other important factors— including race, income, and gender—college-educated people are much more likely to tell interviewers that they have voted. There are several possible reasons: people with more education learn more about politics, are more interested in the political process, are less troubled by registration requirements, and are more confident in their ability to affect political life. FIGURE 10.5 ELECTION TURNOUT BY SOCIAL GROUP, 2016 ELECTIONS Age, education, race, ethnicity, income, and gender all affect voting behavior. Members of certain social groups are more likely to vote in elections than others. The Census Bureau warns that these numbers may be inflated because of people’s tendency to want to report positive citizen behavior to interviewers. What is important here, however, is not necessarily the accuracy of the turnout totals but the comparison between groups of people. The relative turnout comparisons between groups fit the general picture available from
- 858. other academic research and government sources. SOURCE: Voting and Registration in the Election of 2016. U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting- and-registration/p20-580.html. Looking at other important forms of political participation besides voting, citizens with lower incomes are also less likely to work in campaigns, give money, contact officials, and attend political events like town-hall meetings. Wealthier Americans have more money, stronger social ties to elected officials, and more knowledge of how to get things done. As a result, they tend to be much more active politically, and likely have more clout than poorer citizens. Race and Ethnicity In the past, turnout among African Americans was lower than among whites, but now the percentages have become nearly equal. In fact, African Americans are at least equally likely to vote, and sometimes more likely, than whites of similar educational and income backgrounds. The 2012 presidential election reflected this trend. For the first time ever, turnout was higher among African Americans than
- 859. whites, with 66.2 percent of African Americans voting as compared to 64.1 percent of whites. In 2016, African American turnout dropped slightly, but remained much higher than other minority groups. In contrast, Hispanic voters have historically had very low participation rates; many are discouraged from participating by low incomes, language problems, or suspicion of government authorities. Although Hispanics continue to vote at lower rates than other Americans with similar incomes and educational profiles, their turnout at the polls has been increasing, reaching 48 percent in 2012. In both 2008 and 2012, the presidential candidates made special efforts to win over this influential group, and the role of Hispanics in closely contested battleground states such as Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico—all won by Obama—demonstrate their rising importance. After the 2012 election, the Republican Party leadership wanted to improve the Party’s standing with Hispanic voters, but in 2016 Donald Trump made little attempt to appeal to them. With the notable exception of Florida, he lost the states in which large numbers of Hispanic voters live. Voting has also been relatively low among Asian Americans; about 49 percent reported voting in 2016, very similar to turnout for Hispanics. Like other groups, voting turnout has increased in recent
- 860. elections, as have Asian American contributions to candidates and parties. Asian Americans are now the fastest growing racial group in the country, 33 34 and while they make up only about 6 percent of the United States population, their votes are becoming more important to candidates especially in western states where the group tends to be concentrated. The decline of the overall population which is white and the rise of other racial groups will be perhaps the most important trend in the American electorate over the next 50 years. These dramatic and rapid population changes are combining to produce an electorate that is increasingly nonwhite. In the 1996 presidential election, 82.5 percent of all voters were white. That number has decreased in every subsequent presidential election, and by 2016, it was only 70 percent. Demographers and political scientists expect it to keep dropping for the foreseeable future, dramatically altering the national political
- 861. landscape. Age Age is one of the most important variables when explaining why some people vote and others do not. Younger voters go to the polls at much lower rates than older voters. This was true even in the exciting 2008 presidential election when young people played such a visible role in the Obama campaign. Though 2 million more 18- to 24-year- olds voted than in 2004, their voting turnout was still only 48.5 percent (up only 2 percent from the previous presidential election). In comparison, turnout among older voters age 65 to 74 was 70 percent. In the 2016 election, turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was only 35 36 about 39 percent, while among those 65 to 74, it was about 70 percent. The reasons for low turnout among young people are that they tend to be less rooted in communities, less familiar with registration and voting procedures, not in the habit of voting, and have less time away from school and work to vote.
- 862. Gender For many years, women voted and participated in politics at lower rates than men. This gender gap in voting and other forms of political participation disappeared in the United States by the end of the 1980s, and today women actually vote at a higher rate than men (by about 4 percent). This dramatic change over the past two or three decades can probably be traced to the improvement in the educational attainments of women, the entrance of more women into the paid workforce, and the increased focus on socioeconomic issues important to women such as pay equity, sexual harassment, and abortion on the American political agenda. 37 38 MOBILIZING THE YOUTH VOTE College Democrats at Boston University register students to vote in the upcoming national elections, trying to match the high turnout of the youth vote that occurred in 2008 that was so helpful to Democrats. Do low rates of voting participation matter, or are the young already well-represented by elected officials?
- 863. Does It Matter Who Votes? Some observers have argued that it doesn’t matter if many people don’t vote because the preferences of nonvoters, as measured by public opinion polls, aren’t much different from those who do cast a ballot. Others say that few elections would have different outcomes if everyone voted as nonvoters tend to support the winning candidate at the same rate as those who actually voted. We should not be too quick to accept these arguments, just as few now accept the 19th-century view that there was no need for women to vote because their husbands could protect their interests. Even when the expressed preferences of nonvoters on surveys are similar to voters, their objective circumstances, and therefore their need for government services, may differ markedly. It may not just be about the preferences of voters on certain issues, but instead about which issues politicians pay attention to when governing. For example, Hispanics, the young, and those with low incomes might want elected officials to concentrate on issues having to do with the social safety net or other government programs that are of less interest to
- 864. other citizens. There is a growing body of evidence, in fact, that high- and low-income people in the United States have very different preferences about what types of issues elected officials should focus on, and that elected officials are more likely to address problems thought important by higher-income groups. It is also known that government redistribution programs (welfare, for example) in rich democracies are associated with the degree to which low- income people vote, with the United States, where low-income people participate at far lower rates than others, doing the least in this area of 39 40 41 42 government activity when compared with most European democracies.43 The Presidential Campaign Elections are the fundamental connection between voters and
- 865. elected officials in republican government. The types of people who run for office, whether they take clear policy stands that differ from their opponents, and whether the candidates have beliefs that match the average voter all have important effects on the types of policies that are produced. In evaluating how democratic our elections are, we need to examine what kinds of alternatives are put before the voters in campaigns, and the processes that govern the campaign and election. We consider these issues in this section focusing on presidential elections only. Preparing to Run and the Invisible Primary To become president, candidates must first win the nomination of their own party through the state primaries and caucuses which occur between January and June of a presidential election year. Formally, the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees are selected at their national conventions in late August or early September before Outline the process of campaigns for the presidency.10.5 the presidential election in November, though for a variety of
- 866. reasons, in 2016 the parties held their conventions in late July. In both parties, the nomination goes to the winner of a majority of delegates to the national party convention who are chosen in state primaries and caucuses. A primary is simply an election where voters go to the polls and cast their ballot. A nominating caucus is different in that voters attend local meetings which are held all over the state at the same time, with citizens casting their votes in the meeting. primary election Statewide elections in which voters choose delegates to the national party conventions. caucus, nominating The process in some states for selecting delegates to the national party conventions characterized by neighborhood and area-wide meetings of party supporters and activists. For the Democrats, convention delegates are made up of those “pledged” to a candidate via an election outcome in a state primary or caucus, and superdelegates , party luminaries and elected officials who are not formally pledged to any candidate. In 2016 about one- in-five delegates to the Democratic National Convention fell into this
- 867. category, ensuring that any nominee must also have the support of the party establishment. After controversy over the role of superdelegates in Hillary Clinton’s primary victory in 2016, the Democratic Party changed its rules to limit the influence of superdelegates by allowing them only to vote for a candidate at the convention if no candidate wins the nomination based strictly on the support of pledged delegates. Republicans have a few “unpledged” delegates (they are not usually referred to as superdelegates), but they are much less important because there are so few of them. superdelegates Elected officials from all levels of government who are appointed by party committees to be delegates to the national convention of the Democratic Party; not selected in primary elections or caucuses. Who Runs In any given presidential election, only a handful of candidates are serious contenders. So far in American history, candidates have 44 virtually always been middle-aged or elderly white men with extensive formal educations, fairly high incomes, and substantial experience as public figures—usually as government officials (especially
- 868. vice presidents, governors, or senators) or military heroes. The Democrats broke this mold in 2008 when Barack Obama, an African American, won the nomination in a tight race with Hillary Clinton, who herself became the nominee in 2016. Movie stars, media commentators, business executives, and others who want to run for president almost always have to perform important government service before they are seriously considered for the presidency. Ronald Reagan, for example, most of whose career was spent as actor, served as governor of California before being elected president. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in 2016, was a notable exception, having never held prior elective office, been a high ranking military official, or been appointed to political office. No president has ever been elected without any of these prior positions. In fact, this may have been part of Trump’s appeal. Most of his serious opponents for the nomination were all elected officials and many were seen as too tied into the political establishment. Ted Cruz, the least establishment of all Republicans, was the last to end his candidacy, while well- known elected officials, such as Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio had trouble generating much support. The single best stepping-stone to becoming president has been the
- 869. vice presidency, which is usually filled by former senators or governors. Since 1900, five of the twenty presidents have succeeded from the vice presidency after the president’s death or resignation, 45 and two others, Nixon and Bush (the elder), were former vice presidents elected in their own right. Getting Started A person who wants to run for president usually begins at least two or three years before the election by testing the waters, asking friends and financial backers if they will support a run, and testing their national name recognition and popularity through national surveys. The potential candidate will then put together an exploratory committee to round up endorsements, advisers and consultants, and financial contributions. At this stage, if all goes well, the presidential aspirant will begin to assemble a larger group of advisers, formulate strategy, setup campaign websites, recruit campaign workers, put together organizations in key states, and officially announce his or her candidacy. Fund-raising at this stage is crucial because it finances advertising and pays for campaign workers across the country. Raising serious money from donors big and small—the latter,
- 870. primarily through the Internet—is a clear sign to members of the party, interest and advocacy groups, and the news media that a candidate ought to be taken seriously. If a candidate can’t raise money, she or he is not taken seriously and cannot appeal to big money donors. And, with little money in the bank, the candidate cannot pay for advertising or other campaign expenditures, making failure in the first primaries and caucuses inevitable. Securing support from party elites and turning that support into financial backing is now so important to serious candidates that it is commonly called the invisible primary . Once again, the 2016 Republican primary process was a notable exception. 46 47 Part of the reason Trump’s nomination shocked the political world was because he did virtually none of these things; party leaders actively campaigned against him, and he raised very little money compared to most other candidates. Whether the road to his win was an aberration
- 871. of the start of a new trend is difficult to say. invisible primary The process in which party elites and influential donors throw their support behind a candidate before any votes have been cast, giving that candidate a financial and organizational advantage during the state primaries and caucuses. Hillary Clinton took a more traditional path to the nomination, raising about $100 million by the end of 2015 despite the widespread perception that she would be the nominee and thus not need the money to fend off her only rival, Senator Bernie Sanders. However, Sanders was a stronger candidate than many expected, and Clinton ended up spending almost $300 million on the primary, while Sanders himself raised about $215 million, mostly from small donors. Having sufficient funds is seen as a necessary condition to be a successful candidate, but money alone cannot rescue a struggling candidate. Jeb Bush raised $100 million in the first six months of 2015, but still did 48 poorly in the primaries. Bush suspended his run for the presidency after his disappointing finish in South Carolina (in February
- 872. 2016). Candidates who were not able to raise much money, including Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Lindsey Graham, were forced to dropout even before the first primary votes were cast. According to most estimates, the candidates, the parties, and PACs combined to spend almost $1 billion per nominee during the primary and general election campaigns in 2016. RALLYING support Donald Trump signs one of his trademark red hats for a supporter at a campaign rally during the Republican presidential primary. 48 What does Trump’s victory say about the importance of raising money and winning the support of party elites? Another important early decision involves how much time and energy to invest in each of the state primaries and caucuses. Candidates expect to do better in certain states because they are from the state or a neighboring one, or the primary voters in the state match the candidate’s views on important issues. But, each state entry takes a lot of money, energy, and organization, and any loss is damaging. When a candidate loses in a state, voters and the media may
- 873. stop taking them seriously, leading to fewer donations and less money. Bernie Sanders, who challenged Hillary Clinton from the left in the 2016 Democratic primary, expected to do well in New Hampshire because he was a well-known senator from neighboring Vermont. To win the nomination however, candidates must string together a few primary and caucus victories early in the calendar. Trump’s campaign seemed to be in trouble in late March after losing to Ted Cruz in Utah, Wisconsin, and Colorado. A surprisingly strong showing by Trump in consecutive states in the northeast, then in Indiana in early April effectively ended Cruz’s campaign, ensuring Trump would be the nominee. The Presidential Primary System Before the 1970s, the conventions were much more important, with candidates appealing to the party elite for support, often after back- room dealing. During the conventions, it could take numerous votes for the assembled delegates to agree on a candidate. Today, because
- 874. the primary and caucus system ties delegates to specific candidates, the focus is on convincing voters in different states to rack up enough delegates to secure the nomination. The convention is little more than a public party and advertisement for the candidate, staged for the national television audience. It is especially important for a candidate to establish momentum by winning early primaries and caucuses. Early winners get press attention, financial contributions, and better standings in the polls as voters and contributors decide they are viable candidates and must have some merit if people in other states have supported them. All these factors—attention from the media, money, and increased popular support—help the candidates who win early contests go on to win more and more states. By tradition, Iowa holds the first caucus in early January, and New Hampshire holds the first primary shortly thereafter. Incumbent Presidents and the Primary System We have been focusing on how outsiders and political challengers try to win party presidential nominations. Things are very different for incumbent presidents seeking reelection, like George W. Bush in 2004
- 875. or Barack Obama in 2012. Incumbents must also enter and win primaries and caucuses, but they have the machinery of government working for them and, if times are reasonably good, a unified party 49 behind them. They also have an easier time getting campaign contributions, especially during the primaries. As a result, when incumbent presidents only occasionally meet serious competition. They campaign on the job, taking credit for policy successes while discounting or blaming others, such as Congress, for failures. Winning renomination as an incumbent president is usually easy, except in cases of disaster such as the 1968 Vietnam War debacle for Lyndon Johnson. When no incumbent is running, the primary race tends to be much more unpredictable. Problems with the Primary System Because the states and the parties—not Congress or the president— control the nominating process, the system is disorganized, even chaotic, and changes from one election to the next. Most states have primaries or caucuses for both parties on the same day but others hold them on separate dates for each party. The first primaries and
- 876. caucuses receive the most attention, and because a candidate may already have the nomination wrapped up late in the primary calendar, an increasing number of states have moved their election date forward. As a result, the primary and caucus season started to get “front-loaded” in 2004, then accelerated in 2008 when it became a stampede, with states leap-frogging over the others to position themselves earlier in the calendar. The result in 2008 was that 20 states—including big ones such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri, and California—held their primaries on February 5, only a little more than a month after the first caucus in Iowa on January 3. Perhaps ironically, the 2008 Clinton–Obama race was so close that states with late primaries, such as North Carolina and Indiana, became very important in 2008 because neither candidate had the race locked up. CLINTON AND SANDERS DEBATE DURING THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders engaged in a surprisingly close race during the 2016 Democratic Primary. Clinton was the favorite going into the contest, won the invisible primary with the
- 877. support of the Democratic Party establishment, and had a significant financial advantage. Despite these advantages, Sanders’ message of an unfair financial system and Clinton’s ties to big banks resonated with Democratic voters. Sanders eventually conceded to Clinton and endorsed her at the Democratic Convention, but many Sanders supporters felt the contest was rigged by the Democratic Party, in favor of Clinton. Is the primary process fair to outsider candidates with little party support, such as Bernie Sanders? Front-loading is a big problem for candidates. It tends to favor early front-runners or those with lots of money because it requires each candidate campaign in multiple states at once, rather than moving from state to state with the primary calendar. Lesser known candidates who may do well given a little time never have a chance to build momentum, raise money, or broaden their appeal. Both parties passed rules after 2008 to slow or reverse the trend toward front- loading but states still have incentives to vote earlier. Florida, Michigan, and Arizona Republicans bucked party rules to hold their binding primaries in January and February during the 2012 nomination
- 878. season even though doing so cost them one-half of their delegates to the party convention. A second issue with the primary system has to do with the types of voters who participate and as a consequence, who the candidates appeal to during the campaign. Though presidential candidates must appeal to the average voter during the general election, this is not the case during a primary. The types of voters who participate in primary elections, months before the general election, tend to be more extreme and more partisan. This leads candidates to become more ideological and less moderate in order to win the primary. During the general election, the candidate will try to move back to the center in order to appeal to a larger cross-section of voters. However, Donald Trump was an exception to this rule, as he made little effort to move back to the center. The substantial increase in the amount of money spent on presidential campaigns is also helping promote extreme candidates. Even candidates not taken seriously by the media or by important interest groups such as the business community can stay in the race long enough to attract attention to their ideas if they are supported
- 879. by a group or even a single individual with lots of money. That happened in the 2012 Republican race when Newt Gingrich was supported by the super PAC “Winning Our Future,” largely funded by Las Vegas gambling and hotel magnate Sheldon Adelson. Though he had only a handful of delegates and no chance of winning the Republican nomination, his rich backer allowed Gingrich to stay in the nomination race until late April. This problem has become more pronounced; an investigation by the New York Times found that by the end of 2015, only 158 wealth families contributed $176 million to presidential candidates, or about half of all donations received. Simply by convincing one wealthy person to support them, an unpopular candidate can stay in the race longer and shape the policy debate. Even candidates like Ted Cruz, who had widespread support in the Republican primary, received tens of millions of dollars from just a few donors. Nomination Politics and Democracy 50 What does all this have to do with democratic control of government? Several things. On the one hand, the presidential nomination
- 880. process encourages candidates to take stands with wide popular appeal, much as electoral competition theories dictate. On the other hand, as the sharp differences between Republican and Democratic convention delegates suggest (see Table 9.3 ), Republican and Democratic nominees tend to differ in certain systematic ways, consistent with the responsible party theory. Party platforms—the parties’ official statements of their stand on issues—tend to include appeals to average voters but also distinctive appeals to each party’s base constituencies. Both these tendencies are good for democracy. However, the crucial role of party activists and big money donors in selecting candidates means that nominees and their policy stands are chosen partly to appeal to these elites rather than to ordinary voters. The General Election Campaign The general election campaign pitting the candidates of the two major parties against one another, with an occasional third party thrown into the mix, is a very different sort of contest than the run for party nomination. It requires different things from the candidates, campaign organizations, and associated interest and advocacy groups and has an entirely different tone and set of rules, both formal and informal. The general election campaign season, much like the nomination
- 881. campaign season, has also gotten much longer. For a discussion of the 2016 presidential campaign and election, please refer to the chapter-opening story. RALLYING SUPPORT IN BATTLEGROUND STATES As a candidate, Donald Trump campaigned extensively in Pennsylvania. Here, a supporter attends a rally in Hershey a month before the Election Day. Hillary Clinton was criticized by some after the election for not devoting enough resources to the state. Actuating the Campaign In the not-too-distant past, the candidates took a break over the summer and began to campaign again in earnest after the conventions around Labor Day. Today, however, the presidential nominees for both parties begin to reposition their campaigns by mid- spring. The steps a candidate must take to run in the general election include setting up a campaign organization in each state, sending aides to coordinate backers and local party leaders, and continuing the money-raising effort. In 2012, major advertising campaigns by the Obama and Romney camps were well underway in important swing states by late May, months before either was confirmed as the
- 882. official nominee of his respective party. The same was true in 2016, and each campaign held their convention nearly a month earlier than usual. Once the post-convention autumn campaign begins, the nominees make speeches in six or seven media markets each week, with the pace intensifying as the November election draws closer, concentrating on so-called battleground states , where the contest between the presidential candidates is deemed to be very close and could go either way. In presidential elections, most states find themselves solidly in the Democratic or Republican columns, and little campaigning takes place in them. California is safely Democratic in presidential elections, for example, so Republican presidential candidates don’t spend much time or money there. Democratic candidates tend to ignore places that are reliably Republican, such as Texas. In the last few elections, battleground states have included North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Consider that in a recent presidential election, 88 percent of media ad buys in the last month of the presidential campaign were concentrated in only 10 states. If competition drives up voter turnout, as political scientists suggest, then an important reason for low turnout
- 883. in the United States may be that most Americans do not live in a state where presidential elections are hotly contested. 51 battleground states Those states which are highly competitive in the presidential general election. THE PUBLIC FACE OF PARTY CONVENTIONS The impression conveyed by political conventions can have an important impact on elections. The apparent unhappiness of many anti–Vietnam War delegates with their party’s selection at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago severely damaged the campaign of nominee Hubert Humphrey. In contrast, the 1984 Republican convention that selected Ronald Reagan as its nominee more nearly resembled a coronation and gave Reagan and the GOP a fast start in the fall campaign. Is the nominating and convention process still necessary? Might there be an easier or more democratic way to select each party’s presidential candidate?
- 884. Besides speeches, the campaigns invest heavily in television advertising. Much of the advertising consists of “attack” ads, used to hurt the other candidate. In 2016, Clinton ran ads accusing Trump of being unfit for office, while Trump hammered Clinton on issues of corruption and scandal. Political consultants use voter focus groups to identify hot-button emotional appeals. Negative advertising, whether print, on television, or on the Internet, has been heavily criticized as simplistic and misleading, but it has often proved effective and is difficult to control or counteract. (Some scholars even argue that such ads increase voter interest and provide needed information.) Each campaign uses micro-targeting techniques to identify and communicate with base supporters and persuadable voters who might be convinced. Sophisticated software allows campaign organizations to combine surveys, census tract data, and materials from marketing 52 research firms to tailor messages to particular groups. They deliver these messages by mail, through door-to-door canvassing, e- mail, and social-networking tools. Republican messages are directed,
- 885. for example, not only to well-off people but more specifically to those who subscribe to Golf Weekly and shop at Saks Fifth Avenue. Democratic messages, using the same micro-targeting, might be directed to members of teachers unions and contributors to the American Civil Liberties Union. Recent research in political science has cast doubt on whether micro-targeting is very effective, but campaigns see it as an important part of their arsenal. In all of these activities, presidential candidates, with help from hired pollsters and campaign consultants, coordinate campaign spending and activities. The national party organizations are there to help, running parallel advertising campaigns supporting their candidate and attacking the opponent, channeling money to state and local party organizations, and getting potential supporters registered and to the polls. Meanwhile, interest groups and advocacy organizations run their own ad campaigns and get-out-the-vote efforts. Liberal advocacy organizations such as MoveOn.org, for example, run ads in support of the Democratic presidential candidate (and House and Senate Democratic candidates), raise money, and work on turning out Democrats, while conservative Christian groups and business- oriented organizations work to help the Republican side.
- 886. Informing Voters 53 54 Presidential campaigns are important because they inform voters. Most of the time, voters do not pay close attention to the issues, or the past performance of an elected official or a party, but campaigns serve to focus voters’ attention. The campaigns serve two primary purposes: activating party loyalists and persuading undecided voters. Both of these are accomplished through the information provided to voters over the course of the election. Among other things, voters get information on the candidates’ stands on the issues, their past mistakes or successes, and their personal characteristics. Candidates on the Issues Some of the information voters get concerns issues. Consistent with the electoral competition theory, both the Republican and the Democratic candidates typically try to appeal to the average voter by taking similar, popular stands on a range of policies, whether it be support for federal student loan programs or proposals to create more
- 887. jobs. In recent elections, however, intensification of partisanship has moved electoral campaigns in a more responsible party direction, where the parties take clear, distinct stands on the issues. In 2016, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took decidedly different stands on major issues, especially on the economy and budget, international affairs, and health care reform. On these issues, the Democratic candidate tends to take a more liberal (on both economic and social dimensions) stand than the Republican, just as Democratic Party identifiers, activists, money givers, and convention delegates tend to be more liberal than their Republican counterparts. Past Performance of Candidates Often, candidates focus on past performance in their campaigns consistent with the retrospective voting model. The challenger blames the incumbent for wars, recessions, and other calamities while the incumbent brags about their achievements. Both campaigns attempt to provide their own answer to the question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” When these issues become the overriding theme in a campaign, the result is a “retrospective,” “reward– punish” type of election. Democrat Franklin Roosevelt won a landslide
- 888. victory in 1932, for example, because of popular discontent with government performance under Herbert Hoover in the face of the Great Depression; Republican Ronald Reagan capitalized on economic and foreign policy troubles under Jimmy Carter to win in 1980. The state of the economy has been repeatedly shown to be one of the best ways to predict incumbent party success in presidential elections. Personal Characteristics of Candidates Voters also get a chance during the general election campaign to learn about the real or alleged personal characteristics of the candidates. Even when the candidates are talking about something else, they give an impression of competence, and likeability. Mitt Romney, for example, often seemed like he didn’t understand the common voter, which may have hurt him in the election, while Hillary Clinton was perceived as too cozy with Wall Street and the financial industry. On the other hand, Donald Trump did not seem to care about his perceived like-ability, making controversial comments about women and minority groups during the campaign. He was also, at times, rude to Clinton during the presidential debates. His tell-
- 889. it-like-it- is attitude may have actually generated more support for him among some voter groups. Still another dimension of candidates’ personalities is a candidate’s presumed strength or weakness, which is especially important to voters when considering how the candidates will deal with foreign governments and enemies. George W. Bush was perceived as being better able to deal with terrorism compared to his opponent John Kerry in 2004, whom the Bush campaign sought to portray as weak on terrorism. The Packaging of Candidates The sparse and ambiguous treatment of policy issues in campaigns, as well as the emphasis on past performance and personal competence, fits better with ideas about electoral reward and punishment than with the responsible parties or issue-oriented electoral competition models of democratic elections. Voters can be fooled, however, by dirty tricks or slick advertising that sells presidential candidates’ personalities and tears down the opponent through attack ads. Moreover, the focus on personal imagery may distract attention from substantive policy debates. If candidates who favor unpopular policies are elected on the basis of attractive personal
- 890. images, democratic control of policymaking is weakened. Money in General Elections Money plays a crucial role in American general election campaigns and elections, especially presidential elections. Not surprisingly, parties and candidates spend much of their time and effort raising money for campaigns. The role of money has only increased in recent years as a result of some important Supreme Court decisions, especially the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) ruling. Presidential campaigns cost a great deal of money, although the system is so complex that even close observers can make only educated guesses about the total. We have good data on money coming from certain sources but not from others. For example, we know that federal candidates at all levels (president, Senate, and House of Representatives) spent $6 billion during the 2011– 2012 cycle and about $6.5 billion during the 2015–2016 election, but we are less sure about a wide range of other expenditures on their behalf by advocacy groups. What we do know is that, considering only monies officially reported (so-called hard money), the total that is raised and spent from one presidential election cycle to the next keeps
- 891. increasing and shows no signs of slowing down (see Figure 10.6 ). 55 FIGURE 10.6 THE GROWTH IN HARD MONEY SPENDING IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS) Spending by candidates, party, and independent committees as reported to the Federal Election Commission. This bar chart communicates both the dollar amount spent in each year since 1976 and the accelerating rate at which spending is increasing over time. NOTE: All numbers are based on summary reports filed with the FEC. SOURCE: Data for 1976–2004 from “Total Spending by Presidential Candidates,” Center for Responsive Politics; data for 2008–2012 from “Fundraising and Spending in U.S. Presidential Elections from 1976 to 2016,” Statista. “Hard” and “Soft” Money Hard money refers to contributions made directly to the candidates and party committees that fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Election Commission (the FEC). The rules followed by the FEC are the result of two major laws—the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and its later amendments passed during the 1970s, and
- 892. the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), also called the McCain–Feingold Act after its two primary sponsors in the Senate. The implementation of both laws is governed by Supreme Court rulings and administrative rules implemented by the FEC, in its role as the bureaucratic agency in charge of monitoring elections. Hard money is more difficult to raise because of regulations and limits on the sizes of donations, but it can be used for most campaign activities and can advocate for or against a certain candidate. Soft money is money that is not as tightly regulated by the FEC because it is donated to state or local parties or candidates, rather than to a federal candidate or party. Soft money was supposed to be used only for “party-building” activities like voter drives, and the money was not allowed to be used to advocate for specific candidates. However, soft money was often used to run “issue” ads, criticizing candidates for positions taken, without actually advocating for their defeat. Increasing regulation of soft money was the major purpose of the 2002 McCain-Feingold law after both parties raised more than $500 million in soft money during the 2002 election cycle.
- 893. The largest single source of hard money funding for presidential campaigns is from individual contributors, ranging from those who made small contributions to the candidates in response to an e- mail or letter solicitation or a call from a party worker, to wealthier individuals who gave the maximum amount allowed in 2016 of $2,700 to a single candidate and $33,400 to a national party committee per year. (See Table 10.1 for FEC rules on contributions limits for the 2015– 2016 election cycle.) Before passage of FECA, individuals could make contributions of unlimited size, and candidates and the parties depended on a handful of very rich individuals to fund their operations. After limits were placed on the size of allowable contributions, both parties invented a variety of ways to attract small contributions from hundreds of thousands of people, beginning with targeted mail and telephone solicitations. The rise of Internet fund-raising has made the campaigns much more reliant on small donations from individual contributors, but has also allowed the candidates to raise much more money because of the sheer number of individuals who contribute. Indeed, Barack Obama raised approximately $233 million from
- 894. small contributors in 2012, while Mitt Romney raised about $80 million. TABLE 10.1 HARD MONEY CONTRIBUTION LIMITS, 2015–2016 CONTRIBUTION LIMITS FOR 2015–2016 FEDERAL ELECTIONS RECIPIENTS DONORS Candidate Committee PAC (SSF and Nonconnected) State/District/Local Party Committee National Party Committee Additional National Party
- 895. Committee Accounts Individual $2,700 per election $5,000 per year $10,000 per year (combined) $33,400 per year $100,200 per account, per year Candidate Committee $2,000 per election $5,000 per year Unlimited Transfers Unlimited Transfers
- 896. PAC- Multicandidate $5,000 per election $5,000 per year $5,000 per year (combined) $15,000 per year $45,000 per account, per year PAC- Nonmulticandidate $2,700 per election $5,000 per year $10,000 per year (combined)
- 897. $33,400 per year $100,200 per account, SOURCE: Federal Election Commission, “Contribution Limits for 2015–2016 Federal Elections.” Self-Funding Candidates seeking a party’s nomination will sometimes contribute or lend money to their own campaigns; both John McCain and Hillary Clinton did this during the primaries in 2007 and 2008, while Donald Trump gave some of his own money to his primary campaign in 2016, but mostly relied on the unprecedented media attention he received. Once each party chooses its nominee for the presidency, the candidates have no need to use their personal resources because of money coming in from other sources. Political Action Committees (PACS) PACs are entities created by interest groups—whether business firms, unions, membership organizations, or liberal and conservative advocacy groups—to collect money from many different people
- 898. (often called “bundling”) and make contributions to candidates in federal elections (i.e., to candidates for the presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate). In 2016, PACs raised about $2.2 billion to contribute to presidential and congressional candidates, party account, per year State/District/Local Party Committee $5,000 per election $5,000 per year Unlimited Unlimited National Party Committee $5,000 per election $5,000 per year Unlimited Unlimited committees, and their own electioneering activities (television,
- 899. radio, and Internet advertising on the issues or candidates). Political Parties The political parties also play an important role in helping the party’s presidential nominee. Though campaign finance laws limit the amount of money that parties can give to the candidate’s official campaign committee, they are allowed to spend a regulated amount on candidate services such as polling and advertising for get-out- the-vote efforts. More importantly, as described later, parties can also run very large and mostly unregulated “independent” campaigns on behalf of candidates. For these various campaign activities, the Republican National Committee raised more than $343 million in 2015– 2016, while the Democratic National Committee raised a little more than $372 million. Outside Groups Ironically, though the McCain-Feingold bill successfully reduced the amount of soft money coming into campaigns, other types of groups were formed to fill the soft money gap. Advocacy and advertising by corporations, unions, and rich individuals is perhaps more important now than hard money donations to campaigns.
- 900. 527 Groups 56 57 So named because of where they are defined in the Tax Code, 527s are entities that can use unregulated money to talk about issues, mobilize voters, and praise or criticize candidates. There are no limits on contributions to them, nor are 527s limited in what they can spend. Many of these groups devoted to liberal or conservative causes and candidates sprouted up after passage of McCain–Feingold and played a very large role in the 2004 presidential election—Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (anti-Kerry) and MoveOn.org (anti-Bush) were the most prominent. These groups sometimes depend on very large contributions from a handful of rich individuals; George Soros contributed more than $15 million to anti-Bush 527s in 2004, while Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens gave $4.6 million to anti-Kerry groups. In recent years, 527 groups have spent more of their money at the state and local level rather than the federal level. 501 Groups Although traditional 527s are still around, they have lost favor because
- 901. of disclosure requirements. 527s are required to report their total receipts and expenditures to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and report the identity of their contributors and how much they gave. 501 groups are classified as tax-exempt organizations by the IRS because their main purpose is to encourage “civic engagement.” They must also report receipts and expenditures to the IRS, but less frequently than 527s, and most importantly, they are not required to report the identities of their contributors even though, similar to 527 groups, there are no limits on how much money they can collect or spend. Not surprisingly, 501s have come to play a bigger role in the campaign finance system. Super PACs These are nonprofit entities, usually organized as 527 organizations, that can accept unlimited amounts in donations from corporations, unions, groups, and individuals. They can use these monies to advocate issues and for and against candidates for public office, though (unlike PACs) they cannot give money directly to candidates. They must issue periodic reports to the Federal Election
- 902. Commission and identify their donors, though these donors may be 501 organizations that do not report their donors. Super PACs played a major role in the 2015–2016 election cycle. They have become the favored vehicles of very rich individuals who are not worried about their identities being known. Most famously, in 2012, Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s former chief strategist, formed a super PAC called “American Crossroads” which spent nearly $105 million dollars opposing Democratic candidates. In 2016, “Priorities USA Action” as the biggest Super PAC, spending more than $133 million to support Hillary Clinton. GETTING “SWIFT BOATED” In the 2004 presidential campaign, 527 advocacy organizations became very important, mostly by running attack ads. One of the most effective was the Swift Boat group, which attacked Democratic candidate John Kerry’s war record, calling his wartime awards and citations “dishonest and dishonorable.” Here, one of the cofounders of the group signs autographs at a “John Kerry Lied” rally in 2004. By law, such 527 groups are not allowed specifically to ask voters to vote for a particular candidate or to not vote for a particular candidate,
- 903. though they can praise or criticize them. Is it truly possible or even reasonable for an organization to promote certain issues while not endorsing a candidate, or to praise or criticize a candidate without the same effect? The Citizens United Decision The most important recent development in campaign finance law has been the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). The Court ruled that limits on spending for corporations and unions in favor of candidate advocacy or other election activities are unconstitutional. The Court has generally ruled that campaign giving is a form of free speech, and in Citizens United, the Court went a step further, saying that corporations, unions, and other groups also have rights to engage in issue and candidate advocacy as part of their free speech rights. These organizations are still not allowed to coordinate with candidates or campaigns, nor are they allowed to directly give money to campaigns, but as was seen in 2016, these distinctions are almost irrelevant. Because there are no limits on corporate or union giving, and because there are no limits on how much money 527 organizations organized as super PACs can
- 904. collect and spend, the Citizens United decision created a system where enormous amounts of money flowed to super PACs for independent spending. This means that corporations and unions likely will play a much bigger role than in the past in financing independent, parallel campaigns, from federal elections to local races. STEPHEN COLBERT MOCKS THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE SYSTEM The comedian Stephen Colbert, seen here performing at a rally in Washington D.C., created his own Super PAC in 2012 to expose the silliness of the campaign finance system. His Super PAC and subsequent shell corporation (called the “Colbert Super PAC SHH Institute”), allowed him to collect over a million dollars in anonymous donations which he spent on comedic television advertisements in Iowa. His purpose was serious however, and Colbert won a prestigious Peabody Award for demonstrating to the American public the ineffectiveness of campaign finance law. What changes, if any, should be made to the modern campaign finance system? Public Funding Since 1971, the presidential candidates have had the option of
- 905. accepting campaign money from the federal treasury, paid for by taxpayers through a $3 donation on their tax return. In 2004, the Kerry and Bush campaigns each received $74.4 million in public funds for the general election in the fall and Republican John McCain accepted public funding of roughly $84 million in 2008. By accepting public funds, the candidates agree not to raise or spend any additional money on their own. This was usually a good deal for the presidential nominees however, because the federal matching funds were about the same amount of money as they would have raised anyway without requiring the candidate to spend a lot of time and effort to fund- raise. Dramatically breaking with tradition, Democratic nominee Barack Obama chose in 2008 to reject public funding with its accompanying spending limits, primarily because of his remarkably successful fund- raising operation. He was able to raise so much money from millions of small and medium-sized donations through his online system that he realized he was better off raising his own money and not adhering to the limits the public financing system would place on his
- 906. campaign. In doing so, he went back on a promise to use public funding and limit his spending, saying he needed to do so because of expected attacks from independent conservative advocacy groups and 527 and 501 organizations. In 2012, neither Democrat Barack Obama nor Republican Mitt Romney accepted public funding, effectively killing the system. A similar system is in place for the primary campaign. Similar to the general election system, the federal government would match individual donations until the candidate had raised about $50 million. Things began to change in 2000 when George W. Bush became the first serious candidate to eschew public financing since it was first established in 1976. Since then, virtually none of the leading contenders in either party has accepted public funding with its attendant spending limits. Public financing of presidential nomination campaigns is no longer viable for two reasons. First, the costs of running a credible campaign for the party presidential nomination have gone up much faster than the amount given to the candidates by the government. Second, most candidates do not want to limit their spending as required by the public financing system. It is much easier for campaigns to raise
- 907. money now because of the growth of the Internet and the importance of individual contributions. Though Barack Obama was particularly good at raising money through email and social media in 2008 and 2012, other campaigns have adopted the same tools and strategies. Does Money Talk? Money matters a great deal in the presidential nomination process— aspirants for party nominations who cannot raise sizable funds always drop out of the race—but it is perhaps less important in determining who wins during the post-convention run for the White House. Of course, presidential campaigns are enormously expensive, and candidates do have to allocate resources carefully. Some reports of the Romney campaign in 2012 suggest it did not have enough money, especially during the summer when the Obama campaign began running attack ads that went unanswered in many states. Still, generally both candidates have about the same resources, especially when accounting for the party organizations, money from interest groups, 527s, 501s, super PACS and free publicity from news organizations. Money is likely more important at a later stage however, when elected officials begin making public policy. It is widely believed,
- 908. although difficult to prove, that contributors of money often get something back. After all, if they didn’t see a return on their contribution, why would they continue to donate? The point is not that presidential, House, and Senate candidates take outright bribes in exchange for policy favors. Indeed, exchanges between politicians and money- givers are complex and varied, sometimes yielding little benefit to contributors. Undeniably, however, cozy relationships do tend to develop between politicians and major money-givers. Contributors gain access to, and a friendly hearing from, those whom they help to win office. One of the most important effects of money is not through 58 59 60 the direct influence of policy outcomes, but instead through influence on the policy agenda. Though this influence is indirect rather than direct, it is surely considerable.
- 909. It is clear that money-givers are different from average citizens. They have special interests of their own. As we have indicated, a large amount of campaign money comes from large corporations, investment banking firms, wealthy families, labor unions, professional associations (e.g., doctors, lawyers, or realtors), and issue- oriented groups such as the National Rifle Association, Focus on the Family, and the National Abortion Rights Action League. Surveys show that the individuals who give money tend to have much higher incomes and more conservative views on economic issues than the average American. Even wealthy individuals who contribute to Democrats (such as Silicon Valley billionaires) tend to be liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues such as workers’ rights. Because wealthy donors have easier access to politicians, elected officials might only be getting one side of the story. The result is political inequality. Those who are well organized or have a lot of money to spend on politics have a better chance of influencing policy than ordinary citizens do, and they tend to influence it in directions different from what the general public wants. Citizens seem to recognize this, and surveys show that a large majority of Americans disagree with decisions such as Citizens United. The
- 910. increasing role of money in presidential and congressional nomination and election campaigns is a major problem for democracy in the United States. 61 62 63 Election Outcomes After the parties and candidates have presented their campaigns, the voters decide. Exactly how people make their voting decisions affects how well or how poorly elections contribute to the democratic control of government. How Voters Decide Years of scholarly research have made it clear that feelings about the parties, the candidates, and the issues, as well as voters’ own social characteristics, have substantial effects on how people vote. Yet, despite the intense attention of the campaign, and the money spent, very few voters are truly open to hearing the appeals of both candidates. As mentioned above, the presidential campaign is as much about activating party loyalists as it is about persuading
- 911. voters since most voters are reliable Republicans or Democrats. Social Characteristics An individual’s socioeconomic status, place of residence, religion, ethnic backgrounds, gender, and age are related to how they vote Assess how presidential elections are decided.10.6 64 (see Figure 10.7 ). Minorities, women, lower-income citizens, and residents living in urban areas tend to vote Democratic, while rural, religious, and white voters tend to vote Republican. FIGURE 10.7 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE IN 2016, BY SOCIAL GROUP Racial and ethnic minorities, young people, liberals, people with post- graduate degrees, and women voted strongly for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, while whites, Christians, rural residents, conservatives, older people, and men favored Republican Donald Trump.
- 912. SOURCE: Data for 2016 were collected by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of ABC News, The Associated Press, CBSNews, CNN, Fox News and NBC News. Women have voted more Democratic than men for the last 35 years or so, and most expected this pattern to be especially pronounced in the 2016 presidential elections. An audio recording of lewd comments made by Donald Trump during a 2005 interview, as well as some statements made during the campaign, seemed to indicate this gender gap would be larger than usual. An example of this is shown in the video, where Michelle Obama criticizes Trump’s comments during a campaign speech. However, female support for Clinton was almost exactly the same as it was for Obama in 2012, despite her campaign’s attempt to make it an important issue. Party Loyalties To a great extent, these social patterns of voting work through long- term attachments to the political parties. Though many Americans now self-identify as independent, most still vote consistently Republican or Democratic and party identification remains the single best predictor of how someone will vote. This is especially true in congressional
- 913. elections and in state and local races, where most voters have very little information about the candidates aside from their party label. Party loyalties vary among different groups of the population because of the parties’ differences on economic and social issues. Party 65 identification serves as a useful tool for choosing candidates because of the close linkage between the parties and ideology, with Democrats generally more liberal (including party identifiers, activists, and candidates) and Republicans generally more conservative. In 2016, 89 percent of Democratic identifiers voted for Clinton, and 90 percent of Republican identifiers voted for Trump. Issues Though most voters are party loyalists, a small segment of voters can swing the election based on their view of the important issues. Most often, issue voting has meant retrospective voting (the electoral reward and punishment model), based on the state of the economy and war and peace. In short, voters tend to reward the incumbent party when the economy is going well and when the country is not involved in difficult foreign conflicts.
- 914. In bad economic times, Americans tend to vote the incumbent party out of office, as they did to the Republicans during the Great Depression in 1932. In 2008, the electorate punished Republicans in the midst of the Great Recession when Obama handily beat McCain and the Democrats won big majorities in Congress. In 2012, the economy was recovering and there were no foreign crises, resulting in a win for the incumbent, Barack Obama. In 2016, the economy was better than it had been a few years earlier, but far from robust, suggesting that Democrats would neither be rewarded nor punished for its performance. Foreign policy can be important, especially when the country is involved in wars or other military actions. Traditionally, Republican candidates have been seen as better at conducting foreign policy and projecting American strength. The bloody, expensive, and drawn-out war in Iraq undermined traditional GOP advantages in this area in 2006 and 2008, however, and voters punished Republicans accordingly. In most elections, though, foreign policy concerns take a back seat to domestic ones for most voters. Even in 2008, in the midst of war, economic troubles triggered by the sub-prime mortgage and
- 915. credit crunch disasters trumped foreign policy issues for a majority of voters. The Electoral College When Americans vote for a presidential candidate, they are actually voting for a slate of electors in their state: members of each party who have promised to support their party’s presidential candidate in the Electoral College. (Very rarely have electors reneged on their promises and cast ballots for someone else; there was one so- called “faithless elector” in 2000, and seven faithless electors in 2016, the most ever.) The number of electors within a state is equal to the number of House members plus Senators, so all states have at least three votes in the Electoral College (California, the most populous state, has 55 electoral votes: 53 House districts plus two senators). Nearly all states have winner-take-all systems in which the winner of the popular vote wins the state’s entire allotment of electoral votes; Maine and Nebraska are the two exceptions, and allocate their electoral votes by congressional district. electors
- 916. Representatives who are elected in the states to formally choose the U.S. president. The “college” of electors from the different states never actually meet together; instead, the electors meet in their respective states and send lists of how they voted to Washington, D.C. (see the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution). There are 538 total Electoral College votes (435 members of the House, 100 members of the Senate, and 3 additional votes for Washington D.C.) so the candidate who receives a majority of all the electoral votes in the country, 270, is elected president. Notice however, that when three or more candidates run, it is possible that no one candidate could receive a majority. It is also possible for two candidates to tie at 269 electoral votes each. In either case, the Constitution says the House of Representatives chooses from among the top three candidates, by a majority vote of each state delegation, with each state receiving one vote, though this situation has not occurred since 1824. For a report of election results from 1980 to the present, see Table 10.2 . TABLE 10.2 ELECTION RESULTS, 1980–2016
- 917. Year Candidate Party Percentage of Popular Votes Percentage of Electoral Votes 1980 Ronald Reagan Jimmy Carter John Anderson Republican Democratic Independent 51% 41% 7% 91% 9% 0%
- 918. 1984 Ronald Reagan Walter Mondale Republican Democratic 59% 41% 98% 2% 1988 George H. W. Bush Michael Dukakis Republican Democratic 53% 46%
- 919. 79% 21% 1992 William Clinton George H. W. Bush H. Ross Perot Republican Democratic Independent 43% 37% 19% 69% 31% 0% 1996 William
- 920. Clinton Robert Dole H. Ross Perot Democratic Republican Reform Party 49% 41% 8% 70% 30% 0% 2000 George W. Bush Albert Gore Ralph Nader Republican
- 921. Democratic Green Party 48% 48% 3% 60.5% 49.5% 0% 2004 George W. Bush John Kerry Republican Democratic 51% 48% 53% 47% 2008 Barack
- 922. Obama John McCain Democratic Republican 53% 46% 68% 32% 2012 Barack Obama Mitt Romney Democratic Republican 50% 48% 62% 38%
- 923. 2016 Hillary Clinton Donald Trump Democratic Republican 47.7% 47.5% 33% 57% SOURCES: Data from the Federal Election Commission and Harold Stanley and Richard C. Niemi, Vital Statistics in American Politics 2011–2012 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2012); The New York Times, Presidential Election Results. Most of the time, this peculiar system works about the same way as if Americans chose the presidents by direct popular vote, but it has certain features that are politically consequential. Most importantly, a president can win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College vote. Such a result has occurred five times: in 1876, when Rutherford Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden; in 1888, when
- 924. Benjamin Harrison beat the more popular Grover Cleveland; in 2000, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore; and in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College. In 1824, John Quincy Adams defeated the very popular Andrew Jackson in the House of Representatives after an election when no candidate won a majority of electoral votes. Another problem is that small states have more influence than they otherwise would because they are guaranteed at least three electoral votes. Finally, the winner-take-all system encourages candidates to spend almost all their time and money in the battleground states . Even populous states, like California and New York, are ignored during the general election because the states aren’t competitive. In a popular vote system, the candidates would likely spend more time campaigning for votes all over the country, giving more attention to cities and other areas with large populations. There have been many calls over the years to change the Electoral College system of electing the president. Majorities of
- 925. Americans have told pollsters repeatedly that they want a system based on direct popular vote. But, small states and battleground states are unlikely to support this proposal because of their outsized influence in the Electoral College system. The popular vote system isn’t without its own problems, either. What if three, four, or five candidates run and the plurality winner receives only 30 percent of the vote? Would Americans be comfortable with a president elected by so few people? One way to solve this, as they do in France, among other places, is to have a second-round run- off election between the top two candidates so that the person elected comes to office with majority support. Another idea is to retain the Electoral College but to remove the “winner-take-all” feature. Various methods for apportioning a state’s electoral votes in a way that approximates the division in the popular vote in the state have been suggested. The Constitution leaves it up to the states to choose how they determine the distribution of their Electoral College votes, so states could act on their own, without a constitutional amendment. The problem here is that unless all states 66
- 926. acted at the same time, the first movers would be disadvantaged. If a state were to divide up its electoral votes to approximate the popular vote in the state, it would no longer be such a prize for the candidates compared to those states that were still operating on a “winner- take- all” basis. In this case, a change in the Electoral College would require national action by all the states at the same time, perhaps even through a constitutional amendment. Using the Democracy Standard Voting, Campaigns, and Elections: Do Voting, Campaigns, and Elections Make Government Leaders Listen to the People? Elections and citizen political participation in the United States have been substantially democratized over the years, altering some of the constitutional rules introduced by the framers. For example, the Seventeenth Amendment, adopted in 1913, transformed the Senate into an institution whose members are elected directly by voters rather than by state legislatures. The manner of electing the president is completely different from what the framers thought they had created: an independent body for presidential
- 927. selection. By custom or by law, virtually all electors today are pledged to a particular candidate before the presidential election, so that, for all intents and purposes, the president is directly elected by the people (although disparities between the electoral and popular vote occasionally happen, as in 2000 and 2016). Equally important, the franchise has been so broadened—to include previously excluded racial minorities and women —that today almost all Americans 18 years and older are eligible to vote, something that few of the framers envisioned or would have found conducive to good government. In addition to these institutional transformations, democratizing changes in the prevailing political culture have also been important. The spread of the ideas that political leaders ought to be responsible and responsive to the people, and that political leaders ought to pay attention to what the mass public wanted from them, represents a fundamental change from the prevailing view among the framers. Elections are the most important means by which citizens can exert democratic control over their government. Although a variety of instruments help convey the people’s wishes to officials—public opinion polls, interest groups, and social movements—it is ultimately the fact that officials must face the voters that keeps them in line. In terms of the responsible party idea, the fact that the Republican Party tends to be more conservative than the Democratic Party on a number of economic and social issues provides voters with a measure of democratic control by enabling them to
- 928. detect differences and make choices about the future. Alternatively, through electoral punishment, voters can exercise control by reelecting successful incumbents and throwing failures out of office, thus making incumbents think ahead. Finally, electoral competition forces the parties to compete by nominating centrist candidates and by taking similar issue stands close to what most Americans want. This last force, in fact, may be the chief way in which citizens’ policy preferences affect what their government does. While U.S. elections help make the public’s voice heard, they do not bring about perfect democracy. Far from it. Elections do not lead to a greater degree of democracy for a number of reasons: the low turnouts that characterize American elections at all levels, the educational and income biases in participation rates, and the role of interest groups and well-off contributors in campaign finance. Uneven participation and the influence of money on campaigns undermine political equality by giving some people much more political clout than others. Ever fiercer partisanship, moreover, increasingly is keeping candidates from choosing policies that reflect the wishes of the median voter in the electoral competition model, making this democracy- enhancing electoral mechanism less effective. So, notwithstanding the spread of democracy beyond the imaginings of the framers, those who support the democratic idea think we have some distance yet to travel.
- 929. Chapter 10 Review the Chapter Elections and Democracy In theory, elections are the most important means by which citizens can exert democratic control over their government by forcing elected officials to pay attention to the wishes of voters. Three theoretical models of voting are at play in making elections a potentially democratic instrument of the people: responsible parties/prospective voting; reward and punishment/retrospective voting; and the electoral competition/median voter model. Elections matter not only when there is a clear choice but also when electoral reward or punishment occurs or when electoral competition forces both parties to take similar popular stands. The Unique Nature of American Elections Evaluate three models of how elections can lead to popular control. 10.1 There are more elections here than in other democratic countries. They are on a fixed date and the offices voted on have a fixed term. Elections almost always are of the winner-take-all, first-past-
- 930. the-post variety, encouraging a two-party system. And, elections are administered by state and local governments rather than the national government. Voting in the United States The right to vote, originally quite limited, was expanded in various historical surges to include nearly all adults and to apply to most major offices. The changes came about because of changes in American society and the struggle for democracy waged by various groups of Americans. Who Votes? Distinguish American elections from those in other countries.10.2 Analyze the importance of political participation in elections.10.3 Identify demographic factors that increase the likelihood of voting. 10.4 The higher the income and the higher the education, the more likely a person is to vote. When education and income are accounted for, the
- 931. long-time differentiation between white and black turnout disappears. Women now vote at a slightly higher rate than men. The Presidential Campaign Candidates for the party nomination for president start by testing the waters, raising money, and forming campaign organizations; in a series of state primaries and caucuses, they seek delegates to the national nominating conventions, which generally choose a clear front- runner or the incumbent president. Candidates who cannot raise money or have money raised for them by others do not become serious contenders in the party nomination contests. Money differences between the candidates in the presidential contest in the general election are less important in determining the outcome because of public financing, party spending, interest and advocacy group spending, and intense and costless press coverage of the election. The goal of presidential candidates in the fall campaign is to rally the party base and win over a substantial proportion of independent and Outline the process of campaigns for the presidency.10.5
- 932. moderate voters. Campaign activity and spending focus on battleground states. Election Outcomes Voters’ decisions depend heavily on party loyalties, the personal characteristics of the candidates, and the issues, especially the state of the economy. The president is selected not by direct popular vote but by a majority in the Electoral College vote. Assess how presidential elections are decided.10.6 Learn the Terms ballot fatigue The exhaustion of voter interest and knowledge in elections caused by election frequency and the length and complexity of ballots. battleground state Those states which are highly competitive in the presidential general election. caucus, nominating The process in some states for selecting delegates to the national party conventions characterized by neighborhood and area-wide meetings of party supporters and activists.
- 933. Electoral College Representatives selected in each of the states, their numbers based on each state’s total number of its senators and representatives; a majority of Electoral College votes elects the president. electoral competition voting model A theory of elections in which parties move toward the median voter or the center of the political spectrum in order to capture the most votes. electors Representatives who are elected in the states to formally choose the U.S. president. franchise The legal right to vote; see suffrage. initiative Procedures available in some states for citizens to put proposed laws and constitutional amendments on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. invisible primary The process in which party elites and influential donors throw their support behind a candidate before any votes have been cast, giving that candidate a financial and organizational advantage during the state primaries and caucuses. median voter The voter at the exact middle of the political issue spectrum.
- 934. party convention A gathering of delegates who nominate a party’s presidential candidate. plurality Occurs when a candidate receives more votes than any other candidate in an election but still less than a majority. primary election Statewide elections in which voters choose delegates to the national party conventions. prospective voting model A theory of democratic elections in which voters decide what each party will do if elected and choose the party that best represents their own preferences. referendum Procedures available in some states by which state laws or constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature are submitted to the voters for approval or rejection. responsible party model The notion that a political party will take clear and distinct stands on the issues and enact them as policy once elected to office. retrospective voting model (or electoral reward and punishment model) A theory of democratic elections in which voters look back at the
- 935. performance of a party in power and cast ballots on the basis of how well it did in office. suffrage The legal right to vote; see franchise. superdelegates Elected officials from all levels of government who are appointed by party committees to be delegates to the national convention of the Democratic Party; not selected in primary elections or caucuses. turnout The proportion of either eligible or all voting-age Americans who actually vote in a given election; the two ways of counting turnout yield different results. Part 4 Government and Governing Chapter 11 Congress UNPRECEDENTED VOTER ENTHUSIASM AND RECORD TURNOUT IN THE 2018 MIDTERM ELECTIONS The 2018 midterm elections proved consequential as Democrats took
- 936. control of the House while Republicans expanded their majority in the Senate. In Texas, Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic challenger who hoped to unseat Senate incumbent Ted Cruz, narrowly lost his race, but the closeness of the election results in deep-red Texas is already leading to speculation that O’Rourke may run for president in 2020. What reasons caused the Democratic Party’s success in the 2018 midterm elections? Chapter Outline and Learning Objectives The Struggle for Democracy The 2018 Midterm Elections: Democrats Take Back the House But Lose Ground in the Senate CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF CONGRESS Describe the constitutional provisions that define the Congress. REPRESENTATION AND DEMOCRACY IN CONGRESS Assess how well members of Congress represent their constituents. CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS Describe the process of congressional elections and the impact of incumbency on election outcomes. THE CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATIVE PROCESS Outline the process by which a bill becomes a law.
- 937. VOTING IN CONGRESS Outline the factors that influence roll-call voting in Congress. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH Discuss Congress’s oversight function and the relationship of oversight to party control. 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 As expected, the 2018 midterm elections were largely a referendum on President Trump. Despite low unemployment and no major foreign policy crises, the president’s approval rating hovered in the low-40s, suggesting that many Americans were not happy with the direction of the country nor with President Trump’s actions in office. Democrats sought to capitalize on this dissatisfaction in the congressional elections, and most observers predicted that the Democrats would gain control of the House of Representatives, which has had a Republican majority since 2011. The results of the election were largely positive for Democrats, though not entirely so. The party lost most of the high-profile contests, such as the Senate race in Texas (see the accompanying photo), the Senate and governorship races in
- 938. Florida, the governorship race in Georgia, and four other contested Senate seats. Republicans actually expanded their Senate majority from 51 to 53 seats (at the time of printing), which will make it easier to confirm federal judges and bureaucratic officials. Still, all of these Senate seats were in Republican states. Democrat Jon Tester managed to hold on in Montana, while incumbent Republican Dean Heller, the only Republican representing a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 (Nevada), lost to his Democratic opponent. In Arizona, the Democratic candidate, Kyrsten Sinema, won an open seat that was previously represented by a Republican. On the House side, Democrats made large gains, flipping more than 30 Republican-held seats. While individual House races are not as high-profile as Senate or gubernatorial races, the sheer number of wins by Democrats suggests that voters in many urban and suburban districts are dissatisfied with the policies of the Trump administration. Democrats won some surprising contests as well, flipping New York’s 11th district, which encompasses Staten Island, South Carolina’s 1st district, which includes parts of Charleston and Myrtle Beach, and Oklahoma’s 5th district, which includes Oklahoma City. Each of these districts is urban or suburban, mostly white, and went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016. Nationally, Democratic House candidates won the popular vote by about 7 percent, at the low end of polling—polling having had predicted that Democrats were favored by 8 to 10 percentage points—but right around the margin Democrats needed to take control of the House of Representatives. Many of the winning Democratic candidates reflect the growing diversity of the party. More than 100 women serve in the 116th
- 939. Congress, breaking the previous record by a substantial margin. The first two Muslim women to serve in Congress were elected in Michigan and Minnesota, while the first Native American women were elected in Kansas and New Mexico. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, will be the first woman to represent Tennessee in the Senate. Women also won Senate seats in Nevada and Arizona, though two incumbent Democratic women lost in North Dakota and Missouri. What do the next two years hold? The answer to that question largely depends on the approach President Trump chooses to take with Congress. A party-divided Congress is nothing new for recent presidents. Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama faced at least one chamber controlled by the other party during their presidencies. President Trump might decide to seek compromise with the Democratic House and find areas of common ground on less controversial issues. On the other hand, he might decide to escalate partisan conflict in the hopes that it will energize his base for his 2020 reelection campaign. Democrats in the House, for their part, are unlikely to grant President Trump much deference. They have promised to ramp up investigations of his administration, including seeking his tax returns. The most likely outcome is that both parties dig in for a hard fight for two years, with both seeking to exploit any advantage heading into 2020. It is unlikely any significant policy changes occur during this period of divided government, and the deep ideological and partisan differences between red and blue American are likely to continue. Thinking Critically about this Chapter In this chapter, we turn our attention to the Congress of the United States, examining how Congress works as both a
- 940. representative and governing institution. Applying the Framework In this chapter, you will learn how the way in which Congress works is affected by other government actors and institutions; political linkage level factors such as interest groups, public opinion, the media, and elections; and structural factors, such as constitutional rules and economic and social change. Using the Democracy Standard Using the concept of democracy introduced in Chapter1 , you will be able to evaluate how well Congress acts as a democratic institution. You will see that the story of Congress and democracy is a mixed one: Congress is, at times and under certain circumstances, highly responsive to the American public; at other times and under other circumstances, it is more responsive to special interest groups and large contributors. Constitutional Foundations of Congress The framers of the Constitution recognized the legislature, Congress, as potentially the most dangerous to individual freedom. Yet, they tried to balance their worries of government tyranny with their desire to create a legislature that was both powerful and capable enough to deal with national problems. These multiple and conflicting objectives are reflected in the constitutional design of Congress.
- 941. Enumerated and Implied Powers of Congress According to Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, only Congress has the power to make laws: “All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Some powers, like the ability to declare war and the power to tax, are specifically listed in the Constitution in Article I, Section 8, and are known as enumerated powers . Other parts of Article I, most notably the elastic Describe the constitutional provisions that define the Congress. 11.1 1 clause , (also called the necessary and proper clause) allow Congress to pass other types of legislation “which shall be necessary and proper” to carry out its responsibilities. Through the elastic clause, Congress has additional power to legislate in other areas that are not specifically listed in the Constitution, but are instead implied powers of Congress. The combination of enumerated and implied powers has made Congress the most powerful branch of government
- 942. for most of the country’s history. enumerated powers Powers of the federal government specifically mentioned in the Constitution. elastic clause Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, also called the necessary and proper clause; gives Congress the authority to make whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated responsibilities. implied powers Powers of the federal government not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Constraints on Congress As a result of the framers’ worry about majority tyranny, a number of limitations are placed on congressional power by the Constitution. In Article I, the framers prohibited Congress from passing certain types of laws: bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, the granting of titles of nobility, and the suspension of the right of habeas corpus. Further, in the 1st Congress, additional constraints on congressional action were added in the form of the Bill of Rights. Note that the First Amendment, perhaps the most important constitutional provision protecting
- 943. political liberty, begins with the words “Congress shall make no law …” Perhaps even more important are the ways in which the framers separated lawmaking powers and added “checks and balances” so that “ambition might check ambition” and protect the country from tyranny. Bicameralism Congress is a bicameral body, divided into two chambers, the House and Senate, each with its own principles of representation and constitutional responsibilities. The House, with frequent elections and small districts, is the more representative body, while the Senate, with six year terms and state constituencies, was envisioned by the chambers to be more deliberate, the “cooling saucer” of democracy according to George Washington. It is important to remember that the House and Senate must each pass the same version of a bill for it to become law, obviously making it harder to legislate than in single- chambered parliamentary systems. While we often use the word “Congress” and think of it as a single institution, it is worth remembering that the House and Senate are very different from one another and are “virtually autonomous chambers.” bicameral
- 944. As applied to a legislative body, consisting of two houses or chambers. Presidential Veto Even when the House and Senate are able to agree with each other and pass the same version of a bill, it must still be approved by the president. The veto is the most obvious constitutional check on Congresses’ power to legislate. Though vetoes can be overridden by a two-thirds vote in each chamber, this historically has been quite 2 difficult, making the veto an important weapon against congressional overreach. veto Presidential disapproval of a bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress. The president’s veto can be overridden by a two- thirds vote in each house. Judicial Review Finally, bills passed into law by Congress are subject to judicial review , the process by which the Supreme Court ensures the law does not violate the Constitution. As discussed in greater detail in Chapters2 and 14 , the power of judicial review was established by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803 and gives the Supreme
- 945. Court the ability to invalidate a portion or the entirety of a law. This has proven to be an important limitation on the power of Congress—just recently, the Supreme Court struck down parts of laws having to do with voting rights (the Voting Rights Act, in 2013), gay marriage (the Defense of Marriage Act, in 2013), and health care (the Obamacare decision in 2012 in which the Court ruled Congress could not compel states to expand the federal Medicaid program). judicial review The power of the Supreme Court to declare actions of the other branches and levels of government unconstitutional. GOVERNING IN A SEPARATED SYSTEM President Reagan confers with the powerful Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker in 1983. Presidents and leaders of the House and Senate frequently meet to discuss legislation and hammer out compromises. Basis for Representation in Congress
- 946. During the constitutional convention, one of the most important debates to emerge was over the structure of the legislature. The delegates quickly coalesced around two competing plans. The Virginia Plan, favored by the larger population states, proposed that population be the basis for representation in the new legislature, while the New Jersey Plan adhered more closely to the Articles of Confederation and proposed each state have equal representation. In what came to be known as the Connecticut Compromise , also known as the Great Compromise, the framers decided to create two chambers and apportion the House of Representatives on the basis of population and the Senate on the basis of equal representation for each state. This means small population states like Wyoming have the same number of senators as large population states like California, creating important negative impacts on democracy in the United States. In 2013, about one-fourth of the total population from the smallest states elected 62 senators, while three states with also one-fourth of the U.S. population—California, New York, and Texas—elected only six senators. This disparity is expected to grow as the population urbanizes and moves to more populated states. The terms of office of the members of the House of Representatives were set at two years 3
- 947. 4 while the terms of the members of the Senate were set at six years, with only one-third of the seats up for election in each two-year election cycle. The Constitution also originally called for the election of senators by state legislatures, not by the people. This was changed by the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913. Connecticut Compromise Also called the Great Compromise; the compromise between the New Jersey and Virginia plans formulated by the Connecticut delegates at the Constitutional Convention; called for a lower legislative house based on population size and an upper house based on equal representation of the states. In addition to its general grants of power to Congress, the Constitution assigns particular responsibilities to each of the legislative chambers, as Table 11.1 shows. Most importantly, only the Senate has the power to confirm presidential nominees to bureaucratic agencies and to the federal judiciary. TABLE 11.1 CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE
- 948. Senate House of Representatives Length of term 6 years 2 years Election of members One-third elected in November of even-numbered years Entire membership elected in November of even-numbered years Number of members per state 2 Varies by size of state’s population (minimum of 1 per state) Total membership
- 949. 100 435 (determined by Congress; at present size since 1910) Minimum age for membership 30 years 25 years Unique powers Advice and consent for judicial and upper-level executive branch appointments Origination of revenue bills Trial of impeachment cases Bringing of impeachment charges Advice and consent for treaties Is Congress Still Capable of Solving Big Problems? The framers tried to carefully balance a Congress that could address national problems but would not become tyrannical. But today,
- 950. many wonder whether Congress is powerful enough to address important national problems. The inability to craft long-term and carefully thought out solutions is a function of national trends interacting with the institutional structure of American government. In an application of our pyramid framework (see Figure 11.1 ), we inspect the factors that result in congressional inaction, even as economic conditions seem to demand policy change. The last fifteen years have seen a dramatic reduction in the relative wealth of the middle class and a dramatic increase in income inequality. While no one is completely sure what is causing this shift, a number of causes are possible: the decline of labor unions, the willingness of companies to outsource jobs to other countries, a growth in companies with near- monopolies, and the rapid pace of technological advancement, which allows companies to eliminate manufacturing jobs. FIGURE 11.1 APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK: CONGRESSIONAL GRIDLOCK © Edward S. Greenberg The rise of the Tea Party movement in 2010 and the success of
- 951. the Trump and Sanders campaigns in 2016 can be traced to fears of economic uncertainty among working-class and religious voters, but congressional representatives who identify with the Tea Party movement have made compromises between the Democrats and Republicans even more difficult because of their very conservative ideology. In spite of the dramatically different policy preferences of the wealthy as compared to lower- and middle-class Americans, members of Congress feel obligated to respond to top income earners who make up the party elites and the important donor class. Republican Party moderates, fearing losses in their primary from challengers on the right, seek to curry favor with donors by taking more conservative positions. Democratic members of Congress are beginning to feel the same pressure to conform to more liberal policy positions. The result is policy gridlock. The House, Senate, and president simply cannot agree how to address nationally pressing environmental, economic, or social issues such as immigration. Parliamentary systems, in comparison, do not have the same problems in passing legislation because (1) they are usually unicameral and (2) the executive is a member of the parliament who must also consent to passage of
- 952. bills, rather than a separate institution. As many democratic theorists have suggested, when Congress is unable to act, it loses power to the president. A president who by default is the primary decision maker is not what the framers had in mind when they designed our federal system of government. Representation and Democracy in Congress The job of members of Congress is to represent their constituents in national policy matters. Their views and actions are supposed to reflect what the people want. In theory, if members of Congress step out of line, they will be out of a job. But do members of Congress carry out their representative responsibility in a way that can be considered democratic? To answer this question, we need to think about different concepts of representation. constituent A citizen who lives in the district of an elected official. Two Styles of Representation Assess how well members of Congress represent their
- 953. constituents. 11.2 5 In a letter to his constituents written in 1774, English politician and philosopher Edmund Burke described two principal styles of representation. As a delegate , a representative tries to perfectly mirror the views of his or her constituents. As a trustee , a representative trusts his or her own judgment to do what’s best for constituents, independent of what people might actually want. delegate According to the doctrine articulated by Edmund Burke, an elected representative who acts in perfect accord with the wishes of his or her constituents. trustee An elected representative who believes that his or her own best judgment, rather than instructions from constituents, should be used in making legislative decisions. Burke preferred the trustee approach: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays you, instead of 6
- 954. serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” Campaigning for Congress in Illinois several decades later, Abraham Lincoln argued otherwise: “While acting as [your] representative, I shall be governed by [your] will, on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what [your] will is.” (If only he had had access to public opinion polls!) In practice, most members of Congress exhibit characteristics of both a trustee and delegate, but we can think about how the rules of the House and Senate affect representation styles. Senators with six-year terms face the electorate less often than members of the House, and they represent larger, more diverse constituencies, so they are generally thought of as being more like trustees. As they get closer to the end of their terms and the prospect of facing the voters for reelection, however, senators edge toward the delegate style. Members of the House must run for reelection every two years and tend to be in constant campaign mode, which, along with smaller, less diverse constituencies, pushes them toward the delegate style of representation. THE DELEGATE VERSUS THE TRUSTEE Abraham Lincoln (left) preferred the delegate model of representation by deferring to the opinions of his constituents on important
- 955. matters. Edmund Burke (right) famously articulated the trustee model of representation by saying that politicians are elected to exercise their own judgment and use their own expertise. Is one model of representation superior to another model in democratic societies? 6 7 8 9 Member Demographics Representation also implies that elected officials are similar to their constituents in demographic features. Even the framers worried about whether members of Congress would consist entirely of men from the upper classes, rather than a more diversified group. When representatives reflect the demographic makeup of their constituents, it is called descriptive representation . From this perspective, a perfectly representative legislative body would be similar to the general population in terms of race, sex, ethnicity, occupation, religion,
- 956. age, and other key characteristics. In this sense, the U.S. Congress is highly unrepresentative. descriptive representation Sometimes called statistical representation; the degree to which the composition of a representative body reflects the demographic composition of the population as a whole. Race 10 11 Traditionally in this country, women and minorities have been significantly underrepresented in Congress, particularly in the Senate. As Figure 11.2 shows, despite recent gains, particularly for women, members of these groups serving in Congress are still significantly below their percentage in the population. FIGURE 11.2 WOMEN AND MINORITIES IN THE U.S. CONGRESS Although their numbers in Congress have increased in recent years, women and racial minorities are still substantially under- represented in the current session of the U.S. Congress compared with their proportion in the American population.
- 957. NOTE: Data not adjusted to reflect races undecided as of November 18, 2018. SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of the Census; U.S. Senate; U.S. House of Representatives; Rutgers University, Center for Women and American Politics. Very few African Americans were elected to Congress until the late 1960s. Since 1990, however, there has been significant improvement in the representation of African Americans in the House of Representatives—an increase in membership from 26 to over 50— and now the percentage of African Americans serving is roughly the same as the share of African Americans in the U.S. population overall. Under-representation in the Senate is still an issue, though, as only three African Americans currently serve. In fact, since 1900, only eight African Americans have held U.S. Senate seats, five of them Democrats. While Hispanics have now replaced African Americans as the largest minority group in the population, they are less well represented in Congress than African Americans. Still, the nationally growing Hispanic population has given the Hispanic caucus a greater voice
- 958. in legislative affairs than in the past. Thirty-nine Hispanics served in the House and five in the Senate during the 115th Congress (a record number for both chambers). Representation in Congress of other minority groups is small. Eighteen Americans of Asian descent (a record) and two Native Americans hold seats in Congress.12 caucus, legislative interest or party A regional, ethnic, racial, or economic subgroup within the House or Senate. Also used to name the party in the House and Senate (as in the “Republican Caucus” or the “Democratic Caucus”). Gender The number of women in Congress increased during the 1990s, with a big gain coming in the 1992 elections (often called the “year of the woman”), which sent 48 women to the House and 7 to the Senate. There were a record number of women in the 115th Congress, with 23 in the Senate and 88 in the House. Proportionally, however, female representation in Congress is still quite low, compared either with the percentage of women in the U.S. population at large (slightly more than one-half) or with the percentage of women in national legislative bodies in countries globally. On the latter point, as of late 2015,
- 959. the United States ranked only 72nd on the world list of women in national legislatures. Leadership posts in Congress are overwhelmingly held by men. A few women have gained important party and institutional leadership posts. Most notable among them is Nancy Pelosi (D- CA), who became the first female Speaker of the House in American history after the Democrats won a House majority in 2006. When Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 elections, she 13 lost the speakership but retained her position as Democratic leader. (At the time of publication, Pelosi was expected to become Speaker once again in the 116th Congress.) Unsurprisingly, given the lack of female representation in Congress, women have faced discrimination within the halls of the Capitol. Women were not allowed to use the Senate swimming pool until 2009, and until a remodel in 2013, there was only one small restroom near the Senate floor for the more than 20 female senators . Things are changing, however, and an important symbolic event occurred in 2018 when Senator Tammy
- 960. Duckworth became the first senator to give birth while in office. A subsequent rules change allowing her to bring her baby to the Senate floor was approved by unanimous consent as senators from both cited the realities of modern, working parents. GREATER DIVERSITY IN THE 116th CONGRESS The 2018 election produced many firsts with respect to congressional diversity. More than 100 women were elected, a new record. Many of the newly elected women also broke long-standing racial and religious barriers while attaining their positions. Shown in the photo, clockwise from top left, Sharice Davids, one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, Ayanna Pressley, the first woman of color from Massachusetts elected to Congress, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at 29 years old. Is electing more women to Congress important, or does the gender breakdown of congressional membership not matter for 14
- 961. representational purposes? Sexual Orientation As acceptance of LGBTQ persons has become more common, so too have openly gay members of Congress—another important trend in congressional demographics. In 2012, Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay member of the Senate. Barney Frank (now retired), a Democratic member from Massachusetts, became the first openly gay House member in 1987, but today there are seven openly gay House members, all Democrats. In 2014, there were two openly gay Republican House candidates, but both lost their election campaigns. Income and Occupation Members of Congress are far better educated than the rest of the U.S. population. They also are much wealthier than the general population —three-quarters of senators are millionaires, as are almost one- half of members of the House, though only about 2 percent of the American population earns more than $250,000 in income per year. By occupational background, members lean heavily toward law and business, though many have been career politicians, and nearly
- 962. all held some sort of elective or appointed office prior to their congressional career. Strikingly, about one-quarter of members in 2017 (102 in total) were former congressional staffers. Does it matter that descriptive representation is so poor in Congress and that its members are so demographically unrepresentative of the American people? Some observers of Congress think not. They suggest that the need to face the electorate forces lawmakers to be attentive to all the significant groups in their constituency . A 15 16 representative from a rural district tends to listen to farm constituents, for example, even if that representative is not a farmer. constituency The individuals who live in the district of a legislator. Nevertheless, many Americans who are not well represented— especially women, minorities, and low-income groups—believe that their interests would be heard if their numbers were substantially increased in Congress. Significant evidence supports this view: female
- 963. House members introduce more bills related to women’s and children’s issues than their male colleagues, and female representatives might be more effective overall legislators. The same is true for African American legislators and issues considered important to African Americans. As members of the wealthiest groups of Americans, it seems that senators and representatives don’t have much in common with the daily concerns of middle- or low- income households. The demographic disparity between the American population and the makeup of Congress, then, suggests a violation of the norm of political equality, an important element of democracy. 17 18 19 Representation in the House: Reapportionment and Redistricting As a result of the Great Compromise, members of the House represent relatively small districts of equal size by population within states, while senators represent states with varying population sizes. Unlike the Senate, as people move from one location to another within a state, House districts must occasionally be reapportioned and
- 964. redrawn to ensure equality of size by population in House districts. Reapportionment and redistricting are two of the most controversial aspects of American politics today, and each has an enormous influence on political representation. The Effect of Reapportionment on Representation Because the American population is constantly growing in size and moving around the country, the 435 House representatives must be periodically redistributed among the states. Reapportionment , the technical name for redistributing districts across the states, occurs every 10 years, after each national census, as required by the Constitution, to ensure that each state gets the number of House seats to which it is entitled based on its actual population (see Figure 11.3 for a representation of the states who gained and lost seats in the U.S. House of Representatives based on the last census). Based on the official census, some states keep the same number of seats; others gain or lose them, depending on their relative population gains or losses. The big winner following the 2010 census count was Texas, which gained four additional seats in the House. Florida gained two
- 965. seats, followed by Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington with one additional seat each. The biggest losers were New York and Ohio, which lost two seats each; Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania each lost one seat. These patterns reflect the general trend of the last 50 years of fewer Americans living in the upper Midwest and Northeast and more living in the South and Southwest. Those states that lose representatives have less influence in Congress on issues like securing federal funds for the state. reapportionment The reallocation of House seats among the states, done after each national census, to ensure that seats are held by the states in proportion to the size of their populations. FIGURE 11.3 REAPPORTIONED CONGRESSIONAL SEATS FOLLOWING THE 2010 CENSUS The number of representatives for each state in the House of Representatives is based on the size of its population. Because the relative sizes of state populations change over time while the number of seats in the House is fixed, the number of representatives for each state is recalculated after each census. This process is called reapportionment.
- 966. SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Apportionment Results. Apportionment Population and Number of Representatives, By State, table 1. The Effect of Redistricting on Representation All states, except for those with only a single House member (whose district therefore constitutes the entire state), must redraw their congressional district borderlines after every census. Not only might a state gain or lose population, but population within a state shifts. Because people move, once-equal districts may be equal no longer. Redrawing district lines is known as redistricting . Redistricting is managed by state legislatures in many states, though some states rely on independent commissions. In many cases, when lawsuits over redistricting plans are filed, the court system has a role to play in redistricting. redistricting The redrawing of congressional district lines within a state to ensure roughly equal populations within each district. State legislatures are relatively free to draw district lines however they choose. The major limitations placed on legislatures are that districts
- 967. must be of equal population and they must be contiguous (the borders of the district must be touching). Using sophisticated computer 20 technology, the party that controls the state legislature and governorship tries to draw district borders in a way that will help its candidates win elections. The results are often strange looking districts. Rather than creating compact and coherent districts, neighborhoods, towns, and counties can be pushed together in odd- looking ways in order to take full advantage of the redistricting process. Using redistricting to further partisan goals is known as gerrymandering , after Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who signed a bill in 1811 that created a district that looked like a salamander. It made wonderful raw material for editorial cartoonists (see the accompanying illustration). partisan A committed member of a party; also, seeing issues from the point of view of the interests of a single party. gerrymandering Redrawing electoral district lines in an extreme and unlikely manner to give an advantage to a particular party or candidate.
- 968. 21 Partisan redistricting after the 2010 Census led to four Republican losses in Illinois after a Democratic gerrymander. In Pennsylvania, thirteen of eighteen seats in the House went to Republicans, although Democrats, on a statewide level, won more votes. THE “GERRY-MANDER”: A NEW SPECIES OF MONSTER The Massachusetts district created in 1812 to help the candidate supported by the Governor Elbridge Gerry, and shown here in a political cartoon from the time, was the first well-known gerrymander, but certainly not the last. What negative effects might gerrymandering have on representation? Are there any positive effects of gerrymandering? A legislature usually uses two tactics to pull off an effective gerrymander: “cracking” and “packing.” The first method, cracking, spreads one party’s voters across multiple districts effectively denying them a majority in any single district. The alternative method, packing, puts voters of the rival party into one district which gives the other party a huge margin of support in one district but cuts its chances of winning seats in multiple districts.
- 969. “cracking” and “packing” The act of dividing a district where the opposing party has a large majority, rendering it a minority in both parts of the redrawn districts (cracking), or concentrating all of one party’s voters into a single district to dilute their influence in other districts (packing). Gerrymandering is highly controversial among the public and seems to violate most people’s notions of fairness. Through the redistricting process, politicians are able to virtually ensure that one party wins the seat, which also reduces the number of competitive elections nationwide. As two political scientists put it, “politicians select voters rather than voters electing politicians.” One proposal to stop gerrymandering is to use independent or bipartisan commissions, made up of citizens, rather than politicians, to draw the lines. A number of states have adopted redistricting commissions, including California, Arizona, New Jersey, and Iowa. The idea is that they will draw more fair and competitive districts, rather than simply favoring one party. The evidence is mixed so far on whether independent commissions work. In many states, they have simply not been around long enough to determine their effect. Historically, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to limit flagrant
- 970. redistricting abuses, unless some identifiable group of voters is disadvantaged—for example, a racial or ethnic minority. The Court, along with most politicians, seems to accept the notion that “to the victor belongs the spoils.” Things may be changing as the Federal Courts have recently indicated a willingness to limit the worst excesses of gerrymandering. In 2018, the Supreme Court heard a case involving gerrymandering of state legislative seats in Wisconsin. Political scientists developed a measure of the severity of the gerrymander based on the number of votes wasted for a candidate, with each vote above or below 51 percent considered wasted. When one party draws district lines to “waste” votes of the other party, the gerrymander is more severe. In the Wisconsin case, Democrats won 22 23 24 53 percent of the votes in 2012, but won only 39 percent of the seats. In effect, a Republican gerrymander led to a huge number of wasted Democratic votes. In the Gill v. Whitford case from Wisconsin, the
- 971. Supreme Court ruled the plaintiffs did not have standing and sent the case back to the district court to be re-argued. Tha