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9TH EDITION

The Challenge of Democracy American Government in Global Politics Essentials Edition

KENNETH JANDA Northwestern University

JEFFREY M. BERRY Tufts University

JERRY GOLDMAN Chicago-Kent College of Law

DEBORAH J. SCHILDKRAUT Tufts University

Updated and Abridged by

KEVIN W. HULA Loyola University Maryland

Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

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The Challenge of Democracy: American Government in Global Politics, Essentials Edition, Ninth Edition

Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey M. Berry, Jerry Goldman, Deborah J. Schildkraut, Kevin W. Hula

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Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 16 15 14 13 12

Brief Contents

1 Dilemmas of Democracy 2

2 The Constitution 42

3 Federalism 80

4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media 110

5 Participation and Voting 152

6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections 186

7 Interest Groups 238

8 Congress 266

9 The Presidency 304

10 The Bureaucracy 338

11 The Courts 364

12 Order and Civil Liberties 396

13 Equality and Civil Rights 434

14 Policymaking and the Budget 462

iii Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

Contents

Boxed Features xvii

Preface xix

1 Dilemmas of Democracy 2 1.1 The Globalization of American Government 5

1.2 The Purposes of Government 7

Maintaining Order 8

Providing Public Goods 9

Promoting Equality 9

1.3 A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 11

The Concepts of Freedom, Order, and Equality 12

Two Dilemmas of Government 16

Compared with What? The Importance of Order and

Freedom in Other Nations 16

Ideology and the Scope of Government 19

A Two-Dimensional Classification of Ideologies 23

1.4 The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian

or Pluralist? 25

The Theory of Democratic Government 27

Institutional Models of Democracy 30

1.5 Democracy and Globalization 36

American Democracy: More Pluralist Than Majoritarian 37

Summary 38

Assessing Your Understanding 40

2 The Constitution 42 2.1 The Revolutionary Roots of the Constitution 45

Freedom in Colonial America 45

The Road to Revolution 46

Revolutionary Action 47

The Declaration of Independence 48

v Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

2.2 From Revolution to Confederation 49

The Articles of Confederation 50

Disorder Under the Confederation 51

2.3 From Confederation to Constitution 51

The Virginia Plan 52

The New Jersey Plan 53

The Great Compromise 54

Compromise on the Presidency 55

2.4 The Final Product 56

The Basic Principles 56

The Articles of the Constitution 59

The Framers’ Motives 62

The Slavery Issue 62

2.5 Selling the Constitution 63

The Federalist Papers 64

A Concession: The Bill of Rights 66

Ratification 68

2.6 Constitutional Change 68

The Formal Amendment Process 68

Interpretation by the Courts 70

Political Practice 70

2.7 An Evaluation of the Constitution 72

Freedom, Order, and Equality in the Constitution 72

The Constitution and Models of Democracy 73

Politics of Global Change: A New Birth of Freedom: Exporting

American Constitutionalism 74

Summary 77

Assessing Your Understanding 79

3 Federalism 80 3.1 Theories and Metaphors 83

Dual Federalism 84

Cooperative Federalism 86

3.2 The Dynamics of Federalism 87

National Crises and Demands 88

Judicial Interpretation 90

Grants-in-Aid 93

Professionalization of State Governments 96

vi Contents

3.3 Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism 97

Compared with What? Working for the Public 98

Ideology, Policymaking, and Federalism in Practice 100

3.4 Federalism and Electoral Politics 102

National Capital-State Capital Links 102

Congressional Redistricting 103

3.5 Federalism and the American Intergovernmental System 104

3.6 Federalism and Pluralism 106

Summary 107

Assessing Your Understanding 109

4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media 110 4.1 Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy 113

4.2 Political Socialization 115

4.3 Social Groups and Political Values 116

Education 118

Income 118

Region 120

Ethnicity and Race 120

Religion 122

Gender 123

4.4 From Values to Ideology 123

The Degree of Ideological Thinking in Public Opinion 124

The Quality of Ideological Thinking in Public Opinion 124

Ideological Types in the United States 125

4.5 Forming Political Opinions 128

Political Knowledge 128

Costs, Benefits, and Cues 129

Political Leadership 129

Politics of Global Change: Worrying Less About Climate Change 130

4.6 The Media in America 131

The Internet 132

Private Ownership of the Media 134

Government Regulation of the Media 136

4.7 Reporting and Following the News 138

Covering National Politics 138

Presenting the News 139

Contents vii

Where the Public Gets Its News 140

Media Influence on Knowledge and Opinion 140

Setting the Political Agenda 142

Socializing the Citizenry 143

4.8 Evaluating the Media in Government 144

Is Reporting Biased? 144

Contributions to Democracy 146

Effects on Freedom, Order, and Equality 147

Summary 148

Assessing Your Understanding 150

5 Participation and Voting 152 5.1 Democracy and Political Participation 154

5.2 Unconventional Participation 156

Support for Unconventional Participation 156

The Effectiveness of Unconventional Participation 158

Unconventional Participation in America and the World 159

5.3 Conventional Participation 159

Supportive Behavior 160

Influencing Behavior 160

Conventional Participation in America and the World 163

5.4 Participating Through Voting 164

Expansion of Suffrage 165

Voting on Policies 168

Voting for Candidates 170

5.5 Explaining Political Participation 172

Patterns of Participation over Time 172

The Standard Socioeconomic Explanation 172

Low Voter Turnout in America 174

Compared with What? Voter Turnout in European and

American Elections 176

5.6 Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order 179

Participation and Freedom 179

Participation and Equality 180

Participation and Order 180

5.7 Participation and the Models of Democracy 181

Participation and Majoritarianism 182

Participation and Pluralism 182

viii Contents

Summary 183

Assessing Your Understanding 184

6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections 186 6.1 Political Parties and Their Functions 189

What Is a Political Party? 190

Party Functions 190

6.2 A History of U.S. Party Politics 192

The Emergence of the Party System 192

The Current Party System: Democrats and Republicans 193

6.3 The American Two-Party System 195

Minor Parties in America 195

Why a Two-Party System? 197

The Federal Basis of the Party System 199

Party Identification in America 199

Politics of Global Change: Fewer Citizens Are Partying 203

6.4 Party Ideology and Organization 204

Differences in Party Ideology 204

National Party Organization 206

State and Local Party Organizations 209

Decentralized but Growing Stronger 210

6.5 The Model of Responsible Party Government 210

6.6 Parties and Candidates 211

Nomination for Congress and State Offices 212

Nomination for President 213

6.7 Elections 217

Presidential Elections and the Electoral College 217

Congressional Elections 220

6.8 Campaigns 221

The Political Context 221

Financing 222

Strategies and Tactics 226

6.9 Explaining Voting Choice 228

6.10 Campaigns, Elections, and Parties 231

Parties and the Majoritarian Model 231

Parties and the Pluralist Model 232

Summary 233

Assessing Your Understanding 235

Contents ix

7 Interest Groups 238 7.1 Interest Groups and the American Political Tradition 240

Interest Groups: Good or Evil? 240

The Roles of Interest Groups 241

7.2 How Interest Groups Form 244

Disturbance Theory 244

Interest Group Entrepreneurs 245

Who Is Being Organized? 246

7.3 Interest Group Resources 247

Members 247

Lobbyists 249

Political Action Committees 250

7.4 Lobbying Tactics 252

Direct Lobbying 252

Grassroots Lobbying 254

Information Campaigns 255

Coalition Building 256

7.5 Is the System Biased? 258

Membership Patterns 258

Citizen Groups 258

Compared with What? Pluralism Worldwide 259

Business Mobilization 260

Reform 262

Summary 263

Assessing Your Understanding 264

8 Congress 266 8.1 The Origin and Powers of Congress 268

The Great Compromise 269

Duties of the House and Senate 269

8.2 Electing the Congress 271

The Incumbency Effect 271

2012 Election 275

Whom Do We Elect? 275

8.3 How Issues Get on the Congressional Agenda 277

8.4 Committees and the Lawmaking Process 278

The Division of Labor Among Committees 281

Congressional Expertise and Seniority 283

x Contents

Oversight: Following Through on Legislation 284

Majoritarian and Pluralist Views of Committees 284

8.5 Leaders and Followers in Congress 285

The Leadership Task 286

Rules of Procedure 287

8.6 The Legislative Environment 288

Political Parties 288

The President 289

Constituents 291

Interest Groups 292

8.7 The Dilemma of Representation: Trustees or Delegates? 293

8.8 Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy 295

Parliamentary Government 295

Politics of Global Change: Creating a Legislature 296

Pluralism Versus Majoritarianism in Congress 298

Summary 300

Assessing Your Understanding 302

9 The Presidency 304 9.1 The Constitutional Basis of Presidential Power 307

Initial Conceptions of the Presidency 307

The Powers of the President 308

9.2 The Expansion of Presidential Power 309

Formal Powers 309

The Inherent Powers 310

Congressional Delegation of Power 311

9.3 The Executive Branch Establishment 312

The Executive Office of the President 313

The Vice President 314

The Cabinet 315

9.4 Presidential Leadership 317

Presidential Character 318

The President’s Power to Persuade 320

The President and the Public 321

The Political Context 323

Compared with What? From Berlusconi to Bankruptcy:

The Costs of Failed Leadership 324

Contents xi

9.5 The President as National Leader 328

From Political Values … 328

… to Policy Agenda 329

Chief Lobbyist 330

Party Leader 331

9.6 The President as World Leader 332

Foreign Relations 332

Crisis Management 333

Summary 334

Assessing Your Understanding 336

10 The Bureaucracy 338 10.1 Organization Matters 340

The Growth of the Bureaucratic State 341

Can We Reduce the Size of Government? 343

10.2 Bureaus and Bureaucrats 344

The Organization of Government 344

The Civil Service 346

Presidential Control over the Bureaucracy 346

10.3 Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes 347

Administrative Discretion 348

Rule Making 349

10.4 Administrative Policymaking: Informal Politics 350

The Science of Muddling Through 350

The Culture of Bureaucracy 351

10.5 Problems in Implementing Policy 352

Politics of Global Change: For Whom the Debt Tolls 354

10.6 Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less? 356

Deregulation 356

Competition and Outsourcing 358

Performance Standards 360

Summary 361

Assessing Your Understanding 363

11 The Courts 364 11.1 National Judicial Supremacy 367

Judicial Review of the Other Branches 368

The Exercise of Judicial Review 370

xii Contents

11.2 The Organization of Courts 371

Some Court Fundamentals 371

The U.S. District Courts 374

The U.S. Courts of Appeals 374

11.3 The Supreme Court 376

Access to the Court 378

The Solicitor General 380

Decision Making 380

The Chief Justice 383

11.4 Judicial Recruitment 383

Compared with What? Selecting Judges Around the World 384

The Appointment of Federal Judges 386

Recent Presidents and the Federal Judiciary 387

Appointment to the Supreme Court 387

11.5 The Consequences of Judicial Decisions 389

Supreme Court Rulings: Implementation and Impact 390

Public Opinion and the Supreme Court 390

11.6 The Courts and Models of Democracy 391

Summary 393

Assessing Your Understanding 394

12 Order and Civil Liberties 396 12.1 The Bill of Rights 398

12.2 Freedom of Religion 399

The Establishment Clause 400

The Free-Exercise Clause 402

12.3 Freedom of Expression 405

Freedom of Speech 406

Freedom of the Press 410

The Rights to Assemble Peaceably and to Petition the Government 413

12.4 The Right to Bear Arms 413

12.5 Applying the Bill of Rights to the States 415

The Fourteenth Amendment: Due Process of Law 415

The Fundamental Freedoms 416

Criminal Procedure: The Meaning of Constitutional Guarantees 418

The USA-PATRIOT Act 421

Politics of Global Change: Wiretapping in the Digital Age 422

Detainees and the War on Terrorism 424

Contents xiii

12.6 The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy 425

Controversy: From Privacy to Abortion 425

Personal Autonomy and Sexual Orientation 427

Summary 429

Assessing Your Understanding 432

13 Equality and Civil Rights 434 13.1 Two Conceptions of Equality 436

13.2 The Civil War Amendments 437

Congress and the Supreme Court: Lawmaking Versus

Law Interpreting 438

The Roots of Racial Segregation 439

13.3 The Dismantling of School Segregation 440

13.4 The Civil Rights Movement 443

Civil Disobedience 443

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 444

The Continuing Struggle over Civil Rights 445

13.5 Civil Rights for Other Minorities 446

Native Americans 446

Immigrant Groups 447

Americans with Disabilities 450

13.6 Gender and Equal Rights: The Women’s Movement 451

Political Equality for Women 451

Prohibiting Sex-Based Discrimination 451

Stereotypes Under Scrutiny 452

13.7 Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome? 453

Reverse Discrimination 454

Compared with What? How India Struggles with

Affirmative Action 456

The Politics of Affirmative Action 458

Summary 458

Assessing Your Understanding 460

14 Policymaking and the Budget 462 14.1 Government Purposes and Public Policies 465

Types of Policies 466

A Policymaking Model 467

14.2 Fragmentation, Coordination, and Issue Networks 470

xiv Contents

Multiplicity and Fragmentation 470

The Pursuit of Coordination 471

Government by Policy Area 472

14.3 Economic Policy and the Budget 473

Economic Theory 474

Budgeting for Public Policy 475

The Nature of the Budget 476

Preparing the President’s Budget 476

Politics of Global Change: We Buy More, and We Borrow More 477

Passing the Congressional Budget 478

14.4 Taxing and Spending Decisions 482

Tax Policies 482

Spending Policies 483

Summary 491

Assessing Your Understanding 492

Appendix A-1

The Declaration of Independence A-1

The Constitution of the United States of America A-4

Notes N-1 Index I-1

Contents xv

Boxed Features

Compared with What?

CHAPTER 1 The Importance of Order and Freedom in Other Nations 16

CHAPTER 3 Working for the Public 98 CHAPTER 5 Voter Turnout in European and

American Elections 176

CHAPTER 7 Pluralism Worldwide 259 CHAPTER 9 From Berlusconi to Bankruptcy:

The Costs of Failed Leadership 324

CHAPTER 11 Selecting Judges Around the World 384

CHAPTER 13 How India Struggles with Affirmative Action 456

Politics of Global Change

Chapter 2 A New Birth of Freedom: Exporting

American Constitutionalism 74

Chapter 4 Worrying Less About Climate

Change 130

Chapter 6 Fewer Citizens Are Partying 203

Chapter 8 Creating a Legislature 296

Chapter 10 For Whom the Debt Tolls 354

Chapter 12 Wiretapping in the Digital Age 422

Chapter 14 We Buy More, and We Borrow

More 477

xvii Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

Preface

The Ninth Edition of The Challenge of Democracy, The Essentials, is an abridged and updated version of the Twelfth Edition of The Challenge of Democracy. As always, our goal was to streamline the larger text without diminishing any of the qualities that have made it so successful. As we prepared the Ninth Edition, we had a chance to reflect on these past two turbulent years, and, as we always do, have tried to put recent events and trends of this pe- riod into the larger framework of the book.

More than anything else, politics in the United States during these past two years has focused on the economy. After the United States fell precipitously into a recession during the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency, our government has been consumed with trying to pull the economy out of its lethargy. The economy has improved since it began to decline in 2008, but as we write this edition, it is growing at a modest pace and unem- ployment remains stubbornly high. During the 2012 presidential election, Republican challenger Mitt Romney built his whole cam- paign around trying to convince the American people that Barack Obama was a failure who didn’t really understand how market economies work. Obama, for his part, argued that things were get- ting better and that it was Republican economics that led the country down the wrong path in the first place. Although Obama ultimately won reelection in November 2012, his margin of vic- tory was significantly smaller than in 2008.

Another hotly and bitterly debated issue concerned President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Along party-line votes, Democrats in Congress enacted the law in 2010; Republicans, however, con- tinued to fight to keep the law from being implemented, believing that the program would damage the nation’s health care system. In June 2012, a divided Supreme Court upheld the constitutional- ity of most provisions of the new law.

It’s unlikely that the 2012 presidential election will reduce the hyper partisanship of the past two years. There are many divisions

xix Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

in the United States, not unusual in any country, but some mea- sures (such as voting in Congress) show that polarization here is increasing. More broadly, some divisions are enduring as they involve basic value and not transitory issues.

Change has been the watchword in world politics. Of all the developments of the past two years across the globe, perhaps the most significant is the Arab Spring. Revolutions broke out across the Middle East, and some notorious dictators, such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, were over- thrown. Another story of enormous consequence is the debt crisis in the European Union (EU). Over the years a number of coun- tries, notably Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, borrowed too much money, and when the world fell into recession, could not repay their bondholders. The EU’s stumbling economy directly affects the United States as the EU is the largest trading partner for the United States. If Europeans can’t afford to buy as much in the way of American goods, then jobs are lost here as American companies don’t need to produce as much.

Our emphasis on the importance of these recent events in the United States and throughout the world does not change the funda- mental purpose of this text. The Challenge of Democracy is not a book centered on current events. Rather, we use the recent past to illustrate enduring features of American government. Through all nine editions, we have striven to write a book that students will actually read, so we have sought to discuss politics—a complex subject—in a captivating and understandable way. American poli- tics isn’t dull, and its textbooks needn’t be either. Equally impor- tant, we have sought to produce a book that students would credit for stimulating their thinking about politics. While offering all of the essential information about American government and politics, we feel that it is important to give students a framework for analyz- ing politics that they can use long after their studies have ended.

Thematic Framework To accomplish these goals, we built The Challenge of Democracy around three dynamic themes that are relevant to today’s world: the clash among the values of freedom, order, and equality; the tensions between pluralist and majoritarian visions of democracy; and the fundamental ways that globalization is changing American politics.

xx Preface

Freedom, Order, and Equality The first theme is introduced in Chapter 1 (‘‘Dilemmas of Democ- racy’’), where we suggest that American politics often reflects con- flicts between the values of freedom and order and between the values of freedom and equality. These value conflicts are promi- nent in contemporary American society, and they help to explain political controversy and consensus in earlier eras. For instance, in Chapter 2 (‘‘The Constitution’’) we argue that the Constitution was designed to promote order and that it virtually ignored issues of political and social equality. Equality was later served, however, by several amendments to the Constitution. In Chapter 12 (‘‘Order and Civil Liberties’’) and Chapter 13 (‘‘Equality and Civil Rights’’), we demonstrate that many of this nation’s most contro- versial issues represent conflicts among individuals or groups who hold differing views on the values of freedom, order, and equality. Views on issues such as abortion are not just isolated opinions; they also reflect choices about the philosophy citizens want gov- ernment to follow. Yet choosing among these values is difficult, sometimes excruciatingly so.

Pluralist and Majoritarian Visions of Democracy The second theme, also introduced in Chapter 1, asks students to consider two competing models of democratic government. One way that government can make decisions is by means of majori- tarian principles—that is, by taking the actions desired by a ma- jority of citizens. A contrasting model of government, pluralism, is built around the interaction of decision makers in government with groups concerned about issues that affect them.

These models are not mere abstractions; we use them to illus- trate the dynamics of the American political system. In Chapter 8 (‘‘Congress’’), we discuss rising partisanship in Congress. As par- ties have become more ideologically homogeneous, they have been demonstrating greater unity in their votes on the floor. Yet major- itarian tensions with pluralism remain in Congress. In Chapter 7 (‘‘Interest Groups’’), we also see the forces of pluralism at work. Interest groups of all types populate Washington, and these organizations represent the diverse array of interests that define our society. At the same time, the chapter explores ways in which pluralism favors wealthier, better organized interests.

Preface xxi

Globalization’s Impact on American Politics Chapter 1 introduces the third theme, the impact of globalization on American politics. Over time we also recognized the growing impact of world politics on our governmental process; thus, our seventh edition of the larger text (summer 2001) added the third theme of globalization. The subsequent events of September 11, 2001, the war in Iraq, and the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan made the importance of globalization evident to all Americans. But globalization involves much more than the problems of con- flict and terrorism. More than ever before, Americans are becom- ing citizens of the world as trade, travel, immigration, and the Internet make the world a more interdependent place. Thus, The Challenge of Democracy examines some of the ramifications of a smaller world on the large landscape of American politics.

The traditional notion of national sovereignty holds that each government is free to govern in the manner it feels best. As the world becomes a smaller place, however, national sovereignty is tested in many ways. When a country is committing human rights violations—putting people in jail for merely disagreeing with the government in power—should other countries try to pressure it to comply with common norms of justice?

Another facet of globalization is the growth of international trade. In many ways the world has become a single marketplace, and industries in one country often face competitors from many other countries around the world. Must a country just stand by and let jobs ‘‘emigrate’’ from within its borders to other countries where companies can produce the same quality goods at cheaper prices? How will the United States cope with the rising demand for oil worldwide as economies like those of China and India expand? These are just some of the issues that the Ninth Edition explores.

Throughout the book we stress that students must make their own choices among the competing values and models of govern- ment. Although the five of us hold diverse and strong opinions about which choices are best, we do not believe it is our role to tell students our own answers to the broad questions we pose. Instead, we want our readers to learn firsthand that a democracy requires thoughtful choices. That is why we titled our book The Challenge of Democracy.

Underlying both the updating of world events and the endur- ing relevance of our themes is our continuing effort to bring the

xxii Preface

best recent political science research into The Challenge of Democ- racy. We continually look for recent books and journal articles by our colleagues in the discipline that tell us something new, some- thing important, and something that the readers of The Challenge of Democracy should know about. We invite our readers to look closely at our endnotes, the evidence that supports what we say in the text. If you feel that we missed a source that is particularly im- portant, please let us know.

Substantive Features of the Ninth Edition

Chapter-Opening Vignettes As in previous editions, each chapter begins with a vignette to draw students into the chapter’s substance while exploring the book’s themes. Chapter 2 (‘‘The Constitution’’) opens with a new vignette on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In Chapter 5 (‘‘Participation and Voting’’), we consider protests by women in Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. The opening vi- gnette for Chapter 10 (‘‘The Bureaucracy’’) addresses the morn- ing-after contraceptive pill and politics of drug approval. The new opening vignette for Chapter 15 (‘‘Order and Civil Liberties’’) dis- cusses the controversy over whether the posting of a Christian prayer on the wall of a public high school violates the separation of church and state in our Constitution.

‘‘Politics of Global Change’’ In light of the growing emphasis in our book on globalization, each even-numbered chapter includes a feature on global change. In these ‘‘Politics of Global Change’’ boxes we examine various elements of political change—some troubling, some hopeful. In the feature ‘‘Fewer Citizens Are Partying’’ in Chapter 6 (‘‘Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections’’), students will see how the decline in party membership in the United States is not unique; European party membership has waned similarly in recent years. In Chapter 8 (‘‘Congress’’) we examine the process of ‘‘Creating a Legislature,’’ looking at how the revolutionary movements in Egypt and Tunisia subsequently led to parliamentary elections in

Preface xxiii

each nation. In Chapter 10 (‘‘The Bureaucracy’’), the feature ‘‘For Whom the Debt Tolls,’’ discusses efforts to contain the European debt crisis.

‘‘Compared with What?’’ We firmly believe that students can better evaluate how our politi- cal system works when they compare it with politics in other countries. Thus, each odd-numbered chapter has a boxed feature called ‘‘Compared with What?’’ that treats its topic in a compara- tive perspective. In Chapter 3 (‘‘Federalism’’) we look at the per- centage of the population ‘‘Working for the Public’’ at the local, regional, and national levels in eighteen nations. Our comparative perspective in Chapter 5 (‘‘Participation and Voting’’) reports on ‘‘Voter Turnout in European and American Elections.’’ The ‘‘Compared with What?’’ feature in Chapter 9 (‘‘The Presidency’’) focuses on Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his leadership during a time of economic decline for his country. In Chapter 11 (‘‘The Courts’’), our feature explores methods employed for ‘‘Selecting Judges Around the World.’’ It is interest- ing to note the breadth of options used outside the United States.

New to the Ninth Edition

New and Refined Pedagogy for Student Learning This Ninth Edition of The Challenge of Democracy, The Essentials includes three new pedagogical aids intended to enhance student learning and comprehension of the material. Present in every chapter, these new pedagogical aids are:

• Learning Outcomes and Aplia. A Learning Outcome for each topic begins each chapter. The Learning Outcomes are repeated with the relevant section head throughout the chap- ter text and in the corresponding Aplia questions. Students will be able to further their comprehension of the learning outcomes with the critical thinking questions in Aplia, and instructors will be able to assess students’ progress.

• ‘‘Assessing Your Understanding’’ at the end of each chapter is a self-test organized according to the chapter’s Learning Outcomes. The engaging and thought-provoking questions

xxiv Preface

presented here are designed to help students test their mas- tery and understanding of the chapter content.

• Critical thinking questions have been added to all ‘‘Com- pared with What?’’ and ‘‘Politics of Global Change’’ feature boxes, helping students see how the boxed materials relate to and enhance the chapter text material.

New and Updated Content In addition to these overall changes, we have made numerous changes throughout the chapters to keep our book fresh and up to date with contemporary politics. We hope the following chapter-by- chapter summary of substantial changes and revisions will facilitate the transition to the new edition.

Chapter 1: Dilemmas of Democracy • New opening vignette on the Patient Protection and Afford-

able Care Act and the mandate to buy health insurance. • Discussion of NATO strikes in Libya that helped topple

Qaddafi replaces one on U.N. action in Darfur, Sudan. • Elaborated discussion of ‘‘police power’’ to mesh with open-

ing vignette. • New discussion of ‘‘Occupy Wall Street’’ protestors and the

Occupy movement. • Added discussion of Sunni-Shiite religious conflict in Iraq fol-

lowing overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Chapter 2: The Constitution • Revised and updated opening vignette on the path toward

designing a constitution for the European Union. • Updated Politics of Global Change feature box ‘‘A New Birth

of Freedom: Exporting American Constitutionalism’’ (on the declining influence of the U.S. Constitution on the constitu- tions of new nations).

Chapter 3: Federalism • Updated opening vignette on the U.S. Supreme Court deci-

sion on Arizona’s immigration law. • New material addressing the Supreme Court’s willingness to

impose national standards upon the use of the death penalty in the states.

Preface xxv

Chapter 4: Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media • Revised opening vignette on public opinion regarding the

death penalty. • Revised and updated discussion of political knowledge,

including new examples and studies on the public’s percep- tion of crime rates and spending for foreign aid.

• New Politics of Global Change feature box ‘‘Worrying Less About Climate Change.’’

• Added discussion of wireless technology and mobile devices. • Noted example of government response to provision of classi-

fied information to WikiLeaks. • Added discussion of FCC and regulation of the Internet,

Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and emerging technologies. • New Figure 4.4, ‘‘Getting the News: Consider the Source.’’

Chapter 5: Participation and Voting • New opening vignette on ‘‘The Protester’’ as Time magazine’s

2011 Person of the Year; noted Egyptian women’s demon- stration in Egypt during the Arab Spring.

• Added discussion of attempt to recall Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.

• Updated discussion of citizens’ direct participation in govern- ment through referenda and initiatives.

• Added discussion of use of Internet and social media to improve citizen participation in government.

Chapter 6: Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections • New opening vignette on the tea party as a nationwide move-

ment but not a national organization. • New reference to Americans Elect, the online effort to nomi-

nate a 2012 presidential ticket. • Elaborated explanation of the dynamics of our electoral

system. • Updated discussion of how the two parties reflected the val-

ues of freedom, order, and equality in their party platforms. • Incorporated discussion of changes in the presidential nomi-

nation process into the text. • Expanded discussion of Citizens United court case, intro-

duced SpeechNow.org v. FEC, and defined Super PACs.

xxvi Preface

• Updated and streamlined discussion of public funding of presidential campaigns, including data on Super PACs.

• New discussion of the outcome of the 2012 election. • New Figure 6.5, ‘‘Drifting Apart: Party Voting in the House

of Representatives over Four Decades,’’ with explanation of how divided government is incompatible with responsible party government.

Chapter 7: Interest Groups • New opening vignette on Facebook and its Washington lobbyists. • Updated discussion of former members of Congress as lobby-

ists, using example of former Connecticut Senator Christo- pher Dodd.

• Updated discussion of information campaigns using example of AT&T attempted takeover of T-Mobile.

• Added discussion of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United case and resultant formation of Super PACs.

• New Figure 7.2 ‘‘The Lobbying Agenda Versus the Public’s Agenda.’’

Chapter 8: Congress • New opening vignette on results of 2010 congressional elec-

tions and debate over government spending bill. • Updated discussion of redistricting. • Updated discussion of members’ use of social media. • Added discussion of cyberstalking and introduction of

Stalkers Act in Congress. • Combined sections ‘‘The Dance of Legislation: An Overview’’

and ‘‘Committees: The Workhorses of Congress’’ to create new section ‘‘Committees and the Lawmaking Process.’’

• Added discussion of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

• Added discussion of increasing polarization and the difficulty in reaching compromises, even within parties.

• Revised discussion of filibustering to include explanation of the term hold and added it as a key term.

• Added discussion of the ban on earmarks. • New Politics of Global Change feature box ‘‘Creating a Legis-

lature,’’ focusing on democratic movements and parliamen- tary elections in Egypt and Tunisia.

Preface xxvii

Chapter 9: The Presidency • New opening vignette on election day November 6, 2012, and

reflections on Obama’s presidency. • Revised section on presidential efforts to influence public

opinion, now including example of Italy’s former Prime Min- ister Silvio Berlusconi.

• New Figure 9.2, ‘‘It All Goes Back to the Economy’’ tracking approval ratings of Bush and Obama and index of economic conditions, illustrating the correlation between popularity and economic performance.

• New Compared with What? feature box ‘‘From Berlusconi to Bankruptcy: The Costs of Failed Leadership,’’ discussing how Berlusconi’s performance affected Italy’s economy and its relation with the EU.

Chapter 10: The Bureaucracy • New opening vignette on government regulation of Plan B,

the ‘‘morning-after’’ contraceptive pill. • Added discussion of party effect on the level and type of

regulation. • New Figure 10.2, ‘‘It Makes a Difference,’’ illustrating the cor-

relation between political party control of government and the performance of regulatory agencies.

• New Politics of Global Change feature box ‘‘For Whom the Debt Tolls,’’ on the crisis within the EU.

Chapter 11: The Courts • Condensed discussion of judicial review of state and local

government and merged with section ‘‘Judicial Review of the Other Branches.’’

• Added discussion of the Supreme Court release of oral argument transcripts on the Court’s website and on audio recordings.

• Updated discussion of filibustering judicial nominees. • Noted the Supreme Court’s declining approval ratings.

Chapter 12: Order and Civil Liberties • New opening vignette on controversy over whether the posting

of a Christian prayer on the wall of a public high school violated the constitutional prohibition against establishment of religion.

• New section, ‘‘Order Versus Free Speech: When Words Hurt,’’ with example of the Supreme Court’s decision in Snyder v. Phelps

xxviii Preface

upholding free expression rights of members of Westboro Bap- tist Church picketing funerals of military personnel.

• New section, ‘‘Equality and Free Speech,’’ using example of the Citizens United case.

• Updated discussion of the USA-PATRIOT Act. • Updated discussion of efforts to expand same-sex marriage,

noting developments through legislatures, judges, and ballot initiatives.

Chapter 13: Equality and Civil Rights • New opening vignette on affirmative action case and the

debate over using race in admissions decisions, focusing on student Abigail Fisher and the University of Texas decision to deny her admission.

• Added discussion of the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling striking down three of four provisions of the controversial Arizona immigration law.

• Added discussion of revisions to the Americans with Disabili- ties Act.

Chapter 14: Policymaking and the Budget • New opening vignette on designing and implementing public

policies to meet people’s basic needs without infringing on their personal freedom, using the example of the new health care law.

• Revised discussion of health care reform, focusing on the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

• Updated section on distributive policies, redistributional poli- cies, and regulation.

• New example of FDA and USDA regulatory actions on the production and marketing of food.

• Revised discussion of policy evaluation, using the example of the lap band used in weight loss surgery.

• Condensed the section ‘‘Three Decades of Budgetary Reform.’’

• Added discussion on calls for a balanced budget amendment. • Added new paragraph on the politics of a national debt

ceiling. • Revised discussion of policy fragmentation and experimenta-

tion among the states and national efforts to coordinate policies.

Preface xxix

About the Authors

Welcoming Our New Author

We are especially pleased and excited to welcome our fifth author, Deborah Schildkraut, to The Challenge of Democracy team. Wadsworth Publishers asked coauthor Jeff Berry to offer a profile of his Tufts colleague:

• Debbie was an undergraduate at Tufts University—not sur- prisingly she majored in political science! The next stop was Princeton University where she received her PhD in 2000. Her first teaching job was at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she worked until 2004. She then accepted a position in the political science department at Tufts, coming back home as it were. Debbie’s scholarship is impeccable, and she’s become a leader in the political science profession in areas of public opinion, immigration, and political psychology. Her first book, Press One for English (Princeton University Press, 2005), was a study of public opinion about language and minorities in the United States. In 2011 she published Ameri- canism in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press), which demonstrates that ethnic minorities embrace ‘‘American’’ values just as deeply as the rest of the population.

xxx Preface

This landmark study was recently awarded the prestigious Robert Lane Prize for the best book published during the pre- vious year in the field of political psychology. At Tufts she teaches courses on political psychology, introductory Ameri- can government, political science research methods, political representation, and the politics of ethnicity and American identity. She is also a mother of two young boys. When not working or chasing her sons around, Debbie likes to ‘‘take a hike,’’ especially in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

• Kenneth Janda is the Payson S. Wild Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Northwestern University. Dr. Janda has published extensively in comparative party politics, research methodology, and early use of computer technology in politi- cal science, for which he received awards from EDUCOM and support from Apple Computer. His American Political Science Association (APSA) awards include the Samuel Eldersveld Lifetime Achievement Award (2000) and the Frank J. Good- now Award (2009) for distinguished service to the profession and the association. Dr. Janda and fellow author Jerry Gold- man shared APSA technology awards in 1992 for IDEAlog, the computer program, and in 2005 for IDEAlog, the website.

• Jeffrey M. Berry is the John Richard Skuse Professor of Polit- ical Science at Tufts University. Dr. Berry is a recipient of the APSA’s Samuel Eldersveld Lifetime Achievement Award (2009) and numerous ‘‘best book’’ awards from the APSA for The Rebirth of Urban Democracy (1994), from the Policy Studies Organization for The New Liberalism (1999), from the APSA for A Voice for Nonprofits (2004), and from the APSA for Lobbying and Political Change (2009).

• Jerry Goldman is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor of Law at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law where he is director of the Oyez Project. Dr. Goldman is the 2010 recipient of the first APSA/CQ Press Award for Teaching Innovation in Political Science. He has received many other awards, including the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel for increasing the public’s understanding of the law, the EDUCOM Medal, and the Roman & Littlefield Prize for Teaching Innovation. In

Preface xxxi

2012, Dr. Goldman made the Fastcase 50: ‘‘the fifty most interesting, provocative, and courageous leaders in the world of law, scholarship, and legal technology.’’ Through the OYEZ Project, which uses images, audio, and video to bring the Supreme Court alive, he has brought the U.S. Supreme Court closer to everyone. Collaborating with experts in lin- guistics, psychology, computer science, and political science and with contributions by the National Science Foundation, Professor Goldman created a complete archive of fifty years of Supreme Court audio, which is now accessible on mobile devices through mobile apps Oyez Today and Pocket Justice.

• Kevin W. Hula is an associate professor of political science at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches the introduc- tory American government course, as well as courses in the presidency, intelligence organizations, and interest groups. His research focuses on interest groups and the executive branch. Dr. Hula is author of Lobbying Together: Interest Group Coalitions in Legislative Politics, for which he received the Emerging Scholar Award from the APSA’s Political Organizations and Parties section. He has been responsible for abridging and updating the Challenge of Democracy Brief, Essential, and Advantage editions since 2000.

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xxxii Preface

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Each selection opens with a descriptive introduction to pro- vide context, and concludes with critical-thinking and multi- ple-choice questions to reinforce key points. CourseReader is loaded with convenient tools like highlighting, printing, note- taking, and downloadable MP3 audio files for each reading.

Preface xxxiii

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Please contact your Cengage sales representative for details, or, for a demo please visit us at www.cengage.com/coursereader. To access CourseReader materials go to www.cengage.com/sso, click on ‘‘Create a New Faculty Account,’’ and fill out the regis- tration page. Once you are in your new SSO account, search for ‘‘CourseReader’’ from your dashboard and select ‘‘Course- Reader: American Government.’’ Then click ‘‘CourseReader 0-30: American Government Instant Access Code’’ and click ‘‘Add to my bookshelf.’’ To access the live CourseReader, click on ‘‘CourseReader 0-30: American Government’’ under ‘‘Addi- tional resources’’ on the right side of your dashboard.

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xxxiv Preface

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The American Government NewsWatch is a real-time news and information resource, updated daily, that includes inter- active maps, videos, podcasts, and hundreds of articles from leading journals, magazines, and newspapers from the United States and around the world. Also included is the KnowNow! American Government Blog, which highlights three current events stories per week and consists of a succinct analysis of the story, multimedia, and discussion-starter questions. Access your course via www.cengage.com/login.

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Preface xxxv

for each chapter. ExamView¤ features a user-friendly testing environment that allows you to not only publish traditional paper and computer-based tests, but also Web-deliverable exams. JoinIn� offers ‘‘clicker’’ questions covering key con- cepts, enabling instructors to incorporate student response systems into their classroom lectures.

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political issues serves as a great lecture or discussion launcher.

IDEAlog IDEAlog, two-time winner of Instructional Software awards from the American Political Science Association, is closely tied to the text’s ‘‘value conflicts’’ theme. After a brief Tutorial about ideology, IDEAlog asks students to rate themselves on the two-dimensional tradeoff of freedom versus order and freedom versus equality. It then presents them with twenty recent poll questions—ten deal- ing with the conflict of freedom versus order and ten pertaining to freedom versus equality. Students’ responses are classified accord- ing to libertarian, conservative, liberal, or communitarian ideologi- cal tendencies. IDEAlog is directly accessible to anyone at http:// IDEAlog.org, but instructors who choose to register their classes receive a special login link for each class. Instructors then

xxxvi Preface

can obtain summary statistics about their students’ scores on the ideology quiz.

USPolitics.org The Ninth Essentials Edition continues to be supported by uspolitics.org, Kenneth Janda’s personal website for The Challenge of Democracy. This site offers a variety of teaching aids to instruc- tors who adopt any version of The Challenge of Democracy for courses in American politics. It is divided into two sides: the student side is open to all users, but the instructor side is limited to teachers who register online at uspolitics.org as textbook adopt- ers. The site offers some material not contained on Cengage Learning’s own website, yet it also provides convenient links to the publisher’s site.

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Preface xxxvii

Political Science CourseMate for The Challenge of Democracy, Essentials, 9e Cengage Learning’s Political Science CourseMate brings course concepts to life with interactive learning, study tools, and exam preparation tools that support the printed textbook. The more you study, the better the results. Make the most of your study time by accessing everything you need to succeed in one place. Read your textbook, take notes, watch videos, read case studies, take practice quizzes, and more, online with CourseMate. CourseMate also gives you access to the American Government NewsWatch website— a real-time news and information resource updated daily, and KnowNow!—the go-to blog about current events in American Government. Additionally, CourseMate for The Enduring Democ- racy includes ‘‘The Connections App,’’ an interactive Web app that helps you better understand the relationship between histori- cal and current events and their connection with basic concepts.

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xxxviii Preface

Acknowledgments All authors are indebted to others for inspiration and assistance in various forms; textbook authors are notoriously so. We again want to single out professor Paul Manna of the College of William and Mary, who has assisted us in many different ways. Patti Conley contributed to some earlier editions of The Challenge of Democ- racy, and her work continues to be of value. Farhad Aspy Fatakia provided invaluable assistance optimizing IDEAlog to work on mobile devices; Leah Melani Christian at the Pew Research Center supplied us with 2012 survey data; and Simon Winchester helped us understand the history of the 1883 Krakatoa volcanic eruption. Timely information technology suggestions and assistance came from Jeff Parsons of the Oyez Project, professor James Ferolo of Bradley University, and Dr. Francesco Stagno d’Alcontres of Cen- tro Linguistico d’Ateneo Messinese. We also wish to express our gratitude to professor Julieta Suárez Cao of the Instituto de Ciencia Politica of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Hope Lozano- Bielat of Boston University, Farah Bushashia of Boston College, professor Jennifer Cyr in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, Andrew Gruen of Cambridge University, and reference librarian Tom Gaylord and applications specialist Matt Gruhn at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law for their helpful research assistance. We extend thanks as well to Joseph B. Maher, Esq., Deputy General Counsel, DHS; Brad Kieserman, Esq., Chief Counsel, FEMA; and professor Timothy R. Johnson, University of Minnesota.

We have been fortunate to obtain the help of many outstand- ing political scientists across the country who provided us with critical reviews of our work as it has progressed through twelve separate editions. We found their comments enormously helpful, and we thank them for taking valuable time away from their own teaching and research to write their detailed reports. More specifi- cally, our thanks go to the following instructors who reviewed the Ninth Edition:

Ruth Ann Alsobrook, Paris Junior College

Thomas Bowen, Gloucester County College

Van Davis, National Park Community College

Monte Freidig, Santa Rosa Junior College

Marilyn Gaar, Johnson County Community College

Kema Irogbe, Claflin College

Richard Kiefer, Waubonsee Community College

Melinda Kovacs, Sam Houston State University

Farzeen Nasri, Ventura College

Sara Parker, Chabot College

Preface xxxix

James Sheffield, University of Oklahoma

Christine Sixta, Francis Marion University

Beatrice Talpos, Wayne County Community

College District

Katrina Taylor, Northern Arizona University

Ronnie Tucker, Shippensburg University

Sondra Venable, University of New Orleans

Graham Wilson, Boston University

We would also like to thank the following instructors who reviewed the prior editions:

David Ahern, University of Dayton

Philip C. Aka, Chicago State University

James Anderson, Texas A&M University

Greg Andranovich, California State University,

Los Angeles

Theodore Arrington, University of North Carolina,

Charlotte

Denise Baer, Northeastern University

Richard Barke, Georgia Institute of Technology

Brian Bearry, University of Texas at Dallas

Linda L. M. Bennett, Wittenberg University

Stephen Earl Bennett, University of Cincinnati

Elizabeth Bergman, California State Polytechnic

University, Pomona

Thad Beyle, University of North Carolina, Chapel

Hill

Bruce Bimber, University of California, Santa

Barbara

Michael Binford, Georgia State University

Bonnie Browne, Texas A&M University

Jeffrey L. Brudney, Cleveland State University

Jane Bryant, John A. Logan College

J. Vincent Buck, California State University,

Fullerton

Gregory A. Caldeira, Ohio State University

David E. Camacho, Northern Arizona University

Robert Casier, Santa Barbara City College

James Chalmers, Wayne State University

John Chubb, Stanford University

Allan Cigler, University of Kansas

Stanley Clark, California State University,

Bakersfield

Ronald Claunch, Stephen F. Austin State University

Guy C. Clifford, Bridgewater State College

Gary Copeland, University of Oklahoma

Ruth A. Corbett, Chabot College

W. Douglas Costain, University of Colorado at

Boulder

Cornelius P. Cotter, University of Wisconsin,

Milwaukee

James L. Danielson, Minnesota State University,

Moorhead

Christine L. Day, University of New Orleans

David A. Deese, Boston College

Victor D’Lugin, University of Florida

Douglas C. Dow, University of Texas at Dallas

Art English, University of Arkansas

Matthew EshbaughSoha, University of North Texas

Tim Fackler, University of Texas, Austin

Dennis Falcon, Cerritos Community College

Henry Fearnley, College of Marin

Elizabeth Flores, Del Mar College

David Madlock, University of Memphis

Michael Maggiotto, University of South Carolina

Edward S. Malecki, California State University,

Los Angeles

Michael Margolis, University of Cincinnati–

McMicken College of Arts and Sciences

xl Preface

Thomas R. Marshall, University of Texas at

Arlington

Janet Martin, Bowdoin College

Steve J. Mazurana, University of Northern Colorado

Michael McConachie, Collin College

Wayne McIntosh, University of Maryland

David McLaughlin, Northwest Missouri State

University

Don Melton, Arapahoe Community College

Melissa Michelson, California State University,

East Bay

Dana Morales, Montgomery College

Jim Morrow, Tulsa Junior College

David Moskowitz, The University of North

Carolina, Charlotte

William Mugleston, Mountain View College

William Murin, University of Wisconsin–Parkside

David Nice, Washington State University

David A. Nordquest, Pennsylvania State

University, Erie

Bruce Odom, Trinity Valley Community College

Laura Katz Olson, Lehigh University

Bruce Oppenheimer, Vanderbilt University

Richard Pacelle, Indiana University

William J. Parente, University of Scranton

Tony Payan, University of Texas, El Paso

Robert Pecorella, St. John’s University

James Perkins, San Antonio College

Denny E. Pilant, Southwest Missouri State

University

Marc Pufong, Valdosta State University

Curtis Reithel, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse

Russell Renka, Southeast Missouri State University

Chester D. Rhoan, Chabot College

Michael J. Rich, Emory University

Richard S. Rich, Virginia Tech

Patricia S. Florestano, University of Maryland

Richard Foglesong, Rollins College

Steve Frank, St. Cloud State University

Mitchel Gerber, Hofstra University

Dana K. Glencross, Oklahoma City Community

College

Dorith Grant-Wisdom, Howard University

Paul Gronke, Duke University

Sara A. Grove, Shippensburg University

David J. Hadley, Wabash College

Willie Hamilton, Mt. San Jacinto College

Kenneth Hayes, University of Maine

Ronald Hedlund, University of Wisconsin–

Milwaukee

Richard Heil, Fort Hays State University

Beth Henschen, The Institute for Community and

Regional Development, Eastern Michigan

University

Marjorie Randon Hershey, Indiana University

Roberta Herzberg, Indiana University

Jack E. Holmes, Hope College

Peter Howse, American River College

Ronald J. Hrebenar, University of Utah

James B. Johnson, University of Nebraska at Omaha

William R. Keech, Carnegie Mellon University

Scott Keeter, Pew Center

Sarah W. Keidan, Oakland Community College

(Michigan)

Linda Camp Keith, Collin County Community

College

Beat Kernen, Southwest Missouri State University

Haroon Khan, Henderson State University

Dwight Kiel, Central Florida University

Nancy Pearson Kinney, Washtenaw Community

College

Vance Krites, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Preface xli

Clyde Kuhn, California State University,

Sacramento

Jack Lampe, Southwest Texas Junior College

William Lester, Jacksonville State University

Brad Lockerbie, University of Georgia

Joseph Losco, Ball State University

Philip Loy, Taylor University

Stan Luger, University of Northern Colorado

Ronald I. Rubin, Borough of Manhattan

Community College, CUNY

Gilbert K. St. Clair, University of New Mexico

Barbara Salmore, Drew University

Todd M. Schaefer, Central Washington University

Denise Scheberle, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay

Paul R. Schulman, Mills College

William A. Schultze, San Diego State University

Thomas Sevener, Santa Rosa Junior College

Kenneth S. Sherrill, Hunter College

Sanford R. Silverburg, Catawba College

Mark Silverstein, Boston University

Charles Sohner, El Camino College

Robert J. Spitzer, SUNY Cortland

Terry Spurlock, Trinity Valley Community College

Candy Stevens Smith, Texarkana College

Dale Story, University of Texas at Arlington

Nicholas Strinkowski, Clark College

Neal Tate, University of North Texas

James A. Thurber, The American University

Ronnie Tucker, Shippensburg University

John Tuman, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Bedford Umez, Lee College

David Uranga, Pasadena City College

Eric M. Uslaner, University of Maryland

Lawson Veasey, Jacksonville State University

Charles E. Walcott, Virginia Tech

Richard J. Waldman, University of Maryland

Thomas G. Walker, Emory University

Benjamin Walter, Vanderbilt University

Shirley Ann Warshaw, Gettysburg College

Gary D. Wekkin, University of Central Arkansas

Jonathan West, University of Miami

Zaphon Wilson, Armstrong Atlantic State University

John Winkle, University of Mississippi

Clifford Wirth, University of New Hampshire

Wayne Wolf, South Suburban College

Mikel Wyckoff, Northern Illinois University

Ann Wynia, North Hennepin Community College

Jerry L. Yeric, University of North Texas

Finally, we want to thank the many people at Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning who helped make this edition a reality. There’s not enough room here to list all the individuals who helped us with the previous editions, so we say a collective thank-you for the superb work you did on The Challenge of Democracy. Political science acquisitions editor Anita Devine could not have been more supportive, and we especially appreciate how tolerant she is of the constant stream of kvetching and moaning e-mails that we send her way. Betty Slack, our developmental editor, was a delight to work with. She had a light touch editing and shaping the changes we made in the manuscript. Our direct production con- tacts were extraordinarily efficient and helpful. A million thanks

xlii Preface

to Alison Eigel Zade, Andrea Clemente, and Alexa Orr, all of whom seemed to create order out of the chaos we created. Finally, thanks, too, to the sales representatives who do such a terrific job of bringing each new edition of The Challenge of Democracy to the attention of those who might use it.

K. J. J. B. J. G. D. S. K. H.

Dedication This dedication is a bit different than most as we want to recog- nize institutions rather than individuals. As we started talking about the Ninth Edition, we began reflecting on our own intro- ductions to political science. We were once undergraduates, taking classes in political science, and learning from great professors who motivated and inspired us. More broadly, we studied at wonderful schools that provided us with intellectual and stimulating environ- ments. We thank those institutions with humility and immense gratitude:

To Illinois State University, which steered me from industrial arts to political science, K. J.

To the University of California at Berkeley, which took a young boy and opened the world to him, J. B.

To Brooklyn College, with great role models in professors Samuel J. Konefsky and Robert Hoffman, J. G.

To Tufts University, where I discovered how one could use research to pursue political passions, D. S.

To the University of Kansas, where lobbyists and the Congress became objects of study rather than derision, K. H.

Preface xliii

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1 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Dilemmas of

Democracy

1.1 The Globalization of American Government

Define globalization and explain how globalization affects American politics and government.

1.2 The Purposes of Government

Identify the purposes that government serves and trace their historical roots.

1.3 A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government

Describe how political scientists use concepts to structure events and promote understanding.

1.4 The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian

or Pluralist?

Compare and contrast the majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy.

1.5 Democracy and Globalization

Evaluate the challenges facing countries trying to move toward a democratic form of government.

2 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

FPO A re there limits to what governmentcan require of its citizens? We know that governments can require automobile drivers and passengers to wear seat belts. Thinking that seat belts save lives and reduce injuries, every state but New Hampshire has such a law. We also know that governments can require the purchase of automobile insurance. Believing that mandatory coverage reduces insurance costs for everyone, ev- ery state but New Hampshire has such a law.

These laws were upheld under state constitu- tions, which typically empower state legislatures to care broadly for their residents’ safety and wel- fare. The U.S. Constitution, however, grants very specific powers to Congress, and it does not grant a specific power to require the use of seat belts or the purchase of automobile insurance. Under its power to regulate interstate commerce, Congress passed a law requiring manufacturers to install seat belts and shoulder harnesses in all cars produced after January 1, 1968, but Con- gress did not require that drivers and passengers

actually use the newly mandated seat belts. Simi- larly, no national law requires the purchase of automobile insurance.

Can state governments require citizens to buy health insurance? Contending that manda- tory coverage reduces health insurance costs for everyone, Massachusetts did just that in 2006. Under Republican governor Mitt Romney, Massa- chusetts required a minimum level of coverage for nearly all residents, provided free insurance to the poor, and penalized residents who failed to buy the required insurance. It stands as the only state with such a law.

Can the national government require citizens to buy health insurance? Congress did just that in 2010. Under Democratic president Barack Obama, it passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which contains the contro- versial ‘‘mandate’’ requiring nearly all Americans to buy coverage or pay a penalty. As in Massa- chusetts, this mandate reflects the rationale that bringing both sick and healthy people into the

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3 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

pool of those insured is essential, because premiums paid by the healthy offset the cost of covering the sick.

From the beginning, controversy swirled over the national law to purchase health insurance. Massachusetts could require the purchase under its state constitution, but could Congress do the same under the U.S. Constitution’s grant of congressional power ‘‘to regulate commerce’’? Opponents filed legal challenges in the courts. By November 2011, rulings were issued in five U.S. District Courts and five U.S. Courts of Appeals.1 Seven of the rulings upheld the man- date, but three struck it down.

In the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Laurence Silberman upheld the mandate, saying, ‘‘It certainly is an encroachment on individual liberty, but it is no more so than a com- mand that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race.’’2

The issue was eventually decided by the Supreme Court in June 2012. The Court ruled that the mandate to purchase health insur- ance could not be upheld under Congress’s power to ‘‘regulate com- merce,’’ but it was constitutional under Congress’s power to tax. That is, Congress could penalize (tax) people who did not purchase health insurance.3

What the U.S. government can do constitutionally, politically, and practically to serve its citizens is the focus of our textbook. People will differ—as those in New Hampshire do from people in other states— in supporting laws about wearing seat belts and buying automobile insurance. People in other states seem more willing to surrender some degree of freedom to achieve a more orderly society with a more equi- table distribution of citizen benefits. This tradeoff among the values of freedom, order, and equality lies at the heart of our discussion.

We hope to improve your understanding of the world by analyz- ing the norms, or values, that people use to judge political events. We probe the relationship between individual freedoms and personal se- curity, and how government ensures security by establishing order through making and enforcing its laws. We also examine the relation- ship between individual freedom and social equality as reflected in government policies, which often confront underlying dilemmas such as these. Our purpose is not to preach what people ought to favor in making policy decisions; it is to teach what values are at stake.

Teaching without preaching is not easy; no one can com- pletely exclude personal values from political analysis. But our approach minimizes the problem by concentrating on the

4 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

dilemmas that confront governments when they are forced to choose between important policies that threaten equally cherished values, such as freedom of speech and personal security.

A prominent scholar defined politics as ‘‘the authoritative allo- cation of values for a society.’’4 Every government policy reflects a choice between conflicting values. All government policies rein- force certain values (norms) at the expense of others. We want you to interpret policy issues (for example, should assisted suicide go unpunished?) with an understanding of the fundamental values in question (freedom of action versus order and protection of life) and the broader political context (liberal or conservative politics).

By looking beyond the specifics to the underlying normative principles, you should be able to make more sense out of politics. Our framework for analysis does not encompass all the complex- ities of American government, but it should help your knowledge grow by improving your comprehension of political information. Our main interest in this text is the purpose, value, and operation of government as practiced in the United States. However, we live in an era of globalization—a term for the increasing interdepend- ence of citizens and nations across the world.5 So we must con- sider how politics at home and abroad interrelate—which is increasingly important to understanding our government.6

1.1 The Globalization of American Government

Define globalization and explain how globalization affects American politics and government.

Most people do not like being told what to do. Fewer still like being coerced into acting a certain way. Yet billions of people in countries across the world willingly submit to the coercive power of government. They accept laws that state on which side of the road to drive, what constitutes a contract, how to dispose of human waste—and how much they must pay to support the gov- ernment that makes these coercive laws.

In the first half of the twentieth century, people thought of gov- ernment mainly in territorial terms. Indeed, a standard definition of government was the legitimate use of force—including firearms, imprisonment, and execution—within specified geographical

globalization The increasing interdependence of citizens and nations across the world.

government The legitimate use of force to control human behavior; also, the organization or agency authorized to exercise that force.

The Globalization of American Government 5

boundaries to control human behavior. The term is also used to refer to the body authorized to exercise that power. Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, international relations and diplomacy have been based on the prin- ciple of national sovereignty, defined as ‘‘a political entity’s exter- nally recognized right to exercise final authority over its affairs.’’7

Simply put, national sovereignty means that each national govern- ment has the right to govern its people as it wishes, without inter- ference from other nations.

Although the League of Nations and later the United Nations were supposed to introduce supranational order into the world, even these inter- national organizations explicitly respected national sovereignty as the guiding principle of international rela- tions. The U.N. Charter, Article 2.1, states, ‘‘The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.’’

National sovereignty, however, is threatened under globalization.8

Consider the international commun- ity’s concern with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s military repres- sion of political protests in 2011. His actions prompted NATO to inter- vene and establish a no-fly zone over Libya. Ignoring Gadhafi’s claims that NATO violated Libya’s sovereignty, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Gadhafi and other Libyan officials for crimes against humanity. Gadhafi was cap- tured and killed within weeks, and the rebels took over the government.

Global forces also generate pres- sures for international law. Our gov- ernment, you might be surprised to learn, is worried about this trend of holding nations accountable to

Sealand: Rebuilding a (Micro-)Nation

What defines a sovereign nation? The Principality of Sealand is perched on a World War II military platform approximately six miles off the southeast coast of England. Located in international waters, the platform was acquired in 1967 by Paddy Roy Bates, a retired British officer who declared it a sovereign nation and lived there with his family for decades. In 2007 the government of Sealand announced that the micro-nation was seeking ‘‘inward investment’’ in the form of purchase or long-term lease, and day-to-day affairs on Sealand are now overseen by Roy’s son, Prince Michael. How does the micro-nation sustain its economy? Tourism is not allowed, but the government of Sealand does offer supporters the opportunity to purchase flags, t-shirts, mugs, and even the titles of Lord, Lady, Baron, or Baroness of Sealand.

national sovereignty A political entity’s externally recognized right to exercise final authority over its affairs.

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6 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

international law. In fact, in 2002, the United States ‘‘annulled’’ its signature to the 1998 treaty to create an International Criminal Court that would define and try crimes against humanity.9 Why would the United States oppose such an international court? One reason is its concern that U.S. soldiers stationed abroad might be arrested and tried in that court.10 Another reason is the death pen- alty, practiced in most of the United States but abolished by more than half the countries in the world and all countries in the Euro- pean Union. Indeed, in 1996, the International Commission of Jurists condemned our death penalty as ‘‘arbitrarily and racially dis- criminatory,’’ and there is a concerted campaign across Europe to force the sovereign United States of America to terminate capital punishment.11

As the world’s sole superpower, should the United States be above international law if its sovereignty is threatened by nations that don’t share our values? What action should we follow if this situation occurs?

Although this text is about American national government, it recognizes the growing impact of international politics and world opinion on U.S. politics. We are closely tied through trade to for- mer enemies (we now import more goods from China—still com- munist—than from France and Britain combined), and we are thoroughly embedded in a worldwide economic, social, and politi- cal network. More than ever before, we must discuss American politics while casting an eye to other countries to see how foreign affairs affect our government and how American politics affects government in other nations.

1.2 The Purposes of Government

Identify the purposes that government serves and trace their historical roots.

All governments require their citizens to surrender some freedom as part of being governed. Why do people surrender their freedom to this control? To obtain the benefits of government. Throughout history, government seems to have served two major purposes: maintaining order (preserving life and protecting property) and

The Purposes of Government 7

providing public goods. More recently, some governments have pur- sued a third and more controversial purpose: promoting equality.

Maintaining Order Maintaining order is the oldest objective of government. Order in this context is rich with meaning. Let’s start with ‘‘law and order.’’ Maintaining order in this sense means establishing the rule of law to preserve life and to protect property. To the seventeenth- century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), pre- serving life was the most important function of government. In his classic philosophical treatise, Leviathan (1651), Hobbes described life without government as life in a ‘‘state of nature.’’ Without rules, people would live as predators do, stealing and kill- ing for their personal benefit. In Hobbes’s classic phrase, life in a state of nature would be ‘‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’’ He believed that a single ruler, or sovereign, must possess unques- tioned authority to guarantee the safety of the weak to protect them from the attacks of the strong. He believed that complete obedience to the sovereign’s strict laws was a small price to pay for the security of living in a civil society.

Most of us can only imagine what a state of nature would be like. But in some parts of the world, people live in a state of law- lessness. That has been the situation in Somalia since 1991, when the government was toppled and warlords feuded over territory. Today, the government controls only a portion of the capital, Mogadishu, and Somali pirates seize ships off its shore with impu- nity.12 Throughout history, authoritarian rulers have used people’s fears of civil disorder to justify taking power and becoming the new established order.

Hobbes’s conception of life in the cruel state of nature led him to view government primarily as a means of guaranteeing people’s survival. Other theorists, taking survival for granted, believed that government protected order by preserving private property (goods and land owned by individuals). Foremost among them was John Locke (1632–1704), another English philosopher. In Two Treatises on Government (1690), he wrote that the protec- tion of life, liberty, and property was the basic objective of gov- ernment. His thinking strongly influenced the Declaration of Independence, which identifies ‘‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’’ as ‘‘unalienable Rights’’ of citizens under government.

order Established ways of social behavior. Maintaining order is the oldest purpose of government.

8 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

Not everyone believes that the protection of private property is a valid objective of government. The German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) rejected the private ownership of property used in the production of goods or services. Marx’s ideas form the basis of communism, a philosophy that gives ownership of all land and productive facilities to the people—in effect, to the government. In line with communist theory, the 1977 constitution of the for- mer Soviet Union declared that the nation’s land, minerals, waters, and forests ‘‘are the exclusive property of the state.’’ In addition, ‘‘The state owns the basic means of production in indus- try, construction, and agriculture; means of transport and communication; the banks, the property of state-run trade organi- zations and public utilities, and other state-run undertakings.’’13

Even today’s market-oriented China still clings to the principle that all land belongs to the state, and not until 2007 did it pass a law that protected private homes and businesses.14

Providing Public Goods After governments have established basic order, they can pursue other ends. Using their coercive powers, governments can tax citi- zens to raise funds to spend on public goods, which are benefits and services that are available to everyone, such as education, sani- tation, and parks. Public goods benefit all citizens but are not likely to be produced by the voluntary acts of individuals. The govern- ment of ancient Rome, for example, built aqueducts to carry fresh water from the mountains to the city. Road building is another public good provided by the government since ancient times.

Some government enterprises that have been common in other countries—running railroads, operating coal mines, generat- ing electric power—are politically controversial or even unaccept- able in the United States. Hence, many people objected when the Bush administration took over General Motors and Chrysler in 2008 to facilitate an orderly bankruptcy. Many Americans believe public goods and services should be provided by private business operating for profit.

Promoting Equality The promotion of equality has not always been a major objective of government. It gained prominence in the twentieth century, in

communism A political system in which, in theory, ownership of all land and productive facilities is in the hands of the people and all goods are equally shared. The production and distribution of goods are controlled by an authoritarian government.

public goods Benefits and services, such as parks and sanitation, that benefit all citizens but are not likely to be produced voluntarily by individuals.

The Purposes of Government 9

the aftermath of industrialization and urbanization. Confronted by the contrast of poverty amid plenty, some political leaders in European nations pioneered extensive government programs to improve life for the poor. Under the emerging concept of the wel- fare state, government’s role expanded to provide individuals with medical care, education, and a guaranteed income ‘‘from cradle to grave.’’ Sweden, Britain, and other nations adopted welfare pro- grams aimed at reducing social inequalities. This relatively new purpose of government has been by far the most controversial. People often oppose taxation for public goods (such as building roads and schools) because of its cost alone. They oppose more strongly taxation for government programs to promote economic and social equality on principle.

The key issue here is the government’s role in redistributing income, that is, taking from the wealthy to give to the poor. Char- ity (voluntary giving to the poor) has a strong basis in Western re- ligious traditions; using the power of the state to support the poor does not. Using the state to redistribute income was originally a radical idea, set forth by Marx as the ultimate principle of devel- oped communism: ‘‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’’15 This extreme has never been realized in any government, not even in communist states. But over time, taking from the rich to help the needy has become a legitimate function of most governments.

That function is not without controversy, however. Especially since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the government’s role in redistributing income to promote economic equality has been a major source of policy debate in the United States. Despite infla- tion, the minimum wage had been frozen at $5.15 per hour from 1997 to 2007, when it was increased to $5.85. In 2009, Congress increased the minimum wage to $7.25 only because Democrats included the increase in a deal on funding the war in Iraq.

Government can also promote social equality through policies that do not redistribute income. For example, in 2000 Vermont passed a law allowing persons of the same sex to enter a ‘‘civil union’’ granting access to similar benefits enjoyed by persons of different sexes through marriage. By 2011 Vermont had replaced the term civil unions with marriage, and the legislatures or courts in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Iowa, the District of Columbia, and New York put same-sex marriage laws into effect. In this instance, laws advancing social equality may clash

10 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

with different social values held by other citizens. Indeed, thirty- one states blocked same-sex marriages through public referenda, and public ballot measures in Maine and California repealed same- sex marriage laws passed in those states.16 In 2012, the Washington and Maryland legislatures passed bills authorizing same-sex mar- riage, but opponents sought to challenge the laws in public refer- enda. In November 2012, voters in Maryland, Washington, and Maine approved same-sex marriage in state-wide referenda, a striking reversal in Maine of the vote just three years earlier.17

1.3 A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government

Describe how political scientists use concepts to structure events and promote understanding.

Citizens have very different views on how vigorously they want government to maintain order, provide public goods, and pro- mote equality. Of the three objectives, providing public goods usu- ally is less controversial than maintaining order or promoting equality. After all, government spending for highways, schools, and parks carries benefits for nearly every citizen. Moreover, these services merely cost money. The cost of maintaining order and promoting equality is greater than money; it usually means a tradeoff of basic values.

To understand government and the political process, you must be able to recognize these tradeoffs and identify the basic values they entail. You need to take a much broader view than that offered by examining specific political events. You need to use political concepts. A concept is a generalized idea of a class of items or thoughts. It groups various events, objects, or qualities under a common classification or label.

The framework that supports this text consists of five concepts that figure prominently in political analysis. We regard these five concepts as especially important to a broad understand- ing of American politics, and we use them repeatedly. This frame- work will help you evaluate political events long after you have read this book.

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 11

The five concepts that we emphasize relate to (1) what govern- ment tries to do and (2) how it decides to do it. The concepts that relate to what government tries to do are order, freedom, and equal- ity. All governments by definition value order; maintaining order is part of the meaning of government. Most governments at least claim to preserve individual freedom while they maintain order, although they vary widely in the extent to which they succeed. Few governments even profess to guarantee equality, and governments differ greatly in policies that pit equality against freedom. Our con- ceptual framework should help you evaluate the extent to which the United States pursues all three values through its government.

How government chooses the proper mix of order, freedom, and equality in its policymaking has to do with the process of choice. We evaluate the American governmental process using two models of democratic government: majoritarian and pluralist. Many governments profess to be democracies. Whether they are or not depends on their (and our) meaning of the term. Even countries that Americans agree are democracies, such as the United States and Britain, differ substantially in the type of de- mocracy they practice. We can use our conceptual models of dem- ocratic government both to classify the type of democracy practiced in the United States and to evaluate the government’s success in fulfilling that model.

The five concepts can be organized into two groups:

1. Concepts that identify the values pursued by government: • Freedom • Order • Equality

2. Concepts that describe models of democratic government: • Majoritarian democracy • Pluralist democracy

First we examine freedom, order, and equality as conflicting val- ues pursued by government. Later in this chapter, we discuss majoritarian democracy and pluralist democracy as alternative institutional models for implementing democratic government.

The Concepts of Freedom, Order, and Equality These three terms—freedom, order, and equality—have a range of connotations in American politics. Both freedom and equality are

12 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

positive terms that politicians have learned to use to their own advantage. Consequently, freedom and equality mean different things to different people at different times, depending on the po- litical context in which they are used. Order, however, has nega- tive connotations for many people because it brings to mind government intrusion in private lives. Except during periods of social strife or external threat (e.g., after September 11, 2001), few politicians in Western democracies call openly for more order. Because all governments infringe on freedom, we examine that concept first.

Freedom. Freedom can be used in two major senses: freedom of and freedom from. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the word in each sense in a speech he made shortly before the United States entered World War II. He described four freedoms: freedom of re- ligion, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, and freedom from want. Freedom of is the absence of constraints on behavior. It is freedom to do something. In this sense, freedom is synonymous with liberty.18 Freedom from suggests immunity from something undesirable or negative, such as fear and want. In the modern po- litical context, freedom from often connotes the fight against ex- ploitation and oppression. The cry of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, ‘‘Freedom Now!’’ conveyed this meaning. If you recog- nize that freedom in the latter sense means immunity from dis- crimination, you can see that it comes close to the concept of equality.19 In this book, we avoid using freedom to mean ‘‘freedom from’’; for this sense of the word, we simply use equality. When we use freedom, we mean ‘‘freedom of.’’

Order. When order is viewed in the narrow sense of preserving life and protecting property, most citizens would concede the im- portance of maintaining order and thereby grant the need for gov- ernment. But when order is viewed in the broader sense of preserving the social order, people are more likely to argue that maintaining order is not a legitimate function of government. Social order refers to established patterns of authority in society and to traditional modes of behavior. However, it is important to remember that social order can change. Today, perfectly respect- able men and women wear bathing suits that would have caused a scandal a hundred years ago.

freedom of An absence of constraints on behavior, as in freedom of speech or freedom of religion.

freedom from Immunity, as in freedom from want.

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 13

A state government can protect the established order by using its police power—its authority to safeguard residents’ safety, health, welfare, and morals. Under legal tradition and constitu- tional provisions, state governments can act directly on residents under their police power. The national government only has powers granted by the Constitution and lacks a general police power. However, the national government can act on individuals if the action can be traced to a constitutionally delegated power. For example, in 1932 Congress passed the Federal Kidnapping Act, allowing the FBI to apprehend kidnappers. The law was based on the constitutional power to regulate interstate com- merce, given that kidnappers usually demand ransom by mail or telephone (instrumentalities of interstate commerce) and might cross state boundaries. The extent to which governments should use their police powers is a topic of ongoing debate in the United States and is constantly being redefined by the courts.

After September 11, 2001, Congress passed new laws increas- ing government’s power to investigate suspicious activities by for- eign nationals in order to deter terrorism. After the underwear bomber was thwarted from blowing up an airliner on Christmas Day 2009, the Transportation Security Administration began deploying advanced full-body scanners to probe through cloth- ing.20 Despite their desire to be safe from further attacks, some citizens feared the erosion of their civil liberties.

Most governments are inherently conservative; they tend to resist social change. But some governments aim to radically restructure the social order. Social change is most dramatic when a government is overthrown through force and replaced. This can occur through an internal revolution or a ‘‘regime change’’ effected externally. Societies can also work to change social pat- terns more gradually through the legal process. Our use of the term order in this book encompasses all three aspects: preserving life, protecting property, and maintaining traditional patterns of social relationships.

Equality. Like freedom and order, equality is used in different senses to support different causes. Political equality in elections is easy to define: each citizen has one and only one vote. This basic concept is central to democratic theory, a subject we explore at length later in this chapter. But when some people advocate politi- cal equality, they mean more than ‘‘one person, one vote.’’ These

police power The authority of government to maintain order and safeguard citizens’ safety, health, welfare, and morals.

political equality Equality in political decision making: one vote per person, with all votes counted equally.

14 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

people contend that an urban ghetto dweller and the chairman of the board of Microsoft are not politically equal despite the fact that each has one vote. Through occupation or wealth, some citi- zens are more able than others to influence political decisions. For example, wealthy citizens can exert influence by advertising in the mass media or contacting friends in high places. Lacking great wealth and political connections, most citizens do not have such influence. Thus, some analysts argue that equality in wealth, edu- cation, and status—that is, social equality—is necessary for true political equality.

There are two routes to promoting social equality: providing equal opportunities and ensuring equal outcomes. Equality of opportunity means that each person has the same chance to suc- ceed in life. This idea is deeply ingrained in American culture. The U.S. Constitution prohibits titles of nobility, and owning property is not a requirement for holding public office. Public schools and libraries are free to all. For many people, the concept of social equality is satisfied by offering equal opportunities for advancement—it is not essential that people actually end up being equal. For others, true social equality means nothing less than equality of outcome.21 They believe that society must see to it that people are equal. According to this view, it is not enough that governments provide people with equal opportunities; they must also design policies to redistribute wealth and status so that eco- nomic and social equality are achieved.

Some link equality of outcome with the concept of government- supported rights—the idea that every citizen is entitled to certain benefits of government, that government should guarantee its citi- zens adequate (if not equal) housing, employment, medical care, and income. If citizens are entitled to government benefits as a matter of right, government efforts to promote equality of out- come become legitimized.

Clearly, the concept of equality of outcome is very different from that of equality of opportunity, and it requires a much greater degree of government activity. It also clashes more directly with the concept of freedom. By taking from one person to give to another, which is necessary for the redistribution of income and status, the government creates winners and losers. The winners may believe that justice has been served by the redistribution. The losers often feel strongly that their freedom to enjoy their income and status has suffered.

social equality Equality in wealth, education, and status.

equality of opportunity The idea that each person is guaranteed the same chance to succeed in life.

equality of outcome The concept that society must ensure that people are equal, and governments must design policies to redistribute wealth and status to achieve economic and social equality.

rights The benefits of government to which every citizen is entitled.

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 15

Two Dilemmas of Government The two major dilemmas facing American government in the early years of the twenty-first century stem from the oldest and the newest objectives of government: maintaining order and pro- moting equality. Both order and equality are important social val- ues, but government cannot pursue either without sacrificing a third important value: individual freedom. The clash between free- dom and order forms the original dilemma of government; the clash between freedom and equality forms the modern dilemma of government. Although the dilemmas are very different, each

Compared with What?

The Importance of Order and Freedom in Other Nations Compared with citizens in twenty-nine other nations, Americans do not value order very much. The World Values Survey asked respondents to select which of four national goals was ‘‘very important’’:

• Maintaining order in the nation • Giving people more say in important government decisions • Fighting rising prices • Protecting freedom of speech

The United States ranked twenty-eighth in the list of those selecting ‘‘maintaining order’’ as very important. Although Ameri- can citizens do not value government control of social behavior as much as others, Americans do value freedom of speech more highly. Citizens in only three countries favor protecting freedom of speech more than citizens in the United States.

Critical Thinking What types of nations favor freedom of speech more than maintaining order? How about the reverse: Which nations favor maintaining order more than freedom of speech? In which group would you rather live—and why?

16 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

involves trading off some amount of freedom for another value (see ‘‘Compared with What? The Importance of Order and Free- dom in Other Nations’’).

The Original Dilemma: Freedom Versus Order. The conflict between freedom and order originates in the very meaning of gov- ernment as the legitimate use of force to control human behavior. How much freedom a citizen must surrender to government is a dilemma that has occupied philosophers for hundreds of years. The original purpose of government was to protect life and prop- erty, to make citizens safe from violence. How well is the

“Maintaining order is very important”

Percentage of respondents who value “order”

Percentage of respondents who value “freedom”

“Freedom of speech is very important” Indonesia Egypt Denmark Taiwan Saudi Arabia Russia Finland China Sweden Greece South Korea Brazil Poland New Zealand Ireland France Austria India Spain Netherlands Japan Belgium Australia Great Britain Switzerland Portugal Mexico United States Italy Canada

67 63

59 59

55 55

50 50

45 40

39 39

38 38 38 38 38 37

36 36 36 36

33 32 32

31 30

21 26

39 36

27 26 25 24

22 20 20 20

19 17 17 17 17

16 11

10 9 9 9

8 6 6 5 5 5

2 3

Netherlands Switzerland Great Britain United States Sweden Austria Denmark Italy Canada Belgium Australia Spain New Zealand Mexico France Finland Egypt Saudi Arabia Portugal Ireland Greece Brazil Indonesia India Poland Japan China Taiwan South Korea Russia

Source: These are combined data from the 1999–2001 and 2005–2007 waves of the World Values Survey. See Ronald Inglehart, ‘‘Materialist/Postmaterialist Priorities among Publics around the World’’ (discussion paper presented at ISR, University of Michigan, 14 February 2008).

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 17

American government doing today in providing law and order to its citizens? Almost 40 percent of the respondents in a 2011 national survey said that they were ‘‘afraid to walk alone at night’’ in areas within a mile of their home.22

Contrast the fear of crime in urban America with the sense of personal safety while walking in Moscow, Warsaw, or Prague when the old communist governments still ruled in Eastern Europe. It was common to see old and young strolling late at night along the streets and in the parks of those cities. The communist regimes gave their police great powers to control guns, monitor citizens’ movements, and arrest and imprison suspicious people, which enabled them to do a better job of maintaining order. Com- munist governments deliberately chose order over freedom.

In the abstract, people value both freedom and order; in real life, the two values inherently conflict. By definition, any policy that strengthens one value takes away from the other. In a democracy, policy choices hinge on how much citizens value freedom and how much they value order.

The Modern Dilemma: Freedom Versus Equality. Popular opin- ion has it that freedom and equality go hand in hand. In reality, these two values usually clash when governments enact policies to promote social equality. Because social equality is a relatively recent government objective, deciding between policies that pro- mote equality at the expense of freedom, and vice versa, is the modern dilemma of politics. Consider these examples:

• During the 1970s, the courts ordered the busing of school- children to achieve equal proportions of blacks and whites in public schools. This action was motivated by concern for edu- cational equality, but it also impaired freedom of choice.

• During the 1980s, some states passed legislation that went beyond giving men and women equal pay for equal work to the more radical notion of pay equity—equal pay for compa- rable work. Women were to be paid at a rate equal to men’s even if they had different jobs, providing the women’s jobs were of ‘‘comparable worth’’ (meaning the skills and respon- sibilities were comparable).

• During the 1990s, Congress prohibited discrimination in employment, public services, and public accommodations on the basis of physical or mental disabilities. Under the 1990

18 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

Americans with Disabilities Act, businesses with twenty-five or more employees could not pass over an otherwise qualified disabled person in employment or promotion, and new buses and trains had to be made accessible to them.

• During the first decade of the 2000s, Congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). Signed by President Bush in 2008, it prohibited companies from dis- criminating in hiring based on an individual’s genetic tests, genetic tests of a family member, and family medical history.

The clash between freedom and order is obvious, but the clash between freedom and equality is more subtle. Americans, who think of freedom and equality as complementary rather than con- flicting values, often do not notice the clash between those two values. When forced to choose between them, however, Ameri- cans are far more likely than people in other countries to choose freedom over equality.

The conflicts among freedom, order, and equality explain a great deal of the political conflict in the United States. The con- flicts also underlie the ideologies that people use to structure their understanding of politics.

Ideology and the Scope of Government Some people hold an assortment of values and beliefs that pro- duce contradictory opinions on government policies. Others organize their opinions into a political ideology: a consistent set of values and beliefs about the proper purpose and scope of government.

How far should government go to maintain order, provide public goods, and promote equality? We can analyze answers to this question by referring to philosophies about the proper scope of government—the range of permissible activities. Imagine a con- tinuum. At one end is the belief that government should do every- thing; at the other is the belief that government should not exist. These extreme ideologies—from ‘‘least government’’ to ‘‘most government’’—and those that fall in between are shown in Figure 1.1.

Totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is the belief that government should have unlimited power. A totalitarian government controls all sectors of society: business, labor, education, religion, sports, the arts, and others. A true totalitarian favors a network of laws,

political ideology A consistent set of values and beliefs about the proper purpose and scope of government.

totalitarianism A political philosophy that advocates unlimited power for the government to enable it to control all sectors of society.

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 19

rules, and regulations that guides every aspect of individual behavior.

Socialism. Whereas totalitarianism refers to government in gen- eral, socialism pertains to government’s role in the economy. Like communism, socialism is an economic system based on Marxist theory. Under socialism (and communism), the scope of govern- ment extends to ownership or control of the basic industries that produce goods and services (communications, heavy industry, transportation). Although socialism favors a strong role for gov- ernment in regulating private industry and directing the economy, it allows more room than communism does for private ownership of productive capacity.

Communism in theory was supposed to result in a withering away of the state, but communist governments in practice tended toward totalitarianism, controlling economic, political, and social

FIGURE 1.1 Ideology and the Scope of Government

MOST GOVERNMENT

LEAST GOVERNMENT

POLITICAL THEORIES

Anarchism Libertarianism Liberalism Totalitarianism

ECONOMIC THEORIES

Laissez Faire Capitalism Socialism

POPULAR POLITICAL LABELS IN AMERICA

Conservative Liberal

We can classify political ideologies according to the scope of action that people are willing to allow government in dealing with social and economic problems. In this chart, the three rows map out various philosophical positions along an underlying continuum ranging from ‘‘least’’ to ‘‘most’’ government. Notice that conventional politics in the United States spans only a narrow portion of the theoretical possibilities for government action. In popular usage, liberals favor a greater scope of government, and conservatives want a narrower scope. But over time, the traditional distinction has eroded and now oversimplifies the differences between liberals and conservatives. Figure 1.2 (p. 24) offers a more discriminating classification of liberals and conservatives. Source: ª Cengage Learning

socialism A form of rule in which the central government plays a strong role in regulating existing private industry and directing the economy, although it does allow some private ownership of productive capacity.

20 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

life through a dominant party organization. Some socialist gov- ernments, however, practice democratic socialism. They guaran- tee civil liberties (such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion) and allow their citizens to determine the extent of the government’s activity through free elections and competitive po- litical parties. The governments of Britain, Sweden, Germany, and France, among other democracies, have at times been avowedly socialist.

Capitalism. Capitalism also relates to the government’s role in the economy. In contrast to both socialism and communism, capitalism supports free enterprise—private businesses operating without government regulations. Some theorists, most notably the late economist Milton Friedman, argue that free enterprise is nec- essary for free politics.23 Whether this argument is valid depends in part on our understanding of democracy, a subject we discuss later in this chapter.

The United States is decidedly a capitalist country, more so than most other Western nations. But our government does extend its authority into the economic sphere, regulating private businesses and directing the overall economy. Both American lib- erals and conservatives embrace capitalism, but they differ on the nature and amount of government intervention in the economy that are necessary or desirable.

Libertarianism. Libertarianism opposes all government action except that which is necessary to protect life and property. For example, libertarians believe that social programs that provide food, clothing, and shelter are outside the proper scope of govern- ment. They also oppose any government intervention in the econ- omy. This kind of economic policy is called laissez faire, a French phrase that means ‘‘let (people) do (as they please).’’ Such an extreme policy extends beyond the free enterprise advocated by most capitalists.

Anarchism. Anarchism stands opposite totalitarianism on the political continuum. Anarchists oppose all government in any form. As a political philosophy, anarchism values absolute free- dom above all else. Like totalitarianism, it is not a popular philos- ophy, but it does have adherents on the political fringes. Discussing old and new forms of anarchy, Joseph Kahn said, ‘‘Nothing has revived anarchism like globalization.’’24

democratic socialism A socialist form of government that guarantees civil liberties such as freedom of speech and religion. Citizens determine the extent of government activity through free elections and competitive political parties.

capitalism The system of government that favors free enterprise (privately owned businesses operating without government regulation).

libertarianism A political ideology that is opposed to all government action except as necessary to protect life and property.

laissez faire An economic doctrine that opposes any form of government intervention in business.

anarchism A political philosophy that opposes government in any form.

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 21

Liberals and Conservatives. As shown in Figure 1.1, practical politics in the United States ranges over only the central portion of the continuum. The extreme positions, totalitarianism and anarchism, are rarely argued in public debate. And in this era of distrust of ‘‘big government,’’ few American politicians would openly advocate socialism. Most debate is limited to a narrow range of political thought. On one side are people commonly called liberals; on the other are conservatives. In popular usage, liberals favor more government, conservatives less. This distinc- tion is clear when the issue is government spending to provide public goods. Liberals are willing to use government to promote equality but not order. Thus, they generally favor generous gov- ernment support for education, wildlife protection, public trans-

portation, and a whole range of social programs. Conservatives want smaller government budgets and fewer government programs. They support free enterprise and argue against government job pro- grams, regulation of business, and legislation of working conditions and wage rates. In short, they prefer to use government to promote order rather than equality.

In other areas, liberal and con- servative ideologies are less consist- ent. The differences no longer hinge on the narrow question of the gov- ernment’s role in providing public goods. Liberals still favor more gov- ernment and conservatives less, but this is no longer the critical differ- ence between them. Today, that dif- ference stems from their attitudes toward the purpose of government. Conservatives support the original purpose of government: to maintain social order. They are willing to use the coercive power of the state to force citizens to be orderly. But they would not stop with defining,

Black Bloc in Action

Anarchism as a philosophy views government as an unnecessary evil used by the wealthy to exploit the poor. Concern for the poor takes many forms, though, as seen by the internal tensions that have emerged during Occupy movement protests. In May 2012, so-called Black Bloc anarchists broke away from an otherwise peaceful protest against NATO in Chicago. While the main body of protestors marched to raise awareness of the negative impacts of governments and military action on the poor, the young anarchists vandalized businesses and in some cases faced off against some of the Occupy protestors.

liberals Those who are willing to use government to promote equality but not order.

conservatives Those who are willing to use government to promote order but not equality.

M IC

H A

EL TE

RC H

A /

M C

T/ La

nd ov

22 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

preventing, and punishing crime. They tend to want to preserve traditional patterns of social relations—the domestic role of women and the importance of religion in school and family life, for example.

Liberals are less likely than conservatives to want to use gov- ernment power to maintain order. Liberals do not shy away from using government coercion, but they use it for a different pur- pose: to promote equality. They support laws that ensure equal treatment of gays and lesbians in employment, housing, and edu- cation; laws that force private businesses to hire and promote women and members of minority groups; and laws that require public transportation to provide equal access to people with dis- abilities. Conservatives do not oppose equality, but they do not value it to the extent of using the government’s power to enforce it. For liberals, the use of that power to promote equality is both valid and necessary.

A Two-Dimensional Classification of Ideologies To classify liberal and conservative ideologies more accurately, we have to incorporate the values of freedom, order, and equality into the classification.25 We can do this using the model in Figure 1.2 (p. 24). It depicts the conflicting values along two separate dimen- sions, each anchored in maximum freedom at the lower left. One dimension extends horizontally from maximum freedom on the left to maximum order on the right. The other extends vertically from maximum freedom at the bottom to maximum equality at the top. Each box represents a different ideological type: libertar- ians, liberals, conservatives, and communitarians.26

Libertarians value freedom more than they value order or equality (we will use libertarian for people who have libertarian tendencies but may not accept the whole philosophy). In practical terms, libertarians want minimal government intervention in both the economic and the social spheres. For example, they oppose af- firmative action laws and laws that restrict transmission of sexu- ally explicit material. Liberals value freedom more than order but not more than equality. They oppose laws that ban sexually explicit publications but support affirmative action. Conservatives value freedom more than equality but would restrict freedom to preserve social order. Conservatives oppose affirmative action but favor laws that restrict pornography.

libertarians Those who are opposed to using government to promote either order or equality.

A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government 23

Finally, at the upper right in Figure 1.2, we have a group that values both equality and order more than freedom. Its members support both affirmative action laws and laws that restrict pornog- raphy. We will call this new group communitarians.27 The term is used narrowly in contemporary politics to reflect the philosophy of the Communitarian Network, a political movement founded by sociologist Amitai Etzioni.28 This movement rejects both the liberal-conservative classification and the libertarian argument that ‘‘individuals should be left on their own to pursue their choices, rights, and self-interests.’’29 Like liberals, Etzioni’s communitarians believe that there is a role for government in helping the disadvan- taged. Like conservatives, they believe that government should be used to promote moral values—preserving the family through more stringent divorce laws and limiting the dissemination of por- nography, for example.30 However, the Communitarian Network is not dedicated to big government. According to its platform, ‘‘The government should step in only to the extent that other

TH E

M O

D ER

N D

IL EM

M A

Eq ua

lit y

Fr ee

do m

THE ORIGINAL DILEMMA OrderFreedom

Liberals

Favor: Government activities that promote equality, such as affirmative action programs to employ minorities and increased spending on public housing.

Oppose: Government actions that restrict individual liberties, such as banning sexually explicit movies or mandatory testing for AIDS.

Libertarians

Oppose: Government activities that interfere with the market, such as affirmative action programs to employ minorities and increased spending on public housing.

Oppose: Government actions that restrict individual liberties, such as banning sexually explicit movies or mandatory testing for AIDS.

Communitarians

Favor: Government activities that promote equality, such as affirmative action programs to employ minorities and increased spending on public housing.

Favor: Government actions that impose social order, such as banning sexually explicit movies or mandatory testing for AIDS.

Conservatives

Oppose: Government activities that interfere with the market, such as affirmative action programs to employ minorities and increased spending on public housing.

Favor: Government actions that impose social order, such as banning sexually explicit movies or mandatory testing for AIDS.

FIGURE 1.2 Ideologies: A Two-Dimensional Framework The four ideological types are defined by the values they favor in resolving the two major dilemmas of government: how much freedom should be sacrificed in pursuit of order and equality, respectively. Test yourself by thinking about the values that are most important to you. Which box in the figure best represents your combination of values? Source: ª Cengage Learning

communitarians Those who are willing to use government to promote both order and equality.

24 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

social subsystems fail, rather than seek to replace them.’’31 Our definition of communitarian (small ‘‘c’’) clearly embraces the Communitarian Network’s philosophy, but it is broader: commu- nitarians favor government programs that promote both order and equality, somewhat in keeping with socialist theory.

By analyzing political ideologies on two dimensions rather than one, we can explain why people can seem to be liberal on one issue (favoring a broader scope of government action) and conservative on another (favoring less government action). The reason hinges on the purpose of a given government action: Which value does it promote: order or equality? According to our typology, only libertarians and communitarians are consistent in their attitudes toward the scope of government activity, whatever its purpose. Libertarians value freedom so highly that they oppose most government efforts to enforce either order or equality. Com- munitarians (in our use) are inclined to trade off freedom for both order and equality. Liberals and conservatives, in contrast, favor or oppose government activity depending on its purpose. As you will learn in Chapter 4, large groups of Americans fall into each of the four ideological categories. Because Americans increasingly choose four different resolutions to the original and modern dilemmas of government, the simple labels liberal and conserva- tive no longer describe contemporary political ideologies as well as they did in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

1.4 The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist?

Compare and contrast the majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy.

In September 2011, Occupy Wall Street demonstrators brought tents and sleeping bags to a park near Wall Street in New York City and created a small encampment. The protestors claimed to represent the 99 percent of Americans who possess no special advantages in American society. The other 1 percent were defined as greedy financiers who have profited immensely during the

The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? 25

recent economic downturn, despite being widely viewed as re- sponsible for the mortgage mess and housing meltdown that pre- cipitated the recession.

Occupy Wall Street protestors believed that the political and economic system was rigged in favor of the very rich. The small encampment was composed of those who were unemployed, col- lege students, retirees, leftist ideologues, and some who could only be described as just plain fed up. Occupy Wall Street caught the nation’s attention—no small feat—and across the country, from Boston to Los Angeles, many other Occupy camps sprouted up.32

The primary issue the protestors pushed forward, income inequal- ity, is very real. Aggregate figures indicate that the gap between the wealthiest and the rest of the population has grown. Yet the movement’s political message did not go much beyond its simple slogan about the 99 percent.

The Occupy movement stalled quickly as it made little effort to build organizations outside of the encampments. Occupy Wall Street’s website boasted that the organization was ‘‘leaderless’’ and freely acknowledged that protestors had varying priorities in terms of what the American government ought to be addressing.33

Within a few months, most of the Occupy encampments were cleared out by local police. Despite its leaderless structure and the fact that much of the Occupy movement has drifted away, it can be credited with stimulating increased debate about income in- equality in America. At the same time, it is not at all clear as to how equal income ought to be. In a free market economy, what constitutes a fair distribution of income? Occupy Wall Street did not answer that question.

Since there is no clear answer as to what level of income in- equality is acceptable, it is easy to dismiss the protestors’ claim that they represented 99 percent of Americans. Yet the protestors were raising a broader criticism: that the political system does not really represent the majority of Americans. Polls do show that a majority of Americans want the wealthier taxed more, which would reduce income inequality.34 Congress refuses to enact such a change, pri- marily because Republican legislators stand steadfastly against increasing taxes. Can we conclude that the Republicans are acting against the majority? Not quite so fast. In November 2010, less than a year before the Occupy movement took hold, Republicans won a landslide in the congressional elections.

Determining who is in the majority and what that majority wants is no simple task. Does this country really operate as a

26 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

majoritarian democracy? Or is there an alternative way of under- standing American democracy?

The Theory of Democratic Government Americans have a simple answer to the question ‘‘Who should govern?’’ It is ‘‘The people.’’ Unfortunately, this answer is too sim- ple. It fails to say who the people are. Should we include young children? Recent immigrants? Illegal aliens? This answer also fails to indicate how ‘‘the people’’ should do the governing. Should they be assembled in a stadium? Vote by mail? Choose representa- tives to govern for them? We need to take a close look at what ‘‘government by the people’’ really means.

The word democracy originated in Greek writings around the fifth century B.C. Demos referred to the common people, the masses; kratos meant ‘‘power.’’ The ancient Greeks were afraid of democracy, which they viewed as rule by rank-and-file citizens. That fear is evident in the term demagogue. We use that term today to refer to a politician who appeals to and often deceives the masses by manipulating their emotions and prejudices.

Many centuries after the Greeks defined democracy, the idea still carried the connotation of mob rule. When George Washing- ton was president, opponents of a new political party disparag- ingly called it a democratic party. No one would do that in politics today. In fact, the names of more than 20 percent of the world’s political parties contain some variation of the word democracy.35

There are two major schools of thought about what consti- tutes democracy. The first believes democracy is a form of govern- ment, and it emphasizes the procedures that enable the people to govern: meeting to discuss issues, voting in elections, and running for public office, for example. The second sees democracy in the substance of government policies, in freedom of religion and pro- viding for human needs. The procedural approach focuses on how decisions are made; the substantive approach is concerned with what government does.

The Procedural View of Democracy. Procedural democratic theory sets forth principles that describe how government should make decisions. These principles address three distinct questions:

1. Who should participate in decision making? 2. How much should each participant’s vote count? 3. How many votes are needed to reach a decision?

democracy A system of government in which, in theory, the people rule, either directly or indirectly.

procedural democratic theory A view of democracy as being embodied in a decision-making process that involves universal participation, political equality, majority rule, and responsiveness.

The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? 27

According to procedural democratic theory, all adults within the boundaries of the political community should participate in government decision making. We refer to this principle as universal participation. How much should each participant’s vote count?

According to procedural theory, all votes should count equally. This is the principle of political equality. Note that uni- versal participation and political equality are two distinct princi- ples. It is not enough for everyone to participate in a decision; all votes must carry equal weight.

Finally, procedural theory prescribes that a group should decide to do what the majority of its participants (a minimum of 50 percent plus one person) wants to do. This principle is called majority rule. (If participants divide over more than two alterna- tives and none receives a majority, the principle usually defaults to plurality rule, in which the group should do what the largest group of participants wants, even if fewer than half of those involved hold that view.)

A Complication: Direct Versus Indirect Democracy. Universal participation, political equality, and majority rule are widely rec- ognized as necessary for democratic decision making. Small, sim- ple societies can achieve all three with direct or participatory democracy, in which all members of the group meet to make decisions, observing political equality and majority rule. However, in the United States and nearly all other democracies, participa- tory democracy is rare. Clearly, all Americans cannot gather at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to decide defense policy.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution had their own concep- tion of democracy. They instituted representative democracy, a system in which citizens participate in government by electing public officials to make government decisions on their behalf. Within the context of representative democracy, we adhere to the principles of universal participation, political equality, and major- ity rule to guarantee that elections are democratic. But what hap- pens after the election?

Suppose the elected representatives do not make the decisions the people would have made if they had gathered for the same purpose. To account for this possibility in representative govern- ment, procedural theory provides a fourth decision-making prin- ciple: responsiveness. Elected representatives should follow the

universal participation The concept that everyone in a democracy should participate in governmental decision making.

majority rule The principle—basic to procedural democratic theory— that the decision of a group must reflect the preference of more than half of those participating; a simple majority.

participatory democracy A system of government where rank-and-file citizens rule themselves rather than electing representatives to govern on their behalf.

representative democracy A system of government where citizens elect public officials to govern on their behalf.

responsiveness A decision-making principle, necessitated by representative government, that implies that elected representatives should do what the majority of people want.

28 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

general contours of public opinion as they formulate complex pieces of legislation.36

By adding responsiveness to deal with the case of indirect de- mocracy, we now have four principles of procedural democracy:

• Universal participation • Political equality • Majority rule • Government responsiveness to public opinion

The Substantive View of Democracy. According to procedural theory, the principle of responsiveness is absolute: the government should do what the majority wants, regardless of what that is. At first this seems a reasonable way to protect the rights of citizens in a representative democracy. But what about the rights of minor- ities? To limit the government’s responsiveness to public opinion, we must look outside procedural democratic theory to substantive democratic theory. Substantive democratic theory focuses on the substance of government policies, not on the procedures followed in making those policies. It argues that in a democratic govern- ment, certain principles must be embodied in government poli- cies. Substantive theorists would reject a law that requires Bible reading in schools because it would violate a substantive principle, the freedom of religion. The core of the substantive principles of American democracy is embedded in the Bill of Rights and other amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

In defining the principles that underlie democratic government— and the policies of that government—most substantive theorists agree on a basic criterion: government policies should guarantee civil liberties (freedom of behavior such as freedom of religion and freedom of expression) and civil rights (powers or privileges that government may not arbitrarily deny to individuals, such as protec- tion against discrimination in employment and housing). But agreement among substantive theorists breaks down when discus- sion moves from civil rights to social rights (adequate health care, quality education, decent housing) and economic rights (private property, steady employment). For example, some insist that poli- cies that promote social equality are essential to democratic govern- ment. Others restrict the requirements of substantive democracy to policies that safeguard civil liberties and civil rights.37

A theorist’s political ideology tends to explain his or her posi- tion on what democracy really requires in substantive policies.

substantive democratic theory The view that democracy is embodied in the substance of government policies rather than in the policy-making procedure.

The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? 29

Conservative theorists have a narrow view of the scope of demo- cratic government and a narrow view of the social and economic rights guaranteed by that government. Liberal theorists believe that a democratic government should guarantee its citizens a much broader spectrum of social and economic rights.

Procedural Democracy Versus Substantive Democracy. The problem with the substantive view of democracy is that it does not provide clear, precise criteria that allow us to determine whether a government is democratic. Substantive theorists are free to promote their pet values—separation of church and state, guar- anteed employment, equal rights for women, or whatever else— under the guise of substantive democracy.

The procedural viewpoint also has a problem. Although it presents specific criteria for democratic government, those criteria can produce undesirable social policies that harm minorities. This clashes with minority rights—the idea that all citizens are entitled to certain rights that cannot be denied by the majority. One way to protect minority rights is to limit the principle of majority rule by requiring a two-thirds majority or some other extraordinary majority when decisions must be made on certain subjects. Another way is to put the issue in the Constitution, beyond the reach of majority rule.

Clearly, procedural democracy and substantive democracy are not always compatible. In choosing one over the other, we are also choosing to focus on either procedures or policies. As authors of this text, we favor a compromise between the two. On the whole, we favor the procedural conception of democracy because it more closely approaches the classical definition of democracy: ‘‘govern- ment by the people.’’ And procedural democracy is founded on clear, well-established rules for decision making. But the theory has a serious drawback: it allows a democratic government to enact policies that can violate the substantive principles of democ- racy. Thus, pure procedural democracy should be diluted so that minority rights and civil liberties are guaranteed as part of the structure of government.

Institutional Models of Democracy Some democratic theorists favor institutions that tie government decisions closely to the desires of the majority of citizens. If most citizens want laws against the sale of pornography, then the

minority rights The benefits of government that cannot be denied to any citizens by majority decisions.

30 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

government should outlaw pornography. If citizens want more money spent on defense and less on social welfare (or vice versa), the government should act accordingly. For these theorists, the essence of democratic government is majority rule and respon- siveness. Other theorists place less importance on these principles. They do not believe in relying heavily on mass opinion; instead, they favor institutions that allow groups of citizens to defend their interests in the public policymaking process.

Both schools hold a procedural view of democracy but differ in how they interpret ‘‘government by the people.’’ We can sum- marize these theoretical positions using two alternative models of democracy. As a model, each is a hypothetical plan, a blueprint, for achieving democratic government through institutional mech- anisms. The majoritarian model values participation by the peo- ple in general; the pluralist model values participation by the people in groups.

The Majoritarian Model of Democracy. The majoritarian model of democracy relies on our intuitive notion of what is fair. It interprets ‘‘government by the people’’ as government by the majority of the people. To force the government to respond to public opinion, the majoritarian model depends on several mech- anisms that allow the people to participate directly.

The popular election of government officials is the primary mechanism for democratic government in the majoritarian model. Citizens are expected to control their representatives’ behavior by choosing wisely in the first place and by reelecting or voting out public officials according to their performance.

Majoritarian theorists also see elections as a means for decid- ing government policies. An election on a policy issue is called a referendum. When a policy question is put on the ballot by the action of citizens circulating petitions and gathering a required minimum number of signatures, it is called an initiative. Twenty- one states allow their legislatures to put referenda before the vot- ers and give their citizens the right to place initiatives on the ballot. Five other states make provision for one mechanism or the other. Eighteen states also allow for the recall of state officials, a means of forcing a special election for an up-or-down vote on a sitting governor or state judge.38

In the United States, no provisions exist for referenda at the national level. Some other countries do allow policy questions to

majoritarian model of democracy The classical theory of democracy in which government by the people is interpreted as government by the majority of the people.

The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? 31

be put before the public. In a national referendum in 2009, a clear majority of voters in Switzerland voted to ban construction of minarets on any of the country’s mosques. (Minarets are the thin spires atop a mosque.) This vote was clearly hostile to the coun- try’s small (5 percent) Muslim population. One of the dangers of referenda is the power of a majority to treat a minority in a harsh or intimidating way.39

The majoritarian model contends that citizens can control their government if they have adequate mechanisms for popular participation. It also assumes that citizens are knowledgeable about government and politics, want to participate in the political process, and make rational decisions in voting for their elected representatives.

Critics contend that Americans are not knowledgeable enough for majoritarian democracy to work. They point to research that shows that even during the week of the Super Tuesday primaries in the 2012 presidential campaign, only 28 percent of a national sample said that they follow news about politics ‘‘very closely.’’40

Two scholars who have studied citi- zens’ interest in politics conclude that most Americans favor ‘‘stealth’’ democracy, ‘‘in which ordinary peo- ple do not have to get involved.’’41 If most citizens feel that way, then majoritarian democracy is not viable, even with the wonders of modern information technology. Defenders of majoritarian democracy respond that although individual Americans may have only limited knowledge of or interest in government, the Amer- ican public as a whole still has coherent and stable opinions on the major policy questions.

An Alternative Model: Pluralist Democracy. For years, political sci- entists struggled valiantly to recon- cile the majoritarian model of democracy with polls that showed a widespread ignorance of politics

Now That’s a Town Meeting

For over 600 years, citizens of Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, the smallest canton (like a township) in Switzerland, have gathered in the town square on the last Sunday in April to make political decisions by raised hands. At a recent meeting, Appenzellers adopted a leash law for dogs, approved updating property files on a computer, chose a new building commissioner, and acted on other public business before adjourning until the next year.

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32 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

among the American people. When only a little more than half of the adult population bothers to vote in presidential elections, our form of democracy seems to be government by some of the people.

The 1950s saw the evolution of an alternative interpretation of democracy, one tailored to the limited knowledge and partici- pation of the real electorate, not the ideal one. It was based on the concept of pluralism: that modern society consists of innumerable groups that share economic, religious, ethnic, or cultural interests. Often people with similar interests organize formal groups. An organized group that seeks to influence government policy is called an interest group. Many interest groups regularly spend a great deal of time and money trying to influence government pol- icy (see Chapter 7). Among them are the American Hospital Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Education Association, and the National Organization for Women.

The pluralist model of democracy interprets ‘‘government by the people’’ to mean government by people operating through competing interest groups. According to this model, democracy exists when many (plural) organizations operate separately from the government, press their interests on the government, and even challenge the government.42 Compared with majoritarian think- ing, pluralist theory shifts the focus of democratic government from the mass electorate to organized groups. It changes the crite- rion for democratic government from responsiveness to mass public opinion to responsiveness to organized groups of citizens.

A decentralized, complex government structure offers the access and openness necessary for pluralist democracy. For plural- ists, the ideal system is one that divides government authority among numerous institutions with overlapping authority. Under such a system, competing interest groups have alternative points of access to present and argue their claims. According to political scientist Robert Dahl, the fundamental axiom of pluralist democ- racy is that ‘‘instead of a single center of sovereign power there must be multiple centers of power, none of which is or can be wholly sovereign.’’43 Some watchwords of pluralist democracy, therefore, are divided authority, decentralization, and open access.

On one level, pluralism is alive and well. Interest groups in Washington are thriving, and the rise of many citizen groups has broadened representation beyond traditional business, labor, and

interest group An organized group of individuals that seeks to influence public policy; also called a lobby.

pluralist model of democracy An interpretation of democracy in which government by the people is taken to mean government by people operating through competing interest groups.

The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? 33

professional groups.44 At the same time, the interest group system is not one that provides equal representation for all. Not surpris- ingly, the best-represented sectors are those representing those who are in business or the professions. Those whose representa- tion is relatively poor are low-income Americans and those who are most marginal in American society.45

The Majoritarian Model Versus the Pluralist Model. In majori- tarian democracy, the mass public, not interest groups, controls government actions. The citizenry must be knowledgeable about government and willing to participate in the electoral process. Majoritarian democracy relies on electoral mechanisms that har- ness the power of the majority to make decisions. Conclusive elec- tions and a centralized structure of government are mechanisms that aid majority rule. Cohesive political parties with well-defined programs also contribute to majoritarian democracy, because they offer voters a clear way to distinguish alternative sets of policies.

Pluralism does not demand much knowledge from citizens in general. It requires specialized knowledge only from groups of citizens, in particular their leaders. In contrast to majoritarian de- mocracy, pluralist democracy seeks to limit majority action so that interest groups can be heard. It relies on strong interest groups and a decentralized government structure—mechanisms that interfere with majority rule, thereby protecting minority interests. We could even say that pluralism allows minorities to rule.

An Undemocratic Model: Elite Theory. If pluralist democracy allows minorities to rule, how does it differ from elite theory— the view that a small group of people (a minority) makes most important government decisions? According to elite theory, im- portant government decisions are made by an identifiable and sta- ble minority that shares certain characteristics, usually vast wealth and business connections.46 Elite theory appeals to many people, especially those who believe that wealth dominates politics.

According to elite theory, the United States is not a democ- racy but an oligarchy.47 Although the voters appear to control the government through elections, elite theorists argue that the powerful few in society manage to define the issues and constrain the outcomes of government decisions to suit their own interests. Clearly, elite theory describes a government that operates in an undemocratic fashion.

elite theory The view that a small group of people actually makes most of the important government decisions.

oligarchy A system of government in which power is concentrated in the hands of a few people.

34 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

Political scientists have conducted numerous studies designed to test the validity of elite theory. Not all of those studies have come to the same conclusion, but the preponderance of evidence documenting government decisions on many different issues does not generally support elite theory—at least in the sense that an identifiable ruling elite usually gets its way. Not surprisingly, elite theorists reject this view. They argue that studies of decisions made on individual issues do not adequately test the influence of the power elite. Rather, they contend that much of the elite’s power comes from its ability to keep things off the political agenda—that is, its power derives from its ability to keep people from question- ing fundamental assumptions about American capitalism.48

Elite theory remains part of the debate about the nature of American government and is forcefully argued by some severe critics of the American political system, such as the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Although we do not believe that the scholarly evidence supports elite theory, we do recognize that contemporary American pluralism favors some segments of society over others. The poor are chronically unorganized and are not well repre- sented by interest groups. In contrast, business is very well represented in the political system. Americans themselves are divided over whether American society is dominated by those who are wealthy.

Elite Theory Versus Pluralist Theory. The key difference between elite theory and pluralist theory lies in the durability of the ruling minority. In contrast to elite theory, pluralist theory does not define government conflict in terms of a minority versus the ma- jority; instead, it sees many minorities vying with one another in each policy area. Pluralist democracy makes a virtue of the strug- gle between competing interests. It argues for government that accommodates this struggle and channels the result into govern- ment action. According to pluralist democracy, the public is best served if the government structure provides access for different groups to press their claims in competition with one another.

Note that pluralist democracy does not insist that all groups have equal influence on government decisions. In the political struggle, wealthy, well-organized groups have an inherent advan- tage over poorer, inadequately organized groups. In fact, unorgan- ized segments of the population may not even get their concerns placed on the agenda for government consideration. Indeed,

The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? 35

studies of the congressional agenda demonstrate that it is charac- terized by little in the way of legislation concerned with poor or low-income Americans, while business-related bills are plentiful.49

This is a critical weakness of pluralism, and critics relentlessly attack the theory because it appears to justify great disparities in levels of political organization and resources among different seg- ments of society.50

1.5 Democracy and Globalization

Evaluate the challenges facing countries trying to move toward a democratic form of government.

While no government perfectly achieves the goals of the majori- tarian or pluralist models of democracy, some nations approach these ideals closely enough to be considered practicing democra- cies. Governments can meet some criteria for a procedural de- mocracy (universal participation, political equality, majority rule, and government responsiveness to public opinion) and fail to meet others. They can also differ in the extent to which they sup- port freedom of speech and freedom of association, which create the necessary conditions for the practice of democracy. Various scholars and organizations have developed complicated databases that rate countries on a long list of indicators, providing a means of comparing countries along all criteria.51 One research institu- tion has found a global trend toward freedom every decade since 1975, though in the past few years there has been a slight drop in the number of democracies.52 Democratization is a difficult proc- ess, and many countries fail completely or succeed only in the short run and lapse into a form of authoritarianism.

One reason that democratization can be so difficult is that ethnic and religious conflict is epidemic. Such conflict complicates efforts to democratize because antagonisms can run so deep that opposing groups do not want to grant political legitimacy to each other. A bitter irony of the United States’ 2003 military overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq is that religious con- flict between Sunnis and Shiites immediately came to the fore. These two branches of Islam reflect theological differences that

democratization A process of transition as a country attempts to move from an authoritarian form of government to a democratic one.

36 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

have manifested themselves in the form of ethnic hatred. Iraq’s steps toward democracy allowed enough freedom for open pro- test, and religious violence has continued to plague the country. In 2011 the nation’s Sunni vice president was accused by the Shi- ite prime minister of plotting to kill Shiite leaders.53

The political and economic instability that typically accompa- nies transitions to democracy also makes new democratic govern- ments vulnerable to attack by their opponents. The military will often revolt and take over the government on the grounds that progress cannot occur until order is restored. The open political conflict that emerges in a new democracy may not be easily harnessed into a well-functioning government that tolerates opposition.54 Despite such difficulties, strong forces are pushing authoritarian governments toward democratization. Nations find it difficult to succeed economically in today’s world without estab- lishing a market economy, and market economies (that is, capital- ism) give people substantial freedoms. Thus, authoritarian rulers may see economic reforms as a threat to their regime.

American Democracy: More Pluralist Than Majoritarian It is not idle speculation to ask what kind of democracy is prac- ticed in the United States. The answer to this question can help us understand why our government can be called democratic despite a low level of citizen participation in politics and despite govern- ment actions that run contrary to public opinion.

Throughout this book, we probe to determine how well the United States fits the two alternative models of democracy: major- itarian and pluralist. If our answer is not already apparent, it soon will be. We argue that the political system in the United States rates relatively low according to the majoritarian model of democ- racy but fulfills the pluralist model very well. Yet the pluralist model is far from a perfect representation of democracy. Its prin- cipal drawback is that it favors the well organized, and the poor are the least likely to be members of interest groups. As one advo- cate of majoritarian democracy once wrote, ‘‘The flaw in the plu- ralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.’’55

This evaluation of the pluralist nature of American democracy may not mean much to you now. But you will learn that the

Democracy and Globalization 37

pluralist model makes the United States look far more democratic than the majoritarian model would. Eventually, you will have to decide the answers to three questions: Is the pluralist model truly an adequate expression of democracy, or is it a perversion of clas- sical ideals designed to portray America as democratic when it is not? Does the majoritarian model result in a ‘‘better’’ type of de- mocracy? If so, could new mechanisms of government be devised to produce a desirable mix of majority rule and minority rights? These questions should play in the back of your mind as you read about the workings of American government in meeting the chal- lenge of democracy.

SUMMARY 1.1 The Globalization of American

Government • National sovereignty: each national

government has the right to govern its people as it wishes, without interfer- ence from other nations.

• As globalization increases, human rights weigh more heavily in interna- tional politics. • Some believe that nations should

be held accountable to interna- tional law.

• The U.S. government worries that international law would require us to abide by laws based on other nations’ values rather than our own.

• The American government must rec- ognize it is part of a worldwide eco- nomic, social, and political network. Foreign affairs must be evaluated by how they affect the U.S. government and, conversely, how American

politics affects governments in other nations.

1.2 The Purposes of Government • Government requires citizens to sur-

render some freedom as part of being governed. People do so to obtain the benefits of government: maintaining order, providing public goods, and— more controversially—promoting equality.

• Maintaining order: the rule of law is established to preserve life and to protect property.

• Providing public goods: benefits and services are available to everyone, such as education, sanitation, and parks.

• Promoting equality: the government’s role in promoting economic and social equality has been a major source of policy debate in the United States.

38 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

1.3 A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government • Concepts that identify the values

pursued by government: • Freedom: freedom of is the freedom

to do something such as practice the religion you choose and free- dom of speech. Freedom from is the freedom from something negative and often means the fight against exploitation and oppression.

• Order: order includes preserving life, protecting property, and main- taining traditional patterns of social relationships.

• Equality: social inequality is the equality in wealth, education, and status and this can be promoted by equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

• Dilemmas facing government: • The original dilemma: freedom

versus order. • The modern dilemma: freedom

versus equality. • Political ideologies and the scope of

government: • Totalitarianism: government should

have unlimited power. • Socialism: the scope of government

extends to ownership or control of basic industries that produce goods and services.

• Capitalism: free enterprise such as private business should operate without government regulations.

• Libertarianism: all government action is opposed except that which

is necessary to protect life and property.

• Anarchism: anarchists oppose all government, in any form.

• Liberals and conservatives: • In popular usage, liberals favor

more government, conservatives less. This is misleading: both favor the use of government, but for different ends.

• Liberals are willing to use the gov- ernment to promote equality, but value freedom over order.

• Conservatives value order over free- dom and freedom over equality.

• Communitarians value both equal- ity and order more than freedom.

• Libertarians value individual free- dom highly and frown upon govern- ment action to pursue equality and order.

1.4 The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist? • Procedural democratic theory empha-

sizes four democratic processes including universal participation, political equality, majority rule, and government responsiveness to public opinion.

• Substantive democratic theory focuses on the substance of policies more than the procedures of democ- racy. It holds that there are civil liber- ties and civil rights that are so important they should not subject to being overturned by majority decision.

Summary 39

• Models of democracy: • The majoritarian model of democ-

racy is built around majority rule as evidenced by elections.

• The pluralistic model conceives of democracy as a competition between interest groups in society.

• An undemocratic model: • Elite theory is the idea that Ameri-

can government is dominated by a small, stable set of wealthy individu- als and large businesses.

1.5 Democracy and Globalization • An increasing number of countries

around the world have moved toward democratic governance.

• The process of democratization is dif- ficult. Ethnic and religious rivalries interfere with a government’s ability to recognize all citizens’ interests.

• Governmental instability caused by the transition to democracy can lead to vulnerability for a new democracy.

• Inevitable economic reforms often bring greater freedom, which authori- tarian rulers often see as a threat to their leadership.

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

1.1 Define globalization and explain how globalization affects American politics and government. 1. What is government? 2. Explain globalization and give a

concrete example. 3. Why do international politics and

world opinion have an impact on U.S. politics?

1.2 Identify the purposes that govern- ment serves and trace their histori- cal roots. 1. What are the major purposes of

government and which is most controversial?

2. What are some ways that govern- ment can promote social equality?

1.3 Describe how political scientists use concepts to structure events and promote understanding. 1. What is a concept and how does

using concepts help understanding? 2. What are the two major dilemmas

that have historically faced govern- ments?

3. How can both liberals and conservatives favor greater scope of government?

40 Chapter 1 Dilemmas of Democracy

1.4 Compare and contrast the majori- tarian and pluralist models of democracy. 1. How do procedural and substantive

democracy differ? 2. What is the basic concept of majori-

tarian democracy? 3. How does the pluralistic model of de-

mocracy interpret ‘‘government by the people’’?

1.5 Evaluate the challenges facing countries trying to move toward a democratic form of government. 1. Offer an example of why democra-

tization is difficult. 2. Does the U.S. government more

closely fit the pluralistic model or the majoritarian model?

Assessing Your Understanding 41

2 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

The Constitution

2.1 The Revolutionary Roots of the Constitution

Explain the reasons for the colonies’ declaration of independence from British rule.

2.2 From Revolution to Confederation

Identify the factors that led to the failure of the Confederation.

2.3 From Confederation to Constitution

Explain the major points of contention in the writing of the Constitution.

2.4 The Final Product

Explain the contribution of the Constitution to the American political tradition and the principles it establishes.

2.5 Selling the Constitution

Describe the actions taken to ensure the ratification of the Constitution.

2.6 Constitutional Change

Explain the procedures required to amend the Constitution.

2.7 An Evaluation of the Constitution

Evaluate the extent to which the Constitution reflects and embodies the principles of majoritarian or pluralist democracy.

42 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

‘‘

You are the ‘Conventionists’ of Europe.You therefore have the power vested in any political body: to succeed or to fail,’’ claimed Chairman Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in his introduc- tory speech on February 26, 2002, to the mem- bers of the Convention on the Future of Europe. The purpose of the convention, according to Gis- card d’Estaing, was for the members to ‘‘agree to propose a concept of the European Union which matches our continental dimension and the requirements of the 21st century, a concept which can bring unity to our continent and respect for its diversity.’’ If the members succeeded, he reas- sured them, no doubt they would in essence write ‘‘a new chapter in the history of Europe.’’1 Inte- grating and governing twenty-five nation-states— many of them at one time or another bitter ene- mies—with a population of 500 million is, to say the least, a daunting task.

Over two centuries earlier, from his home at Mount Vernon, George Washington penned a let- ter to James Madison on March 31, 1787. ‘‘I am

glad to find,’’ Washington wrote, ‘‘that Congress have recommended to the States to appear in the Convention proposed to be holden in Philadel- phia in May. I think the reasons in favor, have the preponderancy of those against the measure.’’2

Roughly two months later, in May, Washington would be selected by a unanimous vote to preside over the Constitutional Convention, known then as the Federal Convention, which was charged with revising the Articles of Confederation. Acting beyond its mandate, the body produced instead a new document altogether, which remains the oldest operating national constitution in the world.

The path to a European constitution was strewn with pitfalls. Ratification required unanim- ity, which failed when the treaty was rejected by voters in several countries. Although the proc- esses on both sides of the Atlantic may have dif- fered in 1787 and today, the political passions that these efforts spawned have been equally intense and highlight the fragility inherent in designing a constitution. And no wonder. The

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43 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

questions that challenged America’s founders and confronted the women and men charged with setting a future course for Europe do not have easy or obvious answers. A thoughtful European observer asked the same kinds of questions that confronted the delegates at Philadelphia: ‘‘How can a balance be achieved in the representation of large and small states? How much power should be conferred upon the federal level, and what should be the jurisdiction of the EU [European Union] today? What fundamental set of values underpins political unity? Is there a European equivalent to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’?’’3

Taking a new tack, EU advocates proposed a new agreement called the Treaty of Lisbon or the Reform Treaty, which was signed on December 13, 2007, during a European summit. Except for Ireland, all member nations submitted the treaty to their respective legislatures. The treaty’s ap- proval still required unanimity. The Reform Treaty presented a still-longer ver- sion of the previous constitutional text, but dropped nearly all the state-like symbols and terminology (the European flag and anthem, among others). It planned for a European Union president, created a diplomatic service under a single foreign-affairs head, and smoothed the ability to make deci- sions by reducing the number of areas that called for unanimity among member nations. Ireland rejected the treaty in 2008, halting once more the effort toward European integration. But the sobering effects of eco- nomic toil soon gave Ireland a chance to reconsider. In October 2009, Irish voters agreed to the treaty by a substantial margin, hoping that the new EU would stave off economic catastrophe caused by the worldwide collapse in the financial sector.4 Finally, on December 1, 2009, the treaty went into effect, bringing the European Union one step closer to unity.

Economic forces pounded the EU through 2012 as creditors ques- tioned whether the debt-ridden nations of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain would be able to pay or refinance their bonds. To stave off collapse of the monetary union, EU leaders (with the exception of Great Britain) have agreed to greater central authority over their respective economies. The EU’s political union now hinges on the willingness of individual states to cede more political and economic control to a central government and to relax the unanimity rule that gives any of the twenty- seven member nations a veto.5 This parallels the same choice Americans faced as their initial attempt at government proved unworkable.

The American experience is sure to shed light on the issues emerging in Europe’s quest for unity. This chapter poses some questions about the U.S. Constitution. How did it evolve? What form did it take? What values does it reflect? How can it be altered? And which model of democracy, majoritarian or pluralist,

44 Chapter 2 The Constitution

does it better fit? In these answers may lie hints of the formidable tasks facing the European Union.

2.1 The Revolutionary Roots of the Constitution

Explain the reasons for the colonies’ declaration of independence from British rule.

The Constitution of the United States is startlingly short— just 4,300 words. But those 4,300 words define the basic structure of our national government. (In contrast, the failed European constitution was more than 60,000 words long. The Reform Treaty was over 68,500 words.) A com- prehensive document, the Constitution divides the govern- ment into three branches and describes the powers of those branches, their relationship to each other, the inter- action between the government and the governed, and the relationship between the national government and the states. The Constitution makes itself the supreme law of the land and binds every government official to support it.

Most Americans revere the Constitution as political scripture. To charge that a political action is unconstitu- tional is akin to claiming that it is unholy. So the Consti- tution has taken on symbolic value that has strengthened its authority as the basis of American government.

The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787 for an agri- cultural society huddled along the coast of a wild new land, now guides the political life of a massive urban society in the nuclear age. To fully understand the rea- sons for the stability of the Constitution—and of the political system it created—we must first look at its historical roots, which lie in colonial America.

Freedom in Colonial America Although they were British subjects, the American colo- nists in the eighteenth century enjoyed a degree of

Harmony.eu?

In November 2009, leaders of the twenty-seven countries of the European Union chose Herman Von Rompuy as the EU’s first president and Catherine Ashton as the High Representative for foreign policy. The choice of these respected but little-known figures may foretell a less united and forceful political union. Mr. Rompuy, an economist by training, enjoys writing haiku. One recent effort may shed light on his new role: ‘‘A fly zooms, buzzes; Spins and is lost in the room; He does no one harm.’’

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The Revolutionary Roots of the Constitution 45

freedom denied most other people in the world at that time. In Europe, ancient custom and the relics of feudalism restricted private property, compelled support for established religion, and restricted access to trades and profes- sions; Americans were relatively free of such controls. Also, in America, colonists enjoyed almost complete freedom of speech, press, and assembly.6

By 1763, Britain and the colonies had reached a compromise between imperial control and colonial self- government. America’s foreign affairs and overseas trade were to be controlled by the king and Parliament (the British legislature); the rest was left to home rule. But the cost of administering the colonies was substantial. Because Ameri- cans benefited the most, their English countrymen contended that Americans should bear that cost.

The Road to Revolution The British believed that taxing the colo- nies was the obvious way to meet the costs of administering the colonies. The colonists did not agree. They especially did not want to be taxed by a distant gov- ernment in which they had no representa- tion. During the decade preceding the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, this issue was to convert increasing numbers of col- onists from loyal British subjects seeking the rights of Englishmen to revolution- aries seeking the end of British rule over the American colonies.

On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of colonists reacted to a British duty on tea by organizing the Boston Tea Party. A mob boarded three ships and emptied

Uniquely American Protest

Americans protested the Tea Act (1773) by holding the Boston Tea Party (background, left) and by using a unique form of painful punishment, tarring and feathering, on the tax collector (see ‘‘Stamp Act’’ posted upside down on the Liberty Tree). An early treatise on the subject offered the following instructions: ‘‘First, strip a person naked, then heat the tar until it is thin, and pour upon the naked flesh, or rub it over with a tar brush. After which, sprinkle decently upon the tar, whilst it is yet warm, as many feathers as will stick to it.’’

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342 chests of that valuable substance into Boston Harbor. In an attempt to reassert British control over its recalcitrant colonists, Parliament passed the Coercive (or ‘‘Intolerable’’) Acts (1774). One act imposed a blockade on Boston until the tea was paid for; another gave royal governors the power to quarter British soldiers in private homes. Now the taxation issue was secondary; more im- portant was the conflict between British demands for order and American demands for liberty. The Virginia and Massachusetts assemblies summoned a continental congress, an assembly that would speak and act for the people of all the colonies.

The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in Septem- ber 1774. The objective of the assembly was to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies. A leader of the Continental Congress, called the president, was elected. (The terms president and congress in American government trace their origins to the First Continental Congress.) In October 1774, the delegates adopted a statement of rights and principles; many of these later found their way into the Declaration of Independence and the Con- stitution. For example, the congress claimed a right ‘‘to life, liberty, and property’’ and a right ‘‘peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king.’’ Then the congress adjourned, planning to reconvene in May 1775.

Revolutionary Action By early 1775, however, a movement that the colonists themselves were calling a revolution had already begun. Colonists in Massa- chusetts were fighting the British at Concord and Lexington. Dele- gates to the Second Continental Congress, meeting in May, faced a dilemma: Should they prepare for war, or should they try to rec- oncile with Britain? As conditions deteriorated, the Second Conti- nental Congress remained in session to serve as the government of the colony-states.

On June 7, 1776, the Virginia delegation called on the Conti- nental Congress to resolve ‘‘that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all po- litical connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.’’ A committee of five men was appointed to prepare a proclamation expressing the colonies’ rea- sons for declaring independence.

The Revolutionary Roots of the Constitution 47

The Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson, a young farmer and lawyer from Virginia, drafted the proclamation. Jefferson’s document, the Declaration of Independence, expressed simply, clearly, and rationally the arguments in support of separation from Great Britain.

The principles underlying the declaration were rooted in the writings of the English philosopher John Locke and had been expressed many times before by speakers in congress and in the colonial assemblies. Locke argued that people have God-given, or natural, rights that are inalienable—that is, they cannot be taken away by any government. According to Locke, all legitimate politi- cal authority exists to preserve these natural rights and is based on the consent of those who are governed. The idea of consent is derived from social contract theory, which states that the people agree to establish rulers for certain purposes and have the right to resist or remove rulers who violate those purposes.7

Jefferson used similar arguments in the Declaration of Inde- pendence:

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, lib- erty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abol- ish it, and to institute new government, laying its founda- tion on such principles, and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Historian Jack Rakove maintains that Jefferson was not pro- posing equality for individuals. Rather, he was asserting the equal- ity of peoples to enjoy the same rights of self-government that other peoples enjoyed: ‘‘It was the collective right of revolution and self-government that the Declaration was written to justify— not a visionary or even utopian notion of equality within Ameri- can society itself.’’8

Jefferson’s simple yet impassioned statement of faith in de- mocracy reverberates to this day. He went on to list the many deliberate acts of the king that had exceeded the legitimate role of

Declaration of Independence Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the document that proclaimed the right of the colonies to separate from Great Britain.

social contract theory The belief that the people agree to set up rulers for certain purposes and thus have the right to resist or remove rulers who act against those purposes.

48 Chapter 2 The Constitution

government. Finally, Jefferson declared that the colonies were ‘‘Free and Independent States,’’ with no political connection to Great Britain.

The major premise of the Declaration of Independence is that the people have a right to revolt if they determine that their gov- ernment is denying them their legitimate rights. The long list of the king’s actions was evidence of such denial, so the people had the right to rebel and form a new government. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress finally voted for inde- pendence. The vote was by state, and the motion carried 11 to 0. (Rhode Island was not present, and the New York delegation, lacking instructions, did not cast its yea vote until July 15.) Two days later, on July 4, the Declaration of Independence was approved with few changes.

The War of Independence lasted far longer than anyone had expected. It began in a moment of confusion, when a shot rang out as British soldiers approached the town of Lexington on the way to Concord, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775. The end came six and a half years later, on October 19, 1781, with Lord Cornwallis’s sur- render of his six-thousand-man army at Yorktown, Virginia. It was a costly war: more died and were wounded in relation to the popu- lation than in any other conflict except the Civil War.9 Commun- ities were polarized, friendships destroyed, and families divided. Benjamin Franklin’s only son was a loyalist.10

2.2 From Revolution to Confederation

Identify the factors that led to the failure of the Confederation.

By declaring their independence from England, the colonies left themselves without any real central government, so the revolution- aries proclaimed the creation of a republic. Strictly speaking, a republic is government without a monarch, but the term had come to mean a government based on the consent of the governed, whose power is exercised by representatives who are responsible to them. A republic need not be a democracy, and this was fine with the founders; at that time, democracy was associated with mob rule

republic A government without a monarch; a government rooted in the consent of the governed, whose power is exercised by elected representatives responsible to the governed.

From Revolution to Confederation 49

and instability (see Chapter 1). The revolutionaries were less con- cerned with determining who would control their new government than with limiting the powers of that government. They had revolted in the name of liberty, and now they wanted a government with sharply defined powers. To make sure they got one, they meant to define its structure and powers in writing.

The Articles of Confederation Barely a week after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Second Continental Congress received a committee report entitled ‘‘Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.’’ A confederation is a loose association of independent states that agree to cooperate on specified matters. In a confederation, the states retain their sovereignty, which means that each has supreme power within its borders. The central government is weak; it can only coordinate, not control, the actions of its sovereign states.

The Articles of Confederation, the compact among the thir- teen original colonies that established the United States, was finally adopted on November 15, 1777. The Articles jealously guarded state sovereignty; their provisions clearly reflected the delegates’ fears of a strong central government. Under the Articles, each state, regardless of its size, had one vote in the con- gress. Votes on financing the war and other important issues required the consent of at least nine of the thirteen states.

The common danger—Britain—forced the young republic to function under the Articles, but this first try at a government was inadequate to the task. The delegates had succeeded in crafting a national government that was largely powerless. The Articles failed for at least four reasons. First, they did not give the national govern- ment the power to tax. As a result, the congress had to plead for money from the states to pay for the war and carry on the affairs of the new nation. Second, the Articles made no provision for an inde- pendent leadership position to direct the government (the president was merely the presiding officer of the congress). The omission was deliberate—the colonists feared the reestablishment of a monarchy— but it left the nation without a leader. Third, the Articles did not allow the national government to regulate interstate and foreign com- merce. (When John Adams proposed that the confederation enter into a commercial treaty with Britain after the war, he was asked, ‘‘Would you like one treaty or thirteen, Mr. Adams?’’).11 Finally, the

confederation A loose association of independent states that agree to cooperate on specified matters.

Articles of Confederation The compact among the thirteen original states that established the first government of the United States.

50 Chapter 2 The Constitution

Articles could not be amended without the unanimous agreement of the congress and the assent of all the state legislatures; thus, each state had the power to veto any changes to the confederation.

The goal of the delegates who drew up the Articles of Confed- eration was to retain power in the states. This was consistent with republicanism, which viewed the remote power of a national gov- ernment as a danger to liberty. In this sense alone, the Articles were a grand success: they completely hobbled the infant government.

Disorder Under the Confederation Once the Revolution ended and independence was a reality, it became clear that the national government had neither the eco- nomic nor the military power to function. Freed from wartime austerity, Americans rushed to purchase goods from abroad. Debt mounted, and bankruptcy followed for many.

The problem was particularly severe in Massachusetts, where high interest rates and high state taxes were forcing farmers into bankruptcy. In 1786 and 1787, farmers under the leadership of Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, carried out a series of insurrections to protest against high taxes levied by the state to retire its wartime debt.12 With the congress unable to secure funds from the states to help out, the governor of Massachusetts eventu- ally called out the militia and restored order.13 Shays’s Rebellion demonstrated the impotence of the confederation and the urgent need to suppress insurrection and maintain domestic order.

2.3 From Confederation to Constitution

Explain the major points of contention in the writing of the Constitution.

Order, the original purpose of government, was breaking down under the Articles of Confederation. The ‘‘league of friendship’’ envisioned in the Articles was not enough to hold the nation to- gether in peacetime. So in 1786, Virginia invited the states to attend a convention at Annapolis to explore revisions to the Articles of Confederation. Although only five states sent delegates,

From Confederation to Constitution 51

they seized the opportunity to call for another meeting in Phila- delphia the next year. The congress agreed to the convention but limited its mission to ‘‘the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.’’14

Shays’s Rebellion lent a sense of urgency to the task before the Philadelphia convention. The congress’s inability to confront the rebellion was evidence that a stronger national government was necessary to preserve order and property—to protect the states from internal as well as external dangers. ‘‘While the Declaration was directed against an excess of authority,’’ remarked Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson some 150 years later, ‘‘the Consti- tution [that followed the Articles of Confederation] was directed against anarchy.’’15

The Constitutional Convention officially opened on May 25, 1787. Although its delegates were authorized only to revise the Articles of Confederation, within the first week of debate, Edmund Randolph of Virginia presented a long list of changes, suggested by fellow Virginian James Madison, that would replace the weak confederation of states with a powerful national govern- ment. The delegates unanimously agreed to debate Randolph’s proposal, which was called the Virginia Plan. Almost immedi- ately, then, they rejected the idea of amending the Articles of Con- federation, working instead to create an entirely new constitution.

The Virginia Plan The Virginia Plan dominated the convention’s deliberations for the rest of the summer, making several important proposals for a strong central government:

• That the powers of the government be divided among three separate branches: a legislative branch for making laws, an executive branch for enforcing laws, and a judicial branch for interpreting laws.

• That the legislature consist of two houses. The first would be chosen by the people and the second by the members of the first house from among persons nominated by the state legis- latures.

• That each state’s representation in the legislature be in pro- portion to taxes paid to the national government or in pro- portion to its free population.

Virginia Plan A set of proposals for a new government, submitted to the Constitutional Convention of 1787; included separation of the government into three branches, division of the legislature into two houses, and proportional representation in the legislature.

legislative branch The lawmaking branch of government.

executive branch The law-enforcing branch of government.

judicial branch The law-interpreting branch of government.

52 Chapter 2 The Constitution

• That an executive of unspecified size be selected by the legis- lature and serve for a single term.

• That the national judiciary include one or more supreme courts and other lower courts, with judges appointed for life by the legislature.

• That the executive and a number of national judges serve as a council of revision, to approve or veto (disapprove) legislative acts. Their veto could be overridden, however, by a vote of both houses of the legislature.

• That the scope of powers of all three branches be far greater than that assigned the national government by the Articles of Confederation and include the power of the legislature to override state laws.

By proposing a powerful national legislature that could over- ride state laws, the Virginia Plan clearly advocated a new form of government. It was a mixed structure, with more authority over the states and new authority over the people.

Madison was a monumental force in the ensuing debate on the proposals. However, the constitution that emerged from the convention bore only partial resemblance to the document Madi- son wanted to create. He endorsed seventy-one specific proposals, but he ended up on the losing side on forty of them.16 And the parts of the Virginia Plan that were ultimately adopted in the U.S. Constitution were not adopted without challenge. Conflict revolved primarily around the basis of representation in the legis- lature, the method of choosing legislators, and the structure of the executive branch.

The New Jersey Plan When in 1787 it appeared that much of the Virginia Plan would be approved by the big states, the small states united in opposi- tion. William Paterson of New Jersey introduced an alternative set of resolutions, written to preserve the spirit of the Articles of Con- federation by amending rather than replacing them. The New Jersey Plan included the following proposals:

• That a single-chamber legislature have the power to raise rev- enue and regulate commerce.

• That the states have equal representation in the legislature and choose the members of that body.

New Jersey Plan Submitted by the head of the New Jersey delegation to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a set of nine resolutions that would have, in effect, preserved the Articles of Confederation by amending rather than replacing them.

From Confederation to Constitution 53

• That a multiperson executive be elected by the legislature, with powers similar to those listed in the Virginia Plan but without the right to veto legislation.

• That a supreme judiciary tribunal be created with a very lim- ited jurisdiction. (There was no provision for a system of national courts.)

• That the acts of the legislature be binding on the states—that is, be regarded as the ‘‘supreme law of the respective states,’’ with force used to compel obedience.

The New Jersey Plan was defeated in the first major conven- tion vote, 7 to 3. However, the small states had enough support to force a compromise on the issue of representation in the legislature.

The Great Compromise The Virginia Plan’s provision for a two-chamber legislature was never seriously challenged, but the idea of representation accord- ing to population generated heated debate. The small states demanded equal representation for all states. A committee was created to resolve the deadlock. It consisted of one delegate from each state, chosen by secret ballot. After working through the In- dependence Day recess, the committee reported reaching the Great Compromise (sometimes called the Connecticut Compro- mise because it was proposed by Roger Sherman of the Connecti- cut delegation). Representation in the House of Representatives would be apportioned according to the population of each state. Initially, there would be fifty-six members. Revenue-raising acts would originate in the House. Most important, the states would be represented equally in the Senate by two senators each. Sena- tors would be selected by their state legislatures, not directly by the people.

The delegates accepted the Great Compromise. The smaller states got their equal representation and the larger states their proportional representation. The small states might dominate the Senate and the big states might control the House, but because all legislation had to be approved by both chambers, neither group would be able to dominate the other. To assure perpetual state equality, no amendment to the Constitution could violate the equal state representation principle.17

Great Compromise Submitted by the Connecticut delegation to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and thus also known as the Connecticut Compromise, a plan calling for a bicameral legislature in which the House of Representatives would be apportioned according to population and the states would be represented equally in the Senate.

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Compromise on the Presidency Conflict replaced compromise when the delegates turned to the executive branch. They agreed on a one-person executive—a president—but they disagreed on how the executive would be selected and the term of office. The delegates distrusted the peo- ple’s judgment; some feared that popular election would arouse public passions. Consequently, the delegates rejected the idea. At the same time, representatives of the small states feared that elec- tion by the legislature would allow the larger states to control the executive.

Once again they compromised, creating the electoral college, a cumbersome system consisting of a group of electors chosen for the sole purpose of selecting the president and vice president. Each state legislature would choose a number of electors equal to the number of its representatives in Congress. Each elector would then vote for two people. The candidate with the most votes would become president, provided that the number of votes con- stituted a majority; the person with the next greatest number of votes would become vice president. (This procedure was changed in 1804 by the Twelfth Amendment, which mandates separate votes for each office.) If no candidate won a majority, the House of Representatives would choose a president, with each state cast- ing one vote.

The electoral college compromise eliminated the fear of a popular vote for president. At the same time, it satisfied the small states. If the electoral college failed to produce a president—which the delegates expected would happen—an election by the House would give every state the same voice in the selection process.

The delegates agreed that the president’s term of office should be four years and that the president should be eligible for reelec- tion with no limit on the number of terms.

The delegates realized that removing a president from office would be a very serious political matter. For that reason, they involved the other two branches of government in the process. The House alone was empowered to charge a president with ‘‘Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors’’ by a majority vote. The Senate was given sole power to try such impeachments. It could convict and thus remove a president only by a two-thirds vote. The chief justice of the United States was required to preside over the Senate trial.

From Confederation to Constitution 55

2.4 The Final Product Explain the contribution of the Constitution to the American political tradition and the principles it establishes.

Once the delegates resolved their major disagreements, they dis- patched the remaining issues relatively quickly. A committee was appointed to draft a constitution. The Preamble, which was the last section to be drafted, begins with a phrase that would have been impossible to write when the convention opened. This single sentence sets forth the four elements that form the foundation of the American political tradition:18

• It creates a people: ‘‘We the People of the United States’’ was a dramatic departure from a loose confederation of states.

• It explains the reason for the Constitution: ‘‘in Order to form a more perfect Union’’ was an indirect way of saying that the first effort, under the Articles of Confederation, had been inadequate.

• It articulates goals: ‘‘[to] establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to our- selves and our Posterity’’—in other words, the government exists to promote order and freedom.

• It fashions a government: ‘‘do ordain and establish this Con- stitution for the United States of America.’’

The Basic Principles In creating the Constitution, the founders relied on four political principles that together established a revolutionary new political order: republicanism, federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances.

Republicanism is a form of government in which power resides in the people and is exercised by their elected representa- tives. The framers were determined to avoid aristocracy (rule by a hereditary class), monarchy (rule by one), and direct democracy (rule by the people). A republic was both new and daring; no people had ever been governed by a republic on so vast a scale.

republicanism A form of government in which power resides in the people and is exercised by their elected representatives.

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Indeed, the framers themselves were far from sure that their gov- ernment could be sustained. After the convention ended, Benja- min Franklin was asked what sort of government the new nation would have. ‘‘A republic,’’ he replied, ‘‘if you can keep it.’’

Federalism is the division of power between a central govern- ment and regional units. It makes citizens subject to two different bodies of law. A federal system stands between two competing gov- ernment structures. On one side is unitary government, in which all power is vested in a central government. On the other side stands confederation, a loose union with powerful states. The Con- stitution embodied a division of power, but it conferred substantial powers on the national government at the expense of the states.

According to the Constitution, the powers vested in the national and state governments are derived from the people, who remain the ultimate sovereign. National and state governments can exercise their powers over persons and property within their own spheres of authority. But by participating in the electoral process or amending their governing charters, the people can restrain both the national and the state governments if necessary to preserve liberty.

The Constitution lists the powers of the national government and the powers denied to the states. All other powers remain with the states. However, the Constitution does not clearly describe the spheres of authority within which these powers can be exercised. As we will discuss in Chapter 3, limits on the exercise of power by the national government and the states have evolved as a result of political and military conflict; moreover, the limits have proved changeable.

Separation of powers and checks and balances are two distinct principles, but both are necessary to ensure that one branch does not dominate the government. Separation of powers is the assignment of the lawmaking, law-enforcing, and law-interpreting functions of government to independent legislative, executive, and judicial branches, respectively. Separation of powers safeguards liberty by ensuring that all government power does not fall into the hands of a single person or group of people. However, the Constitution constrained majority rule by limiting the people’s direct influence on the electoral process (see Figure 2.1, p. 58). In theory, separation of powers means that one branch cannot exer- cise the powers of the other branches. In practice, however, the separation is far from complete. One scholar has suggested that what we have instead is ‘‘separate institutions sharing powers.’’19

federalism The division of power between a central government and regional governments.

separation of powers The assignment of lawmaking, law-enforcing, and law- interpreting functions to separate branches of government.

The Final Product 57

Checks and balances are means of giving each branch of government some scrutiny of and control over the other branches. The aim is to prevent the exclusive exercise of certain powers by any one of the three branches. For example, only Congress can enact laws. But the president (through the veto power) can cancel them, and the courts (by finding that a law violates the Constitu- tion) can strike them down. The process goes on as Congress and the president sometimes begin the legislative process anew, attempting to reformulate laws to address the flaws identified by the Supreme Court in its decisions. In a ‘‘check on a check,’’ Congress can override a president’s veto by an extraordinary majority, two-thirds of each chamber. Congress is also empow- ered to propose amendments to the Constitution, counteracting the courts’ power to invalidate. Figure 2.2 depicts the relationship between separation of powers and checks and balances.

JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

PRESIDENT SENATE (Appointed for life. Before 1970, average tenure on Supreme Court was 15 years. Since 1970, average tenure is 26 years.)

(4-year term) (6-year term) (2-year term)

Nominates Approves

Not qualified Qualified voters Not qualified

THE PEOPLE

Ballot box

Electoral college

State legislature

FIGURE 2.1 The Constitution and the Electoral Process The framers were afraid of majority rule, and that fear is reflected in the electoral process for national office described in the Constitution. The people, speaking through the voters, participated directly only in the choice of their representatives in the House. The president and senators were elected indirectly, through the electoral college and state legislatures. (Direct election of senators did not become law until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified.) Judicial appointments are, and always have been, far removed from representative links to the people. Judges are nominated by the president and approved by the Senate. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013

checks and balances A government structure that gives each branch some scrutiny of and control over the other branches.

extraordinary majority Majority greater than that required by majority rule, that is, greater than 50 percent plus one.

58 Chapter 2 The Constitution

The Articles of the Constitution In addition to the Preamble, the Constitution contains seven articles. The first three establish the separate branches of govern- ment and specify their internal operations and powers. The remaining four define the relationships among the states, explain the process of amendment, declare the supremacy of national law, and explain the procedure for ratifying the Constitution.

Article I: The Legislative Article. In structuring their new govern- ment, the framers began with the legislative branch because they thought lawmaking was the most important function of a republi- can government. Article I is the most detailed and therefore the longest of all the articles. It defines the bicameral (two-chamber)

PO W

ER S

O F

G O

VE RN

M EN

Ex ec

ut iv

e Le

gi sl

at iv

e Ju

di ci

The legislature can: The executive can: The judiciary can:

•

Confirm executive appointments (Senate) Override executive veto Reject foreign treaties

• •

Impeach Create or eliminate courts

• Make laws

• Enforce laws

• •

Grant pardons Nominate judges

• •

Veto legislation Recommend legislation

•

Review executive acts Issue injunctions

• Interpret laws

• Review legislative acts

BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENTFIGURE 2.2 Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances Separation of powers is the assignment of lawmaking, law- enforcing, and law-interpreting functions to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, respectively. The phenomenon is illustrated by the diagonal from upper left to lower right in the figure.

Checks and balances give each branch some power over the other branches. For example, the executive branch possesses some legislative power, and the legislative branch possesses some executive power. These checks and balances are listed outside the diagonal. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013

The Final Product 59

character of the Congress and describes the internal operating procedures of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Sec- tion 8 of Article I expresses the principle of enumerated powers, which means that Congress can exercise only the powers that the Constitution assigns to it. Eighteen powers are enumerated; the first seventeen are specific powers (for example, the power to reg- ulate interstate commerce).

The last clause in Section 8, known as the necessary and proper clause (or the elastic clause), gives Congress the means to execute the enumerated powers (see the Appendix). This clause is the basis of Congress’s implied powers—those powers that Con- gress must have in order to execute its enumerated powers. For example, the power to levy and collect taxes (clause 1) and the power to coin money and regulate its value (clause 5), when joined with the necessary and proper clause (clause 18), imply that Con- gress has the power to charter a bank. Otherwise, the national gov- ernment would have no means of managing the money it collects through its power to tax. Implied powers clearly expand the enum- erated powers conferred on Congress by the Constitution.

Article II: The Executive Article. Article II sets the president’s term of office, the procedure for electing a president through the electoral college, the qualifications for becoming president, and the president’s duties and powers. The last include acting as com- mander in chief of the military; making treaties (which must be ratified by a two-thirds vote in the Senate); and appointing gov- ernment officers, diplomats, and judges (again, with the advice and consent of the Senate).

The president also has legislative powers—part of the consti- tutional system of checks and balances. For example, the Consti- tution requires that the president periodically inform the Congress of the ‘‘State of the Union’’ and of the policies and pro- grams that the executive branch intends to advocate in the coming year. Today this is done annually, in the president’s State of the Union address. Under special circumstances, the president can also convene or adjourn Congress. Additionally, the duty to ‘‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’’ in Section 3 has pro- vided presidents with a reservoir of power.

Article III: The Judicial Article. The third article was left pur- posely vague. The Constitution established the Supreme Court as

enumerated powers The powers explicitly granted to Congress by the Constitution.

necessary and proper clause The last clause in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, which gives Congress the means to execute its enumerated powers. This clause is the basis for Congress’s implied powers. Also called the elastic clause.

implied powers Those powers that Congress requires in order to execute its enumerated powers.

60 Chapter 2 The Constitution

the highest court in the land. But beyond that, the framers were unable to agree on the need for a national judiciary, or its size, its composition, or the procedures it should follow. They left these issues to the Congress, which resolved them by creating a system of federal—that is, national—courts separate from the state courts.

Unless they are impeached, federal judges serve for life. They are appointed to indefinite terms ‘‘during good Behavior,’’ and their salaries cannot be lowered while they hold office. These stip- ulations reinforce the separation of powers; they see to it that judges are independent of the other branches and that they do not have to fear retribution for their exercise of judicial power.

Congress exercises a potential check on the judicial branch through its power to create (and eliminate) lower federal courts. Congress can also restrict the power of the federal courts to decide cases. And, as we have noted, the president appoints—with the advice and consent of the Senate—the justices of the Supreme Court and the judges of the lower federal courts. In recent decades this has become highly politicized.

Article III does not explicitly give the courts the power of judicial review, the authority to invalidate congressional or presi- dential actions. That power has been inferred from the logic, structure, and theory of the Constitution and from important decisions by the Supreme Court itself.

The Remaining Articles. The remaining four articles of the Con- stitution cover a lot of ground. Article IV requires that the judicial acts and criminal warrants of each state be honored in all other states, and it forbids discrimination against citizens of one state by another state. This provision promotes equality; it keeps the states from treating outsiders differently from their own citizens. The origin of this clause can be traced to the Articles of Confeder- ation. Article IV also allows the addition of new states and stipu- lates that the national government will protect the states against foreign invasion and domestic violence.

Article V specifies the methods for amending (changing) the Constitution and guarantees equal state representation in the Sen- ate. We will have more to say about this shortly.

An important component of Article VI is the supremacy clause, which asserts that when they conflict with state or local laws, the Constitution, national laws, and treaties take precedence.

judicial review The power to declare government acts invalid because they violate the Constitution.

supremacy clause The clause of Article VI of the Constitution that asserts that national laws take precedence over state and local laws when they conflict.

The Final Product 61

The stipulation is vital to the operation of federalism. In keeping with the supremacy clause, Article VI requires that all national and state officials, elected or appointed, take an oath to support the Constitution. The article also mandates that religion cannot be a prerequisite for holding government office.

Article VII describes the ratification process, stipulating that approval by conventions in nine states would be necessary for the Constitution to take effect.

The Framers’ Motives What forces motivated the framers? Surely economic issues were important, but they were not the major issues. The single most im- portant factor leading to the Constitutional Convention was the inability of the national or state governments to maintain order under the loose structure of the Articles of Confederation. Cer- tainly, order required the protection of property, but the framers had a view of property that extended beyond their portfolios of government securities. They wanted to protect their homes, their families, and their means of livelihood from impending anarchy.

Although they disagreed bitterly on the structure and mechanics of the national government, the framers agreed on the most vital issues. For example, three crucial features of the Constitution—the power to tax, the necessary and proper clause, and the supremacy clause—were approved unanimously and without debate. Indeed, the motivation to create order was so strong that the framers were willing to draft clauses that protected the most undemocratic of all institutions: slavery.

The Slavery Issue The institution of slavery was well ingrained in American life at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and slavery helped shape the Constitution, although it is mentioned nowhere by name. It is doubtful, in fact, that there would have been a Consti- tution if the delegates had had to resolve the slavery issue.

The question of representation in the House of Representa- tives brought the issue close to the surface of the debate at the Constitutional Convention and led to the Great Compromise. Representation in the House was to be based on population. But who would be counted in the ‘‘population’’? Eventually the delegates

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agreed unanimously that in apportioning representation in the House and in assessing direct taxes, the population of each state was to be determined by adding ‘‘the whole Number of free Persons’’ and ‘‘three fifths of all other Persons’’ (Article I, Section 2). The phrase ‘‘all other Persons’’ is, of course, a substitute for ‘‘slaves.’’

The three-fifths clause gave states with large slave populations (in the South) greater representation in Congress than states with small slave populations (in the North). The compromise left the South with 47 percent of the House seats, a sizable minority, but in all likelihood a losing one on slavery issues.20 The representation resulting from the South’s large slave populations translated into greater southern influ- ence in selecting the president as well, because the electoral college was based on the size of the states’ congressional delegations. The three-fifths clause also undertaxed states with large slave populations.

Another issue centered on the slave trade. Several southern dele- gates were uncompromising in their defense of it, while other dele- gates favored prohibition. The delegates compromised, agreeing that the slave trade could not be ended until twenty years had elapsed (Ar- ticle I, Section 9). Also, the delegates agreed, without serious challenge, that fugitive slaves be returned to their masters (Article IV, Section 2).

In addressing these points, the framers in essence condoned slav- ery. Clearly, slavery existed in stark opposition to the idea that ‘‘all men are created equal,’’ and though many slaveholders, including Jefferson and Madison, agonized over it, few made serious efforts to free their own slaves. Most Americans seemed indifferent to slavery. Nonetheless, the eradication of slavery proceeded gradually in certain states. By 1787, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont had abolished slavery or provided for gradual emancipation. This slow but perceptible shift on the slavery issue in many states masked a volcanic force capable of destroying the Con- stitutional Convention and the Union.

2.5 Selling the Constitution Describe the actions taken to ensure the ratification of the Constitution.

On September 17, 1787, nearly four months after the Constitu- tional Convention opened, the delegates convened for the last time to sign the final version of their handiwork. Because several

Selling the Constitution 63

delegates were unwilling to sign the document, the last paragraph was craftily worded to give the impression of unanimity: ‘‘Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present.’’ However, before it could take effect, the Constitution had to be ratified by a minimum of nine state conventions. In each, support was far from unanimous.

The proponents of the new charter, who wanted a strong national government, called themselves Federalists. The oppo- nents of the Constitution were quickly dubbed Antifederalists. They claimed, however, that they were true Federalists because they wanted to protect the states from the tyranny of a strong national government. The viewpoints of the two groups formed the bases of the first American political parties.

The Federalist Papers Beginning in October 1787, an exceptional series of eighty-five New York newspaper articles defending the Constitution appeared under the title The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States. The essays bore the pen name ‘‘Publius’’ and were written primarily by James Madison and Alexander Hamil- ton, with some assistance from John Jay. Logically and calmly, Publius argued in favor of ratification. Reprinted extensively dur- ing the ratification battle, the Federalist papers have far greater influence today when read as dispassionate analyses on the mean- ing of the Constitution and the political theory it embodies.

Not to be outdone, the Antifederalists offered their own intel- lectual basis for rejecting the Constitution. In several essays, the most influential authored under the pseudonyms ‘‘Brutus’’ and ‘‘Federal Farmer,’’ they attacked the centralization of power in a strong national government, claiming it would obliterate the states, violate the social contract of the Declaration of Independ- ence, and destroy liberty in the process. They defended the status quo, maintaining that the Articles of Confederation established true federal principles.21

Of all the Federalist papers, the most magnificent and most frequently cited is Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison. He argued that the proposed constitution was designed ‘‘to break and control the violence of faction.’’ ‘‘By a faction,’’ Madison wrote, ‘‘I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated

64 Chapter 2 The Constitution

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.’’

Madison was discussing what we described in Chapter 1 as plu- ralism. What Madison called factions are today called interest groups or even political parties. According to Madison, ‘‘The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.’’ Madison was concerned not with reducing inequalities of wealth (which he took for granted) but with controlling the seemingly inevitable conflict that stems from them. The Constitution, he argued, was well constructed for this purpose.

Through the mechanism of representation, wrote Madison, the Constitution would prevent a ‘‘tyranny of the majority’’ (mob rule). The government would not be controlled directly by the people; rather, it would be controlled indirectly by their elected representa- tives. And those representatives would have the intelligence and understanding to serve the larger interests of the nation. Moreover, the federal system would require that majorities form first within each state, then organize for effective action at the national level. This and the vastness of the country would make it unlikely that a major- ity would form that would ‘‘invade the rights of other citizens.’’

The purpose of Federalist No. 10 was to demonstrate that the proposed government was not likely to be ruled by any faction. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Madison argued, the key to controlling the evils of faction is to have a large republic—the larger, the better. The more diverse the society is, the less likely it is that an unjust majority can form. Madison certainly had no intention of creating a majoritarian democracy; his view of popu- lar government was much more consistent with the model of plu- ralist democracy discussed in Chapter 1.

Madison pressed his argument from a different angle in Fed- eralist No. 51. Asserting that ‘‘ambition must be made to counter- act ambition,’’ he argued that the separation of powers and checks and balances would control tyranny from any source. If power is distributed equally across the three branches, then each branch has the capacity to counteract the other. In Madison’s words, ‘‘usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments.’’ Because legislative power tends to predominate in republican governments, legislative authority is divided between the Senate and the House of Repre- sentatives, which have different methods of selection and terms of

Selling the Constitution 65

office. Additional protection comes through federalism, ‘‘which divides power between two distinct governments’’—national and state—and subdivides ‘‘the portion allotted to each … among dis- tinct and separate departments.’’

The Antifederalists wanted additional separation of powers and additional checks and balances, which, they maintained, would eliminate the threat of tyranny entirely. The Federalists believed that this would make decisive national action virtually impossible. But to ensure ratification, they agreed to a compromise.

A Concession: The Bill of Rights Despite the eloquence of the Federalist papers, many prominent citizens, including Thomas Jefferson, were unhappy that the Con- stitution did not list basic civil liberties—the individual freedoms guaranteed to citizens. The omission of a bill of rights was the chief obstacle to the adoption of the Constitution by the states. The colonists had just rebelled against the British government to preserve their basic freedoms. Why didn’t the proposed Constitu- tion spell out those freedoms?

The answer was rooted in logic, not politics. Because the national government was limited to those powers that were granted to it and because no power was granted to abridge the people’s liberties, a list of guaranteed freedoms was not necessary. In Federalist No. 84, Hamilton went even further, arguing that the addition of a bill of rights would be dangerous. Because it is not possible to list all prohibited powers, wrote Hamilton, any attempt to provide a partial list would make the remaining areas vulnera- ble to government abuse.

But logic was no match for fear. Many states agreed to ratify the Constitution only after George Washington suggested that a list of guarantees be added through the amendment process. More than one hundred amendments were proposed by the states. These were eventually narrowed down to twelve, which Congress approved and sent to the states. Ten of them became part of the Constitution in 1791, after securing the approval of the required three-fourths of the states. Collectively, these ten amendments are known as the Bill of Rights. They restrain the national govern- ment from tampering with fundamental rights and civil liberties and emphasize the limited character of the national government’s power (see Table 2.1).

Bill of Rights The first ten amendments to the Constitution. They prevent the national government from tampering with fundamental rights and civil liberties and emphasize the limited character of national power.

66 Chapter 2 The Constitution

TABLE 2.1 Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights. The following is a list of those amendments, grouped conceptually. For the actual order and wording of the Bill of Rights, see the Appendix.

Guarantees Amendment

Guarantees for Participation in the Political Process

No government abridgment of speech or press; no government abridgment of peaceable assembly; no government abridgment of petitioning government for redress.

Guarantees Respecting Personal Beliefs

No government establishment of religion; no government prohibition of free religious exercise.

Guarantees of Personal Privacy

Owners’ consent necessary to quarter troops in private homes in peacetime; quartering during war must be lawful.

Government cannot engage in unreasonable searches and seizures; warrants to search and seize require probable cause.

No compulsion to testify against oneself in criminal cases. 5

Guarantees Against Government’s Overreaching

Serious crimes require a grand jury indictment; no repeated prosecution for the same offense; no loss of life, liberty, or property without due process; no taking of property for public use without just compensation.

Criminal defendants will have a speedy public trial by impartial local jury; defendants are informed of accusation; defendants may confront witnesses against them; defendants may use judicial process to obtain favorable witnesses; defendants may have legal assistance for their defense.

Civil lawsuits can be tried by juries if controversy exceeds $20; in jury trials, fact finding is a jury function.

No excessive bail; no excessive fines; no cruel and unusual punishment.

Other Guarantees

The people have the right to bear arms. 2

No government trespass on unspecified fundamental rights. 9

The states or the people retain all powers not delegated to the national government or denied to the states.

Selling the Constitution 67

Ratification The Constitution officially took effect on its ratification by the ninth state, New Hampshire, on June 21, 1788. However, the suc- cess of the new government was not ensured until July 1788, by which time the Constitution was ratified by the key states of Vir- ginia and New York after lengthy debate.

The reflection and deliberation that attended the creation and ratification of the Constitution signaled to the world that a new government could be launched peacefully. The French observer Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) later wrote:

That which is new in the history of societies is to see a great people, warned by its lawgivers that the wheels of government are stopping, turn its attention on itself with- out haste or fear, sound the depth of the ill, and then wait for two years to find the remedy at leisure, and then finally, when the remedy has been indicated, submit to it voluntarily without its costing humanity a single tear or drop of blood.22

2.6 Constitutional Change Explain the procedures required to amend the Constitution.

The founders realized that the Constitution would have to be changed from time to time. To this end, they specified a formal amendment process—a process that was used almost immediately to add the Bill of Rights. With the passage of time, the Constitu- tion also has been altered through judicial interpretation and changes in political practice.

The Formal Amendment Process The amendment process has two stages: proposal and ratification. Both are necessary for an amendment to become part of the Consti- tution. The Constitution provides two alternative methods for com- pleting each stage (see Figure 2.3). Amendments can be proposed by a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a national convention, summoned by Congress at the

68 Chapter 2 The Constitution

request of two-thirds of the state legislatures. All constitutional amendments to date have been proposed by the first method.

A proposed amendment can be ratified by a vote of the legis- latures of three-fourths of the states or by a vote of constitutional conventions held in three-fourths of the states. Congress chooses the method of ratification. It has used the state convention method only once, for the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment (on Prohibition). Note that the amendment process requires the exercise of extraordinary majorities (two-thirds and three-fourths). The framers purposely made it difficult to propose and ratify amendments. They wanted only the most significant issues to lead to constitutional change. Calling a national convention to propose an amendment has never been tried. Certainly the method raises several thorny ques- tions, the most significant of which concerns what limits, if any, there are on the business of the convention. Would a national convention called to consider a particular amendment be within its bounds to rewrite the Constitution? No one really knows.

Most of the Constitution’s twenty-seven amendments were adopted to help keep it abreast of changes in political thinking. The first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights) were the price of

FIGURE 2.3 Amending the Constitution

Two-thirds vote of members present in both houses of Congress (thirty-three amendments proposed)

National convention by Congress at request of two-thirds of state legislatures (no amendments proposed)

or or

PROPOSAL STAGE RATIFICATION STAGE

Three-fourths of state legislatures (twenty-six amendments ratified)

Constitutional conventions in three-fourths of the states (one amendment, the 21st, ratified)

Amending the Constitution requires two stages: proposal and ratification. Both Congress and the states can play a role in the proposal stage, but ratification is a process that must be fought in the states themselves. Once a state has ratified an amendment, it cannot retract its action. However, a state may reject an amendment and then reconsider its decision. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013

Constitutional Change 69

ratification, but they have been fundamental to our system of gov- ernment. The last seventeen amendments fall into three main categories: they make public policy, correct deficiencies in the government’s structure, or promote equality (see Table 2.2).

Since 1787, about ten thousand constitutional amendments have been introduced, but only a fraction have passed the pro- posal stage. However, once an amendment has been voted by the Congress, chances of ratification are high. Only six amendments submitted to the states have failed to be ratified.

Interpretation by the Courts In Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Supreme Court declared that the courts have the power to nullify government acts when they conflict with the Constitution. (We will elaborate on this power, known as judicial review, in Chapter 11.) The exercise of judicial review forces the courts to interpret the Constitution. In a way, this makes a lot of sense. The judiciary is the law-interpreting branch of the government; as the supreme law of the land, the Constitution is fair game for judicial interpretation. Judicial review is the courts’ main check on the other branches of govern- ment. But in interpreting the Constitution, the courts cannot help but give new meaning to its provisions. This is why judicial inter- pretation is a principal form of constitutional change.

Political Practice The Constitution is silent on many issues. It says nothing about political parties or the president’s cabinet, for example, yet both have exercised considerable influence in American politics. Some constitutional provisions have fallen out of use. The electors in the electoral college, for example, were supposed to exercise their own judgment in voting for president and vice president. Today the electors function simply as a rubber stamp, validating the out- come of election contests in their states.

Meanwhile, political practice has altered the distribution of power without changes in the Constitution. The framers intended Congress to be the strongest branch of government. But the presi- dent has come to overshadow Congress. Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt used their powers imaginatively to respond to national crises, and their actions paved the way for future presidents to enlarge the powers of the office.

70 Chapter 2 The Constitution

TABLE 2.2 Constitutional Amendments: 11 Through 27

No. Proposed Ratified Intent* Subject

11 1794 1795 G Prohibits an individual from suing a state in federal court without the state’s consent.

12 1803 1804 G Requires the electoral college to vote separately for president and vice president.

13 1865 1865 E Prohibits slavery.

14 1866 1868 E Gives citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States (including former slaves); prevents states from depriving any person of ‘‘life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’’ and declares that no state shall deprive any person of ‘‘the equal protection of the laws.’’

15 1869 1870 E Guarantees that citizens’ right to vote cannot be denied ‘‘on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’’

16 1909 1913 E Gives Congress the power to collect an income tax.

17 1912 1913 E Provides for popular election of senators, who were formerly elected by state legislatures.

18 1917 1919 P Prohibits the making and selling of intoxicating liquors.

19 1919 1920 E Guarantees that citizens’ right to vote cannot be denied ‘‘on account of sex.’’

20 1932 1933 G Changes the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20 and sets January 3 for the opening date of Congress.

21 1933 1933 P Repeals the Eighteenth Amendment.

22 1947 1951 G Limits a president to two terms.

23 1960 1961 E Gives citizens of Washington, D.C., the right to vote for president.

24 1962 1964 E Prohibits charging citizens a poll tax to vote in presidential or congressional elections.

25 1965 1967 G Provides for succession in event of death, removal from office, incapacity, or resignation of the president or vice president.

26 1971 1971 E Lowers the voting age to eighteen.

27 1789 1992 G Bars immediate pay increases to members of Congress.

*P: amendments legislating public policy; G: amendments correcting perceived deficiencies in government structure; E: amendments advancing equality.

Constitutional Change 71

2.7 An Evaluation of the Constitution

Evaluate the extent to which the Constitution reflects and embodies the principles of majoritarian or pluralist democracy.

The U.S. Constitution is one of the world’s most praised political documents. It is the oldest written national constitution and one of the most widely copied, sometimes word for word. It is also one of the shortest. The brevity of the Constitution may be one of its greatest strengths. The framers simply laid out a structural framework for government; they did not describe relationships and powers in detail. For example, the Constitution gives Con- gress the power to ‘‘regulate Commerce … among the several States,’’ but it does not define interstate commerce. Such general wording allows interpretation in keeping with contemporary po- litical, social, and technological developments.

The generality of the U.S. Constitution stands in stark con- trast to the specificity of most state constitutions. The California Constitution, for example, provides that ‘‘fruit and nut-bearing trees under the age of four years from the time of planting in or- chard form and grapevines under the age of three years from the time of planting in vineyard form … shall be exempt from taxa- tion’’ (Article XIII, Section 12). Because they are so specific, most state constitutions are much longer than the U.S. Constitution.

Freedom, Order, and Equality in the Constitution The revolutionaries constructed a new form of government—a fed- eral government—that was strong enough to maintain order but not so strong that it could dominate the states or infringe on individual freedoms. In short, the Constitution provided a judicious balance between order and freedom. It paid virtually no attention to equal- ity. (Recall that the equality premise in the Declaration of Independ- ence was meant for the colonists as a people, not as individuals.)

Consider social equality. The Constitution never mentioned slavery, a controversial issue even when it was written. As we have seen, the Constitution implicitly condones slavery in several

72 Chapter 2 The Constitution

articles. Not until ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 was slavery prohibited. The Constitution was designed long before social equality was ever conceived as an objective of gov- ernment. In fact, in Federalist No. 10, Madison held that protec- tion of the ‘‘diversities in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate’’ is ‘‘the first object of government.’’

More than a century later, the Constitution was changed to incorporate a key device for the promotion of social equality: the income tax. The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) gave Congress the power to collect an income tax; it was proposed and ratified to replace a law that had been declared unconstitutional in an 1895 court case. The income tax had long been seen as a means of put- ting into effect the concept of progressive taxation, in which the tax rate increases with income. The Sixteenth Amendment gave pro- gressive taxation a constitutional basis.23 Progressive taxation pro- motes social equality through the redistribution of income—that is, high-income people are taxed at higher rates to help fund social programs that benefit lower-income people taxed at lower rates.

Social equality itself has never been, and is not now, a prime constitutional value. The Constitution has been much more effec- tive in securing order and freedom. Nor did the Constitution take a stand on political equality. It left voting qualifications to the states, specifying only that people who could vote for ‘‘the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature’’ could also vote for rep- resentatives to Congress (Article I, Section 2). Most states at that time allowed only taxpaying or property-owning white males to vote. Such inequalities have been rectified by several amendments. The United States is not unique in revisiting the balance among freedom, order, and equality within its constitution. Many other nations have pursued equally dramatic changes to their constitu- tions over the last decade. (See ‘‘Politics of Global Change: A New Birth of Freedom,’’ pp. 74–75.)

The Constitution and Models of Democracy Think back to our discussion of the models of democracy in Chapter 1. Which model does the Constitution fit: the pluralist or majoritarian? Actually, it is hard to imagine a government frame- work better suited to the pluralist model of democracy than the Constitution of the United States. It is also hard to imagine a document more at odds with the majoritarian model. Consider

An Evaluation of the Constitution 73

Madison’s claim, in Federalist No. 10, that government inevitably involves conflicting factions. This concept coincides perfectly with pluralist theory (see Chapter 1). Then recall his description in

Politics of Global Change

A New Birth of Freedom: Exporting American Constitutionalism When the founders drafted the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they hardly started from scratch. Leaders such as James Madison and John Adams drew on the failed experiences of the Articles of Confederation to chart a new course for our national government. They also leaned heavily on the ideas of great democratic thinkers of the past. Today, given the two-hundred-twenty-year track record of the United States, it is no wonder that many other nations have looked to the American experience as they embark on their own democratic experiments.

In the past fifteen years especially, democratizing countries on nearly every continent have developed new governing institu- tions by drawing at least in part on important principles from the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. This is certainly the case in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, which are in their third decade of newly established democratic rule. Enshrining democratic ideals in a written constitution corresponds to the as- cendancy of freedom worldwide (see the accompanying figure). For nearly forty years, free and partially free countries have been in ascendance, and not-free countries have been in decline.

Some newly democratic nations, however, have opted for a con- stitutional design with a separation of powers less rigid than the one established by the American model. A parliamentary system poses fewer constraints on executive authority as long as it is sustained by a legislative majority. As long as prime ministers are backed by the popular vote expressed via a parliamentary majority, they can remain in office indefinitely. However, they can be removed from office as soon as they lose their popular support by means of a parliamentary nonconfidence vote. For instance, if an election changes the com- position of the parliament, the new majority can select a new prime minister. Under the same scenario, the U.S. president—who can be

74 Chapter 2 The Constitution

Federalist No. 51 of the Constitution’s ability to guard against the concentration of power in the majority through separation of powers and checks and balances. This concept—avoiding a single

removed from office only by impeachment—is forced to govern fac- ing a hostile majority and possible gridlock.

Because there is no ready-made formula for building a suc- cessful democracy, only time will tell whether these young consti- tutions will perform well in practice.

1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 Year

P er

ce nt

ag e

of n

at io

Partially free

Not free Free

Source: International Institute for Democracy, The Rebirth of Democracy: 12 Constitutions of Central and Eastern Europe, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam: Council of Europe, 1996); A. E. Dick Howard, ‘‘Liberty’s Text: 10 Amendments That Changed the World,’’ Washington Post, 15 December 1991, p. C3; and Freedom House, ‘‘Freedom in the World 2012,’’ http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/ FIW%202012%20Booklet–Final.pdf (accessed 24 February 2012).

Critical Thinking What effects might the separation of powers in the United States Constitution have upon governmental stability and efficiency? Are the tradeoffs worthwhile?

An Evaluation of the Constitution 75

center of government power that might fall under majority control—also fits perfectly with pluralist democracy.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention intended to create a republic, a government based on majority consent; they did not intend to create a democracy, which rests on majority rule. They succeeded admirably in creating that republic. In doing so, they also produced a government that developed into a democracy—but a particular type of democracy. The framers nei- ther wanted nor got a democracy that fit the majoritarian model. They may have wanted and they certainly did create a government that conforms to the pluralist model.

We Want Beer

‘‘We want beer’’ may be a popular refrain at tailgating parties and on certain college campuses today, but it was the basis of political protest in October 1932 when more than 20,000 protesters, many of them women, demanded repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. The amendment, which was ratified in 1919, banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. The amendment was spurred by moral and social reform groups, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, founded by Evanston, Illinois, resident Frances Willard in 1874. The amendment proved to be an utter failure. People continued to drink, but their alcohol came from illegal sources.

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76 Chapter 2 The Constitution

SUMMARY 2.1 The Revolutionary Roots of the

Constitution • American colonists

• were free of the restrictions of feudalism.

• enjoyed almost complete freedom of speech, press, and assembly.

• were unwilling to pay taxes to a distant government in which they had no representation.

• Colonial desire for liberty conflicted with British attempts to maintain order.

• Two continental congresses were convened to determine how to ensure colonists’ rights.

• Congressional delegates accepted the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which asserted the right of individuals to revolt if their govern- ment denied their rights.

2.2 From Revolution to Confederation • The Articles of Confederation estab-

lished an alliance between the inde- pendent states while severely limiting the power of a central government.

• Under the terms of the confederation, the newly formed government • was unable to tax. • lacked an independent leader. • could not regulate commerce or

international trade. • was unable to amend the Articles of

Confederation without unanimous agreement of Congress and state legislative approval.

• The inability of the confederation to deal with insurrections demonstrated the need for an empowered central government that could maintain order.

2.3 From Confederation to Constitution • A constitutional convention, initially

authorized to revise the Articles of Confederation, determined instead to debate the Virginia Plan.

• The Virginia Plan introduced several important ideas that would create a powerful national government: • three separate branches of govern-

ment. • division of the legislature into two

houses. • proportional representation.

• Fearing control by the larger states, the small states recommended the New Jersey Plan to amend the Articles of Confederation.

• While the New Jersey Plan was rejected by the Convention, smaller states did force a compromise on representation.

• The delegates accepted the Great Compromise, which determined the responsibilities and means of electing state representatives and the president.

• The delegates agreed to a presidential term of four years with unlimited terms.

• A procedure was agreed upon for the impeachment of the president that included both houses as well as the judiciary.

Summary 77

2.4 The Final Product • The Preamble forms the foundation

for the Constitution because it • defines a people. • explains the reason for the Constitution. • articulates goals. • fashions a government.

• The basic principles the founders relied upon were • republicanism. • federalism. • separation of powers. • checks and balances.

• The Articles of the Constitution: • Article I specifies the enumerated

and implied powers of Congress. • Article II describes the president’s

term, election process, qualifica- tions, duties, and powers.

• Article III establishes the Supreme Court and gives Congress the author- ity to establish a federal court system.

• Article IV specifies the rights and responsibilities of the states.

• Article V specifies the constitutional amendment process.

• Article VI asserts the supremacy clause, requires that elected officials take an oath of loyalty to the Consti- tution, and mandates that religion cannot be a prerequisite to office.

• Article VII describes the ratification process.

2.5 Selling the Constitution • Nine states were needed to ratify the

Constitution. • Federalists were the proponents of

the Constitution while Antifederalists, fearful of an overly powerful national government, were opponents.

• The Federalist papers supported the Constitution and were widely read throughout the states.

• In Federalist No. 10 and No. 51, James Madison developed arguments for the Constitution that foreshadowed a pluralist theory of democracy.

• Both sides agreed to the Bill of Rights: ten amendments that restrained the national government from tampering with rights and civil liberties as well as clarified the limit of its power.

• The Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788.

2.6 Constitutional Change • Amendments can be proposed by a

two-thirds vote in both houses of Con- gress or by national convention. Amendments can be ratified by a vote of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states or by a vote of conven- tions in three-fourths of the states.

• Change can occur by judicial review and interpretation.

• Change can occur by political practice.

2.7 An Evaluation of the Constitution • The U.S. Constitution is one of the

shortest constitutions. • It lays out a structural framework for

government without describing rela- tionships and powers in detail.

• Its general wording allows for con- temporary interpretation.

• It originally focused on protecting free- dom and maintaining order but has been amended to support social equality.

• It fits perfectly with the pluralistic model of government.

78 Chapter 2 The Constitution

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

2.1 Explain the reasons for the colonies’ declaration of independence from British rule. 1. Why did the colonies begin to pro-

test against the British government, and what forms did this protest take?

2. What were the goals of the First and the Second Continental Congresses?

3. What principles underpin the Decla- ration of Independence?

2.2 Identify the factors that led to the failure of the Confederation. 1. Why did the delegates to the Second

Continental Congress seek to retain power in the states versus creating a strong central government?

2. Provide four reasons that help explain why the Articles of Confederation failed.

2.3 Explain the major points of contention in the writing of the Constitution. 1. What were the primary differences

between the Virginia and New Jer- sey Plans?

2. What major compromises did the drafting of the Constitution entail?

2.4 Explain the contribution of the Consti- tution to the American political tradi- tion and the principles it establishes. 1. What four political principles under-

lie the Constitution? 2. Which powers are provided to Con-

gress through the necessary and

proper clause, and why are these important?

3. How did the Constitution originally address the institution of slavery?

2.5 Describe the actions taken to ensure ratification of the Constitution. 1. Who were the Federalists and Anti-

federalists, and what were their main points of disagreement?

2. What is the Bill of Rights, and whose rights is it guaranteed to protect?

2.6 Explain the procedures required to amend the Constitution. 1. What are the two methods through

which constitutional changes can be proposed, and what are the two methods for ratifying those changes?

2. How can political practice alter the American political system without any formal amendment to the Constitution?

2.7 Evaluate the extent to which the Constitution reflects and embodies the principles of majoritarian or pluralist democracy. 1. How has the Constitution been

extended to expand political equality? 2. What is the Constitution’s stance on

social equality? 3. Did the Constitution create a govern-

ment that primarily reflected the pluralist or majoritarian model?

Assessing Your Understanding 79

3 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Federalism

3.1 Theories and Metaphors

Compare and contrast the two theories of federalism used to describe the American system of government.

3.2 The Dynamics of Federalism

Identify and explain each of the four forces that stimulate changes in the relationship between the national and state governments.

3.3 Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism

Describe the role of ideology in shaping federalism.

3.4 Federalism and Electoral Politics

Describe the influence of federalism on elections at the state and national levels.

3.5 Federalism and the American Intergovernmental System

Describe the role of local government in a federal system and illustrate how national, state, and local governments sometimes interact.

3.6 Federalism and Pluralism

Discuss the changing relationship between federalism and pluralism.

80 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

‘‘

T he problem is all these illegals,’’ saidLuis, a legal Mexican immigrant who has lived and worked in Arizona for 16 years. ‘‘They come here expecting to find paradise, and it isn’t. You have to work hard for everything. But at least there is work.’’1 These are difficult times, especially in Arizona. The major recession from 2007–2009, the ensuing trail of high unemployment, and the housing market collapse wreaked devastation on the state. Illegal immi- gration surged along with increased drug smug- gling, human trafficking, and associated gang violence across Arizona’s 362-mile border with Mexico.

For years, Arizonans—including Luis and his fellow legal immigrants—have borne the burden of illegals who have sought work and opportunity in the United States. President George W. Bush was determined to reform immigration laws, staunching the illegal tide, but he failed. Immigra- tion reform was political kryptonite, weakening even the most powerful politicians who tried to

address the issue. The public seethed at the pros- pect of illegals taking jobs from American citi- zens; of illegals using the social safety net to secure heath care, education, and housing; and of pregnant illegals crossing the border and deliv- ering their babies on American soil, thus qualify- ing their children immediately for American citizenship.2 All of this and more proved too much for conservative Arizonans and their politi- cians.

In 2010, under Governor Jan Brewer, the state legislature adopted a law—SB1070— taking immigration matters into its own hands. The law was both broad and strict; it went far beyond efforts in other states to address the prob- lem of illegal immigration. More significantly, it went further than the U.S. government had cho- sen to go.

U.S. law requires foreigners who are not citi- zens living in the United States—called aliens— to register with the government and carry their registration papers. Arizona’s SB1070 took this

A P

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81 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

requirement a step further by criminalizing the failure to carry the nec- essary papers. The new law obligates the police to determine a per- son’s immigration status, when practicable during a ‘‘lawful stop, detention or arrest,’’ if there is reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien. The law also cracked down on those who hire, trans- port, or shelter illegal aliens.3

The national government sued Arizona in federal court, sending one of its highest-ranking officials from the Justice Department to argue its position. The United States rested its case on federalism grounds: the Constitution and laws of the United States place the matter of immigration solely in the hands of the national government, and the states remain duty-bound under the Constitution’s supremacy clause (Article VI) to bow to national authority.

On July 28, 2010, just one day before the law was to go into effect, federal judge Susan Bolton blocked the main provisions of the law, including the requirement that police check the immigration sta- tus of those arrested or stopped. Her reasoning adopted the position of the United States: principles of federalism give exclusive power over immigration matters to the national government, trumping state efforts at regulating or enforcing national immigration laws as in Ari- zona.4 Arizona appealed, but Bolton’s decision withstood the initial challenge. Undeterred by its two losses, Arizona appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which accepted the case for review.5

The Supreme Court upheld the law’s controversial requirement that state and local law enforcement personnel check the immigration status of individuals whom they stop, detain, or arrest, and whom they reasonably suspect of being in the United States illegally. How- ever, the Court ruled that the state’s attempt to criminalize the failure to carry alien registration papers violated the national government’s authority over immigration matters. The Court also struck down on similar grounds provisions of the law authorizing the warrantless arrest of illegal aliens whom law enforcement personnel believed to have committed deportable offenses and making it a state criminal offense for illegal aliens to apply for a job.6

Two elements of federalism are at work here. The first element is the respective sovereignty, or quality of being supreme in power or authority, of national and state governments. In the case of Arizona’s efforts to confront illegal immigration, this distinction between differ- ent sovereignties was clear to Judge Bolton: authority rests principally with the national government. She did not invalidate the entire law, but only those portions that intruded on the national government’s delegated or implied powers. The states cannot simply act on their own when the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 4) and laws

sovereignty The quality of being supreme in power or authority.

82 Chapter 3 Federalism

of the United States assign responsibility for immigration and natural- ization to the national government. A second element of federalism is the power of national (i.e., federal) courts to assure the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution and national laws. Such power was neces- sary, though not sufficient, to yoke separate states into one nation, or as the motto goes, ‘‘E pluribus unum.’’

In this chapter, we examine American federalism in theory and in practice. Is the division of power between the nation and states a matter of constitutional principle or practical politics? How does the balance of power between the nation and states relate to the conflicts between freedom and order and between freedom and equality? Does the growth of federalism abroad affect us here at home? Does federalism reflect the pluralist or the majoritarian model of democracy?

3.1 Theories and Metaphors Compare and contrast the two theories of federalism used to describe the American system of government.

The delegates who met in Philadelphia in 1787 tackled the prob- lem of making one nation out of thirteen independent states by inventing a new political form—federal government—that com- bined features of a confederacy with features of unitary govern- ment (see Chapter 2). Under the principle of federalism, two or more governments exercise power and authority over the same people and the same territory. For example, the governments of the United States and Pennsylvania share certain powers (the power to tax, for instance), but other powers belong exclusively to one or the other. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, ‘‘The federal Constitution forms a happy combination . . . [of] the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, and the local and particular to state governments.’’ So the power to coin money belongs to the national government, but the power to grant divorces remains a state prerogative. By contrast, authority over state militias may sometimes belong to the national

federalism The division of power between a central government and regional governments.

Theories and Metaphors 83

government and sometimes to the states. The history of American federalism reveals that it has not always been easy to draw a line between what is ‘‘great and aggregate’’ and what is ‘‘local and particular.’’*

Nevertheless, federalism offered a solution to citizens’ fears that they would be ruled by majorities from different regions and different interests and values. Federalism also provided a new po- litical model. The history of American federalism is full of attempts to capture its true meaning in an adjective or metaphor. By one reckoning, scholars have generated nearly five hundred ways to describe federalism.7 We will concentrate on two such representations: dual federalism and cooperative federalism.

Dual Federalism The term dual federalism sums up a theory about the proper relationship between the national government and the states. This theory has four essential parts. First, the national government rules by enumerated powers only. Second, the national govern- ment has a limited set of constitutional purposes. Third, each gov- ernment unit—nation and state—is sovereign within its sphere. And fourth, the relationship between nation and states is best characterized by tension rather than cooperation.8

Dual federalism portrays the states as powerful components of the federal system—in some ways, the equals of the national government. Under dual federalism, the functions and responsi- bilities of the national and state governments are theoretically dif- ferent and practically separate from each other. Of primary importance in dual federalism are states’ rights, a concept that reserves to the states or to the people all rights not specifically conferred on the national government by the Constitution. According to the theory of dual federalism, a rigid wall separates the nation and the states. After all, if the states created the nation, by implication they can set limits on the activities of the national government.

*The phrase Americans commonly use to refer to their central government—federal government—muddies the waters even more. Technically, we have a federal system of government, which encompasses both the national and state governments. To avoid confusion from here on, we use the term national government rather than federal gov- ernment when we are talking about the central government.

dual federalism A view that holds the Constitution is a compact among sovereign states, so that the powers of the national government are fixed and limited.

states’ rights The idea that all rights not specifically conferred on the national government by the Constitution are reserved to the states.

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Proponents of states’ rights believe that the powers of the national government should be interpreted narrowly. They insist that the activities of Congress should be confined to the enumer- ated powers. They support their view by quoting the Tenth Amendment: ‘‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.’’ Conversely, those people favoring national action frequently point to the Constitution’s elastic clause, which gives Congress the implied powers needed to execute its enumerated powers (see Chapter 2).

Political scientists use a metaphor to describe dual federalism. They call it layer-cake federalism; the powers and functions of national and state governments are as separate as the layers of a cake (see Figure 3.1). Each government is supreme in its own ‘‘layer,’’ its own sphere of action; the two layers are distinct; and the dimensions of each layer are fixed by the Constitution.

Dual federalism has been challenged on historical and other grounds. Some critics argue that if the national government is really a creation of the states, it is a creation of only thirteen states—those that ratified the Constitution. The other thirty-seven states were admitted after the national government came into being and were created by that government out of land it had acquired. Another challenge has to do with the ratification proc- ess. Remember that special conventions in the original thirteen states, not the states’ legislatures, ratified the Constitution.

Dual federalism: The layer-cake metaphor

Citizens cutting into the political system will find clear differences between state and national powers, functions, and responsibilities.

Cooperative federalism: The marble-cake metaphor

Citizens cutting into the political system at any point will find national and state powers, functions, and responsibilities mixed and mingled.

State level

National level

Shared by state and national levels

FIGURE 3.1 Metaphors for Federalism The two views of federalism can be represented graphically. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013

implied powers Those powers that Congress requires in order to execute its enumerated powers.

Theories and Metaphors 85

Ratification, then, was an act of the people, not the states. More- over, the Preamble to the Constitution begins, ‘‘We the people of the United States,’’ not, ‘‘We the States.’’ The question of where the people fit into the federal system is not handled well by dual federalism.

Cooperative Federalism Cooperative federalism, a phrase coined in the 1930s, is a differ- ent theory of the relationship between national and state govern- ments. It acknowledges the increasing overlap in state and

national functions and rejects the idea of separate spheres, or layers, for the states and the national gov- ernment. Cooperative federalism has three elements. First, national and state agencies typically undertake governmental functions jointly rather than exclusively. Second, nation and states routinely share power. Third, power is not concen- trated at any government level or in any agency; this fragmentation of responsibilities gives people and groups access to many centers of influence.

The bakery metaphor used to describe this kind of federalism is a marble cake. The national and state governments do not act in separate spheres; they are intermingled. Their functions are mixed in the American federal system. Critical to coopera- tive federalism is an expansive view of the Constitution’s supremacy clause (Article VI), which specifically subordinates state law to national law and charges every judge to disre- gard state laws that are inconsistent with the Constitution, national laws, and treaties.

An Environmental Catastrophe

On April 20, 2010, an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, 41 miles from the coast of Louisiana, caused a sea floor oil gusher of unprecedented proportions. Nearly 5 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf before the well was capped on July 15. The well owner, British Petroleum, will pay billions of dollars in claims for the cleanup and loss of jobs throughout the Gulf states. The disaster occurred in waters under the jurisdiction of the national government. State and local officials played a subordinate role. President Barack Obama (left), LaFourche Parish (Louisiana) President Charlotte Randolph (center), and U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen (right) look at booms set out to collect oil during a tour of areas affected by the oil spill.

cooperative federalism A view that holds that the Constitution is an agreement among people who are citizens of both state and nation, so there is little distinction between state powers and national powers.

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In contrast to dual federalism, cooperative federalism blurs the distinction between national and state powers. Some scholars argue that the layer-cake metaphor has never accurately described the American political structure.9 The national and state govern- ments have many common objectives and have often cooperated to achieve them. In the nineteenth century, for example, coopera- tion, not separation, made it possible to develop transportation systems such as canals and to establish state land-grant colleges.

A critical difference between the theories of dual and coop- erative federalism is the way they interpret two sections of the Constitution that set out the terms of the relationship between the national and state governments. Article I, Section 8, lists the enumerated powers of Congress and then concludes with the elastic clause, which gives Congress the power to ‘‘make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Exe- cution the foregoing Powers.’’ The Tenth Amendment reserves for the states or the people ‘‘powers’’ not given to the national government or denied to the states by the Constitution. Dual feder- alism postulates an inflexible elastic clause and a broad Tenth Amendment. Cooperative federalism postulates a flexible elastic clause and confines the Tenth Amendment to a self-evident, obvious truth.

3.2 The Dynamics of Federalism

Identify and explain each of the four forces that stimulate changes in the relationship between the national and state governments.

Although the Constitution defines a kind of federalism, the actual balance of power between nation and states has always been more a matter of politics than of formal theory. Three broad principles help to underscore why. First, rather than operating in a mechani- cal fashion, American federalism is a flexible and dynamic system. The Constitution’s inherent ambiguities about federalism generate not only constraints but also opportunities for politicians, citizens, and interest groups to push ideas that they care about. Second, due to this flexibility, public officials across levels of government

elastic clause The last clause in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, which gives Congress the means to execute its enumerated powers. This clause is the basis for Congress’s implied powers. Also called the necessary and proper clause.

The Dynamics of Federalism 87

often make policy decisions based on pragmatic considerations without regard to theories of what American federalism should look like. Politics and policy goals rather than pure theoretical or ideological commitments about federalism tend to dominate deci- sion making. Third, there is a growing recognition among public officials and citizens that public problems (those involving trade- offs between freedom, order, and equality) cut across governmen- tal boundaries. This section develops the first claim; we explore the other two later in this chapter.

The overall point these three claims illustrate is that under- standing American federalism requires knowing more than simply the powers that the Constitution assigns the different levels of government. Real understanding requires recognizing the forces that can prompt changes in relationships between the national government and the states. In this section, we focus on four spe- cific forces: national crises and demands, judicial interpretation, the expansion of grants-in-aid, and the professionalization of state governments.

National Crises and Demands The elastic clause of the Constitution gives Congress the power to make all laws that are ‘‘necessary and proper’’ to carry out its responsibilities. By using this power in combination with its enumerated powers, Congress has been able to increase the scope of the national government tremendously. The greatest change has come in times of crisis and national emergency, such as the Civil War, the world wars, the Great Depression, the aftermath of 9/11, or the 2007–2009 recession. Consider the Great Depression.

The problems of the Great Depression proved too extensive for either state governments or private businesses to handle, so the national government assumed a heavy share of responsibility for providing relief and pursuing economic recovery. Under the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response to the depression, Congress enacted various emergency relief programs to stimulate economic activity and help the unemployed. Many measures required the cooperation of national and state govern- ments. Through the regulations it attached to funds, the national government extended its power and control over the states.10

Some call the New Deal era revolutionary. There is no doubt that the period was critical in reshaping federalism in the United

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States, and the interaction between the national and state govern- ments clearly resembled the marble-cake metaphor more than the alternative. But perhaps the most significant change was in the way Americans thought about their problems and the role of the national government in solving them. Difficulties that at one time had been seen as personal or local problems were now viewed as national problems, requiring national solutions. The general welfare, broadly defined, became a legitimate concern of the national government.

In other respects, however, the New Deal was not very revolu- tionary. For example, Congress did not claim any new powers to address the nation’s economic problems. It simply used its consti- tutional powers to suit the circumstances.

Concerns over terrorist attacks on U.S. soil have expanded national power. The month after the events of September 11, 2001, the Congress swiftly passed and the president signed into law the USA-PATRIOT Act (P.L. 107-56). Among other provi- sions, the law expanded significantly the surveillance and investi- gative powers of the Department of Justice. After some disagreement about its structure and organization, federal policy- makers also created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, a new department that united over twenty separate federal agencies under a common administrative structure. In a move to further expand domestic surveillance activities, President George W. Bush gave approval to wiretaps without warrants of American citizens suspected of terrorist ties. In 2011, President Barack Obama signed a four-year extension of the Act’s key provisions.11

The role of the national government has also grown as it has responded to needs and demands that state and local governments were unwilling or unable to meet. To address the severe economic downturn saddling the nation, President Obama proposed and Congress quickly passed a $787 billion economic stimulus pack- age in February 2009. No Republicans in the House of Represen- tatives and only three Republicans in the Senate voted for the legislation, a clear signal of the charged partisan atmosphere in Washington. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act offered substantial direct aid to states beleaguered by the recession in the form of Medicaid payments, extended unemployment bene- fits, school and infrastructure spending, and other grants. Several Republican governors rejected the money, arguing that the strings attached would mandate the states to more spending in the future.

The Dynamics of Federalism 89

But the bluster receded as furious state legislators in both parties demanded the much-needed funds. When the deadline arrived, all governors signed on.12

Judicial Interpretation How federal courts have interpreted the Constitution and federal law is another factor that has influenced the relationship between the national government and the states. The U.S. Supreme Court, the umpire of the federal system, settles disputes over the powers of the national and state governments by deciding whether the actions of either are unconstitutional (see Chapter 11). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Supreme Court of- ten decided in favor of the states. Then for nearly sixty years, from 1937 to 1995, the Court almost always supported the national government in contests involving the balance of power between nation and states. Since 1995, the Supreme Court has tended to favor states’ rights, but not without some important exceptions.

Early in the nineteenth century, the nationalist interpretation of federalism triumphed over states’ rights. In 1819, under Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court expanded the role of the national government in McCulloch v. Maryland. The Court was asked to rule whether Congress had the power to establish a national bank and, if so, whether states had the power to tax that bank. In a unanimous opinion that Marshall wrote, the Court conceded that Congress had only the powers conferred on it by the Constitution, which nowhere mentioned banks. However, Ar- ticle I granted to Congress the authority to enact all laws ‘‘neces- sary and proper’’ to the execution of Congress’s enumerated powers. Marshall gave a broad interpretation to this elastic clause: ‘‘Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the consti- tution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.’’

The Court clearly agreed that Congress had the power to charter a bank. But did the states (in this case, Maryland) have the power to tax the bank? Arguing that ‘‘the power to tax involves the power to destroy,’’ Marshall insisted that states could not tax the national government because the bank represents the interests of the whole nation; a state may not tax those it does not

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represent. Therefore, a state tax that interferes with the power of Congress to make law is void.13

Especially from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution’s commerce clause was a major factor that increased the national government’s power. The third clause of Article I, Section 8, states that ‘‘Congress shall have Power . . . To regulate Commerce . . . among the several States.’’ In early Court decisions, beginning with Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, Chief Justice Marshall interpreted the word commerce broadly to include virtually every form of commercial activity. But later courts would take a narrower view of that power.14

Roger B. Taney became chief justice in 1836, and during his tenure (1836–1864), the Court’s federalism decisions began to favor the states. The Taney Court took a more restrictive view of commerce and imposed firm limits on the powers of the national government. As Taney saw it, the Constitution spoke ‘‘not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States.’’ In the infamous Dred Scott decision (1857), for example, the Court decided that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.15

The judicial winds shifted again during the Great Depression. After originally disagreeing with FDR’s and the Congress’s posi- tion that the economic crisis was a national problem demanding national action, in 1937, with no change in personnel, the Court began to alter its course and upheld several major New Deal measures. Perhaps the Court was responding to the 1936 election returns (Roosevelt had been reelected in a landslide, and the Dem- ocrats commanded a substantial majority in Congress). Or per- haps the Court sought to defuse the president’s threat to enlarge the Court with justices sympathetic to his views. In any event, the Court abandoned its effort to maintain a rigid boundary between national and state power.16

The Umpire Strikes Back. In the 1990s, a series of important U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving the commerce clause sug- gested that the states’ rights position was gaining ground. The Court’s 5 to 4 ruling in United States v. Lopez held that Congress exceeded its authority under the commerce clause when it enacted a law in 1990 banning the possession of a gun in or near a

commerce clause The third clause of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states.

The Dynamics of Federalism 91

school.17 A conservative majority, headed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, concluded that having a gun in a school zone ‘‘has nothing to do with ‘commerce’ or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms.’’ Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas, all appointed by Republicans, joined in Rehnquist’s opinion, putting the brakes on congressional power.

Another piece of gun-control legislation, known as the Brady Bill, produced similar results. The 1993 bill mandated the creation by November 1998 of a national system to check the background of prospective gun buyers in order to weed out, among others, convicted felons and the mentally ill. In the meantime, it created a temporary system that called for local law enforcement officials to perform background checks and report their findings to gun deal- ers in their community. Several sheriffs challenged the law.

The Supreme Court agreed with the sheriffs, delivering a double- barreled blow to the local-enforcement provision in June 1997. In Printz v. United States, the Court concluded that Congress could not require local officials to implement a regulatory scheme imposed by the national government. In language that seemingly invoked dual federalism, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the five-member conservative majority, argued that locally enforced background checks violated the principle of dual sovereignty by allowing the national government ‘‘to impress into its service— and at no cost to itself—the police officers of the 50 States.’’ In addition, the scheme violated the principle of separation of powers, by congressional transfer of the president’s responsibility to faithfully execute national laws to local law enforcement officials.18

Federalism’s Shifting Scales. In 2000, the Court struck down congressional legislation that had allowed federal court lawsuits pursuing money damages for victims of crimes ‘‘motivated by gender.’’ The Violence Against Women Act violated both the commerce clause and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority declared that ‘‘the Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.’’19

The recent pattern promoting states’ rights in federalism cases is not without significant exceptions. Perhaps the best-known de- cision bucking the trend is Bush v. Gore. In that decision the Court overruled the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of

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Florida election law and ordered a halt to Florida ballot recounts, effectively ending the 2000 presidential election contest. Two recent death penalty cases reflect the ambiguity and dynamic na- ture that frequently characterize the American federal system. In 2002, the Court denied state power to execute a defendant who was mentally disabled, reasoning that because many states had deemed such a practice inappropriate, ‘‘evolving standards of de- cency’’ in the nation suggested it was time to halt the practice.20

In 2005, the Court again relied on evolving standards of decency to strike down a state death penalty for seventeen-year-olds.21 In both cases, the Court acted against the policy of individual states by asserting national power to declare that the death penalty in such circumstances amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and thus violated the Constitution.

How far, then, might the ‘‘necessary and proper’’ lawmaking power discussed in McCulloch v. Maryland extend in practice today? In U.S. v. Comstock (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (7–2) that the national government could keep dangerous sex offenders in prison after their sentences were completed if they posed an ongoing threat to the public. Justice Breyer wrote that ‘‘in determining whether the Necessary and Proper Clause grants Congress the legislative authority to enact a particular federal stat- ute, we look to see whether the statute constitutes a means that is rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power.’’22 Though Congress’s authority to criminalize behavior, build prisons, and imprison violators of federal law is also not explicitly discussed in the Constitution, the Court has long recognized these powers as means of executing the enumer- ated powers.

Grants-in-Aid Since the 1960s, the national government’s use of financial incen- tives has rivaled its use of legislation and judicial interpretation as a means of shaping relationships between national and state gov- ernments. The principal method the national government uses to make money available to the states is grants-in-aid.

A grant-in-aid is money paid by one level of government to another level of government, to be spent for a specific purpose. Most grants-in-aid come with standards or requirements pre- scribed by Congress. Many are awarded on a matching basis: a

grant-in-aid Money provided by one level of government to another, to be spent for a given purpose.

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recipient must make some contribution of its own, which is then matched by the national government. Grants-in-aid take two gen- eral forms: categorical grants and block grants.

Categorical grants target specific purposes, and restrictions on their use typically leave the recipient relatively little discretion. Recipients today include state governments, local governments, and public and private nonprofit organizations. There are two kinds of categorical grants: formula grants and project grants. As their name implies, formula grants are distributed according to a particular formula, which specifies who is eligible for the grant and how much each eligible applicant will receive. The formulas may weigh such factors as state per capita income, number of school-age children, urban population, and number of families below the poverty line. Most grants, however, are project grants, awarded on the basis of competitive applications. Recent grants have focused on health (substance abuse and HIV-AIDS pro- grams); natural resources and the environment (asbestos and toxic pollution); and education, training, and employment (for disabled, homeless, and elderly persons).

In contrast to categorical grants, Congress awards block grants for broad, general purposes. They allow recipient govern- ments considerable freedom in deciding how to allocate money to individual programs. Whereas a categorical grant might be given to promote a very specific activity—say, developing an ethnic her- itage curriculum—a block grant might be earmarked for elemen- tary, secondary, and vocational education. The state or local government receiving the block grant would then choose the spe- cific educational programs to fund with it.

Grants-in-aid are a method of redistributing income. Money is collected by the national government from citizens of all fifty states and then funneled back to state and local governments. Many grants have worked to remove gross inequalities among states and their residents. But the formulas used to redistribute this income are not impartial; they are highly political, established through a process of congressional horse trading.

Although grants-in-aid have been part of the national govern- ment arsenal since the early twentieth century, they grew at an astonishing pace in the 1960s, when grant spending doubled every five years. Presidents Nixon and Reagan were strong advocates for redistributing money back to the states, and political support for such redistribution has remained strong. Controlling for inflation,

categorical grant A grant-in-aid targeted for a specific purpose by formula or by project.

formula grant A categorical grant distributed according to a particular formula that specifies who is eligible for the grant and how much each eligible applicant will receive.

project grant A categorical grant awarded on the basis of competitive applications submitted by prospective recipients.

block grant A grant-in-aid awarded for general purposes, allowing the recipient great discretion in spending the grant money.

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in 1990 the national government returned $172 billion to the states. By 2006, the amount had increased to $363 billion.23 The main trend, as illustrated in Figure 3.2, is an enormous growth in health-care spending, which now approaches 50 percent of all national grant funds to the states.

Whatever its form or purpose, grant money comes with strings attached. Some strings are there to ensure that the money is used for the purpose for which it was given. Other regulations are designed to evaluate how well the grant is working. Still others are designed to achieve some broad national goal, a goal that is not always closely related to the specific purpose of the grant. For example, in October 2000, President Bill Clinton signed legislation establishing a tough national standard of

FIGURE 3.2 Trends in National Government Grants to States and Localities, Fiscal Years (FY) 1980 to 2012

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% 1980 1990 2000 2010

All others General government

Transportation Education Income security

Health

National government grants to states and localities vary substantially. In 1980, education programs accounted for the biggest slice of the national government pie. In 1990, grants for health programs, reflecting the expanding costs of Medicaid, took the biggest slice, reaching more than 30 percent of all national government grants to state and local governments. In 2000, health grants exceeded 43 percent of all such national government spending. By 2012, health grants consumed nearly 50 percent of national government grants to the states, yet another indicator of the nation’s health-care crisis. Source: Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, FY2012, Table 12.3, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ BUDGET-2012-TAB/pdf/BUDGET-2012-TAB.pdf.

The Dynamics of Federalism 95

.08 percent blood-alcohol level for drunk driving. States that refused to impose this lower standard by 2004 stood to lose millions in gov- ernment highway construction money.24 Not surprisingly, every state with a higher blood alcohol standard responded to the legisla- tion by passing its own law lowering the standard to .08 percent.

Professionalization of State Governments A final important factor that has produced dynamic changes in the American federal system has been the emergence of state gov- ernments as more capable policy actors. Not long ago, states were described as the weak links in the American policy system. In an oft-quoted book, former North Carolina governor Terry Sanford leveled heavy criticisms at the states, calling them ineffective, indecisive, and inattentive organizations that may have lost their relevance in an increasingly complicated nation and world.25

Writing nearly twenty years earlier, journalist Robert Allen was even less kind; he called the states ‘‘the tawdriest, most incompe- tent, most stultifying unit in the nation’s political structure.’’26

But since the 1960s especially, states have become much more capable and forceful policy actors. These changes have contributed to dynamic changes in the American federal system. If the situa- tion was so bleak less than five decades ago, what has happened since then?27

First, the states have made many internal changes that have fostered their capabilities. Both governors and state legislators now employ more capably trained and experienced policy staff rather than part-time assistants. Second, legislatures now meet more days during the year, and elected officials in states receive higher sal- aries than in the past. Third, the appeal of higher salaries has helped to attract more highly qualified people to run for state office. Fourth, the increasing ability of states to raise revenue, through state tax and budgetary reforms that have transpired since the 1960s, has given states greater leverage in designing and direct- ing policy. And, fifth, the unelected officials who administer state programs in areas such as transportation, social services, and law enforcement have become better educated. For instance, profes- sional and service occupations account for more than the half of all jobs at the state and local levels. In 2010, professional workers represented one-fifth of all state and local government employees. Most of these professional jobs require a college degree.28

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Changes in national policy have also helped the states to de- velop. Many federal grants-in-aid include components designed explicitly to foster capacity-building measures in state govern- ments. One example is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which became law in 1965. This act, passed as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society effort, was designed to provide federal assistance to the nation’s disadvantaged students. Although it is often overlooked, Title V of the law contained sev- eral provisions designed to strengthen state departments of educa- tion, the agencies that would be responsible for administering the bulk of other programs contained in the ESEA. Those new capa- bilities, which subsequent federal laws and internal state efforts have fostered, continue to influence the shape of both federal and state education policy, especially during the most recent revision of the ESEA as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.29

All of this is not to say that the states are without problems of their own. In some ways, they have been victims of their own suc- cess. Now that state capitals have become more viable venues where citizens and interest groups can agitate for their causes, the states have begun to face ever-increasing demands. Those requests can strain state administrators and legislative or gubernatorial staffs who, although better educated and equipped than their pred- ecessors, still struggle to set priorities and please their constituents.

3.3 Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism

Describe the role of ideology in shaping federalism.

American federalism appears to be in constant motion. This is due in large part to what some political scientists call policy entrepreneurs—citizens, interest groups, and officials inside gov- ernment who attempt to persuade others to accept a particular view of the proper balance of freedom, order, and equality. The American federal system provides myriad opportunities for interested parties to push for their ideas.

In essence, the existence of national and state governments— specifically, their executive, legislative, and judicial branches and their bureaucratic agencies—offers these entrepreneurs several

Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism 97

Compared with What?

Working for the Public The national government in the United States employs about 2 million people. But if we factor in individuals employed through federal grants and contracts, the number of federal government employees balloons to around 15 million. When we factor in all public employees at the national, state, and local levels, we get a greater sense of the presence of government in our lives.

Figure A compares the number of public sector workers at all levels controlling for population across several countries. In this comparison, public sector employment is about 71 workers for ev- ery 1,000 Americans. This is about average across all the coun- tries compared. Public sector employment in the United States is about half of that in Norway and Sweden, much smaller countries with substantial public welfare programs. Public sector employ- ment in the United States is greater than that in the economically powerful countries of Germany and Japan.

The distribution of public sector employment between the national level on one hand and the state and local levels on the other produces a different picture. (See Figure B.) By far, most public sector workers in the United States are found at the state

15 14.7

10.7 9.5

8.4 8.1 7.5 7.1 7.1 7 6.5 6.2

5.4 5 3.2 2.7 2.3 2.2

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Figure A Public Sector Employment as a Percentage of Total Population (2005)

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and local levels. Higher state and local employment is also char- acteristic of other federal systems, such as those of Australia, Ger- many, and Canada.

So if you ponder the question ‘‘Where is my government?’’ a postal worker could satisfy the federal part of the answer. Local gov- ernment employees are far more numerous, working at the firehouse, the police station, the county health office, or your local public school.

Source: Adam Sheingate, ‘‘Why Can’t Americans See the State?’’ The Forum l, no. 4 (2010): 1–14; and Paul C. Light, ‘‘The New True Size of Government,’’ Organizational Performance Initiative: Research Brief, Number 2 (Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, August 2006), p. 11.

Critical Thinking The size of the public sector, as well as its distribution across national, state, and local governments, vary considerably across countries. How might this smaller or larger ‘‘presence of government’’ affect your daily life?

United Kingdom

Australia United States

Canada Sweden

Japan Germany Belgium

Spain Finland

Netherlands Austria

Hungary Norway France

Czech Republic

Turkey Ireland

Portugal Korea

Italy

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1000 Percentage

National Sub-national

Figure B Distribution of Employment Between the National and Subnational Levels of Government (2005)

Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism 99

different venues where they can attempt to influence policy and politics. The most creative of these entrepreneurs can work at multiple levels of government simultaneously.

In this section, we explore how views about American federal- ism can influence the shape of the nation’s politics and policy. We also relate these issues to our ongoing discussion of political ideol- ogy, which we introduced in Chapter 1 (see Figure 1.2, p. 24).

Ideology, Policymaking, and Federalism in Practice Despite the apparent consistencies between presidential preferen- ces regarding federalism and refrains such as ‘‘liberals love the national government’’ and ‘‘conservatives favor states’ rights,’’ these simplifications are often misleading. To grasp the differences between conservatives and liberals, one has to understand not only these general labels but also the purposes of government under discussion. Consider an example from the debates over the federal preemption of state power.

National Intervention in State Functions. Preemption is the power of Congress to enact laws by which the national government assumes complete or partial responsibility for a state government function. When the national government shoulders a new govern- ment function, it restricts the discretionary power of the states. Congressional prohibition of state or local taxation of the Internet is an example of complete preemption.30 It represents a loss of bil- lions of dollars to state and local governments. Partial preemption occurs with the enactment of minimum national standards that states must meet if they wish to regulate the field. The Do Not Call Implementation Act of 2003 is an example of partial preemption. States retained authority to regulate telemarketing provided they met the minimum standards spelled out by the act.31

Congressional preemption statutes infringe on state powers in two ways: through mandates and restraints. A mandate is a requirement that a state undertake an activity or provide a service in keeping with minimum national standards. A mandate might require that states remove specified pollutants from public drink- ing water supplies. In contrast, a restraint forbids state govern- ment from exercising a certain power. A restraint might prohibit states from dumping sewage into the ocean.

preemption The power of Congress to enact laws by which the national government assumes total or partial responsibility for a state government function.

mandate A requirement that a state undertake an activity or provide a service in keeping with minimum national standards.

restraint A requirement laid down by act of Congress prohibiting a state or local government from exercising a certain power.

100 Chapter 3 Federalism

Preemption is a modern power. Congress passed only twenty- nine preemptive acts before 1900. In the ensuing sixty years, Con- gress had preempted the power of states to legislate in certain areas an additional 153 times. The pace of preemption has accel- erated. By 2000, or in just forty years, Congress enacted an addi- tional 329 preemption statutes.32 From 2001 to 2005, 64 new laws preempted state authority.33 The vast majority of these recent pre- emption efforts were partial preemptions dealing with terrorism or environmental protection.

The increased use of preemption has given birth to a new theory of federalism. The pressure to expand national power inher- ent in cooperative federalism has reduced the national govern- ment’s reliance on fiscal tools such as grants-in-aid. Instead, the national government has come to rely on regulatory tools such as mandates and restraints to assure the supremacy of federal policy. According to this view, cooperative federalism has morphed into coercive federalism.34

Constraining Unfunded Mandates. State and local government officials have long voiced strong objections to the national govern- ment’s practice of imposing requirements on the states without providing the financial support needed to satisfy them. By 1992, more than 170 congressional acts had established partially or wholly unfunded mandates.35 One of the early results of the Re- publican-led 104th Congress (1995–1997) was the Unfunded Man- dates Relief Act of 1995. The legislation requires the Congressional Budget Office to prepare cost estimates of any proposed national legislation that would impose more than $50 million a year in costs on state and local governments or more than $100 million a year in costs on private business. It also requires a cost analysis of the impact of agency regulations.

Many mandates have fallen outside the precise contours of the Relief Act. Although it is likely that the cost estimates have served to temper or withdraw some mandates, the Relief Act has acted merely as a ‘‘speed bump,’’ slowing down others rather than deterring new efforts at regulation.36 (It is important to note that the law does not apply to legislation protecting constitutional rights and civil rights or to antidiscrimination laws.)

The act’s critics argue that large proportions of state appropri- ation budgets still must cover the costs of programs imposed by the national government. The National Conference of State

Label Me

Food labeling follows a single national standard today as a result of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. The act preempted states from imposing different labeling requirements.

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Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism 101

Legislatures estimated, for example, that Real ID—a federally mandated program that imposes security, authentication, and issuance standards upon states when issuing driver’s licenses and identification cards—will cost $11 billion through 2012.37 Since 2004, the national government has passed along more than $130 billion worth of unfunded mandates to the states.38

If Republicans were expecting a return of powers to the states during the presidency of George W. Bush, then they were likely disappointed. On his watch, the national government increased its power over the states. Through coercive federalism, the national government now calls the tune for still more activities that were once the sole province of individual states.

3.4 Federalism and Electoral Politics

Describe the influence of federalism on elections at the state and national levels.

While federalism affects the shape of American public policy, it also plays a significant role in electoral politics. We will have much more to say about elections in Chapter 6. For now, we focus on the ways that federalism is related to the outcome of state and national elections.

National Capital-State Capital Links State capitals often serve as proving grounds for politicians who aspire to national office. After gaining experience in a state legisla- ture or serving in a statewide elected position (governor or attor- ney general, for example), elected officials frequently draw on that experience in making a pitch for service in the U.S. House, Senate, or even the White House. The role that state political experience can play in making a run for the presidency seems to have become increasingly important in recent decades. Consider that four of the last six candidates who were elected to the highest office in the land, a period dating back to 1976, had formerly served as governors: Jimmy Carter (Georgia), Ronald Reagan (California), Bill Clinton (Arkansas), and George W. Bush (Texas). George H.

coercive federalism A view that the national government may impose its policy preferences on the states through regulations in the form of mandates and restraints.

102 Chapter 3 Federalism

W. Bush and Barack Obama are the exceptions to this otherwise long streak.

It is hard to underestimate the value of previous political ex- perience in attempting to mount a campaign for national office. In addition to simply learning the craft of being a politician, expe- rience in state politics can be critically important for helping a candidate to build up a network of contacts, staunch constituents, and potential fundraisers. Past governors also have the benefit of being plugged into organizations such as the National Governors Association and the Republican and Democratic governors’ groups, which can help to cultivate national-level name recogni- tion, friendships, and a reputation in Washington. Finally, consid- ering that presidential elections are really a series of fifty different state-level contests, given the structure of the electoral college, a candidate for the White House can benefit tremendously from a friendly governor who can call into action his or her own political network on the candidate’s behalf.

Congressional Redistricting Perhaps even more important than activities on the campaign trail is the decennial process of congressional redistricting, which reveals crucial connections between federalism and the nation’s electoral politics. Most generally, redistricting refers to the process of redrawing boundaries for electoral jurisdictions. This process occurs at all levels of government, and becomes an extremely high-stakes game in the two years after each decennial national census in the United States. During that window of time, the U.S. Census Bureau produces and releases updated population counts for the nation. Those figures are used to determine the number of seats that each state will have in the U.S. House, which are appor- tioned based on population.

While it is relatively straightforward to determine how many seats each state will have, where the new district lines will be drawn is a complicated and highly political affair. Even in states that may not have lost or gained seats due to population shifts within a state—some areas grow at a rapid rate, while others lose population, for example—the task of redistricting carries huge stakes. In large part, this is because state legislatures typically have the task of drawing the lines that define the congressional districts in their states. Given that this process happens only once every

redistricting The process of redrawing boundaries for electoral jurisdictions.

Federalism and Electoral Politics 103

ten years and because the careers of U.S. House members and their party’s relatively long-term fortunes in Congress can turn on decisions made in these state-level political debates, it is no won- der that the redistricting process commands significant national attention.

Another way that federalism can influence redistricting is through a process called preclearance. Under Section 5 of the Vot- ing Rights Act, several states are required to submit their redistrict- ing plans to the U.S. Department of Justice for approval. The process is quite complicated, but in essence it requires that states show how their proposed plans will not be ‘‘retrogressive in pur- pose or effect,’’ meaning they will not dilute minority voting strength. Passing the test of preclearance, however, does not mean that a state’s redistricting plans cannot be challenged for civil rights purposes or other grounds as defined in federal law and court deci- sions, such as rulings affirming the one person–one vote principle.

In short, both the politics of drawing congressional bounda- ries and the interactions between Justice Department officials and state legislators responsible for preclearance reveal the intimate connections between federalism and the redistricting process.39

3.5 Federalism and the American Intergovernmental System

Describe the role of local government in a federal system and illustrate how national, state, and local governments sometimes interact.

We have concentrated in this chapter on the roles the national and state governments play in shaping the federal system. Although the Constitution explicitly recognizes only national and state governments, the American federal system has spawned a multitude of local governments as well. A 2007 census counted over eighty-nine thousand.40 It is worth considering these units because they help to illustrate the third main principle we outlined near the beginning of this chapter: a growing recognition among public figures and citizens that public problems cut across govern- mental boundaries.

104 Chapter 3 Federalism

Americans are citizens of both nation and state, but they also come under the jurisdiction of various local government units. These units include municipal governments, the governments of cities and towns. Municipalities, in turn, are located in (or may contain or share boundaries with) counties, which are adminis- tered by county governments. (Sixteen states further divide counties into townships.) Most Americans also live in a school district, which is re- sponsible for administering local ele- mentary and secondary educational programs. They also may be served by one or more special districts, gov- ernment units created to perform particular functions, typically when those functions—such as fire protec- tion and water purification and dis- tribution—are best performed across jurisdictional boundaries. All of these local governments are created by state governments, either in their constitutions or through legislation.

In theory, at least, one benefit of localizing government is that it brings government close to the people; it gives them an opportunity to participate in the political process, to have a direct impact on policy. From this perspective, overlapping governments appear compatible with a majoritarian view of democracy.

The reality is somewhat different, however. In fact, voter turn- out in local contests tends to be very low, even though the impact of individual votes is much greater. Furthermore, the fragmenta- tion of powers, functions, and responsibilities among national, state, and local governments makes government as a whole seem complicated and hence incomprehensible and inaccessible to ordi- nary people. In addition, most people have little time to devote to public affairs. These factors tend to discourage individual citizens from pursuing politics and, in turn, enhance the influence of

Whose Rules?

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah was established by presidential decree in 1996. It sits on 1.7 million acres of austere and rugged land. The decree irked local residents, who had hoped for greater industrial development, which is now barred. They have fought back by claiming ownership of hundreds of miles of dirt roads, dry washes, and riverbeds in the monument. The conflicting signs illustrate the controversy. On the left, the local government, Kane County, approves use of all-terrain vehicles. On the right, the national government signals just the opposite.

municipal governments The government unit that administers a city or town. county government The government unit that administers a county.

school district An area for which a local government unit administers elementary and secondary school programs.

special district A government unit created to perform particular functions, especially when those functions are best performed across jurisdictional boundaries.

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Federalism and the American Intergovernmental System 105

organized groups, which have the resources—time, money, and know-how—to sway policymaking (see Chapter 7). Instead of bringing government closer to the people and reinforcing majori- tarian democracy, then, the system’s complexity tends to encour- age pluralism.

The large number of governments also makes it possible for government at some level to respond to the diversity of conditions that prevail in different parts of the country. States and cities differ enormously in population, size, economic resources, climate, and other characteristics. Smaller political units are better able to respond to particular local conditions and can generally do so more quickly than larger units. Smaller units, however, may not be able to muster the economic resources to meet some challenges. Conse- quently, in a growing number of areas, citizens have come to see the advantages of coordinating efforts and sharing burdens across levels of government.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy once observed that ‘‘federalism was our Nation’s own discovery. The Framers split the atom of sovereignty. It was the genius of their idea that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one fed- eral, each protected from incursion by the other.’’41

3.6 Federalism and Pluralism Discuss the changing relationship between federalism and pluralism.

Our federal system of government was designed to allay citizens’ fears that they might be ruled by a majority in a distant region with whom they did not necessarily agree or share interests. By recogniz- ing the legitimacy of the states as political divisions, the federal sys- tem also recognized the importance of diversity. The existence and cultivation of diverse interests are hallmarks of pluralism.

Both of the main competing theories of federalism support pluralism, but in somewhat different ways. Dual federalism aims to decentralize government, shifting power to the states. It recog- nizes the importance of local rather than national standards and applauds the diversity of those standards. The variety allows the people at least a choice of policies under which to live, if not a direct voice in policymaking.

106 Chapter 3 Federalism

In contrast, cooperative federalism is perfectly willing to override local standards for national ones depending on the issue at stake. Yet this view of federalism, while more amenable to national prerogatives, is highly responsive to all manner of pressures from groups and policy entrepreneurs, including pres- sure at one level of government from those unsuccessful at other levels. By blurring the lines of national and state responsi- bility, this kind of federalism encourages petitioners to try their luck at whichever level of government offers them the best chance of success.

The national government has come to rely increasingly on its regulatory power to shape state policies. Through mandates and restraints, the national government has exercised a coercive form of federalism. This direction with policies flowing from Washing- ton to the state and local levels signals a shift from a pluralist to a majoritarian model.

SUMMARY 3.1 Theories and Metaphors

• Federalism is a political model for government in which power is divided between a central govern- ment and regional governments.

• Dual federalism, a concept illustrated by the layer cake metaphor, holds that national and state governments are sovereign within their own spheres. • The relationship between nation

and state is characterized by tension rather than cooperation.

• Cooperative federalism, a concept illustrated by the marble cake meta- phor, presumes that national and state agencies work together and

share power and that this power is fragmented. • Cooperative federalism blurs the

distinction between national and state governments.

3.2 The Dynamics of Federalism • Congress has increased national

power during times of crisis and national emergency.

• The Supreme Court settles disputes regarding the balance of power between the states and national government.

• The national government often uses fi- nancial incentives (e.g., grants-in-aid) to persuade states to act in desired ways.

Summary 107

• State governments have increased their abilities by making internal changes, holding more legislative sessions, attracting more qualified people, and hiring better-educated administrators.

3.3 Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism • Although it is common to associate

conservative views with the layer- cake model of dual federalism and liberal views with the cooperative federalism, the ambiguity with which federalism is treated in the Constitu- tion makes it difficult to pin clear ideological labels on particular theories of federalism.

• In practice, the national government • takes over responsibility for state

functions by preemption. • issues a mandate to require states

to act in a particular way. • limits the use of state power by issu-

ing a restraint. • uses funding as a means to control

the states.

3.4 Federalism and Electoral Politics • State governments act as proving

grounds for politicians who want to achieve national recognition and office.

• Redistricting can change political careers through changes in district size and location of voting districts.

3.5 Federalism and the American Intergovernmental System • Americans are citizens of both the

nation and their state. They are also under the jurisdiction of local governments, which include munici- pal, county, school, and special districts.

• While in principle local governments bring politics closer to individuals, in reality most citizens are less engaged in local than in national politics. Organized groups, with the time and resources to understand the minutiae of government at each level, are the most successful at influencing policy at the local level.

• The large number of governments allows for responsiveness at some level, which benefits citizens.

3.6 Federalism and Pluralism • By recognizing the legitimacy of the

state, the federal system recognizes diversity, which reflects the pluralist model.

• The national government’s regulatory power casts a coercive shadow over all state governments. This model of coercive federalism reflects the ebb and flow of power moving from states to nation to states to nation.

108 Chapter 3 Federalism

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

3.1 Compare and contrast the two theo- ries of federalism used to describe the American system of govern- ment. 1. What is federalism, and what were

the difficulties that it sought to over- come?

2. Define dual and cooperative federal- ism, and explain the metaphors used to describe them.

3. What are the primary differences between dual and cooperative federalism?

3.2 Identify and explain each of the four forces that stimulate changes in the relationship between the national and state governments. 1. How did the New Deal reshape fed-

eralism in the United States? 2. Explain how the Supreme Court’s

interpretation of the commerce clause expanded the national gov- ernment’s power.

3. How can different kinds of grants from the national government shape public policies in the states?

4. What factors account for the grow- ing professionalization of the states?

3.3 Describe the role of ideology in shaping federalism. 1. Define congressional preemption

and the two ways it can be exercised in practice.

2. What are unfunded mandates, and why do state and local governments object to them?

3. Explain how some analysts relate cooperative federalism to coercive federalism.

3.4 Describe the influence of federalism on elections at the state and national levels. 1. What skills can prior experience in

state politics provide for aspiring national-level politicians?

2. What is redistricting, and in what ways can federalism influence the redistricting process?

3.5 Describe the role of local government in a federal system and illustrate how national state, and local governments sometimes interact. 1. Define and explain the forms of

governments that exist below the state level.

2. What are the advantages of local- ized government in theory, and how do these materialize in practice?

3.6 Discuss the changing relationship between federalism and pluralism. 1. How do dual and cooperative forms

of federalism support pluralism? 2. Why is American federalism becom-

ing increasingly supportive of the majoritarian model?

Assessing Your Understanding 109

4 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Public Opinion,

Political Socialization,

and the Media

4.1 Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy

Identify the various roles played by public opinion in majoritarian and pluralist democracy.

4.2 Political Socialization

Explain the influence of the agents of early socialization— family, school, community, and peers—on political learning.

4.3 Social Groups and Political Values

Compare and contrast the effects of education, income, region, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender on public opinion.

4.4 From Values to Ideology

Define ideology, describe the liberal-conservative continuum, and assess the influence of ideology on public opinion.

4.5 Forming Political Opinions

Assess the impact of knowledge, self-interest, and leadership on political opinions.

4.6 The Media in America

Evaluate the impact of private ownership and government regulation of the media.

4.7 Reporting and Following the News

Analyze the role of the media in political socialization and the acquisition of political knowledge.

4.8 Evaluating the Media in Government

Assess the impact of the media on democratic values and politics in the United States.

110 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

W hat does the United States havein common with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq? Those four countries led the world in number of executions from 2007 to 2010.1 Although the death penalty is outlawed in most of the world—including every other West- ern democracy—it is very popular in the United States, regularly backed two to one in national surveys over several decades.2 Since the 1990s, however, death sentences have declined in the United States, and in 2012 Connecticut became the seventeenth state to repeal the death penalty— in part due to high costs of litigation.3

We can learn much about the role of public opinion in America by reviewing how our gov- ernment has administered the death penalty. Dur- ing most of American history, government execution of those who threatened the social order was legal. In colonial times, capital punish- ment was imposed not just for murder but also for antisocial behavior—denying the ‘‘true’’ God, cursing one’s parents, committing adultery, prac-

ticing witchcraft, even being a rebellious child.4

Over the years, writers, editors, and clergy argued for abolishing the death sentence, and a few states responded by eliminating capital pun- ishment. But the outbreak of World War I fed the public’s fear of foreigners and radicals, leading to renewed support for the death penalty. The se- curity needs of World War II and the postwar fears of Soviet communism fueled continued sup- port for capital punishment.

After anticommunist hysteria subsided in the late 1950s, public opposition to the death pen- alty increased. But public opinion was neither strong enough nor stable enough to force state legislatures to outlaw it. In keeping with the plu- ralist model of democracy, efforts to abolish the death penalty shifted from the legislative arena to the courts. The opponents argued that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and is therefore unconstitutional. Their argument appa- rently had some effect on public opinion: in 1966, a plurality of respondents opposed the

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111 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

death penalty for the first (and only) time since the Gallup Organiza- tion began polling the public on the question of capital punishment.

The states responded to this shift in public opinion by reducing the number of executions, until they stopped completely in 1968 in anticipation of a Supreme Court decision. By then, however, public opinion had again reversed in favor of capital punishment. Neverthe- less, in 1972, the Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that the death pen- alty as imposed by existing state laws was unconstitutional.5 The decision was not well received in many states, and thirty-five state legislatures passed new laws to get around the ruling. Meanwhile, as the nation’s homicide rate increased, public approval of the death penalty jumped almost ten points and continued climbing.

In 1976, the Supreme Court changed its position and upheld three new state laws that let judges consider the defendant’s record and the nature of the crime in deciding whether to impose a sentence of death.6 The Court also rejected the argument that punishment by death violates the Constitution and noted that public opinion favors the death penalty. Through the end of the 1970s, however, only three criminals were executed. Eventually, the states began to heed public concern about the crime rate. Over 1,200 executions have taken place since the 1976 Supreme Court ruling.7

Although public support for the death penalty remains high, Ameri- cans are divided on the issue. A majority of white Americans favors the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, while a majority of non- whites opposes it.8 Conservatives are more likely to support the death penalty than liberals. Seventy-three percent of all Republicans favor the death penalty, whereas only 46 percent of all Democrats do. Many Americans are concerned that innocent persons have been executed.9

Indeed, since 1973, over 140 death row inmates have been exoner- ated of their crimes by new evidence such as DNA testing.10

Public opinion is simply the collective attitudes of the citizens on a given issue or question. The history of public thinking on the death penalty reveals several characteristics of public opinion:

• The public’s attitudes toward a given government policy can vary over time, often dramatically. Opinions about capital punish- ment tend to fluctuate with threats to the social order. The pub- lic is more likely to favor capital punishment in times of war and when fears of foreign subversion and crime rates are high.

• Public opinion places boundaries on allowable types of public pol- icy. Stoning or beheading criminals is not acceptable to the

public opinion The collected attitudes of citizens concerning a given issue or question.

112 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

American public (and surely not to courts interpreting the Con- stitution). Since Utah banned firing squads beginning in 2009, only Oklahoma offers that form of execution—as an alternative if electrocution and lethal injection are declared unconstitu- tional.11 Recent reports about pain suffered during both those types of executions have made them controversial as well.12

• If asked by pollsters, citizens are willing to register opinions on matters outside their expertise. People have opined that execu- tion by lethal injection is more humane than electrocution, asphyxiation in the gas chamber, or hanging.13

• Governments tend to respond to public opinion. State laws for and against capital punishment have reflected swings in the public mood. The Supreme Court’s 1972 decision against capital punish- ment came when public opinion on the death penalty was sharply divided; the Court’s approval of capital punishment in 1976 coin- cided with a rise in public approval of the death penalty.

• The government sometimes does not do what the people want. Although public opinion overwhelmingly favors the death penalty for murder, there were only forty-three executions in 2011 (but there were fourteen thousand murders that year).14

The last two conclusions bear on our discussion of the majoritar- ian and pluralist models of democracy discussed in Chapter 1. Here we probe more deeply into the nature, shape, depth, and formation of public opinion in a democratic government. What is the place of public opinion in a democracy? How do people acquire their opin- ions? What are the major lines of division in public opinion? How do individuals’ ideology and knowledge affect their opinions?

4.1 Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy

Identify the various roles played by public opinion in majoritarian and pluralist democracy.

Opinion polling, which involves interviewing a random sample of citizens to estimate public opinion as a whole, is such a common feature of contemporary life that we often forget it is a modern invention, dating only from the 1930s (see Figure 4.1, p. 114). In

Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy 113

1988 Bush, G.H.W.

40 60 8020

1984 Reagan

1992 Clinton

1980 Reagan

1976 Carter

1972 Nixon

1968 Nixon

1964 Johnson

1960 Kennedy

1956 Eisenhower

1952 Eisenhower

1948 Truman

1944 Roosevelt, F.D.

Ye ar

47.0 50.8

50.0 48.0

51.0 50.1

59.5 57.8

51.0 55.4

44.5 49.9

51.5 53.3

52.0 55.0

55.7 62.5

Percentage of vote

Final poll predictions Election results

64.0 61.3

61.8 62.0

43.0 43.5

56.0 53.9

59.1 59.0

43.2 49.0

2000 Bush, G.W. 47.9

48.0

2008 Obama 53.0

55.0

52.0 50.1

1940 Roosevelt, F.D.

1936 Roosevelt, F.D.

1996 Clinton

49.0 51.0

2004 Bush, G.W.

2012 Obama 50.0

48.0 FIGURE 4.1 Gallup Poll Accuracy One of the nation’s oldest polls was started by George Gallup in the 1930s. The accuracy of the Gallup Poll in predicting presidential elections over seventy years is charted here. Although it is not always on the mark, its predictions have been fairly close to election results. The poll was most notably wrong in 1948, when it predicted that Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate, would defeat the Democratic incumbent, Harry Truman, underestimating Truman’s vote by 5.4 percentage points. In 1992, the Gallup Poll was off by an even larger margin, but this time it did identify the winner, Bill Clinton. Gallup’s final prediction for the 2000 election declared the race ‘‘too close to call.’’ Indeed, the race in the electoral college remained too close to call for weeks after the election. Gallup declared the 2012 race a ‘‘statistical tie’’ in its final prediction. Although Romney was one percentage point ahead of Obama in the last poll, the difference was well within the poll’s margin of error. Source: Gallup Editors, ‘‘Romney 49%, Obama 48% in Gallup’s Final Election Survey,’’ November 5, 2012. Copyright ª 2012 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.

114 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

fact, survey methodology did not develop into a powerful research tool until the advent of computers in the 1950s.

Before polling became an accepted part of the American scene, politicians, journalists, and everyone else could argue about what the people wanted, but no one really knew. Today, sampling methods and opinion polling have altered the debate about the majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy. Now that we know how often government policy runs against majority opinion, it becomes harder to defend the U.S. government as democratic under the majoritarian model. Even at a time when Americans favored the death penalty for murderers, the Supreme Court decided that existing state laws applying capital punishment were unconstitutional. Even after the Court approved new state laws as constitutional, relatively few murderers were actually executed.

The two models of democracy make different assumptions about public opinion. The majoritarian model assumes that a ma- jority of the people hold clear, consistent opinions on government policy. The pluralist model assumes that the public is often unin- formed and ambivalent about specific issues, and opinion polls frequently support that claim. What are the bases of public opin- ion? What principles, if any, do people use to organize their beliefs and attitudes about politics? Exactly how do individuals form their political opinions? We look for answers to these ques- tions in this chapter. In later chapters, we assess the effect of pub- lic opinion on government policies. The results should help you make up your own mind about the viability of the majoritarian and pluralist models in a functioning democracy.

4.2 Political Socialization Explain the influence of the agents of early socialization—family, school, community, and peers—on political learning.

Public opinion is grounded in political values. People acquire their values through political socialization, a complex process through which individuals become aware of politics, learn political facts, and form political values. Think for a moment about your politi- cal socialization. What is your earliest memory of a president? When did you first learn about political parties? If you identify

political socialization The complex process by which people acquire their political values.

Political Socialization 115

with a party, how did you decide to do so? If you do not, why don’t you? Who was the first liberal you ever met? The first con- servative? Obviously, the paths to political awareness, knowledge, and values differ among individuals, but most people are exposed to the same influences, or agents of socialization, especially in childhood through young adulthood. These influences include family, school, community, peers, and, of course, the media.

One of the most politically important things that many chil- dren learn from their parents is party identification. Parental influ- ence on party identification is greater when both parents strongly identify with the same party.15 Overall, more than half of young American voters identify with the political party of their parents.16

Moreover, those who change their partisanship are more likely to shift from being partisan to independent or from independent to partisan than to convert from one party to the other.17

Political socialization continues throughout life. As parental and school influences wane in adulthood, peer groups (neighbors, coworkers, club members) assume a greater importance in pro- moting political awareness and developing political opinions.18

Because adults usually learn about political events from the mass media—newspapers, magazines, television, and radio—the media emerge as socialization agents.19 Older Americans are more likely to rely on newspaper and television news for political information, while younger Americans are more likely to turn to the Internet.20

Regardless of how people learn about politics, they gain perspec- tive on government as they grow older. They are likely to measure new candidates (and new ideas) against the old ones they remember. Their values also may change. Finally, political learning comes simply through exposure and familiarity. One example is the act of voting, which people do with increasing regularity as they grow older.

4.3 Social Groups and Political Values

Compare and contrast the effects of education, income, region, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender on public opinion.

No two people are influenced by precisely the same socialization agents in precisely the same way. Still, people with similar backgrounds

116 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

do share learning experiences; this means they tend to develop similar political opinions. In this section, we examine the ties between people’s social backgrounds and their political values. We do this by looking at responses to two questions posed by the 2008 American National Elec- tion Study (ANES).21 These specific questions do not define or exhaust the typology; they merely illustrate it.

The first question deals with abortion. The interviewer said, ‘‘There has been some discussion about abortion during recent years. Which opinion on this page best agrees with your view? You can just tell me the number of the opinion you choose’’:

1. ‘‘By law, abortion should never be permitted’’ [15 percent agreed]. 2. ‘‘The law should permit abortion only in case of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in danger’’ [27 percent].

3. ‘‘The law should permit abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or danger to the woman’s life, but only after the need for the abortion has been clearly established’’ [18 percent].

4. ‘‘By law, a woman should be able to obtain an abortion as a matter of personal choice’’ [40 percent].22

Those who chose the last category most clearly valued individual freedom over order imposed by government. Moreover, evidence shows that the pro-choice respondents also have concerns about broader issues of social order, such as the role of women and the legitimacy of alternative lifestyles.23

The second question pertained to the role of government in guaranteeing employment:

Some people feel the government in Washington should see to it that every person has a job and a good standard of living. Suppose that these people are at one end of the scale.… Others think the government should just let each person get ahead on his own. Suppose these people are at the other end.… Where would you put yourself on this scale, or haven’t you thought much about this?

Excluding those people who ‘‘haven’t thought much’’ about this question, 31 percent of the respondents wanted government to provide every person with a living, and 20 percent were unde- cided. That left 49 percent who wanted the government to let peo- ple ‘‘get ahead’’ on their own. These respondents, who opposed government efforts to promote equality, apparently valued free- dom over equality.

Social Groups and Political Values 117

Overall, the responses to each of these questions were divided approximately equally. Somewhat more than half of the respondents (58 percent) felt that government should not broadly prohibit abor- tion, and just short of a majority (49 percent) thought the govern- ment should not guarantee everyone a job and a good standard of living. However, sharp differences in attitudes emerged for both issues when the respondents were grouped by socioeconomic factors: education, income, region, race, religion, and sex. The differences are shown in Figure 4.2 as positive and negative deviations from the national averages for each question. Bars that extend to the right identify groups that are more likely than most Americans to sacrifice freedom for a given value of government, either equality or order. Next, we examine the opinion patterns more closely for each socioe- conomic group.

Education Education increases people’s awareness and understanding of po- litical issues. Higher education also promotes tolerance of unpop- ular opinions and behavior and invites citizens to see issues in terms of civil rights and liberties.24 This result is clear in the left- hand column of Figure 4.2, which shows that people with less education are more likely to support restrictions on abortion while people with more education are more likely to view abortion as a matter of a woman’s choice.25 When confronted with a choice between personal freedom and social order, college-educated indi- viduals tend to choose freedom.

With regard to the role of government in reducing income in- equality, the right-hand column in Figure 4.2 shows that people with less education favor government action to guarantee jobs. Those with more education tend to oppose government action, favoring freedom over equality.

Income In many countries, differences in social class, based on social background and occupation, divide people in their politics.26 In the United States, the vast majority of citizens regard themselves as ‘‘middle class.’’ Yet as Figure 4.2 shows, wealth is consistently linked to opinions favoring a limited government role in equality and less consistently to opinions about order. Those with lower

118 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

incomes are more likely to favor government guarantees of employment and living conditions. Those with incomes under $60,000 also favor outlawing abortion more than those earning over $60,000. Wealth and education tend to have a similar impact

FIGURE 4.2 How Groups Differ on Two Questions of Order and Equality

Should government outlaw abortions? Should government guarantee jobs? Percentages of respondents saying “yes” in each group

Male Female

Other Jewish Catholic Protestant

Other Latino Black, not Latino White, not Latino

West Northeast Midwest South

$100,000 and more $60,000–$99,999 $30,000–$59,999 Under $30,000

College degree Some college High school No high school

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

67 51 50

72 51 48

48 49

55 56

43 77

69 68

42 66

57 44

52 percent of public says “yes”

Male Female

Other Jewish

Catholic Protestant

Other Latino

Black, not Latino White, not Latino

West Northeast

Midwest South

$100,000 and more $60,000–$99,999 $30,000–$59,999

Under $30,000

College degree Some college

High school No high school

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

67 48

33 31

41 49

31 40

47 46

36 29

42 42

51 37

49 43

8 44

41 43

LEVEL OF EDUCATION

HOUSEHOLD INCOME

REGION OF U.S.

ETHNIC GROUP

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

GENDER

42 percent of public says “yes”

Two questions—one on abortion (representing the dilemma of freedom versus order) and the other on the government’s role in guaranteeing employment (freedom versus equality)—were asked of a national sample in 2008. Public opinion for the nation as a whole was sharply divided on each question. These two graphs show how respondents in several social groups responded to each question. The vertical lines indicate overall public opinion for the two questions. Source: Data from 2008 American National Election Study, undertaken in collaboration by Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

Social Groups and Political Values 119

on opinion: the groups with more education and higher income prefer freedom to order or equality.

Region Early in our country’s history, regional differences were politically important—important enough to spark a civil war between North and South. For nearly 100 years after the Civil War, regional dif- ferences continued to affect American politics. The moneyed Northeast was thought to control the purse strings of capitalism. The Midwest was long regarded as the stronghold of isolationism in foreign affairs. The South was practically a one-party region, almost completely Democratic. And the individualistic West pio- neered its own mixture of progressive politics.

In the past, differences in wealth fed cultural differences between regions. In recent decades, however, the movement of peo- ple and wealth away from the Northeast and Midwest to the Sun- belt states in the South and Southwest has equalized the per capita income of the regions. One product of this equalization is that the ‘‘solid South’’ is no longer solidly Democratic.27 In fact, the South has tended to vote for Republican candidates for president since 1968, and the majority of southern members of Congress are now Republicans.

Figure 4.2 shows differences among the four major regions of the United States on social and economic issues. Respondents in the South and Midwest were more likely to support restrictions on abortion. However, people in the Northeast and West were more supportive of government efforts to equalize income.

Ethnicity and Race In the early twentieth century, the major ethnic minority groups in America were immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and other European countries. They came to the United States in waves during the late 1800s and early 1900s and found themselves in a strange land, usually without money and unable to speak Eng- lish. Moreover, their religious backgrounds, mainly Catholic and Jewish, differed from that of the predominantly Protestant earlier settlers. These urban ethnics and their descendants became part of the great coalition of Democratic voters that President Franklin

120 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

Roosevelt forged in the 1930s. And for years after, the European ethnics supported liberal candidates and causes more strongly than the original Anglo-Saxon immigrants did.28

From the Civil War through the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans fought to secure basic politi- cal rights such as the right to vote. Initially mobilized by the Re- publican Party, the party of Lincoln, following the Civil War, African Americans later forged strong ties with the Democratic Party during the New Deal era. Today, African Americans are still more likely to support liberal candidates and identify with the Democratic Party. African Americans make up almost 13 percent of the population, with sizable voting blocs in southern states and northern cities.

Latinos (people of Latin American origin) are commonly but inaccurately referred to as a racial group. The vast majority of Lat- inos in the United States are white, but there is a notable black Latino population as well. Latinos made up 16 percent of the pop- ulation in 2010, but the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that they will comprise 23 percent of the population by 2030.29 Latinos who speak Spanish are also known as Hispanics. At the national level, Latinos have lagged behind African Americans in mobilizing and gaining political office. However, they make up over 46 percent of the population in New Mexico and 38 percent in California and Texas.30

Asians account for approximately 5 percent of the population, and Native Americans constitute just over 1 percent. Like other minority groups, their political impact is greatest in the cities or regions where they are concentrated and greater in number. For instance, Asian Americans constitute 39 percent of the population in Hawaii and over 13 percent in California; Native Americans make up 15 percent of the population of Alaska and over 9 per- cent of New Mexico.31

Members of minority groups display somewhat similar political attitudes on questions pertaining to equality.32 The reasons are two- fold.33 First, racial minorities (excepting second-generation Asians) tend to have low socioeconomic status, a combination of education, occupation, status, and income. Second, all racial minorities have been targets of racial prejudice and discrimination and have benefited from government actions in support of equality. The right-hand column in Figure 4.2 clearly shows the effects of race on the freedom-equality issue. All minority groups, particularly African Americans, are more

socioeconomic status Position in society, based on a combination of education, occupational status, and income.

Social Groups and Political Values 121

likely than whites to favor government action to improve economic opportu- nity. The abortion issue produces less difference, although Latinos favor gov- ernment restrictions on abortion slightly more than other groups do.

Religion Since the last major wave of European immigration in the 1930s and 1940s, the religious makeup of the United States has remained fairly stable. Today, 53 percent of the population is Protestant or non-Catholic Christian, about 24 percent is Catholic, less than 2 percent is Jewish, 5 percent reports some other faith, and about 15 per- cent professes no religion.34 For many years, analysts found strong and con- sistent differences in the opinions of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Prot- estants were more conservative than Catholics, and Catholics tended to be more conservative than Jews.

As Figure 4.2 indicates, broad reli- gious groupings have little effect on atti- tudes about economic equality but more influence on attitudes about social order. Protestants favor government action to limit abortion even more than Catholics. Jews overwhelmingly favor abortion rights. Differences among religious groups have emerged across many con- temporary social and political issues.

Differences among religious subgroups are significant. Evangelical Protestants are much more likely than members of other Protestant religious groups to oppose gay marriage and support the death pen- alty while favoring right-to-life over abortion. Evangelicals and Jews are more likely to express support for Israel in Middle Eastern politics. Religious beliefs have been at the center of national and local debates

Word of God?

A person’s religiosity may be as important as his or her denominational identification in predicting political opinions. One measure of people’s religiosity in a Christian-Judaic society is their opinion about the Bible. When asked about the nature of the Bible in 2011, about 30 percent of respondents said it was the actual word of God. About 49 percent regarded it as inspired by God but believed it should not be taken literally. The remaining 17 percent viewed it as an ancient book of history, legends, fables, and moral precepts recorded by humans. Those who believed that the Bible is the literal word of God strongly favored government action to limit abortion. They were also much more likely to think that ‘‘creationism,’’ a theory of the origin and development of life on Earth based on a strict reading of the Bible, should be taught in public schools alongside the theory of evolution.

Source: Data from Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘In U.S., 3 in 10 Say They Take the Bible Literally,’’ Gallup Poll Report, 8 July 2011.

St ep

he n

M or

to n/

St rin

ge r/

G et

ty Im

ag es

122 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

over issues such as stem cell research, human cloning, and the teach- ing of evolution or intelligent design as the appropriate explanation for the development of life on Earth.35

Gender Men and women differ with respect to their political opinions on a broad array of social and political issues. As shown in the right-hand column of Figure 4.2, women are more likely to favor government actions to promote equality. Women are also consistently more sup- portive than men of both affirmative action and government spend- ing for social programs. They are consistently less supportive of the death penalty and going to war.36 Men and women differ less on the abortion issue (see the left-hand column of Figure 4.2). Contempo- rary party politics is marked by a gender gap: women tend to identify with the Democratic Party more than men do (see Figure 6.2 on page 207). In the 2008 presidential election, 56 percent of all female voters cast ballots for Barack Obama, while only 49 percent of the male voters did so. John McCain received support from 43 percent of the female voters and 48 percent of the male voters.37

4.4 From Values to Ideology Define ideology, describe the liberal-conservative continuum, and assess the influence of ideology on public opinion.

We have just seen that differences in groups’ responses on two survey questions reflect those groups’ value choices between free- dom and order and between freedom and equality. But to what degree do people’s opinions on specific issues reflect explicit polit- ical ideology (the set of values and beliefs that they hold about the purpose and scope of government)? Political scientists generally agree that ideology influences public opinion on specific issues; they have much less consensus on the extent to which people ex- plicitly think in ideological terms. They also agree that the public’s ideological thinking cannot be categorized adequately in conven- tional liberal-conservative terms.

From Values to Ideology 123

The Degree of Ideological Thinking in Public Opinion Although today’s media frequently use the terms liberal and conserva- tive, some people think these terms are no longer relevant to Ameri- can politics. Indeed, voters don’t tend to use ideological concepts when discussing politics.38 In one poll, voters were asked what they thought when someone was described as ‘‘liberal’’ or ‘‘conservative.’’39

Few responded in explicitly political terms. Rather, most people gave dictionary definitions: ‘‘‘liberals’ are generous (a liberal portion). And ‘conservatives’ are moderate or cautious (a conservative estimate).’’40

The two most frequent responses for conservative were ‘‘fiscally re- sponsible or tight’’ (17 percent) and ‘‘closed-minded’’ (10 percent). For liberal, the top two were ‘‘open-minded’’ (14 percent) and ‘‘free- spending’’ (8 percent). Only about 6 percent of the sample mentioned ‘‘degree of government involvement’’ in describing liberals and con- servatives. The tendency to respond to questions by using ideological terms grows with increasing education, which helps people under- stand political issues and relate them to one another. People’s per- sonal political socialization can also lead them to think ideologically.

The Quality of Ideological Thinking in Public Opinion What people’s ideological self-placement means in the twenty-first century is not clear. At one time, the liberal-conservative contin- uum represented a single dimension: attitudes toward the scope of government activity. Liberals were in favor of more government action to provide public goods, and conservatives were in favor of less. The simple distinction is not as useful today. Many people who call themselves liberals no longer favor government activism in general, and many self-styled conservatives no longer oppose it in principle. Attitudes toward government also depend on which party controls the government.41 As a result, many people have difficulty deciding whether they are liberal or conservative.

Studies of the public’s ideological thinking find that two themes run through people’s minds when they are asked to describe liberals and conservatives. First, people associate liberals with change and conservatives with tradition. This theme corre- sponds to the distinction between liberals and conservatives on the exercise of freedom and the maintenance of order.42

124 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

The other theme has to do with equality. The conflict between freedom and equality was at the heart of President Roosevelt’s New Deal economic policies (social security, minimum wage legis- lation, farm price supports) in the 1930s. The policies expanded the interventionist role of the national government in order to promote greater economic equality, and attitudes toward govern- ment intervention in the economy served to distinguish liberals from conservatives for decades afterward.43 Attitudes toward gov- ernment interventionism still underlie opinions about domestic economic policies.44 Liberals support intervention to promote their ideas of economic equality; conservatives favor less govern- ment intervention and more individual freedom in economic activities. Conservatives, however, think differently about govern- ment action on social policies.

Chapter 1 proposed an alternative ideological classification based on people’s relative evaluations of freedom, order, and equality. It described liberals as people who believe that govern- ment should promote equality, even if some freedom is lost in the process, but who oppose surrendering freedom to government- imposed order. Conservatives do not oppose equality in and of itself but put a higher value on freedom than on equality when the two conflict. Yet conservatives are not above restricting free- dom when threatened with the loss of order. So both groups value freedom, but one is more willing to trade freedom for equality, and the other is more inclined to trade freedom for order. If you have trouble thinking about these trade-offs on a single dimen- sion, you are in good company. The liberal-conservative contin- uum presented to survey respondents takes a two-dimensional concept and squeezes it into a one-dimensional format.45

Ideological Types in the United States Our ideological typology in Chapter 1 (see Figure 1.2 on page 24) classifies people as Liberals if they favor freedom over order and equality over freedom. (Capital letters in this section signify our ideo- logical classification; lowercase signifies ideological self-placement.) Conversely, Conservatives favor freedom over equality and order over freedom. Libertarians favor freedom over both equality and order— the opposite of Communitarians.46 By cross-tabulating people’s answers to the two questions from the 2008 American National Elec- tion Study about freedom versus order (abortion) and freedom versus

From Values to Ideology 125

equality (government job guarantees), we can classify respondents according to their ideological tendencies. As shown in Figure 4.3, a substantial portion of respondents falls within each of the quadrants.* This indicates that people do not decide about government activity

FIGURE 4.3 Respondents Classified by Ideological Tendencies

Should government outlaw abortion?

LIBERALS 32 percent

COMMUNITARIANS 19 percent

CONSERVATIVES 21 percent

LIBERTARIANS 27 percent

Freedom

Fr ee

do m

Eq ua

lit y

Ye s

N oSh

ou ld

g ov

er nm

en t g

ua ra

nt ee

jo bs

Moderate

Conservative

Liberal

Order

59 percent 41 percent 100 percent

52 percent

48 percent

Yes

In the 2008 election survey, respondents were asked whether abortion should be outlawed by government or a matter of personal choice, and whether government should guarantee people a job and a good standard of living or people should get ahead on their own. (The questions are given verbatim at the beginning of the ‘‘Social Groups and Political Values’’ section of this chapter.) These two questions presented choices between freedom and order and between freedom and equality. People’s responses to the two questions showed no correlation, demonstrating that these value choices cannot be explained by a simple liberal-conservative continuum. The pie charts in the center show the proportion of each group self-describing themselves as liberal, moderate, or conservative on the traditional one-dimensional scale. Source: 2008 American National Election Study, undertaken in collaboration by Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

*Remember, however, that these categories—like the letter grades A, B, C, and D for courses—are rigid. The respondents’ answers to both questions varied in intensity but were reduced to a simple yes or no to simplify this analysis. Many respondents would cluster to- ward the center of Figure 4.3 if their attitudes were represented more sensitively.

126 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

according to a one-dimensional ideological continuum. If they did, responses to the two questions would cluster diagonally in the Liberal and Conservative boxes.

The Liberal pattern occurred most frequently (32 percent), with the Libertarians next (27 percent) and Conservatives (21 per- cent) barely outscoring Communitarians (19 percent). Of more interest is the relationship between the pie charts in the figure and the quadrants in which they appear. The pie charts represent the proportion of respondents in the same survey who described them- selves as liberal, moderate, or conservative.

In Figure 4.3, three-quarters of those we label Conservatives because of their answers to the questions on order and equality also described themselves as conservatives, while more than half of our Liberals were also self-described liberals. In contrast, those we classified as Communitarian or Libertarian according to the order and equality questions showed less consistency in classifying themselves as liberal, moderate, or conservative.

Respondents who easily place themselves on a single dimen- sion running from liberal to conservative often contradict their self-placement when answering questions that trade freedom for either order or equality.47 A two-dimensional typology such as that in Figure 4.3 allows us to analyze responses more meaning- fully.48 One reason so many Americans classify themselves as con- servative on a one-dimensional scale is that they have no option to classify themselves as libertarian.

The ideological typology reflects important differences between social groups. Communitarians are prominent among African Ameri- cans and Latinos (33 percent) and among people with no high school degree (42 percent), groups that tend to look favorably on the benefits of government. Regional differences are small among the types, except that 44 percent of respondents in the West score as Liberal. Women tend to be Liberal (38 percent) and men Libertarian (33 percent). Indeed, Libertarians account for 51 percent of men making more than $100,000, who may believe that they have little need for government.

This more refined analysis of political ideology explains why even Americans who pay close attention to politics find it difficult to locate themselves on the liberal-conservative continuum. Their prob- lem is that they are liberal on some issues and conservative on others. Forced to choose along just one dimension, they opt for the middle category: moderate. However, our analysis also indicates that many people who classify themselves as liberals or conservatives do fit these

From Values to Ideology 127

two categories in our typology. There is value, then, in the liberal- conservative distinction, as long as we understand its limitations.

4.5 Forming Political Opinions Assess the impact of knowledge, self-interest, and leadership on political opinions.

We have seen that people acquire political values through socializa- tion and that different social groups develop different sets of politi- cal values. We also have learned that some people, but only a minority, think about politics ideologically, holding a consistent set of political attitudes and beliefs. But how do those who are not ideologues—in other words, most citizens—form political opinions? How informed are people about politics? What can we say about the quality of public opinion?

Political Knowledge In the United States today, the level of education is high and media coverage of national and international events is extensive, but how much does the average American know about politics?

In a study of political knowledge, political scientists Delli Car- pini and Keeter analyzed approximately 3,700 individual survey items that measured some type of factual knowledge about public affairs.49 They found that ‘‘many of the basic institutions and pro- cedures of government are known to half or more of the public, as are the relative positions of the parties on many major issues.’’50

Yet, as much as people know about some political facts, the public shows less knowledge on some matters that are critical to public policy. A 2010 national survey asked respondents ‘‘what percentage of the federal budget goes to foreign aid?’’51 The mean response was 21 percent, whereas the actual amount is about 1 percent. Asked what would be the ‘‘appropriate’’ expenditure for foreign aid, respondents on average suggested 11 percent. Given those results, the public might seem to favor a tenfold increase in foreign aid! Although some studies have shown that the collective opinion of the public can be interpreted as stable and meaningful—because random ignorance balances off both sides of an issue52—the public is simply misinformed on some important issues.

128 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

Individuals who strongly believe in certain causes may ignore information that questions their beliefs; they may even create false memories that support their beliefs.53 Moreover, people in various countries differ in their understanding of the facts and their politi- cal consequences. As shown in ‘‘Politics of Global Change: Worry- ing Less About Climate Change,’’ people in some countries were less worried in 2010 than in 2008—while some in a very large country worried much more.

Costs, Benefits, and Cues Perhaps people do not think in ideological terms or know a wide va- riety of political facts, but they can tell whether a policy is likely to directly help or hurt them. The self-interest principle states that peo- ple choose what benefits them personally.54 The principle plays an obvious role in how people form opinions on policies with clear costs and benefits. Taxpayers tend to prefer low taxes to high taxes. Smok- ers tend to oppose bans on smoking in public places. Some people evaluate incumbent presidents according to whether they are better or worse off than they were four years ago. Group leaders often cue group members, telling them what they should support or oppose.55

In some cases, individuals are unable to determine personal costs or benefits. This tends to be true of foreign policy. Here, many people have no opinion, or their opinions are not firmly held and are likely to change quite easily given almost any new information. For exam- ple, public approval of the war in Iraq and of former president George W. Bush’s handling of the war varied with positive news such as Iraqi elections and negative news such as the number of military casualties.

Public opinion that is not based on a complicated ideology may also emerge from the skillful use of cues. Individuals may use heuris- tics—mental shortcuts that require hardly any information—to make fairly reliable political judgments.56 For instance, citizens can use political party labels to compensate for low levels of information about the policy positions of candidates.57 Similarly, citizens take cues from trusted government officials and interest groups regarding the wisdom of bills pending in Congress or the ideology of Supreme Court nominees.

Political Leadership Public opinion on specific issues is molded by political leaders, journalists, and policy experts. Politicians serve as cue givers to

self-interest principle The implication that people choose what benefits them personally.

Forming Political Opinions 129

Politics of Global Change

Worrying Less About Climate Change

2008

India

Japan

Germany

France Russia

UNITED STATES China

Britain

2009

Percent of respondents saying climate change is a very serious problem

2010

Asked in three successive years whether climate change was a ‘‘serious problem,’’ respondents in major countries showed declining concerns— except in China, where people became increasingly worried. The U.S. public was not alarmed by climate change in 2008 and the United States was the least concerned among the eight countries in 2010.

Source: Pew Research Center, ‘‘Obama More Popular Abroad Than at Home, Global Image of U.S. Continues to Benefit,’’ Global Attitudes Project, 17 June 2010, p. 71. Copyright ª 2010 by Pew Global Attitudes Project, a division of Pew Research Center For the People & the Press. Reproduced by permission. Prior to 2010, the question asked about ‘‘global warming’’ instead of ‘‘climate change.’’

Critical Thinking Why might Americans seem less concerned about climate change than citizens in other major countries? Why might the Chinese public buck the trend in opinion about climate change?

130 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

members of the public. Citizens with favorable views of a politi- cian may be more likely to support his or her values and policy agenda. In one study, 49 percent of respondents were uncomfort- able with the statement, ‘‘I have never believed the Constitution required our schools to be religion free zones,’’ when it was presented anonymously; only 34 percent claimed to be uncom- fortable when the statement was attributed to former president Bill Clinton.58 In a different study, African Americans were pre- sented with a statement about the need for blacks to rely more on themselves to get ahead in society; respondents agreed with the statement when it was attributed to black political figures (Jesse Jackson and Clarence Thomas) and disagreed when the statement was attributed to white political figures (George H. W. Bush and Ted Kennedy).59

Politicians routinely make appeals to the public on the basis of shared political ideology and self-interest. Competition and controversy among political elites provide the public with a great deal of information. But politicians are well aware that citizen understanding of and support for an issue depend on how issues are framed. They compete to provide a story line or idea that sug- gests the essence of political events and policy issues.60

The ability of political leaders to affect public opinion has been enhanced enormously by the growth of the broadcast media, especially television.61 The majoritarian model of democracy assumes that government officials respond to public opinion. But the evidence is substantial that this causal sequence is reversed— that public opinion responds instead to the actions of government officials.62 If this is true, how much potential is there for public opinion to be manipulated by political leaders through the mass media?

4.6 The Media in America Evaluate the impact of private ownership and government regulation of the media.

Communication is essential in a representative democracy. Citi- zens and elected officials need to communicate in order for wants and needs to be conveyed, representation to be informed, and

The Media in America 131

consent to be meaningful. Communication is the process of trans- mitting information from one individual or group to another. Mass communication is the process by which information is transmitted to large, heterogeneous, widely dispersed audiences. The term mass media refers to the means for communicating to these audiences. The mass media are commonly divided into two types. Print media (newspapers, magazines) communicate infor- mation through the publication of written words and pictures. Broadcast media (radio, television) communicate information electronically through sounds and images. The Internet has begun to render the distinction between print and broadcast media prob- lematic, as most newspapers and magazines now have an online presence that provides video clips to accompany news articles, and most television and radio news programs have websites that provide text. And most of these sites provide opportunities for the public to comment and thus disseminate their own perspective. We are in what has been termed a ‘‘post-broadcast’’ age.63

Our focus here is on the role of the media in promoting com- munication from government to its citizens and from citizens to their government. More so now than at any other time in history, the opportunities for genuine two-way flows of information between citizens and government have been made possible by the interactivity of the Internet. It is now a central component of an ever-evolving mass media with the dual capability of reflecting and shaping our political views. Because the mass media provide the major channels for this two-way flow of information, they have the dual capability of reflecting and shaping our political views.

The media are not the only means of communication between citizens and government. Agents of socialization (especially schools) function as ‘‘linkage mechanisms’’ that promote such communication. In the next three chapters, we discuss other major mechanisms for communication: voting, political parties and election campaigns, and interest groups.

The Internet Alongside the four most traditional forms of mass media—newspapers, magazines, radio, and television—the Internet has rapidly grown into an important conduit for political information. What we today call the Internet began in 1969 when, with support from the U.S.

mass media The means employed in mass communication, often divided into print media and broadcast media.

132 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, com- puters at four universities were linked to form ARPANET. In its early years, the Internet was used mainly to transmit e-mail among researchers. In 1991, European physicists devised a standardized system for encoding and transmitting a wide range of materials, including graphics and photographs, over the Internet, and the World Wide Web (WWW) was born. In January 1993 there were only fifty websites.64 Today there are over 600 million sites and over 2 billion Web users.65 The Internet was soon incorporated into politics, and today virtually every government agency and political organization has a website.

The Internet has also created a new venue for traditional print media outlets to offer their wares. On the Web, local publications such as the Topeka Capital Journal are no more difficult to access than national newspapers such as the New York Times. What tele- vision networks such as ABC and CNN offer in national and international news exists alongside the local coverage of individual stations such as Baltimore’s WJZ, and Americans are logging in for news from all these outlets.

Over 78 percent of Americans use the Internet, mostly people under the age of sixty-five and with at least a high school diploma. Internet users tend to live in large cities and suburbs. Whites and Latinos are also more likely to be Internet users than blacks (79 and 78 percent versus 67 percent).66 In 2011, 43 percent of Americans got most of their news online, making it second only to television.67

Online competition has been an insurmountable challenge for many newspapers, which are already in financial difficulties. Between 2006 and 2010, newspaper advertising revenues dropped 48 percent and newsrooms shed 25 percent of their staff. Some newspapers, like Denver’s 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, have gone out of busi- ness. Others, like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy. Still others, like Seattle’s 146-year-old Post- Intelligencer, became web-only operations in 2009.68

Many private citizens operate their own websites on politics and public affairs, daily posting their political thoughts. These blogs (short for ‘‘weblogs’’) now regularly influence news report- ing and politics. In 2011, P. J. Crowley, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, gave a talk at a seminar in which he offered his personal view that he opposed the Pentagon’s arrest and solitary confinement of an Army private who provided classified informa- tion to WikiLeaks (an organization that posts classified

The Media in America 133

government documents on the Web). Crowley called the Penta- gon’s actions ‘‘ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.’’ Two members of the audience posted Crowley’s remarks on their blogs. Two days later, President Obama was asked during a traditional news conference whether he agreed with Crowley. He replied that he had asked the Pentagon to clarify whether its approach had been appropriate and that he had been assured that it was. Crow- ley offered his resignation a mere three days after the comments were made. As this incident illustrates, the influence of political blogs in American politics has been largely indirect, by influencing the types of stories that get picked up by the ‘‘mainstream media’’; at last count, the actual percentage of Americans who read politi- cal blogs directly is only around 11 percent.69

Private Ownership of the Media In the United States, people take private ownership of the media for granted. In other Western democratic countries, the print media (both newspapers and magazines) are privately owned, but the broadcast media often are not. Private ownership of both print and broadcast media gives the news industry in America more political freedom than in any other country in the world, but it also makes the media more dependent on advertising revenues. To make a profit, the news operations of the mass media in America must appeal to the audiences they serve. The primary criterion of a story’s newsworthiness is usually its audience appeal, which is judged according to its potential impact on readers or listeners, its degree of sensationalism (exemplified by violence, conflict, disaster, or scan- dal), its treatment of familiar people or life situations, its close- to-home character, and its timeliness.70 As Figure 4.4 shows, the content of news coverage differs by the source and often consists of topics that have little to do with elections, foreign affairs, govern- ment, or the economy.

Media owners can make more money by either increasing their audiences or acquiring additional publications or stations. A decided trend toward concentrated ownership of the media increases the risk that a few major owners could control the news flow to promote their own political interests. In fact, the number of independent newspapers has declined as newspaper chains (owners of two or more newspapers in different cities) have acquired more newspapers. The Gannett chain, which owns USA

newsworthiness The degree to which a news story is important enough to be covered in the mass media.

134 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

Today, now also publishes eighty-one other daily newspapers in the United States and seventeen in the United Kingdom.71

As with newspapers, chains sometimes own television stations in different cities, and ownership sometimes extends across differ- ent media. None of the three original television networks remains an independent corporation: the Walt Disney Company owns ABC. NBC was owned by General Electric for years, but merged with the cable company Comcast in 2011, creating a conglomerate that holds ‘‘the most significant collection of cable television assets in the world.’’72 The Fox Network is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which also controls 20th Century Fox movie studios, Fox News, the FX cable channel, MySpace, publisher

FIGURE 4.4 Getting the News: Consider the Source

Percentage of stories

Cable TV

Network TV

Online news

Newspapers 6.5%

7.7%

5.5% 7.9%

17.2%

9.5% 20.5%

18.4% 9.1%

8.9%

11%

3.6%

25.4% 10.1%

50.5%

17.3% 4.5% 34.1%18%

45.2%

8.6%

48.9%

3.6%

0 20 40 60 80 100

Elections Economy Foreign affairs

Disasters/accidents Government Other

An analysis of nearly 46,000 news stories in 2011 (from the front pages of newspapers, major news programs, and Internet sites) shows that just a few categories dominated the news: elections, the economy, government, and foreign affairs. Cable TV was particularly devoted to election coverage, while online news sites and newspapers provided the most extensive coverage of foreign affairs. In all of these media, however, the category ‘‘other’’ predominates, reflecting the market-driven character of news media content. Source: ‘‘A Year in the News Interactive, 2011,’’ Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/ year-in-the-news-3/.

The Media in America 135

HarperCollins, and Dow Jones & Company, with its well-known Wall Street Journal newspaper.73

Government Regulation of the Media Although most of the mass media in the United States are pri- vately owned, they do not operate free of government regulation. The broadcast media, however, are subject to more regulations than the print media, and debates about government regulation of the Internet have become common.

The Federal Communications Act of 1934 created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the broadcast and telephone industries. The FCC has five members (no more than three from the same political party) nominated by the president for terms of five years. The commissioners can be removed from office only through impeachment and conviction. The FCC is thus an in- dependent regulatory commission insulated from political control by the president or Congress. (We discuss independent regulatory com- missions in Chapter 10.) Today, the FCC’s charge includes regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, tele- phone, telegraph, cable, and satellite.

For six decades the communications industry was regulated under the basic framework of the 1934 law that created the FCC. Then, pressured by businesses that wanted to exploit new elec- tronic technologies, such as computers and satellite transmissions, Congress overhauled most existing regulations in the Telecommu- nications Act of 1996.

The 1996 law relaxed or scrapped limitations on media owner- ship. For example, broadcasters were previously limited to owning only twelve TV stations and forty radio stations. Now there are no limits on the number of TV stations one company may own, as long as its coverage does not extend beyond 35 percent of the market nationwide.74 The 1996 law set no national limits for radio owner- ship and relaxed local limits. In addition, it lifted rate regulations for cable systems, allowed cross-ownership of cable and telephone com- panies, and allowed local and long-distance telephone companies to compete with one another and to sell television services.

Recently, the FCC has begun to regulate the Internet. Since Congress has not passed any laws that outline the role of the FCC with respect to the Internet, the FCC does not have jurisdiction to regulate content, though Internet service providers (ISPs) are

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) An independent federal agency that regulates interstate and international communication by radio, television, telephone, telegraph, cable, and satellite.

136 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

subject to standing antimonopoly laws.75 In the absence of Con- gressional action clarifying the role of the FCC with respect to the Internet, policies and rules will evolve and be challenged bit by bit. One such example is the current debate about ‘‘net neutrality,’’ which refers to whether ISPs should be allowed to charge people more if they consume a large amount of bandwidth and whether ISPs can limit content options available to consumers.

The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from abridging the freedom of the press. Over time, the press has come to mean all media, and the courts have decided many cases that define how far freedom of the press extends under the law. The most important of these cases are often quite complex. Usu- ally the courts strike down government attempts to restrain the press from disseminating information, reports, or opinions it finds newsworthy. One notable exception concerns strategic informa- tion during wartime; the courts have supported censorship of in- formation such as the sailing schedules of troop ships or the planned movements of troops in battle. Otherwise, they have rec- ognized a strong constitutional case against press censorship.

Because the broadcast media are licensed to use the public air- waves, they are subject to additional regulation, beyond that applied to the print media, of the content of their news coverage. The basis for the FCC’s regulation of content lies in its charge to ensure that radio and television stations ‘‘serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.’’ With its equal opportunities rule, the FCC requires any broadcast station that gives or sells time to a candidate for public office to make an equal amount of time avail- able under the same conditions to all other candidates for that office. The reasonable access rule requires that commercial sta- tions make their facilities available for the expression of conflicting views or issues from all responsible elements in the community. In 1987, the FCC repealed the fairness doctrine, which had required broadcasters to provide fair coverage of all views on public issues. The doctrine’s repeal makes it simpler for the news media to engage controversial and partisan issues without fear of violating FCC regulations.76 The National Association of Broadcasters says that the elimination of the fairness doctrine played a large role in the proliferation of news and opinion alternatives now available, but some observers suggest that the variation in content and qual- ity among news sources today contributes to a population that is less informed and more polarized.77

equal opportunities rule Under the Federal Communications Act of 1934, the requirement that if a broadcast station gives or sells time to a candidate for any public office, it must make available an equal amount of time under the same conditions to all other candidates for that office.

reasonable access rule An FCC rule that requires broadcast stations to make their facilities available for the expression of conflicting views or issues by all responsible elements in the community.

The Media in America 137

4.7 Reporting and Following the News

Analyze the role of the media in political socialization and the acquisition of political knowledge.

In this section we discuss how the media cover political affairs, and we examine where citizens acquire their political knowledge. We also look at what people learn from the media, and we probe the media’s effects on public opinion, the political agenda, and po- litical socialization.

Covering National Politics Washington, D.C., has an immense press presence, with over 5,000 journalists in the congressional press corps alone.78 Roughly fifty additional reporters are admitted to the White House press briefing room.79 Since 1902, when President Theodore Roosevelt first provided space in the White House for reporters, the press has had special access to the president. Today, the media’s rela- tionship with the president is mediated primarily through the Office of the Press Secretary.

White House correspondents rely heavily on information they receive from the president’s staff, each piece carefully crafted in an attempt to control the story. The most frequent form is the news release, a prepared text distributed to reporters in the hope that they will use it verbatim. A daily news briefing enables reporters to question the press secretary about news releases. A news conference provides an opportunity to question high-level officials in the executive branch—including the president on occa- sion. News conferences can appear to be freewheeling, but officials often rehearse precise answers to anticipated questions.

Occasionally, information is given ‘‘on background,’’ which means that reporters can use the information but cannot identify the source except in a vague reference such as ‘‘a senior official says.’’ Information disclosed ‘‘off the record’’ cannot be printed. Journalists who violate these well-known conditions risk losing their welcome at the White House.

138 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

Reporters occasionally benefit from leaks of information released by officials who are guaranteed anonymity. The best- known example was a source known as ‘‘Deep Throat’’ during the Watergate scandal. Deep Throat provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward critical information linking the Nixon White House to crimes committed during the 1972 campaign and the subsequent cover-up. Facing impeachment, President Nixon ultimately chose to resign. Despite rampant speculation, Deep Throat’s identity was kept secret for over thirty years, until he and his family revealed that he was W. Mark Felt, the number-two man at the FBI during Watergate. Officials may leak news to interfere with others’ political plans or to float ideas (‘‘trial balloons’’) past the public and other political leaders to gauge their reactions. Sometimes a carefully placed leak turns into a gusher of media coverage through the practice of ‘‘pack journalism’’—the tendency of journalists to adopt similar view- points toward the news simply because they hang around to- gether, exchanging information and defining the day’s news with one another.

Presenting the News Media executives, news editors, and prominent reporters function as gatekeepers in directing the news flow: they decide which events to report and how to handle the elements in those stories. They not only select what topics go through the gate but also are expected to uphold standards of careful reporting and principled journalism. The rise of the Internet has made more information and points of view available to the public and journalists, but the Internet can also spread factual errors and rumors. The Internet has no gatekeepers, and thus no constraints on its content.80 Most journalists think the Internet has improved journalism, mostly because it is a powerful research tool and its ability to deliver in- formation quickly promotes competition.81

The established media cannot communicate everything about public affairs. To make televised news understandable and to hold viewers’ attention, editors and producers concentrate on individu- als. A study of network news coverage of the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court in 2008–2009 found that 66 percent of the stories were about the presidency, compared with 28 percent on Congress and just 6 percent on the Supreme Court.82

gatekeepers Media executives, news editors, and prominent reporters who decide which events to report and which elements in those stories to emphasize.

Reporting and Following the News 139

During elections, the focus on personalities encourages horse race journalism, in which media coverage becomes a matter of which candidate is leading in the polls and who raised the most money. Over three-quarters of Americans say that they want more coverage of candidates’ positions on the issues; almost half would also like less coverage of who is leading in the polls.83 Yet studies of network news coverage of presidential campaigns find that horse race coverage dominates. Journalists cover the horse race because it offers new material daily, whereas the candidates’ pro- grams remain the same.84

Where the Public Gets Its News Until the early 1960s, most people reported getting more political news from newspapers than from any other source. Television nudged out newspapers as the public’s major source of news in the early 1960s. Since 2010, 18–29 year olds have reported getting most of their news from the Internet, though older Americans still name television as their primary source for news.85 Over half of the public consults multiple sources of news during the day— perhaps reading the paper at breakfast, checking the Internet at work, and ending the day watching television news.86 Older Americans spend more time watching, reading, or listening to news; people under the age of thirty spend less.87

A 2009 survey found a majority of Americans identifying the Internet as their preferred way to get news if they could choose only one source.88 What kind of websites are they using? The online ver- sion of national newspapers or national television stations were much more popular for news than Internet-only sources such as blogs. The growth in online news consumption has been accompanied by a dra- matic rise in news access through mobile devices. Almost half of all adults in a 2011 survey reported getting local news and information through a cell phone or tablet.89

Media Influence on Knowledge and Opinion If, as surveys indicate, 80 percent of the public reads or hears the news each day, how much political information do these people absorb? By all accounts, not much. A national survey in the fall of 2011 asked respondents nineteen questions about current events, including the name of the Speaker of the House (John Boehner) and

horse race journalism Election coverage by the mass media that focuses on which candidate is ahead rather than on national issues.

140 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

the current unemployment rate (around 9 percent). On average, respondents got eleven questions out of nineteen correct. Fewer than half the respondents were aware that Republicans controlled the House of Representatives or that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, was generally considered a conservative. Only 38 percent could name the prime minister of close ally Great Britain (David Cameron).90

Numerous studies have found that those who rely on televi- sion for their news score lower on tests of knowledge about public affairs than those who rely on print media.91 Among media researchers, this finding has led to the television hypothesis—the belief that television is to blame for the low level of citizens’ knowledge about public affairs.92 We know that television tends to squeeze issues into short fragments, which makes it difficult to explain candidates’ positions.

The News Fairy?

While the Internet may be gaining in popularity as a source of news, many Internet news sites rely on traditional media sources for their information. These sites, such as Google News, are known as news aggregators. If newspapers fail, news aggregators will too.

television hypothesis The belief that television is to blame for the low level of citizens’ knowledge about public affairs.

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Reporting and Following the News 141

Television also tends to cast abstract issues in personal terms to generate the visual content that the medium needs.93 Recent research, however, suggests that newspapers differ from television less in content of coverage than in the amount; newspapers simply cover campaigns more extensively and intensively than television.94

Whatever the explanation, the technological wonders of television may have contributed little to citizens’ knowledge of public affairs. Television may even discourage respect for different opinions since it tends to emphasize drama and conflict between political oppo- nents.95 It can also lead people to be less trusting of government.96

Americans overwhelmingly believe that the media exert a strong influence on their political institutions, and almost nine out of ten Americans believe that the media strongly influence public opinion.97 However, measuring the extent of media influ- ence on public opinion is difficult.98 Because few of us learn about political events except through the media, it could be argued that the media create public opinion simply by reporting events. Con- sider the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 and the subsequent seven-point rise in President Obama’s approval rating.99 Deter- mining how much of that change was due to the actual event and how much was due to the way in which it was covered by the media is extremely difficult.

Setting the Political Agenda Despite the media’s potential for influencing public opinion, most scholars believe that the media’s greatest impact on politics is found in their power to set the political agenda—a list of issues that people identify as needing government attention. Those who set the political agenda define which issues government decision makers should discuss and debate.

Sometimes the media force the government to confront issues once buried in the scientific community, such as global warming. Other times the media move the government to deal with unpleas- ant social issues, such as biases in the application of the death pen- alty. However, the media can also keep high on the agenda issues that perhaps should attract fewer public resources.100

Crime is a good example. Local television news covers crime twice as much as any other topic.101 Given that fear of crime today is about the same as it was in the mid-1960s, are the media simply reflecting a constantly high crime rate? Actually, crime

political agenda A list of issues that need government attention.

142 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

rates have fallen in every major category (rape, burglary, robbery, assault, murder) since the 1980s.102 As one journalist said, ‘‘Crime coverage is not editorially driven; it’s economically driven. It’s the easiest, cheapest, laziest news to cover.’’103 Despite the falling crime rate, the public encounters a continuing gusher of crime news and believes that crime has increased over time.

The mass media have become a network for communicating among attentive elites, all trying to influence one another. If the White House is under pressure on some policy matter, it might supply a representative to appear on one of the Sunday morning talk shows, such as Face the Nation (CBS). The White House’s goal would be to influence the thinking of other insiders (who faithfully watch these programs) as much as to influence the opin- ions of the relatively few ordinary citizens who watch as well.

Presidents use other indirect means to try to influence political elites. In the strategy known as going public, the president travels around the country speaking to Americans directly about his policy agenda. The goal is twofold: first to generate media coverage of the speaking event, and second to motivate citizens to pressure their representatives to support the president’s agenda. The strategy of going public has become more common over time.104

Socializing the Citizenry The mass media act as important agents of political socialization.105

Young people who rarely follow the news by choice nevertheless ac- quire political values through the entertainment function of the media. Years ago, children learned from radio programs; now they learn from television and other electronic media. What children learned from radio was quite different from what they are learning now, however. In the golden days of radio, youngsters listening to popular radio dramas heard repeatedly that ‘‘crime does not pay.’’ The message never varied: criminals are bad; the police are good; criminals get caught and are severely punished for their crimes.

Television today does not portray the criminal justice system in the same way, even in police dramas. Consider programs such as The Chicago Code and Blue Bloods, which have portrayed police and government agents as lawbreakers. One cannot easily argue that years of television messages conveying distrust of law enforcement, disrespect for the criminal justice system, and vio- lence help prepare law-abiding citizens.

going public A strategy whereby a president seeks to influence policy elites and media coverage by appealing directly to the American people.

Reporting and Following the News 143

In fact, the media play contradictory roles in the process of polit- ical socialization. On the one hand, they promote popular support for government by joining in the celebration of national holidays, heroes’ birthdays, political anniversaries, and civic accomplishments. On the other hand, the media erode public confidence by publicizing citizens’ grievances, airing investigative reports of agency malfea- sance, and even showing dramas about crooked cops.106

4.8 Evaluating the Media in Government

Assess the impact of the media on democratic values and politics in the United States.

Are the media fair or biased in reporting the news? What contri- butions do they make to democratic government? What effects do they have on freedom, order, and equality?

Is Reporting Biased? News reports are presented as objective reality, yet critics of modern journalism contend that news is filtered through the ideological biases of the owners and editors (the gatekeepers) and of the reporters themselves. Citizens tend to be skeptical of the news and have become more so over time. Their skepticism is consequential because people who distrust the media have been shown to be more resistant to learning new information about objective national events, such as changing economic conditions.107

The argument that news is politically biased has two sides. On the one hand, news reporters are often criticized for tilting their stories in a liberal direction, promoting social equality, and under- cutting social order.108 On the other hand, wealthy and conserva- tive media owners are suspected of preserving inequalities and reinforcing the existing order by serving a relentless round of entertainment that numbs the public’s capacity for critical analysis.109

144 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

Although the picture is far from clear, available evidence seems to confirm the charge of liberal leanings among reporters in the major news media. In a 2007 survey of journalists, 32 per- cent of the national press considered themselves ‘‘liberal,’’ com- pared with only 8 percent who said they were ‘‘conservative.’’110

Content analysis of the tone of ABC, CBS, and NBC network cov- erage of presidential campaigns from 1988 to 2004 concluded that Democratic candidates received much more ‘‘good press’’ than Republicans in every election but 1988, when the Republican can- didate benefited from better press.111 However, one medium—talk radio—is dominated by conservative views.

To some extent, working journalists in the national and local media are at odds with their own editors, who tend to be more conservative.112 Editors, in their function as gatekeepers, tend to tone down reporters’ liberal leanings by editing their stories or not placing them well in the medium. Newspaper publishers are also free to endorse candidates, and almost all daily newspapers once openly endorsed one of the two major party candidates for president. In sixteen of nineteen elections from 1932 to 2000, newspaper editorials favored the Republican candidate. In 2008, the number of endorsements for Barack Obama far surpassed the number for John McCain: 287 versus 159. That year, the Chicago Tribune endorsed a Democrat for the first time in its 162-year history. In 2012, more editorials again backed the Republican can- didate, Mitt Romney (212), than Obama (191).113

Without question, incumbents—as opposed to challengers— enjoy much more news coverage simply from holding office and issuing official statements. The less prominent that the office is, the greater is the advantage from such free news coverage. Non- campaign news coverage leads to greater incumbent name recog- nition at election time, particularly for members of Congress (see Chapter 8). This coverage effect is independent of any bias in reporting on campaigns. For more prominent offices such as the presidency, however, a different news dynamic may come into play. When a powerful incumbent runs for reelection, jour- nalists may feel a special responsibility to counteract his or her advantage by putting the opposite partisan spin on the news.114

Thus, whether the media coverage of campaigns is seen as pro- Democratic (and therefore liberal) or pro-Republican (and therefore conservative) can depend on which party is in office at the time.

Evaluating the Media in Government 145

A report of network news stories broadcast during the gen- eral election in 2008, when there was no incumbent, found that Obama received overwhelmingly positive coverage: 68 percent of stories about Obama were deemed positive. In stark contrast, only 33 percent of stories about McCain were considered positive.115

Contributions to Democracy In a democracy, communication must move in two directions: from government to citizens and from citizens to government. In fact, political communication in the United States seldom goes directly from government to citizens without passing through the media. The point is important because news reporters tend to be highly critical of politicians; they consider it their job to search for inaccuracies in fact and weaknesses in argument—practicing watchdog journalism.116 Some observers have characterized the news media and the government as adversaries—each mistrusting the other, locked in competition for popular favor while trying to get the record straight. To the extent that this is true, the media serve both the majoritarian and the pluralist models of democracy well by improving the quality of information transmitted to the people about their government.117

The mass media transmit information in the opposite direc- tion by reporting citizens’ reactions to political events and gov- ernment actions. The press has traditionally reflected public opinion (and often created it) while defining the news and sug- gesting courses of government action. But the media’s role in reflecting public opinion has become more refined in the infor- mation age. After commercial polls (such as the Gallup Poll) were established in the 1930s, newspapers began to report reli- able readings of public opinion. By the 1960s, the media began to conduct their own surveys. The New York Times, for example, has conducted its own polls at a rate of roughly one poll per month since 2003.118

The net effect of polling has been to generate more accurate knowledge of public opinion and to report that knowledge to pub- lic officials as well as to the public. Decades of public opinion research confirm that public opinion often influences policy, a

watchdog journalism Journalism that scrutinizes public and business institutions and publicizes perceived misconduct.

146 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

clear indication of government functioning according to the majoritarian model of democracy.119

Effects on Freedom, Order, and Equality The media in the United States have played an important role in advancing equality. Throughout the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the media gave national coverage to conflict in the South, as black children tried to attend white schools and civil rights workers were beaten and even killed in the effort to register black voters. Partly because of this media coverage, civil rights moved up on the political agenda, and coalitions were formed in Congress to pass new laws promoting racial equality. Women’s rights have also been advanced by the media, which have reported instances of blatant sexual discrimination exposed by groups working for sexual equality. In general, the mass media offer spokespersons for any disadvantaged group an opportunity to state their case before a national audience and to work for a place on the political agenda.

Although the media are willing to encourage government action to promote equality at the cost of some personal free- dom, they resist government attempts to infringe on freedom of the press to promote order.120 While the public tends to sup- port a free press in theory, public support is not universal and wavers in practice. Asked whether it is more important ‘‘that the government be able to censor news stories it feels threaten national security OR that the news media be able to report sto- ries they feel are in the national interest,’’ about one-third of the respondents in a 2006 national survey favored government censorship.121

The media’s ability to report whatever they wish, whenever they wish, certainly erodes efforts to maintain order. For example, sensational media coverage of terrorist acts gives terrorists the publicity they seek, and portraying violence on television can en- courage copycat crimes. Freedom of the press is a noble value and has been important to democratic government. But we should not ignore the fact that democracies sometimes pay a price for pursu- ing it without qualification.

Evaluating the Media in Government 147

SUMMARY 4.1 Public Opinion and the Models of

Democracy • Public opinion is the collective attitude of

the citizens on a given issue or question. • Modern polling gathers opinions

through random sampling methods. • The majoritarian model assumes that

most people hold clear opinions on po- litical issues; however, public opinion is often different from government policy.

• The pluralistic model believes voters are often uninformed about political issues; this is generally consistent with the public opinion.

4.2 Political Socialization • Public opinion is grounded in political

values. • Values are acquired through the

political socialization process. • Political socialization is the path to

political awareness, knowledge, and values.

• Everyone’s political socialization is different and continuously shaped by family, school, peer group, community, and the media.

4.3 Social Groups and Political Values • Members of the same social group

tend to experience similar socializa- tion processes and thus are more likely to adopt similar values.

• Differences in education, race, and religion tend to produce sharper

divisions of opinion today on ques- tions of order and equality than do differences in income or region.

4.4 From Values to Ideology • Ideology influences public opinion on

specific issues. • The public’s ideological thinking

cannot be adequately categorized in conventional liberal-conservative terms.

• Significant portions of the public are also communitarians or libertarians.

• When it comes to freedom and order, people associate liberals with change and conservatives with tradition.

• When it comes to economic equality, people view liberals as supporting intervention and conservatives as favoring less government intervention.

4.5 Forming Political Opinions • Americans have political opinions

even on topics on which they have little knowledge.

• Strongly held opinions may not change, even when voters are presented with new information questioning those beliefs.

• Equal levels of political understand- ing may produce different political views due to self-interest.

• The influence of political leaders is enhanced through the mass media.

148 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

4.6 The Media in America • The mass media are a means for

communicating to voters. • The Internet is a source for communi-

cation through websites, both for media outlets to provide information and individuals to express opinions.

• In the United States, the media are privately owned and make money primarily through advertising.

• The First Amendment to the Constitu- tion prohibits Congress from abridg- ing the freedom of the press, which has come to mean mass media.

• The equal opportunities rule requires broadcasters to give equal time to all candidates in a political race.

• The reasonable access rule requires stations to give time to conflicting views.

4.7 Reporting and Following the News • The mass media are an important

part of the political socialization process.

• Newspapers gave way to television as the source for people’s news about politics, and today the Internet is surpassing newspapers as a news source, especially for young adults.

• More than half the public consults mul- tiple sources of news during the day.

• Those who rely on television for news tend to know less about public affairs; this is called the television hypothesis.

• The media’s greatest potential for influencing public opinion is setting the political agenda.

4.8 Evaluating the Media in Government • Reporting is filtered through ideologi-

cal biases of the media’s owners, editors, and reporters.

• A large proportion of the public dis- trusts the media because of perceived biases. In practice, national journal- ists tend to be more liberal than the public, but the most systematic bias seems to be against incumbents and front-runners.

• The media contribute to the two-way communication between government and voters.

• Journalists practice watchdog journal- ism to provide an external check on government.

• The media encourage government action to promote equality but not action to limit freedom of the press.

Summary 149

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

4.1 Identify the various roles played by public opinion in majoritarian and pluralist democracy. 1. What does the majoritarian model

assume about the nature of public opinion?

2. What does the pluralist model assume about public opinion?

4.2 Explain the influence of the agents of early socialization—family, school, community, and peers—on political learning. 1. How is an individual’s party affilia-

tion related to their parents’ party affiliation?

2. When does political socialization stop?

4.3 Compare and contrast the effects of education, income, region, race, ethnicity, religion, and gender on public opinion. 1. Which social grouping—education,

income, region, race, ethnicity, reli- gion, or gender—has the strongest systematic effect on attitudes toward government’s role in maintaining order, such as outlawing abortions?

2. Which social grouping has the strongest systematic effect on atti- tudes toward government’s role in promoting equality, such as guaran- teeing jobs?

4.4 Define ideology, describe the liberal-conservative continuum, and assess the influence of ideology on public opinion. 1. When people are asked to describe

themselves as ‘‘liberals’’ or ‘‘conser- vatives,’’ how well do their answers capture their actual ideological per- spective?

2. Based on national responses to ques- tions about abortion and government jobs, is the country fundamentally conservative, liberal, or divided in its ideological classification?

4.5 Assess the impact of knowledge, self-interest, and leadership on political opinions. 1. What evidence shows that people

know little about politics—or, con- versely, that they know a lot about government and political affairs?

2. How does the ‘‘self-interest’’ princi- ple help explain why people vote according to party labels?

4.6 Evaluate the impact of private ownership and government regulation of the media. 1. How has the development of the

Internet challenged the traditional division between print and broadcast media?

150 Chapter 4 Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

2. Define the FCC and explain the role it plays in regulating the mass media.

4.7 Analyze the role of the media in political socialization and the acquisition of political knowledge. 1. What do most scholars believe is the

media’s greatest influence on politics? 2. Which media format is associated

with higher levels of political knowledge?

3. Describe the phenomenon known as ‘‘going public.’’

4.8 Evaluating Media in Government 1. Identify the charges behind the claims

that the media are liberal and/or that the media are conservative.

2. Discuss whether the media tend to advance order versus equality. What about order versus freedom?

Assessing Your Understanding 151

5 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Participation and

Voting

5.1 Democracy and Political Participation

Define political participation and distinguish among types of participation.

5.2 Unconventional Participation

Cite examples of unconventional participation in American history and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of participation.

5.3 Conventional Participation

Distinguish between supportive acts and influencing acts of political participation.

5.4 Participating Through Voting

Trace the expansion of suffrage in the United States and assess the impact of expanded suffrage on voter turnout.

5.5 Explaining Political Participation

Identify the factors that affect political participation, especially voting.

5.6 Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order

Evaluate the relationship between political participation and the values of freedom, equality, and order in American democracy.

5.7 Participation and the Models of Democracy

Identify the purposes elections serve and explain the relationship between elections and majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy.

152 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

I n 1927, TIME magazine began its traditionof choosing a ‘‘Man of the Year’’—the per- son who did the most (for better or worse) to influ- ence the year’s events. Occasionally, TIME picked a ‘‘Woman of the Year,’’ and sometimes it honored a group or class of people. For 2011, TIME chose ‘‘The Protester,’’ saying:

For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending govern- ments and conventional wisdom, for combin- ing the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dig- nity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 21st century, the Pro- tester is TIME’s 2011 Person of the Year.1

Just days before the issue naming ‘‘The Protes- tor’’ as TIME’s ‘‘Person of the Year’’ was published on December 26, 2011, thousands of Egyptian women marched in Cairo to protest their sisters’ treatment by soldiers, who had beaten, kicked,

and stripped female demonstrators in Tahrir Square days earlier. Observers called it ‘‘the big- gest women’s demonstration in modern Egyptian history’’ and a rarity in the Arab world.2 The dem- onstration was a fitting climax to a year of protest launched during the ‘‘Arab Spring’’ that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya and rattled regimes in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain.

It is too early to tell what lasting effect the wom- en’s demonstration might have on Egyptian society and politics, but a week later a Cairo court ordered an end to forced virginity tests on female prisoners who had been arrested in prior demonstrations.3

Students who read this today may be shocked that Egyptian women had to mobilize and demonstrate to stop public beatings and secret virginity tests. However, only decades ago American blacks had to mobilize and demonstrate to gain equal access to restaurants, schools, and voting.

Like the colonists in 1773, blacks in the 1950s employed unconventional but constitution- ally protected forms of political protest. Decades

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153 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

later, young people adopted unconventional forms of protest in 2011 to form ‘‘occupy’’ camps to protest income inequality. Do Americans protest more or less than citizens in other countries? What other options do people have to participate in politics? How well does political pro- test fit with either the pluralist or majoritarian model of democracy?

In this chapter, we seek to answer these and other important questions about popular participation in government. We begin by studying participation in democratic government, distinguish- ing between conventional and unconventional participation. Then we evaluate the nature and extent of both types of participation in American politics. Next, we study the expansion of voting rights and voting as the major mechanism for mass participation in poli- tics. Finally, we examine the extent to which the various forms of political participation serve the values of freedom, equality, and order and the majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy.

5.1 Democracy and Political Participation

Define political participation and distinguish among types of participation.

Government ought to be run by the people. That is the demo- cratic ideal in a nutshell. But how much and what kind of citizen participation are necessary for democratic government? Cham- pions of direct democracy believe that if citizens do not partici- pate directly in government affairs, making government decisions among themselves, they should give up all pretense of living in a democracy. More practical observers contend that people can gov- ern indirectly through their elected representatives. And they maintain that choosing leaders through elections—formal proce- dures for voting—is the only workable approach to democracy in a large, complex nation.

Elections are a necessary condition of democracy, but they do not guarantee democratic government. Before the collapse of communism, the former Soviet Union regularly held elections in which more than 90 percent of the electorate turned out to vote,

154 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

but it certainly did not function as a democracy, because there was only one party. Both the majoritarian and the pluralist models of democracy rely on voting to varying degrees, but both models expect citizens to participate in politics in other ways. For exam- ple, they expect citizens to discuss politics, form interest groups, contact public officials, campaign for political parties, run for office, and even protest government decisions.

We define political participation as ‘‘those actions of citizens that attempt to influence the structure of government, the selec- tion of government officials, or the policies of government or to support government and politics.’’4 This definition embraces both conventional and unconventional forms of political participation. Conventional participation is relatively routine behavior that uses the established institutions of representative government, especially campaigning for candidates and voting in elections. Unconventional participation is relatively uncommon behavior that challenges or defies established institutions or the dominant culture (and thus is personally stressful to participants and their opponents).

Voting, displaying a campaign poster in the front yard, and writing letters to public officials are examples of conventional polit- ical participation; staging sit-down strikes in public buildings, spray-painting political slogans on walls, and chanting slogans out- side officials’ windows are examples of unconventional participa- tion. Political demonstrations can be conventional (carrying signs outside an abortion clinic) or unconventional (linking arms to pre- vent entrance to the clinic). Terrorism is an extreme and problem- atic case of unconventional political behavior. Indeed, the U.S. legal code defines terrorism as ‘‘premeditated, politically motivated vio- lence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audi- ence.’’5 Timothy McVeigh, a decorated veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, chose to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 because it would provide good camera coverage. Executed in 2001 for taking 168 lives, McVeigh said he bombed the building because the national government had become a police state hostile to gun owners, religious sects, and patriotic militia groups.6 Although ter- rorist acts are political acts by definition, they go far beyond what we consider political participation in this chapter. Such extreme acts do not seek so much to influence government as to attack govern- ment and society itself.

political participation Actions of private citizens by which they seek to influence or support government and politics.

conventional participation Relatively routine political behavior that uses institutional channels and is acceptable to the dominant culture.

unconventional participation Relatively uncommon political behavior that challenges or defies established institutions and dominant norms.

terrorism Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.

Democracy and Political Participation 155

Methods of unconventional participation, in contrast, are used by disadvantaged groups that resort to them in lieu of more con- ventional forms of participation used by most citizens. These groups accept government while seeking to influence it. Let us look at both unconventional and conventional political participa- tion in the United States.

5.2 Unconventional Participation

Cite examples of unconventional participation in American history and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of participation.

On Sunday, March 7, 1965, a group of about six hundred people set out to march fifty miles from Selma, Alabama, to the state capi- tal at Montgomery. The marchers were demonstrating in favor of voting rights for blacks. At the time, Selma had fewer than five hundred registered black voters, out of fifteen thousand who were eligible.7 Alabama governor George Wallace declared the march illegal and sent state troopers to stop it. The two groups met at the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River at the edge of Selma. The peaceful marchers were disrupted and beaten by state troopers and deputy sheriffs—some on horseback—using clubs, bullwhips, and tear gas. The day became known as Bloody Sunday.

The march from Selma was a form of unconventional political participation. Marching fifty miles in a political protest is certainly not common; moreover, the march challenged the existing institu- tions that prevented blacks from participating conventionally— voting in elections—for many decades. The brutal response to the marchers helped the rest of the nation understand the seriousness of the civil rights problem in the South. Unconventional participa- tion is stressful and occasionally violent, but sometimes it is worth the risk.

Support for Unconventional Participation Unconventional political participation has a long history in the United States. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was the first in a long

156 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

line of violent protests against British rule that eventually led to revolution. Yet we know less about unconven- tional political participation than about conventional par- ticipation. The reasons are twofold. First, it is easier to collect data on conventional practices, so they are studied more frequently. Second, political scientists are biased toward institutionalized, or conventional, politics. In fact, some basic works on political participation explicitly exclude any behavior that is ‘‘outside the system.’’8

One major study of uncon- ventional political action asked people whether they had en- gaged in or approved of three types of political participation outside of voting: signing peti- tions, joining boycotts, and attending demonstrations.9 As shown in Figure 5.1 (p. 158), only signing petitions was clearly regarded as conven- tional, in the sense that the behavior was widely practiced.

The marchers in Selma, although peaceful, were dem- onstrating against the established order. If we measure con- ventional participation according to the proportion of people who disapprove of the act, most demonstrations border on the uncon- ventional, involving relatively few people. The same goes for boy- cotting products—for example, refusing to buy lettuce or grapes picked by nonunion farm workers. Demonstrations and boycotts are problem cases in deciding what is and is not conventional polit- ical participation.

Dinner with the P.M. Wednesday, Meeting with the President Thursday, Arrest Friday

While some protests spin out of control, resulting in property damage and violence, others are carefully scripted—sometimes with celebrity participants. After returning from a trip to the Sudan in March 2012, actor George Clooney made a whirlwind trip to Washington, D.C. After taking part in a state dinner for the British prime minister and lobbying Congress and President Obama, Clooney wrapped up the week by getting arrested in a demonstration at the Sudanese Embassy to draw attention to the growing humanitarian crisis in the Sudan. The handful of protesters, including Rep. Jim Moran and Martin Luther King III, were met at the embassy by hordes of news photographers, along with the police and secret service officers conveniently present to arrest them. The arrest after the protesters stepped onto the property of the embassy came as no surprise. The Washington Post had posted an article online the night before with the headline ‘‘George Clooney to get arrested at Sudan embassy.’’

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Unconventional Participation 157

The Effectiveness of Unconventional Participation Vociferous antiabortion protests discourage many doctors from performing abortions but have not led to the outlawing of abor- tion. Does unconventional participation ever work (even when it provokes violence)? Yes. The unconventional activities of civil rights workers also produced notable successes. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that sparked the civil rights movement. He used direct action to challenge specific cases of discrimination, assembling crowds to confront businesses and local governments and demanding equal treatment in public accommodations and government.

Denied the usual opportunities for conventional political partic- ipation, members of minorities used unconventional politics to pressure Congress to pass a series of civil rights laws in 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968—each one in some way extending federal protection against discrimination by reason of race, color, religion, or national origin. The 1964 act also prohibited discrimination in employment

FIGURE 5.1 What Americans Think Is Conventional Political Behavior

Demonstrations

Boycotts

Petitions

15% 55% 30%

20% 53% 27%

70% 24% 6%

QUESTIONABLY CONVENTIONAL ACTIVITIES

CLEARLY CONVENTIONAL ACTIVITY

Have done Might do Would never do

A survey presented Americans with three forms of political participation outside the electoral process and asked whether they ‘‘have done,’’ ‘‘might do,’’ or ‘‘would never do’’ any of them. The respondents approved overwhelmingly of signing petitions, which was widely done and rarely ruled out. However, attending demonstrations (a right guaranteed in the Constitution) would ‘‘never’’ be done by 30 percent of the respondents. Boycotting products was slightly less objectionable and more widely practiced. According to this test, attending demonstrations and boycotting products are only marginally conventional forms of political participation in the United States. Source: 2005–2008 World Values Survey; World Values Survey Association, based in Stockholm, conducts representative surveys in nations across the world. See http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/.

direct action Unconventional participation that involves assembling crowds to confront businesses and local governments to demand a hearing.

158 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

on the basis of sex. In addition, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 put state electoral procedures under federal supervision, increasing the registration of black voters and the rate of black voter turnout (espe- cially in the South). The civil rights movement shows that social change can occur, even when it is violently opposed at first.

Although direct political action and the politics of confrontation can work, using them takes a special kind of commitment. Studies show that direct action appeals most to those who both (1) distrust the political system and (2) have a strong sense of political efficacy— the feeling that they can do something to affect political decisions.10

Whether this combination of attitudes produces behavior that chal- lenges the system depends on the extent of organized group activity.11

The decision to use unconventional behavior also depends on the extent to which individuals develop group consciousness—identifica- tion with their group and awareness of its position in society, its objec- tives, and its intended course of action.12 These characteristics were present among blacks and young people in the mid-1960s and are strongly present today among blacks and, to a lesser degree, Latinos.

Unconventional Participation in America and the World Although most Americans may disapprove of using certain forms of participation to protest government policies, U.S. citizens are just as likely as citizens of other countries to express interest in politics, sign a petition, or boycott products—but they are less likely to join demonstrations. So, compared with citizens in other nations, Amer- icans are not markedly apathetic.13 Is something wrong with a polit- ical system if citizens resort to unconventional—and widely disapproved of—methods of political participation? To answer this question, we must first learn how much citizens use conventional methods of participation.

5.3 Conventional Participation Distinguish between supportive acts and influencing acts of political participation.

A practical test of the democratic nature of any government is whether citizens can affect its policies by acting through its

Conventional Participation 159

institutions: meeting with public officials, supporting candidates, voting in elections. Citizens should not have to risk their life and property to participate in politics, and they should not have to take direct action to force the government to hear their views. The objective of democratic institutions is to make political participa- tion conventional—to allow ordinary citizens to engage in rela- tively routine, nonthreatening behavior to get the government to heed their opinions, interests, and needs.

In a democracy, a group gathering at a statehouse or city hall to dramatize its position on an issue—say, a tax increase—is not unusual. Such a demonstration is a form of conventional partici- pation. The group is not powerless, and its members are not risk- ing their personal safety. But violence can erupt between opposing groups. Circumstances, then, often determine whether organized protest is or is not conventional. Conventional political behaviors fall into two major categories: actions that show support for gov- ernment policies and those that try to change or influence policies.

Supportive Behavior Supportive behaviors are actions that express allegiance to coun- try and government. When we recite the Pledge of Allegiance or fly the American flag on holidays, we are showing support for the country and, by implication, its political system. Such ceremonial activities usually demand little initiative by citizens. The simple act of turning out to vote is in itself a show of support for the po- litical system. Other supportive behaviors, such as serving as an election judge in a nonpartisan election or organizing a holiday parade, demand greater initiative.

At times, perceptions of patriotism move people across the line from conventional to unconventional behavior. In their eagerness to support the American system, they break up a meeting or disrupt a rally of a group they believe is radical or somehow ‘‘un-American.’’ Radical groups may threaten the political system with wrenching change, but superpatriots pose their own threat. Their misguided excess of allegiance denies nonviolent means of dissent to others.14

Influencing Behavior Citizens use influencing behaviors to modify or even reverse government policy to serve political interests. Some forms of

supportive behavior Actions that express allegiance to government and country.

influencing behavior Behavior that seeks to modify or reverse government policy to serve political interests.

160 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

influencing behavior seek particular benefits from government; other forms have broad policy objectives.

Particular Benefits. Some citizens try to influence government to obtain benefits for themselves, their immediate families, or their close friends. Serving one’s self-interest through the voting process is certainly acceptable in democratic theory. Each individual has only one vote, and no single voter can wangle particular benefits from government through voting unless a majority of the voters agrees.

Political actions that require considerable knowledge and ini- tiative are another story. Individuals or small groups that influ- ence government officials to advance their self-interest may secretly benefit without others knowing. Those who quietly obtain particular benefits from government pose a serious challenge to a democracy. Pluralist theory holds that groups ought to be able to make government respond to their special problems and needs. Majoritarian theory holds that government should not do what a majority does not want it to do. A majority of citizens might very well not want the government to do what any particular person or group seeks if it is costly to other citizens.

Citizens often ask for special services from their local govern- ment. Such requests may range from contacting the city forestry department to remove a dead tree in front of a house to calling the county animal control center to deal with a vicious dog in the neighborhood. Studies of such ‘‘contacting’’ behavior find that it tends not to be empirically related to other forms of political ac- tivity. Contacting behavior is related to socioeconomic status: peo- ple of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to contact public officials.15

Americans demand much more of their local government than of the national government. Although many people value self-reliance and individualism in national politics, most people expect local government to solve a wide range of social problems. A study of residents of Kansas City, Missouri, found that more than 90 percent thought it was the city’s responsibility to provide services in thirteen areas, including maintaining parks, setting standards for new home construction, demolishing vacant and unsafe buildings, ensuring that property owners clean up trash and weeds, and providing bus service. The researcher noted that ‘‘it is difficult to imagine a set of federal government activities

Conventional Participation 161

about which there would [be] more consensus.’’16 Citizens can also mobilize against a project. Dubbed the ‘‘not-in-my-back-yard’’ (or NIMBY) phenomenon, some citizens pressure local officials to stop undesired projects from being located near their homes.

Contributing money to a candidate’s campaign is another form of influencing behavior. Here too the objective can be partic- ular or broad benefits, although determining which is which can sometimes be difficult.

Several points emerge from this review of ‘‘particularized’’ forms of political participation. First, approaching government to serve one’s particular interests is consistent with democratic theory, because it encourages input from an active citizenry. Sec- ond, particularized contact may be a form of participation unto itself, not necessarily related to other forms of participation. Third, such participation tends to be used more by citizens who are advantaged in knowledge and resources. Fourth, particularized participation may serve private interests to the detriment of the majority.

Broad Policy Objectives. We come now to what many scholars have in mind when they talk about political participation: activ- ities that influence the selection of government personnel and pol- icies. Here too we find behaviors that require little initiative (such as voting) and behaviors that require high initiative (attending po- litical meetings, persuading others how to vote). Later in this chapter, we focus on elections as a mechanism for participation. For now, we simply note that voting to influence policy is usually a low-initiative activity. It actually requires more initiative to register to vote in the United States than to vote on election day.

Other types of participation to affect broad policies require high initiative. Running for office requires the most (see Chapter 6). Some high-initiative activities, such as attending party meetings and working in campaigns, are associated with the electoral process; others, such as attending legislative hearings and sending e-mails to Congress, are not. Studies of citizen contacts in the United States show that about two-thirds deal with broad social issues and only one-third are for private gain.17

Few people realize that using the court system is a form of po- litical participation, a way for citizens to press for their rights in a democratic society. Although most people use the courts to serve their particular interests, some also use them, as we discuss

162 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

shortly, to meet broad objectives. Going to court demands high personal initiative.18 It also requires knowledge of the law or the financial resources to afford a lawyer.

People use the courts for both personal benefit and broad pol- icy objectives. A person or group can bring class-action suits on behalf of other people in similar circumstances. Lawyers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People pio- neered this form of litigation in the famous school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954).19 They succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to outlaw segregation in public schools, not just for Linda Brown, one of the children on whose behalf the lawsuit was brought in Topeka, Kansas, but for all others ‘‘simi- larly situated’’—that is, for all other black students who wanted to attend desegregated schools. This form of participation has proved to be effective for organized groups, especially those who have been unable to gain their objectives through Congress or the exec- utive branch.

Individual citizens can also try to influence policies at the national level by direct participation in the legislative process. One way is to attend congressional hearings, which are open to the public and occasionally held outside Washington. To facili- tate citizen involvement, national government agencies are required to publish all proposed and approved regulations in the daily Federal Register and to make government documents available to citizens on request. The Internet certainly facilitates access to information such as the Federal Register, and private websites and apps for mobile devices have arisen to give citi- zens access to policy information, voting records, campaign finance data, and even independent fact-checking of campaign speeches.20

Conventional Participation in America and the World How often do Americans contact government officials and engage in other forms of conventional political participation compared with citizens in other countries? The most common political behavior in most industrial democracies is voting for candidates. In the United States, however, voting for candidates is less com- mon than it is in other countries, as demonstrated in ‘‘Compared with What? Voter Turnout in European and American Elections’’

class-action suit A legal action brought by a person or group on behalf of a number of people in similar circumstances.

Conventional Participation 163

(see p. 176). When voter turnout in the United States is compared with voting in sixteen other countries, the United States ranked at the bottom of the pack. This is a political paradox: Americans are as likely as citizens in other countries to engage in many forms of political participation, but when it comes to voting, especially in congressional elections, Americans rank dead last.21

Other researchers have noted this paradox and written: ‘‘If, for example, we concentrate our attention on national elections we will find that the United States is the least participatory of [all] five nations.’’ But looking at the other indicators, they found that ‘‘political apathy, by a wide margin, is lowest in the United States. Interestingly, the high levels of overall involvement reflect a rather balanced contribution of both … conventional and unconven- tional politics.’’22 Clearly, low voter turnout in the United States constitutes a puzzle, to which we will return.

5.4 Participating Through Voting

Trace the expansion of suffrage in the United States and assess the impact of expanded suffrage on voter turnout.

The heart of democratic government lies in the electoral process. Whether a country holds elections—and if so, what kind—constitutes the critical difference between democratic and nondemocratic government. Elections institutionalize mass participation in dem- ocratic government according to the three normative principles of procedural democracy discussed in Chapter 1: electoral rules specify who is allowed to vote, how much each person’s vote counts, and how many votes are needed to win.

Again, elections are formal procedures for making group deci- sions. Voting is the act individuals engage in when they choose among alternatives in an election. Suffrage and the franchise both mean the right to vote. By formalizing political participation through rules for suffrage and for counting ballots, electoral systems allow large numbers of people, who individually have little political power, to wield great power. Electoral systems decide collectively who gov- erns and, in some instances, what government should do. The simple

voter turnout The percentage of eligible citizens who actually vote in a given election.

suffrage The right to vote. Also called the franchise.

franchise The right to vote. Also called suffrage.

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fact of holding elections is less important than the specific rules and circumstances that govern voting. According to democratic theory, everyone should be able to vote. In practice, however, no nation grants universal suffrage. All countries have age requirements for voting, and all disqualify some inhabitants on various grounds: lack of citizenship, criminal record, mental incompetence, and so forth. What is the record of enfranchisement in the United States?

Expansion of Suffrage The United States was the first country to provide for general elec- tions of representatives through mass suffrage, but the franchise was far from universal. When the Constitution was framed, the idea of full adult suffrage was too radical to consider seriously. Instead, the framers left the issue of enfranchisement to the states, stipulating only that individuals who could vote for ‘‘the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature’’ could also vote for their representatives to the U.S. Congress (Article I, Section 2).

Initially, most states established taxpaying or property- holding requirements for voting. Virginia, for example, required ownership of twenty-five acres of settled land or five hundred acres of unsettled land. The original thirteen states began to lift such requirements after 1800. Expansion of the franchise acceler- ated after 1815 with the admission of new ‘‘western’’ states (Indi- ana, Illinois, Alabama), where land was more plentiful and widely owned. By the 1850s, the states had eliminated nearly all taxpay- ing and property-holding requirements, thus allowing the work- ing class—at least its white male members—to vote. Extending the vote to blacks and women took more time.

The Enfranchisement of Blacks. The Fifteenth Amendment, adopted shortly after the Civil War, prohibited the states from denying the right to vote ‘‘on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’’ But the states of the old Confederacy worked around the amendment, reestablishing old voting require- ments (poll taxes, literacy tests) that worked primarily against blacks. Because the amendment said nothing about voting rights in private organizations, some southern states denied blacks the right to vote in the ‘‘private’’ Democratic primary elections held to choose the party’s candidates for the general election. Because the Democratic Party came to dominate politics in the South, the

Participating Through Voting 165

‘‘white primary’’ effectively disenfranchised blacks despite the Fif- teenth Amendment. Also, in many areas of the South, the threat of violence kept blacks from the polls.

The extension of full voting rights to blacks came in two phases, separated by twenty years. In 1944, the Supreme Court decided in Smith v. Allwright that laws preventing blacks from voting in primary elections were unconstitutional, holding that party primaries are part of the continuous process of electing pub- lic officials.23 The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which followed Selma’s Bloody Sunday by less than five months, suspended dis- criminatory voting tests. It also authorized federal registrars to register voters in seven southern states, where less than half of the voting-age population had registered to vote in the 1964 election. For good measure, in 1966 the Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections that state poll taxes are unconsti- tutional.24 Although long in coming, these actions by the national government to enforce political equality within the states dramati- cally increased the registration of southern blacks (see Figure 5.2).

FIGURE 5.2 Voter Registration in the South, 1960, 1980, and 2000

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WhiteBlack

As a result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other national actions, black voter registration in the eleven states of the old Confederacy nearly doubled between 1960 and 1980. In 2000, there was very little difference between the voting registration rates of white and black voters in the Deep South. Sources: Data for 1960 and 1980 are from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1982–1983 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), p. 488; and data for 2000 come from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Report, P20–542, Table 3, Internet release, 27 February 2002.

166 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

The Enfranchisement of Women. Women also had to fight long and hard to win the right to vote. Until 1869, women could not vote anywhere in the world.25 Women began to organize to obtain suffrage in the mid-1800s. Known then as suffragettes, the early feminists initially had a limited effect on politics. Their first major victory did not come until 1869, when Wyoming, while still a ter- ritory, granted women the right to vote. No state followed suit until 1893, when Colorado enfranchised women.

Between 1896 and 1918, twelve other states gave women the vote. Most of these states were in the West, where pioneer women often departed from traditional women’s roles. Nationally, the women’s suffrage movement intensified, often resorting to uncon- ventional political behaviors (marches, demonstrations), which occasionally invited violent attacks from men and even other women. In 1919, Congress finally passed the Nineteenth Amend- ment, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote ‘‘on account of sex.’’ The amendment was ratified in 1920, in time for the November election.

Evaluating the Expansion of Suffrage in America. The last major expansion of suffrage in the United States took place in 1971,

The Fight for Women’s Suffrage … and Against It

Militant suffragettes demonstrated outside the White House prior to ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. Congress passed the proposed amendment in 1919, and it was ratified by the required number of states in time for the 1920 presidential election. Suffragettes’ demonstrations were occasionally disrupted by men—and other women—who opposed extending the right to vote to women.

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when the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen. For most of its history, the United States has been far from the demo- cratic ideal of universal suffrage. However, compared with other coun- tries, it looks pretty democratic.26

Women did not gain the vote on equal terms with men until 1921 in Norway; 1922 in the Netherlands; 1944 in France; 1946 in Italy, Japan, and Venezuela; 1948 in Belgium; and 1971 in Switzerland. Women are still not universally enfranchised. Kuwait granted full voting rights to women in 2005. In 2011, Saudi Arabia finally announced that women could vote in municipal elections—beginning in 2015. Of course, no one at all can vote in the United Arab Emirates. In South Africa, blacks, who outnumber whites by more than four to one, were not

allowed to vote freely in elections until 1994. With regard to voting age, about 85 percent of the world’s countries allow eighteen- year-olds to vote. Another fifteen countries set the minimum age at twenty or twenty-one. Fewer than ten allow persons under age eighteen to vote—including Austria, which allows voting at sixteen.27

Voting on Policies Disenfranchised groups have struggled to gain voting rights because of the political power that comes with suffrage. Belief in the ability of ordinary citizens to make political decisions and to control government through the power of the ballot box was strongest in the United States during the Progressive era, which began around 1900 and lasted until about 1925.

Progressivism was a philosophy of political reform that trusted the goodness and wisdom of individual citizens and distrusted ‘‘spe- cial interests’’ (railroads, corporations) and political institutions (traditional political parties, legislatures). Such attitudes resurfaced

Voting in Egypt

An Egyptian woman in Cairo casts her ballot in the 2011 election held after the revolution overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, who ruled for almost 30 years. It was widely regarded as the freest election in decades, and many women voted for the first time.

progressivism A philosophy of political reform based on the goodness and wisdom of the individual citizen as opposed to special interests and political institutions.

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168 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

among followers of the Reform Party and others who share this populist outlook.

The leaders of the Progressive movement were prominent pol- iticians (former president Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin) and eminent scholars (historian Frederick Jackson Turner, philosopher John Dewey). Not content to vote for candidates chosen by party leaders, the Progressives championed the direct primary—an election, run by the state governments, in which the voters chose the party’s candidates for the general elec- tion. Wanting a mechanism to remove elected candidates from office, the Progressives backed the recall, a special election initi- ated by a petition signed by a specified number of voters. Although eighteen states provide for the recall of state officials, only one state governor had ever been unseated until 2003, when California voters threw out Governor Gray Davis in a bizarre recall election that placed movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the governor’s mansion. Less than a decade later, Wisconsin vot- ers sought unsuccessfully to recall Republican governor Scott Walker in 2012. Walker beat his Democratic challenger handily.

The Progressives also championed the power of the masses to propose and pass laws, approximating the citizen participation in policymaking that is the hallmark of direct democracy. They developed two voting mechanisms for policymaking that are still in use:

• A referendum is a direct vote by the people on a proposed law or on an amendment to a state constitution. The meas- ures subject to popular vote are known as propositions. Twenty-four states permit popular referenda on laws, and all but Delaware require a referendum for a constitutional amendment. Most referenda are placed on the ballot by legis- latures, not voters.

• The initiative is a procedure by which voters can propose an issue to be decided by the legislature or by the people in a ref- erendum. The procedure involves gathering a specified num- ber of signatures from registered voters (usually 5 to 10 percent of the total in the state), then submitting the petition to a designated state agency. Twenty-four states currently provide for some form of voter initiative.

Hundreds of propositions have appeared on state ballots in general elections since 2000. In November 2012 alone, voters in

direct primary A preliminary election, run by the state government, in which the voters choose each party’s candidates for the general election.

recall The process for removing an elected official from office.

referendum An election on a policy issue.

initiative A procedure by which voters can propose an issue to be decided by the legislature or by the people in a referendum. It requires gathering a specified number of signatures and submitting a petition to a designated agency.

Participating Through Voting 169

thirty-eight states cast ballots deciding 174 propositions, passing almost two-thirds of them. Some of these propositions dealt with the most controversial topics in contemporary politics. Voters in Colorado and Washington abolished state laws criminalizing marijuana, while a similar decriminalization measure was rejected in Oregon. Maryland voters extended in-state college tuition to certain illegal immigrants, while Montana approved a proposal denying state services to illegal immigrants. Massachusetts voters rejected a physician-assisted suicide proposition.28

What conclusion can we draw about the Progressives’ legacy of mechanisms for direct participation in government? One seas- oned journalist paints an unimpressive picture. He notes that an expensive ‘‘industry’’ developed in the 1980s that makes money by circulating petitions, then managing the large sums of money needed to run a campaign to approve (or defeat) a referendum.29

In 2006, supporters of a measure to tax oil extracted in California in order to fund alternative energy spent $61.3 million. This huge sum, however, pales in comparison to the $92.9 million spent by oil companies and conservative interests to defeat the measure. The proposition failed.30

Clearly, citizens can exercise great power over government policy through the mechanisms of the initiative and referendum. What is not clear is whether these forms of direct democracy improve the policies made by representatives elected for that purpose.

Voting for Candidates We saved for last the most visible form of political participation: voting to choose candidates for public office. Voting for candidates serves democratic government in two ways. First, citizens can choose the candidates they think will best serve their interests. Sec- ond, voting allows the people to reelect the officials they guessed right about and to kick out those they guessed wrong about. In Chapter 6, we look at the factors that underlie voting choice. Here, we examine Americans’ reliance on the electoral process.

In national politics, voters seem content to elect just two exec- utive officers—the president and vice president—and to trust the president to appoint a cabinet to round out his administration. But at the state and local levels, voters insist on selecting all kinds of officials. Every state elects a governor (and forty-five elect a

170 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

lieutenant governor). Forty-two states elect an attorney general; thirty-nine, a treasurer; and thirty-seven, a secretary of state. The list goes on, down through the superintendent of education, secretary of agriculture, board of education, and public utilities commissioners. Elected county officials commonly include com- missioners, a sheriff, a treasurer, a clerk, a superintendent of schools, and a judge (often several). At the local level, voters elect almost 95 percent of the school board members in the nation’s 13,800 school districts across the nation.31 Instead of trusting state and local chief executives to appoint lesser administrators (as we do for more important offices at the national level), we expect vot- ers to choose intelligently among scores of candidates they meet for the first time on a complex ballot in the polling booth.

In the American version of democracy, the laws recognize no limit to voters’ ability to make informed choices among candi- dates and thus to control government through voting. The reason- ing seems to be that elections are good; therefore, more elections are better, and the most elections are best. By this thinking, the United States clearly has the best and most democratic govern- ment in the world because it is the undisputed champion at hold- ing elections. The author of a study that compared elections in the United States with elections in twenty-six other democracies concluded:

No country can approach the United States in the fre- quency and variety of elections, and thus in the amount of electoral participation to which its citizens have a right. No other country elects its lower house as often as every two years, or its president as frequently as every four years. No other country popularly elects its state gover- nors and town mayors; no other has as wide a variety of nonrepresentative offices (judges, sheriffs, attorneys gen- eral, city treasurers, and so on) subject to election.… The average American is entitled to do far more electing— probably by a factor of three or four—than the citizen of any other democracy.32

However, the United States ranks near the bottom of industri- alized democracies in voter turnout. (See ‘‘Compared with What? Voter Turnout in European and American Elections,’’ p. 176) How do we square low voter turnout with Americans’ devotion to elections as an instrument of democratic government? To

Participating Through Voting 171

complicate matters further, how do we square low voter turnout with the fact that Americans seem to participate in politics in vari- ous other ways?

5.5 Explaining Political Participation

Identify the factors that affect political participation, especially voting.

As we have seen, political participation can be unconventional or conventional, can require little or much initiative, and can serve to support the government or influence its decisions. This section begins our examination of some factors that affect the most obvious forms of political participation, with particular emphasis on voting. Our first task is to determine how much variation there is in patterns of participation within the United States over time.

Patterns of Participation over Time Were Americans more politically apathetic in the 2000s than they were in the 1960s? Generally not, as plots of several measures of participation from 1952 through 2008 show little variation over time in the percentage of citizens who were interested in election campaigns, talked to others about voting, worked for candidates, or attended party meetings. The only substantive dip in participa- tion occurred in voter turnout during the 1970s and 1980s. Turn- out returned to 1960s levels in 2004 and 2008, but even then voter turnout was much lower than in most European countries. Other forms of participation have remained stable or even increased. What is going on? Who votes? Who does not? Why? And does it really matter?

The Standard Socioeconomic Explanation Researchers have found that socioeconomic status is a good indi- cator of most types of conventional political participation. People with more education, higher incomes, and white-collar or pro- fessional occupations tend to be more aware of the impact of

172 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

politics on their lives, to know what can be done to influence government actions, and to have the necessary resources (time and money) to take action. So they are more likely to participate in politics than are people of lower socioeconomic status. This relationship between socioeconomic status and conventional po- litical involvement is called the standard socioeconomic model of participation.33

Unconventional political behavior is also related to socioeco- nomic status. Those who protest against U.S. government policies tend to be better educated. Moreover, this relationship holds in other countries too. One scholar notes: ‘‘Protest in advanced industrial democracies is not simply an outlet for the alienated and deprived; just the opposite often occurs.’’34 In one major way, however, those who engage in unconventional political behavior differ from those who participate more conventionally: protesters tend to be younger.

Younger people are more likely to take part in demonstrations or boycotts, and less likely to participate in conventional politics.35

Younger people engage in more voluntary and charitable activ- ities, but older Americans are more likely to vote, identify with the major political parties, and contact public officials.36 Voting rates tend to increase as people grow older, until about age sixty- five, when physical infirmities begin to lower rates again.37

Two other variables, race and gender, have been related to par- ticipation in the past, but as times have changed, so have those relationships. Blacks, who had very low participation rates in the 1950s, now participate at rates comparable to that of whites, when differences in socioeconomic status are taken into account.38

Women also exhibited low participation rates in the past, but gender differences in political participation have almost disap- peared.39 (The one exception is in attempting to persuade others how to vote, which women are less likely to do than men.)40

Research on the social context of voting behavior has shown that married men and women are more likely to vote than those of either sex living without a spouse.41

Of all the social and economic variables, education is the strongest single factor in explaining most types of conventional political participation (see Figure 5.3).42 The strong link between education and electoral participation raises questions about low voter turnout in the United States both over time and relative to other democracies. The fact is that the proportion of individuals

standard socioeconomic model A relationship between socioeconomic status and conventional political involvement: people with higher status and more education are more likely to participate than those with lower status.

Explaining Political Participation 173

with college degrees is greater in the United States than in other countries. Moreover, that proportion has been increasing steadily. Why, then, is voter turnout in elections so low? And why has it dropped over time?

Low Voter Turnout in America Voting is a low-initiative form of participation that can satisfy all three motives for political participation: showing allegiance to the nation, obtaining particularized benefits, and influencing broad policy. How, then, do we explain the decline in voter turnout in the United States?

The Fluctuation in Voting over Time. The graph of voter turnout in Figure 5.4 shows that turnout in presidential elections was higher in the 1950s and 1960s than in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, but it increased somewhat in 2004 and 2008.43 The down- ward trend began with a sizable drop between the 1968 and 1972 elections. During this period (in 1971, actually) Congress proposed and the states ratified the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which expanded the electorate by lowering the voting age from

College degree Some college High school only No high school

Attend political meetings

Wear campaign button, post stickers, signs

Talk with anyone about voting

Discuss politics with family/friends

Voted in the election

0 20 40 60 80 100 2

5 10

14 15

18 23

32 37

48 57

62 73

83 85

51 70

82 93

Percentage reporting participation in 2008 presidential election

FIGURE 5.3 Effects of Education on Political Participation Education has a powerful effect on political participation in the United States. These data from a 2008 sample show that level of education is directly related to five forms of conventional political participation. (Respondents tend to overstate whether they voted.) Source: This analysis was based on the 2008 American National Election Time Series Study (Ann Arbor, Mich., and Palo Alto, Calif.: The University of Michigan and Stanford University).

174 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

twenty-one to eighteen. Because people younger than twenty-one are much less likely to vote, their eligibility reduced the overall national turnout rate (the percentage of those eligible to vote who actually vote). Although young nonvoters inevitably vote more of- ten as they grow older, some observers estimate that the enfran- chisement of eighteen-year-olds accounts for about one or two percentage points in the total decline in turnout since 1952, but that still leaves more than ten percentage points to be explained in the lower rates since 1972.44

Why has voter turnout declined since 1968, while the level of education has increased? Many researchers have tried to solve this puzzle.45 Some attribute most of the decline to changes in voters’ attitudes toward politics: beliefs that government is no longer

FIGURE 5.4 The Decline of Voter Turnout: An Unsolved Puzzled

1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996

61.7

2000 2004 2008 0

100

Percentage of population over 25 with a high school education

Percentage of citizens voting in presidential electionsPe

rc en

ta ge

Year

Education strongly predicts the likelihood of voting in the United States. The percentage of adult citizens with a high school education or more has grown steadily since the end of World War II, but the overall rate of voter turnout trended downward from 1960 to 1996 and is still below the levels two decades after the war. Why turnout decreased as education increased is an unsolved puzzle in American voting behavior. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract 1962 and Statistical Abstract 2010, ‘‘Table A-1. Years of School Completed by People 25 Years and Over, by Age and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2008’’; Kevin Liptak, ‘‘Report Shows Turnout Lower than 2008 and 2004,’’ CNN Blog, November 8, 2012; and Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2009–2010 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2009), Table 1.1. The percentage voting in elections is based on the eligible voter population, not the voting-age population.

Explaining Political Participation 175

Compared with What?

Voter Turnout in European and American Elections Compared with turnout rates in sixteen established European nations, voter turnout for American presidential elections ranks near the bottom, and turnout for American con- gressional elections ranks below all sixteen. The European data show the percentage of the voting-age population voting in the most recent parliamentary election prior to 2012. The American data show the percentage of the voting-age population that voted in the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 congressional election. Turnout in U.S. elections tends to average about fifteen points higher in presidential years than in con- gressional years.

Source: International IDEA, ‘‘Voter Turnout,’’ http://www.idea.int/vt/viewdata.cfm#; and United States Election Project, http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm.

Critical Thinking Are Americans more politically apathetic than Europeans, or is our lower voting turnout due to structural factors in U.S. politics? What other explanations might be relevant?

Belgium 93

Denmark 83

Sweden 83

Spain 78

Austria 76

Norway 75

Netherlands 71

Finland 70

Germany 65

Ireland 64

United Kingdom 61

Luxembourg 53

France 43

Switzerland 40

Presidential 57

Congressional 38 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Greece 79

Italy 79

UNITED STATES

176 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

responsive to citizens, that politicians are too packaged, that cam- paigns are too long.46 Another is a change in attitude toward politi- cal parties, along with a decline in the extent and strength of party identification.47 This puzzle is compounded by the fact that the decline in turnout is not occurring evenly across the United States. Participation in the South seems to be gradually increasing.

According to the age explanation, turnout in the United States is destined to remain a percentage point or two below its highs of the 1960s because of the lower voting rate of citizens younger than twenty-one. Turnout rates do increase as young people age, which suggests that voting is habit forming.48 Despite these trends, the Obama campaign stimulated a wave of young voters to turn out at the polls in 2008.49 Voters under thirty accounted for 17 percent of the votes cast in 2000 and 2004, but they cast 18 percent of the vote in 2008 when over 2 million more eighteen- to twenty- nine-year-olds turned out. Voters under thirty increased their share of the national vote yet again in 2012, casting 19 percent of the vote. They were not, however, as supportive of President Obama. Support for Obama among voters under thirty fell from 66 percent in 2008 to 60 percent in 2012.

U.S. Turnout Versus Turnout in Other Countries. Scholars cite two factors to explain the low voter turnout in the United States compared with that in other countries. First are the differences in voting laws and administrative machinery.50 In a few countries, voting is compulsory, and turnout obviously is extremely high. But other methods can encourage voting: declaring election days to be public holidays or providing a two-day voting period. The United States does none of these things.

Furthermore, nearly every other democratic country places the burden of registration on the government rather than on the individual voter. This is important. Voting in the United States is a two-stage process, and the first stage (going to the proper offi- cials to register) requires more initiative than the second stage (going to the polling booth to cast a ballot). In most American states, the registration process is separated from the voting process in both time (usually voters have to register weeks in advance of the election) and geography (often voters have to register some- where other than their polling place). The nine states that do allow citizens to register and vote on the same day have consistently

Explaining Political Participation 177

higher voter participation rates.51 Turnout is higher in Oregon, where everyone votes by mail.52

Regardless of voting ease, registration procedures are often obscure, requiring potential voters to call around to find out what to do. People who move (and younger people move more fre- quently) have to reregister. If we compute voter turnout on the basis of those who are registered to vote, about 80 percent of Americans vote, a figure that moves the United States to the mid- dle (but not the top) of all democratic nations.53 Since 1995, the so-called motor-voter law has required states to allow citizens to register by mail (similar to renewing drivers’ licenses) and at cer- tain agencies that provide public assistance.54 In the 2001–2002 election cycle, over 42 percent of all voter registration applications were submitted through state motor vehicle offices.55 However, a 2009 study showed that half of all voters were unaware that they could register at motor vehicle offices.56 The second factor usually cited to explain low turnout in American elections is the lack of political parties that mobilize the vote of particular social groups, especially lower-income and less-educated people. American par- ties do make an effort to get out the vote, but neither party is as closely linked to specific groups as are parties in many other countries, where certain parties work hand in hand with ethnic, occupational, or religious groups. Research shows that strong party-group links can significantly increase turnout.57 Similarly, citizens are more likely to turn out to vote when the elections are competitive or close.58

To these explanations for low voter turnout in the United States—the traditional burden of registration and the lack of strong party-group links—we add another. Although the act of voting requires low initiative, the process of learning about dozens of candidates on the ballot in American elections requires a great deal of initiative. Some people undoubtedly fail to vote because they feel inadequate to the task of decid- ing among candidates for the many offices on the ballot in U.S. elections.

Teachers, newspaper columnists, and public affairs groups tend to worry a great deal about low voter turnout in the United States, suggesting that it signifies some sort of political sickness— or at least that it gives us a bad mark for democracy. Others are less concerned.59 One scholar argues:

178 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

Turnout rates do not indicate the amount of electing—the frequency of occasion, the range of offices and decisions, the ‘‘value’’ of the vote—to which a country’s citizens are entitled.… Thus, although the turnout rate in the United States is below that of most other democracies, American citizens do not necessarily do less voting than other citi- zens; most probably, they do more.60

5.6 Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order

Evaluate the relationship between political participation and the values of freedom, equality, and order in American democracy.

As we have seen, Americans participate in government in a vari- ety of ways, and to a reasonable extent, compared with citizens of other countries. What is the relationship of political participation to the values of freedom, equality, and order?

Participation and Freedom From the standpoint of normative theory, the relationship between participation and freedom is clear: individuals should be free to participate in government and politics in the way they want and as much as they want. And they should be free not to participate as well. Ideally, all barriers to participation, such as re- strictive voting registration and limitations on campaign expendi- tures, should be abolished, as should any schemes for compulsory voting. In theory, freedom to participate also means that individu- als should be able to use their wealth, connections, knowledge, organizational power (including sheer numbers in organized pro- tests), or any other resource to influence government decisions, provided they do so legally. Of all these resources, the individual vote may be the weakest—and the least important—means of exerting political influence. Obviously, then, freedom as a value in political participation favors those with the resources to advance their own political self-interest.

Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order 179

Participation and Equality The relationship between participation and equality is also clear. Each citizen’s ability to influence government should be equal to that of every other citizen, so that differences in personal resour- ces do not work against the poor or otherwise disadvantaged.61

Elections, then, serve the ideal of equality better than any other means of political participation. Formal rules for counting ballots—in particular, one person, one vote—cancel differences in resources among individuals.

At the same time, groups of people who have few resources individually can combine their votes to wield political power. Var- ious European ethnic groups exercised this type of power in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when their votes won them entry to the sociopolitical system and allowed them to share in its benefits (see Chapter 4). More recently, blacks, His- panics, homosexuals, and people with disabilities have used their voting power to gain political recognition. However, minorities of- ten have had to use unconventional forms of participation to win the right to vote. As two major scholars of political participation put it, ‘‘Protest is the great equalizer, the political action that weights intensity as well as sheer numbers.’’62

Participation and Order The relationship between participation and order is complicated. Some types of participation (pledging allegiance, voting) promote order, and so are encouraged by those who value order; other types promote disorder, and so are discouraged. Many citizens— men and women alike—even resisted giving women the right to vote for fear of upsetting the social order by altering the tradi- tional roles of men and women.

Both conventional and unconventional participation can lead to the ouster of government officials, but the regime—the political system itself—is threatened more by unconventional participation. To maintain order, the government has a stake in converting unconventional participation to conventional participation when- ever possible. Think about the student unrest on college campuses during the Vietnam War when thousands of protesting students stopped traffic, occupied buildings, destroyed property, and behaved in other unconventional ways. Confronted by such civil

180 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

strife and disorder, Congress took action. On March 23, 1971, it enacted and sent to the states the proposed Twenty-sixth Amend- ment, lowering the voting age to eighteen. Three-quarters of the state legislatures had to ratify the amendment before it became part of the Constitution. Astonishingly, thirty-eight states (the required number) complied by July 1, establishing a new speed record for ratification.63 As one observer argued, the right to vote was extended to eighteen-year-olds not because young people demanded it but because ‘‘public officials believed suffrage expan- sion to be a means of institutionalizing youths’ participation in politics, which would, in turn, curb disorder.’’64

5.7 Participation and the Models of Democracy

Identify the purposes elections serve and explain the relationship between elections and majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy.

Ostensibly, elections are institutional mechanisms that implement democracy by allowing citizens to choose among candidates or issues. But elections also serve several other important purposes:65

• Elections socialize political activity. The opportunity to vote for change encourages citizens to refrain from demonstrating in the streets. Elections transform what might otherwise be sporadic citizen-initiated acts into a routine public function. This helps preserve government stability by containing and channeling away potentially disruptive or dangerous forms of mass political activity.

• Elections institutionalize access to political power. They allow ordinary citizens to run for political office or to play an im- portant role in selecting political leaders. Working to elect a candidate encourages the campaign worker to identify prob- lems or propose solutions to the newly elected official.

• Elections bolster the state’s power and authority. The opportu- nity to participate in elections helps convince citizens that the government is responsive to their needs and wants, which reinforces its legitimacy.

Participation and the Models of Democracy 181

Participation and Majoritarianism Although the majoritarian model assumes that government responsiveness to popular demands comes through mass partici- pation in politics, majoritarianism views participation rather nar- rowly. It favors conventional, institutionalized behavior, primarily voting in elections. Because majoritarianism relies on counting votes to determine what the majority wants, its bias toward equal- ity in political participation is strong. Clearly, better-educated, wealthier citizens are more likely to participate in elections, and get-out-the-vote campaigns cannot counter this distinct bias.66

Because it favors collective decisions formalized through elections, majoritarianism has little place for motivated, resourceful individ- uals to exercise private influence over government actions.

Majoritarianism also limits individual freedom in another way: its focus on voting as the major means of mass participation narrows the scope of conventional political behavior by defining which political actions are ‘‘orderly’’ and acceptable. By favoring equality and order in political participation, majoritarianism goes hand in hand with the ideological orientation of communitarian- ism (see Chapter 1).

Participation and Pluralism Resourceful citizens who want the government’s help with prob- lems find a haven in the pluralist model of democracy. A decen- tralized and organizationally complex form of government allows many points of access and accommodates various forms of con- ventional participation in addition to voting. For example, wealthy people and well-funded groups can afford to hire lobbyists to press their interests in Congress. In one view of pluralist democracy, citizens are free to ply and wheedle public officials to further their own selfish visions of the public good. From another viewpoint, pluralism offers citizens the opportunity to be treated as individu- als when dealing with the government, to influence policymaking in special circumstances, and to fulfill (insofar as possible in repre- sentative government) their social potential through participation in community affairs.

182 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

SUMMARY 5.1 Democracy and Political

Participation • Political participation is defined as

those actions of citizens that attempt to influence • the structure of government. • the selection of government officials. • the policies of government or to

support government and politics. • Forms of participation include con-

ventional and unconventional participation.

5.2 Unconventional Participation • Unconventional participation is

behavior that challenges or defies established institutions and dominant norms.

• Unconventional participation, such as direct action during the civil rights movement, can be effective.

• Direct action appeals most to those who distrust the political system but have a strong sense of political efficacy.

• Americans are less likely to take part in demonstrations than their European counterparts.

5.3 Conventional Participation • Conventional behavior falls into two

categories: supportive behavior and influencing behavior.

• Supportive behaviors are actions that express allegiance to country and

government, such as pledging alle- giance, flying the flag, or voting.

• Influencing behaviors attempt to mod- ify or reverse government policy to serve particular political interests.

• Particularized forms of participation • are consistent with democratic

theory. • are used more by citizens who are

advantaged. • can serve private interests to the

detriment of the majority. • Participation can require high

initiative or low initiative.

5.4 Participating Through Voting • Although the United States was the

first country to hold elections with mass suffrage, initially only white male property holders could vote.

• Progressive reforms—the initiative and referendum—facilitated voting on state policies, but citizens cannot vote on national policies in a referendum.

• Americans seem to participate in many political activities at high levels but have low voter turnout.

5.5 Explaining Political Participation • According to the standard socioeco-

nomic model, increasing political participation is linked to increases in education, wealth, and occupational status.

Summary 183

• Young people are more likely to engage in unconventional participa- tion than other people, but older citizens are more likely to vote than younger citizens.

• Blacks and women are voting at higher rates today than in the past.

• Voter turnout has declined because • voters believe government is

unresponsive. • fewer people identify with political

parties. • Americans have voter registration

procedures that may lower voter participation.

• parties have not mobilized voters, which may lower participation.

5.6 Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order • Freedom holds that people should be

able to participate in politics as much (or as little) as they want and should be able to use all their resources in the process.

• Equality holds that each citizen’s abil- ity to influence government should be no greater than any other’s, which is formally true in voting but not in influencing how others vote.

• Order is generally promoted by con- ventional participation but undercut by unconventional participation.

5.7 Participation and the Models of De- mocracy • Elections socialize political activity,

institutionalize access to political power, and bolster the state’s power and authority.

• The majoritarian model assumes that government responds to popular demands expressed thorough conventional participation, primarily elections.

• The pluralist model encourages other forms of participation to influence government, including well-financed efforts to persuade both voters and officials.

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

5.1 Define political participation and distinguish among types of participation. 1. What distinguishes conventional

from unconventional political participation?

2. Is terrorism is a form of political participation?

5.2 Cite examples of unconventional participation in American history and evaluate the effectiveness of this type of participation. 1. When do you think unconventional

political participation produces results?

184 Chapter 5 Participation and Voting

2. In which types of participation are Americans less likely than Europeans to engage?

5.3 Distinguish between supportive acts and influencing acts of political par- ticipation. 1. Cite an example of supportive politi-

cal behavior. 2. Cite an example of influencing politi-

cal behavior. 3. How can suing in court constitute a

form of political behavior?

5.4 Trace the expansion of suffrage in the United States and assess the impact of expanded suffrage on voter turnout. 1. Does expansion of suffrage in the

United States compare well or poorly with most other countries?

2. Does voter turnout in the United States compare well or poorly with other countries?

5.5 Identify the factors that affect politi- cal participation, especially voting. 1. What is the standard socioeconomic

model for explaining political partici- pation?

2. Why did voter turnout decline af- ter 1968 despite an increase in education?

3. Which requires more citizen initia- tive: to register to vote, or to vote itself? Why, and why does it matter?

5.6 Evaluate the relationship between political participation and the val- ues of freedom, equality, and order in American democracy. 1. Which value—freedom, equality,

or order—is best served by voting as a form of participation and why?

2. How can political participation both serve and undermine order?

5.7 Identify the purposes elections serve and explain the relationship between elections and majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy. 1. What purposes are served by elec-

tions other than selecting candidates or deciding issues?

2. Which model of democracy— majoritarian or pluralist—is better served by elections and why?

Assessing Your Understanding 185

6 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Political Parties,

Campaigns, and

Elections

6.1 Political Parties and Their Functions

Define political party and list the functions performed by parties in democratic government.

6.2 A History of U.S. Party Politics

Outline the history of the U.S. political party system. 6.3 The American Two-Party System

Explain why two parties dominate the history of American politics. 6.4 Party Ideology and Organization

Compare and contrast the Democratic and Republican parties on the basis of ideology and organization.

6.5 The Model of Responsible Party Government

Identify the principles of responsible party government and evaluate their role in majoritarian democracy.

6.6 Parties and Candidates

Explain the procedures followed in the nomination of both congressional and presidential candidates.

6.7 Elections

Describe the function of the electoral college and formulate arguments for and against the electoral vote system.

6.8 Campaigns

Analyze the American election campaign process in terms of political context, financial resources, and strategies and tactics for reaching the voters.

6.9 Explaining Voting Choice

Assess the effects of party identification, political issues, and candidate attributes on voter choice.

6.10 Campaigns, Elections, and Parties

Explain the significance of candidate-centered election campaigns for both majoritarian and pluralist democracy.

186 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

TEA PARTYTEA PARTY

‘‘

Tea Party’’ or ‘‘tea party’’? Two of thenation’s premier newspapers differ on how to write it. The New York Times uses capital letters, treating the Tea Party as a distinct organi- zation like the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. The Wall Street Journal writes tea party in lower case, regarding it as a disorganized move- ment. Lower case seems more appropriate, for the tea party—although a nationwide movement— lacks a national organization.

Research in 2011 identified about 800 local tea party organizations with perhaps 200,000 members.1 More prominent in the media are regional organizations that seek to embrace local groups under their umbrella. Some adopt the tea party label; some do not. Among those that do are the Tea Party Express, National Tea Party Federation, Tea Party Patri- ots, Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, and Tea Party Nation. Among those that do not are Free- dom Works, Americans for Prosperity, Independ- ence Caucus, and Patriot Action Network. An

Internet search also turns up scores of state and local tea party groups—often ten or more in a single state.

Tea party groups agree in advocating smaller government, demanding reduced govern- ment spending, and favoring lower taxes. In the summer of 2009, for example, tea partiers pro- tested against Democratic members of Congress for supporting President Obama’s economic stim- ulus program and health-care legislation. The tea party certainly affected the subsequent congres- sional election, framing it as a referendum on Obama’s policies. In the 2010 primary elec- tions, tea party groups endorsed and elected scores of Republican candidates committed to their positions. In the 2010 general election, about half of all Republican congressional candi- dates were endorsed by one or more tea party groups.

In the congressional elections, voters favored Republican over Democratic candidates by 52 to 45 percent, reversing the 52–45 split enjoyed

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187 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

by Democrats in 2008. Sixty-six Republicans won House seats in 2010 that had been previously won by Democrats in 2008. Com- paring the percentages of votes cast in both elections for seats con- tested by both parties shows that Republicans endorsed by the tea party won by similar percentage margins as those not endorsed.2

Tea party endorsements did not increase the winning margins for their candidates; virtually all Republicans enjoyed comparable surges in votes in 2010. Tea party endorsements counted more for nominating Republican candidates in primary elections than in elect- ing them in the general election.

As a movement, however, the tea party had a definite impact on the 2010 congressional elections by defining and sharpening Repub- lican opposition to Obama and thus to Democrats running for reelec- tion. Given that 435 congressional elections are scattered among 50 states, the tea party’s decentralized nature posed no problem and perhaps constituted an advantage in 2010. The 2012 presidential election, however, involved a few candidates seeking one national office, for which a decentralized structure hurts, not helps.

Various tea party groups endorsed different Republican presiden- tial hopefuls during the 2012 primaries, and within groups tea parti- ers were divided among the leading candidates: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. Simply put, the tea party was not a party to the 2012 presidential election.

U.S. politics is characterized by a two-party system. The Demo- cratic and Republican parties have dominated national and state politics for more than 150 years. Their domination is closer to complete than that of any pair of parties in any other democratic government. Although all democracies have some form of multi- party politics, very few have a stable two-party system, Britain being the most notable exception. Most people take our two-party system for granted, not realizing that it is arguably the most dis- tinctive feature of American politics.

Why do we have any political parties? What functions do they perform? How did we become a nation of Democrats and Repub- licans? Are parties really necessary for democratic government, or do they get in the way of citizens and their government? In this chapter, we answer these questions by examining political parties, perhaps the most misunderstood element of American politics.

And what of the election campaigns conducted by the two major parties? In this chapter, we also consider how those

188 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

campaigns have changed over time, how candidates are nomi- nated in the United States, what factors are important in election campaigns, and why voters choose one candidate over another. In addition, we address these other important questions: Do election campaigns function more to inform or to confuse voters? How important is money in conducting a winning election campaign? What are the roles of party identification, issues, and candidate attributes in influencing voters’ choices and thus election out- comes? How do campaigns, elections, and parties fit into the majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy?

6.1 Political Parties and Their Functions

Define political party and list the functions performed by parties in democratic government.

According to democratic theory, the primary means by which citi- zens control their government is by voting in free elections. Most Americans agree that voting is important. Of those surveyed after the 2008 presidential campaign, 89 percent felt that elections made the government ‘‘pay attention to what the people think.’’3

Americans are not nearly as supportive of the role that political parties play in elections, however. Indeed, thousands of donors backed an organization, Americans Elect, that launched a nonpar- tisan online site (americanselect.org) to nominate a 2012 presi- dential ticket composed of candidates from different parties. The effort was abandoned when online voters (who came from every conceivable political background) failed to reach a consensus on a nominee.

Nevertheless, Americans are quick to condemn as ‘‘undemo- cratic’’ countries that do not hold elections contested by political parties. In truth, Americans have a love-hate relationship with po- litical parties. They believe that parties are necessary for demo- cratic government; at the same time, they think parties are somehow ‘‘obstructionist’’ and not to be trusted. This distrust is particularly strong among younger voters. To better appreciate the role of political parties in democratic government, we must understand exactly what parties are and what they do.

Political Parties and Their Functions 189

What Is a Political Party? A political party is an organization that sponsors candidates for political office under the organization’s name. The italicized part of this definition is important. True political parties select individuals to run for public office through a formal process of nomination, which designates them as the parties’ official candi- dates. This activity distinguishes the Democratic and Republican parties from interest groups. The AFL-CIO and the National Association of Manufacturers are interest groups. They often sup- port candidates in various ways, but they do not nominate them to run as their avowed representatives. If they did, they would be transformed into political parties. In short, the sponsoring of can- didates designated as representatives of the organization is what defines an organization as a party. Because the so-called tea party does not nominate its own candidates, it is not a national political party. True, five political entrepreneurs ran as congressional can- didates on the tea party label in 2010, but none was endorsed by significant tea party groups and all lost.

Most democratic theorists agree that a modern nation-state cannot practice democracy without at least two political parties that regularly contest elections. In fact, the link between democ- racy and political parties is so close that many people define dem- ocratic government in terms of competitive party politics.4

Party Functions Parties contribute to democratic government through the func- tions they perform for the political system—the interrelated insti- tutions that link people with government. Four of the most important party functions are nominating candidates for election to public office, structuring the voting choice in elections, propos- ing alternative government programs, and coordinating the actions of government officials.

Nominating Candidates. Without political parties, voters would confront a bewildering array of self-nominated candidates, each seeking votes on the basis of personal friendships, celebrity status, or name. Parties can provide a form of quality control for their nominees through the process of peer review. Party insiders, the nominees’ peers, usually know the strengths and faults of potential

political party An organization that sponsors candidates for political office under the organization’s name.

nomination Designation as an official candidate of a political party.

political system A set of interrelated institutions that links people with government.

190 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

candidates much better than average voters do and thus can judge their suitability for representing the party.

In nominating candidates, parties often do more than pass judg- ment on potential office seekers. Sometimes they recruit talented individuals to become party candidates. In this way, parties help not only to ensure a minimum level of quality among candidates who run for office but also to raise the quality of those candidates.

Structuring the Voting Choice. Political parties also help demo- cratic government by structuring the voting choice—reducing the number of candidates on the ballot to those who have a realistic chance of winning. Established parties—those with experience in contesting elections—acquire a following of loyal voters who guaran- tee the party’s candidates a predictable base of votes. The ability of established parties to mobilize their supporters has the effect of dis- couraging nonparty candidates from running for office and discour- aging new parties from forming. Consequently, the realistic choice is between candidates offered by the major parties, reducing the amount of new information that voters need to choose their leaders.

Proposing Alternative Government Programs. Parties also help voters choose candidates by proposing alternative programs of government action—the general policies their candidates will pur- sue if they gain office. Even if voters know nothing about the qual- ities of the parties’ candidates, they can vote rationally for candidates of the party that has policies they favor. The specific policies advocated vary from candidate to candidate and from election to election. However, candidates of the same party tend to favor policies that fit their party’s underlying political philoso- phy, or ideology.

In many countries, parties’ names, such as Conservative and Socialist, reflect their political stance. The Democrats and Repub- licans have ideologically neutral names, but many minor parties in the United States have used their names to advertise their poli- cies: the Libertarian Party, the Socialist Party, and the Green Party.5 The neutrality of the two major parties’ names suggests that their policies are similar. This is not true. As we shall see, they regularly adopt very different policies in their platforms.

Coordinating the Actions of Government Officials. Finally, party organizations help coordinate the actions of public officials.

Political Parties and Their Functions 191

A government based on the separation of powers, such as that of the United States, divides responsibilities for making public policy. The president and the leaders of the House and Senate are not required to cooperate with one another. Political party organiza- tions are the major means for bridging the separate powers to pro- duce coordinated policies that can govern the country effectively.

6.2 A History of U.S. Party Politics

Outline the history of the U.S. political party system.

The two major U.S. parties are among the oldest in the world. In fact, the Democratic Party, founded in 1828 but with roots reach- ing back into the late 1700s, has a strong claim to being the oldest party in existence. Its closest rival is the British Conservative Party, formed in 1832, two decades before the Republican Party was organized in 1854. Several generations of Americans have supported the Democratic and Republican parties, which have become institutionalized in our political process.

The Emergence of the Party System Today we think of party activities as normal, even essential, to American politics. It was not always so. The Constitution makes no mention of political parties, and none existed when the Consti- tution was written in 1787. It was common then to refer to groups pursuing some common political interest as factions. Although factions were seen as inevitable in politics, they were also consid- ered dangerous. One argument for adopting the Constitution— proposed in Federalist No. 10 (see Chapter 2)—was that its federal system would prevent factional influences from controlling the government.

The debate over ratification of the Constitution produced two factions. Those who backed the Constitution were loosely known as Federalists, their opponents as Antifederalists. At this stage, the groups could not be called parties because they did not sponsor candidates for election. We can classify George Washington as a Federalist because he supported the Constitution, but he was not

192 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

a factional leader and actually opposed factional politics. During Washington’s administration, however, the political cleavage sharpened between those who favored a stronger national govern- ment and those who wanted a less powerful, more decentralized national government.

Members of the first group, led by Alexander Hamilton, pro- claimed themselves Federalists. Members of the second group, led by Thomas Jefferson, called themselves Republicans. (Although they used the same name, they were not the Republicans as we know them today. Indeed, Jefferson’s followers were later known as the Democratic Republicans.) Disheartened by the political split in his administration, Washington spoke out against ‘‘the baneful effects’’ of parties in his farewell address in 1796. Nevertheless, parties already existed in the political system. For the most part, from that time to the present, two major political parties have competed for political power.

The Current Party System: Democrats and Republicans By 1820, the Federalists were no more. In 1828, the Democratic Republican Party split in two. One wing, led by Andrew Jackson, became the Democratic Party. The other later joined forces with several minor parties and formed the Whig Party, which lasted for two decades.

In the early 1850s, antislavery forces (including Whigs and antislavery Democrats) began to organize. They formed a new party, the Republican Party, to oppose the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories. It is this party, founded in 1854, that continues as today’s Republican Party. In 1860, the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln and successfully con- fronted a Democratic Party deeply divided over slavery.

The election of 1860 is considered the first of three critical elections under the current party system.6 A critical election is marked by a sharp change in existing patterns of party loyalties among groups of voters. This change, which is called an electoral realignment, lasts through several subsequent elections.7 When one party in a two-party system regularly enjoys support from most of the voters, it is called the majority party; the other is called the minority party.

critical election An election that produces a sharp change in the existing pattern of party loyalties among groups of voters.

electoral realignment The change in voting patterns that occurs after a critical election.

A History of U.S. Party Politics 193

The 1860 election divided the country between the northern states, which mainly voted Republican, and the southern states, which were overwhelmingly Democratic. The victory of North over South in the Civil War cemented Democratic loyalties in the South, particularly following the withdrawal of federal troops after the 1876 election. For forty years, from 1880 to 1920, no Republi- can presidential candidate won even one of the eleven states of the former Confederacy.

A second critical election, in 1896, transformed the Republi- can Party into a true majority party when, in opposition to the Democrats’ inflationary free silver platform, a link was forged between the Republican Party and business. Voters in the heavily populated Northeast and Midwest surged toward the Republican Party, many of them permanently.

A third critical election occurred in 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the Democratic Party to majority party status by uniting southern Democrats, northern urban workers, middle- class liberals, Catholics, Jews, and white ethnic minorities in the ‘‘Roosevelt coalition.’’ (The relatively few blacks who voted at that time tended to remain loyal to the Republicans, the ‘‘party of Lincoln.’’) Democrats held control of both houses of Congress in most sessions from 1933 until 1995. In 1995, Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time in forty years. They retained control after the 1996 elections—the first time that Republicans took both houses in successive elections since Herbert Hoover’s presidency. In 2007, Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate after a decade of Republican dominance, though the Republicans regained control of the House after the 2010 elections. Neither chamber changed hands in the 2012 elections.

The North-South coalition of Democratic voters forged by Roosevelt in the 1930s has completely crumbled. Since 1952, in fact, the South has voted more consistently for Republican presi- dential candidates than for Democrats, and rural voters have become decidedly more Republican.8 The majority of southern senators and representatives are now Republicans. However, the Democratic coalition of urban workers and ethnic minorities still seems intact, if weakened. Some scholars say that in the 1970s and 1980s we were in a period of electoral dealignment, in which party loyalties became less important to voters as they cast their ballots. Others counter that partisanship increased in the 1990s in a gradual process of realignment not marked by a single critical

electoral dealignment A lessening of the importance of party loyalties in voting decisions.

194 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

election.9 We examine the influence of party loyalty on voting later in this chapter.

6.3 The American Two-Party System

Explain why two parties dominate the history of American politics.

The critical election of 1860 established the Democratic and Re- publican parties as the major parties in our two-party system. In a two-party system, most voters are so loyal to one or the other of the major parties that independent candidates or candidates from a third party (which means any minor party) have little chance of winning office. Third-party candidates tend to be most successful at the local or state level. Since the current two-party system was established, relatively few minor-party candidates have won elec- tion to the U.S. House; very few have won election to the Senate, and none has won the presidency. However, we should not ignore the special contributions of certain minor parties, among them the Anti-Masonic Party, the Populists, and the Progressives of 1912. In this section, we study the fortunes of minor or third par- ties in American politics. We also look at why we have only two major parties, explain how federalism helps the parties survive, and describe voters’ loyalty to the two major parties today.

Minor Parties in America Minor parties have always figured in party politics in America. Most true minor parties in our political history have been of four types:10

• Bolter parties are formed from factions that split off from one of the major parties. Seven times in thirty-seven presidential elections since the Civil War, disgruntled leaders ‘‘bolted the ticket’’ and challenged their former parties. Bolter parties have occasionally won significant proportions of the vote. However, with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912 and possibly George Wallace’s American Inde- pendent Party in 1968, bolter parties have not affected the outcome of presidential elections.

two-party system A political system in which two major political parties compete for control of the government. Candidates from a third party have little chance of winning office.

The American Two-Party System 195

• Farmer-labor parties represent farmers and urban workers who believe that they, the working class, are not getting their share of society’s wealth. The People’s Party, founded in 1892 and nicknamed the ‘‘Populist Party,’’ was a prime example of a farmer-labor party. The Populists won 8.5 percent of the vote in 1892 and became the first third party since 1860 to win any electoral votes. Flushed by success, they endorsed William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate, in 1896. When he lost, the party quickly faded. Farm and labor groups revived many Populist ideas in the Progressive Party in 1924. The party died in 1925.

• Parties of ideological protest go further than farmer-labor par- ties in criticizing the established system. These parties reject prevailing doctrines and propose radically different princi- ples, often favoring more government activism. The Socialist Party has been the most successful party of ideological pro- test. Even at its high point in 1912, however, it garnered only 6 percent of the vote, and Socialist candidates for president have never won a single state. In recent years, the protest par- ties have tended to come from the right, arguing against gov- ernment action in society. Such is the program of the Libertarian Party, which stresses freedom over order and equality. In contrast, the Green Party protests from the left, favoring government action to preserve the environment.

• Single-issue parties are formed to promote one principle, not a general philosophy of government. The Free Soil Party of the 1840s and 1850s worked to abolish slavery. The Prohibi- tion Party, the most durable example of a single-issue party, opposed the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The party has run candidates in every presidential election since 1884. Recently, however, its platform has grown to include other conservative positions, including the right to life, limiting im- migration, and withdrawal from the World Bank.

Minor parties, then, form primarily to express discontent with the choices offered by the major parties and to work for their own objectives within the electoral system.11

How have minor parties fared historically? As vote getters, they have not performed well. However, bolter parties have twice won more than 10 percent of the vote. More significant, the Re- publican Party originated in 1854 as a single-issue third party

196 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

opposed to slavery in the nation’s new territories; in its first elec- tion, in 1856, the party came in second, displacing the Whigs. The age of these exceptions is suggestive: although surveys repeatedly show over half the public saying they want a third major party, voters tend not to support them at the polls.12

As policy advocates, minor parties have a slightly better record. At times, they have had a real effect on the policies adopted by the major parties. Women’s suffrage, the graduated income tax, and the direct election of senators all originated in third parties.13

Most important, minor parties function as safety valves. They allow those who are unhappy with the status quo to express their discontent within the system and contribute to the political dia- logue. Surely this was the function of Ralph Nader’s candidacy with the Green Party in 2000. If minor parties and independent candidates indicate discontent, what should we make of the numerous minor parties that took part in the 2012 election? Not much. The number of third parties that contest elections is much less important than the total number of votes they receive. Despite the presence of numerous minor parties in every presidential elec- tion, the two major parties usually collect over 95 percent of the vote, as they did in 2012.

Why a Two-Party System? The history of party politics in the United States is essentially the story of two parties that have alternating control of the govern- ment. With relatively few exceptions, Americans conduct elections at all levels within the two-party system. This pattern is unusual in democratic countries, where multiparty systems are more com- mon. Why does the United States have only two major parties? The two most convincing answers to this question stem from (1) the electoral system in the United States and (2) our historical pattern of political socialization.

In the typical U.S. election, two or more candidates contest each office, and the winner is the single candidate who collects the most votes, whether those votes constitute a majority or not. The two principles of single winners chosen by a simple plurality of votes produce an electoral system known as majority representation (despite its reliance on pluralities rather than majorities). Think about how American states choose representatives to Congress. A state entitled to ten representatives is divided into ten congressional

majority representation The system by which one office, contested by two or more candidates, is won by the single candidate who collects the most votes.

The American Two-Party System 197

districts; each district elects one representative. Almost always, the ten representatives are Democratic and Republicans. Majority rep- resentation of voters through single-member districts is also a fea- ture of most state legislatures.

Alternatively, a legislature might be chosen through a system of proportional representation, which would award legislative seats to a party in proportion to the total number of votes it wins in an election. Under this system, the state might have a single statewide election for all ten seats, with multiple parties presenting their lists of ten candidates. Voters could vote for the entire party list they preferred, and the party’s candidates would be elected from the top of each list, according to the proportion of votes won by the party. Thus, if a party got 30 percent of the vote in this example, its first three candidates would be elected.

Although this form of election may seem strange, more demo- cratic countries use it than use our system of majority representa- tion. Proportional representation tends to produce (or perpetuate) several parties, because each can win enough seats nationwide to wield some influence in the legislature. In contrast, our system of elections forces interest groups of all sorts to work within the two major parties, for only one candidate in each race stands a chance to be elected under plurality voting. Therefore, the system tends to produce only two parties.

The rules of our electoral system may explain why only two parties tend to form in specific election districts, but why do the same two parties (Democratic and Republican) operate within every state? The contest for the presidency is the key to this question. A candidate can win a presidential election only by amassing a ma- jority of electoral votes from across the entire nation. Presidential candidates try to win votes under the same party label in each state in order to pool their electoral votes in the electoral college. The presidency is a big enough political prize to induce parties to harbor uncomfortable coalitions of voters (southern white Protestants allied with northern Jews and blacks in the Democratic Party, for exam- ple) just to win the electoral vote and the presidential election.

The American electoral system may force U.S. politics into a two-party mold, but why do the same two parties reappear from election to election? After more than one hundred years of politi- cal socialization, the Republicans and Democrats today have such a head start in structuring the vote that they discourage challenges from new parties. In addition to political socialization within the

proportional representation The system by which legislative seats are awarded to a party in proportion to the vote that party wins in an election.

198 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

public, the two parties in power write laws that make it hard for minor parties to get on the ballot, such as requiring petitions with thousands of signatures.14

The Federal Basis of the Party System Focusing on contests for the presidency is a convenient and in- formative way to study the history of American parties, but it also oversimplifies party politics to the point of distortion. Even during its darkest defeats for the presidency, a party can still claim many victories for state offices. Victories outside the arena of presiden- tial politics give each party a base of support that keeps its ma- chinery oiled and running for the next contest.15

Party Identification in America The concept of party identification is one of the most important in political science. It signifies a voter’s sense of psychological attachment to a party, which is not the same as voting for the party in any given election. Scholars measure party identification simply by asking, ‘‘Do you usually think of yourself as a Republi- can, a Democrat, an independent, or what?’’16 Voting is a behav- ior; identification is a state of mind. For example, millions of southerners voted for Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1952 and 1956 but continued to consider themselves Democrats. The proportions of self-identified Republicans, Democrats, and inde- pendents (no party attachment) in the electorate since 1952 are shown in Figure 6.1 (p. 200). Three significant points stand out:

• The proportion of Republicans and Democrats combined has exceeded that of independents in every year.

• The proportion of Democrats consistently exceeds that of Republicans but has shrunk over time.

• The proportion of independents has nearly doubled over the period.

Although party identification predisposes citizens to vote for their favorite party, other factors may cause voters to choose the opposition candidate. If they vote against their party often enough, they may rethink their party identification and eventually switch. Apparently this rethinking has gone on in the minds of many southern Democrats over time. In 1952, about 70 percent of

party identification A voter’s sense of psychological attachment to a party.

The American Two-Party System 199

white southerners thought of themselves as Democrats, and fewer than 20 percent thought of themselves as Republicans. In 2012, white southerners were only 24 percent Democratic, 35 percent Republican, and 41 percent independent.17 Much of the nation- wide growth in the proportion of Republicans and independents (and the parallel drop in the number of Democrats) stems from changes in party preferences among white southerners and from the migration of northerners, which translated into substantial gains in the number of registered Republicans.18

Who are the self-identified Democrats and Republicans in the electorate? Figure 6.2 shows party identification by various social groups in 2012. The effects of socioeconomic factors are clear.

FIGURE 6.1 Distribution of Party Identification, 1952–2012

Democrats

Independents

Republicans

19 52

19 54

100

19 56

19 58

19 60

19 62

19 64

19 66

19 68

19 70

19 72

19 74

19 76

19 78

19 80

19 82

19 84

19 86

19 88

19 90

19 92

19 94

19 96

19 98

20 00

20 02

20 04

20 08

20 12

Pe rc

en ta

Year

In every presidential election since 1952, voters across the nation have been asked, ‘‘Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or what?’’ Most voters think of themselves as either Republicans or Democrats, but the proportion of those who think of themselves as independents has increased over time. The size of the Democratic Party’s majority has also shrunk. Nevertheless, most Americans today still identify with one of the two major parties, and Democrats still outnumber Republicans. Sources: National Election Studies, Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior, http://www.electionstudies.org/nesguide/ nesguide.htm. The 2012 figure is based on the January 11–16, 2012, survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, kindly supplied by senior researcher Dr. Leah Melani Christian. The few respondents (typically under 5 percent) who gave other answers were excluded from the graph.

200 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

Percentage

RepublicansDemocrats Independents

18–29 30 – 41 42 – 53 54 – 64

65+

North central Northeast

West South

Black Hispanic

No high school High school

Post high school, no degree

Advanced degree College degree

$30,000 – $74,999 $75,000 – $99,999

Over $100,000

Under $30,000

Female Male

Unaffiliated Catholic

Other Protestant

Other White

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY EDUCATION

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY RELIGION

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY GENDER

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY ETHNICITY

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY REGION

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY AGE

PARTY IDENTIFICATION BY INCOME

0 20 40 60 80 100

FIGURE 6.2 Party Identification by Social Groups Respondents to a 2012 election survey were grouped by seven socioeconomic criteria—income, education, religion, gender ethnicity, region, and age—and analyzed according to their self-descriptions as Democrats, independents, or Republicans. As income increases, people are more likely to vote Republican. The same is true for education, except for those with advanced degrees. Protestants are far more likely to be Republican than those without religious affiliation, while women, Hispanics, and all nonwhite groups are more likely to be Democrats. Party identification varies little by region. The main effect of age was to reduce the proportion of independents as respondents grew older. Younger citizens who tend to think of themselves as independents are likely to develop an identification with one party or the other as they mature.

Source: Data are from the January 11–16, 2012, survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, kindly supplied by senior researcher Dr. Leah Melani Christian. Rounding errors were adjusted to total to 100 percent for each group.

The American Two-Party System 201

People who have lower incomes and less education are more likely to think of themselves as Democrats than as Republicans. However, citizens with advanced degrees (such as college faculty) are more Democratic. The cultural factors of religion and race produce even sharper differences between the parties. Those who are unaffiliated with a religion are strongly Democratic compared with other reli- gious groups, but are mainly independent. Non-Hispanic whites are markedly more Republican than those in other ethnic groups. In addition, American politics has a gender gap: more women tend to be Democrats than men. The youngest citizens are more apt to be Democrats than Republicans, but most are independents. People tend to acquire party identification as they age.

The influence of region on party identification has changed over time, and strong regional differences no longer exist. Because of the high proportion of blacks in the South, it is still predomi- nantly Democratic (in party identity, but not in voting because of lower turnout among low-income blacks). Despite the erosion of Democratic strength in the South, we still see elements of Roose- velt’s old Democratic coalition of socioeconomic groups. Perhaps the major change in that coalition has been the replacement of white European ethnic groups by blacks, attracted by the Demo- crats’ backing of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

The ethnic composition of the United States is inexorably becoming less white, and nonwhites today are generally more Demo- cratic than Republican. Estimated at 65 percent in 2010, the non- Latino white population is projected to be only 55 percent in 2030. The Latino and nonwhite share of the population, estimated at 36 percent in 2010, is projected to be 45 percent by 2030.19 Given that blacks, Asians, and Latinos are strongly Democratic, the Republican Party faces problems in the partisan implications of demographic change.

Studies show that about half the citizens in the United States adopt their parents’ party. But it often takes time for party identi- fication to develop. The youngest group of voters is most likely to be independent, but people now in their thirties and forties, who were socialized during the Reagan and first Bush presidencies, are more Republican. The oldest group is not only strongly Demo- cratic but also shows the greatest partisan commitment (fewest independents), reflecting the fact that citizens become more inter- ested in politics as they mature.20 While overall partisanship has been declining in the United States, that is true elsewhere too (see ‘‘Politics of Global Change: Fewer Citizens Are Partying’’).

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Politics of Global Change

Fewer Citizens Are Partying As shown earlier in Figure 6.1, the proportion of Americans who identify with the Republican or Democratic parties has declined over time while the proportion of independents has increased. This chart shows a similar decline in formal party members for most European countries where citizens formally belong to political parties. Among nineteen European countries that provide available data over time, only Greece and Spain show an increase in party members as a percent of the electorate. (Similar data exist for party identification in European countries.) Citizens everywhere seem less likely to party.

Source: Ingrid van Biezen, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke, ‘‘Going, Going, … Gone? The Decline of Party Membership in Contemporary Europe,’’ European Journal of Political Research, 51 (January, 2012), 24–56. ª 2011 Ingrid van Biezen, Peter Mair, and Thomas Poguntke, European Journal of Political Research. ª 2011 European Consortium for Political Research. Reproduced by permission.

Critical Thinking Why might voters around the world be less likely to join political parties today than thirty years ago? How might this affect gover- nance if the trend continues in the future?

–11.21 –10.3

–5.99 –5.05

–4.09 –3.45

–3.2

–2.97 –2.91

–2.22

–0.57

–3.17

–12 –10

Gain (green) or loss (red) in party members as a percent of the electorate over years shown

–8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4

–4.54

3.16 3.41980–2008

1980–2008 1990–2008 1980–2008 1994–2007 1980–2009 1980–2007 1993–2008 1980–2008 1980–2008 1978–2009 1980–2008 1980–2007 1980–2008 1993–2008 1977–2007 1980–2006 1980–2008 1980–2008

Greece Spain

Hungary Portugal Slovakia

Netherlands Germany

United Kingdom Ireland

Denmark France

Belgium Italy

Sweden Czech Republic

Switzerland Finland

Norway Austria

–7.66

–1.81 –1.27

–1.05

The American Two-Party System 203

Americans tend to find their political niche and stay there.21

The enduring party loyalty of American voters tends to structure the vote even before an election is held, even before the candidates are chosen. Later we will examine the extent to which party iden- tification determines voting choice. But first we will look to see whether the Democratic and Republican parties have any signifi- cant differences between them.

6.4 Party Ideology and Organization

Compare and contrast the Democratic and Republican parties on the basis of ideology and organization.

George Wallace, a disgruntled Democrat who ran for president in 1968 on the American Independent Party ticket, complained that ‘‘there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference’’ between the Democrats and Republicans. Decades earlier, humorist Will Rogers said, ‘‘I am not a member of any organized political party—I am a Demo- crat.’’ Wallace’s comment was made in disgust, Rogers’s in jest. Wallace was wrong; Rogers was close to being right. Here we will dispel the myth that the parties do not differ significantly on issues and explain how they are organized to coordinate the activ- ities of party candidates and officials in government.

Differences in Party Ideology George Wallace notwithstanding, there is more than a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties. In fact, the difference amounts to many billions of dollars—the cost of the different gov- ernment programs supported by each party. Democrats are more disposed to government spending to advance social welfare (and hence to promote equality) than are Republicans. And social wel- fare programs cost money, a lot of money. Republicans, however, are not averse to spending billions of dollars for the projects they consider important. Although President George W. Bush intro- duced a massive tax cut, he also revived spending on missile defense, backed a $400 billion increase in Medicare, and proposed

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building a space platform on the moon for travel to Mars. One result was a huge increase in the budget deficit and a rare Wall Street Journal editorial against the 2003 GOP ‘‘spending spree.’’22

Reflecting the influence of the tea party, however, the Republican Party in 2012 fervently opposed government spending, whereas Democrats still supported spending for social programs and to stimulate the economy.

Voters and Activists. Party activists think of themselves in more ideological terms than those who are less interested in politics. In a recent study, 37 percent of Democrats who cared less about the 2012 presidential election called themselves moderate and only 34 percent labeled themselves liberal. Among Democrats who cared a great deal about the election, the percentage of self-identified liberals rose to 48 percent. Among less-interested Republicans, 37 percent called themselves moderate, while 57 percent labeled themselves conservatives. Among Republicans who cared a great deal about the election, a whopping 85 percent called themselves conservative.23

Platforms: Freedom, Order, and Equality. For another test of party philosophy, we can look at the party platforms—the state- ments of policies—adopted in party conventions. Although many people feel that party platforms do not matter very much, several scholars have demonstrated that winning parties tend to carry out much of their platforms when in office.24 Party platforms also matter a great deal to the parties’ convention delegates. The word- ing of a platform plank often means the difference between vic- tory and defeat for factions within a party.

The platforms adopted at both parties’ conventions in 2012 were similar in length (about 26,000 words for the Democrats and 31,000 for the Republicans) but strikingly different in content. The Republi- cans mentioned ‘‘free’’ or ‘‘freedom’’ more than three times as often (73 to 19), while the Democrats referred to ‘‘equal’’ or ‘‘equality’’ or ‘‘inequality’’ more than four times as much (23 to 4). Republicans talked more about order than Democrats, mentioning ‘‘crime’’ or ‘‘criminals’’ more often (33 to 26) and swamping the Democrats with talk about ‘‘marriage’’ (21 to 4) and ‘‘abortion’’ (20 to 4). Republicans also drummed on ‘‘spending’’ almost five times as frequently (29 to 6), while Democrats talked more about ‘‘discrimination’’ (18 to 9 mentions). The 2012 Republican convention called for amendments

party platform The statement of policies of a national political party.

Party Ideology and Organization 205

to the Constitution that reflected their values, including an amendment requiring a supermajority for any tax increase, an amendment defining marriage as ‘‘the union of one man and one woman,’’ and a human life amendment to protect the unborn. The Democratic convention reaf- firmed their support for the Equal Rights Amendment to secure women’s rights and noted that they supported campaign finance reform, by constitu- tional amendment ‘‘if necessary.’’25

Different But Similar. Republicans and Democrats have very different ideological orientations. Yet many observers claim that the parties are really quite similar in ideology com- pared with the different parties of other countries. Although both Republicans and Democrats favor a market economy over a planned economy more than parties else- where, Republicans do so more strongly than Democrats. A major

cross-national study of party positions in Western countries since 1945 concludes that the United States experiences ‘‘a form of party competition that is as ideologically (or non-ideologically) driven as the other countries we have studied.’’26

National Party Organization American parties parallel our federal system: they have separate national and state organizations (and functionally separate local organizations). At the national level, each major party has four main organizational components:

• National convention. Every four years, each party assembles thousands of delegates from the states and U.S. territories (such as Puerto Rico and Guam) in a national convention for the purpose of nominating a candidate for president. This

Clashing Visions

Debates provide candidates with opportunities to highlight their own strengths and their opponents’ weaknesses, although style sometimes trumps substance. During the presidential debates in 2012, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama attempted to differentiate themselves and their visions of America while appealing to undecided voters in the middle of the political spectrum.

national convention A gathering of delegates of a single political party from across the country to choose candidates for president and vice president and to adopt a party platform.

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presidential nominating convention is the supreme governing body of the party. It determines party policy through the plat- form, formulates rules to govern party operations, and desig- nates a national committee, which is empowered to govern the party until the next convention.

• National committee. The national committee, which governs each party between conventions, is composed of party offi- cials representing the states and territories, including the chairpersons of their party organizations. The Republican National Committee (RNC) has about 150 members, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has approximately 450 elected and appointed members. The chairperson of each national committee is chosen by the party’s presidential nom- inee, then duly elected by the committee. If the nominee loses the presidential election, the national committee usually replaces the nominee’s chairperson.

• Congressional party conferences. At the beginning of each ses- sion of Congress, Republicans and Democrats in each cham- ber hold separate party conferences (the House Democrats call theirs a caucus) to select their party leaders and decide committee assignments. The party conferences deal only with congressional matters and have no structural relationship to each other or to their respective national committee.

• Congressional campaign committees. Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate also maintain separate congressional campaign committees, each of which raises its own funds to support its candidates in congressional elections. The separa- tion of these organizations from the national committee tells us that the national party structure is loose; the national committee seldom gets involved with the election of any individual mem- ber of Congress. Moreover, even the congressional campaign organizations merely supplement the funds that senators and representatives raise on their own to win reelection.

It is tempting to think of the national party chairperson sit- ting at the top of a hierarchical party organization that not only controls its members in Congress but also issues orders to the state committees and on down to the local level. Few notions could be more wrong.27 In fact, the RNC and DNC do not even really direct or control presidential campaigns. Prospective nomi- nees hire their own campaign staffs during the party primaries to

national committee A committee of a political party composed of party chairpersons and party officials from every state.

party conference A meeting to select party leaders and decide committee assignments, held at the beginning of a session of Congress by Republicans or Democrats in each chamber.

congressional campaign committee An organization maintained by a political party to raise funds to support its own candidates in congressional elections.

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win delegates who will support them for nomination at the party conventions. The main role of a national committee is to support the eventual nominee’s personal campaign staff in the effort to win the general election.

For many years, the role of the national committees was essentially limited to planning for the next party convention. The committee would select the site, issue the call to state parties to attend, plan the program, and so on.28 In the 1970s, the roles of the DNC and RNC began to expand—but in different ways.

In 1968, during the Vietnam War, an unpopular President Lyndon Johnson was challenged for renomination by prominent Democrats, including senators Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. On March 31, after primary elections had begun, John- son announced he would not run for reelection. Vice President Hubert Humphrey then announced his candidacy. A month later Senator Kennedy was assassinated. Although Humphrey did not enter a single primary, he won the nomination over McCarthy at a riotous convention angry at the war and the role of party bosses in picking Humphrey. In an attempt to open the party to broader participation, a party commission formulated new guidelines for selecting delegates to the next convention in 1972. These guide- lines promised party members a ‘‘full, meaningful and timely op- portunity’’ to participate in the process. To comply with the new guidelines, many states used more open procedures, electing con- vention delegates in party primaries.

While the Democrats were busy in the 1970s with procedural reforms, the Republicans were making organizational reforms.29

Republicans were not inclined to impose quotas on state parties through their national committee. Instead, the RNC strengthened its fundraising, research, and service roles. Republicans acquired their own building and their own computer, and in 1976 they hired the first full-time chairperson of either national party. The new RNC chairman, William Brock, expanded the party’s staff, launched new publications, held seminars, conducted election analyses, and advised candidates—things that national party com- mittees in other countries had been doing for years.

The vast difference between the Democratic and Republican approaches to reforming the national committees shows in the funds raised by the DNC and RNC during election campaigns. Even though Republicans traditionally raised more campaign money than Democrats, fundraising changed dramatically so that

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they no longer relied on a relatively few wealthy contributors. Ultimately, the Republicans received more of their funds in small contributions (less than $100), than the Democrats. Until the 2008 election, the RNC raised far more money than the DNC, from many more citizens, as part of its long-term commitment to improving its organizational services.

According to a major study of presidential party building, all Republican presidents, from Eisenhower through George W. Bush, supported their national committee’s organization efforts in order to build a Republican majority in the electorate. In contrast, Democratic presidents from Kennedy through Clinton ‘‘were not out to build a new majority but to make use of the one they had.’’30 They tended to exploit, not build, the party organization. President Obama fell back into the traditional pattern after enter- ing office. By using his party to generate publicity for his adminis- tration’s policy agenda while neglecting its organizational capacities at the state and local levels, Obama’s behavior tended to parallel that of his Democratic predecessors.

State and Local Party Organizations At one time, both major parties were firmly anchored by strong state and local party organizations. Big-city party organizations, such as the Democrats’ Tammany Hall in New York City and the Cook County Central Committee in Chicago, were called party machines. A party machine was a centralized organization that dominated local politics by controlling elections—sometimes by illegal means, often by providing jobs and social services to urban workers in return for their votes. These patronage and social service functions of party machines were undercut when the gov- ernment expanded its social services. As a result, most local party organizations lost their ability to deliver votes and thus to deter- mine the outcome of elections.

The individual state and local organizations of both parties vary widely in strength, but research has found that ‘‘neither the Republican nor Democratic party has a distinct advantage with regard to direct campaign activities.’’31 Whereas once both the RNC and the DNC were dependent for their funding on ‘‘quotas’’ paid by state parties, now the funds flow the other way. In addi- tion to money, state parties also receive candidate training, poll data and research, and campaigning instruction.32

party machine A centralized party organization that dominates local politics by controlling elections.

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Decentralized but Growing Stronger The absence of centralized power has always been the most distin- guishing characteristic of American political parties. Moreover, the rise in the proportion of citizens who call themselves ‘‘inde- pendents’’ suggests that our already weak parties are in further decline.33 However, there is evidence that our political parties as organizations are enjoying a period of resurgence. Indeed, both national parties have globalized their organizations, maintaining branches in over a dozen nations.34 And more votes in Congress are being decided along party lines. In fact, a specialist in congres- sional politics has concluded, ‘‘When compared to its predecessors of the last half-century, the current majority party leadership is more involved and more decisive in organizing the party and the chamber, setting the policy agenda, shaping legislation, and deter- mining legislative outcomes.’’35

6.5 The Model of Responsible Party Government

Identify the principles of responsible party government and evaluate their role in majoritarian democracy.

According to the majoritarian model of democracy, parties are essential to making the government responsive to public opinion. In fact, the ideal role of parties in majoritarian democracy has been formalized in the four principles of responsible party government:36

1. Parties should present clear and coherent programs to voters. 2. Voters should choose candidates according to the party programs.

3. The winning party should carry out its program once in office. 4. Voters should hold the governing party responsible at the next election for executing its program.

How well do these principles describe American politics? You’ve learned that the Democratic and Republican platforms are different and that they are much more ideologically consistent than many

responsible party government A set of principles formalizing the ideal role of parties in a majoritarian democracy.

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people believe. So the first principle is being met fairly well. To a lesser extent, so is the third principle: once parties gain power, they usually do what they said they would do. As President Obama’s attempt to reform health care showed, however, not every party member will necessarily support the party’s position. From the standpoint of democratic theory and responsible parties, the real question lies in principles 2 and 4: Do voters really pay attention to party platforms and policies when they cast their ballots? And if so, do voters hold the governing party responsible at the next election for delivering, or failing to deliver, on its pledges? To answer these questions, we must consider in greater detail the parties’ role in nominating candidates and structuring the voters’ choices in elec- tions. At the conclusion of this chapter, we return to evaluating the role of political parties in democratic government.

6.6 Parties and Candidates Explain the procedures followed in the nomination of both congressional and presidential candidates.

An election campaign is an organized effort to persuade voters to choose one candidate over others competing for the same office. An effective campaign requires sufficient resources to acquire and analyze information about voters’ interests, develop a strategy and matching tactics for appealing to these interests, deliver the candi- date’s message to the voters, and get voters to cast their ballots.37

In the past, political parties conducted all phases of the election campaign. Today, however, candidates seldom rely much on politi- cal parties to conduct their campaigns. How do candidates plan their campaign strategy and tactics now? By hiring political consul- tants to devise clever ‘‘sound bites’’ (brief, catchy phrases) that cap- ture voters’ attention on television, not by consulting party headquarters. How do candidates deliver their messages to voters? By conducting media campaigns, not by counting on party regulars to canvass the neighborhoods. Beginning with the 2004 election, presidential and congressional candidates have also relied heavily on the Internet to raise campaign funds and mobilize supporters.38

Increasingly, election campaigns have evolved from being party centered to being candidate centered.39 Whereas the parties virtually ran election campaigns in the past, now they exist mainly

election campaign An organized effort to persuade voters to choose one candidate over others competing for the same office.

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to support candidate-centered campaigns by providing services or funds to their candidates. Nevertheless, we will see that the party label is usually a candidate’s prime attribute at election time.

Perhaps the most important change in American elections is that candidates do not campaign just to get elected anymore. It is now necessary to campaign for nomination as well. Party organi- zations once controlled that function. For most important offices today, however, candidates are no longer nominated by the party organization but are nominated within the party. Party leaders sel- dom choose candidates themselves; they organize and supervise the election process by which party voters choose the candidates. Because almost all aspiring candidates must first win a primary election to gain their party’s nomination, those who would cam- paign for election must first campaign for nomination.

The distinguishing feature of the nomination process in American party politics is that it usually involves an election by party voters. Virtually no other political parties in the world nom- inate candidates to the national legislature through party elec- tions.40 In more than half the world’s parties, local party leaders choose legislative candidates, and their national party organization must usually approve those choices.

Democrats and Republicans nominate their candidates for national and state offices in varying ways across the country because each state is entitled to make its own laws governing the nomination process. (This is significant in itself, for political par- ties in most other countries are largely free of laws stating how they must select their candidates.) We can classify their nomina- tion practices by the types of party elections held and the level of office sought.

Nomination for Congress and State Offices In the United States, almost all aspiring candidates for major offices are nominated through a primary election, a preliminary election conducted within the party to select its candidates. Forty states use primary elections alone to nominate candidates for all state and national offices, and primaries figure in the nomi- nation process in all the other states. The rules governing primary elections vary greatly by state and can change between elections. Hence, it is difficult to summarize the types of primaries and their incidence. Every state uses primary elections to nominate

primary election A preliminary election conducted within a political party to select candidates who will run for public office in a subsequent election.

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candidates for statewide office, but about ten states also use party conventions to place names on the primary ballots.41 The nomi- nation process, then, is highly decentralized, resting on the deci- sions of thousands, perhaps millions, of the party rank and file who participate in primary elections.

There are four major types of primary elections, and variants of each type are used about equally across all states to nominate candidates for state and congressional offices.42 At one end of the spectrum stand closed primaries, in which voters must register their party affiliation to vote on that party’s potential nominees. At the other end stand open primaries, in which any voter, regardless of party registration or affiliation, can choose either party’s ballot. In between are modified closed primaries, in which individual state parties decide whether to allow those not registered with either party to vote with their party registrants; and modified open primaries, in which all those not already reg- istered with a party can choose any party ballot and vote with party registrants.

Nomination for President The decentralized nature of American parties is readily apparent in how presidential hopefuls must campaign for their party’s nomination for president. Each party formally chooses its presi- dential and vice-presidential candidates at a national convention held every four years in the summer prior to the November elec- tion. Until the 1960s, party delegates chose their party’s nominee at the convention, sometimes after repeated balloting over several candidates who divided the vote and kept anyone from getting the majority needed to win the nomination. The last time that either party needed more than one ballot to nominate its presidential candidate was in 1952, when the Democrats took three ballots to nominate Adlai E. Stevenson. Since 1972, both parties’ nominat- ing conventions have simply ratified the results of the complex process for selecting the convention delegates. Most minor parties still tend to use conventions to nominate their presidential candidates.

Selecting Convention Delegates. No national legislation speci- fies how state parties must select delegates to their national

closed primary A primary election in which voters must declare their party affiliation before they are given the primary ballot containing that party’s potential nominees.

open primary A primary election in which voters need not declare their party affiliation and can choose either party’s primary ballot to take into the voting booth.

modified closed primary A primary election that allows individual state parties to decide whether they permit independents to vote in their primaries and for which offices.

modified open primary A primary election that entitles independent voters to vote in a party’s primary.

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conventions. Instead, state legislatures have enacted a bewildering variety of procedures, which often differ for Democrats and Republicans in the same state. The most important distinction in delegate selection is between the presidential primary and the local caucus.

A presidential primary is a special primary held to select del- egates to attend the party’s national nominating convention. Party supporters typically vote for the candidate they favor as their party’s nominee for president, and candidates win delegates according to a variety of formulas. Most Democratic presidential primaries are proportional, so candidates who win at least 15 per- cent of the vote divide the delegates from that state in proportion to the percentage of votes they won in the state’s primary. Prior to 2012, most Republican primaries were winner-take-all, so the can- didate receiving the most votes in a state primary election took all of that state’s convention delegates. For 2012, however, some states adopted proportional rules for the Republican primaries to prevent front-runners from claiming an early victory.

Delegate selection by caucus/convention has several stages. It begins with local meetings, or caucuses, of party supporters to choose delegates to attend a larger subsequent meeting, usually at the county level. Most delegates selected in the local caucuses openly back one of the presidential candidates. The county meet- ings, in turn, select delegates to a higher level. The process culmi- nates in a state convention, which selects the delegates to the national convention.

Primary elections were first used to select delegates to nomi- nating conventions in 1912. Now parties in about forty states rely on presidential primaries in some form, which generate approximately 80 percent of the delegates.43 Because nearly all delegates selected in primaries are publicly committed to specific candidates, one can usually tell before a party’s summer nomi- nating convention who is going to be its nominee. Indeed, we have been learning the nominee’s identity earlier and earlier, thanks to the front-loading of primaries and caucuses. This term describes the tendency during the past two decades for states to move their primaries earlier in the calendar year to gain more attention from the media and the candidates.44 Some states moved their primaries back for the 2012 primary season. Whereas half the Republican delegates had been chosen by February 5 in 2008, half were not selected until April 24 in 2012. To discourage

presidential primary A special primary election used to select delegates to attend the party’s national convention, which in turn nominates the presidential candidate.

front-loading States’ practice of moving delegate selection primaries and caucuses earlier in the calendar year to gain media and candidate attention.

caucus/convention A method used to select delegates to attend a party’s national convention. Generally a local meeting selects delegates for a county-level meeting, which in turn selects delegates for a higher-level meeting; the process culminates in a state convention that selects the national convention delegates.

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front-loading, the Democratic Party awarded bonus convention delegates to states holding their primary or caucus later in the spring.

Campaigning for the Nomination. The process of nominating party candidates for president is a complex, drawn-out affair that has no parallel in any other nation.45 Would-be presidents announce their candidacy and begin campaigning many months before the first convention delegates are selected. Soon after one election ends, prospective candidates quietly begin lining up polit- ical and financial support for their likely race nearly four years later. By historical accident, two small states, Iowa and New Hampshire, have become the testing ground of candidates’ early popularity with party voters. Accordingly, each basks in the media spotlight once every four years.

The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary have served different functions in the presidential nominating proc- ess.46 The contest in Iowa has traditionally tended to winnow out candidates who are rejected by the party faithful. The New Hamp- shire primary, generally held one week later, tests the Iowa front- runners’ appeal to ordinary party voters, which foreshadows their likely strength in the general election. As usual, the two states in 2012 fulfilled their role in winnowing down the field of presiden- tial hopefuls at the start of the longest presidential primary season in history—forty primaries spread over 168 days.47

Seven notables stood for the Iowa Republican caucuses on January 3, 2012. In alphabetical order, they were Michele Bach- mann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Romney (with 24.5 percent of the vote) was initially declared the winner, only to lose to Santorum (24.5 percent) by a handful of votes after the recount. Bachmann (who had depended on Iowa) won less than 5 percent of the vote and dropped out the next day. A week later in the New Hamp- shire primary, Romney won decisively, taking almost 40 percent of the vote, with Paul second at 23 percent. Huntsman (who had counted on New Hampshire) won only 17 percent and dropped out two days later. Perry (who had less than 1 percent of the vote in New Hampshire after getting only 10 percent in Iowa) dropped out a few days later.

Thus, the Republican field was reduced to four for the third delegate selection contest in South Carolina on January 31. A

Parties and Candidates 215

third winner emerged as Gingrich took 40 percent of the vote, but his star faded ten days later when Romney decisively defeated him in the Florida primary. In ensuing contests, Romney and Santorum alternated as winners, setting up a protracted contest until Santorum finally dropped out of the race on April 10, leaving the field largely clear for Mitt Romney.48

Requiring prospective presiden- tial candidates to campaign before many millions of party voters in pri- maries and hundreds of thousands of party activists in caucus states has several consequences:

• When no incumbent in the White House is seeking reelection, the presidential nominating process becomes contested in both parties. This is what occurred in the 2008 elections. With President Bush ineligible to run again in 2008, twelve Republicans and ten Dem- ocrats met the requirements of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for electronic filing of their presidential campaigns.

• An incumbent president usually encounters little or no opposition for renomination with the party. Thus Obama was routinely renominated in 2012, but challenges can occur. In 1992, Presi- dent George H. W. Bush faced fierce opposition for the Republi- can nomination from Pat Buchanan.

• Many hopefuls seek the presidential nomination of the opposi- tion party. Twelve notable Republicans filed with the FEC as presidential candidates in 2012 along with hundreds (yes, hundreds) of others not so notable.

• The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries do matter. Since the first Iowa caucus in 1972, eleven candidates in each party have won presidential nominations. All of the eleven

Midnight Madness in New Hampshire

Once every four years, there’s something to do after midnight in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, and in nearby Hart’s Landing. Both small towns (each with under forty residents) revel in the tradition of being the first to vote in the nation’s first primary. In 2012, Mitt Romney tied for first with John Huntsman in the Dixville Notch primary, each claiming two votes. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul netted only half that number, while Rick Perry and Rick Santorum struck out completely. President Barack Obama, running unopposed, won all three votes cast in the Democratic primary.

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Republicans nominees were first in either Iowa or New Hampshire, as were nine of the Democrats.49

• Candidates favored by most party identifiers usually win their party’s nomination. There have been only two exceptions to this rule since 1936, when poll data first became available: Adlai E. Stevenson in 1952 and George McGovern in 1972.50 Both were Democrats; both lost impressively in the general election.

• Candidates who win the nomination do so largely on their own and owe little or nothing to the national party organiza- tion, which usually does not promote a candidate. In fact, Jimmy Carter won the nomination in 1976 against a field of nationally prominent Democrats, although he was a party outsider with few strong connections in the national party leadership. Barack Obama won in 2008, despite the strong ties Hillary Clinton had to Democratic Party leaders.

6.7 Elections Describe the function of the electoral college and formulate arguments for and against the electoral vote system.

By national law, all seats in the House of Representatives and one- third of the seats in the Senate are filled in a general election held in early November in even-numbered years. Every state takes advantage of the national election to also fill some of nearly 500,000 state and local offices across the country, which makes the election even more ‘‘general.’’ When the president is chosen every fourth year, the election year is identified as a presidential election. The intervening years are known as congressional, mid- term, or off-year elections.

Presidential Elections and the Electoral College In contrast to almost all other offices in the United States, the presi- dency does not go automatically to the candidate who wins the most votes. In fact, George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000 despite receiving fewer votes than Al Gore. Instead, a two-stage procedure specified in the Constitution decides elections for president. The

general election A national election held by law in November of every even- numbered year.

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president and vice president are chosen by a group of electors repre- senting the states. These electors, known collectively as the electoral college, meet in their respective states to cast their ballots.

The Electoral College. The Constitution (Article II, Section 1) says, ‘‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Num- ber of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be enti- tled in the Congress.’’ Thus, each state is entitled to one elector for each of its senators (100 total) and one for each of its representa- tives (435 votes total), totaling 535 electoral votes. In addition, the Twenty-third Amendment to the Constitution awarded three elec- toral votes to the District of Columbia, although it elects no voting members of Congress. So the total number of electoral votes is 538. The Constitution specifies that a candidate needs a majority of elec- toral votes, or 270 today, to win the presidency. If no candidate receives a majority when the electoral college votes, the responsibil- ity of selecting a president is given to the House of Representatives. The House votes by state, with each state casting one vote.*

The 538 electoral votes are apportioned among the states according to their representation in Congress, which depends on their population. Because of population changes recorded by the 2010 census, the distribution of electoral votes among the states changed between the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Figure 6.3 shows the distribution of electoral votes for the 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections. The distribution will not change again until the 2024 presidential election, which will take population changes identified in the 2020 census into account.

The presidential election is a federal election. A candidate is not chosen president by national popular vote but by a majority of the states’ electoral votes. In forty-eight states, the candidate who wins a plurality of its popular vote—whether by 20 votes or by 20,000—wins all of the state’s electoral votes. (The two excep- tions are Maine and Nebraska, where two and three of the states’ electoral votes, respectively, are awarded by congressional district. The presidential candidate who carries each district wins a single electoral vote, and the statewide winner gets two additional votes.)

*The candidates in the House election are the top three finishers in the general elec- tion. A presidential election has gone to the House only twice in American history, in 1800 and 1824, before a stable two-party system had developed.

218 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

Abolish the Electoral College? Following the controversial 2000 election, in which George W. Bush won the presidency with a ma- jority of electoral votes despite receiving fewer popular votes than Al Gore, letters flooded into newspapers urging that the electoral college system be changed.51 To evaluate the criticisms, one must first distinguish between the electoral ‘‘college’’ and the ‘‘system’’ of electoral votes. The electoral college is merely the set of individuals empowered to cast a state’s electoral votes. Prior to the presidential election, each party submits a list of loyal party members who

FIGURE 6.3 State Population Change and the Electoral College

CA 55

HI 4

AK 3

TX 38

OK 7

KS 6 MO

10 TN 11

NE 5

SD 3

ND 3 MN

10 IL 20

IA 6

WI 10

MI 16

OH 18

KY 8

AR 6 MS

6 AL 9

GA 16

FL 29

SC 9

NC 15

VA 13

WV 5

PA 20

NY 29

NJ 14

MD 10

DE 3

+10 or more

+1 to +4

Electoral votes gained/lost 1972– 2012

CT 7

MA 11

ME 4

NH 4

RI 4

VT 3

DC 3

LA 8

WA 12

OR 7

ID 4

NV 6

UT 6

AZ 11

NM 5

MT 3

WY 3

No change

+5 to +9 –10 or more

–1 to –4

–5 to –9

IN 11

CO 9

If the states were sized according to their electoral votes, the nation might resemble this map, on which the states are drawn according to their population, based on the census. Each state has as many electoral votes as its combined representation in the Senate (always two) and the House (which depends on population). Although New Jersey is much smaller in area than Montana, it has far more people and is thus bigger in terms of ‘‘electoral geography.’’ The coloring on this map shows the states that have gained or lost electoral votes since 1972 due to changing population patterns.

Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013.

Elections 219

would serve as electors if their party won the popular vote in that state. In a presidential election, voters do not actually vote for a can- didate; they vote for this slate of electors (whose names rarely even appear on the ballot) pledged to one of the candidates. On rare occasions, ‘‘faithless electors’’ break their pledges when they assem- ble to cast their written ballots at their state capitol in December. This happened in 2004 when a Democratic elector in Minnesota voted for John Edwards for both president and vice president, rather than casting the presidential vote for John Kerry. Such aberrations make for historical footnotes, but they do not affect outcomes.

The more troubling criticism centers on the electoral vote sys- tem, which makes for a federal rather than a national election. Many reformers favor a majoritarian method for choosing the pres- ident: a nationwide direct popular vote. They argue that it is simply wrong to have a system that allows a candidate who wins the most popular votes nationally to lose the election. Until 2000, that situa- tion had not happened since 1888. In fact, the electoral vote gener- ally operated to magnify the margin of victory in the popular vote.

The 2000 election proved that a federal election based on elec- toral votes does not necessarily yield the same outcome as a national election based on the popular vote. However, three lines of argument support selecting a president by electoral votes rather than by popular vote. First, if one supports a federal form of gov- ernment as embodied within the Constitution, then one may defend the electoral vote system because it gives small states more weight in the vote: they have two senators, the same as large states. Second, if one favors presidential candidates’ campaigning on foot and in rural areas (needed to win most states) rather than campaigning via television to the one hundred most populous market areas, then one might favor the electoral vote system.52

Third, if one does not want to risk a nationwide recount in a close election (multiplying by fifty the counting problems in Florida in the 2000 election), then one might want to keep the current sys- tem. So switching to selecting the president by popular vote has serious implications, which explains why Congress has not moved quickly to amend the Constitution.

Congressional Elections The candidates for the presidency are listed at the top of the ballot in a presidential election, followed by the candidates for other national

220 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

offices and for state and local offices. Voters are said to vote a straight ticket when they choose one party’s candidates for all the offices. A voter who chooses candidates from different parties is said to vote a split ticket. About half of all voters say they split their tickets.53 A common pattern in the 1970s and 1980s was to elect a Republican as president but send mostly Democrats to Congress, producing divided government (see Chapter 9). This pattern was reversed in the mid- 1990s, when voters elected a Republican Congress to face a Demo- cratic president. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both experienced periods of unified government and divided government.

Compared to the complexity of the electoral college system in presidential elections, congressional elections are generally more straightforward. Most are first-past-the-post elections—a British term for elections conducted in single-member districts that award victory to the candidate with the most votes. Louisiana is an exception, where a run-off election is held if no congressional candidate receives a majority of the public vote.

Heading into the 2012 congressional elections, Republicans hoped to keep control of the House and perhaps win control of the Senate by campaigning against the economic policies of Democratic President Obama. Neither the House nor the Senate changed hands in the election, however. Despite expectations that the Democrats would lose seats in the Senate, it was the Republicans who suffered small but costly losses in both chambers. Republicans poured over $100 million into the races for seven key Senate seats that were won by Democrats. Some incumbents whose districts had been redrawn to reflect the 2010 census faced special challenges, espe- cially those like 10-term Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (Md.), whose district was redrawn to include a heavily Democratic constit- uency. He lost by almost 60,000 votes.54

6.8 Campaigns Analyze the American election campaign process in terms of political context, financial resources, and strategies and tactics for reaching the voters.

Political scientists Barbara Salmore and Stephen Salmore have developed an analytical framework that emphasizes the political context of an election campaign, the financial resources available

straight ticket In voting, a single party’s candidates for all the offices.

split ticket In voting, candidates from different parties for different offices.

first-past-the-post elections A British term for elections conducted in single-member districts that award victory to the candidate with the most votes.

Campaigns 221

for conducting the campaign, and the strategies and tactics that underlie the dissemination of information about the candidate.55

The Political Context The two most important structural factors that face each candi- date planning a campaign are the office the candidate is seeking and whether he or she is the incumbent (the current officeholder, running for reelection) or the challenger (who seeks to replace the incumbent). Incumbents usually enjoy great advantages over chal- lengers, especially in elections to Congress. Incumbents in the House of Representatives are virtually impossible to beat: over 95 percent are reelected.56 A nonincumbent candidate has a much better chance of winning in an open election, which lacks an in- cumbent as a result of resignation, death, or constitutional requirement.

Every candidate organizing a campaign must also examine the characteristics of the district, including its physical size and the sociological makeup of its electorate. In general, the bigger and more populous the district and the more diverse the electorate, the more complicated and costly is the campaign.

The party preference of the electorate is an important factor in the context of a campaign. It is easier for candidates to get elected when their party matches the electorate’s preference, in part because raising the money needed to conduct a winning campaign is easier. Finally, significant political issues, such as economic recession, personal scandals, and war, not only affect a campaign but also can dominate it and even negate such positive factors as incumbency and the normal inclinations of the electorate.

Financing Former House Speaker Thomas (‘‘Tip’’) O’Neill once said, ‘‘As it is now, there are four parts to any campaign. The candidate, the issues of the candidate, the campaign organization, and the money to run the campaign with. Without money you can forget the other three.’’57 Money will buy the best campaign managers, equipment, transportation, research, and consultants, making the quality of the organization largely a function of money.58 Campaign financing is now heavily regulated by national and state governments, and regu- lations vary according to the level of the office—national, state, or

open election An election that lacks an incumbent.

222 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

local. At the national level, new legislation now governs raising and spending money for election campaigns.

Regulating Campaign Financing. In 1971, during a period of party reform, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which imposed stringent new rules for full reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures. FECA has been strength- ened several times since 1971. A 1974 amendment imposed limits on contributions by individuals and organizations to campaigns for Congress and the presidency and created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to enforce limits on financial contributions to national campaigns, require full disclosure of campaign spending, and administer the public financing of presidential campaigns, which began with the 1976 election.

Although the Supreme Court upheld limits on hard-money con- tributions, it struck down limits on spending by individuals or organ- izations made independently on behalf of a candidate, ruling that such spending constituted free speech. The 1974 FECA (with minor amendments) governed national elections for almost three decades.

In 2002 Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA; pronounced ‘‘bikra’’). In general, BCRA raised the old limits on individual contributions in the 1974 act from $1,000 per federal candidate in an election to $2,000 and indexed it for inflation in future years. However, the 2002 law did not raise the $5,000 contribution limit for PACs and did not index PAC contri- butions for inflation. BCRA was fiercely challenged from several sources, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2003 and took effect for the 2004 election. Here are the major limitations on individual contributions for 2011–2012 under BCRA:

• $2,500 to a specific candidate in a separate election during a two-year cycle (primaries, general, and runoff elections count as separate elections)

• $10,000 per year to state, district, and local party committees (combined limit)

• $30,800 per year to any national party committee • an aggregate limit of $117,000 over a two-year cycle, based

on limits to individual candidates and committees.

The new law did not raise the $5,000 contribution limit for PACs, which many thought already had too much influence in elec- tions, but it did ban so-called soft-money contributions to national

Federal Election Commission (FEC) A bipartisan federal agency that oversees the financing of national election campaigns.

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) A law passed in 2002 governing campaign financing; the law took effect with the 2004 election.

Campaigns 223

political parties. Ostensibly given for capital improvements and operating expenses, these funds were often channeled to state par- ties for electoral campaigns. BCRA also banned issue-advocacy ads that named a candidate in the weeks prior to an election.59

However, BCRA allowed issue-advocacy groups—called 527 committees after Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which makes them tax exempt—to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money for media advertising, as long as they did not expressly advocate a candidate’s election or defeat. Spending by 527 com- mittees after BCRA increased from $151 million in 2002 to over $590 million in 2010.60

In 2007, the Supreme Court struck down BCRA’s ban on issue ads run before an election, which opened the door to massive inde- pendent campaign spending by nonparty groups. Many no longer organized as 527 committees, which were required to report their donors to the FEC, but as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, exploiting a legal loophole excusing them from disclosing donors.61

In January 2010, a bitterly divided Supreme Court departed from its precedents and ruled against BCRA’s ban on spending by corpora- tions in candidate elections.62 Conservatives viewed its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission as defending freedom of speech,63 while liberals saw it as opening the door to the corrupting influence of corporate money.64 Beginning with the 2010 election, corporations are free to run ads directly advocating a candidate’s elec- tion for the first time since 1907, when the Congress first banned using general corporate funds in federal election campaigns.65

In March 2010, an appeals court applied the Citizens United rul- ing in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a decision that expanded the influence of private money in elections. It legalized a new category of funding organizations: ‘‘independent expenditures only political committees’’ or ‘‘Super PACs.’’ If political committees make only independent expenditures and do not give money to candidates, they can accept funds in unlimited amounts to spend independently on election campaigns.66 Unlike the $5,000 limit on contributions to PACs, there is no limit on contributions to Super PACs. While Super PACs must periodically disclose donations from individuals and for-profit groups, they need not disclose donations from nonprofit groups.67

Super PACs quickly raised unprecedented amounts of money. By January 1, 2012, Super PACs aligned with each of the Republican presidential candidates had spent more than $40 million dollars. ‘‘Restore Our Future,’’ the main Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney,

527 committees Political organizations that are organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code; they enjoy tax-exempt status and may accept unlimited funds from unlimited sources but cannot expressly advocate a candidate’s election or defeat.

224 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

raised $20 million and outspent the Romney campaign itself two to one.68 By February, FEC filings identified fourteen individuals or corporations who had each given at least $1 million to ‘‘Restore Our Future,’’ which backed Romney, while a Nevada casino owner and his wife gave $10 million to ‘‘Winning Our Future,’’ which supported Gingrich.69 ‘‘American Crossroads,’’ a Super PAC dedi- cated to the defeat of Obama, got $12 million from bil- lionaire Harold C. Simmons. Realizing that Republican Super PACs would raise huge sums, President Obama reversed his opposition to Super PACs in February and endorsed ‘‘Priorities USA Action,’’ founded by two former White House aides. Comedian Bill Maher quickly gave it $1 million.

Public Financing of Presidential Campaigns. The 1974 campaign finance law provided public funds for presiden- tial candidates who agreed to abide by an overall cam- paign spending limit and raised at least $5,000 (in private donations of no more than $250 each) in each of twenty states. The FEC matches these donations up to one-half of a preset spending limit—indexed for inflation—for the primary election campaign. By 2012, candidates who raised up to $22.8 million in private funds would have that amount matched by up to $22.8 million in public funds, subject to the limitation that they could not spend more than $45.6 million in their primary campaigns.

From 1976 through 1992, all major candidates seek- ing their party’s presidential nomination accepted public matching funds for their primary election campaigns and thus adhered to the spending limits. But candidates found that they could raise more money privately to spend in their primary campaigns. Wealthy publisher Steve Forbes was the first to opt out of the system in 1996. In 2004, Democratic hopefuls Howard Dean and John Kerry and incumbent president George W. Bush (who faced no meaningful opposition for renomination) declined public matching funds and chose to raise their own funds for the primary campaigns, avoiding the spending cap.70 In 2008, only six of the nineteen candidates who participated in either party’s primary debates relied on public funds.71

A Laughing Matter: Money in Politics

Ostensibly, Super PAC expenditures were supposed to have ‘‘no connection’’ with the official campaigns of candidates they were backing—despite the fact that Super PACs were often run by candidates’ former campaign officials and political cronies. For example, the director of the Romney-oriented ‘‘Restore Our Future’’ Super PAC was Carl Forti, who ran Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign. To parody what the law allowed, Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central’s cable show The Colbert Report legally named Jon Stewart, his business partner at Comedy Central’s Daily Show, to run Colbert’s own Super PAC, ‘‘Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.’’

Source: See the Federal Election Commission Advisory Opinion of June 30, 2011, http://www.fec.gov/press/ press2011/20110630openmeeting.shtml.

A P

Ph ot

o/ C

om ed

y C

en tra

l, Kr

is to

ph er

Lo ng

Campaigns 225

By August 2012, only Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Buddy Roemer (who sought the nom- ination of the online organization, Americans Elect), had applied and qualified for public matching funds.72

The public funding program for presidential elections in Novem- ber operates somewhat differently. Candidates who accept public funds have no need to raise matching funds privately. They are simply reimbursed by the government up to the spending limit, which was $91.2 million in 2012, twice the limit for primary elections. However, candidates who accepted public funds could spend no more than that.

From 1976 to 2004, every major party nominee for president accepted public funds and spending limits for the general election. In 2008, Republican candidate John McCain agreed to accept public funds, limiting his campaign spending in the general election to $84.1 million. Compare that with the $220 million McCain raised just to win the nomination. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, refused public funds for both the primaries and the general election, becoming the first candidate to do so since the system was established over thirty years earlier. He raised over $745 million in privatefunds.73

In 2012, neither major party’s candidate accepted public funds.

Strategies and Tactics In an election campaign, strategy is the broad approach used to persuade citizens to vote for a candidate, and tactics determine the content of the messages and the way they are delivered. There are three basic strategies, which campaigns may blend in different mixes.74 A party-centered strategy relies heavily on voters’ partisan identification as well as on the party’s organization to provide the resources necessary to wage the campaign. An issue-oriented strat- egy seeks support from groups that feel strongly about various policies. A candidate-oriented strategy depends on the candidate’s perceived personal qualities, such as experience, leadership ability, integrity, independence, and trustworthiness.

The campaign strategy must be tailored to the political con- text of the election. Research suggests that a party-centered strat- egy is best suited to voters with little political knowledge.75 How do candidates learn what the electorate knows and thinks about politics, and how can they use this information? Candidates today usually turn to pollsters and political consultants, of whom there are hundreds.76 Professional campaign managers can use

226 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

information from such sources to settle on a strategy that mixes party affiliation, issues, and images in its messages.77 In major campaigns, the mass media disseminate these messages to voters in news coverage, advertising, and the Internet.

Making the News. Campaigns value news coverage by the media for two reasons: the coverage is free, and it seems objec- tive to the audience. If news stories do nothing more than report a candidate’s name, that is important, for name recognition by itself often wins elections. Getting free news coverage is yet another advantage that incumbents enjoy over challengers, for incumbents can command attention simply by announcing political decisions.

Advertising the Candidate. In all elections, the first objective of paid advertising is name recognition. The next is to promote the candidates by extolling their virtues. Campaign advertising also can have a negative objective: attacking one’s opponent. But name recognition is the most important. Studies show that many voters cannot recall the names of their U.S. senators or representatives but can recognize those names on a list—as on a ballot. Research- ers attribute the high reelection rate for members of Congress mainly to high name recognition (see Chapter 8).

Candidates for national office rely overwhelmingly on the electronic media, particularly television.78 In 2012, television attack ads predominated in states prior to Republican caucuses or primary elections. Most were run by Super PACs, which spent 72 percent of their money on negative ads, compared with 27 percent spent by candidates’ own campaigns.79

Using the Internet. Candidates like the Internet because it is fast, easy to use, and cheap—saving mailing costs and phone calls. Throughout 2012 the Obama and Romney campaigns differed significantly in their use of the internet to interact with the public. A study conducted just before the 2012 national party nominating conventions revealed that the Obama campaign had posted almost four times as much content online (blogs, videos, and other online material) as Romney. The gap was most apparent on Twitter, where the Obama team averaged 29 tweets per day during the pe- riod studied. The Romney campaign averaged just one daily tweet. Perhaps more significant is that the public shared, viewed, liked,

Campaigns 227

or re-tweeted the Obama materials more than twice as much as the Romney material.80

The Internet has not overtaken traditional electronic media in campaigning. A national survey in January 2012 asked respond- ents whether they ‘‘learned something’’ about the presidential campaign or candidates from various news sources. Most people named some form of television (cable news 36 percent, local TV news 32 percent, network news 26 percent), and only 25 percent named the Internet.81 Although the survey was early in the pri- mary season, 72 percent of respondents reported hearing or seeing campaign commercials, whereas only 16 percent received e-mails, 15 percent visited a candidate website, and only 6 percent fol- lowed the candidate on Twitter or Facebook. Because Internet users seek out what they want to view, the best way to reach aver- age voters is still through local broadcast television.82

6.9 Explaining Voting Choice Assess the effects of party identification, political issues, and candidate attributes on voter choice.

Why do people choose one candidate over another? The answer is not easy to determine, but there are ways to approach the question. Individual voting choices may be viewed as products of both long- term and short-term forces. Long-term forces operate throughout a series of elections, predisposing voters to choose certain types of candidates. Short-term forces are associated with particular elec- tions; they arise from a combination of the candidates and the issues at that time. Party identification is by far the most important long-term force affecting U.S. elections. The most important short- term forces are candidates’ attributes and their policy positions.

Despite frequent comments in the media about the decline of partisanship in voting behavior, party identification continues to have a substantial effect on the presidential vote, as Figure 6.4 shows. Typically, the winner holds nearly all the voters who identify with his party. The loser holds most of his fellow Democrats or Republi- cans, but some percentage defects to the winner, a product of short- term forces—the candidates’ attributes and the issues—surrounding the election. The winner usually gets most of the independents, who split disproportionately for him, also because of short-term forces.

228 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

Candidates’ attributes are especially important to voters who lack good information about a candidate’s past performance and policy stands—which means most of us. Without such informa- tion, voters search for clues about the candidates to try to predict their behavior in office.83 Some fall back on their personal beliefs about religion, gender, and race in making political judgments. Such stereotypical thinking accounts for the patterns of opposi- tion and support met by a Catholic candidate for president (John Kennedy in 1960) and a woman candidate for vice president (Ger- aldine Ferraro in 1984). In 2008 Barack Obama tested the stereo- type when he became the first African American nominee of a major party.84

Voters who choose candidates on the basis of their policies are vot- ing on the issues. Unfortunately for democratic theory, many studies of presidential elections show that issues are less important than either party identification or the candidate’s attributes when people cast their ballots. One exception occurred in 1972, when voters perceived George McGovern as too liberal for their tastes, and issue voting exceeded

FIGURE 6.4 Effect of Party Identification on the Vote, 2012

100

Pe rc

en ta

Republicans

IndependentsDemocrats 0

Voted for Obama Voted otherwise Voted for Romney

1 7

93 6

The 2012 election showed that party identification still plays a key role in voting behavior, even with an independent candidate in the contest. The chart shows the results of exit polls of thousands of voters as they left hundreds of polling places across the nation on election day. Voters were asked what party they identified with and how they voted for president. Those who identified with one of the two parties voted strongly for their party’s candidate. Source: Data from Wall Street Journal, online report, November 7, 2012, ‘‘Exit Polls: Casting Ballots in 2012.’’

Explaining Voting Choice 229

party identification in importance.85 Recent research has found an increase in policy-based voting.86 Over the last four decades, as shown in Figure 6.5, the alignment of party and ideology has increased in congressional voting such that the fit is almost perfect. Ideological overlap between parties in Congress has virtually disappeared.

Although party voting has declined somewhat since the 1950s, the relationship between voters’ positions on the issues and their party identification is clearer today. For example, Demo- cratic Party identifiers are now more likely than Republican iden- tifiers to describe themselves as liberal, and they are more likely than Republican identifiers to favor government spending for social security and health care. The more closely party identifica- tion is aligned with ideological orientation, the more sense it makes to vote by party. When citizens see differences between parties, they are less likely to vote for incumbents and more likely to justify their voting choice.87 Similarly, in the absence of detailed information about candidates’ positions on the issues, party labels are a handy indicator of those positions.88

FIGURE 6.5 Drifting Apart: Party Voting in the House of Representatives over Four Decades

90th Congress (1967–68) 100th Congress (1987–88) 111th Congress (2009–10)

M em

be rs

Liberal – Conservative

RepublicansDemocrats

Liberal – Conservative Liberal – Conservative

The three graphs illustrate how members of the House of Representatives have drawn further apart ideologically over the past four decades. The baseline estimates the representatives’ liberal-conservative ideology as computed from hundreds of roll call votes in each Congress. In the mid-1960s, some Republicans had more liberal voting records than Democrats, and some Democrats voted more as conservatives—a few being very conservative. By the late 1980s, the overlap had shrunk considerably. By 2009–10, almost all Democrats were liberals and all Republicans were conservative. Source: The graphs were kindly provided by Royce Carroll, Rice University. For the methodology, see http://voteview.com/ dwnomin.htm. Reproduced by permission.

230 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

If party identification is the most important factor in the vot- ing decision and also is resistant to short-term changes, there are definite limits to the capacity of a campaign to influence the out- come of elections.89 In a close election, however, changing a mod- est percentage of the votes means the difference between victory and defeat, so a campaign can be decisive even if it has little over- all effect. To leverage the impact of their outreach to voters, both presidential candidates in 2012 hired professional consultants to plan their ad campaigns.

6.10 Campaigns, Elections, and Parties

Explain the significance of candidate-centered election campaigns for both majoritarian and pluralist democracy.

Election campaigns today tend to be highly personalized, candidate centered, and conducted outside the control of party organizations. The increased use of electronic media, especially television, has encouraged candidates to personalize their campaign messages; at the same time, the decline of party identification has decreased the power of party-related appeals. Although the party affiliations of the candidates and the party identifications of the voters jointly explain a good deal of electoral behavior, party organizations are not central to elections in America, and this has implications for democratic government.

Parties and the Majoritarian Model According to the majoritarian model of democracy, parties link people with their government by making government responsive to public opinion. The Republican and Democratic parties fol- low the model in that they formulate different platforms and tend to pursue their announced policies when in office. The weak links in this model of responsible party government have been those that connect candidates to voters through campaigns and elections.

Campaigns, Elections, and Parties 231

You have not read much about the role of the party platform in nominating candidates, conducting campaigns, or explaining voters’ choices. Certainly a presidential candidate who wins enough convention delegates through the primaries will be comfortable with any platform that her or his delegates adopt. But House and Senate nominations are rarely fought over the party platform. And thoughts about party platforms usually are absent from campaign- ing and from voters’ minds when they cast their ballots.

Parties and the Pluralist Model The way parties in the United States operate is more in keeping with the pluralist model of democracy than with the majoritarian model. Our parties are not the basic mechanism through which citizens control their government; instead, they function as two giant interest groups. The parties’ interests lie in electing and reelecting their candidates, in enjoying the benefits of public office. In most cases, the parties care little about the positions or ideologies favored by their candidates for Congress and statewide offices.

Some scholars believe that stronger parties would strengthen democratic government even if they could not meet all the requirements of the responsible party model.90 Our parties already perform valuable functions in structuring the vote along partisan lines and proposing alternative government policies, but stronger parties might also be able to play a more important role in coordi- nating government policies after elections if the branches of gov- ernment are run by the same party. Under divided government— when different parties control different branches—strong parties may simply block coordinated policies. At present, the decentral- ized nature of the nominating process and campaigning for office offers many opportunities for organized groups outside the party to identify and back candidates who favor their interests. Although this is in keeping with pluralist theory, it is certain to frustrate majority interests on occasion.

232 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

SUMMARY 6.1 Political Parties and Their Functions

• A political party is an organization that sponsors candidates for political office under the organization’s name.

• Political parties perform four impor- tant functions: nominating candi- dates, structuring the voting choice, proposing alternate government pro- grams, and coordinating the activities of government officials.

6.2 A History of U.S. Party Politics • Factions such as the Federalists and

Antifederalists were the forerunners of modern political parties.

• Since 1860 three critical elections have taken place in which a sharp change resulted in electoral realignment: • In 1860, the northern states primar-

ily supported the Republicans; the southern states were Democratic.

• In 1896, the Republican Party was transformed into a true majority party.

• In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt led the Democratic Party to become the majority party.

• The party system may be undergoing an electoral dealignment today as party loyalties are less important to many.

6.3 The American Two-Party System • The critical election of 1860 estab-

lished Republicans and Democrats as the two major parties.

• Minor parties have been formed to express discontent with the choices offered by major parties. Four types of minor parties are bolter parties, farmer-labor parties, parties of ideolog- ical protest, and single-issue parties.

• The two-party system is maintained by political socialization and the sys- tem of single-member districts with plurality rule.

• Over the last sixty years, the member- ship of the Democratic Party has declined while the number of inde- pendents has grown.

• Proportional representation is a sys- tem by which legislative seats go to a party based on the proportion of total number of votes the party wins in an election; this type of representation favors multiparty systems.

6.4 Party Ideology and Organization • Democratic identifiers and activists

are more likely to describe themselves as liberal; Republican identifiers and activists tend to be conservative.

Summary 233

• Party differences are reflected in party platforms and statements of policies.

• Parties parallel our federal system with national and state organizations.

• Both parties are very decentralized com- pared with parties in other countries.

• Party machines were centralized organizations that dominated local politics and elections.

6.5 The Model of Responsible Party Government • The ideal role of parties in the majori-

tarian model has been formalized into four principles of responsible party government. • Parties should present clear and

coherent programs to voters. • Voters should choose candidates

according to the party programs. • The winning party should carry out

its program once in office. • Voters should hold the governing

party responsible at the next elec- tion for executing its program.

• The major U.S. parties meet the require- ments of the first and third principles.

6.6 Parties and Candidates • To be elected, candidates must con-

duct election campaigns, which are organized efforts to persuade voters and require strategies and tactics to be successful.

• Campaigning has evolved from a party-centered to a candidate-cen- tered process.

• Party voters nominate candidates through primary elections, of which there are four types: closed primaries,

open primaries, modified closed pri- maries, and modified open primaries.

• Delegates chosen through presiden- tial primaries, caucuses, and conven- tions in each state officially nominate presidential and vice-presidential candidates at a national convention. • Republican primaries were gener-

ally winner-take-all until 2012. • Democratic primaries are

proportional. • The process of nominating candi-

dates is complex and has no parallel in any other nation.

6.7 Elections • A general election occurs when all

seats in the House and one-third of the seats in the Senate are filled in an election held in early November in even-numbered years.

• A presidential candidate is chosen not by popular vote but by a majority of all the electoral votes awarded by the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

• The electoral college is the set of indi- viduals who cast electoral votes.

• Voters vote a straight ticket when they vote solely for their party candidates and split their ticket when they vote for some candidates of each party.

6.8 Campaigns • When candidates organize their

campaigns, they must consider: • the great advantages incumbents

have in elections. • campaign financing, which is heav-

ily regulated by the Federal Election

234 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

Campaign Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

• generating news coverage. • advertising. • using the Internet.

• Court decisions in 2010 allowed unlimited contributions by corpora- tions, labor unions, and individuals to influence elections as long as the expenditures were ‘‘uncoordinated’’ with candidates or parties.

• These decisions gave rise to Super PACs that raised and spent millions of dollars in the 2012 primary and general elections.

6.9 Explaining Voting Choice • Long-term forces, such as party

identification, affect voter choice in elections.

• Short-term forces, such as issues or a particular candidate’s attributes, are secondary factors in elections.

6.10 Campaigns, Elections, and Parties • Republican and Democratic parties

follow the majoritarian model as they announce policies and follow them in office.

• However, the way that nominations, campaigns, and elections are con- ducted in the United States does not link parties tightly to voters as the majoritarian model of democracy and the ideals of responsible party government posit.

• The decentralization of the party system reflects the pluralist model by allowing more input from interest groups.

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

6.1 Define political party and list the functions performed by parties in democratic government. 1. How does a political party differ

from an interest group? 2. What are the major functions of

political parties?

6.2 Outline the history of the U.S. political party system. 1. Why were the original Federalists

and Antifederalists not considered parties?

2. When and how did our current party system emerge, with Democrats competing against Republicans?

3. Why are 1860, 1896, and 1932 considered critical elections?

6.3 Explain why two parties dominate the history of American politics. 1. How do minor parties function as

safety valves? 2. How does an electoral system based

on majority representation favor two

Assessing Your Understanding 235

parties compared with one based on proportional representation?

3. What does ‘‘party identification’’ mean, how is it measured, and how stable has it been in America since the 1950s?

6.4 Compare and contrast the Demo- cratic and Republican parties on the basis of ideology and organization. 1. How do the Democratic and Republi-

can parties’ platforms differ in invok- ing the concepts of freedom, order, and equality?

2. To what extent do the national committees of the Democratic and Republican parties control their parties’ presidential campaigns?

3. What role did party machines play in politics?

6.5 Identify the principles of responsible party government and evaluate their role in majoritarian democracy. 1. What characterizes the ideal role of

parties in a majoritarian democracy? 2. Is there any evidence that the two

major American political parties ful- fill the first principle of responsible party government?

6.6 Explain the procedures followed in the nomination of both congres- sional and presidential candidates. 1. Candidates once relied on their

parties to run election campaigns; on whom do they rely today?

2. What is the difference between an ‘‘open’’ and a ‘‘closed’’ party primary? Which weakens political parties?

3. Since 1972, has the presidential nominating process become more or less open to control of party leaders?

6.7 Describe the function of the electoral college and formulate arguments for and against the electoral vote system. 1. Explain how many electoral votes

are required to select a president and why.

2. Explain why a presidential election is a federal election, not a national election.

3. Discuss the advantages and disad- vantages of electing presidents through states casting electoral votes.

6.8 Analyze the American election cam- paign process in terms of political context, financial resources, and strategies and tactics for reaching the voters. 1. Why do nonincumbent congressional

candidates have the best chance of winning in open elections?

2. Explain how the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case has led to increased spending in federal election campaigns.

3. Do presidential candidates today rely more or less on public funding of campaigns? Why?

236 Chapter 6 Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

6.9 Assess the effects of party identifi- cation, political issues, and candi- date attributes on voter choice. 1. Historically, which has the greater

effect on voting for president, party identification or the candidates’ issue positions?

2. What short-term forces might affect how people vote during an election?

6.10 Explain the significance of candidate-centered campaigns for both majoritarian and pluralist democracy. 1. How well do political parties fulfill

the expectations of the responsible model of party government?

2. Do American political parties operate more in keeping with the majoritarian or pluralist models of democracy?

Assessing Your Understanding 237

7 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Interest Groups

7.1 Interest Groups and the American Political Tradition

Identify the different roles that interest groups play in our political system.

7.2 How Interest Groups Form

Analyze interest group formation and success in terms of entrepreneurial behavior.

7.3 Interest Group Resources

Identify the various resources available to interest groups and evaluate their role in interest group performance.

7.4 Lobbying Tactics

Compare and contrast different types of lobbying.

7.5 Is the System Biased?

Evaluate whether the interest group system biases the public policymaking process.

238 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

F acebook needed a friend.The target to be befriended was the federal government. The California-based social networking company wants to be on good terms with the Con- gress and relevant administrative agencies because government policy can fundamentally affect Face- book’s profitability.

Policymakers in Washington have raised many concerns about privacy on the Internet. When you go to a website, it is common for tracking services running on the site to monitor your subsequent move- ments around the Internet and then use or sell that information for advertising or market research pur- poses. Think of how much information Facebook has about its individual users (a billion of them, each of whom has an average of 130 ‘‘friends’’ and tracks in and out of Facebook each day).

Facebook’s stated policy is that it does not share any personal information about its users with companies that advertise on the site. Nor does it sell such information to any outside parties. Nevertheless, Facebook’s potential income from

marketing members’ personal preferences and their interaction with their friends is enormous. The general advertising it already sells generates reve- nues of close to $4 billion a year.

To provide it with better access to those in government, Facebook has recently expanded its Washington presence, adding staffers and mov- ing to larger office space. It has made it a priority to hire staffers with important Washington experi- ence, some from working for Democrats and some from working for Republicans. Recent hire Robert Gibbs was President Obama’s press sec- retary. Joel Klein was a deputy chief of staff in the George W. Bush White House, and Micah Jor- dan also worked for President Bush.

Microsoft and Google, two other high-tech behemoths, ran into trouble by paying little attention to Washington. Those companies had to play catch up when they found that the government was enact- ing policies that the companies found objectionable. Both companies now have substantial Washington offices. Facebook hopes that its Washington

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239 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

lobbyists can gain the respect of policymakers and have a seat at the bar- gaining table when relevant issues arise. The company is not going to be able to stop all policies it stands against, but it can hope to influence laws and regulations as they’re being formulated. The general objective is to have an ongoing dialog with legislators and administrators.

Facebook is counting on its lobbyists to build relationships with poli- cymakers so that government’s door is always open to them. When it comes to access in Washington, it’s good to have a lot of friends.1

In this chapter, we look at the central dynamic of pluralist democ- racy: the interaction of interest groups and government. In analyz- ing the process by which interest groups and lobbyists come to speak on behalf of different groups, we focus on several questions. How do interest groups form? Whom do they represent? What tactics do they use to convince policymakers that their views are best for the nation? Is the interest group system biased to favor certain types of people? If it is, what are the consequences?

7.1 Interest Groups and the American Political Tradition

Identify the different roles that interest groups play in our political system.

An interest group is an organized body of individuals who share some political goals and try to influence public policy decisions. Among the most prominent interest groups in the United States are the AFL-CIO (representing labor union members), the American Farm Bureau Fed- eration (representing farmers), the Business Roundtable (representing big business), and Common Cause (representing citizens concerned with reforming government). Interest groups are also called lobbies, and their representatives are referred to as lobbyists.

Interest Groups: Good or Evil? A recurring debate in American politics concerns the role of inter- est groups in a democratic society. Are interest groups a threat to the well-being of the political system, or do they contribute to its

interest group An organized group of individuals that seeks to influence public policy. Also called a lobby.

lobbyist A representative of an interest group.

240 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

proper functioning? Alexis de Tocqueville, a French visitor to the United States in the early nineteenth century, marveled at the array of organizations he found. He later wrote that ‘‘Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations.’’2 Tocqueville was suggesting that the ease with which we form organizations reflects a strong democratic culture.

Yet other early observers were concerned about the consequen- ces of interest group politics. Writing in the Federalist papers, James Madison warned of the dangers of ‘‘factions,’’ the major divisions in American society. In Federalist No. 10, written in 1787, Madison said that it was inevitable that substantial differences would develop between factions and that each faction would try to persuade gov- ernment to adopt policies that favored it at the expense of others.3

Madison, however, argued against trying to suppress factions. He concluded that they can be eliminated only by removing our free- doms, because ‘‘liberty is to faction what air is to fire.’’4

Madison suggested that relief from the self-interested advo- cacy of factions should come only through controlling the effects of that advocacy. This relief would be provided by a democratic republic in which government would mediate between opposing factions. The size and diversity of the nation as well as the struc- ture of government would also ensure that even a majority faction could never come to suppress the rights of others.5

How we judge interest groups—as ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘evil’’—may depend on how strongly we are committed to freedom or equality (see Chapter 1). In a survey of the American public, almost two- thirds of those polled regarded lobbying as a threat to American de- mocracy.6 Yet as we will demonstrate, interest groups have enjoyed unparalleled growth in recent years. Apparently we distrust interest groups as a whole, but we like those that speak on our behalf.

The Roles of Interest Groups The ‘‘evil’’ side of interest group politics is all too apparent: each group pushes its own selfish interests, which, despite the group’s claims to the contrary, are not always in the best interest of other Americans. The ‘‘good’’ side of interest group advocacy may not be as clear. How do the actions of interest groups benefit our political system?7

Representation. Interest groups represent people before their government. Just as a member of Congress represents a particular

Interest Groups and the American Political Tradition 241

constituency, so does a lobbyist. A lobbyist for the National Asso- ciation of Broadcasters, for example, speaks for the interests of ra- dio and television broadcasters when Congress or a government agency is considering a relevant policy decision.

Whatever the political interest—the cement industry, social security, endangered species—it is helpful to have an active lobby operating in Washington. Members of Congress represent a mul- titude of interests, some of them conflicting, from their own dis- tricts and states. Government administrators, too, are pulled in different directions and have their own policy preferences. Interest groups articulate their members’ concerns, presenting them directly and forcefully in the political process.

Participation. Interest groups are also vehicles for political partic- ipation. They provide a means by which like-minded citizens can pool their resources and channel their energies into collective po- litical action. One farmer fighting against a new pesticide proposal in Congress probably will not get very far. Thousands of farmers united in an organization will stand a much better chance of get- ting policymakers to consider their needs.

Education. As part of their efforts to lobby and increase their mem- bership, interest groups try to educate their members, the public at large, and government officials. As we noted in the opening of this chapter, some high-tech companies were slow to set up lobbying offi- ces in Washington. As more and more issues affecting the industry received attention from government, high-tech executives began to realize that policymakers did not have a sufficient understanding of the rapidly changing industry. To gain the attention of the policy- makers they are trying to educate, interest groups need to provide them withinformation that is noteasilyobtained from other sources.8

Agenda Building. In a related role, interest groups bring new issues into the political limelight through a process called agenda building. American society has many problem areas, but public officials are not addressing all of them. Through their advocacy, interest groups make the government aware of problems and then try to see that something is done to solve them. Labor unions, for example, have played a key role in gaining attention for problems that were being systematically ignored. As Figure 7.1 shows, how- ever, union membership has declined significantly over the years.

agenda building The process by which new issues are brought into the political limelight.

242 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

As private sector employment in unionized industries has fallen, union membership among local government employees has become the largest sector of unionized workers. The union mem- bership rate among public-sector employees is now more than five times higher than among private-sector employees.9

Program Monitoring. Finally, interest groups engage in program monitoring. Lobbies follow government programs that are important to their constituents, keeping abreast of developments in Washington and in the communities where the policies are implemented. When a program is not operating as it should, concerned interest groups push administrators to resolve problems in ways that promote the group’s goals. They draw attention to agency officials’ transgressions and even file suit to stop actions they consider unlawful.

Interest groups do play some positive roles in their pursuit of self-interest. But we should not assume that the positive side of

FIGURE 7.1 Labor Pains

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Over the years, many manufacturing jobs in the United States have ‘‘migrated’’ overseas to developing countries with lower wages. That may be good for consumers (cheaper wages mean lower-cost products), but it has been bad for labor unions as workers in heavy industry have traditionally been the most likely to be unionized. Service sector workers (such as restaurant employees) have been much harder for unions to organize. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘Union Members (Annual),’’ 27 January 2012, http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/ all_nr.htm#UNION2.

program monitoring Keeping track of government programs, usually by interest groups.

Interest Groups and the American Political Tradition 243

interest groups neatly balances the negative. Questions remain about the overall influence of interest groups on public policy- making. Are the effects of interest group advocacy being con- trolled, as Madison believed they should be?

7.2 How Interest Groups Form Analyze interest group formation and success in terms of entrepreneurial behavior.

Do some people form interest groups more easily than others? Are some factions represented while others are not? Pluralists assume that when a political issue arises, interest groups with rele- vant policy concerns begin to lobby. Policy conflicts are ultimately resolved through bargaining and negotiation between the involved organizations and the government. Unlike Madison, who dwelled on the potential for harm by factions, pluralists believe that inter- est groups are a good thing: they further democracy by broaden- ing representation within the system.

Disturbance Theory An important part of pluralism is the belief that new interest groups form as a matter of course when the need arises. David Truman outlines this idea in his classic work, The Governmental Process.10

He says that when individuals are threatened by change, they band together in an interest group. For example, if government threatens to regulate a particular industry, the firms that compose that indus- try will start a trade association to protect their financial well-being. Truman sees a direct cause-and-effect relationship: existing groups stand in equilibrium until some type of disturbance (such as falling wages or declining farm prices) forces new groups to form.

Truman’s disturbance theory paints an idealized portrait of in- terest group politics in America. In real life, people do not auto- matically organize when they are adversely affected by some disturbance. A good example of such ‘‘nonorganization’’ can be found in Herbert Gans’s book The Urban Villagers.11 Gans, a soci- ologist, moved into the West End, a low-income neighborhood in Boston, during the late 1950s. The neighborhood had been

244 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

targeted for urban redevelopment. This meant that the people liv- ing there, primarily poor Italian Americans who very much liked their neighborhood, had to move. The people of the West End barely put up a fight to save their neighborhood. Despite the threat of eviction, residents remained largely unorganized. Soon they were moved out, and buildings were demolished.

Disturbance theory fails to explain what happened (or did not happen) in Boston’s West End. An adverse condition or change does not automatically result in the formation of an interest group. What, then, is the missing ingredient? Political scientist Robert Salisbury says that the quality of interest group leadership may be the crucial factor.12

Interest Group Entrepreneurs Salisbury likens the role of an interest group leader to the role of an entrepreneur in the business world. A business entrepreneur is some- one who starts new enterprises, usually at considerable personal fi- nancial risk. Salisbury says that an interest group entrepreneur, or organizer, succeeds or fails for many of the same reasons a business entrepreneur succeeds or fails. The interest group entrepreneur must have something attractive to ‘‘market’’ in order to convince people to join the group.13 Potential members must be persuaded that the ben- efits of joining outweigh the costs.

The development of the United Farm Workers shows the im- portance of leadership in the formation of an interest group. Members of this union are men and women who pick crops in California and other parts of the country. They are predominantly poor, uneducated Mexican Americans. Throughout the twentieth century, various unions tried to organize the pickers, and for many reasons—including distrust of union organizers, intimida- tion by employers, and lack of money to pay union dues—all failed. Then in 1962, the late Cesar Chavez, a poor Mexican American, began to crisscross the Central Valley of California, talking to workers and planting the idea of a union.

After a strike against grape growers failed in 1965, Chavez changed his tactics of trying to build a strong union merely by recruiting more and more members. Copying the civil rights movement, Chavez and his followers marched 250 miles to the California state capitol in Sacramento to demand help from the governor. This march and other nonviolent tactics began to draw

interest group entrepreneur An interest group organizer.

How Interest Groups Form 245

sympathy from people who had no direct involvement in farm- ing.14 With his stature increased by that support, Chavez called for a grape boycott, and a small but significant number of Ameri- cans stopped buying grapes. The growers, who had bitterly fought the union, were hurt economically. Under this and other eco- nomic pressures, they eventually agreed to recognize and bargain with the United Farm Workers.

Who Is Being Organized? Cesar Chavez’s success is a good example of the importance of leadership in the formation of a new interest group. But another important element is at work in the formation of interest groups. The residents of Boston’s West End and the farm workers in Cali- fornia were economically poor, uneducated or undereducated, and politically inexperienced—factors that made it extremely diffi- cult to organize them into interest groups. If they had been well- off, well educated, and politically experienced, they probably would have banded together immediately. People who have money, education, and knowledge of how the system operates are more confident that their actions can make a difference.15

Every existing interest group has its own history, but the three variables just discussed can help explain why groups may or may not become fully organized. First, a disturbance or adverse change can heighten people’s awareness that they need political represen- tation. However, awareness alone does not ensure that an organi- zation will form, and organizations may form in the absence of a disturbance. Second, the quality of leadership is critical to the or- ganization of interest groups. Third, the higher the socioeconomic level of potential members, the more likely they are to know the value of interest groups and to join them. Finally, not all interest groups have real memberships. In this sense ‘‘group’’ is a misno- mer; some lobbying organizations are institutions that lack mem- bers. Universities, hospitals, and corporations don’t have members but are well represented before government.

The question that remains, then, is how well various opposing interests are represented. Or, in terms of Madison’s premise in Federalist No. 10, are the effects of faction—in this case, the advantages of the wealthy and well educated—being controlled? Before we can answer this question, we need to turn our attention to the resources available to interest groups.

246 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

7.3 Interest Group Resources Identify the various resources available to interest groups and evaluate their role in interest group performance.

The strengths, capabilities, and influence of an interest group depend in large part on its resources. A group’s most significant resources are its members, lobbyists, and money, including funds that can be contributed to political candidates. The sheer quantity of a group’s resources is important, and so is the wisdom with which its resources are used.

Members One of the most valuable resources an interest group can have is a large, politically active membership. If a lobbyist is trying to per- suade a legislator to support a particular bill, having a large group of members who live in the legislator’s home district or state is tremendously helpful. A legislator who has not already taken a firm position on a bill might be swayed by the knowledge that in- terest groups are keeping voters back home informed of his or her votes on key issues.

Members give an organization not only the political muscle to influence policy but also financial resources. The more money an orga- nization can collect through dues and contributions, the more people it can hire to lobby government officials and monitor policymaking. Greater resources also allow the organization to communicate with its members more and to inform them better. And funding helps the group maintain its membership and attract new members.

Maintaining Membership. To keep the members it already has, an organization must persuade them that it is a strong, effective advocate. Most lobbies use a newsletter to keep members apprised of developments in government that relate to issues of concern and to inform them about steps the organization is taking to pro- tect their interests.

Business, professional, and labor associations generally have an easier time retaining members than do citizen groups—groups

Interest Group Resources 247

organized to address issues not directly related to their members’ jobs. In many companies, corporate membership in a trade group constitutes only a minor business expense. Labor unions are helped in states that require workers to affiliate with the union that is the bargaining agent with their employer. In contrast, citi- zen groups base their appeal on members’ ideological sentiments. These groups face a difficult challenge: issues can blow hot and cold, and a particularly hot issue one year may not hold the same interest to citizens the next.

Attracting New Members. All membership groups are con- stantly looking for new members to expand their resources and clout. Groups that rely on ideological appeals have a special prob- lem because the competition in most policy areas is intense. Peo- ple concerned about the environment, for example, can join a seemingly infinite number of local, state, and national groups that lobby on environmental issues. Groups try to distinguish them- selves from competitors by concentrating on a few key issues and developing a reputation as the most involved and knowledgeable about them.

The Internet has become an increasingly important means of soliciting new members. Compared to direct mail—an interest group sending a letter and supporting material via old-fashioned ‘‘snail mail’’—e-mail is much cheaper. E-mail directed to pros- pects may entice them to go the organization’s website to learn more and, possibly, make a contribution. Interest groups also use social networking sites like Facebook for fundraising. These are typically ideological groups, and many try to tap the idealism of the generally youthful clientele of networking sites.

The Free-Rider Problem. The need for aggressive marketing by interest groups suggests that getting people who sympathize with a group’s goals to support the group with contributions is difficult. Economists call this difficulty the free-rider problem, but we might call it, more colloquially, the ‘‘let-George-do-it’’ problem.16

Funding for public television stations illustrates this dilemma. Only a fraction of those who watch public television contribute on a regular basis. Why? Because a free rider has the same access to public television as a contributor.

The same problem troubles interest groups. When a lobbying group wins benefits, those benefits are often not restricted to

free-rider problem The situation in which people benefit from the activities of an organization (such as an interest group) but do not contribute to those activities.

248 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

members of the organization. For instance, if the U.S. Chamber of Commerce convinces Congress to enact a policy benefiting busi- ness, all businesses will benefit, not just those that pay member- ship dues to the lobbying group. Thus, some executives may feel that their corporation does not need to spend the money to join the Chamber of Commerce, even though they might benefit from the group’s efforts; they prefer to let others shoulder the financial burden.

The free-rider problem increases the difficulty of attracting paying members, but it does not make the task impossible.17

Nevertheless, millions of Americans contribute to interest groups because they are concerned about an issue or feel a responsibility to help organizations that work on their behalf. Also, many organ- izations offer membership benefits that have nothing to do with politics or lobbying. Trade associations, for example, are a source of information about industry trends and effective management practices; they organize conventions at which members can learn, socialize, and occasionally find new customers or suppliers.

Lobbyists Interest groups use part of the money they raise to pay lobbyists, who represent the organizations before the government. Lobbyists make sure that people in government know what their members want and that their organizations know what the government is doing.18 Lobbyists can be full-time employees of an interest group or employees of public relations or law firms hired on retainer. When hiring a lobbyist, an interest group looks for someone who knows his or her way around Washington. Karen Ignagni, the chief lobbyist for America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, was at the center of the negotiations over the Obama administration’s health reform proposal. Ignagni’s experience, knowledge of health care, and bargaining skills made her a formi- dable presence as Congress struggled to formulate a bill that could pass. The stakes for the insurance companies were enormous: a government-run insurance plan could cost them customers. Her stature is such that she is paid $1.6 million annually.19

So lucrative is lobbying that many representatives and sena- tors are drawn to it when they leave Congress. After one recent session, one study tracked the subsequent occupation of seventy- seven members who were defeated for reelection or left voluntarily.

trade association An organization that represents firms within a particular industry.

Interest Group Resources 249

Of those, thirty-two (42 percent) had taken jobs with a firm that lob- bies.20 One of those was Christo- pher Dodd, a former Democratic Senator from Connecticut. Dodd was hired by the Motion Picture Association of America, which rep- resents six major Hollywood stu- dios. His thirty-six-year career in Congress gave him innumerable contacts around Washington; he’s someone who gets his phone calls returned.21

The stereotype of lobbyists por- trays them as people of dubious ethics because they trade on their connections and may hand out campaign donations as well as raise money for legislators. However, the lobbyist’s primary job is not to trade on favors or campaign contri- butions but to pass on information to their employers and to policy- makers. Investment firms, for example, need immediate knowl- edge of what government is con-

templating in terms of policy changes as it can affect the value of their holdings.22 Likewise, lobbyists provide government officials and their staffs with a constant flow of data that support their organizations’ policy goals. Lobbyists also try to build a compel- ling case for their goals, showing that the ‘‘facts’’ dictate that a particular change be made or avoided. What lobbyists are really trying to do, of course, is to convince policymakers that their data deserve more attention and are more accurate than the data pre- sented by other lobbyists.

Political Action Committees One of the organizational resources that can make a lobbyist’s job easier is a political action committee (PAC). PACs pool campaign contributions from group members and donate those funds to

You Got Problems? Call Us

If your organization or cause needs representation in Washington, there’s no shortage of free-standing lobbying shops and law firms ready to help. These partners in the lobbying firm the c2 Group advertise themselves as offering a ‘‘broad range of bipartisan government affairs consulting services.’’ The firm’s clients include Home Depot, PepsiCo, Porsche Cars North America, and the National Council of Coal Lessors.

political action committee (PAC) An organization that pools campaign contributions from group members and donates those funds to candidates for political office.

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250 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

candidates for political office. Under federal law, a PAC can give as much as $5,000 to a candidate for Congress for each separate election. There are well over 4,000 PACs contributing to congres- sional candidates, and in the 2009–2010 campaign cycle, they gave over $430 million to candidates for the House and Senate.23

A PAC can be the campaign-wing affiliate of an existing inter- est group or a wholly independent or nonconnected group. Super PACs are organized to raise and spend money independently in a campaign and are discussed in Chapter 6. Although most PACs give less than $50,000 in total contributions during a two-year election cycle, almost 1,500 spent more than $100,000 during the 2009–2010 election cycle, and 239 spent over $1 million.24 For example, the National Association of Realtors’ PAC contributed $3.79 million to candidates. It was in good company: there were over twenty PACs whose contributions to candidates exceeded $2 million in that election cycle.25

Why do interest groups form PACs? Lobbyists believe that campaign contributions help significantly when they are trying to gain an audience with a member of Congress. Members of Con- gress and their staffers generally are eager to meet with represen- tatives of their constituencies, but their time is limited. However, a member of Congress or a staffer would find it difficult to turn down a lobbyist’s request for a meeting if the PAC of the lobby- ist’s organization had made a significant campaign contribution in the previous election.

Typically, PACs, like most other interest groups, are highly pragmatic organizations; pushing a particular political philosophy takes second place to achieving immediate policy goals.26 During the 2009–2010 election cycle, corporate PACs as a group gave 90 percent of their contributions to incumbents, split almost evenly between parties.27 The goal of bipartisan contributions is to enhance access, no matter who is in power. Labor unions are an exception to this, donating almost exclusively to Democrats, whether they be incumbents, challengers, or open seat candi- dates.28 Nonconnected PACs are highly ideological and tend to give to either conservatives or liberals.

Critics charge that PAC contributions influence public policy, yet political scientists have not been able to document any consist- ent link between campaign donations and the way members of Congress vote on the floor of the House and Senate.29 The prob- lem is this: Do PAC contributions influence votes in Congress, or

Interest Group Resources 251

are they really just rewards for ideologically like-minded legisla- tors who would vote for the group’s interests anyway? Some so- phisticated research shows that PAC donations do seem to influence what goes on in congressional committees.30

7.4 Lobbying Tactics Compare and contrast different types of lobbying.

Keep in mind that lobbying extends beyond the legislative branch. Groups can seek help from the courts and administrative agencies as well as from Congress. Moreover, interest groups may have to shift their focus from one branch of government to another. After a bill becomes a law, for example, a group that lobbied for the legislation will probably try to influence the administrative agency responsible for implementing the new law. Some policy decisions are left unresolved by legislation and are settled through regula- tions. Interest groups try to influence policy through the courts as well, though litigation can be expensive and opportunities to go to court may be narrowly structured.

We discuss three types of lobbying tactics here: those aimed at policymakers and implemented by interest group representatives (direct lobbying), those that involve group members (grassroots lobbying), and those directed toward the public (information cam- paigns). We also examine the use of cooperative efforts of interest groups to influence government through coalitions.

Direct Lobbying Direct lobbying relies on personal contact with policymakers. This interaction takes place when a lobbyist meets with a member of Congress, an agency official, or a staff member. In their meet- ings, lobbyists usually convey their arguments by providing data about a specific issue. If a lobbyist from, for example, a chamber of commerce meets with a member of Congress about a bill the organization backs, the lobbyist does not say (or even suggest), ‘‘Vote for this bill, or our people in the district will vote against you in the next election.’’ Instead, the lobbyist might say, ‘‘If this bill is passed, we’re going to see hundreds of new jobs created

direct lobbying Attempts to influence a legislator’s vote through personal contact with the legislator.

252 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

back home.’’ The representative has no trouble at all figuring out that a vote for the bill can help in the next election.

Personal lobbying is a day-in, day-out process. Lobbyists must maintain contact with congressional and agency staffers, constantly pro- viding them with pertinent data. In their meetings with policymakers, lobbyists also try to frame issues in terms most beneficial to their point of view. Is a gun control bill before Congress a policy that would make streets and schools safer from vio- lent individuals who should not have access to guns, or is it a bill aimed at depriving law-abiding citi- zens of their constitutional right to bear arms?31 Research has shown that once an issue emerges, it is very difficult for lobbyists to reframe it— that is, to influence journalists and policymakers alike to view the issue in a new light.32 Testifying at com- mittee hearings is a tactic that allows the interest group to put its views on record and make them widely known. Although testify- ing is one of the most visible parts of lobbying, it is generally considered window dressing, as it usually does little by itself to persuade members of Congress.

Another direct but somewhat different approach is legal advo- cacy. Using this tactic, a group tries to achieve its policy goals through litigation. Claiming some violation of law, a group will file a lawsuit and ask that a judge make a ruling that will benefit the organization. When the Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to permit coal companies to blast off the top of mountains to facilitate their mining, environmental groups went to court alleging a violation of the Clean Water Act. The judge agreed, since the coal companies’ actions would leave waste and rock deposits in adjoining streams.33

Sanchez Reaches Out

Usually we think of lobbying as a process in which groups approach a government official. But sometimes the reverse is true: a policymaker might approach an interest group to try to gain its support for a specific proposal or just to promote a good working relationship. Here, Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) works the room at a meeting of the Hispanic Leadership Summit.

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Lobbying Tactics 253

Grassroots Lobbying Grassroots lobbying involves an interest group’s rank-and-file members and may also include people outside the organization who sympathize with its goals. Grassroots tactics, such as letter- writing campaigns, telephone calls, and protests, are often used in conjunction with direct lobbying by Washington representa- tives. Policymakers are more concerned about what a lobbyist says when they know that constituents are really watching their decisions.

The Internet facilitates mobilization; an interest group office can communicate instantaneously with its members and followers through e-mail or social networking tools like Twitter at virtually no cost. It also makes it easy for interest groups to communicate with each other, easing some of the costs in time and money to forming and maintaining coalitions.

If people in govern- ment seem unresponsive to conventional lobbying tactics, a group might resort to some form of political protest. A protest or demonstration, such as picketing or marching, is designed to attract media attention to an issue. The main drawback to protest- ing is that policymaking is a long-term, incremental process, but a demonstra- tion is only short-lived. It is difficult to sustain anger and activism among group supporters—to keep large numbers of people involved in protest after protest. A notable excep- tion was the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s, which were sus- tained over a long period.

Angry and Organized

Over the past few years, conservatives have become increasingly concerned about illegal immigration. Many conservative citizen groups have been highly vocal in trying to attract attention to the problem, such as these demonstrators in Denver. This group went out onto the streets on April 15, the day taxes are due, to add emphasis to their argument that illegal immigration has economic consequences.

grassroots lobbying Lobbying activities performed by rank-and-file interest group members and would-be members.

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254 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

The protests were a major factor in stirring public opinion, which hastened passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Information Campaigns Interest groups generally feel that public backing strengthens their lobbying efforts. They believe that they will get that back- ing if they can make the public aware of their position and the evidence supporting it. To this end, interest groups launch information campaigns, organized efforts to gain public back- ing by bringing a group’s views to the public’s attention. Vari- ous means are used. Some are directed at the larger public, others at smaller audiences with long-standing interest in an issue.

Public relations is one information campaign tactic. A pub- lic relations campaign might send speakers to meetings in vari- ous parts of the country, produce pamphlets and handouts, take out newspaper advertising, or create websites. Of course, there is no guarantee that any particular effort will succeed. When cell phone service provider AT&T took steps to take over T-Mobile, the Department of Justice objected on antitrust grounds. If the AT&T and T-Mobile merger went through, 75 percent of the cell phone market would be controlled by just two companies, Verizon and the newly expanded AT&T. AT&T launched a public relations campaign with ads in the Washington Post and Washington-based political publications. Despite spending $40 million in advertising related to the merger, AT&T failed to change the government’s mind and abandoned its effort to absorb T-Mobile.34

Sponsoring research is another way interest groups press their cases. When a group believes that evidence has not been fully developed in a certain area, it may commission research on the subject. In the controversy over illegal immigration, studies have proliferated as interest groups push their positions forward. Lob- bies on opposing sides of the issue have publicized research on matters such as the impact of illegal immigration on the overall economy, whether immigrants drive down wages, and whether undocumented aliens take jobs away from citizens who would otherwise fill them.

information campaign An organized effort to gain public backing by bringing a group’s views to public attention.

Lobbying Tactics 255

Information campaigns may affect public opinion, which, pre- sumably, will influence policymakers. However, research has shown that the public’s priorities are not systematically reflected in the lob- bying priorities of interest groups. Figure 7.2 shows the responses of

Public’s agenda Lobbying agenda

Percent of issue mentions 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Foreign affairs

Social welfare

Economy

Labor

Crime

Energy

Education

Science/technology

Defense

Environment

Health care

Civil rights

Foreign trade

Finance

Transportation

FIGURE 7.2 The Lobbying Agenda vs. the Public’s Agenda The figures for the lobbying agenda come from a research team of political scientists who interviewed a random sample of lobbyists and asked them what issue they were working on at that time. Corresponding data for the public for the same year come from the Gallup Poll, which asked, ‘‘What is the most important problem facing the country today?’’ This is adapted from David C. Kimball, Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnacki, and Beth L. Leech’s paper, ‘‘Who Cares About the Lobbying Agenda?’’ that was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington, September, 2011.

256 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

citizens when the Gallup Poll asked them what they thought was the most important problem facing the United States. Those responses show little relationship to the issues that lobbyists were working on at the same time.

Coalition Building A final aspect of lobbying strategy is coalition building, in which several organizations band together for the purpose of lobbying. Such joint efforts conserve or make more effective use of the resources of groups with similar views. Most coalitions are infor- mal, ad hoc arrangements that exist only for the purpose of lobby- ing on a single issue.

Coalitions form most often among groups that work in the same policy area and have similar constituencies, such as environ- mental groups or feminist groups. Yet coalitions often extend beyond organizations with similar constituencies and similar out- looks. Some business groups support the same goals as environ- mental lobbies, because doing so is in their self-interest.35 For example, companies in the business of cleaning up toxic waste sites have worked with environmental groups.36 Lobbyists see an advantage in having a diverse coalition. In the words of one lob- byist, ‘‘You can’t do anything in this town without a coalition. I mean the first question [from policymakers] is, ‘Who supports this?’’’37

7.5 Is the System Biased? Evaluate whether the interest group system biases the public policymaking process.

As we noted in Chapter 1, our political system is more pluralist than majoritarian. Policymaking is determined more by the inter- action of groups with government than by elections. Indeed, among Western democracies, the United States is one of the most pluralistic governments (see ‘‘Compared with What? Pluralism Worldwide’’ on p. 258). How, then, do we determine whether policy decisions in a pluralist system are fair?

coalition building The banding together of several interest groups for the purpose of lobbying.

Is the System Biased? 257

Compared with What?

Pluralism Worldwide A study of democracies around the world measured the degree to which interest groups operated independently of any formal link to government. Interest groups in political systems with low scores in this chart (like Nor- way) run the risk of being co-opted by policymakers because of their part- nerships with government. These countries tend to have fewer groups, but those groups are expected to work with government in a coordinated fash- ion. High scores indicate that the interest groups in those systems are clearly in a competitive position with other groups. Thus, countries with high scores (such as the United States) are the most pluralistic.

Source: Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 177. Copyright ª 1999 Yale University Press. Reproduced by permission.

Critical Thinking How would American politics be different if specific interest groups were recognized by the government as authoritative voices to speak on behalf of their industry, interest, or segment of society? What advantages and disadvantages would that create, and for whom?

2.50 0.5

Index of interest group competitiveness

1.0 1.5 2.0 3.0 3.5 4.0

Canada Greece United Kingdom United States Spain Italy Ireland France Australia Costa Rica India Venezuela Germany Japan Netherlands Israel Denmark Austria Sweden Norway

258 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

There is no precisely agreed-on formula, but most people would agree with the following two simple notions. First, all signifi- cant interests in the population should be adequately represented by lobbying groups. Second, government should listen to the views of all major interests as it develops policy. We should also recog- nize that elections inject some of the benefits of majoritarianism into our system, because the party that wins an election will have a larger voice in the making of public policy than its opponent.

Membership Patterns Who is best represented in the interest group system?38 Those who work in business or in a profession, those with a high level of education, and those with high incomes are the most likely to belong to interest groups. Even middle-income people are much more likely to join interest groups than people who are poor.

One survey of interest groups is revealing, finding that ‘‘the 10 percent of adults who work in an executive, managerial, or admin- istrative capacity are represented by 82 percent’’ of the organiza- tions that in one way or another engage in advocacy on economic issues. In contrast, ‘‘organizations of or for the economically needy are a rarity.’’ In terms of membership in interest groups, there is a profound bias in favor of those who are well off financially.39

Citizen Groups Before we reach the conclusion that the interest group system is biased, we should examine another set of data. The actual popu- lation of interest groups in Washington surely reflects a class bias in interest group membership, but that bias may be modified in an important way. Some interest groups derive support from sources other than their membership. Thus, although the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and the Children’s Defense Fund have no welfare recipients among their members, they are highly respected Washington lobbies working on the problems of poor people. Poverty groups gain their financial support from philan- thropic foundations, government grants, corporations, and weal- thy individuals. Such groups have played an important role in influencing policy on poor people’s programs. In short, although the poor are seriously underrepresented in our system, it is not as bad as membership patterns suggest.

Is the System Biased? 259

Another part of the problem of membership bias has to do with free riders. The interests that are most affected by free riders are broad societal problems, such as the environment and con- sumer protection, in which literally everyone can be considered as having a stake in the outcome. The greater the number of poten- tial members of a group, the more likely it is that individuals will decide to be free riders, because they believe that plenty of others can offer financial support to the organization.

Environmental and consumer interests have been chronically under-represented in the Washington interest group community. In the 1960s, however, a strong citizen group movement emerged.40

Citizen groups are lobbying organizations built around policy con- cerns unrelated to members’ vocational interests. People who join Environmental Defense do so because they care about the environ- ment, not because it lobbies on issues related to their profession. If that group fights for stricter pollution control requirements, it does not further the financial interests of its members. The benefits to members are largely ideological and aesthetic. In contrast, a corpo- ration fighting the same stringent standards is trying to protect its economic interests.

Business Mobilization Business has always been well represented in Washington but it was stimulated to mobilize further by the growth of government regulation. After the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other regulatory agencies were created in the 1970s and later, many more companies found they were affected by federal regulations. And many corporations found that they were frequently reacting to policies that were al- ready made rather than participating in their making. They saw representation in Washington—where the policymakers are—as critical if they were to obtain information on pending government actions soon enough to act on it. Finally, the competitive nature of business lobbying fueled the increase in business advocacy in Washington. This competition exists because legislation and regu- latory decisions never seem to apply uniformly to all businesses; rather, they affect one type of business or one industry more than others.

citizen group Lobbying organization built around policy concerns unrelated to members’ vocational interests.

260 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

The health-care industry is a case in point. Through reim- bursement formulas for Medicare, Medicaid, and other health- care programs funded by Washington, the national government limits what providers can charge. As government regulation has become an increasingly important factor in determining health- care profits, more and more health-care trade associations and professional associations have opened offices in Washington so that they can make more of an effort to influence the govern- ment. Today there are 3,000 registered lobbyists in Washington working for health-care entities. Aggregate spending by health- care lobbies in 2010 was roughly $500 million. Hundreds of millions more were contributed to candidates for Congress by health-care concerns.41

The advantages of business are enormous. As Figure 7.3 illustrates, there are more business lobbies (corporations and trade associations) than any other type. Professional associations, such as the American Dental Association, tend to represent busi- ness interests as well. Beyond the numbers of groups are the superior resources of business including lobbyists, researchers, campaign contributions, and well-connected CEOs. Whereas citi- zen groups can try to mobilize their individual members, trade associations can mobilize the corporations that are members of the organization.

Citizen groups 26%

Professional associations 11%

Unions 6%

Other 21%

Business 35%

FIGURE 7.3 Who Lobbies? One large-scale study of lobbying in Washington documented the pattern of participation by interest groups on close to one hundred issues before the federal government. Business-related groups (corporations and trade associations) made up the largest segment of all lobbies, while citizen groups constituted roughly a quarter of all organizations. Source: Frank R. Baumgartner Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnacki, David C. Kimball, and Beth L. Leech, Advocacy and Policy Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), p. 9. Copyright ª 2009 University of Chicago Press. Reproduced by permission.

Is the System Biased? 261

Yet the resource advantages of business make it easy to overlook the obstacles business faces in the political arena. To begin with, business is often divided, with companies and indus- tries competing with one another. Cable companies and phone companies have frequently tangled over who will have access to what markets. And even if an industry is unified, it may face strong opposition from labor or citizen groups—sectors that have substantial resources too, even if they do not match up to businesses.42

Reform In an economic system marked by great differences in income, great differences in the degree to which people are organized are inevitable. Moreover, as Madison foresaw, limiting interest group activity is difficult without limiting fundamental freedoms. The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to petition their government, and lobbying, at its most basic level, is a form of organized petitioning.

Still, if it is felt that the advantages of some groups are so great that they affect the equality of people’s opportunity to be heard in the political system, then restrictions on interest group behavior can be justified on the ground that the disadvantaged must be protected. Pluralist democracy is justified on exactly these grounds: all constituencies must have the opportunity to organize, and the competition between groups as they press their case before policymakers must be fair.

Some critics charge that a system of campaign finance that relies so heavily on PACs undermines our democratic system. PAC donations come disproportionately from business and pro- fessional interests. It is not merely a matter of wealthy interest groups showering incumbents with donations; members of Con- gress aggressively solicit donations from PACs. Although observ- ers disagree on whether PAC money actually influences policy outcomes, agreement is widespread that PAC donations give donors better access to members of Congress.

A serious scandal surrounding a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff (who has since served time in prison) prompted Congress to tighten its ethical rules in 2007. This legislation bans gifts, travel, and meals paid for by lobbyists. Lobbyists must also now disclose

262 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

campaign contributions that they solicit on behalf of candidates.43

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that government may not prohibit corporations from spending money in candidate elections.44 The Citizens United ruling has facilitated the formation of so-called Super PACs with unlimited independent expenditures. Huge contributions to these organizations were used on behalf of candidates in the 2012 election. Concern has emerged that the large contributions to the Super PACs by corporations and unions will add to the advantages they already have in the political process. Upon taking office in 2009, President Obama promised to ‘‘change the culture of Washington’’ in terms of the cozy relationship between lobbyists and policymakers. Though his words may have been sincere, four years later the culture remained unchanged.45

SUMMARY 7.1 Interest Groups and the American

Political Tradition • Interest groups are organized bodies

of individuals who share some politi- cal goals and try to influence public policy decisions.

• Lobbyists represent interest groups, often called lobbies.

• Most Americans distrust interest groups, yet interest groups have grown in recent years.

• The key roles played by interest groups are representation, participa- tion, education, agenda building, and program monitoring.

7.2 How Interest Groups Form • Three variables help explain how

interest groups form:

• When individuals are threatened by change, they may band together in an interest group. This is the premise of disturbance theory.

• In practice, an interest group entre- preneur must convince potential members to join.

• The higher the socioeconomic level of potential members, the more likely they are to band together.

7.3 Interest Group Resources • Members are a valuable resource. In-

terest groups must work to maintain and recruit members while trying to avoid the free-rider problem.

• Among the most important resources for interest groups are well-connected lobbyists.

Summary 263

• Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions can facilitate access to policymakers.

7.4 Lobbying Tactics • Direct lobbying relies on personal con-

tact with policymakers in the legisla- tive and executive branches. It also includes filing suits in the legal system.

• Grassroots lobbying involves rank- and-file members communicating with policymakers through letter-writing campaigns, phone calls, e-mail, and political protests.

• Information campaigns include public relations efforts and sponsoring research.

• Coalition building combines the resources of several organizations.

7.5 Is the System Biased? • In a pluralist democracy,

government should listen to the views of all major interests as it develops policy.

• Strong growth in the citizen group sector has brought more effective rep- resentation on behalf of environmen- tal and consumer interests.

• Business-related groups are the most prevalent form of interest group in Washington, possessing significant organization and financial advantages.

• Little meaningful reform has been enacted to change the status quo of interest group politics.

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

7.1 Identify the different roles that inter- est groups play in our political system. 1. On balance, are interest groups ben-

eficial to the political system or are they harmful?

2. What roles do interest groups play in American politics?

7.2 Analyze interest group formation and success in terms of entrepre- neurial behavior. 1. What is an interest group

‘‘entrepreneur’’?

2. What factors influence the success of an effort to organize a new interest group?

7.3 Identify the various resources avail- able to interest groups and evaluate their role in interest group performance. 1. What is the ‘‘free rider’’ problem? 2. How are members attracted to volun-

tarily join a group? 3. In our governmental system, what

role do lobbyists play?

264 Chapter 7 Interest Groups

7.4 Compare and contrast different types of lobbying. 1. How does direct lobbying differ from

grassroots lobbying? 2. How do information campaigns

work? 3. Why do interest groups form

coalitions?

7.5 Evaluate whether the interest group system biases the public policymak- ing process. 1. What advantages does business

possess in the lobbying world? 2. Are citizen groups effective counter-

weights to business groups? 3. Overall, is the interest group system

a biased one?

Assessing Your Understanding 265

8 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Congress

8.1 The Origin and Powers of Congress

Explain the structure and powers of Congress as envisioned by the framers and enumerated in the Constitution.

8.2 Electing the Congress

Analyze the factors that affect the way voters elect members of Congress.

8.3 How Issues Get on the Congressional Agenda

Describe the ways in which issues get on the congressional agenda.

8.4 Committees and the Lawmaking Process

Differentiate among the types of congressional committees and evaluate the role of the committee system in the legislative process.

8.5 Leaders and Followers in Congress

Identify the congressional leadership structure and assess the rules that influence congressional operations.

8.6 The Legislative Environment

Identify the components of the legislative environment and assess their impact on decision making in Congress.

8.7 The Dilemma of Representation: Trustees or

Delegates?

Debate whether members of Congress should vote the majority views of their constituents or their perception of the public interest.

8.8 Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy

Assess the elements that characterize Congress as a pluralist or a majoritarian system.

266 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

I n the 2010 congressional elections, Republi-cans scored a stunning victory, taking sixty- three seats from Democrats and gaining control of the House of Representatives. Not since 1938 had a sitting president’s party suffered such losses during a midterm election.1 Republi- cans also cut the Democratic majority in the Sen- ate to fifty-one seats, down from fifty-five (though the chamber’s two independents generally side with the Democrats). Republicans claimed a mandate from the people to bring change to Washington. In theory, at least, that’s how majoritarian government should work: the poli- cies supported by the majority party are expected to become a reality. In practice, how- ever, the majority often encounters many obstacles in its way.2

With the presidency and the Senate con- trolled by Democrats, Republicans leaders needed to convince enough members of their own party to compromise with Democrats if any of their policies would ever get signed into law.

Within weeks of becoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-Ohio) had to craft and pass a bill that would fund the government’s activities for the remainder of the fiscal year. Because many of the new Republican members of Congress had aligned themselves with the tea party and campaigned on a pledge to cut spend- ing, they opposed his plan, claiming that it did not slash spending enough.

Boehner and other GOP leaders found them- selves in a bind. Any bill favored by their Republi- can majority would surely get voted down in the Senate. If they crafted a bill that would pass in the Senate, their own members would block it in the House. Yet if no bill made it out of Congress, the government would shut down due to a lack of funds. When the government shuts down, pub- lic employees do not get paid, social security and student work study checks do not get mailed out, student loan processing stops, passport and visa applications cannot be reviewed, national parks and museums close, and more.

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267 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

In the end, GOP leaders sided with their new members, insisting on steep cuts to government spending. The situation was ultimately resolved a mere two hours before the government would have had to shut down. Despite the significant spending cuts in the final proposal, fifty-nine Republican representatives still voted against it; the proposal passed only because enough Democrats supported it.3

Why was it so difficult for Boehner to generate enough support from within his own party to create legislation that could make it through the lawmaking process? First, divisions clearly exist within the Republican Party on many issues, including the notion of compro- mise itself. Second, members of Congress answer to their constituents as well as to their party leadership. Finally, the House is embedded in a system of separation of powers, which means that even with enough votes to move legislation through the House, the chances of bills becoming law are low if the other branches are controlled by another party. Being the majority party rarely means that the party has smooth sailing in enacting its agenda.

In this chapter we examine majoritarian politics through the prism of the two congressional parties, looking at how the forces of pluralism work against majoritarian policymaking. We then explore the procedures that facilitate bargaining and compromise in the Congress. We also discuss Congress’s relations with the ex- ecutive branch and analyze how the legislative process affects pub- lic policy. A starting point is to ask how the framers envisioned Congress.

8.1 The Origin and Powers of Congress

Explain the structure and powers of Congress as envisioned by the framers and enumerated in the Constitution.

The framers of the Constitution wanted to prevent the concentra- tion of power in the hands of a few, but they also wanted to create a union strong enough to overcome the weaknesses of the govern- ment created by the Articles of Confederation. They argued pas- sionately about the structure of the new government and in the

268 Chapter 8 Congress

end produced a legislative body that was as much of an experi- ment as the new republic itself.

The Great Compromise The U.S. Congress has two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill cannot become law unless it is passed in identical form by both chambers. When the framers were drafting the Constitution, ‘‘the fiercest struggle for power’’ centered on rep- resentation in the legislature.4 The small states wanted all the states to have equal representation, and the more populous states wanted representation based on population. The Great Compromise broke the deadlock: small states would receive equal representation in the Senate, but the number of each state’s representatives in the House would be based on population, and the House would have the sole right to originate revenue-related legislation.

Each state has two senators who serve six-year terms of office. Terms are staggered, so that one-third of the Senate is elected ev- ery two years. When it was ratified, the Constitution directed that senators should be chosen by the state legislatures. However, the Seventeenth Amendment, adopted in 1913, provided for the direct election of senators by popular vote. From the beginning, the peo- ple have directly elected members of the House of Representatives. They serve two-year terms, and all House seats are up for election at the same time.

There are 435 members in the House of Representatives. Because each state’s representation in the House is in proportion to its population, the Constitution provides for a national census every ten years. Population shifts are handled by the reapportionment (redistribution) of seats among the states after each census is taken. Since recent population growth has been centered in the Sunbelt, Texas and Florida have gained seats, while northeastern and mid- western states like New York and Illinois have lost them. Each rep- resentative is elected from a particular congressional district within his or her state, and each district elects only one representative. The districts within a state must be roughly equal in population.

Duties of the House and Senate Although the Great Compromise provided for considerably dif- ferent schemes of representation for the House and Senate, the

reapportionment Redistribution of representatives among the states, based on population change. Congressional seats are reapportioned after each census.

The Origin and Powers of Congress 269

Constitution gives them similar legislative tasks. They share many powers, among them the powers to declare war, raise an army and navy, borrow and coin money, regulate interstate commerce, create federal courts, establish rules for the natural- ization of immigrants, and ‘‘make all Laws which shall be nec- essary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.’’

Yet the constitutional duties of the two chambers are differ- ent in a few important ways. As noted in Chapter 2, the House alone has the right to originate revenue bills, a right that appa- rently was coveted at the Constitutional Convention. In practice, this power is of limited consequence because both the House and Senate must approve all bills. The House also has the power of impeachment: the power to charge the president, vice president, or other ‘‘civil Officers’’ of the national government with ‘‘Trea- son, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.’’ The Senate is empowered to act as a court to try impeachments; a two-thirds majority vote of the senators present is necessary for conviction. Prior to President Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, only one president, Andrew Johnson, had been impeached, and in 1868 the Senate came within a single vote of finding him guilty. Clinton was accused of both perjury and obstruction of justice concerning his relationship with a White House intern, but was acquitted by the Senate as well. The House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, but he resigned (in August 1974) before the full House could vote.

The Constitution gives the Senate the power to approve major presidential appointments (such as to federal judgeships, ambassa- dorships, and cabinet posts) and treaties with foreign nations. The president is empowered to make treaties but must submit them to the Senate for approval by a two-thirds majority. Because of this requirement, the executive branch generally considers the Senate’s sentiments when it negotiates a treaty.5

Despite the long list of congressional powers in the Constitu- tion, the question of what powers are appropriate for Congress has generated substantial controversy. For example, although the Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war, many presidents have initiated military action on their own. And at times, the courts have found that congressional actions have usurped the rights of the states.

impeachment The formal charging of a government official with ‘‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’’

270 Chapter 8 Congress

8.2 Electing the Congress Analyze the factors that affect the way voters elect members of Congress.

If Americans are not happy with the job Congress is doing, they can use their votes to say so. With congressional elections every two years, voters have frequent opportunities to express themselves.

The Incumbency Effect Congressional elections offer voters a chance to show their ap- proval of Congress’s performance by reelecting incumbents or to demonstrate their disapproval by ‘‘throwing the rascals out.’’6 The voters do more reelecting than rascal throwing. The reelection rate is astonishingly high; in the majority of elections since 1950, more than 90 percent of all House incumbents have held on to their seats (see Figure 8.1, p. 272). In the 2010 congressional elections, fifty- eight incumbents in the House of Representatives were defeated by challengers (four in primaries), but 85 percent of those running for reelection won. In most recent elections, over 70 percent of House incumbents have won reelection by margins of greater than 60 per- cent of the vote.7 Senate elections are usually somewhat more com- petitive, but incumbents still have a high reelection rate.

These findings may seem surprising, since the public does not hold Congress as a whole in particularly high esteem. In the past few years Americans have been particularly critical of the Con- gress, and some polls have showed less than 15 percent of the pub- lic approving its performance (see Figure 8.2, p. 273). One reason Congress is held in disdain is that Americans regard it as overly influenced by interest groups. A struggling economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and persistent partisan disagreements within the Congress have also reduced the people’s confidence in the insti- tution.8 In short, voters tend to support their own representatives while being contemptuous of the rest of the membership.

Redistricting. One explanation for the incumbency effect centers on redistricting—the way state legislatures redraw House districts after a census-based reapportionment.9 It is entirely possible for

incumbent A current officeholder.

Electing the Congress 271

them to draw the new districts to benefit the incumbents of one or both parties. Altering district lines for partisan advantage is commonly called gerrymandering. Of course, a state legislature can redraw district boundaries to harm incumbents as well. After the 2010 census, for example, Illinois lost a seat in Congress and had to redraw its districts accordingly. The state legislature, con- trolled by Democrats, passed a plan that put Republican incum- bent Joe Walsh’s home in fellow-Republican incumbent Randy Hultgren’s district, which meant that the two men had to face each other in a primary.10

Gerrymandering contributes to the increasing polarization between the two parties in the House. Moreover, representatives elected from new districts after reapportionment tend to exhibit

FIGURE 8.1 Incumbents: Life Is Good

100

1952 1956 1960 1964

House

Senate

1968 1972

Election year

1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2010

Pe rc

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um be

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re el

ec te

Despite the public’s dissatisfaction with Congress in general, incumbent representatives win reelection at an exceptional rate. Incumbent senators are not quite as successful but still do well in reelection races. Voters seem to believe that their own representatives and senators do not share the same foibles that they attribute to the other members of Congress. Sources: Various sources for 1950–2006. For 2008 and beyond, Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi (eds.), Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2011–2012 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), pp. 43–44.

gerrymandering Redrawing a congressional district to intentionally benefit one political party.

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more polarized voting patterns than representatives elected from older districts.11

Name Recognition. Holding office brings with it some important advantages. First, incumbents develop significant name recogni- tion among voters simply by being members of Congress. Repre- sentatives have press secretaries who promote name recognition through their efforts to get publicity for the activities and speeches of their bosses. The primary focus of such publicity seeking is on the local media back in the home district, where the votes are.12

The local press, in turn, is eager to cover what members of Con- gress are saying about the issues.

Another resource available to members of Congress is the franking privilege—the right to send mail free of charge. Mailings

FIGURE 8.2 We Love Our Incumbents … but Not the Congress

100

Approve

Disapprove

Year

Pe rc

en ta

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Despite the reelection rate of incumbents reflected in Figure 8.1, public approval of Congress is far less positive. Confidence scores have never been particularly high, but opinion has turned decidedly negative in recent years. Citizens do not believe that the House and Senate are addressing the nation’s problems. Source: NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls, accessed at http://www.pollingreport.com/ CongJob1.htm. The question used asks respondents, ‘‘In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job that Congress is doing?’’

Electing the Congress 273

work to make constituents aware of their legislators’ names, activ- ities, and accomplishments. In 2009, members of Congress sent out $26.5 million worth of mail, which often consisted of ‘‘glossy productions filled with flattering photos and lists of the latest roads and bridges the lawmaker [had] brought home to the dis- trict.’’13 Under current franking regulations, information about the representative’s personal life and political campaign cannot be included in official mailings, and mailings can only target constit- uents who live in the representatives’ districts. No such rules exist to govern ‘‘tweets,’’ Facebook, or YouTube videos. By 2011, over 80 percent of members of Congress had Twitter accounts and 75 percent had Facebook accounts. They have used them to send in- formation about campaign events, policies, and even their shop- ping trips.14

Casework. Much of the work performed by the large staffs of members of Congress is casework—services for constituents such as tracking down a social security check or directing the owner of a small business to the appropriate federal agency. Legislators devote much of their office budget and staff to casework because they assume that when they provide assistance to a constituent, that constituent will be grateful. Not only will this person prob- ably vote for the legislator next time, but he or she will also be sure to tell family members and friends how helpful the represen- tative or senator was.

Campaign Financing. Anyone who wants to challenge an in- cumbent needs solid financial backing. But here, too, the incum- bent has the advantage. In the 2009-2010 campaign cycle, House incumbents running for reelection received approximately 57 per- cent of all money contributed to all candidates for the House. Challengers received only 31 percent of the contributions, with the remainder going to candidates in open races where there was no incumbent running for reelection.15 Challengers find raising campaign funds difficult because they have to overcome contribu- tors’ doubts about whether they can win. PACs show a strong preference for incumbents (see Chapter 7). They tend not to want to risk offending an incumbent by giving money to a long-shot challenger. In the 2009-2010 House and Senate campaigns in which an incumbent was running for reelection, PACs gave over 88 percent of their contributions to incumbents.16

casework Solving problems for constituents, especially problems involving government agencies.

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Successful Challengers. Clearly the deck is stacked against those who challenge incumbents. Yet some challengers do win. How? The opposing party and unsympathetic PACs may target incum- bents who seem vulnerable because of age, lack of seniority, a scandal, or unfavorable redistricting.

Senate challengers have a higher success rate than House chal- lengers, in part because they are generally higher-quality candi- dates. Often they are governors or members of the House who enjoy high name recognition and can attract significant campaign funds because they are regarded as credible candidates.17

2012 Election Despite well over $1 billion spent on the 2012 congressional elections by candidates and outside groups, the status quo reigned. With a growing federal debt and a fiscal cliff of automatic tax-hikes and spending cuts on the horizon, voters left the congressional balance of power intact. Democrats picked up a modest handful of seats between the House and Senate, strengthening their hold on the Sen- ate, but Republicans remained firmly in control of the House. Tea party candidates struggled in 2012 compared to their success in 2010. Among the few incumbents ousted, Scott Brown, the first-term Republican Senator from Massachusetts, was beaten by Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, returning the seat occupied by Demo- cratic Senator Ted Kennedy for over 40 years to Democratic hands.

Whom Do We Elect? The people we elect to Congress are not a cross-section of American society. Most members of Congress are upper-class professionals— many lawyers and businesspeople—and at last count, 47 percent are millionaires.18 Although a third of the American labor force works in blue-collar jobs, a person employed as a blue-collar worker rarely wins a congressional nomination. Women and minorities also have long been underrepresented in elective office, although both groups have recently increased their representation in Congress significantly. In the 112th Congress, serving 2011–2012, seventy-one representa- tives and seventeen senators were women, forty-two representatives (but no senators) were African Americans, and twenty-five represen- tatives and two senators were Hispanic.19 Yet many women and minorities believe that only members of their own group—people

Electing the Congress 275

who have experienced what they have experienced—can truly represent their interests. This is a belief in descriptive representation—the view that a legislature should resem- ble the demographic characteristics of the population it represents.20

When Congress amended the Voting Rights Act in 1982, it encour- aged states to draw districts that concentrated minorities together so that African Americans and His- panics would have a better chance of being elected to office. Supreme Court decisions also pushed the states to concentrate minorities in House districts.21 After the 1990 census, states redrew House boun- daries with the intent of creating dis- tricts in which ethnic minorities formed a majority of the population. This effort led to a roughly 50 per- cent increase in the number of blacks elected to the House. In 2011, there were ninety-seven of these ‘‘majority-minority’’ districts in the

country (22 percent of all districts), fifty-three of them with minor- ity representatives.22

The effort to draw boundaries to promote the election of minor- ities has been considerably less effective for Hispanics. Hispanic rep- resentation is only about two-thirds that of African Americans, even though there are slightly more Hispanics in the United States than African Americans. Part of the reason for this inequity is that His- panics tend not to live in such geographically concentrated areas as do African Americans. This makes it harder to draw boundaries that will likely lead to the election of a Hispanic. Another reason is that 22.4 percent of adult Hispanics living in the United States are ineli- gible to vote because they are not American citizens.23

The Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that states’ efforts to increase minority representation through racial gerrymandering could violate the rights of whites. In Shaw v. Reno, the majority

The Millionaires’ Club

In 2011, Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) was the richest lawmaker in the House, with an estimated average net worth of $448 million. While 47 percent of lawmakers are millionaires, only about 1 percent of Americans can say the same.

Source: Center for Responsive Politics, ‘‘Most Members of Congress Enjoy Robust Financial Status, Despite Nation’s Sluggish Economic Recovery,’’ 15 November 2011, http://www.opensecrets.org/ news/2011/11/congress-enjoys-robust-financial-status.html.

descriptive representation A belief that constituents are most effectively represented by legislators who are similar to them in such key demographic characteristics as race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.

racial gerrymandering The drawing of a legislative district to maximize the chances that a minority candidate will win election.

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ruled in a split decision that a North Carolina district that mean- dered 160 miles from Durham to Charlotte was an example of ‘‘political apartheid.’’ In effect, the Court ruled that racial gerry- mandering segregated blacks from whites instead of creating dis- tricts built around contiguous communities.24 In a later decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the ‘‘intensive and pervasive use of race’’ to protect incumbents and promote political gerrymander- ing violated the Fourteenth Amendment and Voting Rights Act of 1965.25 In 2001, just before the redistricting from the 2000 census was to begin in the individual states, the Court modified its earlier decisions by declaring that race was not an illegitimate considera- tion in drawing congressional boundaries as long as it was not the ‘‘dominant and controlling’’ factor.26

Although this movement over time to draw districts that work to elect minorities has clearly increased the number of black and Hispanic legislators, almost all of whom are Democrats, it has also helped the Republican Party. As more Democratic voting minor- ities have been packed into some districts, their numbers dimin- ished in others, leaving the remaining districts not merely ‘‘whiter’’ but also more Republican than they would have other- wise been.27

8.3 How Issues Get on the Congressional Agenda

Describe the ways in which issues get on the congressional agenda.

The formal legislative process begins when a member of Congress introduces a bill—a proposal for a new law. In the House, mem- bers drop new bills in the ‘‘hopper,’’ a mahogany box near the ros- trum where the Speaker presides. Senators give their bills to one of the Senate clerks or introduce them from the floor.28 But before a bill can be introduced to solve a problem, someone must per- ceive that a problem exists or that an issue needs to be resolved. In other words, the problem must find its way onto the congres- sional agenda. Many issues Congress works on seem to have been around forever. Foreign aid, the national debt, and social security have come up in just about every recent session of Congress.

How Issues Get on the Congressional Agenda 277

Other issues emerge more suddenly, especially those that are the products of technological change.29 The issue of ‘‘cyberstalking’’ is one example. Not long ago, the term did not even exist, but since 2011, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) has been introducing the STALKERS Act in the House.30 The act would expand the federal definition of stalking to include ‘‘acts of electronic monitoring, including spyware, bugging, and video surveillance.’’ It would also permit prosecution for any actions ‘‘reasonably expected to cause another person serious emotional distress,’’ compared to the cur- rent standard of ‘‘reasonable fear of physical injury.’’31

Sometimes a highly visible event focuses national attention on a problem. When it became evident that the September 11 hijack- ers had little trouble bringing box cutters that they would use as weapons on board the planes, Congress quickly took up the issue of airport screening procedures. It decided to create a federal work force to conduct passenger and luggage screening at the nation’s airports. Presidential support can also move an issue onto the agenda quickly. Media attention gives the president enormous op- portunity to draw the nation’s attention to problems he believes need some form of governmental action.

Within Congress, party leaders and committee chairs have the opportunity to influence the political agenda. At times, the efforts of an interest group spark awareness of an issue.

8.4 Committees and the Lawmaking Process

Differentiate among the types of congressional committees and evaluate the role of the committee system in the legislative process.

The process of writing bills and getting them passed is relatively simple, in the sense that it follows a series of specific steps. What complicates the process is the many different ways legislation can be treated at each step. Here, we examine the straightforward process by which laws are made. In the next few sections, we dis- cuss some of the complexities of that process.

After a bill is introduced in either house, it is assigned to the committee with jurisdiction over that policy area (see Figure 8.3).

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Bill is introduced and assigned to a committee, which refers it to the appropriate . . .

Subcommittee Subcommittee members study the bill, hold hearings, and debate provisions. If a bill is approved, it goes to the . . .

Committee Full committee considers the bill. Most bills never get beyond this stage, but if the bill is approved in some form, it goes to the . . .

Rules Committee Rules Committee issues a rule to govern debate on the floor. Sends it to the . . .

Full House Full House debates the bill and may amend it. If the bill passes and is in a form different from the Senate version, it must go to a . . .

Full House House votes on the conference committee bill. If it passes in both houses, it goes to the . . .

Conference Committee Conference committee of senators and representatives meets to reconcile differences between bills. When agreement is reached, a compromise bill is sent back to both the . . .

President President signs or vetoes the bill. Congress can override a veto by a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate.

Bill is introduced and assigned to a committee, which refers it to the appropriate . . .

Subcommittee Subcommittee members study the bill, hold hearings, and debate provisions. If a bill is approved, it goes to the . . .

Full Senate Full Senate debates the bill and may amend it. If the bill passes and is in a form different from the House version, it must go to a . . .

Full Senate Senate votes on the conference committee bill. If it passes in both houses, it goes to the . . .

HOUSE SENATE

Committee Full committee considers the bill. Most bills never get beyond this stage, but if the bill is approved in some form, it goes to the . . .

FIGURE 8.3 The Legislative Process The process by which a bill becomes law is subject to much variation. This diagram depicts the typical path a bill might follow. It is important to remember that a bill can fail at any stage because of lack of support. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2014.

Committees and the Lawmaking Process 279

A banking bill, for example, is assigned to the Finance Services Committee in the House or the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee in the Senate. When a committee actively con- siders a piece of legislation assigned to it, the bill is usually referred to a specialized subcommittee. The subcommittee may hold hearings, and legislative staffers may do research on the bill. The original bill usually is modified or revised. If passed in some form, it is sent to the full committee. A bill approved by the full committee is reported (that is, sent) to the entire membership of the chamber, where it may be debated, amended, and either passed or defeated.

Bills coming out of House committees go to the Rules Com- mittee before going before the full House membership. The Rules Committee attaches a rule to the bill that governs the coming floor debate, typically specifying the length of the debate and the types of amendments House members may offer. The Senate does not have a comparable committee, although restrictions on the length of floor debate can be reached through unanimous consent agreements (see the ‘‘Rules of Procedure’’ section later in the chapter).

Even if both houses of Congress pass a bill on the same sub- ject, the Senate and House versions often differ. If neither cham- ber amends its bill to match the bill passed in the other chamber, a conference committee, composed of legislators from both houses, works out the differences and develops a compromise ver- sion. This version goes back to each house for another floor vote. If both chambers approve the bill, it is then sent to the president for his signature (approval) or veto (rejection).

When the president signs a bill, it becomes law. When the president vetoes a bill, it is sent back to Congress with his reasons for rejecting it. The bill becomes law only if Congress overrides the president’s veto by a two-thirds vote in each house. If the president neither signs nor vetoes the bill within ten days of receiving it (Sundays excepted), the bill becomes law. But if Con- gress adjourns within that ten-day period, the president can let the bill die through a pocket veto by not signing it.

The content of a bill can be changed at any stage of the proc- ess and in either house. Lawmaking in Congress has many access points for those who want to influence legislation. This openness tends to fit within the pluralist model of democracy. As a bill moves through the Congress, it is amended again and again, in a

veto The president’s rejection of a bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress. Congress can override a veto with a two- thirds vote in each house.

pocket veto A means of killing a bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress, in which the president neither signs the bill nor returns it to Congress and Congress adjourns within ten days of the bill’s passage.

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search for a consensus that will get it passed and signed into law. The process can be tortuously slow, and it often is fruitless. Derailing legislation is much easier than enacting it. The process gives groups frequent opportunities to voice their preferences and, if necessary, thwart their opponents.

The Division of Labor Among Committees Woodrow Wilson once observed that ‘‘Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee- rooms is Congress at work.’’32 The real nuts and bolts of lawmak- ing goes on in congressional committees.

The House and Senate are divided into committees for the same reason that other large organizations are broken into depart- ments or divisions: to develop and use expertise in specific areas. For example, congressional decisions on weapons systems require special knowledge that is of little relevance to decisions on reim- bursement formulas for health insurance. It makes sense for some members of Congress to spend more time examining defense issues, becoming increasingly expert as they do so, while others concentrate on health matters.

Eventually all members of Congress have to vote on each bill that emerges from the committees. Those who are not on a partic- ular committee depend on committee members to examine the issues thoroughly, make compromises as necessary, and bring for- ward a sound piece of legislation that has a good chance of being passed.

Standing Committees. There are several different kinds of congressional committees, but the standing committee is pre- dominant. Standing committees are permanent committees that specialize in a particular area—for example, the House Judici- ary Committee or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Most of the day-to-day work of drafting legislation takes place in the sixteen standing Senate committees and twenty standing House committees. Typically from sixteen to twenty senators serve on each standing Senate committee, and around forty members serve on each standing committee in the House. The proportion of Democrats and Republicans on a standing com- mittee generally reflects party proportions in the full Senate or House.

standing committee A permanent congressional committee that specializes in a particular legislative area.

Committees and the Lawmaking Process 281

Standing committees are often broken down into subcommit- tees. The House Agriculture Committee, for example, has six sub- committees, among them one on livestock, dairy, and poultry, and another one on nutrition and horticulture.

Other Congressional Committees. Members of Congress can also serve on joint, select, and conference committees. Joint committees are made up of members of both House and Senate. Like standing committees, they are concerned with particular policy areas. The Joint Economic Committee, for instance, ana- lyzes the country’s economic policies. Joint committees are much weaker than standing committees because they are almost always restricted from reporting bills to the House or Senate.

A select committee is usually a temporary committee created for a specific purpose. Congress establishes select committees to deal with special circumstances or with issues that either overlap or fall outside the areas of expertise of standing committees. In 2011, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was created and charged with issuing recommendations by November of that year for reducing the deficit. It included three members of each party from each chamber. The committee ultimately failed to pro- duce any recommendations, due to the inability of its members to compromise across party lines. Select committees typically dis- band after their work is completed. However, some select commit- tees, such as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, are granted permanent status and function much like standing committees.

A conference committee is also a temporary committee, cre- ated to work out differences between House and Senate versions of a specific piece of legislation. Its members are appointed from the standing committees or subcommittees from each house that originally handled and reported the legislation. When the confer- ence committee agrees on a compromise, it reports the bill to both houses, which must then either approve or disapprove the com- promise; they cannot amend or change it in any way. Conference committees are not always used, however, to reconcile differing bills. Often, informal negotiations between committee leaders in the House and Senate resolve differences. The increasing partisan conflict between Democrats and Republicans often results in a compromise bill devised solely by the majority party (when a sin- gle party controls both chambers).

joint committee A committee made up of members of both the House and the Senate.

select committee A congressional committee created for a specific purpose and, usually, for a limited time.

conference committee A temporary committee created to work out differences between the House and Senate versions of a specific piece of legislation.

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Congressional Expertise and Seniority Once appointed to a committee, a representative or senator has great incentive to remain on it in order to gain increasing exper- tise and influence. Influence also grows in a more formal way— with seniority, or years of consecutive service, on a committee. Within each committee, the senior member of the majority party usually becomes the committee chair. Other senior members of the majority party become subcommittee chairs; their counter- parts from the minority party gain influence as ranking minority members. The numerous subcommittees in the House and Senate offer multiple opportunities for power and status.

The seniority norm was weakened in the 1990s when the Republic Party leadership established six-year term limits for com- mittee and subcommittee chairs. This was a sharp break with the tradition of unlimited tenure as a committee chair. The Speaker of the House at that time, Newt Gingrich, also rejected three Republi- cans who were in line to become committee chairs in favor of other committee members who he thought would best promote the Republican program. Speakers had not appointed House com- mittee chairs in this fashion since ‘‘Uncle Joe’’ Cannon ruled the chamber with an iron fist as Speaker from 1903 to 1911.33

The way in which committees and subcommittees are led and organized within Congress is significant because much public pol- icy decision making takes place there. The first step in drafting legis- lation is to collect information on the issue. Committee staffers research the problem, and hearings may be held to take testimony from witnesses who have special knowledge on the subject.

The meetings at which subcommittees and committees actually debate and amend legislation are called markup sessions. In some committees, the chair, the ranking minority member, and others on these committees work hard, in formal committee ses- sions and in informal negotiations, to find a middle ground and reach consensus on issues that divide committee members. In other committees, members exhibit strong ideological and parti- san sentiments. However, committee and subcommittee leaders prefer to find ways to overcome ideological and partisan divisions so that they can build compromise solutions that will appeal to the broader membership of their house. The skill of committee leaders in assembling coalitions that produce legislation that can pass on the floor of their house is critically important.

seniority Years of consecutive service on a particular congressional committee.

Committees and the Lawmaking Process 283

Oversight: Following Through on Legislation It is often said in Washington that ‘‘knowledge is power.’’ For Congress to retain its influence over the programs it creates, it must be aware of how the agencies responsible for them are administering them. To that end, legislators and their committees engage in oversight, the process of reviewing agency operations to determine whether the agency is carrying out policies as Con- gress intended.

Congress performs its oversight function in several different ways. The most visible is the hearing. Hearings may be part of a routine review or can occur when a major problem with a pro- gram or with an agency’s administrative practices emerges. For example, after it became known in 2011 that a federal ‘‘gun track- ing’’ program (called ‘‘Operation Fast and Furious’’) allowed over 2,000 guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, commit- tees in both chambers launched investigations.34

Another way Congress keeps track of what departments and agencies are doing is by requesting reports on specific agency practices and operations. Still, a good deal of congressional over- sight takes place informally. There is ongoing contact between committee and subcommittee leaders and agency administrators and between committee staffers and top agency staffers.

Oversight is often stereotyped as a process in which angry legislators bring some administrators before the television cameras at a hearing and proceed to dress them down for some recent scan- dal or mistake. Some of this does go on, but at least some members of a committee are advocates of the programs they oversee because those programs serve their constituents back home. Members of the House and Senate agriculture committees, for example, both Democrats and Republicans, want farm programs to succeed. Most oversight is aimed at finding ways to improve programs, not dis- credit them.35 In short, Congress engages in oversight because it is an extension of its efforts to control public policy.36

Majoritarian and Pluralist Views of Committees Government by committee vests significant power in the commit- tees and subcommittees of Congress, and especially in their lead- ers. This is particularly true of the House, which has more decentralized patterns of influence than the Senate and is more re- strictive about letting members amend legislation on the floor.

oversight The process of reviewing the operations of an agency to determine whether it is carrying out policies as Congress intended.

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Committee members can bury a bill by not reporting it to the full House or Senate. Committee members are influential in floor debate, and many of them also make up the conference commit- tees charged with developing compromise versions of bills.

In some ways, the committee system enhances the force of pluralism in American politics. Representatives and senators are elected by the voters in particular districts and states, and they tend to seek membership on the committees that make the deci- sions most important to their constituents. Members from farm areas, for example, want membership on the House and Senate agriculture committees. As a result, committee members tend to represent constituencies with an unusually strong interest in their policy area and are predisposed to write legislation favorable to those constituencies.

Committees have a majoritarian aspect as well, as most com- mittees reflect the general ideological profiles of the two parties’ congressional contingents.37 Even if a committee’s views are not in line with the views of the full membership, the committee is constrained in the legislation it writes because bills cannot become law unless they are passed by the parent chamber and the other house. Consequently, in formulating legislation, committees anticipate what other representatives and senators will accept. The parties within each chamber also have means of rewarding the members who are loyal to party priorities. Party committees and the party leadership within each chamber make committee assign- ments and respond to requests for transfers from less prestigious to more prestigious committees. Those who vote in line with the party get better assignments.38

8.5 Leaders and Followers in Congress

Identify the congressional leadership structure and assess the rules that influence congressional operations.

Above the committee chairs is another layer of authority in the organization of the House and Senate. The party leaders in each house work to maximize the influence of their own party while

Leaders and Followers in Congress 285

keeping their chamber functioning smoothly and efficiently. The operation of the two houses is also influenced by the rules that each chamber has developed over the years.

The Leadership Task Each of the two parties elects leaders in each of the two chambers. In the House, the majority party’s leader is the Speaker of the House, who, gavel in hand, chairs sessions from the ornate ros- trum at the front of the chamber. The Speaker is a constitutional officer, but the Constitution does not list the Speaker’s duties.39

The majority party in the House also has a majority leader, who helps the Speaker guide the party’s policy program through the legislative process, and a majority whip, who keeps track of the vote count and rallies support for legislation on the floor. The mi- nority party is led by a minority leader who is assisted by the mi- nority whip.

The Constitution makes the vice president of the United States the president of the Senate. But in practice, the vice presi- dent rarely visits the Senate unless there is a possibility of a tie vote, in which case he can break the tie. The president pro tempore (president ‘‘for the time’’), elected by the majority party, is sup- posed to chair the Senate in the vice president’s absence. By cus- tom this constitutional position is entirely honorary and occupied by the senator of the majority party with the longest continuous tenure. The real power in the Senate resides with the majority leader. The top position in the opposing party is Senate minority leader. Technically, the majority leader does not preside over Sen- ate sessions (members rotate in the president pro tempore’s chair). But the majority leader does schedule legislation in consul- tation with the minority leader.

Party leaders play a critical role in getting bills through Con- gress. Their most significant function is steering the bargaining and negotiating over the content of legislation. When an issue divides their party, their house, the two houses, or their house and the White House, the leaders try to work out a compromise.

Day in and day out, much of what they do is to meet with other members of their chamber to try to strike deals that will yield a majority on the floor. Beyond trying to engineer trade- offs that will win votes, the party leaders must persuade others (often powerful committee chairs) that theirs is the best deal

Speaker of the House The presiding officer of the House of Representatives.

majority leader The head of the majority party in the Senate; the second-highest- ranking member of the majority party in the House.

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possible. Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert used to say, ‘‘They call me the Speaker, but … they really ought to call me the Listener.’’40

It is often difficult for party leaders to control rank-and-file members because they have independent electoral bases in their districts and states and receive most of their campaign funds from nonparty sources. Yet party leaders can be aggressive about enforcing party discipline by either threatening to withdraw sup- port for policy issues defectors care about, or by rewarding mem- bers who toe the party line. When House Republicans met with President Obama at the White House in June 2011, the leadership selected freshman Reid Ribble as one of a handful of members who would be able to question the president directly. Ribble was chosen, in part, because ‘‘he had never crossed the G.O.P. leader- ship on anything important.’’41 Republican members who had dis- sented in the past, it was decided, should figure out on their own how to get face time with the president.

Rules of Procedure The operations of the House and Senate are structured by formal rules that are mostly matters of parliamentary procedure. For example, they govern the scheduling of legislation, outlining when and how certain types of legislation can be brought to the floor.

An important difference between the two chambers is the House’s use of its Rules Committee to govern floor debate. Lack- ing a similar committee to act as a ‘‘traffic cop’’ for legislation coming to the floor, the Senate relies on unanimous consent agreements to set the starting time and length of the debate. If one senator objects, a bill is stalled. Senators do not routinely object to unanimous consent agreements, however, because they know they will need them when bills of their own await scheduling.

A senator who wants to stop a bill badly enough may start a filibuster and (in its classic form) try to talk the bill to death. By historical tradition, the Senate gives its members the right of unlimited debate. The record for holding the floor belongs to South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond for a twenty-four- hour, eighteen-minute marathon in 1957.42 In the House, no member is allowed to speak for more than an hour without unani- mous consent. After a 1917 filibuster by a small group of senators killed President Wilson’s bill to arm merchant ships, a bill favored

filibuster A delaying tactic, used in the Senate, that often involves speech making to prevent action on a piece of legislation.

Leaders and Followers in Congress 287

by a majority of senators, the Senate finally adopted cloture, a means of creating a time limit for debate. It takes the votes of sixty senators to invoke cloture.

To signal one’s intent to filibuster, a senator issues a hold, a request that a bill be held from floor debate (and stating one’s intent to withhold unanimous consent if an effort is made to bring the bill to the floor). In response to a hold, the majority party can take the legislation off the table, try to compromise with the obstructionist lawmaker, or hold a cloture vote. In today’s Con- gress, the mere threat of a filibuster is common (thirty to thirty- five per Congress), which means that a bill often needs the sup- port of sixty senators instead of a simple majority in order to pass. Given the high level of party unity in recent years, cloture votes often result in victory for the obstructionist, so Senators have become more willing to threaten obstruction. This era of the ‘‘sixty-vote Senate’’ is often criticized for its ability to thwart the principle of majority rule and to make the legislative process even slower than was originally intended.43

8.6 The Legislative Environment

Identify the components of the legislative environment and assess their impact on decision making in Congress.

In this section, we examine the broader legislative environment that affects decision making in Congress. Specifically, we look at the influence on legislators of political parties, the president, con- stituents, and interest groups. The first two influences push Con- gress toward majoritarian democracy. The other two are pluralist influences on congressional policymaking.

Political Parties The national political parties might appear to have limited resour- ces at their disposal to influence lawmakers. They do not control the nominations of House and Senate candidates. Candidates receive the bulk of their funds from individual contributors and

cloture The mechanism by which a filibuster is cut off in the Senate.

hold A letter from a senator requesting that a bill be held from floor debate and expressing the intent to filibuster if an effort is made to bring it to the floor.

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political action committees, not from the national parties. Never- theless, parties are strong forces in the legislative process.44 Party leaders within each house can help or hinder the efforts of rank- and-file legislators to get on the right committees, get their bills and amendments considered, and climb onto the leadership lad- der themselves. Moreover, party members on a committee often act as agents of their party as they search for solutions to policy problems.45

The most significant reason that parties are important in Con- gress is that Democrats and Republicans have different ideolo- gies.46 Both parties have diversity, but as Figure 8.4 (p. 290) illustrates, Democrats increasingly tend to vote one way and Republicans the other. The main reason that partisanship has been rising is that each party is becoming more homogeneous.47 The lib- eral wing of the Republican Party has practically disappeared, and the party is unified around a conservative agenda. Likewise, the conservative wing of the Democratic Party has declined.

Traditionally, one of the most important norms of behavior in Congress is that individual members should be willing to bar- gain with one another, especially across party lines. Policymaking is a process of give and take; it demands compromise. Members of Congress are not expected to violate their conscience on policy issues simply to strike a deal. They are expected, however, to listen to what others have to say and to make every effort to reach a rea- sonable compromise. Few policy matters are so clear-cut that compromise destroys one’s position. Yet over the past several years, as the parties have become more polarized, compromises between them have become ever more difficult to achieve. And as the opening of this chapter illustrates, finding compromises within each party has become increasingly challenging as well. The inability to compromise threatens majoritarianism, especially in the Senate, as minority factions have become able to produce stalemate after stalemate.

The President Unlike members of Congress, the president is selected by voters across the entire nation. The president has a better claim, then, to representing the nation than does any single member of Congress. But it can also be argued that Congress as a whole has a better claim than the president to representing the majority of voters.

The Legislative Environment 289

Year

Republican high 2003: 95%

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1954 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Republican low 1978: 66%

Democrat high 2009, 2010: 94%

Republican low 1969, 1974: 71%

Democrat low 1972: 70%

Democrat high 2008: 97%

Republican high 2003: 95%

FIGURE 8.4 Rising Partisanship Congress long relied on bipartisanship—the two parties working together—in policymaking. This often meant that the moderates of both parties were central to the development of legislation as they coalesced around the most workable compromise. More recently, behavior has turned more partisan. Increasingly, members of each party vote with one another and against the position of the other party. Sources: Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi (eds.), Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2011–2012 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), pp. 206–208. Copyright ª 2012 CQ Press, a division of Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, CQ Press.

290 Chapter 8 Congress

Nevertheless, presidents try to capitalize on their national constitu- ency and usually act as though they are speaking for the majority.

During the twentieth century, public expectations of what the president can accomplish in office grew enormously. We now expect the president to be our chief legislator: to introduce legisla- tion on major issues and use his influence to push bills through Congress.48 This is much different from our early history, when presidents felt constrained by the constitutional doctrine of sepa- ration of powers and had to have members of Congress work con- fidentially for them during legislative sessions.49

Today the White House is openly involved not only in the writing of bills but also in their development as they wind their way through the legislative process. If the White House does not like a bill, it tries to work out a compromise with key legislators to have it amended. To monitor daily congressional activities and lobby for the administration’s policies, there are hundreds of legis- lative liaison personnel who work for the executive branch. On issues of the greatest importance, the president himself may meet with individual legislators to persuade them to vote a certain way.

Although members of Congress grant presidents a leadership role in proposing legislation, they jealously guard the power of Con- gress to debate, shape, and pass or defeat any legislation the presi- dent proposes. Congress often clashes sharply with the president.

Constituents Constituents are the people who live and vote in a legislator’s dis- trict or state. As much as members of Congress want to please their party’s leadership or the president by going along with their preferences, they have to think about what the voters back home want. If the way members vote displeases enough people, they might lose their seats in the next election.

Constituents’ influence contributes to pluralism, because the diversity of America is mirrored in the geographical basis of repre- sentation in the House and Senate. A representative from Los Angeles, for instance, may need to be sensitive to issues of particular concern to constituents whose backgrounds are Korean, Vietnam- ese, Hispanic, Indian, African American, or Jewish. A representa- tive from Montana may have fewer such constituents but must pay particular attention to issues involving minerals and mining. Such constituencies push and pull Congress in many different directions.

constituents People who live and vote in a government official’s district or state.

The Legislative Environment 291

Interest Groups As we pointed out in Chapter 7, interest groups offer constit- uents one way to influence Congress. Because they represent a vast array of vocational, regional, and ideological groupings

Constituents Strike Back

During recesses, members of Congress travel to their home districts and often hold town hall meetings where they talk with constituents. Yet as Congress has become more polarized, these meetings are increasingly contentious. As a result, some representatives have become less willing to subject themselves to public shouting matches and have held fewer town hall meetings. During the August break in 2011, Rep. Paul Ryan (R- Wisc.) decided to speak to the public only in meetings sponsored by outside groups that charged an admission price. The result was that he met only with constituents who could pay to attend his events rather than holding public sessions, prompting constituents to protest, as seen here. Several paid the fee in order to disrupt the event during Ryan’s speech. Ryan was not alone in this controversial strategy; at least four members of the House foreswore free town hall meetings in favor of ‘‘pay-per-view’’ events during the same congressional break. Though controversial, the strategy did not hurt Ryan in the long run. He was tapped to serve as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate in 2012.

Sources: Reid Epstein, ‘‘Talk to Paul Ryan? It’ll Cost You,’’ Politico, 16 August 2011, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61454.html; and Reid Epstein, ‘‘Paul Ryan’s Rival Mocks ‘Pay-per-View,’’’ Politico, 17 August 2011, http://www.politico.com/ news/stories/0811/61585.html. Photo: Newscom.

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within the population, interest groups exemplify pluralist poli- tics. They press members of Congress to take a particular course of action, believing sincerely that what they prefer is also best for the country. Legislators, in turn, are attentive to interest groups because these organizations represent citizens, some of whom live in their home district or state. Lobbies are also sources of useful information, political support, and (in some instances) campaign contributions for members of Congress.

With all these strong forces pushing and constraining legisla- tors, it is easy to believe that they function solely in response to these external pressures. Legislators, however, bring their own views and life experiences to Congress. The issues they choose to work on and the way they vote reflect these personal values too.50

But to the degree that the four external sources of influence on Congress—parties, the president, constituents, and interest groups—do influence legislators, they push them in both majori- tarian and pluralist directions.

8.7 The Dilemma of Representation: Trustees or Delegates?

Debate whether members of Congress should vote the majority views of their constituents or their perception of the public interest.

When candidates for the House and Senate campaign, they rou- tinely promise to work hard for their district’s or state’s inter- ests. When they get to Washington, though, they all face a troubling dilemma: what their constituents want may not be what the people across the nation want. Members of Congress are often criticized for being out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent. This charge does not seem justified. A typical week in the life of a representative means working in Washington, then boarding a plane and flying back to the home district. There the representative spends time meeting with individual constituents and talking to civic groups, church

The Dilemma of Representation: Trustees or Delegates? 293

gatherings, business associations, labor unions, and the like. A survey of House members during a nonelection year showed that each made an average of thirty-five trips back to his or her district, spending an average of 138 days there.51 Legislators work extraordinarily hard at keeping in touch with voters and finding out what is on their constituents’ minds. The problem is how to act on that knowledge.

Are members of Congress bound to vote the way their constituents want them to vote, even if doing so means voting against their consciences? Some say no. They argue that legisla- tors must be free to vote in line with what they think is best. This view is associated with the English political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797). Burke, who served in Parliament, told his constituents in Bristol that ‘‘you choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament.’’52 Burke rea- soned that representatives are sent by their constituents to vote as they think best. As trustees, representatives are obligated to consider the views of constituents, but they are not obligated to vote according to those views if they think they are misguided.

Others hold that legislators should represent the majority view of their constituents. They maintain that legislators are delegates with instructions from the people at home on how to vote on critical issues, and they insist that delegates, unlike trustees, must be prepared to vote against their own policy preferences.

Although the interests of their districts encourage them to act as delegates, their interpretation of the larger national interest of- ten calls on them to be trustees.53 Given these conflicting role def- initions, it is not surprising that Congress is not clearly either a body of delegates or a body of trustees. Research has shown, how- ever, that members of Congress are most likely to assume the del- egate role on issues that are of great concern to their constituents.54 But much of the time, what constituents really want is not clear. Many issues are not highly visible back home, they cut across the constituency to affect it in different ways, or constituents only partially understand them. For such issues, no delegate position is obvious.

trustee A representative who is obligated to consider the views of constituents but is not obligated to vote according to those views if he or she believes they are misguided.

delegate A legislator whose primary responsibility is to represent the majority view of his or her constituents, regardless of his or her own view.

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8.8 Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy

Assess the elements that characterize Congress as a pluralist or a majoritarian system.

The dilemma that individual members of Congress face in adopting the role of either delegate or trustee has broad implications for the way our country is governed. When legislators act as delegates, con- gressional policymaking is more pluralistic, and policies reflect the bargaining that goes on among lawmakers who speak for different constituencies. When legislators act as trustees and vote their con- sciences, policymaking becomes less tied to the narrower interests of districts and states. But even here there is no guarantee that con- gressional decision making reflects majority interests. True majori- tarian legislatures require a paramount role for political parties.

We end this chapter with a short discussion of pluralism ver- sus majoritarianism in Congress. But first, to establish a frame of reference, we need to take a quick look at a more majoritarian type of legislature: the parliament.

Parliamentary Government In our system of government, the executive and legislative func- tions are divided between a president and a congress, each elected separately. Most other democracies—such as Britain—have par- liamentary governments. In a parliamentary system, the chief executive is the legislative leader whose party holds the most seats in the legislature after an election or whose party forms a major part of the ruling coalition. For instance, in the United Kingdom, voters do not cast a ballot for prime minister. They vote only for their member of Parliament and thus influence the choice of prime minister only indirectly, by voting for the party they favor in the local district election. Parties are unified, and in Parliament, legislators vote for their party’s position, giving voters a strong and direct means of influencing public policy. Where there is a

parliamentary system A system of government in which the chief executive is the leader whose party holds the most seats in the legislature after an election or whose party forms a major part of the ruling coalition.

Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy 295

multiple-party system (as opposed to just two parties), a govern- ing coalition must sometimes be formed from an alliance of mul- tiple parties. (See ‘‘Politics of Global Change’’ below.)

Politics of Global Change

Creating a Legislature In December 2010, a fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire to protest his country’s political conditions. This act sparked what has become known as the ‘‘Arab Spring,’’ a wave of uprisings across the Middle East during 2011 marked by protest, violence, governmental resistance, and, in Tunisia and Egypt, the ouster of longstanding authoritarian rulers. Within months, both countries found themselves designing new constitutions and legislatures.

One of the first decisions they needed to make was on the kind of legislature to establish. While an American-style Congress with single-member districts elected by plurality rule can produce repre- sentatives committed to their local constituency as well as to their party, both countries opted primarily for proportional representa- tion (PR). Under PR, each politically organized group can expect to be represented roughly in proportion to its support in society. Party unity is typically high in PR systems, but parties often need to form coalitions in order to control a majority of legislative seats.

Both countries are relatively homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and religion, but important tensions were evident as elections took shape. In Egypt, for instance, tensions involved (1) what role the transitional military government would play in selecting a prime minister and cabinet, (2) whether newly established democratic processes would be threatened if conservative Islamist parties won a majority of seats, and (3) whether minority Coptic Christians would be treated as full members of the polity if Islamists won.

Egypt held its first round of parliamentary elections in Novem- ber 2011 with over 6,500 candidates from over 45 parties. A mainstream Islamist party, the Freedom and Justice Party, won 40% of the vote. The conservative Islamist party, Al-Nur, got 25%, leading many observers to worry about the future of the democratic process in Egypt (for instance, although Al-Nur had

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In a parliamentary system, power is concentrated in the legis- lature, because the leader of the majority party is also the head of the government. Moreover, parliamentary legislatures are usually

women on the ballot in every district, they were always listed last to ensure they would not get elected and were often represented with flowers in place of their faces on campaign materials).

Tunisia, on the other hand, has generally been seen as achiev- ing a smoother transition to democracy. The first elections were held in October 2011, with more than 10,000 candidates from more than 100 political parties. The moderate Islamist Ennahda party took the most seats, which troubled secular Tunisians as well as Western observers. But unlike in Egypt, the role of conservative Islamists has been small, with moderate and center-left parties vying for second place. The new assembly is charged with drafting a new constitution and appointing an interim government.

Both countries still face rough roads ahead in establishing stable democratic legislatures. Other countries caught up in the Arab Spring, such as Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Yemen, remain in the throes of citi- zen unrest. Establishing a legislature may be inspiring, but the process reminds us of just what a challenge democracy can be.

SOURCES: ‘‘Q&A: Tunisian Elections,’’ BBC News, 17 October 2011, http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15309152; ‘‘Q&A: Egypt’s Parliamentary Elections,’’ BBC News, 24 October 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- middle-east-15874070; ‘‘Ennahda Claims Victory in Tunisian Poll,’’ 26 October 2011, Aljazeera.com; Leila Fadel, ‘‘First Free Election in Tunisia Brings Joy and Pride,’’ Washington Post, 23 October 2011; David Kirkpatrick, ‘‘Islamists Say They Have Mandate in Egypt Voting,’’ New York Times, 30 November 2011; and Jon Jensen, ‘‘Egypt Votes: A Primer,’’ 28 November 2011, globalpost.com.

Critical Thinking Which, if any, features of the emerging legislatures in Tuni- sia and Egypt will encourage majoritarianism? Which fea- tures will encourage pluralism? What challenges might the new legislatures face when trying to balance freedom and order? What about balancing order and equality?

Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy 297

composed of only one house or have a second chamber that is much weaker than the other. Parliamentary governments usually do not have a court that can invalidate acts of the parliament. Under such a system, the government is in the hands of the party that controls the parliament. These governments fit the majoritarian model of democracy to a much greater extent than a separation-of-powers system.

Pluralism Versus Majoritarianism in Congress The U.S. Congress is often criticized for being too pluralistic and not majoritarian enough. The federal budget deficit pro- vides a case in point. Americans are deeply concerned about the big deficits that plague our national budgets. Both Demo- crats and Republicans in Congress repeatedly call for reductions in those deficits. But when spending bills come before Con- gress, legislators’ concerns turn to what the bills do for their district or state. Until 2011, appropriations bills often included earmarks, pork barrel projects that benefitted specific districts or states that were added to spending bills without debate. In 2011, both parties banned earmarks. Lawmakers still try to get funding for local projects, but now they have to do more to convince other members of Congress that the projects have merit. Doing so often entails making the case that the projects in question serve the national interest, typically through the job creation or economic development that such projects allegedly produce.55

Local spending gets into the budget through bargaining among members. Members of Congress try to win projects and programs that will benefit their constituents and thus help them at election time. To win approval of such projects, members must be willing to vote for other legislators’ projects in turn. Such a sys- tem obviously promotes pluralism (and spending).

It is easy to conclude that the consequence of pluralism in Congress is a lot of unnecessary spending and tax loopholes. Yet many constituencies are well served by an appropriations process that takes pluralism into account. A 2010 survey asked Americans if certain candidate qualities would make them more or less likely to vote for a particular congressional

earmarks Federal funds appropriated by Congress for use on specific local projects.

298 Chapter 8 Congress

candidate. Among the eight qualities in the survey, the only one that a majority of Americans said would make them more likely to vote for someone was ‘‘has a record of bringing gov- ernment projects and money to your district.’’ So despite Americans’ dislike of national deficits, they still place great pressure on their own representatives to direct federal spending back home.56

Proponents of pluralism also argue that the makeup of Con- gress generally reflects that of the nation, that different members of Congress represent farm areas, low-income inner cities, indus- trial areas, and so on. They point out that America itself is plural- istic, with a rich diversity of economic, social, religious, and racial groups, and that even if one’s own representative and senators do not represent one’s particular viewpoint, it is likely that someone else in Congress does.57

Whatever the shortcomings of pluralism, institutional reform aimed at reducing legislators’ concern for individual dis- tricts and states is difficult. Members of Congress resist any structural changes that might weaken their ability to gain reelection. Nevertheless, the growing partisanship in the Con- gress represents a trend toward greater majoritarianism. As noted earlier, as both parties have become more ideologically homogeneous, there is greater unity around policies. To the degree that voters correctly recognize the differences between the parties and are willing to cast their ballots on that basis, the more majoritarianism will constrain pluralism in Congress. Ironically, once in office, legislators can weaken the incentive for their constituents to vote based on ideology. The congres- sional system is structured to facilitate casework and to fund pork barrel spending. Both of these characteristics of the mod- ern Congress work to boost each legislator’s reputation in his or her district or state. In short, the modern Congress is characterized by strong elements of both majoritarianism and pluralism.

Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy 299

SUMMARY 8.1 The Origin and Powers of Congress

• The framers wanted to prevent the concentration of power but create a strong union.

• Each state has two senators serving six-year terms that are staggered and a number of representatives based on population as determined by the census.

• The House and Senate share similar powers to declare war, raise an army and navy, borrow and coin money, regulate interstate commerce, create federal courts, establish rules for the naturalization of immigrants, and make all laws.

• The House has the power to initiate revenue bills and to impeach. The Senate has the power to confirm presidential appointees, ratify treaties, and try cases of impeachment.

8.2 Electing the Congress • Voters usually reelect incumbents,

whose electoral advantages come from gerrymandering during redis- tricting, name recognition, franking, the benefits gained through case- work, and greater financial contribu- tions than challengers.

• Many believe descriptive representa- tion is important, and laws have been enacted to encourage minority representation.

8.3 How Issues Get on the Congres- sional Agenda • The congressional agenda is the

broad, imprecise, and unwritten set of all the issues that Congress is considering.

• The congressional agenda includes both recurrent issues such as the national debt and foreign aid, but also new issues that may emerge due to a highly visible event or interest group participation.

• The formal legislative process begins when a member introduces a bill, which is a proposal for a new law.

8.4 Committees and the Lawmaking Process • The process by which a bill becomes

a law follows a series of specific steps, each of which provides opportunities for opponents of a bill to derail it.

• In the House, bills go to the Rules Committee for rules regarding debate and amendments, but debate is unlimited in the Senate unless cloture is invoked.

• There are four types of committees: standing, select, joint, and conference.

• Standing committees are the predomi- nant committees. They specialize in a particular area of legislation, for

300 Chapter 8 Congress

which they collect information on an issue, hold hearings, and debate and amend legislation in markup sessions.

8.5 Leaders and Followers in Congress • Party leaders in the House and

Senate are charged with overseeing institutional procedures, managing legislation, fundraising, and communicating with the press.

• In the House, the majority party’s leader is the Speaker of the House, a constitutional officer, who actively shapes the House agenda and leadership.

• The vice president of the United States is the president of the Senate, but the Senate majority leader has the real power in the Senate.

• The House and Senate have formal rules regarding parliamentary proce- dure, scheduling legislation, moving legislation to the floor, and filibusters in the Senate.

8.6 The Legislative Environment • Political parties, the president, constit-

uents, and interest groups all influ- ence how members of Congress decide issues.

• Political parties and the president push Congress toward majoritarian- ism; constituents and interest groups

exercise a pluralist influence on policymaking.

8.7 The Dilemma of Representation: Trustees or Delegates? • As trustees, representatives are obli-

gated to consider the views of constit- uents, but they are not obligated to vote according to those views if they think they are misguided.

• As delegates, legislators are sent to Congress with instructions from the people at home on how to vote on critical issues and are expected to vote against their own views if necessary.

• Members of Congress are subject to both these forces, but research shows they most often act as trustees.

8.8 Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy • In a parliamentary system, govern-

ment power is concentrated in the legislature. These systems are more majoritarian than separation-of- powers systems.

• The U.S. Congress is often criticized for being too pluralistic and not majoritarian enough.

• Majoritarianism is growing in the Congress due to the rise in party unity.

Summary 301

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

8.1 Explain the structure and powers of Congress as envisioned by the framers and enumerated in the Constitution. 1. How is the number of congressional

representatives elected from each state determined?

2. Name the powers that are unique to the House of Representatives and those that are unique to the Senate.

8.2 Analyze the factors that affect the way voters elect members of Congress. 1. What factors contribute to the high

reelection rates of congressional incumbents?

2. What does the term descriptive representation mean?

3. How has the use of majority-minority districts benefitted each political party?

8.3 Describe the ways in which issues get on the congressional agenda. 1. What might bring an issue to the

forefront of the congressional agenda?

8.4 Differentiate among the types of congressional committees and eval- uate the role of the committee sys- tem in the legislative process. 1. Which chamber channels bills

through the Rules Committee?

2. Explain the stages of the legislative process.

3. Define standing, joint, conference, and select committees and explain the primary role of each one.

4. How do legislators make sure the agencies that administer their pro- grams are carrying out the policies as Congress intended?

5. How does the committee system enhance the pluralist and the majoritarian aspects of American politics?

8.5 Identify the leadership structure of the legislative branch and assess the rules that influence congres- sional operations. 1. Who serves as Speaker of the House

and what are the Speaker’s roles? 2. Who serves the leadership role in

the Senate? 3. How can one senator obstruct

legislation through a hold or a filibuster?

8.6 Identify the components of the legis- lative environment that affect decision making in Congress. 1. How do political parties and the

president push Congress toward majoritarian democracy?

2. How do constituents and interest groups exercise a pluralist influence on policymaking?

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8.7 Debate whether members of Con- gress should vote the majority views of their constituents or their percep- tion of the public interest. 1. How do members of Congress who

see themselves as trustees view their roles?

2. How do members of Congress who see themselves as delegates view their responsibility to their constituents?

8.8 Assess the elements that character- ize Congress as a pluralist or a majoritarian system. 1. Why is a parliamentary system more

majoritarian than a separation-of- powers system?

2. What accounts for the growing majoritarianism in Congress?

3. What is an earmark and why is it associated with a pluralist model of democracy?

Assessing Your Understanding 303

9 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

The Presidency

9.1 The Constitutional Basis of Presidential Power

Assess whether the constitutional powers of the president form a strong basis for the modern presidency.

9.2 The Expansion of Presidential Power

Illustrate how claims of inherent powers augment the formal powers of the presidency.

9.3 The Executive Branch Establishment

Assess the role played by the various executive branch institutions as resources for an effective president.

9.4 Presidential Leadership

Defend the argument that ‘‘presidential power is the power to persuade.’’

9.5 The President as National Leader

Compare and contrast the different roles that the president plays as national leader.

9.6 The President as World Leader

Analyze the role of the president within the context of the changing nature of global politics.

304 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

FPO E lection day, November 6, 2012. AsBarack Obama waited the hours to see if the American public would reelect him, he had to be thinking of what he had accomplished and where he had fallen short. Hopes were so high on that night exactly four years earlier. When the returns came in and revealed his 2008 landslide victory over Republican Senator John McCain, Obama and his supporters were sure that the next four years would be transformative. The divi- siveness of the Bush years would give way to a new era. Obama would transcend partisanship to unify America around much needed change.1

Maybe he had been naı̈ve to believe he could bend Washington. After all, he was elected president, not anointed king. The con- straints on presidents are substantial. Even when his party controlled the Congress in 2009– 2010, there were challenges to getting legisla- tion passed. When the Republicans captured the House after the 2010 election, he was able to get very little through the Congress. Republican

legislators had a diametrically opposed view of what America needed to do. More broadly, Republicans across the country believed that Obama was an excessively partisan president, just as Democrats had thought the same of George W. Bush.2

It is not as though his administration was not without major achievements. Yet the ultimate frus- tration was that he spent much of his initial political capital on just trying to stabilize the economy, which had fallen off a cliff before he took office. Legislation passed at the end of the Bush adminis- tration aimed at keeping the banking system from collapsing, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), achieved its goal but became known deri- sively as the ‘‘bailout bill’’ because it rescued fi- nancial institutions whose mistakes had helped cause the economic downturn. Many Americans incorrectly believed Obama was responsible for the unpopular law.3 And then there was Obama’s stimulus bill. In an effort to kick-start the failing economy, his stimulus package included funds for

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305 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

public works projects like roads and bridges, along with a tax cut and funds sent directly to the states to supplement their shrinking rev- enues. Research showed that the stimulus did improve the economy but not enough to restore it to full health.4 Voters came to believe that it did little good. Obama’s signature program, the Affordable Care Act, was designed to provide health insurance to all Ameri- cans who could not afford it on their own. It was a monumental pol- icy achievement, but its mandate that Americans purchase insurance or face a penalty was highly controversial. By a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court upheld the ACA in its entirety in June 2012. The court ruled the mandate constitutional because the penalty could be construed as a tax, a central element of Congress’s power of the purse.5 Still, much of the public opposed the law.

The president knew that he had also had significant accomplish- ments in foreign policy. It was under his watch that Osama bin Laden was discovered and then killed by American special forces deep inside Pakistan. The brutal dictator of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, had been brought down in part because of the Western allies’ air bombardment.

Finally, the deep recession began to abate. But was it too late to save his presidency? In the winter and spring of 2011–2012 the unemployment rate fell sharply as economic activity picked up.6 Consumers became more optimistic and began to purchase more, including big-ticket items like automobiles. Obama’s poll numbers began to rise from the depths. More Americans were say- ing that they approved of his performance as president. Would more Americans cast their ballots for him rather than Republican Mitt Romney?

He waited for the returns to come in … and was not disappointed.

All presidents face a daunting set of challenges. They are expected to offer solutions to national problems, whether fighting crime or reviving a failing economy. As the nation’s major foreign diplo- mat and commander in chief of the armed forces, they are held responsible for the security and status of America in the world. Our presidents are the focal point for the nation’s hopes and dis- appointments.

This chapter analyzes presidential leadership, looking at how presidents try to muster majoritarian support for their domestic goals and how presidents must function today as global leaders. What are the powers of the presidency? How is the president’s

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advisory system organized? What are the ingredients of strong presidential leadership: character, public relations, or a friendly Congress? Finally, what are the issues and problems that presi- dents face in foreign affairs?

9.1 The Constitutional Basis of Presidential Power

Assess whether the constitutional powers of the president form a strong basis for the modern presidency.

When the presidency was created, the thirteen former colonies had just fought a war of independence; their reaction to British domination had focused on the autocratic rule of King George III. Thus, delegates to the Constitutional Convention were extremely wary of unchecked power and were determined not to create an all-powerful, dictatorial presidency. The delegates’ fear of a power- ful presidency was counterbalanced by their desire for strong lead- ership. The Articles of Confederation, which did not provide for a single head of state, had failed to bind the states together into a unified nation (see Chapter 2). The delegates knew they had to create some type of effective executive office. Their task was to provide national leadership without allowing any opportunity for tyranny.

Initial Conceptions of the Presidency Debates over the nature of the office began. Should there be one president or a presidential council or committee? Should the presi- dent be chosen by Congress and remain subservient to that body?

The final structure of the presidency reflected the ‘‘checks and balances’’ philosophy that shaped the entire Constitution. The del- egates believed they had imposed important limits on the presi- dency through the powers specifically delegated to Congress and the courts. Those counterbalancing powers would act as checks, or controls, on presidents who might try to expand the office beyond its proper bounds.

The Constitutional Basis of Presidential Power 307

The Powers of the President The requirements for the presidency are set forth in Article II of the Constitution. The president must be a U.S.-born citizen, at least thirty-five years old, who has lived in the United States for a minimum of fourteen years. Article II also sets forth the responsi- bilities of presidents. In view of the importance of the office, the constitutional description of the president’s duties is surprisingly brief and vague. This vagueness has led to repeated conflict about the limits of presidential power.

The major presidential duties and powers listed in the Consti- tution can be summarized as follows:

• Serve as administrative head of the nation. The Constitution gives little guidance on the president’s administrative duties. It states merely that ‘‘the executive Power shall be vested in a Presi- dent of the United States of America’’ and that ‘‘he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’’ These imprecise directives have been interpreted to mean that the president is to supervise and offer leadership to various departments, agencies, and programs created by Congress. In practice, a chief executive spends much more time making policy decisions for his cabinet departments and agencies than enforcing existing policies.

• Act as commander in chief of the military. In essence, the Con- stitution names the president as the highest-ranking officer in the armed forces. But it gives Congress the power to declare war. The framers no doubt intended Congress to control the president’s military power; nevertheless, presidents have initi- ated military action without the approval of Congress.7

• Veto legislation. The president can veto (reject) any bill or reso- lution enacted by Congress, with the exception of joint resolu- tions that propose constitutional amendments. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote in each house.

• Appoint various officials. The president has the authority to appoint federal court judges, ambassadors, cabinet members, other key policymakers, and many lesser officials. Many appointments are subject to Senate confirmation.

• Make treaties. With the ‘‘Advice and Consent’’ of at least two- thirds of those senators voting at the time, the president can make treaties with foreign powers. The president is also to ‘‘receive Ambassadors,’’ a phrase that presidents have inter- preted to mean the right to formally recognize other nations.

veto The president’s rejection of a bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress. Congress can override a veto with a two- thirds vote in each house.

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• Grant pardons. The president can grant pardons to individu- als who have committed ‘‘Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.’’

9.2 The Expansion of Presidential Power

Illustrate how claims of inherent powers augment the formal powers of the presidency.

The framers’ limited conception of the president’s role has given way to a considerably more powerful interpretation. In this sec- tion, we discuss how presidential power has expanded as presi- dents have exercised their explicit constitutional responsibilities and boldly interpreted the ambiguities of the Constitution. First, we look at the ways in which formal powers, such as the veto power, have been increasingly used over time. Second, we turn to claims that presidents make about ‘‘inherent’’ powers implicit in the Constitution. Finally, we discuss congressional grants of power to the executive branch.

Formal Powers The Constitution clearly involves the president in the policymaking process through his veto power, ability to report to Congress on the state of the union, and role as commander in chief. Over time, pres- idents have been increasingly aggressive in their use of these formal powers. Vetoes, for instance, have become much more frequent, particularly when presidents face a Congress dominated by the opposing political party. The first sixteen presidents, from Wash- ington to Lincoln, issued a total of 59 vetoes. Dwight Eisenhower issued 181 vetoes over the course of his two terms in office; Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation 78 times.8 Although Barack Obama made little use of the veto, the ability to veto legislation gives the presi- dent power even when he does not issue many vetoes. Veto threats shape legislation because members of Congress anticipate vetoes and modify legislation to avoid them.9

Modern presidents have also taken a much more active role in setting the nation’s policy agenda. The Constitution states that

The Expansion of Presidential Power 309

the president shall give Congress information on the state of the Union ‘‘from time to time.’’ For the most part, nineteenth-century presidents sent written messages to Congress and did not publicly campaign for the passage of legislation.10 Early twentieth-century presidents like Woodrow Wilson began to deliver their State of the Union speeches in person before Congress, personalizing and fighting for their own policy agendas. It is now expected that the president will enter office with clear policy goals and work with his party in Congress to pass legislation.

Modern presidents have used their power as commander in chief to enter into foreign conflicts without appealing to Congress for a formal declaration of war.11 The entire Vietnam War was fought without a congressional declaration of war. In Afghanistan, the United States is fighting guerrilla forces that the nation regards as terrorists. But there is no Taliban nation to declare war against.

The Inherent Powers Several presidents have expanded the power of the office by taking actions that exceeded commonly held notions of the president’s proper authority. These men justified what they had done by say- ing that their actions fell within the inherent powers of the presi- dency. From this broad perspective, presidential power derives not only from those duties clearly outlined in Article II but also from inferences that may be drawn from the Constitution.

When a president claims a power that has not been considered part of the chief executive’s authority, he forces Congress and the courts to either acquiesce to his claim or restrict it. For instance, President Bush unilaterally established a military commission to try alleged enemy combatants held at the U.S. naval base at Guanta- namo Bay, Cuba. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions as established were illegal. The Bush adminis- tration was forced to go to Congress for the authorization to estab- lish new commissions with new trial procedures.12

Claims of inherent powers often come at critical points in the nation’s history. During the Civil War, for example, Abraham Lincoln issued several orders that exceeded the accepted limits of presidential authority and usurped powers constitutionally con- ferred on Congress. Lincoln said the urgent nature of the South’s challenge to the Union forced him to act without waiting for con- gressional approval. His rationale was simple: ‘‘Was it possible to

inherent powers Authority claimed by the president that is not clearly specified in the Constitution. Typically these powers are inferred from the Constitution.

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lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution?’’13 In other words, Lincoln circumvented the Constitution in order to save the nation. Subsequently, Congress and the Supreme Court approved Lincoln’s actions. That approval gave added legitimacy to the theory of inherent powers, a theory that has transformed the pres- idency over time.

Today presidents routinely issue executive orders, presiden- tial directives that carry the force of law.14 The Constitution does not explicitly grant the president the power to issue an executive order. Sometimes presidents use them to see that the laws are ‘‘faithfully executed.’’ This was the case when Dwight Eisenhower ordered the Arkansas National Guard into federal service in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce court orders to desegregate the schools. But many times presidents issue executive orders by argu- ing that they may take actions in the best interest of the nation so long as the law does not directly prohibit these actions. Executive orders are issued for a wide variety of purposes, from administra- tive reorganization to civil rights.

The boundaries of the president’s inherent powers have been sharply debated since the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the United States.15 In response to an ongoing threat of terrorism, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to wiretap telephone calls, without a warrant, between peo- ple within the United States and people overseas with suspected links to terrorism.16 The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), however, required intelligence agencies like the NSA to obtain a warrant from a panel of judges before wiretapping the calls of U.S. persons. When the wiretapping was revealed, critics accused Bush of putting himself above the law. Bush argued that the Constitution designates the president as the commander in chief of the armed forces; he said he could disregard FISA require- ments if they hindered his ability to collect the foreign intelligence necessary to protect the nation from another terrorist attack. Crit- icism of warrantless wiretapping eventually led Bush to request this power from Congress, which passed legislation that essentially authorized what the NSA had been doing.17

Congressional Delegation of Power Presidential power grows when presidents successfully challenge Congress, but in many instances, Congress willingly delegates

executive orders Presidential directives to the executive branch that create or modify public policies, without the direct approval of Congress.

The Expansion of Presidential Power 311

power to the executive branch. As the American public pressures the national government to solve various problems, Congress, through a process called delegation of powers, gives the executive branch more responsibility to administer programs that address those problems. One example of delegation of congressional power occurred in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, when Con- gress gave Franklin Roosevelt’s administration wide latitude to do what it thought was necessary to solve the nation’s economic ills.

When Congress concludes that the government needs flexi- bility in its approach to a problem, the president is often given great freedom in how or when to implement policies. Richard Nixon was given discretionary authority to impose a freeze on wages and prices in an effort to combat escalating inflation. If Congress had been forced to debate the timing of this freeze, merchants and manufacturers would surely have raised their pri- ces in anticipation of it. Instead, Nixon was able to act suddenly, and the freeze was imposed without warning. (We discuss con- gressional delegation of authority to the executive branch in more detail in Chapter 10.)

At other times, Congress believes that too much power has accumulated in the executive branch, and it enacts legislation to reassert congressional authority. During the 1970s, many repre- sentatives and senators agreed that presidents were exercising power that rightfully belonged to the legislative branch and that Congress’s role in the American political system was declining. The most notable reaction was passage of the War Powers Resolu- tion (1973), directed toward ending the president’s ability to pur- sue armed conflict without explicit congressional approval.

9.3 The Executive Branch Establishment

Assess the role played by the various executive branch institutions as resources for an effective president.

Although we elect a single individual as president, it would be a mistake to ignore the extensive staff and other resources of the ex- ecutive branch of government. The president has a White House

delegation of powers The process by which Congress gives the executive branch the additional authority needed to address new problems

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staff that helps him formulate policy. The vice president is another resource; his duties within the administration vary according to his relationship with the president. The president’s cabinet secretaries—the heads of the major departments of the national government—play several roles, including the critical function of administering the programs that fall within their jurisdictions.

The Executive Office of the President The president depends heavily on his key aides. They advise him on crucial political choices, devise the general strategies the administration will follow in pursuing congressional and public support, and control access to the president to ensure that he has enough time for his most important tasks. Consequently, he needs to trust and respect these top staffers; many in a president’s inner circle of assistants are long-time associates. The president’s per- sonal staff constitutes the White House Office.

Presidents typically have a chief of staff, who may be first among equals or, in some administrations, the unquestioned leader of the staff. There also is a national security adviser to pro- vide daily briefings on foreign and military affairs and longer- range analyses of issues confronting the administration. Similarly, the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Economic Council advise the president on the best way to promote eco- nomic growth. Senior domestic policy advisers help determine the administration’s basic approach to such areas as health, education, and social services.

Below these top aides are the large staffs that serve them and the president. These staffs are organized around certain special- ties. For example, President Obama’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Tom Donilon, oversees the National Security Council staff, which provides analysis and logistical support to the president on foreign affairs. Some staff members work on political matters, such as liaison with interest groups, relations with ethnic and religious minorities, and party affairs. One staff deals exclusively with the media, and a legisla- tive liaison staff lobbies Congress for the administration. The large Office of Management and Budget (OMB) analyzes budget requests, is involved in the policymaking process, and also exam- ines agency management practices. This extended White House executive establishment, including the White House Office, is

The Executive Branch Establishment 313

known as the Executive Office of the President (EOP). The Ex- ecutive Office employs close to 2,000 individuals and has an an- nual budget outlay of approximately $500 million.18

No one agrees about a ‘‘right way’’ for a president to organize his White House staff, but scholars have identified three major ad- visory styles.19 Franklin Roosevelt exemplified the first system: a competitive management style. He organized his staff so that his advisers had overlapping authority and differing points of view. Roosevelt used this system to ensure that he would get the best possible information, hear all sides of an argument, and still be the final decision maker in any dispute. Dwight Eisenhower, a for- mer general, best exemplifies a hierarchical staff model. His staff was arranged with clear lines of authority and a hierarchical struc- ture that mirrored a military command. This places fewer demands on presidential time and energy, since the president does not participate in the details of policy discussion. Bill Clinton had more of a collegial staffing arrangement, a loose staff structure that gave many top staffers direct access to him, particularly early in his first administration. Clinton himself was immersed in the details of the policymaking process, brainstorming with his advis- ers. He was much less likely to delegate authority to others. Presi- dents tend to choose the advisory systems that best suit their personality. Most presidents use a combination of styles, learning from their predecessors.

Above all, a president must ensure that staff members feel comfortable telling him things he may not want to hear. Telling the president of the United States he is misguided on something is not an easy thing to do. The term groupthink has been used to refer to situations in which staffers reach consensus without prop- erly considering all sides of an issue.20 Several analysts have argued that the Johnson administration suffered from groupthink when making decisions about the Vietnam War.

The Vice President The vice president’s most important duty is to take over the presidency in the event of presidential death, disability, impeach- ment, or resignation. Traditionally, vice presidents were not used in any important advisory capacity. Instead, presidents tended to give them political chores: campaigning, fundraising, and ‘‘stroking’’ the party faithful. This is often the case because

Executive Office of the President (EOP) The president’s executive aides and their staffs; the extended White House executive establishment.

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vice-presidential candidates are cho- sen for reasons that have more to do with the political campaign than with governing the nation. Presidential candidates often choose vice-presidential candidates who appeal to a different geographic region or party coalition. Sometimes they even join forces with a rival from their political primary cam- paign. New Englander John Ken- nedy chose Texan Lyndon Johnson. Conservative Ronald Reagan selected George H. W. Bush, his more moderate rival in the Republi- can primaries. Texas governor George W. Bush chose Washington insider Dick Cheney as his vice- presidential running mate, who brought experience as a former member of the House of Represen- tatives, presidential chief of staff to Richard Nixon, and secretary of defense to Bush’s father.21 Vice President Joe Biden became an important adviser within the Obama administration. He brought a wealth of foreign policy ex- perience from years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the administration. Despite a propensity for verbal gaffes, Vice President Biden emerged as a forceful spokesman for administra- tion policy and was reelected with President Obama in 2012.22

The Cabinet The president’s cabinet is composed of the heads of the depart- ments in the executive branch and a small number of other key officials, such as the head of the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Trade Representative. The cabinet has expanded greatly since George Washington formed his first cabi- net: an attorney general and the secretaries of state, treasury, and war. Clearly, the growth of the cabinet to fifteen departments reflects the growth of government responsibility and intervention

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Barack Obama tapped Delaware senator Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 and 2012. According to the Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate, a largely ceremonial role, except for the ability to cast tie-breaking votes. Vice President Joe Biden knows the Senate well, having served as a senator from the state of Delaware for 36 years.

cabinet A group of presidential advisers; the heads of the executive department and other key officials.

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in areas such as energy, housing, and, most recently, homeland security.

In theory, the members of the cabinet constitute an advisory body that meets with the president to debate major policy deci- sions. In practice, however, cabinet meetings have been described as ‘‘vapid non-events in which there has been a deliberate non- exchange of information as part of a process of mutual non- consultation.’’23 Why is this so?

First, the cabinet has become rather large. Counting depart- ment heads, other officials of cabinet rank, and presidential aides, it is a body of at least twenty people—a size that many presidents find unwieldy for the give-and-take of political decision making. Second, most cabinet members have limited areas of expertise and cannot contribute much to deliberations in policy areas they know little about. The secretary of defense, for example, would probably be a poor choice to help decide important issues of agricultural policy. Third, although cabinet members have impressive back- grounds, they may not be personally close to the president or easy for him to work with. The president often chooses cabinet mem- bers because of their reputations, or he may be guided by a need to give his cabinet some racial, ethnic, geographic, gender, or reli- gious balance.

Finally, modern presidents do not rely on the cabinet to make policy because they have such large White House staffs, which offer most of the advisory support they need. And in contrast to cabinet secretaries, who may be pulled in different directions by the wishes of the president and those of their clientele groups, staffers in the White House Office are likely to see themselves as being responsible to the president alone. In practice, presidents prefer the flexibility of ad hoc groups, specialized White House staffs, and the advisers and cabinet secretaries with whom they feel most comfortable.

More broadly, presidents use their personal staffs and the large Executive Office of the President to centralize control over the entire executive branch. The vast size of the executive branch and the number and complexity of decisions that must be made each day pose a challenge for the White House. Each president must be careful to appoint to top administrative positions people who are passionate about the president’s goals and skillful enough to lead others in the executive branch to fight for the president’s program instead of for their own agendas.24

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9.4 Presidential Leadership Defend the argument that ‘‘presidential power is the power to persuade.’’

A president’s influence in office comes not only from his assigned responsibilities but also from his political skills and from how effectively he uses the resources of his office. His lead- ership also depends on perceptions of his character and the po- litical environment in which he finds himself. Table 9.1 provides

TABLE 9.1 Presidential Greatness

This table provides two ‘‘top twelve’’ lists of the American presidents. The first ranking comes from a 2007 Gallup Poll that asked ordinary Americans to name whom they regarded as the greatest U.S. president. The second ranking comes from a survey of historians and observers of the presidency, who rated presidents according to their abilities such as public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, and relations with Congress. Although the rank order is different, nine presidents appear on both lists. Ordinary Americans are more likely to name recent presidents with whom they have had direct experience.

Gallup Poll Ratings Historians’ Ratings

Rank President Rank President

1 Abraham Lincoln 1 Abraham Lincoln

2 Ronald Reagan 2 Franklin Roosevelt

3 John F. Kennedy 3 George Washington

4 Bill Clinton 4 Theodore Roosevelt

5 Franklin Roosevelt 5 Harry Truman

6 George Washington 6 Woodrow Wilson

7 Harry Truman 7 Thomas Jefferson

8 George W. Bush 8 John F. Kennedy

9 Theodore Roosevelt 9 Dwight Eisenhower

10 Dwight Eisenhower 10 Lyndon Johnson

11 Thomas Jefferson 11 Ronald Reagan

12 Jimmy Carter 12 James K. Polk Source: The historians’ ranking is reported by the C-SPAN survey of Presidential Leadership 2000, http://www.americanpresidents.org/ survey/historians/overall.asp. Copyright 2000 C-SPAN. Gallup Poll results are reported by Lydia Saad, ‘‘Lincoln Resumes Position as Americans’ Top-Rated President,’’ 19 February 2007, http://www.gallup.com. Copyright ª 2010 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. The content is used with permission; however, Gallup retains all rights of republication.

Presidential Leadership 317

two rankings of presidents. One is based on a Gallup Poll of or- dinary Americans; the other is based on a C-SPAN survey of fifty-eight prominent historians and professional observers of the presidency. In this section, we look at the factors that affect pres- idential performance. Why do some presidents rank higher than others?

Presidential Character How does the public assess which presidential candidate has the best judgment and a character suitable to the office? Americans must make a broad evaluation of the candidates’ personalities and leadership styles. Although it is difficult to judge, character mat- ters. One of Lyndon Johnson’s biographers argues that Johnson had trouble extricating the United States from Vietnam because of insecurities about his masculinity. Johnson wanted to make sure he ‘‘was not forced to see himself as a coward, running away from Vietnam.’’25 It is hard to know for sure whether this psychological interpretation is valid. Clearer, surely, is the tie between President Nixon’s character and Watergate. Nixon had such an exaggerated fear of what his ‘‘enemies’’ might try to do to him that he created a climate in the White House that nurtured the Watergate break- in and subsequent cover-up.

Presidential character was at the forefront of national politics when it was revealed that President Clinton engaged in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern half his age.26 Many argued that presidential authority is irreparably dam- aged when the president is perceived as personally untrustworthy or immoral. Yet despite the disgust and anger that Clinton’s actions provoked among many Americans, most remained uncon- vinced that he had committed an impeachable offense. The buoy- ant economy and the public’s general satisfaction with Clinton’s leadership strongly influenced the country’s views on the matter. A majority of the House of Representatives voted to impeach him, on the grounds of perjury and obstructing justice, but the Senate did not have the two-thirds majority necessary to convict Clinton, so he remained in office.

Scholars have identified personality traits such as strong self- esteem and emotional intelligence that are best suited to leader- ship positions like the American presidency.27 In the media age, it often proves difficult to evaluate a candidate’s personality when

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everyone tries to present himself or herself in a positive light. Even so, voters repeatedly claim that they care about traits such as lead- ership, integrity, and competence when casting their ballots (see Figure 9.1).28

FIGURE 9.1 A Presidential Wish List

Percentage of respondents

Strong and decisive leader

Essential Important, not essential

Not that important

77 22 1

Good moral character 68 29 3

Effective manager 63 34 3

Would unite the country 59 35 6

Consistent issue positions 47 46 7

Foreign policy experience 46 48 6

Pays attention to public 43 43 14

Faithful to spouse 37 40 23

Experience in government 34 50 16

Inspiring speaker 24 56 20

Never used illegal drugs 19 39 42

Regularly attends religious services 18 38 44

Worked in Washington a long time 10 35 55

Served in the military 7 36 57

What qualities do you look for in a president? A survey asked Americans to rank various qualities and characteristics as ‘‘essential,’’ ‘‘important, but not essential,’’ or ‘‘not that important.’’ Most Americans think that it is essential that the president be a strong leader and an effective manager. A majority also believe that the president should have a good moral character and focus on uniting the country. Americans want their president to have a lot of experience in government, but not necessarily in Washington. Military service and church attendance are less relevant qualities. Source: Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Wanted in the Next President: Honesty, Strong Leadership,’’ 4 April 2007, http://www.gallup.com. Copyright ª 2010 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. The content is used with permission; however, Gallup retains all rights of republication.

Presidential Leadership 319

The President’s Power to Persuade In addition to desirable character traits, individual presidents must have the interpersonal and practical political skills to get things done. A classic analysis of the use of presidential resources is offered by Richard Neustadt in his book Presidential Power, which discusses how presidents gain, lose, or maintain their influ- ence. Neustadt’s initial premise is simple: ‘‘Presidential power is the power to persuade.’’29 Presidents, for all their resources—a skilled staff, extensive media coverage of presidential actions, the great respect the country holds for the office—must depend on others’ cooperation to get things done. Harry Truman echoed Neustadt’s premise when he said, ‘‘I sit here all day trying to per- suade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them.… That’s all the powers of the President amount to.’’30

Ability in bargaining, dealing with adversaries, and choosing priorities, according to Neustadt, separates above-average presi- dents from mediocre ones. A president must make wise choices about which policies to push and which to put aside until he can find more support. He must decide when to accept compromises and when to stand on principles. He must know when to go pub- lic and when to work behind the scenes.

A president’s political skills can be important in affecting outcomes in Congress. The chief executive cannot intervene in every legislative struggle. He must choose his battles carefully, then try to use the force of his personality and the prestige of his office to forge an agreement among differing factions. In terms of getting members to vote a certain way, presidential influence is best described as taking place ‘‘at the margins.’’ Presidents do not have the power to consistently move large numbers of votes one way or the other. They can, however, affect some votes— possibly enough to affect the fate of a closely fought piece of legislation.31 Neustadt stresses that a president’s influence is related to his professional reputation and public prestige. When a president pushes hard for a bill that Congress eventually defeats or emasculates, the president’s reputation is hurt. Wash- ington insiders perceive him as weak or as showing poor judg- ment, and Congress becomes even less likely to cooperate with him in the future.

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The President and the Public Neustadt’s analysis suggests that a popular president is more per- suasive than an unpopular one. A popular president has more power to persuade because he can use his public support as a resource in the bargaining process.32 Members of Congress who know that the president is highly popular back home have more incentive to cooperate with the administration.

A familiar aspect of the modern presidency is the effort presi- dents devote to mobilizing public support for their programs. A president uses televised addresses (and the press coverage sur- rounding them), remarks to reporters, and public appearances to speak directly to the American people and convince them of the wisdom of his policies. Scholars have coined the phrase ‘‘going public’’ to describe situations where the president ‘‘forces compli- ance from fellow Washingtonians by going over their heads to appeal to their constituents.’’33 Rather than bargain exclusively with a small number of party and committee leaders in Congress, the president rallies broad coalitions of support as though under- taking a political campaign.

Since public opinion is a resource for modern presidents, they pay close attention to their standing in the polls. Presidential pop- ularity is typically at its highest during a president’s first year in office. This ‘‘honeymoon period’’ usually affords the president a particularly good opportunity to use public support to get some of his programs through Congress.34 Over time, economic condi- tions exert an enormous impact on a president’s approval rating (see Figure 9.2, p. 322).

Several factors generally explain the rise and fall in presiden- tial popularity. First, public approval of the job done by a presi- dent is affected by economic conditions, such as inflation and unemployment. Second, a president is affected by unanticipated events of all types that occur during his administration.35 A third factor that affects approval ratings, however, is that presidents typically lose popularity when involved in a war with heavy casualties.36

Scholarly research demonstrates that efforts by presidents to influence public opinion are likely to have little effect. As political scientist George Edwards concludes, ‘‘Presidents cannot reshape the contours of the political landscape to pave the way for

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change.’’ Perhaps the most difficult obstacle presidents face is a lack of serious attention by the public. The vast majority of Amer- icans have limited interest in policymaking, and a presidential speech may fall on deaf ears. Even a televised address to the nation carried by major networks may be ignored.37

President Obama’s endeavor to convince the American public to back his program for health-care reform is a case in point. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 2009. Obama worked continually to rally public opinion to his side. Through speeches, press interviews, and other efforts, he labored to make Americans understand the benefits of the program. He failed to move opin- ion and his own popularity declined during this time.38 Unem- ployment and the continuing recession were the primary causes of his sagging popularity, but unfavorable attitudes toward the health-care proposal may have contributed to his problems as well. The president’s power to persuade seems more potent within his own party.39 Obama was effective at prodding his own party in Congress to support his proposal, which eventually passed. Still,

FIGURE 9.2 It All Goes Back to the Economy

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

20 –70

–50

–30

–10

% Approve Gallup economic confidence index

The economy is always critical to each president’s standing with the American public. As shown here for the Bush and Obama years, each president’s approval rating closely tracks a composite index of economic conditions as measured by the Gallup Poll. There are fluctuations reflecting events other than economic conditions, of course, but over time there is a strong correlation between popularity and economic performance. Source: Lydia Saad, ‘‘Obama’s Job Approval Tied to Economic Confidence in 2012,’’ Gallup Poll, March 19, 2012. http:// www.gallup.com. Copyright ª 2012 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. The content is used with permission; however, Gallup retains all rights of republication.

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presidents are right to be wary of backing legislation that the vot- ers back home do not like.

In multiparty parliamentary systems a prime minister’s loss of public support may cause some parties in a ruling coalition to quit the coalition. The coalition formed by Italian politician and busi- nessman Silvio Berlusconi first won office in the 1994 Italian elec- tions, but a scandal ensued and one of the parties in his coalition pulled out. This left Berlusconi without a majority, and new elections had to be held. Later, when Berlusconi was back in office as Italian prime minister, the lack of public support helped bring about his resignation in 2011 (see ‘‘Compared with What? From Berlusconi to Bankruptcy: The Costs of Failed Leadership’’ on pp. 324–325).40

Presidents’ obsessive concern with public opinion can be defended as a means of furthering majoritarian democracy: the president tries to gauge what the people want so that he can offer policies that reflect popular preferences. Responsiveness to the public’s views is a bedrock principle of democracy, and presidents should respond to public opinion as well as try to lead it.41 Some believe that presidents are too concerned about their popularity and are unwilling to champion unpopular causes or take prin- cipled stands that may affect their poll ratings. Commenting on the presidential polls that first became widely used during his term, Harry Truman said, ‘‘I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he’d taken a poll in Egypt?’’42

The Political Context Although character and political skill are important, the presi- dent’s popularity and legislative success also depend on the wider political environment.

Partisans in Congress. Generally presidents have their greatest success in Congress during the period immediately following their inauguration, which we noted is also the peak of their popularity. One of the best predictors of presidential success in Congress is the number of fellow partisans in Congress, particularly whether the president’s party has a majority in each chamber.43

Presidential success in Congress is measured by how often the president wins his way on congressional roll call votes on which he takes a clear position. George W. Bush’s success rate hovered around 75 percent during his first six years in office with a Repub- lican Congress. After the Democrats won control of Congress in

Presidential Leadership 323

Compared with What?

From Berlusconi to Bankruptcy: The Costs of Failed Leadership Italy has gone bust. Countries go bankrupt when they cannot pay their bills, and Italy reached that point in 2011 when lenders were charging such high interest rates to purchase the country’s bonds that it could not continue to meet the borrowing costs. Inter- national institutions, principally the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, had to step in and essentially guarantee payment for Italy’s debt.

Italy’s descent into economic chaos is, in part, a reflection of the severe recession that hit Europe in 2008. Yet not all of Europe’s economies were destabilized by the recession. Italy’s difficulties also reflect problems of leadership, in particular the failures of Silvio Berlusconi. The controversial Berlusconi served multiple terms as prime minister between 1994 and 2011.

Before entering politics, Berlusconi was a successful business- man who built an enormous television empire. Some of his great- est profits came from quiz shows where an attractive young woman would take off an article of clothing every time she answered a question incorrectly. Those television networks relent- lessly promoted his career. As a politician Berlusconi created his own political party, Forza Italia, and in Italy’s multiparty parlia- mentary system, Berlusconi’s faction became the dominant part- ner in the conservative coalition in the legislature. Berlusconi’s own politics, however, were a curious mixture of conservative and liberal positions.

Despite his campaign promises, once in office Berlusconi did not effectively address a number of serious structural problems in Italy’s economy. Most significant is Italy’s labor laws, which make it extremely difficult for a company to fire any of its employees. This inhibits economic expansion. For example, companies might be afraid to take on additional workers for a new product line because should it fail, the company will still be stuck with the employees who were hired to work on that product. The lack of growth in the economy generated unemployment, a problem that

324 Chapter 9 The Presidency

is especially acute among the young. Fully 30 percent of young Italians are unemployed, and this has produced a dispirited generation.

Berlusconi also fell short in terms of integrity and appropri- ate behavior. He’s been indicted nine times, only to be saved by a judicial system that has always seemed poised to rescue him. Six times charges were eventually dismissed because the statute of limitations ran out before the process had been com- pleted. He was also an inveterate womanizer, and his second wife divorced him during his tenure as prime minister because of his infidelity. When he was 68 and serving as prime minis- ter, he disappeared for three weeks, keeping the country in the dark as to his whereabouts, only to return with a facelift. One of his mansions became known for sex parties in the ‘‘bunga bunga’’ room. He also became involved with a Moroccan night club dancer known as Ruby the Heart Stealer. She turned out to be underaged, and Berlusconi was indicted for paying for sex with a 17 year old. Those charges are still pending, though he was convicted of tax fraud in 2012.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund made Berlusconi’s removal a requirement for continued assis- tance to the beleaguered country. He had also become massively unpopular with Italians and had no choice but to resign. After he stepped down in November 2011, Berlusconi was replaced by a caretaker government headed by Mario Monti, an Italian econo- mist who was working for the European Union. Monti is well respected in and outside of Italy, but he has his work cut out for him. Italy’s economic woes are acute, and his government sits atop a fractured political system.

Critical Thinking In what ways does a political leader’s character matter? Are external calls to replace a president or prime minister ever justified? Are they a violation of national sovereignty?

Presidential Leadership 325

2006, his success rate fell to 38 percent.44 With large majorities in both the House and the Senate during his first two years in office, Barack Obama did well with the Congress and got major pieces of legislation such as the economic stimulus package and the health- care plan enacted. His fortunes changed dramatically when the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.

The American political system poses a challenge for presi- dents and their policy agendas because the president is elected in- dependent of Congress. Often this leads to divided government, with one party controlling the White House and the other party controlling at least one house of Congress. This outcome may seem politically schizophrenic, with the electorate saying one thing by electing a president and another by electing a majority in Congress that opposes his policies. This does not appear to bother the American people, however, as divided government is fairly common.

Scholars are divided on the impact of divided government. Despite these differences in the scholarly literature, political scien- tists generally do not believe that divided government inevitably produces gridlock, a situation in which government is incapable of acting on important policy issues.45 In recent years, however, there has been a pattern of increasingly partisan voting in Con- gress: Republicans voting in a relatively unified pattern while Democrats also vote in an increasingly unified manner.46

Elections. In his farewell address, Jimmy Carter lashed out at the interest groups that had plagued his presidency. Interest groups, he said, ‘‘distort our purposes because the national interest is not always the sum of all our single or special interests.’’ Carter noted the president’s singular responsibility: ‘‘The president is the only elected official charged with representing all the people.’’47 Like all other presidents, Carter quickly recognized the dilemma of majoritarianism versus pluralism after he took office. The presi- dent must try to please countless separate constituencies while trying to do what is best for the whole country.

It is easy to stand on the sidelines and say that presidents should always try to follow a majoritarian path, pursuing policies that reflect the preferences of most citizens. However, simply by running for office, candidates align themselves with particular seg- ments of the population. As a result of their electoral strategy, their identification with activists in their party, and their own

divided government The situation in which one party controls the White House and the other controls at least one house of Congress.

gridlock A situation in which government is incapable of acting on important issues, usually because of divided government.

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political views, candidates come into office with an interest in pleasing some constituencies more than others.

Each candidate tries to win votes from different groups of vot- ers through his or her stand on various issues. Because issue stan- ces can cut both ways—attracting some voters but driving others away—candidates may try to finesse an issue by being deliberately vague. However, a candidate who is noncommittal on too many issues appears wishy-washy. And future presidents do not build their political careers without working strongly for and becoming associated with important issues and constituencies. Moreover, af- ter the election is over, the winning candidate wants to claim that he has been given an electoral mandate, or endorsement, by the voters to carry out the policies he campaigned on. New presidents try to make a majoritarian interpretation of the election, claiming that their victory is an expression of the direct will of the people. Candidates who win by large margins are more likely to claim mandates and ask for major policy changes.

Political Party Systems. American political history is marked by eras in which one of the major political parties tends to dominate national-level politics, consistently capturing the presidency and majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives. Presidential leadership is determined in part by whether the president is a mem- ber of the dominant political party and whether the public policies and political philosophy associated with his party have widespread support. A president will have a greater opportunity to change pub- lic policy when he is in the majority and the opposing political party is perceived as unable to solve major national problems.

Some presidents inherit a political climate ripe for change; others do not. Presidents who come to power right after critical elections have the most favorable environment for exerting strong presidential leadership. Franklin Roosevelt, for instance, came to office when the Republican Party was unable to offer solutions to the economic crisis of the Great Depression. He enjoyed a land- slide victory and large Democratic majorities in Congress, and he proposed fundamental changes in government and public policy. The weakest presidents are those, like Herbert Hoover, who are constrained by their affiliation with a political party that is per- ceived to stand for worn-out ideas.

Upon taking office, Barack Obama envisioned a changing party landscape with the Democrats emerging as the dominant

electoral mandate An endorsement by voters. Presidents sometimes argue that they have been given a mandate to carry out policy proposals.

Presidential Leadership 327

party. He believed that the changing demographics of the country would help the party as minorities exhibit a strong preference for the Democrats. Young voters also showed an inclination for the party (in part because young voters are a more diverse population than older cohorts).48 In the short run, at least, Obama’s opti- mism ran into the reality of the economic downturn and the resulting voter disenchantment with the Democrats.

9.5 The President as National Leader

Compare and contrast the different roles that the president plays as national leader.

With an election behind him and the resources of his office at hand, a president is ready to lead the nation. Each president enters office with a general vision of how government should approach policy issues. During his term, he spends much of his time trying to get Congress to enact legislation that reflects his general philos- ophy and specific policy preferences.

From Political Values … Presidents differ greatly in their views of the role of government. Lyndon Johnson had a strong liberal ideology concerning domes- tic affairs. He believed that government has a responsibility to help disadvantaged Americans. In describing his vision of justice in his inaugural address, Johnson used the words justice and injus- tice as code words for equality and inequality. They were used six times in his speech; freedom was used only twice. Johnson used his popularity, his skills, and the resources of his office to press for a ‘‘just’’ America— a ‘‘Great Society.’’49

To achieve his Great Society, Johnson sent Congress an un- precedented package of liberal legislation. He launched such proj- ects as the Job Corps (which created centers and camps offering vocational training and work experience to youths aged sixteen to twenty-one), Medicare (which provided medical care for the elderly), and the National Teacher Corps (which paid teachers to work in impoverished neighborhoods). Supported by huge

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Democratic majorities in Congress during 1965 and 1966, he had tremendous success in getting his proposals through. Liberalism was in full swing.

In 1985, exactly twenty years after Johnson’s inaugural speech, Ronald Reagan took his oath of office for the second time. Addressing the nation, Reagan reasserted his conservative philosophy. He emphasized freedom, using the term fourteen times, and failed to mention justice or equality even once. He turned Johnson’s philosophy on its head, declaring that ‘‘govern- ment is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.’’ During his presidency, Reagan worked to undo many welfare and social service programs, and he cut funding for such programs as the Job Corps and food stamps. By the end of his term, there had been a fundamental shift in federal spending, with sharp increases in defense spending and ‘‘decreases in fed- eral social programs [which] served to defend Democratic inter- ests and constituencies.’’50

… to Policy Agenda The roots of particular policy proposals can be traced to the more general political ideology of the president. Presidential candidates outline that philosophy of government during their campaigns for the White House. But when the hot rhetoric of the presidential campaign meets the cold reality of what is possible in Washing- ton, the newly elected president must make some hard choices about what to push for during the coming term. These choices are reflected in the bills the president submits to Congress, as well as in the degree to which he works for their passage. The president’s bills, introduced by his allies in the House and Senate, always receive a good deal of initial attention. In the words of one Wash- ington lobbyist, ‘‘When a president sends up a bill, it takes first place in the queue. All other bills take second place.’’51

The president’s role in legislative leadership began primarily in the twentieth century. A critical change came with Franklin Roosevelt. With the nation in the midst of the Great Depression, Roosevelt began his first term in 1933 with an ambitious array of legislative proposals. During the first hundred days Congress was in session, it enacted fifteen significant laws, including the Agri- cultural Adjustment Act, the act creating the Civilian Conserva- tion Corps, and the National Industrial Recovery Act. Never

The President as National Leader 329

before had a president demanded—and received—so much from Congress. Roosevelt’s legacy was that the president would hence- forth provide aggressive leadership for Congress through his own legislative program.

Chief Lobbyist When Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman first became heavily involved in preparing legislative packages, political scien- tists typically described the process as one in which ‘‘the president proposes and Congress disposes.’’ In other words, once the presi- dent sends his legislation to Capitol Hill, Congress decides on its own what to do with it. Over time, though, presidents have become increasingly active in all stages of the legislative process. The president is expected not only to propose legislation but also to make sure that it passes.

The president’s efforts to influence Congress are reinforced by the work of his legislative liaison staff. All departments and major agencies have legislative specialists who work with the White House liaison staff to coordinate the administration’s lobbying on major issues. The legislative liaison staff is the communications link between the White House and Congress. As a bill slowly makes its way through Congress, liaison staffers advise the presi- dent on the problems that emerge. They specify what parts of a bill are in trouble and may have to be modified or dropped. They tell their boss what amendments are likely to be offered, which members of Congress need to be lobbied, and what the bill’s chan- ces for passage are with or without certain provisions. Decisions on how the administration will respond to such developments must then be reached. For example, when the Reagan White House realized that it was still a few votes short of victory on a budget bill in the House, it reversed its opposition to a sugar price support bill. This attracted the votes of representatives from Loui- siana and Florida, two sugar-growing states, for the budget bill. The White House would not call what happened a deal, but it noted that ‘‘adjustments and considerations’’ had been made.52

A certain amount of the president’s job consists of stereotypi- cal arm twisting—pushing reluctant legislators to vote a certain way. During President Obama’s first four months in office, 400 representatives and senators were brought to the White House to speak with him or to attend meetings or other events.53 Yet most

legislative liaison staff Those people who act as the communications link between the White House and Congress, advising the president or cabinet secretaries on the status of pending legislation.

330 Chapter 9 The Presidency

day-in, day-out interactions between the White House and Con- gress tend to be more subtle, with the liaison staff trying to build consensus by working cooperatively with legislators. The White House also works directly with interest groups in its efforts to build support for legislation.54 Interest groups can quickly reach the constituents who are most concerned about a bill, using their communications network to quickly mobilize members to write, call, or e-mail their members of Congress.

Although much of the liaison staff’s work with Congress is done in a cooperative spirit, agreement cannot always be reached. When Congress passes a bill that the president opposes, he may veto it and send it back to Congress. As we noted earlier, Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds majority of those voting in each house. Presidents use their veto power sparingly, but the threat that a president will veto an unacceptable bill increases his bargaining leverage with members of Congress.

Party Leader Part of the president’s job is to lead his party.55 This is very much an informal duty, with no prescribed tasks. In this respect, Ameri- can presidents are considerably different from European prime ministers, who are the formal leader of their party in the national legislature, as well as the head of their government. In the Ameri- can system, a president and members of his party in Congress can clearly take very different positions on the issues before them. As Congress has turned more partisan, presidents have focused more on leading their own party rather than trying to bridge differences between the two parties.56 With less of a moderate middle to work with in Congress, a president needs to work hard to unify his party around his priorities.

The president himself has become the ‘‘fundraiser in chief’’ for his party. Since presidents have a vital interest in more mem- bers of their party being elected to the House and Senate, they have a strong incentive to spend time raising money for congres- sional candidates. All incumbent presidents travel frequently to fundraising dinners in different states where they are the main attraction. In addition to helping elect more members of his party, the president gains the gratitude of legislators. It is a lot harder to say no to a president’s request for help on a bill when he spoke at your fundraiser during the previous election.

The President as National Leader 331

9.6 The President as World Leader

Analyze the role of the president within the context of the changing nature of global politics.

The president’s leadership responsibilities extend beyond Con- gress and the nation into the international arena. Each adminis- tration tries to advance what it sees as the country’s best interests in its relations with allies, adversaries, and the developing coun- tries of the world. In this role, the president must be ready to act as diplomat and crisis manager.

Foreign Relations From the end of World War II until the late 1980s, presidents were preoccupied with containing communist expansion around the globe. After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, American presidents entered a new era in international relations, but they are still concerned with three fun- damental objectives.

First is national security: the direct protection of the United States and its citizens from external threats. National security has been high- lighted since the September 11 terrorist attacks. Indeed, George W. Bush called the global war against terrorism his number one priority, sending military troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq.57 When Navy SEALs stormed Osama bin Laden’s compound and killed him, Presi- dent Obama received an immediate boost in the public’s estimation by appearing to be effective in keeping Americans safe.58

Second, and related, is fostering a peaceful international envi- ronment. Presidents work with international organizations like the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to seek an end to regional conflicts throughout the world. Committing military forces to stop external conflicts is a highly risky endeavor. President Obama was put in a difficult position when a democracy movement erupted in Egypt, challeng- ing the rule of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was a dictator but a staunch American ally in a volatile region. Obama chose to distance the United States from Mubarak, assuming

332 Chapter 9 The Presidency

(correctly as it turned out) that a revolution would succeed and Mubarak would fall.

A third objective is the protection of U.S. economic interests. The new presidential job description places much more emphasis on managing economic relations with the rest of the world. Trade relations are an especially difficult problem, because presidents must balance the conflicting interests of foreign countries (many of them U.S. allies), the interests of particular American indus- tries, the overall needs of the American economy, and the demands of the legislative branch.

Crisis Management Periodically the president faces a grave situation in which conflict is imminent or a small conflict threatens to explode into a larger war. Handling such episodes is a critical part of the president’s job. Thus, citizens may vote for candi- dates who project careful judgment and intelligence.

A president must be able to exercise good judgment and remain cool in crisis situations. Henry Kis- singer, secretary of state during the Nixon years, notes that ‘‘Historians rarely do justice to the psychological stress on a policymaker.’’59 John Kennedy’s behavior during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 has become a model of effective crisis management. When the United States learned that the Soviet Union had placed missiles containing nu- clear warheads in Cuba, Kennedy sought the advice of a group of sen- ior aides, Pentagon officials, cabinet secretaries, and other trusted advis- ers. An armed invasion of Cuba and air strikes against the missiles were two options considered. In the end, Kennedy decided on a more flexible response: a naval blockade of Cuba.

Crisis in Camelot

In October 1962, people gathered in the electronics section of a store to watch President Kennedy address the nation on the Cuban missile crisis. When the United States learned that the Soviet Union was placing missile bases in Cuba, Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove their missiles, and he ordered a naval blockade. After seven days, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev complied with Kennedy’s demands, and direct conflict between the two major superpowers was avoided. Cuba’s leader at that time, Fidel Castro, had seized power in 1959 and aligned himself with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

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The President as World Leader 333

Faced with this challenge and a secret, back-channel overture from Kennedy, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles. For a short time, though, the world held its breath over the very real possibility of a nuclear war.

What guidelines determine what a president should do in times of crisis?60 Drawing on a range of advisers and opinions is one.61 Not acting in unnecessary haste is another. A third is hav- ing a well-designed, formal review process that promotes thor- ough analysis and open debate.62 A fourth guideline is rigorously examining the reasoning underlying each option to ensure that its assumptions are valid. When President Kennedy backed a CIA plan for a rebel invasion of Cuba by expatriates hostile to Fidel Castro, he did not know that its chances for success were based on unfounded assumptions of immediate uprisings by the Cuban population. Had Kennedy been more aggressive in questioning intelligence officials, he might have chosen to stop the operation. The invasion by a hapless and poorly equipped rebel group went ahead, only to be crushed immediately by the Cuban army. This resulted in an enormous embarrassment for the United States and a stain on Kennedy’s reputation.

SUMMARY 9.1 The Constitutional Basis of

Presidential Power • The president of the United States

must be a U.S.-born citizen, at least thirty-five years of age, and a resident of the United States for a minimum of fourteen years.

• The formal powers of the presidency as set forth in Article II of the Con- stitution are to serve as administra- tive head of the nation, act as commander in chief of the military,

veto legislation, appoint various offi- cials, make treaties, and grant pardons.

9.2 The Expansion of Presidential Power • Formal powers have increased, as

presidents used vetoes more frequently, took responsibility for setting the policy agenda, and entered conflicts without a declaration of war.

334 Chapter 9 The Presidency

• Inherent powers have increased as presidents issued executive orders carrying the force of law and took advantage of informal powers inferred from the Constitution.

• Congress can, by legislation, dele- gate power to the president or reas- sert control over the presidency.

9.3 The Executive Branch Establishment • Presidents rely on their aides to

advise, develop strategies, and con- trol access to the president.

• The extended White House executive establishment, which includes the White House Office (the president’s personal staff), is known as the Execu- tive Office of the President (EOP).

• The three major advisory styles used by presidents are • the competitive management model. • the hierarchical staff model. • the collegial staff model.

• The president’s cabinet is composed of the heads of the departments in the executive branch as well as other key officials.

9.4 Presidential Leadership • A key part of a president’s power is

the power to persuade. • Factors that affect presidential popu-

larity include economic conditions,

unanticipated events, and American involvement in war.

• A president’s ability to get things done is largely contingent on political factors, particularly the relative divi- sion of the two parties in the Congress.

• Presidents who come to office in criti- cal elections have the most favorable environment for exerting strong leadership.

9.5 The President as National Leader • The president sends proposals to

Congress based on his ideological agenda.

• The president keeps track of congres- sional action through a legislative liai- son staff, which is the communications link between the White House and Congress.

• The president is the informal leader and chief fundraiser of his party.

9.6 The President as World Leader • The president must act as a diplomat

as well as a crisis manager. • Today, the president’s foreign poli-

cies must be concerned with national security, fostering a peaceful interna- tional environment, and protecting U.S. economic interests.

Summary 335

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

9.1 Assess whether the constitutional powers of the president form a strong basis for the modern presidency. 1. What underlying philosophy guided

the framers of the Constitution in deter- mining the power of the presidency and, indeed, in structuring the entire Constitution?

2. What are the major formal powers of the presidency as listed in Article II of the Constitution?

9.2 Illustrate how claims of inherent powers augment the formal powers of the presidency. 1. Why have the powers of the presi-

dency grown over time? 2. What are the differences between

formal powers and inherent powers?

3. Explain the purpose of a congres- sional delegation of power.

9.3 Assess the role played by the vari- ous executive branch institutions as resources for an effective president. 1. What constitutes the Executive Office

of the President?

2. Describe the major advisory systems used to organize the White House staff.

3. Why does the president’s cabinet not play a major role as a body of advisers?

9.4 Defend the argument that ‘‘Presidential power is the power to persuade.’’ 1. How might presidential character

affect presidential performance? 2. What constitutes the ‘‘power to

persuade’’? 3. What are the contextual factors that

can influence the public’s perception of the president?

9.5 Compare and contrast the different roles that the president plays as national leader. 1. What fundamental political values

distinguish the differences between conservative Republican presidents and liberal Democratic ones?

2. How did the role of the president in the legislative process change after Frank- lin D. Roosevelt’s administration?

3. How does a president work to influence Congress?

336 Chapter 9 The Presidency

9.6 Analyze the role of the president within the context of the changing nature of global politics. 1. What are the president’s primary

responsibilities in terms of leadership in foreign affairs?

2. What guidelines should a president follow when deciding on a course of action during times of crisis?

Assessing Your Understanding 337

10 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

The Bureaucracy

10.1 Organization Matters

Define bureaucracy, explain the role of organizations in the administration of the nation’s laws, examine the reasons for the growth of the bureaucratic state, and assess arguments for and against its continued expansion.

10.2 Bureaus and Bureaucrats

Describe the organization of the executive branch, the role of the civil service, and the bureaucracy’s responsiveness to presidential control.

10.3 Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes

Describe the roles of administrative discretion and rule making in administrative policymaking.

10.4 Administrative Policymaking: Informal Politics

Analyze how incrementalism and bureaucratic culture affect policymaking.

10.5 Problems in Implementing Policy

Identify obstacles to effective policy implementation. 10.6 Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less?

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of reform efforts aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the bureaucracy’s performance.

338 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

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Time was of the essence. When twenty-year-old Katie Wilcox and her boyfriend woke up in the morning and realized they had had unprotected sex the night before, they quickly went out to a pharmacy. At the drug store Wilcox showed her ID to prove that she met the minimum age of seventeen to be able to pur- chase Plan B, a morning-after contraceptive pill. If taken within seventy-two hours of intercourse, Plan B is highly effective in preventing preg- nancy. If taken within twenty-four hours, it is extremely effective. Wilcox did not get pregnant.

Since 2003, Teva Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Plan B, has been trying to get the federal government to make the contracep- tive more easily available to women. Plan B could only be purchased with a doctor’s pre- scription, and Teva requested that this restriction be lifted. Since the pill must be taken so soon after unprotected sex, getting in touch with a doctor in time (if the young woman has one) and acquiring a prescription can be a formida-

ble hurdle. The conservative administration of President George W. Bush, then in office, was sympathetic to antiabortion groups who argued against wider distribution of Plan B. Following the administration’s lead, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected Teva’s application. Only when a federal court subsequently ordered it did pharmacies allow women aged seventeen and older to purchase the drug without a prescription.

The reason antiabortion groups oppose Plan B has to do with the way the drug works. Using progesterone, one of the primary ingredients in birth control pills, Plan B acts to prevent an egg from being fertilized. It’s possible, however, for it to work by keeping a fertilized egg from being implanted in the women’s uterus. In the eyes of some, this amounts to an abortion rather than birth control. Plan B ‘‘can actually destroy a developing baby,’’ says Jeanne Monahan, an official with the conservative Family Research Council.

339 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

When the Obama administration took office, women’s groups had high expectations that Plan B would be made available without prescription to women of all ages. Teva Pharmaceuticals made a for- mal application to that effect, and the FDA recommended approval of the application. In a surprise development, however, Kathleen Sibe- lius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), of which FDA is a part, rejected Teva’s application. In making the announce- ment, Sibelius acknowledged that ‘‘the science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective.’’ Her only justification for overturning her own agency’s recommendation was that there was not sufficient evidence to demonstrate that young girls would understand the direc- tions on the drug’s label. Yet Sibelius ignored evidence to the contrary that shows that young teenagers do understand the simple instructions on the drug’s label. There are indications that Sibelius’s decision was based on political pragmatism. The Obama administration had tan- gled with the Catholic Church over a number of issues relating to health care, and with the 2012 election on the horizon it appears that it decided to step away from another fight with the Church.1

In this chapter we examine how bureaucracies like the FDA and HHS operate and address many of the central dilemmas of Ameri- can political life. Bureaucracies represent what Americans dislike about government, yet our interest groups lobby them to provide us with more of the services we desire. We say we want smaller, less in- trusive government, but different constituencies value different agencies of government and fight fiercely to protect those bureauc- racies’ budgets. This enduring conflict once again represents the majoritarian and pluralist dimensions of American politics.

10.1 Organization Matters Define bureaucracy, explain the role of organizations in the administration of the nation’s laws, examine the reasons for the growth of the bureaucratic state, and assess arguments for and against its continued expansion.

In the American system, the legislative branch passes laws, but it does not actually administer them. A nation’s laws and policies

340 Chapter 10 The Bureaucracy

are administered, or put into effect, by a variety of executive branch departments, agencies, bureaus, offices, and other government units that together are known as the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy actually means any large, complex organization in which employees have very specific job responsibilities and work within a hierarchy of authority. The employees of these government units have become known, somewhat derisively, as bureaucrats.

Bureaucracies play a central role in the governments of mod- ern societies, and the organization of modern governmental bureaucracies reflects their need to survive. The environment of modern bureaucracies is filled with conflicting political demands and the ever-present threat of budget cuts. The way a given govern- ment bureaucracy is organized also reflects the needs of its clients. The bottom line, however, is that the manner in which any bu- reaucracy is organized affects how well it can accomplish its tasks.

Unfortunately, ‘‘if organization matters, it is also the case that there is no one best way of organizing.’’2 In some instances, it is better to give local managers the flexibility to tailor their own sol- utions to the unique problems they face in their community or state. The study of bureaucracy, then, centers on finding solutions to the many different kinds of problems that large government organizations face.

The Growth of the Bureaucratic State A common complaint voiced by Americans is that the national bureaucracy is too big and tries to accomplish too much. To the average citizen, the federal government may seem like an octopus—its long arms reach just about everywhere. Ironically, compared to other Western democracies, the size of the U.S. government is proportionally smaller.

American government seems to have grown unchecked dur- ing the twentieth century. As one observer noted wryly, ‘‘The as- sistant administrator for water and hazardous materials of the Environmental Protection Agency presided over a staff larger than Washington’s entire first administration.’’3 Yet even during George Washington’s time, bureaucracies were necessary. No one argued then about the need for a postal service to deliver mail or a treasury department to maintain a system of currency.

However, government at all levels (national, state, and local) grew enormously in the twentieth century.4 There are several

bureaucracy A large, complex organization in which employees have specific job responsibilities and work within a hierarchy of authority.

bureaucrat An employee of a bureaucracy, usually meaning a government bureaucracy.

Organization Matters 341

major reasons for this growth. A principal cause of government expansion is the increasing complexity of society. George Wash- ington did not have an assistant administrator for water and haz- ardous materials because there was no need for one. A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was not necessary until rockets were invented.

Another reason government has grown is that the public’s atti- tude toward business has changed. Throughout most of the nine- teenth century, business was generally autonomous, and government intervention in the economy that might limit that autonomy was considered inappropriate. This attitude began to change toward the end of the nineteenth century, as more Americans became aware that a laissez-faire approach did not always create competitive markets that benefited consumers. Gradually government intervention came to be accepted as necessary to protect the integrity of markets.5 And if government was to police unfair business practices effectively, it needed administrative agencies.

During the twentieth century, new bureaucracies were organ- ized to regulate specific industries. Among them are the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which oversees securities trad- ing, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which tries to protect consumers from unsafe food, drugs, and cosmetics. Through bureaucracies such as these, government has become a referee in the marketplace, developing standards of fair trade, set- ting rates, and licensing individual businesses for operation. As new problem areas have emerged, government has added new agencies, further expanding the scope of its activities.

General attitudes about government’s responsibilities in the area of social welfare have changed too. An enduring part of Amer- ican culture is the belief in self-reliance. People are expected to overcome adversity on their own, to succeed because of their own skills and efforts. Yet certain segments of our population are believed to deserve government support, because we so value their contribution to society or have come to believe that they cannot realistically be expected to overcome adversity on their own.6 This belief dates back to the nineteenth century. The government pro- vided pensions to Civil War veterans. Later, programs to help mothers and children were developed.7 In the wake of the Great Depression, the Social Security Act became law, creating a fund that workers pay into and then collect income from during old age. In the 1960s, the government created programs designed to help

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minorities. As the government made these new commitments, it also created new bureaucracies or expanded existing ones.

Can We Reduce the Size of Government? For many Americans, government is unpopular: most Americans have little confidence in its capabilities and feel that it wastes money and is out of touch with ordinary people. Americans want a smaller government that costs less and performs better.

If government is to become smaller, bureaucracies will have to be eliminated or reduced in size. Serious budget cuts also require serious reductions in programs. Not surprisingly, presidents and members of Congress face a tough job when they try to cut specific programs. One strategy the national government uses is to mod- estly reduce the number of bureaucrats (which is popular) without reducing government programs (which is politically risky). This is done by hiring nonprofit or private contractors who do the same job as bureaucrats but are not technically government employees.8

Efforts to shrink the bureaucracy have varied considerably. During the 1980s, President Reagan preached smaller government and made a concerted effort to reduce domestic social programs. He had only modest success, and his most ambitious proposals, like abolishing the Department of Education, did not come close to passage by Congress. Though George W. Bush was a conserva- tive in many ways, he worked to enlarge the government. Most significantly, the 9/11 attacks and the continuing threat of terror- ism led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the expansion of defense and other security-related agencies. But the new programs and bureaucracies went far beyond security threats. Bush also worked to expand social welfare through a pre- scription drug benefit for senior citizens. He understood that it was not always good politics to try to downsize government and that there is an upside to providing a benefit to citizens.

At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress expanded government across a number of fronts. Most notably bureaucracies were created to administer new programs for health care and oversight of the financial ser- vices industry. The sagging economy and gains by the Republicans in the 2010 elections led to greater concern for the national debt, and legislation was passed to reduce government spending by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.9

Organization Matters 343

The tendency for big government to endure reflects the ten- sion between majoritarianism and pluralism. Even when the pub- lic as a whole wants a smaller national government, that sentiment can be undermined by the strong desire of different segments of society for government to continue performing some valuable function for them. Lobbies that represent these segments work strenuously to convince Congress and the administration that certain agencies’ funding is vital and that any cuts ought to come out of other agencies’ budgets.

10.2 Bureaus and Bureaucrats

Describe the organization of the executive branch, the role of the civil service, and the bureaucracy’s responsiveness to presidential control.

We often think of the bureaucracy as a monolith. In reality, the bureaucracy in Washington is a disjointed collection of depart- ments, agencies, bureaus, offices, and commissions, each a bu- reaucracy in its own right.

The Organization of Government By examining the basic types of government organizations, we can better understand how the executive branch operates. In our discussion, we pay particular attention to the relative degree of in- dependence of these organizations and to their relationship with the White House.

Departments. Departments are the biggest units of the executive branch, covering broad areas of government responsibility. As noted in Chapter 9, the secretaries (heads) of the departments, along with a few other key officials, form the president’s cabinet. The current cabinet departments are State, Treasury, Defense, Inte- rior, Agriculture, Justice, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security. Each of these massive organizations is broken down into subsidiary

department The biggest unit of the executive branch, covering a broad area of government responsibility. The heads of the departments, or secretaries, form the president’s cabinet.

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agencies, bureaus, offices, and services. The largest of the cabinet- level departments is the Department of Defense, with over 770,000 civilian employees supporting and providing policy direction for over 1.4 million active duty military personnel.10 (See Figure 10.1.)

Independent Agencies. Within the executive branch, there are also many independent agencies, which are not part of any cabi- net department. They stand alone and are controlled to varying degrees by the president. Some, among them the CIA, are under the president’s control. Others, such as the Federal Communica- tions Commission, are structured as regulatory commissions. Each commission is run by a small number of commissioners appointed to fixed terms by the president. Some commissions were formed to guard against unfair business practices. Others were formed to protect the public from unsafe products. Although presidents do not have direct control over these regulatory

FIGURE 10.1 Bureaucrats at Work

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en ts

Number of civilian employees, 2010

772,601 304,665

183,455 117,916

110,099 106,867

70,231 69,839

57,972 56,856

39,016 17,592 16,145

9,585 4,452

0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 800,000 900,000

Education Housing and Urban Dvlp.

Energy Labor State

Commerce Transportation

Health and Human Srvc. Interior

Agriculture Treasury

Justice Homeland Security

Veterans Affairs Defense

The size of cabinet departments varies dramatically. As this graph indicates, the Department of Defense is by far the largest cabinet-level bureaucracy within the federal government. That more than 1 million civilian workers are employed in the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security is a reflection of the centrality of national security and war in recent American history. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the tiny Department of Education, with fewer than 5,000 employees. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), Table 499: Federal Civilian Employment by Branch and Agency: 1990 to 2010, http://www.census.gov/prod/ 2011pubs/12statab/fedgov.pdf.

independent agency An executive agency that is not part of a cabinet department.

regulatory commission An agency of the executive branch of government that controls or directs some aspect of the economy.

Bureaus and Bureaucrats 345

commissions, they can strongly influence their direction through their appointments of new commissioners.

Government Corporations. Congress has created a small num- ber of government corporations. In theory, the services these executive branch agencies perform could be provided by the pri- vate sector, but Congress has decided that the public will be better served if these organizations have some link with the government. For example, the national government maintains the postal service as a government corporation because it feels that Americans need low-cost, door-to-door service for all kinds of mail, not just for profitable routes or special services. In some instances, the private sector does not have enough financial incentive to provide an essential service. This is the case with the financially troubled Amtrak passenger train line.11

The Civil Service The national bureaucracy is staffed by about 2.8 million civilian employees, who account for about 2 percent of the U.S. work force.12

Most of those government workers are hired under the requirements of the civil service. The civil service was created by the Pendleton Act (1883). The objective of the act was to reduce patronage—the practice of filling government positions with the president’s political allies or cronies. The civil service fills jobs on the basis of merit and sees to it that workers are not fired for political reasons.

The vast majority of the national government’s workers (85 percent) are employed outside the Washington area.13 One reason for this decentralization is to make government offices accessible to the people they serve. Decentralization is also a way to distrib- ute jobs and income across the country. Members of Congress, of course, are only too happy to place some of this ‘‘pork’’ back home, so that their constituents will credit them with the jobs and money that government installations create.

Presidential Control over the Bureaucracy Civil service and other reforms have effectively insulated the vast majority of government workers from party politics. An incoming president can appoint about three thousand people to jobs in the administration, less than 1 percent of all executive branch

government corporation A government agency that performs services that might be provided by the private sector but that involve either insufficient financial incentive or are better provided when they are somehow linked with government.

civil service The system by which most appointments to the federal bureaucracy are made, to ensure that government jobs are filled on the basis of merit and that employees are not fired for political reasons.

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employees. Still, presidential appointees fill the top policymaking positions in government, and about 1,100 of his appointees require Senate confirmation.14 Each new president establishes an extensive personnel review process to find appointees who are both politically compatible and qualified in their field. Although the president selects some people from his campaign staff, cabinet secretaries, assistant secretaries, and agency heads tend to be drawn directly from business, universities, and government itself.

Presidents find that the bureaucracy is not always as responsive as they might like, for several reasons. Principally, pluralism can pull agencies in a direction other than that favored by the president. The Department of Transportation may want to move toward more sup- port for mass transit, for example, but politically it cannot afford to ignore the preferences of highway builders. An agency administrator must often try to broker a compromise between conflicting groups rather than pursue a position that holds fast and true to the presi- dent’s ideology. Bureaucracies must also follow—at least in general terms—the laws governing the programs they are entrusted with, even if the president does not agree with some of those statutes.

Congress always has the prerogative to pass new laws overrid- ing regulations that it feels distort its intent. Whatever party con- trols Congress, the White House and agency administrators have an incentive to consult with committee chairs to minimize conflict and gain a sense of what might provoke a hostile response on the part of a committee overseeing a particular agency.15 A committee can punish an agency by cutting its budget, altering a key pro- gram, or (for Senate committees) holding up confirmation of a nominee to a top agency post.

10.3 Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes

Describe the roles of administrative discretion and rule making in administrative policymaking.

Many Americans wonder why agencies sometimes make policy rather than merely carry it out. Administrative agencies are, in fact,

Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes 347

authoritative policymaking bodies, and their decisions on substan- tive issues are legally binding on the citizens of this country.

Administrative Discretion What are executive agencies set up to do? Cabinet departments, in- dependent agencies, and government corporations are creatures of Congress. Congress creates a new department or agency by enact- ing a law that describes the organization’s mandate, or mission. As part of that mandate, Congress grants to the agency the authority to make certain policy decisions. Congress long ago recognized that it has neither the time nor the technical expertise to make all policy decisions. Thus, agencies are seen as a better means of man- aging uncertainty.16 Ideally, Congress sets general guidelines for policy and expects agencies to act within those guidelines. The lati- tude that Congress gives agencies to make policy in the spirit of their legislative mandate is called administrative discretion.

Critics of the bureaucracy frequently complain that agencies are granted too much discretion.17 Congress often is vague about its intent when setting up a new agency or program Congress charges agencies with protecting ‘‘the public interest,’’ but leaves them to determine on their own what policies best serve the pub- lic. For instance, Congress gives the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the power to fine broadcasters for violating decency standards. The FCC’s operating definition for indecent is language or material that is offensive as measured by ‘‘contempo- rary community standards.’’18 Some cases of indecency are fairly straightforward: the FCC fined CBS stations after the singer Janet Jackson’s ‘‘wardrobe malfunction’’ caused exposure of her breasts during a Super Bowl halftime show. But even after the Super Bowl controversy, members of Congress could not agree on a more concrete definition of indecency; they agreed only to increase the amount of fines for violations of the current law.

Congress grants the broadest discretion to those agencies involved in domestic and global security. Both the FBI and the CIA have enjoyed a great deal of freedom from formal and infor- mal congressional constraints because of the legitimate need for secrecy in their operations. In the post-9/11 era, additional discre- tion has accrued to security-related agencies.19

The wide latitude Congress gives administrative agencies often leads to charges that the bureaucracy is out of control. But such

administrative discretion The latitude that Congress gives agencies to make policy in the spirit of their legislative mandate.

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claims are frequently exaggerated. Congress has the power to express its displeasure by reining in agencies with additional legis- lation. If Congress is unhappy with an agency’s actions, it can pass laws invalidating specific policies, reducing discretion, or providing more guidance to the bureaucracy.20 A second powerful tool is Congress’s control over the budget. Congress can threaten an agency through its power to cut budgets and can reorder agency priorities through its detailed appropriations legislation.

Rule Making Agencies make policy through formal administrative procedures, usually rule making, the administrative process that results in reg- ulations.21 Regulations are rules that govern the operation of gov- ernment programs. When an agency issues regulations, it is using the discretionary authority granted to it by Congress to implement a program or policy.

Rule making itself follows procedural guidelines requiring that proposed regulations first be published so that interested parties— typically interest groups—have a chance to comment on them, mak- ing any recommendations they see as appropriate.22

Because they are authorized by congressional statutes, regulations have the effect of law. When Congress created the Department of Transportation in 1966 it was given authority to write regulations relevant to the safety, accessibility, and efficiency of various transportation industries. Controversy has swirled for years around a practice of airlines to keep passengers on board an aircraft that has pulled away from the gate but cannot take off (usually due to in- clement weather). In August 2009, an ExpressJet flight with forty-seven passengers on board stayed overnight on the tarmac at the airport in Rochester, New York. It does not take long before a plane runs out of food and water and bathrooms become fouled.

Whenever Congress threatened to enact a ‘‘pas- senger bill of rights’’ to forbid such unconscionable tarmac delays, the airlines promised to improve their service. At the end of 2009, however, the Department of Transportation announced a new set of rules, lim- iting tarmac waits to no more than three hours. If

Tarmac Hell

Flying these days has its share of challenges but government regulation has resulted in some modest improvements. The airlines’ practice of keeping passengers on their plane on the tarmac while waiting for bad weather to clear is now subject to restrictions. If an airline keeps passengers in a plane on the tarmac for more than three hours, it is subject to a heavy fine.

rule making The administrative process that results in the issuance of regulations by government agencies.

regulations Administrative rules that guide the operation of a government program.

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Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes 349

that much time elapses, the plane must return to the gate and give passengers the option of deplaning. Airlines claimed there would be even longer delays as ground crews searched for bags belonging to deplaning passengers, but in the first ten months after it was adopted, tarmac strandings fell to just 16 instances from 664 in a comparable period from the year before.23

The regulatory process is controversial because regulations of- ten require individuals and corporations to act against their own self-interest. The airline regulations are a classic case of freedom versus order. The airline companies believed they needed greater freedom to conduct business in a way that they found most effi- cient. Consumer groups preferred that the government put more emphasis on maintaining order (preserving the well-being of pas- sengers). Administrative rule making gives agencies flexibility as they try to find a balance between conflicting pressures.

10.4 Administrative Policymaking: Informal Politics

Analyze how incrementalism and bureaucratic culture affect policymaking.

When an agency is considering a new regulation and all the evi- dence and arguments have been presented, how does an adminis- trator reach a decision? Because policy decisions typically address complex problems that lack a single satisfactory solution, they rarely exhibit mathematical precision and efficiency.

The Science of Muddling Through In his classic analysis of policymaking, ‘‘The Science of Muddling Through,’’ Charles Lindblom compared the way policy might be made in the ideal world with the way it is formulated in the real world.24 The ideal rational decision-making process, according to Lindblom, would begin with an administrator tackling a problem by ranking values and objectives. After the objectives were clari- fied, the administrator would thoroughly consider all possible sol- utions to the problem. The administrator would comprehensively analyze alternative solutions, taking all relevant factors into

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account. Finally, the administrator would choose the alternative that is seen as the most effective means of achieving the desired goal and solving the problem.

Lindblom claims that this ‘‘rational-comprehensive’’ model is unrealistic. Policymakers have great difficulty defining precise val- ues and goals. Administrators at the U.S. Department of Energy, for example, want to be sure that supplies of home heating oil are sufficient each winter, but at the same time they want to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Obviously the two goals are not fully compatible. How do administrators decide which is more impor- tant? And how do they relate those goals to the other goals of the nation’s energy policy?

Real-world decision making parts company with the ideal in another way: the policy selected cannot always be the most effec- tive means to the desired end. Even if a tax at the pump is the most effective way to reduce gasoline consumption during a shortage, motorists’ anger would make this theoretically ‘‘right’’ decision politically difficult. The ‘‘best’’ policy is often the one on which most people can agree. However, political compromise may mean that the government is able to solve only part of a problem.

Finally, critics of the rational-comprehensive model point out that policymaking can never be based on truly comprehensive analysis. Time is of the essence, and many problems are too press- ing to wait for a complete study.

Inshort, policymakingtends tobe characterizedby incrementalism: policies and programs change bit by bit, step by step.25 Decision makers are constrained by competing policy objectives, opposing political forces, incomplete information, and the pressures of time. They choose from a limited number offeasible options that are almost always modifications of existing policies rather than wholesale depar- tures from them. Although Lindblom offered a more realistic por- trayal of the policymaking process, incrementalism is not ubiquitous. There are a minority of cases in which decisions are made that move a policy in a significantly new direction. It is certainly true that virtually all policy changes have antecedents in current policy, but some changes are considerable in scope.26

The Culture of Bureaucracy How an agency makes decisions and performs its tasks is greatly affected by the people who work there: the bureaucrats.

incrementalism Policymaking characterized by a series of decisions, each instituting modest change.

Administrative Policymaking: Informal Politics 351

Americans often find their interactions with bureaucrats frus- trating because bureaucrats are inflexible (they go by the book) or lack the authority to get things done. Top administrators too can also become frustrated with the bureaucrats who work for them.

Why do people act bureaucratically? Individuals who work for large organizations cannot help but be affected by the culture of bureaucracy.27 Modern bureaucracies develop explicit rules and standards in order to make operations more efficient and to guar- antee fair treatment of their clients. Within each organization, norms (informal, unwritten rules of behavior) also develop and influence the way people act on the job.

Bureaucracies are often influenced in their selection of policy options by the prevailing customs, attitudes, and expectations of the people working within them. Departments and agencies commonly develop a sense of mission, which emphasizes a particular objective. The Army Corps of Engineers, for example, is dominated by engi- neers who define the agency’s objective as protecting citizens from floods by building dams. There could be other objectives, and there are other methods of achieving flood protection, but the engineers promote the solutions that fit their conception of what the agency should be doing. Bureaucrats are often criticized for being rigid, for going by the book when some flexibility might be a better option. Bureaucrats go by the book because the ‘‘book’’ is actually the law they administer, and they are obligated to enforce the law. The reg- ulations under those laws are often broad standards intended to cover a range of behaviors. Bureaucratic caution and close adher- ence to agency rules ensure a measure of consistency. It would be unsettling if government employees interpreted rules as they pleased. Americans expect to be treated equally before the law, and bureaucrats work with that expectation in mind.

10.5 Problems in Implementing Policy

Identify obstacles to effective policy implementation.

The development of policy in Washington marks the end of one phase of the policymaking cycle and the beginning of another.

norms An organization’s informal, unwritten rules that guide individual behavior.

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After policies are developed, they must be implemented. Implementation is the process of putting specific policies into operation. It is important to study implementation because poli- cies do not always do what they were designed to do.

Implementation may be difficult because the policy to be car- ried out is not clearly stated. Policy directives to bureaucrats some- times lack specificity and leave them with too much discretion.

Implementation can also be problematic because of the complex- ity of some government endeavors. (See, for example, ‘‘Politics of Global Change: For Whom the Debt Tolls’’ on pp. 354–55.) Toxic cleanups, for example, pose complicated engineering, political, and fi- nancial problems. On April 20, 2010, an oil rig named the Deepwater Horizon experienced an explosion and fire that killed eleven workers. Two days later, it sank off the Louisiana coast. As the rig collapsed, the mile-long pipe connecting it to the floor of the ocean below crumpled, broke, and fell to the seabed. Oil gushed out of the pipe, starting what would become the worst environmental disaster in American history. The oil giant BP, which leased the drilling platform; Transocean, which owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon; and Halliburton, which provided the cement seal in the drilling shaft that appeared to have failed, all blamed each other for the disaster.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Coast Guard are the key regulators of off- shore drilling activity and rig safety.28 The MMS was harshly criticized for what appeared to have been a half-hearted review of the required safety plans submitted by the companies that leased and operated the drilling rig. Though environmental reviews, safety plans, and accident contingency action plans are all required before rigs are allowed to operate, important elements were overlooked. Six weeks after the spill, the head of the MMS was forced to resign.29

Implementing multiple simultaneous plans to cap the well, recover the oil, and protect coastal areas was an extraordinary tech- nical challenge requiring expertise that the government lacked. No government agency was equipped to stop an oil gusher a mile below the ocean’s surface pumping tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the ocean each day. Although President Obama appointed Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen as the national incident com- mander to coordinate all efforts to address the disaster, Allen and the government bureaucracies involved had to rely on BP both to invent a solution (multiple strategies failed as months passed) and to pay for the economic and ecological consequences of the disas- ter.30 As months went by without stopping the flow of oil, tension

implementation The process of putting specific policies into operation.

Problems in Implementing Policy 353

Politics of Global Change

For Whom the Debt Tolls The development of the European Union (EU) is a remarkable achievement. Twenty-seven European countries have come to- gether to form a strong economic federation. These countries have willingly given up significant sovereignty over their own economies, transferring authority to European Union institutions of government. The EU has struck down trade barriers and created common regulatory standards that all member countries must adhere to.

Seventeen of the countries (including most of the larger economies) have adopted a common currency, the euro. Most of those EU countries not currently using the euro will be switching to it in the future as they meet certain banking standards. Individual countries retain control over their own budgets, deciding how much they will spend and how much debt they can take on to fund their own economic development.

It is this authority of each country to issue its own debt that has plunged the EU into the crisis it is in today. Because the EU is now the world’s largest economy, member countries found them- selves with more available credit for borrowing purposes. Large banks and other financial institutions assumed that the EU would

Source: http://www.liquarterly.com/44/politics/eu-debt-crisis.html.

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impose some level of fiscal discipline on member states and, thus, they could lend freely. They assumed wrong.

In recent years, five EU countries—Greece, Ireland, Italy, Por- tugal, and Spain—fell into catastrophic levels of debt, unable to pay what they owe to lenders. Other countries in Europe also developed serious debt problems (see Chapter 9’s ‘‘Compared with What?’’). The reasons are a bit different for each country, but each has borrowed money that it cannot pay back under the terms of the loans. In layman’s language, they have to be bailed out by the EU. The EU countries with healthier economies have put money into a special fund to lend to countries in trouble, but in doing so, they have demanded that the countries in trouble institute reforms to put their financial houses in order. The harshest medicine is that the EU’s European Central Bank, which controls the euro, has required that these governments reduce their own spending. For example, EU bureaucrats recently told Spain that it had to make further concessions and cut spending, which in turn means that Spain will have to lay off more government employ- ees. This will add to the country’s astronomical unemployment rate of close to 25 percent. The cutbacks demanded of Greece are so significant that it may choose to stop using the euro rather than comply.

The severe austerity measures may eventually bring some sta- bility to these errant economies, but in the short run they have not revived growth. All of Europe is stagnant, and in these five coun- tries there is tremendous anger at the EU bureaucracy. Dispas- sionate observers would say these five countries only have themselves to blame. Yet rank-and-file citizens there look at their crumbling economies and now wonder about the wisdom of giv- ing up so much of their sovereignty.

Critical Thinking What gives unelected EU bureaucrats the authority to demand these internal reforms? What might the consequen- ces be if a country were unable to pay back its lenders?

Problems in Implementing Policy 355

between the states on the Gulf Coast affected by the disaster, the federal government, and BP increased. The more agencies, organi- zations, and levels of government are involved in handling any- thing, the more difficult it is to coordinate implementation. Even after the well was effectively capped in July 2010, BP continued drilling relief wells to install a permanent plug under the seabed. BP also faced the more daunting long-term challenge of restoring the damaged ecosystems of the Gulf Coast. Elements of the federal bureaucracy faced not only the responsibility of supervising the ongoing clean-up, but also the complex task of reviewing their reg- ulations to minimize the likelihood of such disasters in the future.

Obstacles to effective implementation can create the impres- sion that nothing the government does succeeds, but programs can and do work. Problems in implementation demonstrate why patience and continual analysis are necessary ingredients of suc- cessful policymaking. Implementation is an incremental process in which trial and error eventually lead to policies that work.

10.6 Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less?

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of reform efforts aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the bureaucracy’s performance.

As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, organization matters. How bureaucracies are designed directly affects how effective they are in accomplishing their tasks.31 Administrative reforms have taken many different approaches in recent years as the criticism of government has mounted.

Deregulation Many people believe that government is too involved in regulation, intervention in the natural workings of business mar- kets to promote some social goal. For example, government might regulate a market to ensure that products pose no danger to con- sumers. Through deregulation, the government reduces its role and lets the natural market forces of supply and demand take over.

regulation Government intervention in the workings of business to promote some socially desired goal.

deregulation A bureaucratic reform by which the government reduces its role as a regulator of business.

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Considerable deregulation took place in the 1970s and 1980s, notably in the airline, trucking, financial services, and telecommu- nications industries. In telecommunications, for example, con- sumers before 1982 had no choice of long-distance vendors: they could call on AT&T’s Bell System or not call at all. After an out- of-court settlement broke up the Bell System in 1982, AT&T was awarded the right to sell the long-distance services that Bell had been providing, but it now had to face competition from new long-distance carriers. Deregulation for local phone service fol- lowed some years later, and consumers have benefited from the vigorous competition for their business.

Deciding on an appropriate level of deregulation is particu- larly difficult for health and safety issues. Companies within an industry may legitimately claim that health and safety regulations are burdensome, making it difficult for them to earn sufficient profits or compete effectively with foreign manufacturers. But the drug-licensing procedures used by the FDA illustrate the potential danger of deregulating in such policy areas. The thorough and lengthy process the FDA uses to evaluate drugs has as its ultimate validation the thalidomide case in the 1960s. Dr. Frances Kelsey, who was assigned to evaluate the sedative, demanded that all FDA drug-testing requirements be met, despite the fact that the drug was already in use in other countries. Before the tests were com- pleted, news came pouring in from Europe that some women who had taken thalidomide during pregnancy were giving birth to babies without arms, legs, or ears. Strict adherence to FDA regula- tion protected Americans from the same tragic consequences.

Some agencies have tried to move beyond rules that simply increase or decrease the amount of government control to regula- tory processes that offer firms flexibility in meeting standards while at the same time protecting health and safety concerns. For exam- ple, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has instituted flexible caps on air pollution at some manufacturing plants. Instead of having to request permits on new equipment and processes, plants are given an overall pollution cap and can decide on their own how to meet that limit. Although such ‘‘cap and trade’’ provi- sions for power plants were struck down by a federal appeals court in 2008, they illustrate the creativity that bureaucracies can at times bring to the regulatory process.32

Another regulatory approach gaining favor is the effort to make organizations, typically corporations, more transparent and accountable in their actions. For example, food manufacturers are

Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less? 357

now required to disclose the quantity of trans-fats in a product on its label. Regulations do not limit the amount of trans-fatty acids but, rather, give con- sumers the information and then let them decide how much is too much.33

Who controls the gov- ernment makes a difference in the level and type of reg- ulation. When a Democrat controls the White House, there is sure to be a more forceful stance toward regulation as presidential appointees in the agencies reflect the incumbent’s phi- losophy. There was a surge in regulations after Barack Obama became president (see Figure 10.2). Many factors may have contrib- uted to this trend, but as one analysis put it, ‘‘the

new aggressiveness reflects the new cops on the beat.’’34 In contrast, Republican presidents are prone to place more emphasis on freedom, and agencies under their control will regulate less.

A strong case can be made for deregulated business markets, in which free and unfettered competition benefits consumers and promotes productivity. The strength of capitalist economies comes from the ability of individuals and firms to compete freely in the marketplace, and the regulatory state places restrictions on this freedom. But without regulation, nothing ensures that mar- ketplace participants will act responsibly.

Competition and Outsourcing Conservative critics of government have long complained that bureaucracies should act more like businesses, meaning they

Bureaucratic Heroine

The government recognized Dr. Frances Kelsey’s courageous work to keep thalidomide off the American market with the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service. The medal is being affixed here by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration awarded its first annual Frances Kelsey Award to honor a staff member of the agency. Its first recipient: Dr. Frances Kelsey, by then ninety-six years old.

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358 Chapter 10 The Bureaucracy

should try to emulate private sector practices that promote effi- ciency and innovation. Many recent reformers advocate some- thing more drastic: unless bureaucracies can demonstrate that they are as efficient as the private sector, turn those agencies’ functions over to the private sector. Underlying this idea is the belief that competition will make government more dynamic and more responsive to changing environments.35

One widespread adaptation of competitive bidding to adminis- ter government programs has come in the area of social services. Over time government welfare programs have increasingly empha- sized social services—giving people training and noncash support—rather than income maintenance (cash support). State and local governments have found it efficient to outsource programs to nonprofit organizations like community health centers and day-care

FIGURE 10.2 It Makes a Difference

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300

600

900

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Consumer product safety commission (figures by fiscal years)

Food and drug administration (fiscal years)

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Occupational safety and health administration (fiscal years)

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100

150

200

‘07 ‘09

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Mind safety and health administration (calendar years)

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Control over the White House makes an enormous difference in the way regulatory agencies perform their duties. With Democrat Barack Obama in the White House, agencies followed his lead and moved aggressively on health and safety issues. Under President George W. Bush, agencies relied more on the free market to solve policy problems. Source: Eric Lipton, ‘‘With Obama Regulations Are Back in Fashion,’’ New York Times, 23 May 2010.

Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less? 359

centers for elderly people. Recently, for-profit companies have started to compete for the grants and contracts that the government awards through competitive grants or bidding.36 This movement to- ward competition and outsourcing continues to grow. More and more government jobs are open to bidding from nongovernment competitors, and sometimes a government bureau or office com- petes for the jobs and programs that they used to ‘‘own.’’

Performance Standards Another approach to improving the bureaucracy’s performance is to hold it accountable for reaching quantifiable goals each year or budget cycle. A major initiative to hold agencies accountable for their performance is the Government Performance and Results Act. This law requires each agency to identify specific goals, adopt a perform- ance plan, and develop quantitative indicators of agency progress in meeting its goals.37 The law further requires that agencies begin to publish reports with performance data on each measure established.

A case in point is the Healthy Start program, which is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and intended to improve infant mortality rates and infant health gener- ally. Among the specific goals are increasing the number of mothers receiving prenatal care during the first trimester and reducing the number of low-weight births. These are measurable, and the hospi- tals and health centers receiving federal funding for Healthy Start must report the appropriate data to HRSA. More complicated is the degree to which these various programs make a difference since infant health can be influenced by many different factors.38

Another challenge arises because agencies set their own goals and know they will be judged on meeting them, so they may select indicators where they know they’ll do best.39 Or if standards prove to be too difficult to achieve, standards may be lowered, sometimes under the guise of ‘‘reform,’’ to make them work bet- ter. The Department of Education intended the No Child Left Behind program to force underperforming schools to raise stu- dents’ reading and math skills up to prescribed standards. Although this was a national law, states were allowed to imple- ment the program in their own way. Over time many states reduced their standards because their schools could not improve enough to meet the model guidelines of a national test of students. Between 2005 and 2007, fifteen states lowered the bar for student

competition and outsourcing Procedures that allow private contractors to bid for jobs previously held exclusively by government employees.

Government Performance and Results Act A law requiring each government agency to implement quantifiable standards to measure its performance in meeting stated program goals.

360 Chapter 10 The Bureaucracy

performance. Other states had already lowered their standards. In short, performance-based management runs the risk of perverting an agency’s incentives toward what it can achieve rather than what would be most valuable to achieve.40

Despite the relative appeal of these different approaches to improving the bureaucracy, each has serious shortcomings. The commitment of the government to solve a problem is far more important than management techniques.41 Still, to return to a theme that we began with, organization does matter. Trying to find ways of improving the bureaucracy is important because bureaucracies affect people’s lives, and enhancing their perfor- mance, even at the margins, has real consequences.

SUMMARY 10.1 Organization Matters

• Bureaucracies have been part of the U.S. government since George Washington’s administration.

• The overall size of the federal bureaucracy has grown dramatically over time as government has taken on more responsibility in increasingly complex social and economic environments.

• Shrinking the government, though pop- ular in the abstract, is difficult to enact because individual programs are pop- ular with individual constituencies.

10.2 Bureaus and Bureaucrats • There are several types of govern-

ment organizations. • Departments: the biggest units of

the executive branch covering broad areas of responsibility

• Independent agencies: stand-alone units controlled to varying degrees

by the president, including regula- tory commissions

• Government corporations: agencies that are created by Congress to provide services to the public that could be provided by private organizations.

• The Pendleton Act started the modern civil service, which is designed to reduce patronage by requiring bureaucracies to hire employees based on merit.

• Presidents have some control over the bureaucracy, but such authority is constrained by a number of factors.

10.3 Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes • Administrative discretion is delegated

to agencies by the Congress because Congress recognizes that it does not have the staff, time, and expertise to make all the decisions necessary in

Summary 361

each policy area. When Congress passes laws, it generally grants an agency the authority to administer or enforce those laws.

• Agencies make policy through formal administrative procedures known as rule making, which results in regulations.

• Agencies are required to seek broad input from the public before deciding on a course of action.

• Regulations, which have the effect of law, govern the operation of govern- ment programs.

10.4 Administrative Policymaking: Informal Politics • Ideally, administrators would set

rational objectives and values, con- sider all possible solutions, analyze alternative solutions, and choose the best alternative to solve the problems.

• This rational-comprehensive model of administrative policymaking is unreal- istic. Instead, agencies make policy through incremental steps.

• The behavior of bureaucrats is shaped by bureaucratic culture—the norms and informal practices that characterize the internal workings of the organization.

10.5 Problems in Implementing Policy • Implementation is the process of put-

ting specific policies into operation. • Implementation is made difficult by

a lack of clarity in policies. • Implementation is problematic

because of the complexity of gov- ernment endeavors.

• The involvement of multiple organizations, agencies, and levels of government complicates implementation.

10.6 Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less? • Deregulation is a reduction in the

level of supervision of a business mar- ket or other activity by a government bureaucracy.

• The conflict between deregulation and regulation reflects the conflict between freedom and order: capital- ists want a free market, but there is no guarantee they will act responsibly.

• Recent efforts by government to improve the performance of bureauc- racies include competition and out- sourcing, and setting performance standards.

362 Chapter 10 The Bureaucracy

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

10.1 Define bureaucracy, explain the role of organizations in the adminis- tration of the nation’s laws, exam- ine the reasons for the growth of the bureaucratic state, and assess arguments for and against its continued expansion. 1. What is the role of bureaucracy in

government? 2. Why has the bureaucracy grown

over the years? 3. What are the obstacles to reducing

the size of government?

10.2 Describe the organization of the executive branch, the role of the civil service, and the bureaucracy’s responsiveness to presidential control. 1. Identify the major structural compo-

nents of the federal government. 2. Why was the civil service system

adopted? 3. How can a change in presidents

affect administrative policymaking?

10.3 Describe the roles of administrative discretion and rule making in administrative policymaking. 1. Explain why Congress gives agen-

cies significant discretion.

2. To what degree can Congress con- trol administrative agencies?

3. What is rule making?

10.4 Analyze how incrementalism and bureaucratic culture affect policymaking. 1. What is incrementalism? 2. Compare and contrast formal and

informal policymaking. 3. In what sense can bureaucracies

have distinct cultures?

10.5 Identify obstacles to effective policy implementation. 1. Discuss some of the challenges in

implementing policy.

10.6 Compare the strengths and weak- nesses of reform efforts aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the bureaucracy’s performance. 1. What are the potential benefits as

well as the negative consequences of deregulation?

2. Why would government try to stimu- late competition through outsourcing services?

3. Why might performance standards be ineffective?

Assessing Your Understanding 363

11 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

The Courts

11.1 National Judicial Supremacy

Define judicial review, explain the circumstances under which it was established, and assess the significance of the authority it gave the courts.

11.2 The Organization of Courts

Outline the organization of the U.S. court system and identify the principal functions of courts at each tier of the system.

11.3 The Supreme Court

Describe the process by which cases are accepted for review and decided by the Court, and analyze the roles played by judicial restraint and judicial activism in judicial decisions.

11.4 Judicial Recruitment

Explain how judges at different levels of the federal court system are nominated and confirmed to the federal bench.

11.5 The Consequences of Judicial Decisions

Examine the impact, influence, and acceptance of decisions on issues of national importance by an institution unaccountable to the electorate.

11.6 The Courts and Models of Democracy

Evaluate the decision-making authority of the federal judiciary within the context of both majoritarian and pluralist democracy.

364 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

When Chief Justice Fred M. Vinsondied unexpectedly in September 1953, his colleague Associate Justice Felix Frank- furter commented, ‘‘This is the first solid piece of evidence I’ve ever had that there really is a God.’’1 Frankfurter despised Vinson as a leader and disliked him as a person. Vinson’s sudden death would bring a new colleague—and per- haps new hope—to the school desegregation cases known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education. The issue of segregated schools had arrived in the Supreme Court in late 1951. Although the Court had originally scheduled oral argument for October 1952, the justices elected a postponement until December and merged sev- eral similar cases. When a law clerk expressed puzzlement at the delay, Frankfurter explained that the Court was holding the cases for the out- come of the national election in 1952. ‘‘I thought the Court was supposed to decide without regard to elections,’’ declared the clerk. ‘‘When you have a major social political issue of this

magnitude,’’ replied Frankfurter, ‘‘we do not think this is the time to decide it.’’2

The justices were at loggerheads following the December argument, with Vinson unwilling to invalidate racial segregation in public education. Because the justices were not ready to reach a decision, they scheduled the cases for reargu- ment the following year. The justices asked the attorneys to address the history of the Fourteenth Amendment and the potential remedies if the Court ruled against segregation.

Frankfurter’s caustic remark about Vinson’s death reflected the critical role Vinson’s replace- ment would play when the Court again tackled the desegregation issue. In his first appointment to the nation’s highest court, President Dwight D. Eisenhower chose California’s Republican governor, Earl Warren, as chief justice. The presi- dent would later regret his choice.

When the Court heard the reargument of Brown v. Board of Education in late 1953, the new chief justice led his colleagues from division

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365 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

to unanimity on the issue of public school segregation. Unlike his predecessor, Warren began the secret conference to decide the seg- regation issue with a strong statement: that segregation was contrary to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Consti- tution. ‘‘Personally,’’ remarked the new chief justice, ‘‘I can’t see how today we can justify segregation based solely on race.’’3 Moreover, if the Court were to uphold segregation, he argued, it could do so only on the theory that blacks were inherently inferior to whites. As the discussion proceeded, Warren’s opponents were cast in the awkward position of appearing to support racism.

Five justices were clearly on Warren’s side, making six votes; two were prepared to join the majority if Warren’s reasoning satis- fied them. With only one clear holdout, Warren set about the task of responding to his colleagues’ concerns. In the months that followed, he met with them individually in their chambers, reviewing the deci- sion and the justification that would accompany it. Finally, in April 1954, Warren approach Justice Stanley Reed, whose vote would make the opinion unanimous. ‘‘Stan,’’ said the Chief Justice, ‘‘you’re all by yourself in this now. You’ve got to decide whether it’s really the best thing for the country.’’ Ultimately, Reed joined the others. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against racial segregation in public schools, signaling the end of legally created or government-enforced segregation of the races in the United States.4

Judges confront conflicting values in the cases before them, and in crafting their decisions judges—especially Supreme Court justi- ces—make policy. Their decisions become the precedents other judges use to rule in similar cases. One judge in one court makes public policy to the extent that she or he influences other decisions in other courts.

The power of the courts to shape public policy creates a difficult problem for democratic theory. According to that theory, the power to make law resides only in the people or their elected representatives.

Court rulings—especially Supreme Court rulings—extend far beyond any particular case. Judges are students of the law, but they remain human beings. They have their own opinions about the val- ues of freedom, order, and equality. And although all judges are constrained by statutes and precedents from expressing their per- sonal beliefs in their decisions, some judges are more prone than others to interpret laws in the light of those beliefs. Some courts, such as the Supreme Court, make fundamental policy decisions

366 Chapter 11 The Courts

vital to the preservation of freedom, order, and equality. Through checks and balances, the elected branches link the courts to democ- racy, and the courts link the elected branches to the Constitution. But does this arrangement work? Can the courts exercise political power within the pluralist model? Or are judges simply sovereigns in black robes, making decisions independent of popular control? This chapter seeks to answer these questions by exploring the role of the judiciary in American political life.

11.1 National Judicial Supremacy

Define judicial review, explain the circumstances under which it was established, and assess the significance of the authority it gave the courts.

Section 1 of Article III of the Constitution creates ‘‘one supreme Court.’’ The founders were divided on the need for other national courts, so they deferred to Congress the decision to create a national court system. Those who opposed the creation of national courts believed that such a system would usurp the authority of the state courts.5 Congress considered the issue in its first session and, in the Judiciary Act of 1789, gave life to a system of federal (that is, national) courts that would coexist with the courts in each state but be independent of them. Federal judges would also be independent of popular influences because the Con- stitution provided for their potentially lifetime appointment.

In the early years of the Republic, the federal judiciary was not a particularly powerful branch of government. It was espe- cially difficult to recruit and keep Supreme Court justices. They spent much of their time as individual traveling judges (‘‘riding circuit’’), and disease and transportation were everyday hazards. The justices met as the Supreme Court for only a few weeks in February and August.6 John Jay, the first chief justice, refused to resume his duties in 1801 because he concluded that the Court could not muster the ‘‘energy, weight, and dignity’’ to contribute to national affairs.7 But a period of profound change began in 1801 when President John Adams appointed his secretary of state, John Marshall, to the position of chief justice.

National Judicial Supremacy 367

Judicial Review of the Other Branches Shortly after Marshall’s appointment, the Supreme Court con- fronted a question of fundamental importance to the future of the new republic: If a law enacted by Congress conflicts with the Con- stitution, which should prevail? The question arose in the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), which involved a controversial series of last-minute political appointments.

The case began in 1801, when an obscure Federalist, William Marbury, was designated a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia. Marbury and several others were appointed to govern- ment posts created by Congress in the last days of John Adams’s presidency, but the appointments were never completed. Though the Senate had approved their appointment, the official docu- ments of appointment were not delivered to several of the judicial appointments, including Marbury. The newly arrived Jefferson administration had little interest in delivering the required docu- ments; qualified Jeffersonians would welcome the jobs.

To secure their jobs, Marbury and the other disgruntled appointees invoked an act of Congress to obtain the papers. The act authorized the Supreme Court to issue orders against govern- ment officials. Marbury and the others sought such an order in the Supreme Court against the new secretary of state, James Madi- son, who held the crucial documents.

Chief Justice John Marshall observed that the act of Congress that Marbury invoked to sue in the Supreme Court conflicted with Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which did not authorize such suits. In February 1803, the Court delivered its opinion.

Must the Supreme Court follow the law or the Constitution? The Court held, in Marshall’s forceful argument, that the Consti- tution was ‘‘the fundamental and paramount law of the nation’’ and that ‘‘an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.’’ In other words, when an act of the legislature conflicts with the Constitution—the nation’s highest law—that act is invalid. Marshall’s argument vested in the judiciary the power to weigh the validity of congressional acts:

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.… If a law be in opposition to the con- stitution, if both the law and the constitution apply to a

368 Chapter 11 The Courts

particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitu- tion; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is the very essence of judicial duty.8

The decision in Marbury v. Madison established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review—the power to declare congres- sional acts invalid if they violate the Constitution.9 Subsequent cases extended the power to cover presidential acts as well.

Marshall expanded the potential power of the Supreme Court to equal or exceed the power of the other branches of government. Should a congressional act (or, by implication, a presidential act) conflict with the Constitution, the Supreme Court claimed the power to declare the act void. The judiciary would be a check on the legislative and executive branches, consistent with the princi- ple of checks and balances embedded in the Constitution. Judicial review gave the Supreme Court the final word on the meaning of the Constitution.

The exercise of judicial review—an appointed branch’s checking of an elected branch in the name of the Constitution— appears to run counter to democratic theory. But in over two hundred years of practice, the Supreme Court has invalidated only about 160 provisions of national law. Only a small number have had great significance for the political system.10 However, since 1994 the Court has struck down more than 30 acts of Congress. Moreover, there are mechanisms to override judicial review (constitutional amendment) and to control the excesses of the justices (impeachment). In addition, the Court can respond to the continuing struggle among competing interests (a struggle that is consistent with the pluralist model) by revers- ing itself.

Although the Constitution did not spell out judicial review of Congress and the president, it did provide such power over state and local government. When state or local laws conflict with the Constitution, national laws, or treaties, the federal courts can in- validate them under the supremacy clause.11 In 1816, the Supreme Court ruled that it also had the authority to review state court decisions calling for the interpretation of national law.12 In time, the Supreme Court would use its judicial review power in nearly

judicial review The power to declare congressional and presidential acts invalid because they violate the Constitution.

National Judicial Supremacy 369

1,300 instances to invalidate state and local laws on issues as diverse as abortion, the death penalty, the rights of the accused, and reapportionment.13

The Exercise of Judicial Review These early cases, coupled with other historic decisions, estab- lished the components of judicial review:

• The power of the courts to declare national, state, and local laws invalid if they violate the Constitution

• The supremacy of national laws or treaties when they conflict with state and local laws

• The role of the Supreme Court as the final authority on the meaning of the Constitution

This political might—the power to undo decisions of the representative branches of the national and state governments— lay in the hands of appointed judges, people not accountable to the electorate. Did judicial review square with democratic government?

Alexander Hamilton had foreseen and tackled the problem in Federalist No. 78. Writing during the ratification debates sur- rounding the adoption of the Constitution (see Chapter 2), Ham- ilton maintained that despite the power of judicial review, the judiciary would be the weakest of the three branches of govern- ment because it lacked ‘‘the strength of the sword or the purse.’’ The judiciary, wrote Hamilton, had ‘‘neither force nor will, but only judgment.’’

Although Hamilton was defending legislative supremacy, he argued that judicial review was an essential barrier to legislative oppression.14 He recognized that the power to declare government acts void implied the superiority of the courts over the other branches. But this power, he contended, simply reflects the will of the people declared in the Constitution as opposed to the will of the legislature expressed in its statutes. Judicial independence, guaranteed by lifetime tenure and protected salaries, frees judges from executive and legislative control, minimizing the risk of their deviating from the law established in the Constitution. If judges make a mistake, the people or their elected representatives have the means to correct the error, through constitutional amend- ments and impeachment.

370 Chapter 11 The Courts

Their lifetime tenure does free judges from the direct influ- ence of the president and Congress. And although mechanisms to check judicial power are in place, they require extraordinary majorities and are rarely used. When judges exercise the power of judicial review, then, they can and occasionally do operate counter to majoritarian rule by invalidating the actions of the people’s elected representatives.

11.2 The Organization of Courts

Outline the organization of the U.S. court system and identify the principal functions of courts at each tier of the system.

The American court system is complex, partly as a result of our federal system of government. Each state runs its own court sys- tem, and no two states’ courts are identical. In addition, we have a system of courts for the national government. The national, or federal, courts coexist with the state courts (see Figure 11.1). Indi- viduals fall under the jurisdiction of both court systems. They can sue or be sued in either system, depending mostly on what their case is about. Litigants file nearly all cases (99 percent) in the state courts.15

Some Court Fundamentals Criminal and Civil Cases. A crime is a violation of a law that for- bids or commands an activity. Criminal laws are set forth in each state’s penal code, as are punishments for violations. Because crime is a violation of public order, the government prosecutes criminal cases. Maintaining public order through the enforce- ment of criminal law is largely a state and local function. Criminal cases brought by the national government represent only a small fraction of all criminal cases prosecuted in the United States. Courts decide both criminal and civil cases. Civil cases stem from disputed claims to something of value. Disputes arise from acci- dents, contractual obligations, and divorce, for example. Often the parties disagree over tangible issues (possession of property,

criminal case A court case involving a crime, or violation of public order.

civil case A court case that involves a private dispute arising from such matters as accidents, contractual obligations, and divorce.

The Organization of Courts 371

FIGURE 11.1 The Federal and State Court Systems, 2010–2011

U.S. SUPREME COURT Signed opinions (75)

Cases argued (86)

U.S. DISTRICT COURTS (94 COURTS)

(367,692 cases)

U.S. COURTS OF APPEALS

(55,126 cases)

STATE INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURTS

STATE TRIAL COURTS

(106,091,588)*

* Note: If this box were shown in proportion to the other boxes below the gray line, the actual size would be approximately 3 feet wide × 1 foot high.

From federal administrative agencies

STATE COURTS OF LAST RESORT

(82,125 cases)

(190,936 cases)

Original jurisdiction

(0)

Requests for review (Approximately 8,000 petitions and appeals)

The federal courts have three tiers: district courts, courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was created by the Constitution; all other federal courts were created by Congress. State courts dwarf federal courts, at least in terms of caseload. There are more than one hundred state cases for every federal case filed. The structure of state courts varies from state to state; usually there are minor trial courts for less serious cases, major trial courts for more serious cases, intermediate appellate courts, and supreme courts. State courts were created by state constitutions. Sources: John Roberts, ‘‘The 2011 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary,’’ 31 December, 2011, http:// www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2011year-endreport.pdf; Court Statistics Project, ‘‘Appeals by Right Dominate Intermediate Appellate Court Caseloads,’’ http://www.courtstatistics.org/Appellate/AppellateABR1.aspx; and U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012, ‘‘Law Enforcement, Courts, and Prisons,’’ Table 335, p. 211, http:// www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0335.pdf.

372 Chapter 11 The Courts

custody of children), but civil cases can involve more abstract issues too (the right to equal accommodations, damages for pain and suffering). The government can be a party to civil disputes, called on to defend its actions or to allege wrongdoing.

Procedures and Policymaking. Most civil and criminal cases never go to trial. In most criminal cases, the defendant’s lawyer and the prosecutor plea-bargain, which means they negotiate about the severity and number of charges facing the accused. The defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for the promise of less severe punishment. In a civil case, one side may use a lawsuit as a threat to exact a concession from the other. Of- ten the parties settle their dispute. When parties do not settle, cases end with adjudication, a court judgment resolving the par- ties’ claims and ultimately enforced by the government. When trial judges adjudicate cases, they may offer written reasons to support their decisions. When the issues or circumstances of cases are novel, judges may publish opinions, explanations justifying their rulings.

Judges make policy in two different ways. Occasionally, in the absence of legislation, they use rules from prior decisions. We call this body of rules common, or judge-made, law. The roots of common law lie in the English legal system. Contracts, property, and torts (an injury or wrong to the person or prop- erty of another) are common law domains. The second area of judicial lawmaking involves the application of statutes enacted by legislatures. The judicial interpretation of legislative acts is called statutory construction. To determine how a statute should be applied, judges look for the legislature’s intent, reading reports of committee hearings and debates. If these sources do not clarify the statute’s meaning, the court does so. With or without legislation to guide them, judges look to the relevant opinions of higher courts for authority to decide the issues before them.

The federal courts are organized in three tiers, as a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid are U.S. district courts, where liti- gation begins. In the middle are U.S. courts of appeals. At the top is the Supreme Court of the United States. To appeal means to take a case to a higher court. The courts of appeals and the Supreme Court are appellate courts; with few exceptions, they review only cases already decided in lower courts.

plea bargain A defendant’s admission of guilt in exchange for a less severe punishment.

common, or judge-made, law Legal precedents derived from previous judicial decisions.

U.S. district court A court within the lowest tier of the three-tiered federal court system; the trial court in which litigation begins.

U.S. courts of appeals Courts within the second tier of the three-tiered federal court system, to which decisions of the district courts and federal agencies may be appealed for review.

The Organization of Courts 373

The U.S. District Courts There are ninety-four federal district courts in the United States. Each state has at least one district court, and no district straddles more than one state.16 In 2011 there were 677 authorized federal district judgeships with 610 active judges.17 These judges received approximately 368,000 new criminal and civil cases.18

The district courts are the entry point to the federal court sys- tem. When trials occur in the federal system, they take place in the federal district courts. Here is where witnesses testify, lawyers conduct cross-examinations, and judges and juries decide the fate of litigants. More than one judge may sit in each district court, but each case is tried by a single judge, sitting alone. Federal mag- istrates assist district judges, but they lack independent judicial authority. In 2011, there were 531 full-time magistrate positions and 43 part-time and other magistrate positions.19

Sources of Litigation. Today the authority of U.S. district courts extends to the following types of cases:

• Federal criminal cases as defined by national law (for exam- ple, robbery of a federally insured bank or interstate transpor- tation of stolen securities)

• Civil cases brought by individuals, groups, or government alleging violation of national law (for example, failure of a municipality to implement pollution-control regulations required by a national agency)

• Civil cases brought against the national government (for example, a vehicle manufacturer sues the motor pool of a government agency for its failure to take delivery of a fleet of new cars)

• Civil cases between citizens of different states when the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 (for example, when a citizen of New York sues a citizen of Alabama in a U.S. dis- trict court in Alabama for damages stemming from an auto accident that occurred in Alabama)

The U.S. Courts of Appeals All cases resolved in a U.S. district court and all decisions of fed- eral administrative agencies can be appealed to one of the twelve regional U.S. courts of appeals. These courts, with 167 authorized

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judgeships, received over 55,000 new cases in 2011.20 Each appeals court hears cases from a geographic area known as a circuit. The United States is divided into twelve circuits.*

Appellate Court Proceedings. Appellate court proceedings are public, but they usually lack courtroom drama. There are no jurors, witnesses, or cross-examinations; these are features of the trial courts. Appeals are based strictly on the rulings made and procedures followed in the trial courts.

Suppose that in the course of a criminal trial, a U.S. district judge allows the introduction of evidence that convicts a defend- ant but was obtained under questionable circumstances. The de- fendant can appeal on the grounds that the evidence was obtained in the absence of a valid search warrant and so was inadmissible. The issue on appeal is the admissibility of the evidence, not the defendant’s guilt or innocence. If the appellate court agrees with the trial judge’s decision to admit the evidence, the conviction stands. If the appellate court disagrees with the trial judge and rules that the evidence is inadmissible, the defendant must be retried without the incriminating evidence or must be released.

The courts of appeals are regional courts. They usually con- vene in panels of three judges to render judgments. The judges receive written arguments known as briefs (which are also some- times submitted in trial courts). Often the judges hear oral argu- ments and question the lawyers to probe their arguments.

Precedents and Making Decisions. When an appellate opinion is published, its influence can reach well beyond the immediate case. For example, a lawsuit turning on the meaning of the Con- stitution produces a ruling that serves as a precedent for subse- quent cases—that is, the decision becomes a basis for deciding similar cases in the same way. At the appellate level, precedent requires that opinions be written.

Making decisions according to precedent is central to the operation of our legal system, providing continuity and predict- ability. The bias in favor of existing decisions is captured by the Latin expression stare decisis, which means ‘‘let the decision

*A thirteenth court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, is not a regional court. It specializes in appeals involving patents, contract claims against the national government, and federal employment cases.

precedent A judicial ruling that serves as the basis for the ruling in a subsequent case.

stare decisis

Literally, ‘‘let the decision stand’’; decision making according to precedent.

The Organization of Courts 375

stand.’’ But the use of precedent and the principle of stare decisis do not make lower-court judges cogs in a judicial machine. ‘‘If precedent clearly governed,’’ remarked one federal judge, ‘‘a case would never get as far as the Court of Appeals: the parties would settle.’’21

Judges on courts of appeals direct their energies to correcting errors in district court proceedings and interpreting the law (in the course of writing opinions). When judges interpret the law, they often modify existing laws. In effect, they are making policy. Judges are politicians in the sense that they exercise political power, but the black robes that distinguish judges from other poli- ticians signal constraints on their exercise of power.

11.3 The Supreme Court Describe the process by which cases are accepted for review and decided by the Court, and analyze the roles played by judicial restraint and judicial activism in judicial decisions.

Above the west portico of the Supreme Court Building are inscribed the words EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW. At the op- posite end of the building, above the east portico, are the words JUSTICE THE GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY. These mottoes reflect the Court’s difficult task: achieving a just balance among the val- ues of freedom, order, and equality. Consider how those values came into conflict in two controversial issues the Court has faced.

Flag burning as a form of political protest pits the value of order, or the government’s interest in maintaining a peaceful soci- ety, against the value of freedom, including the individual’s right to vigorous and unbounded political expression. In two flag-burn- ing cases, the Supreme Court affirmed constitutional protection for unbridled political expression, including the emotionally charged act of desecrating a national symbol.22

School desegregation pits the value of equality against the value of freedom. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court carried the banner of racial equality by striking down state- mandated segregation in public schools. The justices recognized

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the disorder their decision would create in a society accustomed to racial bias, but in this case, equality clearly outweighed free- dom. Twenty-four years later, the Court was still embroiled in controversy over equality when it ruled that race could be a fac- tor in university admissions (to diversify the student body), in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978).23 In 2003 the Court faced the charge by white students who sought admis- sion to the University of Michigan that it was denying whites the freedom to compete for admission. A slim Court majority con- cluded that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not prohibit the narrowly tailored use of race as a factor in law school admissions but rejected the automatic use of racial categories to award fixed points toward undergraduate admissions.24

The use of race in assigning students to public schools was narrowed significantly in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1 (2007). In a deeply divided decision that addressed parallel cases in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky, the Court struck down two desegregation plans that classified students by race and used that information to determine where students would go to school to achieve racial balance. Though the plans were intended to integrate students rather than seg- regate them, the majority ruled that race was inappropriately used by the school district in plans that were not narrowly tailored. Though district administrators may con- sider race in the context of broader goals and issues, the broad and blunt use of race as a determining factor was struck down.25

The Supreme Court makes national policy. Because its decisions have far-reaching effects on all of us, it is vital that we understand how it reaches those decisions.

The Supreme Court, 2012 Term: The Lineup

The justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Seated are (left to right) Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Standing are Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen J. Breyer, Samuel A. Alito, and Elena Kagan.

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Access to the Court There are rules of access that must be followed to bring a case to the Supreme Court. Also important is sensitivity to the justices’ policy and ideological preferences. The notion that anyone can take a case all the way to the Supreme Court is true only in theory, not in fact.

The Supreme Court’s cases come from two sources. A few arrive under the Court’s original jurisdiction, conferred by Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution, which gives the Court the power to hear and decide ‘‘all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a Party.’’ Cases falling under the Court’s original jurisdiction are tried and decided in the Court itself; the cases begin and end there. For example, the Court is the first and only forum in which legal disputes between states are resolved. Most cases enter the Supreme Court from the U.S. courts of appeals or the state courts of last resort. These cases are within the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. They have been tried, decided, and reexamined as far as the law permits in other federal or state courts. The Supreme Court exercises judicial power under its appellate jurisdiction because Congress gives it the authority to do so. Congress may change (and perhaps eliminate) the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. This is a powerful but rarely used weapon in the congressional arsenal of checks and balances.

Litigants in state cases who invoke the Court’s appellate juris- diction must satisfy two conditions. First, the case must reach the end of the line in the state court system. Litigants cannot jump at will from state to the national arenas of justice. Second, the case must raise a federal question, an issue covered under the Consti- tution, federal laws, or national treaties. However, even most cases that meet these conditions do not reach the Supreme Court (see Figure 11.2).

Since 1925, the Court has exercised substantial (today, nearly complete) control over its docket, or agenda. The Court selects a handful of cases (fewer than one hundred) for consideration from around eight thousand requests filed each year. These requests take the form of petitions for certiorari, in which a litigant seeking review asks the Court ‘‘to become informed’’ of the lower-court proceedings. For the vast majority of cases, the Court denies the petition for certiorari, leaving the decision of the lower court

original jurisdiction The authority of a court to hear a case before any other court does.

appellate jurisdiction The authority of a court to hear cases that have been tried, decided, or reexamined in other courts.

federal question An issue covered by the U.S. Constitution, national laws, or U.S. treaties.

docket A court’s agenda.

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undisturbed. No explanations accompany cases that are denied review, so they have little or no value as Court rulings.

The Court grants a review only when four or more justices agree that a case warrants full consideration. This unwritten rule is known as the rule of four. With advance preparation by their law clerks, who screen petitions and prepare summaries, all nine justices make these judgments at weekly conferences.26 During these conferences, justices vote on previously argued cases and consider which new cases to add to the docket.

Business cases represent a substantial portion of the Court’s docket, though they receive far less attention than cases address- ing social issues such as the death penalty, affirmative action, or school prayer. Business disputes are less emotional and the issues more technical. But business cases involve billions of dollars, have enormous consequences for the economy, and affect people’s lives more often than the social issues that tend to dominate public debate and discussion.27

FIGURE 11.2 Access to and Decision Making in the U.S. Supreme Court, 2011 Term

Federal courts

State courts

Cases questioning federal laws, treaties, or the Constitution

Requests for Supreme Court

review

(Approximately 8,000 requests)

Discuss list in

conference

Review denied in 99% of all requests

The docket

(Approximately 80 cases)

Rule of four

Approximately 113,000 cases

Opinion

(Approximately 70 signed opinions)

Briefs Oral

argument Conference

Decision-making process

State and national appeals courts churn out thousands of decisions each year. Only a fraction ends up on the Supreme Court’s docket. This chart sketches the several stages leading to a decision from the High Court. Source: John Roberts, ‘‘The 2011 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary,’’ 31 December 2011, http:// www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2011year-endreport.pdf.

rule of four An unwritten rule that requires at least four justices to agree that a case warrants consideration before it is reviewed by the Supreme Court.

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The Solicitor General Why does the Court decide to hear certain cases but not others? The best evidence scholars have adduced suggests that agenda set- ting depends on the individual justices, who vary in their deci- sion-making criteria, and on the issues raised by the cases. Occasionally, justices weigh the ultimate outcome of a case when granting or denying review. At other times, they grant or deny review based on disagreement among the lower courts or because delay in resolving the issues would impose alarming economic or social costs.28 The solicitor general plays a vital role in the Court’s agenda setting.

The solicitor general represents the national government before the Supreme Court. Appointed by the president, the so- licitor general is the third-highest-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice (after the attorney general and the deputy attorney general). The solicitor general’s duties include deter- mining whether the government should appeal lower-court deci- sions; reviewing and modifying, when necessary, the briefs filed in government appeals; and deciding whether the government should file an amicus curiae brief* in any appellate court.29

The objective is to create a cohesive program for the executive branch in the federal courts. Solicitors general are a ‘‘formidable force’’ in the setting of the Supreme Court’s agenda.30 Their influence in bringing cases to the Court and arguing them there has earned the solicitor general the informal title of ‘‘the tenth justice.’’

Decision Making Once the Court grants review, attorneys submit written arguments (briefs). Oral arguments, generally limited to thirty minutes for each side, usually follow. On rare occasions, oral arguments are longer. In 2012, the Court scheduled a whopping six hours of argument in three cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). From October through April, the justices spend two to three hours a day, five or

*Amicus curiae is Latin for ‘‘friend of the court.’’ Amicus briefs can be filed with the consent of the Court. They allow groups and individuals who are not parties to the litigation but have an interest in it to influence the Court’s thinking and, perhaps, its decision.

solicitor general The third-highest-ranking official of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the one who represents the national government before the Supreme Court.

amicus curiae brief A brief filed (with the permission of the court) by an individual or group that is not a party to a legal action but has an interest in it.

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six days a month, hearing argu- ments. They reach no collective deci- sion at oral argument. A tentative decision is reached only after they have met in conference. Although the Court now releases oral argu- ment recordings and transcripts on its website, it continues to prohibit tweets and blog posts from the courtroom itself where computers, mobile phones, and tablets are banned.

Only the justices attend the Court’s weekly conferences. After the justices shake hands, the chief justice begins the presentation of each case with a discussion of it and his vote, which is followed by a dis- cussion and vote from each of the other justices, in order of their se- niority on the Court. As Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked, ‘‘To call our discussion of a case a confer- ence is really something of a misno- mer. It’s much more a statement of the views of each of the nine Justices, after which the totals are added and the case is assigned’’ for an opin- ion.31 Votes remain tentative until the opinion announcing the Court’s judgment is issued.

Judicial Restraint and Judicial Activism. How do the justices decide how to vote on a case? According to some scholars, legal doctrines and past decisions explain their votes. This ex- planation, which is consistent with the majoritarian model, anchors the justices closely to the law and minimizes the con- tribution of their personal values. This view is embodied in the concept of judicial restraint, which maintains that legislators, not judges, should make the laws. Judges are said to exercise judicial restraint when they defer to the decisions of elected

Lollapalooza of a Line

With no video allowed in the courtroom, the hottest ticket in Washington, D.C., for 2012 was for a seat in the Supreme Court to hear arguments examining the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s signature legislative achievement, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Court, under Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., seemed to be embracing political conflict when it agreed to decide the constitutionality of Obamacare before the 2012 presidential election. Ticketholders had no advantage in predicting the outcome, though. They, like other interested parties, had to wait three months before the Court announced its decision to uphold the controversial health care law in June 2012.

judicial restraint A judicial philosophy in which judges tend to defer to decisions of the elected branches of government.

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representatives. Other scholars contend that the value preferen- ces and resulting ideologies of the justices provide a more powerful interpretation of their voting.32 This view is embodied in the concept of judicial activism, which maintains that judges should not give deference to the elected branches but should use their judicial power to promote their preferred social and political goals. Essentially, judges act as activists when they sub- stitute their own judgment for the judgment of the people’s representatives. By interjecting personal values into court deci- sions, activist judging is more consistent with the pluralist model.

Judgment and Argument. The voting outcome is the judgment, the decision on who wins and who loses. The justices often dis- agree, not only on winners and losers but also on the reasons for their judgments. After voting, a justice in the majority must draft an opinion setting out the reasons for their decision. The argument is the kernel of the opinion—its logical content, as dis- tinct from facts, rhetoric, and procedure. If all justices agree with the judgment and the reasons supporting it, the opinion is unani- mous. Agreement with a judgment for reasons different from those set forth in the majority opinion is called a concurrence. Or a justice can dissent if she or he disagrees with a judgment. Both concurring and dissenting opinions may be drafted in addition to the majority opinion.

The Opinion. After the conference, the chief justice writes the majority opinion or assigns that responsibility to another justice in the majority. If the chief justice is not in the majority, the writ- ing or assigning responsibility rests with the most senior associate justice in the majority. The writing justice distributes a draft opin- ion to all the justices, who then read it and circulate their criticisms and suggestions. An opinion may have to be rewritten several times to accommodate colleagues who remain unper- suaded by the draft. Justices can change their votes, and perhaps alter the judgment, at any time before the decision is officially announced.

Justices in the majority frequently try to muffle or stifle dis- sent in order to encourage institutional cohesion. Since the mid- 1940s, however, unity has been more difficult to obtain.33 Gain- ing agreement from the justices today is akin to negotiating with

judicial activism A judicial philosophy in which judges tend not to defer to decisions of elected branches of government, resulting in the invalidation or emasculation of those decisions.

judgment The judicial decision in a court case.

argument The heart of a judicial opinion; its logical content separated from facts, rhetoric, and procedure.

concurrence The agreement of a judge with the court’s majority decision, for a reason other than the majority reason.

dissent The disagreement of a judge with a majority decision.

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nine separate law firms. Nevertheless, the justices must be keenly aware of the slender foundation of their authority, which rests largely on public respect. That respect is tested whenever the Court ventures into areas of controversy. Freedom of speech and religion, racial equality, the right to privacy, and the extent of presidential power have led the Court into controversy in the past half-century.

The Chief Justice The chief justice is only one of nine justices, but he has sev- eral important functions based on his authority. Apart from his role in forming the docket and directing the Court’s con- ferences, the chief justice can also be a social leader, generating solidarity within the group. Sometimes a chief justice can embody intellectual leadership. The chief justice also can pro- vide policy leadership, directing the Court toward a general policy position.

When presiding at the conference, the chief justice can con- trol the discussion of issues, although independent-minded justi- ces are not likely to acquiesce to his views. Moreover, justices today rarely engage in a debate of the issues in the conference. Rather, they communicate by written memoranda (not e-mail). Members of the Court use their law clerks as ambassadors between justices’ chambers and, in effect, ‘‘run the Court without talking to one another.’’34

11.4 Judicial Recruitment Explain how judges at different levels of the federal court system are nominated and confirmed to the federal bench.

Neither the Constitution nor national law imposes formal requirements for appointment to the federal courts. Once appointed, district court and appeals judges must reside in the district or circuit to which they are appointed. The president appoints judges to the federal courts, and all nominees must be confirmed by the Senate. Congress sets, but cannot lower, a judge’s compensation.

Judicial Recruitment 383

In more than half the states, the governor appoints state judges, often in consultation with judicial nominating commis- sions. In many of these states, voters decide whether judges should be retained in office. In some states, nominees must be confirmed by the state legislature. Contested elections for judgeships are rela- tively unusual, but in 2012, forty-six state Supreme Court seats were up for grabs in contestable elections throughout the United

Compared with What?

Selecting Judges Around the World In at least half of the U.S. states, judges run for election. In fact, nearly 90 percent of all state judges face the voters. This practice is in stark contrast to the rest of the world, where judges are appointed by the executive branch (with or without recommendations from a judicial selection commission), by the judicial selection commission itself, or by the legislative branch. In a few countries the civil service offers a professional career path leading to a judgeship. In these countries judges are selected through examinations and school programs. In only two nations—Switzerland and Japan—judicial elections hold sway, but only in a very limited way: (1) Some smaller Swiss cantons (subnational units) elect judges, and (2) appointed jus- tices of the Japanese Supreme Court may face retention elec- tions, though scholars regard the practice as a mere formality. Hans A. Linde, a retired justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, captured the essence of the American exception when he observed, ‘‘To the rest of the world, American adherence to ju- dicial elections is as incomprehensible as our rejection of the metric system.’’

The table here shows the judicial selection process used in countries around the world. Some countries use more than one method; the table lists the primary one.

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States. Given the emphasis in federal courts on an independent judiciary free of electoral pressures and perceived conflicts of in- terest, it should come as no surprise that there are many critics of state judicial elections.35 In most other countries, judges are appointed, not elected (see ‘‘Compared with What? Selecting Judges Around the World’’).

Executive Appointment without Commission

Executive Appointment with Commission

Appointment by Commission

Legislative Appointment Career Judiciary

Afghanistan Albania Algeria China Czech Republic

Argentina Canada Andorra Cuba France

Australia Dominican Republic

Angola Laos Germany

Bangladesh England Bulgaria Macedonia Italy

Belarus Greece Croatia Montenegro Japan

Belgium Namibia Cyprus Poland

Cambodia Russia Israel Portugal

Chad Scotland Lebanon Spain

Egypt South Africa Mexico Turkey

New Zealand Ukraine Rwanda

Uzbekistan Zimbabwe Yemen

Source: Based on Adam Liptak, ‘‘American Exception: Rendering Justice, with One Eye on Reelection,’’ New York Times, 25 May 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/ 2008/05/25/us/25exception.html?pagewanted¼1&_r¼1.

Critical Thinking How does the manner in which justices are appointed affect their independence? What advantages and disad- vantages might these five methods of appointment bring for the countries that adopt them?

Judicial Recruitment 385

The Appointment of Federal Judges The Constitution states that federal judges hold their commission ‘‘during good Behaviour,’’ which in practice means for life.* A president’s judicial appointments, then, are likely to survive his administration, providing a kind of political legacy. The appoint- ment power assumes that the president is free to identify candi- dates and appoint judges who favor his policies.

Judicial vacancies occur when sitting judges resign, retire, or die. Vacancies also arise when Congress creates new judgeships to handle increasing caseloads. In both cases, the president nomi- nates a candidate, who must be confirmed by the Senate. The president has the help of the Justice Department, which screens candidates before the formal nomination, subjecting serious con- tenders to FBI investigation. The White House and the Justice Department have formed a Judicial Selection Committee as part of this vetting process. The White House and the Senate vie for control in the appointment of district and appeals judges.

The ‘‘Advice and Consent’’ of the Senate. For district and appeals vacancies, a practice called senatorial courtesy forces presidents to share the nomination power with members of the Senate. The Senate will not confirm a nominee who is opposed by the senior senator from the nominee’s state if that senator is a member of the president’s party. The Judicial Selection Committee searches for acceptable candidates and polls the appropriate sena- tor for her or his reaction to them. The Senate does not actually reject nominees without home state support. Instead, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reviews all judicial nomi- nees, will not schedule a confirmation hearing, effectively killing the nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee chair also exer- cises a measure of control in the appointment process that goes beyond senatorial courtesy. If a nominee is objectionable to the chair, he or she can delay a hearing or hold up other appointments until the president and the Justice Department find an alternative.

Beginning with the Carter administration, judicial appoint- ments below the Supreme Court have proved a new battleground, with a growing proportion of nominees not confirmed and

*As of 2012, fifteen federal judges have been impeached. Of these, eight were convicted in the Senate and removed from office. The most recent to be forced from office was Judge G. Thomas Porteous, who was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate in 2010.

senatorial courtesy A practice whereby the Senate will not confirm for a lower federal court judgeship a nominee who is opposed by the senior senator in the president’s party in the nominee’s state.

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increasing delays in the process. These appointments were once viewed as presidential and party patronage, but that old-fashioned view has given way, with Senators now opposing judicial nominees on matters of judicial policy (for example, abortion) and theory (for example, a nominee’s approach when interpreting a statute). Begin- ning in 2003, Democratic Senators used the filibuster to prevent confirmation votes for judicial candidates they deemed ‘‘outside the mainstream.’’ This behavior provoked ire from the majority Repub- licans, who threatened to end the filibuster practice entirely. The parties reached an uneasy compromise in 2005 to invoke a judicial filibuster only for ‘‘extraordinary circumstances,’’ but that compro- mise seemed to be dissolved by 2011 when Republicans employed the judicial filibuster to scuttle Obama nominees.36

Recent Presidents and the Federal Judiciary Since the presidency of Jimmy Carter, presidents have tended to make appointments to the federal courts that are more diverse in racial, ethnic, and gender terms than in previous administrations. President Bill Clinton took the lead on diversity. For the first time in history, more than half of a president’s judicial appointments were women or minorities. Barack Obama nominated a higher percentage of women, African Americans, and Hispanics to the courts than any of his predecessors. Forty-four percent of Oba- ma’s confirmed judicial nominees were women.37

The racial and ethnic composition of the parties themselves helps to explain much of the variation between the appointments of presi- dents of different parties. It seems clear that political ideology, not demographics, lies at the heart of judicial appointments. A review of more than 25,000 federal court decisions from 1968 to 1995 concluded that Carter-appointed judges were the most liberal, whereas judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were the least liberal.38 George W. Bush’s judges were among the most conservative when it came to civil rights and civil liberties.39 One general rule seems clear: presidents like to appoint judges who share similar values.

Appointment to the Supreme Court The president is not shackled by senatorial courtesy when it comes to nominating a Supreme Court justice. However, appointments to the Court attract more intense public scrutiny than do lower- level appointments, effectively narrowing the president’s options and focusing attention on the Senate’s advice and consent.

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Presidents have sent the Senate 160 nominations for the Supreme Court, including nominations for the chief justice. Of these nominations, 124 were confirmed by the Senate (though 7 of those ultimately declined to serve). Eleven names were withdrawn, and the other 25 failed to receive Senate confirmation.40 The most important factor in the rejection of a nominee is partisan politics.

Nineteen of the twenty-six successful Supreme Court nominees since 1950 have had prior judicial experience in federal or state courts. This tendency toward ‘‘promotion’’ from within the judiciary may be based on the idea that judges’ previous opinions are good pre- dictors of their future opinions on the Supreme Court. After all, a president is handing out a powerful lifetime appointment; it makes sense to want an individual who is sympathetic to his views.

In the 2006 term—the first full term with George W. Bush appointees John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the bench—the Court moved in a decidedly conservative direction. One-third of all the cases were decided by a vote of 5–4, almost triple the pro- portion of close votes from the previous term. In each case, Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote. He joined the majority in all twenty-four 5–4 decisions, siding more often with his con- servative colleagues. In fact, Kennedy has been in the majority more than any other justice since joining the court in 1988.41

The retirement of Justice David H. Souter in the summer of 2009 gave President Obama the opportunity to appoint federal judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, the first Latina to be nominated to the Court, possessed a sterling resume with a compelling personal story. Raised by her widowed mother in a Bronx housing project, Sotomayor went on to distinction at Yale Law School. She spent years as a federal prosecutor and in private legal practice before she was appointed by Republican president George H. W. Bush to the federal district court in 1992. President Bill Clinton appointed her to the federal appellate court in 1998.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee tried to derail Sotomayor’s nomination, pouring over everything she had written or said. Some senators focused on a comment she made in 2001, that ‘‘a wise Latina woman … would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.’’42

Sotomayor deflected the attacks and stuck to her well-rehearsed script, declaring that her core guiding principle was ‘‘fidelity to the law.’’ In the end, she was confirmed by a vote of 68 to 31, largely along party lines.

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Liberal justice John Paul Stevens retired in the summer of 2010, giving President Obama the opportunity to nominate Elena Kagan, his solicitor general, to the Supreme Court. In a de- parture from recent practice, Obama did not find his choice in the minor leagues of the federal judiciary. Rather, Kagan made her mark as a law profes- sor and law school administrator (and a coveted clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall). Lacking the typical paper trail of con- troversial judicial decisions authored by most nominees, during confirma- tion hearings senators sought unsuc- cessfully to elicit evidence of Kagan’s likely positions on controversial issues likely to come before the Supreme Court. Though many challenged her lack of judicial experience, the Senate approved Kagan 63–37 in a largely par- tisan vote. Having served as President Obama’s solicitor general, Kagan recused herself from several cases she worked on when the Court heard them during her first term.

11.5 The Consequences of Judicial Decisions

Examine the impact, influence, and acceptance of decisions on issues of national importance by an institution unaccountable to the electorate.

Of all the lawsuits begun in the United States, the overwhelming majority end without a court judgment. Many civil cases are set- tled, or the parties give up, or the courts dismiss the suits because they are beyond the legitimate bounds of judicial resolution. Most criminal cases end with a plea bargain, the defendant’s admission

Welcome to the Club

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. (right), congratulated Elena Kagan (left), after administering the judicial oath to Kagan on August 7, 2010, making her the 112th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Jeffrey Minear, counselor to the Chief Justice, held the Bible.) In prepared remarks afterward, Kagan pledged to support judicial restraint and a ‘‘modest’’ role for the court.

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of guilt in exchange for a less severe punishment. Only about 10 percent of criminal cases in the federal district courts are tried; an equally small percentage of civil cases are adjudicated.

Furthermore, the fact that a judge sentences a criminal de- fendant to ten years in prison or a court holds a company liable for billions in damages does not guarantee that the defendant will lose his or her freedom or the company will give up any assets. In the cases of criminal defendants, the road of appeal following trial and conviction is well traveled, and if nothing else, an appeal delays the day when a defendant must go to prison. In civil cases as well, an appeal may be filed to delay the day of reckoning.

Supreme Court Rulings: Implementation and Impact When the Supreme Court makes a decision, it relies on others to implement it, to translate policy into action. How a judgment is implemented rests in good measure on how it was crafted. Remem- ber that the justices, in preparing their opinions, must work to hold their majorities together to gain greater, if not unanimous, support for their arguments. This forces them to compromise in their opin- ions and to moderate their arguments, and it introduces ambiguity into many of the policies they articulate. Ambiguous opinions affect the implementation of policy. For example, when the Supreme Court issued its order in 1955 to desegregate public school facilities ‘‘with all deliberate speed,’’43 judges who opposed the Court’s policy dragged their feet in implementing it.

Because the Supreme Court confronts issues freighted with deeply felt social values or fundamental political beliefs, its deci- sions have an impact beyond the immediate parties in a dispute. The Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion generated heated public reaction. Groups opposing abortion vowed to over- turn the decision; groups favoring the freedom to obtain an abor- tion moved to protect the right they had won. Within eight months of the decision, more than two dozen constitutional amendments had been introduced in Congress, but none managed to carry the extraordinary majority required for passage.

Public Opinion and the Supreme Court Democratic theorists have a difficult time reconciling a commitment to representative democracy with a judiciary that is not accountable

390 Chapter 11 The Courts

to the electorate yet has the power to undo legislative and executive acts. This difficulty may simply be a problem for theorists, however. Policies coming from the Supreme Court, though lagging years behind public opinion, rarely seem out of line with the public’s ideo- logical choices.44 Surveys in several controversial areas reveal that the Court seldom departs from majority sentiment or trends.45

‘‘What history shows,’’ wrote Professor Barry Friedman in a recent and thorough study in this area, ‘‘is assuredly not that Supreme Court decisions always are in line with popular opinion, but rather that they come into line with one another over time.’’46

That alignment has yet to materialize after more than five decades on the issue of school prayer, since the Court struck down the rec- itation of a nondenominational public school prayer in 1961.47 A majority of Americans then and now do not agree with the Court’s position. And so long as much of the public continues to want prayer in schools, the controversy will continue.

As recently as 2009, the Gallup Poll showed that nearly six out of ten Americans were much more likely to approve than dis- approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing.48 Approval has since declined markedly, particularly among Democrats and inde- pendents whose faith in the institution had surged briefly after President Obama’s election. Obama’s two appointments to the Supreme Court replaced ideologically similar predecessors and did not change the ideological balance of the court itself, which continues in its conservative direction.49

11.6 The Courts and Models of Democracy

Evaluate the decision-making authority of the federal judiciary within the context of both majoritarian and pluralist democracy.

How far should judges stray from existing statutes and prece- dents? Supporters of the majoritarian model argue that judges must refrain from injecting their own values into their decisions. If the law places too much (or not enough) emphasis on equality or order, the elected legislature, not the courts, can change the law. In contrast, those who support the pluralist model maintain

The Courts and Models of Democracy 391

that the courts are a policymaking branch of government. It is thus legitimate for the individual values and interests of judges to mirror group interests and preferences and for judges to con- sciously attempt to advance group interests as they see fit. How- ever, when, where, and how to proceed are difficult for judges at all levels to determine.

The argument that our judicial system fits the pluralist model gains support from a legal procedure called a class action. A class action is a device for assembling the claims or defenses of similarly sit- uated individuals so that they can be tried in a single lawsuit. A class action makes it possible for people with small individual claims and limited financial resources to aggregate their claims and resources in order to make a lawsuit viable. Since the 1940s, class action suits have been the vehicles through which groups have asserted claims involv- ing civil rights, legislative apportionment, and environmental prob- lems. For example, schoolchildren have sued (through their parents) under the banner of class action to rectify claimed racial discrimina- tion by school authorities, as in Brown v. Board of Education.

Abetting the class action is the resurgence of state supreme courts fashioning policies consistent with group preferences. State courts may serve as the staging areas for legal campaigns to change the law in the nation’s highest court. They also exercise substantial influence over policies that affect citizens daily, includ- ing the rights and liberties enshrined in their state constitutions, statutes, and common law.50

Furthermore, a state court can avoid review by the U.S. Supreme Court by basing its decision solely on state law or by plainly stating that its decision rests on both state and federal law. If a state court chooses to rely solely on national law in deciding a case, that case is reviewable by the U.S. Supreme Court. If the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to render a restrictive view of a constitu- tional right and the judges of a state court are inclined toward a more expansive view, the state judges can use the state ground to avoid Supreme Court review. In a period when the nation’s high- est court is moving in a conservative direction, some state courts have become safe havens for liberal values.

When judges reach decisions, they pay attention to the views of other courts, and not just courts above them in the judicial hi- erarchy. State and federal court opinions are the legal storehouse from which judges regularly draw their ideas. Often the issues that affect individual lives—property, family, contracts—are grist for

class action A procedure by which similarly situated litigants may be heard in a single lawsuit.

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state courts, not federal courts. State courts have become arenas for political conflict with litigants, individually or in groups, vying for their preferred policies. The multiplicity of the nation’s court system, with overlapping state and federal responsibilities, pro- vides alternative points of access for individuals and groups to present and argue their claims. This description of the courts fits the pluralist model of government.

SUMMARY 11.1 National Judicial Supremacy

• Section 1 of Article III of the Constitu- tion creates ‘‘one supreme Court,’’ although in its early years the federal judiciary was not a particularly powerful branch of government.

• Congress gave life to a federal court system in the Judiciary Act of 1789, and with the establishment of judicial review, the Supreme Court’s power came to equal or potentially exceed the other branches.

• Judicial review checks the power of the elected branches in the name of the Constitution and gives the Supreme Court power over state laws that conflict with the Constitution, national laws, and federal treaties.

• Checks and balances on judicial power include constitutional amend- ments and impeachment.

11.2 The Organization of Courts • Federal courts are organized in three

tiers: U.S. district courts (trial courts where litigation begins), U.S. courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

• The ability of judges to make policy increases as they move up the pyra- mid from trial courts to appellate courts to the Supreme Court.

• The American legal system functions with a bias that favors existing decisions. This notion of stare decisis (‘‘let the decision stand’’) provides continuity and predictability to the legal process.

11.3 The Supreme Court • The Supreme Court harmonizes

conflicting interpretations of national law and articulates constitutional rights.

• Very few cases arrive under the Court’s original jurisdiction; most arrive through the Court’s appellate jurisdiction.

• The Supreme Court is free to draft its agenda through the discretionary control of its docket, hearing only those cases that four or more justices agree warrant full consideration (the rule of four). The solicitor general influences their choice of cases to review.

Summary 393

11.4 Judicial Recruitment • With the help of the Justice Depart-

ment, the president nominates judges to the federal courts with confirmation by the Senate.

• For federal district and appeals court vacancies, the president is forced to share nomination power with the Sen- ate (senatorial courtesy).

• Recent presidents have made efforts to make the federal courts more diverse in racial, ethnic, and gender terms. When it comes to Supreme Court appointments, however, partisan poli- tics is the most important factor affect- ing which nominees are confirmed.

• In more than half of state courts, gover- nors appoint judges, who are then approved by judicial nominating com- missions. In some states, judges and even state supreme court justices are elected in contested partisan elections.

11.5 The Consequences of Judicial Decisions • Most criminal cases end with a plea

bargain. • The Supreme Court relies on others to

implement its decisions. • The Supreme Court seldom influences

public opinion, as it enjoys only mod- erate popularity with the public.

11.6 The Courts and Models of Democracy • State court systems have overlapping

state and national responsibilities, offering groups and individuals addi- tional access points to present and argue their claims.

• Class action enables people with small individual claims and limited financial resources to pursue their goals in court, reinforcing the pluralist model.

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

11.1 Define judicial review, explain the cir- cumstances under which it was estab- lished, and assess the significance of the authority it gave the courts. 1. Why was the decision in Marbury v.

Madison so important for the Supreme Court?

2. What are the components of judicial review?

3. Why might the Supreme Court’s abil- ity to invalidate unconstitutional laws be construed as undemocratic?

11.2 Outline the organization of the U.S. court system and identify the princi- pal functions of courts at each tier of the system. 1. What are the two ways that judges

can make policy? 2. List the different areas over which the

U.S. district courts have authority. 3. What is precedent, and how is it

used in the court system?

394 Chapter 11 The Courts

11.3 Describe the process by which cases are accepted for review and decided by the Court, and analyze the roles played by judicial restraint and judicial activism in judicial decisions. 1. What are the two ways that cases

arrive at the Supreme Court? 2. Distinguish between judicial restraint

and judicial activism as approaches to decision making.

3. What are the functions of the chief justice of the Supreme Court?

11.4 Explain how judges at different levels of the federal court system are nominated and confirmed to the federal bench. 1. How does the practice of senatorial

courtesy affect the judicial appoint- ment process?

2. What does the Constitution mean in stating that federal judges hold their commission ‘‘during good Behaviour’’?

3. How are appointments to state courts similar and different from appoint- ments to federal courts?

11.5 Examine the impact, influence, and acceptance of decisions on issues of national importance by an institution unaccountable to the electorate. 1. What factors affect the impact that

Supreme Court decisions can have on policy?

2. Why do justices on the Supreme Court have to compromise when drafting an opinion?

3. How do Supreme Court rulings usu- ally relate to public opinion?

11.6 Evaluate the decision-making authority of the federal judiciary within the context of both majoritar- ian and pluralist democracy. 1. What is the pluralist notion of judi-

cial responsibility? 2. How does a class action make a

lawsuit viable? 3. In what way can state courts diverge

from the U.S. Supreme Court on spe- cific decisions?

Assessing Your Understanding 395

12 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Order and

Civil Liberties

12.1 The Bill of Rights

Explain the role of the Bill of Rights in protecting civil liberties and civil rights.

12.2 Freedom of Religion

Identify the mechanisms that guarantee freedom of religion.

12.3 Freedom of Expression

Identify the free-expression clauses and describe the scope of their protection.

12.4 The Right to Bear Arms

Discuss the controversy over the Second Amendment and explain how Supreme Court rulings have addressed that debate.

12.5 Applying the Bill of Rights to the States

Explain the process by which the Supreme Court extended the protections of the Bill of Rights to the local and state levels of government.

12.6 The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy

Explain how the Supreme Court interpreted the Ninth Amendment to broaden the individual’s constitutional protection of personal privacy, a right not enumerated in the Constitution, beyond the language in the Bill of Rights.

396 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

F or forty-nine years, an eight-by-four-footChristian prayer hung on the auditorium wall at Cranston High School West in Rhode Island. The prayer read: ‘‘Our Heavenly Father, grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful,’’ continuing for a few more lines before concluding with ‘‘Amen.’’

Sixteen-year-old junior Jessica Ahlquist, an avowed atheist, objected to the prayer, and with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, sought the prayer’s removal on the grounds that it represented government establish- ment of religion in violation of the First Amend- ment to the U.S. Constitution. The local school board held hearings and voted 4–3 to keep the prayer. It was an important piece of school his- tory, argued some members; others spoke of the secular values it promoted. In January 2012, fed- eral judge Roger R. Lagueux ruled that the prayer

violated the principle of government neutrality in religion and ordered the permanent removal of the banner.1

Jessica paid a steep price for exercising her constitutional guarantee: she was ostracized, threatened, and vilified in her community; she was subjected to taunting and threats at school and was the subject of an online hate campaign on Facebook.2

Throughout this nation’s history, individuals and institutions have clashed over basic values. Here the Cranston community sought to preserve social order by reminding those who used its high school of the shared religious beliefs of many (perhaps a majority) of its citizens. Jessica Ahlquist had an interest in religious freedom (in her case, the freedom not to believe) and main- tained that government may not impose any reli- gious belief on its citizens.

A P

Ph ot

o/ St

ev en

Se nn

397 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

How well do the courts respond to clashes that pit freedom against order or freedom against equality? Are freedom, order, and equality ever unconditional? In this chapter, we explore some value conflicts that the judiciary has resolved. You will be able to judge from these cases whether American government has met the challenge of democracy by finding the appropriate balance between freedom and order and between freedom and equality.

The value conflicts described in this chapter revolve around claims or entitlements that rest on law. Although we concentrate on conflicts over constitutional issues, the Constitution is not the only source of people’s rights. Government at all levels creates rights through laws written by legislatures and regulations issued by bureaucracies.

We begin this chapter with the Bill of Rights and the freedoms it protects. Then we take a closer look at the role of the First Amendment in the original conflict between freedom and order. Next we turn to the Fourteen Amendment and the limits it places on the states. Then we examine the Ninth Amendment and its relationship to issues of personal autonomy.

12.1 The Bill of Rights Explain the role of the Bill of Rights in protecting civil liberties and civil rights.

You may remember from Chapter 2 that the omission of a bill of rights was the most important obstacle to the adoption of the Constitution by the states. Eventually the First Congress approved twelve amendments and sent them to the states for ratification. In 1791, ten were ratified, and the nation had a bill of rights.

The Bill of Rights imposed limits on the national government but not on the state governments.* During the next seventy-seven years, litigants pressed the Supreme Court to extend the amend- ments’ restraints to the states, but the Court refused until well after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Before

*Congress considered more than one hundred amendments in its first session. One that was not approved would have limited power of the states to infringe on the rights of conscience, speech, press, and jury trial in criminal cases. James Madison thought this amendment was the ‘‘most valuable’’ of the list, but it failed to muster a two-thirds vote in the Senate.

398 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

then, protection from repressive state government had to come from state bills of rights.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans numerous liber- ties and rights. In this chapter, we explore several of them. We will define and distinguish between civil liberties and civil rights (although on some occasions, we use the terms interchangeably). Civil liberties are freedoms that are guaranteed to the individual. The guarantees take the form of restraints on government. For example, the First Amendment declares that ‘‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.’’ Civil liberties declare what the government cannot do. In contrast, civil rights declare what the government must do or provide.

Civil rights are powers or privileges that are guaranteed to the individual and protected against arbitrary removal at the hands of the government or other individuals. The right to vote and the right to a jury trial in criminal cases are civil rights embedded in the Constitution. Today, civil rights also embrace laws that further certain values. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, furth- ered the value of equality by establishing the right to nondiscrimi- nation in places of public accommodation and the right to equal employment opportunity.

The Bill of Rights lists both civil liberties and civil rights. When we refer to the ‘‘rights and liberties’’ of the Constitution, we mean the protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment.3 The list includes freedom of religion, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government, the right to bear arms, the rights of the criminally accused, the requirement of due process, and the equal protection of the laws.

12.2 Freedom of Religion Identify the mechanisms that guarantee freedom of religion.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Religious freedom was very important to the colonies, and later to the states. That importance is reflected in its position in the Bill of

civil liberties Freedoms guaranteed to individuals.

civil rights Powers or privileges guaranteed to individuals and protected from arbitrary removal at the hands of government or individuals.

Freedom of Religion 399

Rights: the first amendment. The First Amendment guarantees free- dom of religion in two clauses: the establishment clause prohibits laws sponsoring or supporting religion, and the free-exercise clause prevents the government from interfering with religious practice. Together they ensure that the government can neither promote nor inhibit religious beliefs or practices.

At the time of the Constitutional Convention, many Ameri- cans, especially in New England, maintained that government could and should foster religion, specifically Protestantism. However, many more Americans agreed that this was an issue for state gov- ernments; the national government had no authority to meddle in religious affairs. The religion clauses were drafted in this spirit.4

The Supreme Court has refused to interpret the religion clauses definitively. The result is an amalgam of rulings, the cumulative effect of which is the idea that freedom to believe is unlimited but freedom to practice a belief can be limited. Religion cannot benefit directly from government actions (for example, government cannot make contributions to churches or syna- gogues), but it can benefit indirectly from government actions (for example, government can supply books on secular subjects for use in all schools—public, private, and parochial).

The Establishment Clause The provision that ‘‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’’ bars government sponsorship or sup- port of religious activity. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the establishment clause requires government to maintain a position of neutrality toward religions and maintain that position in cases that involve choices between religion and nonreligion. However, the Court has never interpreted the clause as barring all assistance that incidentally aids religious institutions.

Government Support of Religion. In 1879, the Supreme Court contended, quoting Thomas Jefferson, that the establishment clause erected ‘‘a wall of separation between church and state.’’5

That wall was breached somewhat in 1947, when the justices upheld a local government program that provided free transporta- tion to parochial school students.6 The breach seemed to widen in 1968, when the Court held constitutional a government program in which parochial school students borrowed state-purchased

establishment clause The first clause in the First Amendment, which forbids government establishment of religion.

free-exercise clause The second clause in the First Amendment, which prevents the government from interfering with the exercise of religion.

400 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

textbooks.7 The objective of the program, reasoned the majority, was to further educational opportunity. The students, not the schools, borrowed the books, and the parents, not the church, realized the benefits.

But in 1971, in Lemon v. Kurtzman,* the Court struck down a state program that would have helped pay the salaries of teach- ers hired by parochial schools to give instruction in secular subjects.8 The justices proposed a three-pronged test for deter- mining the constitutionality of government programs and laws under the establishment clause:

• They must have a secular purpose (such as lending books to parochial school students).

• Their primary effect must not be to advance or inhibit religion. • They must not entangle the government excessively with

religion.

A program or law missing any prong would be unconstitutional. The program in Lemon failed on the last ground. To be sure

that the secular teachers did not include religious instruction in their lessons, the government would have needed to constantly monitor them. However, in a 1997 test of the establishment clause, the Court held that ‘‘a federally funded program providing supple- mental, remedial instruction to disadvantaged children on a neutral basis is not invalid under the Establishment Clause when such instruction is given on the premises of sectarian schools by govern- ment employees pursuant to a program containing safeguards,’’ such as that of a New York program that, in the eyes of the Court, did not ‘‘run afoul of the three primary criteria’’ cited in Lemon.9

The issue of neutrality has taken on great significance in recent years. Writing for the Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), Chief Justice William Rehnquist summarized this principle:

Where a government aid program is neutral with respect to religion, and provides assistance directly to a broad class of citizens who, in turn, direct government aid to re- ligious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice, the program is not read- ily subject to challenge under the Establishment Clause.10

*Key cases are highlighted in bold, and a list of key cases appears at the end of the chapter.

Freedom of Religion 401

Using this logic, the Court ruled that it was constitutional for the state of Ohio to provide poor students with tuition vouchers they could use at the school of their choice. In fact, a large number of voucher recipients chose to use the state funds to attend parochial schools, but this was merely an option along with public schools, magnet schools, community schools, and secular private schools.

School Prayer. The Supreme Court has consistently equated organized prayer in public schools with government support of re- ligion. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), it struck down the daily reading of a twenty-two-word nondenominational prayer in New York’s public schools. In the years since that decision, new challenges on the issue of school prayer have continued to find their way to the Supreme Court. In 1985, the Court struck down a series of Ala- bama statutes requiring a moment of silence for meditation or voluntary prayer in elementary schools.11 In 1992, the Court ruled 5–4 that public schools may not include nondenominational pray- ers in graduation ceremonies.12 By a 6–3 vote, the Court went further in 2000 by striking down the practice of organized, student-led prayer at public high school football games.13 And in 2012, the fact that the prayer at issue in Cranston High School West was unspoken but prominently displayed on an auditorium wall did not shield the authorities from a constitutional violation.

Religious training during public school is out of bounds, but this does not mean that students may not participate in religious activities on school property. In 2001 the Supreme Court ruled that public schools must open their doors to after-school religious activities on the same basis as other after-school programs such as the debate club.14 To do otherwise would constitute viewpoint discrimination in violation of the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

The establishment clause creates a problem for government. Support for all religions at the expense of nonreligion seems to pose the least risk to social order. Tolerance of the dominant reli- gion at the expense of other religions risks minority discontent, but support for no religion (neutrality between religion and non- religion) risks majority discontent.

The Free-Exercise Clause The free-exercise clause of the First Amendment states that ‘‘Con- gress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].’’

402 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

The Supreme Court has struggled to avoid absolute interpretations of this restriction so as not to violate its complement, the establish- ment clause. An example: suppose Congress grants exemptions from military service to individuals who have religious scruples against war. These exemptions could be construed as a violation of the estab- lishment clause because they favor some religious groups over others. But if Congress forces conscientious objectors to fight—to violate their religious beliefs—the government would run afoul of the free- exercise clause. In fact, Congress has granted military draftees such exemptions. But the Supreme Court has avoided a conflict between the establishment and free-exercise clauses by equating religious objection to war with any deeply held humanistic opposition to it.15

In the free-exercise cases, the justices have distinguished reli- gious beliefs from actions based on those beliefs. Beliefs are invio- late, beyond the reach of government control. But the First Amendment does not protect antisocial actions. Consider conflict- ing values about working on the Sabbath and using drugs in reli- gious sacraments.

Working on the Sabbath. The modern era of free-exercise thinking began with Sherbert v. Verner (1963). Adeil Sherbert was a Seventh-Day Adventist who was disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits after declining a job that required work- ing on Saturday, which is the Adventist Sabbath. In a 7–2 deci- sion, the Supreme Court ruled that the disqualification imposed an impermissible burden on Sherbert’s free exercise of religion. The First Amendment, declared the majority, protected observ- ance as well as belief. A neutral law that burdens the free exercise of religion was subject to strict scrutiny. This means the law may be upheld only if the government can demonstrate that the law is justified by a ‘‘compelling governmental interest,’’ narrowly tai- lored, and the least restrictive means for achieving that interest.16

Using Drugs as Religious Sacraments. Partaking of illegal sub- stances as part of a religious sacrament forces believers to violate the law. For example, Rastafarians and members of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church smoke marijuana in the belief that it is the body and blood of Christ. Taken to an extreme the freedom to practice religion can result in license to engage in illegal conduct. The inevitable result is a clash between religious freedom and social order.

strict scrutiny A standard used by the Supreme Court in deciding whether a law or policy is to be adjudged constitutional. To pass strict scrutiny, the law or policy must be justified by a ‘‘compelling governmental interest,’’ must be narrowly tailored, and must be the least restrictive means for achieving that interest.

Freedom of Religion 403

The courts used the compelling-government-interest test for many years and on that basis invalidated most laws restricting free exercise. But in 1990, the Supreme Court abruptly and unexpect- edly rejected its longstanding rule, tipping the balance in favor of social order. In Employment Division v. Smith, two members of the Native American Church sought an exemption from an Ore- gon law that made the possession or use of peyote a crime.17

(Peyote is a cactus that contains the hallucinogen mescaline. Native Americans have used it for centuries in their religious cere- monies.) Oregon rejected the two church members’ applications for unemployment benefits after they were dismissed from their drug-counseling jobs for using peyote. Oregon believed it had a compelling interest in proscribing the use of certain drugs accord- ing to its own drug laws.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the 6–3 majority, examined the conflict between freedom and order through the lens of major- itarian democratic thought. He observed that the Court has never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him or her from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that government is free to regulate. Allowing exceptions to every state law or regulation affecting religion ‘‘would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind.’’ Scalia cited as examples compul- sory military service, payment of taxes, vaccination requirements, and child-neglect laws. The Court ruled that laws indirectly restricting religious practices are acceptable; only laws aimed at religious groups are constitutionally prohibited.

The political response to Employment Division v. Smith was an example of pluralism in action. A coalition of religious and nonreligious groups organized to restore the more restrictive strict scrutiny test. The alliance regained in Congress what it had lost in the Supreme Court. In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The law once again required federal, state, and local government to satisfy the strict-scrutiny standard before it could institute measures that interfere with religious practices. However, the Supreme Court struck back in 1997, declaring the act’s attempt to impose the strict scrutiny standard on states unconstitutional in City of Boerne v. Flores. The 6–3 Supreme Court decision means that RFRA no longer binds state and local government actions.18 How- ever, in a unanimous 2006 opinion, the Court upheld RFRA

404 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

limitations over federal law. The national government sought to control the sacramental use of a hallucinogenic tea by a small reli- gious sect in New Mexico. The Court held that the government was unable to detail a compelling interest in barring the use of the tea under the strict scrutiny that RFRA imposes on federal laws and regulations.19

12.3 Freedom of Expression Identify the free-expression clauses and describe the scope of their protection.

Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peace- ably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

James Madison introduced the initial versions of the speech clause and the press clause of the First Amendment in the House of Rep- resentatives in June 1789. One of these proposals was merged with the religion and peaceable assembly clauses to yield the First Amendment.

The sparse language of the First Amendment seems perfectly clear: ‘‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’’ Yet a majority of the Supreme Court has never agreed that this ‘‘most majestic guarantee’’ is absolutely invio- lable.20 Historians have long debated the framers’ intentions regard- ing these free-expression clauses. The dominant view is that the clauses confer the right to unrestricted discussion of public affairs.21

Other scholars, examining much the same evidence, conclude that few, if any, of the framers clearly understood the clause; moreover, they insist that the First Amendment does not rule out prosecution for seditious statements (statements inciting insurrection).22

Today the clauses are deemed to bar not only most forms of prior restraint—censorship before publication—but also after- the-fact prosecution for political and other discourse. The Supreme Court has evolved two approaches to the resolution of claims based on the free-expression clauses. First, government can regulate or punish the advocacy of ideas, but only if it can prove an intent to promote lawless action and demonstrate that a high

prior restraint Censorship before publication.

free-expression clauses The press and speech clauses of the First Amendment.

Freedom of Expression 405

probability exists that such action will occur.23 Second, govern- ment may impose reasonable restrictions on the means for com- municating ideas, which can incidentally discourage free expression.

Suppose that a political party advocates nonpayment of per- sonal income taxes. Government cannot regulate or punish that party for advocating nonpayment, because the standards of proof— that the act be directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and that the act be judged likely to produce such action—do not apply. But government can impose restrictions on the way the party’s candidates communicate what they are advocating. Govern- ment can bar them from blaring messages from loudspeakers in residential neighborhoods at 3:00 A.M., for example.

Freedom of Speech The starting point for any modern analysis of free speech is the clear and present danger test formulated by Justice Oliver Wen- dell Holmes in the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Schenck v. United States (1919). Charles T. Schenck and his fellow defendants were convicted under a federal criminal statute for attempting to disrupt World War I military recruitment by dis- tributing leaflets claiming that conscription was unconstitutional. The government believed this behavior threatened the public order. At the core of the Court’s opinion, as Holmes wrote, was the view that

the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.… The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.… The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such cir- cumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substan- tive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a ques- tion of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right. [Emphasis added.]24

clear and present danger test A means by which the Supreme Court has distinguished between speech as the advocacy of ideas, which is protected by the First Amendment, and speech as incitement, which is not protected.

406 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

Because the actions of the defendants in Schenck were deemed to create a clear and present danger to the United States at that time, the Supreme Court upheld the defendants’ convictions. The clear and present danger test helps to distinguish the advocacy of ideas, which is protected, from incitement, which is not.

In 1925, the Court issued a landmark decision in Gitlow v. New York.25 Benjamin Gitlow was arrested for distributing copies of a ‘‘left-wing manifesto’’ that called for the establishment of socialism through strikes and class action of any form. Gitlow was convicted under a state criminal anarchy law; Schenck had been convicted under a federal law. For the first time, the Court assumed that the First Amendment speech and press provisions applied to the states through the due process clause of the Four- teenth Amendment. Still, a majority of the justices affirmed Gitlow’s conviction.

The protection of advocacy faced yet another challenge in 1948, when eleven members of the Communist Party were charged with violating the Smith Act, a federal law making the ad- vocacy of force or violence against the United States a criminal offense. The leaders were convicted, although the government introduced no evidence that they actually had urged people to commit specific violent acts. The Supreme Court mustered a ma- jority for its decision to uphold the convictions under the Smith Act, but it could not get a majority to agree on the reasons in support of that decision. Four justices announced the plurality opinion in 1951, arguing that the government’s interest was sub- stantial enough to warrant criminal penalties.26 The justices inter- preted the threat to government to be the gravity of the advocated action ‘‘discounted by its improbability.’’ In other words, a single soap-box orator advocating revolution stands a low chance of suc- cess, and a well-organized, highly disciplined political movement advocating revolution in the tinderbox of unstable political condi- tions stands a greater chance of success. In broadening the mean- ing of ‘‘clear and present danger,’’ the Court held that the government was justified in acting preventively rather than wait- ing until revolution was about to occur.

By 1969, the pendulum had swung back in the other direction. That year, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, a unanimous decision extended the freedom of speech to new limits.27 Clarence Brandenburg, the leader of the Ohio Ku Klux Klan, had been convicted under a state law for advocating racial strife at a Klan rally. His comments,

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filmed by a television crew, included threats against government officials. The Court reversed Brandenburg’s conviction because the government had failed to prove that the danger was real. The Court went even fur- ther and declared that threatening speech is protected by the First Amendment unless the government can prove that such advocacy is ‘‘directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action.’’

The United States stands virtu- ally alone when it comes to protec- tion for hateful speech. Several democratic nations—including Can- ada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, and India—have laws or have signed international conven- tions banning such speech. Nazi swastikas and flags are forbidden for sale in Israel and France but not in the United States. Anyone who denies the Holocaust in Canada, Germany, and France is subject to criminal prosecution but not in the United States. Some scholars have begun to urge a relaxation of our stringent speech protections because we now live ‘‘in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism.’’28

Symbolic Expression. Symbolic expression, or nonverbal com- munication, generally receives less protection than pure speech. But the courts have upheld certain types of symbolic expression. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent County School District (1969) involved three public school students who wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Principals in

Lying About Valor

In 2007, newly elected Three Valley Water District Board member Xavier Alvarez announced at his first meeting that he was a twenty-five-year Marine Corps veteran and a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. None of that was true, and Alvarez was convicted under the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which criminalized lying about receiving military decorations or medals. His conviction was overturned on appeal, and in 2012, six justices voted to declare the law unconstitutional in U.S. v. Alvarez. Justice Kennedy wrote, ‘‘one of the costs of the First Amendment is that it protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace.’’ Though false speech is not protected in many cases, including fraud and perjury, personal lies like Alvarez’s where no material gain was at stake do not automatically lack protection under the First Amendment.

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their school district had prohibited the wearing of armbands on the grounds that such conduct would provoke a disturbance; the district suspended the students. The Supreme Court over- turned the suspensions. Justice Abe Fortas declared for the major- ity that the principals had failed to show that the forbidden conduct would substantially interfere with appropriate school discipline:

Undifferentiated fear or apprehension is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression. Any depar- ture from absolute regimentation may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority’s opinion may inspire fear. Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk.29

The Supreme Court does allow school administrators some leeway in limiting expression advocating the use of illegal drugs. In Morse v. Frederick (2007), the Court ruled that a principal had the authority to suspend a student who unfurled a banner reading ‘‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’’ at a school event. Unlike political speech, advocating illegal drug use in school is not protected by the First Amendment.30

Order Versus Free Speech: When Words Hurt. The First Amendment protects a person’s ability to address matters of pub- lic importance even if the speech is hurtful. But speech of a purely private matter receives less protection. What happens when the speech in question contains a mix of public and private matters?

For more than twenty years, members of the Westboro Bap- tist Church picketed parks, churches, universities, and funerals to communicate their belief that God punishes the United States for tolerating homosexuality.31 Displaying signs that read, ‘‘Thank God for dead soldiers’’ and ‘‘Fag troops,’’ the church pastor and a handful of members picketed the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder. Matthew’s father was deeply offended by the picketing and sued the pastor and the church for the intentional infliction of emotional distress. He won a judgment of $5 million, which a federal appeals court reversed. The pastor and church appealed eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Freedom of Expression 409

In Snyder v. Phelps (2011), the Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court ruling supporting the free expression rights of the church and its pastor on the grounds that the messages displayed concerned a matter of public importance and were delivered from public property. Writing for the eight-member majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., concluded that the signs unequivo- cally addressed public concerns and the picketers congregated on public land. Moreover, the ideas expressed, though hateful, could not be censored because they were offensive.32

Equality and Free Speech. Recall from Chapter 7 that in 2010, the Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations and labor unions may spend freely from their treasuries to advocate the election or defeat of political candidates. We can make sense of Citizens United and the vast array of free speech cases through the prism of free- dom and equality. On the one hand, freedom of speech pro- motes the interest of political equality by assuring that speech rights apply to everyone (anarchists, flag burners, communists, and others with marginal or unorthodox views). On the other hand, freedom of speech serves the interest of political liberty by removing government restrictions on political speech, including limits on corporate or union speech. In the Citizens United decision, political liberty trumped political equality, allowing the wealthy few to have the loudest voice among the many.33

Freedom of the Press The First Amendment guarantees that government ‘‘shall make no law … abridging the freedom … of the press.’’ Although it origi- nally was adopted as a restriction on the national government, since 1931 the Supreme Court has held the free press guarantee to apply to state and local governments as well.

The ability to collect and report information without govern- ment interference was (and still is) thought to be essential to a free society. The print media continue to use and defend the freedom conferred on them by the framers. However, the electronic media have had to accept some government regulation stemming from the scarcity of broadcast frequencies (see Chapter 4).

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Defamation of Character. Libel is the written defamation of character.* A person who believes his or her name and character have been harmed by false statements in a publication can insti- tute a lawsuit against the publication and seek monetary compen- sation for the damage. Such a lawsuit can impose limits on freedom of expression; at the same time, false statements impinge on the rights of individuals. In a landmark decision in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court declared that free- dom of the press takes precedence—at least when the defamed individual is a public official.34 The Court unanimously agreed that the First Amendment protects the publication of all state- ments, even false ones, about the conduct of public officials except when statements are made with actual malice (with knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of their truth or falsity).

Three years later, the Court extended this protection to apply to suits brought by any public figures, whether a government offi- cial or not. Public figures are people who assume roles of promi- nence in the affairs of society or thrust themselves to the forefront of public controversy—officials, actors, writers, television person- alities, and others. These people must show actual malice on the part of the publisher that prints false statements about them. Because the burden of proof is so great, few plaintiffs prevail.

Prior Restraint and the Press. In the United States, freedom of the press has primarily meant protection from prior restraint, or censorship. The Supreme Court’s first encounter with a law imposing prior restraint on a newspaper was in Near v. Minnesota (1931).35 In Minneapolis, Jay Near published a scandal sheet in which he attacked local officials, charging that they were in league with gangsters.36 Minnesota officials obtained an injunction to prevent Near from publishing his newspaper under a state law that allowed such action against periodicals deemed ‘‘malicious, scandalous, and defamatory.’’

The Supreme Court struck down the law, declaring that prior restraint is an unacceptable burden on a free press. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes forcefully articulated the need for a vigi- lant, unrestrained press: ‘‘The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make

*Slander is the oral defamation of character. The durability of the written word usually means that libel is a more serious accusation than slander.

public figures People who assume roles of prominence in society or thrust themselves to the forefront of public controversy.

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any the less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with official misconduct.’’ Although the Court acknowledged that prior restraint may be permissible in excep- tional circumstances, it did not specify those circumstances, nor has it yet done so.

Consider another case, which occurred during a war, a time when the tension between government-imposed order and indi- vidual freedom is often at a peak. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a spe- cial assistant in the Pentagon, delivered portions of a classified U.S. Department of Defense study to the New York Times and the Washington Post. By making the documents public, he hoped to discredit the Vietnam War and thereby end it. The U.S. Depart- ment of Justice sought to restrain the Times and the Post from publishing the documents, contending that publication would prolong the war and embarrass the government. The case was quickly brought before the Supreme Court.

Three days later, in a 6–3 decision in New York Times v. United States (1971), the Court concluded that the government had not met the heavy burden of proving that immediate, inevita- ble, and irreparable harm would follow publication.37 The major- ity expressed its view in a brief unsigned opinion; individual and collective concurring and dissenting views added nine opinions to the decision. Two justices maintained that the First Amendment offers absolute protection against government censorship, no mat- ter what the situation. But the other justices left the door ajar for the imposition of prior restraint in the most extreme and compel- ling of circumstances.

Freedom of Expression Versus Maintaining Order. The courts have consistently held that freedom of the press does not override the requirements of law enforcement. A grand jury called on a Louisville, Kentucky, reporter who had researched and written an article about drug-related activities to identify people he had seen in possession of marijuana or in the act of processing it. The reporter refused to testify, maintaining that freedom of the press shielded him from inquiry. In a closely divided decision, the Supreme Court in 1972 rejected this position.38 The Court declared that no excep- tion exists to the rule that all citizens have a duty to give their gov- ernment whatever testimony they are capable of giving.39

Consider the 1988 case of a St. Louis high school principal who deleted articles on divorce and teenage pregnancy from the

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school’s newspaper on the grounds that the articles invaded the privacy of the individuals who were the focus of the stories.40

Three student editors claimed that the principal’s censorship interfered with the newspaper’s function as a public forum, a role protected by the First Amendment. The principal maintained that the newspaper was an extension of classroom instruction and was thus not protected by the First Amendment.

In a 5–3 decision, the Court upheld the principal’s actions in sweeping terms. Educators may limit speech within the confines of the school curriculum and speech that might seem to bear the approval of the school, provided their actions serve a ‘‘valid edu- cational purpose.’’

The Rights to Assemble Peaceably and to Petition the Government The final clause of the First Amendment states that ‘‘Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peace- ably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’’ The framers meant that the people have the right to assemble peaceably in order to petition the government. Today, however, the right to assemble peaceably is equated with the right of free speech and a free press, independent of whether the gov- ernment is petitioned. Precedent has merged these rights and made them equally indivisible.41 Government cannot prohibit peaceful political meetings and cannot brand as criminals those who organize, lead, and attend such meetings.42

12.4 The Right to Bear Arms Discuss the controversy over the Second Amendment and explain how Supreme Court rulings have addressed that debate.

The Second Amendment declares:

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Right to Bear Arms 413

Gun-control advocates assert that the amendment protects the right of the states to maintain collective militias. Gun-use advocates assert that the amendment protects the right of individuals to own and use guns. There are good arguments on both sides.

Federal firearms regulations did not come into being until Prohibition, so the Supreme Court had little to say on the matter. In 1939, however, a unanimous Court upheld a 1934 federal law requiring the taxation and registration of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. The Court held that the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s right to own ordinary militia weapons; sawed- off shotguns did not qualify for protection.43

In 2008, the Court considered whether the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to gun ownership or is simply a right tied to service in a militia. Opponents of gun control challenged the strictest gun-control statute in the country, a District of Columbia law that barred private possession of handguns and required the disassembly or use of trigger locks on rifles and shotguns. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s statute, established gun ownership as an individual right, and clarified that the Second Amendment forbids outright bans on gun ownership. Writing for a 5–4 majority, Asso- ciate Justice Antonin Scalia declared that the Second Amendment ‘‘surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, re- sponsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.’’ De- spite the expansive sweep of the decision, Scalia was careful to point out that nothing in the decision overturned previous prohibi- tions on the ‘‘possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.’’44

In McDonald v. Chicago (2010) the Court addressed the question of whether the individual right to keep and bear arms should apply to the states. Writing for a 5–4 Court, Justice Alito concluded that the ‘‘Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered lib- erty.’’ Repeating Scalia’s caveats in the Heller decision, the Court declared the Second Amendment ‘‘fully applicable to the states’’ under the Fourteenth Amendment. While a four-member plural- ity expressly invoked the language of the due process clause to jus- tify the incorporation, Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion

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in which he argued that the ‘‘privileges or immunities clause’’ of the Fourteenth Amendment would have been the best justification for the Court’s decision.45

12.5 Applying the Bill of Rights to the States

Explain the process by which the Supreme Court extended the protections of the Bill of Rights to the local and state levels of government.

The major purpose of the Constitution was to structure the division of power between the national government and the state govern- ments. Even before it was amended, the Constitution set some lim- its on both the nation and the states with regard to citizens’ rights. It barred both governments from passing bills of attainder, laws that make an individual guilty of a crime without a trial. Both were also prohibited from enacting ex post facto laws, laws that declare an action a crime after it has been performed. And it barred both nation and states from impairing the obligation of contracts, the obligation of the parties in a contract to carry out its terms.

Although initially the Bill of Rights seemed to apply only to the national government, various litigants pressed the claim that its guarantees also applied to the states. In response to one such claim, Chief Justice John Marshall affirmed that the provisions of the Bill of Rights served only to limit national authority: ‘‘Had the framers of these amendments intended them to be limitations on the powers of the state governments,’’ wrote Marshall, ‘‘they would have … expressed that intention.’’46

Change came with the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted in 1868. The due process clause of that amendment is the linchpin that holds the states to the provisions of the Bill of Rights.

The Fourteenth Amendment: Due Process of Law

Section 1… No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

bills of attainder Laws that pronounce an individual guilty of a crime without a trial.

ex post facto law A law that declares an action to be criminal after it has been performed.

obligation of contracts The obligation of the parties to a contract to carry out its terms.

Applying the Bill of Rights to the States 415

Most freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights today apply as limi- tations on the states. And many of the standards that limit the national government serve equally to limit state governments. These changes have been achieved through the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amend- ment: ‘‘nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’’ The clause has two central meanings. First, it requires the government to adhere to appropri- ate procedures. Second, it forbids unreasonable government action. The Supreme Court has used the first meaning of the due process clause as a sponge, absorbing or incorporating the proce- dural specifics of the Bill of Rights and spreading or applying them to the states.

The Fundamental Freedoms In 1897, the Supreme Court declared that the states are limited by the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on taking private property without providing just compensation.47 The Court accomplished its goal by absorbing that prohibition into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies to the states. Thus, one Bill of Rights protection—but only that one—applied to both the states and the national government. In 1925, the Court assumed that the due process clause protected the First Amend- ment speech and press liberties from impairment by the states.48

The inclusion of other Bill of Rights guarantees within the due process clause faced a critical test in Palko v. Connecticut (1937).49 Frank Palko had been charged with homicide in the first degree. He was convicted of second-degree murder, however, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The state of Connecticut appealed and won a new trial; this time Palko was found guilty of first- degree murder and sentenced to death. Palko appealed the second conviction on the grounds that it violated the protection against double jeopardy guaranteed to him by the Fifth Amendment. This protection applied to the states, he contended, because of the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.

The Supreme Court upheld Palko’s second conviction. Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, in his opinion for the majority, formulated principles that were to direct the Court’s actions for the next three decades. He noted that some Bill of Rights guarantees, such as freedom of thought and speech, are fundamental, and that these

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fundamental rights are absorbed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause and are therefore applicable to the states. These rights are essential, argued Cardozo, because ‘‘neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.’’ Trial by jury and other rights, though valuable and important, are not essential to liberty and justice and therefore are not absorbed by the due process clause. ‘‘Few would be so narrow or provincial,’’ Cardozo claimed, ‘‘as to maintain that a fair and enlightened system of justice would be impossible’’ without these other rights. In other words, only some provisions of the Bill of Rights—the ‘‘fundamental’’ provi- sions—were absorbed into the due process clause and made appli- cable to the states (see Figure 12.1). Because protection against double jeopardy was not one of them, Palko died in Connecticut’s gas chamber in April 1938.

The next thirty years saw slow but perceptible change in the standard for determining whether a Bill of Rights guarantee was fundamental. The reference point changed from the idealized ‘‘fair and enlightened system of justice’’ in Palko to the more realistic ‘‘American scheme of justice’’ thirty years later.50 Case after case tested various guarantees that the Court found to be fundamental. By 1969, when Palko was finally overturned, the Court had found most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.

State and local governments

Amendments I, II*, IV, portions of V, VI, VIII, IX

Due process clause of the Fourteenth

Amendment

The Supreme Court

Bill of Rights

*While a majority of the Court agreed in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Second Amendment, only a plurality of four cited the due process clause. In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote that the Second Amendment applied to the states because of the ”privileges or immunities“ clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

FIGURE 12.1 The Incorporation of the Bill of Rights The Supreme Court has used the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as a sponge, absorbing most—but not all—of the provisions in the Bill of Rights and applying them to state and local governments. All provisions in the Bill of Rights apply to the national government. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013

Applying the Bill of Rights to the States 417

Criminal Procedure: The Meaning of Constitutional Guarantees ‘‘The history of liberty,’’ remarked Justice Felix Frankfurter, ‘‘has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards.’’51

The safeguards embodied in the Fourth through Eighth Amend- ments to the Constitution specify how government must behave in criminal proceedings. Their application to the states has reshaped American criminal justice in the previous four decades in two steps. The first step is the judgment that a guarantee asserted in the Bill of Rights also applies to the states. The second step requires that the judiciary give specific meaning to the guarantee. If the rights are fundamental, their meaning cannot vary from state to state. But life is not quite so simple under the U.S. Constitution. The concept of federalism is sewn into the constitutional fabric, and the Supreme Court recognizes that there may be more than one way to prosecute the accused while heeding fundamental rights.

Consider, for example, the right to a jury trial in criminal cases, which is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. This right was made obligatory for the states in Duncan v. Louisiana (1968). The Supreme Court later held that the right applied to all non- petty criminal cases—those in which the penalty for conviction was more than six months’ imprisonment.52 But the Court did not require that state juries have twelve members, the number required for federal criminal proceedings. The Court permits jury size to vary from state to state, although it set the minimum num- ber at six. Furthermore, it has not imposed on the states the fed- eral requirement of a unanimous jury verdict.

In contrast, the Court left no room for variation in its defini- tion of the fundamental right to an attorney, also guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Clarence Earl Gideon was a penniless vagrant accused of breaking into and robbing a pool hall. Because Gideon could not afford a lawyer, he asked the state to provide him with legal counsel for his trial. The state refused, and Gideon was subse- quently convicted and sentenced to five years in the Florida State Penitentiary. From his cell, Gideon appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that his conviction should be struck down because the state had denied him his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.53

In its landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), the Court set aside Gideon’s conviction and extended to the states the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.54 The state retried Gideon, who

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this time had the assistance of a lawyer, and the court found him not guilty. In subsequent rulings that stretched over more than a decade, the Court specified at what points in the course of criminal proceed- ings a defendant is entitled to a lawyer (from arrest to trial, appeal, and beyond). These pronouncements are binding on all states.

During this period, the Court also came to grips with another procedural issue: informing suspects of their constitutional rights. Ernesto Miranda was arrested in Arizona in connection with the kid- napping and rape of an eighteen-year-old woman. After the police questioned him for two hours and the woman identified him, Mir- anda confessed to the crime. An Arizona court convicted him based on that confession—although he was never told he had the right to counsel and the right not to incriminate himself. Miranda appealed his conviction, which the Supreme Court overturned in 1966.55

The Court based its decision in Miranda v. Arizona on the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. According to the Court, warnings are necessary to dispel the coercion that is in- herent in custodial interrogation without counsel. The Court does not require warnings if a person is only in custody without ques- tioning or subject to questioning without arrest. But in Miranda, the Court found the combination of custody and interrogation suf- ficiently intimidating to require warnings before questioning. These statements are known today as the Miranda warnings.

• You have the right to remain silent. • Anything you say can be used against you in court. • You have the right to talk to a lawyer of your own choice

before questioning. • If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, a lawyer will be pro-

vided without charge.

In one of its most important cases in 2000, the Court reaf- firmed this protection in a 7–2 decision, holding that Miranda had ‘‘announced a constitutional rule’’ that Congress could not undermine through legislation.56 In 2004, the Court underscored this status by ruling unconstitutional a police tactic of questioning suspects before they were informed of their Miranda rights, and then, after informing suspects of their rights, questioning them again until they obtained the same answers.57

However, a suspect’s Miranda rights are not invoked auto- matically. In 2010 the Court ruled that police may continue to

Miranda warnings Statements concerning rights that police are required to make to a person before he or she is subjected to in-custody questioning.

Applying the Bill of Rights to the States 419

interrogate a suspect who simply remains silent without ‘‘unam- biguously invoking’’ his rights. In Berghuis v. Thompkins, Justice Kennedy wrote for a 5–4 majority that even after a suspect remains silent for hours of interrogation, an uncoerced statement from that suspect can be considered an implicit waiver of the right to remain silent. In order to end interrogation, suspects must unambiguously state that they wish to remain silent or request that interrogation stop and a lawyer be provided.58

What happens when the government infringes on individuals’ rights for the sake of order? The Fourth Amendment guarantees that ‘‘the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.’’ The Court made this right applicable to the states in Wolf v. Colorado (1949).59 Although the Court found that protection from illegal searches by state and local government was a fundamental right, it initially refused to apply to the states the exclusionary rule that evidence obtained from an illegal search and seizure cannot be used in a trial.

The justices considered the exclusionary rule again in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).60 An Ohio court had found Dolree Mapp guilty of possessing obscene materials after an admittedly illegal search of her home for a fugitive. The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed her conviction, and she appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6–3 decision, the Court declared, ‘‘all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by [the Fourth Amendment], inadmissible in a state court.’’ The decision was his- toric. It placed the exclusionary rule within the confines of the Fourth Amendment and required all levels of government to operate according to the provisions of that amendment.

The struggle over the exclusionary rule took a new turn in 1984, when the Court reviewed United States v. Leon.61 In this case, a judge had issued a search warrant without ‘‘probable cause’’ having been firmly established. The police, relying on the warrant, found large quantities of illegal drugs.

The Court, by a 6–3 vote, established the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The justices held that the state could intro- duce at trial evidence seized on the basis of a mistakenly issued search warrant. The exclusionary rule, argued the majority, is not a right but a remedy justified by its ability to deter illegal police con- duct. Such a deterrent effect was not a factor in Leon: the police acted in good faith. Hence, the Court decided, there is a need for

exclusionary rule The judicial rule that states that evidence obtained in an illegal search and seizure cannot be used in trial.

good faith exception An exception to the Supreme Court’s exclusionary rule, holding that evidence seized on the basis of a mistakenly issued search warrant can be introduced at trial if the mistake was made in good faith, that is, if all the parties involved had reason at the time to believe that the warrant was proper.

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an exception to the rule. In yet another exception, the Supreme Court held in 2009 that evidence obtained through police negli- gence would not bar the introduction of that evidence at trial.62

The USA-PATRIOT Act More than sixty years ago, Justice Robert H. Jackson warned that exceptional protections for civil liberties might convert the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact. The national government decided, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, to forgo some liberties to secure greater order, through bipartisan passage of the USA- PATRIOT Act. This landmark law greatly expanded the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to tap phones, monitor Internet traffic, and conduct other forms of surveillance in pursuit of terrorists.

Shortly after the bill became law, then attorney general John Ashcroft declared: ‘‘Let the terrorists among us be warned: If you overstay your visas, even by one day, we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, we will hope that you will, and work to make sure that you are put in jail and kept in custody as long as possi- ble. We will use every available statute. We will seek every prose- cutorial advantage. We will use all our weapons within the law and under the Constitution to protect life and enhance security for America.’’63

The USA-PATRIOT Act ran over 300 pages. Some parts engendered strong opposition; others were benign. Consider one of the key provisions: Section 215 dealing with rules for searching private records such as you might find in the library, video store, telephone company, or doctor’s office. Prior to the act, the gov- ernment needed, at minimum, a warrant issued by a judge and probable cause to access such records. Now, under the USA- PATRIOT Act, the government need certify without substantia- tion only that its search protects against terrorism, which turns judicial oversight into a rubber stamp. To complicate matters, a gag order barred the person turning over the records from disclos- ing the search to anyone. The USA-PATRIOT Act was reauthor- ized in 2006, at which time Congress made many of its temporary provisions permanent. The reauthorizing legislation also tightened up the definition of domestic terrorism and modified Section 215 to explicitly allow individuals to consult their attorneys when they receive a request to turn over records to the government.

Applying the Bill of Rights to the States 421

Subsequent reauthorization in 2011 focused on preserving the government’s authority to use ‘‘roving wiretaps’’ to legally inter- cept communications regardless of what phone a suspect used,

Politics of Global Change

Wiretapping in the Digital Age In the pre-Internet world, telephone calls followed a continuous path between two parties. Investigators with a search warrant could select a point somewhere along the wire to tap the call. But with the advent of the Internet, calls can be placed online. The emergence of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has dropped the cost of long-distance and inter- national telephone calls to all-time lows. Some services like Skype pro- vide such services for free. Lawbreakers have reason to rejoice.

Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994 to govern wiretap requests. Enacted at the dawn of the Internet, the law requires telecom compa- nies to cooperate with lawful intercepts. The early growth of VoIP te- lephony left the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Department of Justice powerless. These agencies successfully lobbied the Federal Communications Commission (the agency that oversees implementation of CALEA) to extend the rules to cover VoIP telecoms.

Civil libertarians cried foul, claiming that CALEA targeted only traditional telephone wiretaps. But the fight against terrorism trumped these objections. Today, all broadband-Internet and VoIP providers must comply with the new rules. These firms are required to intercept calls such that suspects cannot tell that they are under surveillance. That’s no easy task for at least three reasons.

First, complying with CALEA is complicated because the de- vice at the end of the line today is a computer, not a telephone. A sophisticated caller can tell if her calls are intercepted by simply measuring the ‘‘latency’’ of the connection, that is, the time taken for a single packet of data to travel from a local machine to a computer elsewhere on the Internet. To address this problem, Internet companies now leave lawful-intercept equipment perma- nently in place to be activated as required.

A second challenge posed by VoIP telephony is the enormous volume of data passing along the Internet. Traditional telephone

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along with provisions to continue surveillance on lone-wolf sus- pects unconnected to terrorist organizations. The 2011 legislation once again reauthorized the seizure of records and property under the controversial Section 215.64

taps entailed an agent switching on a voice recorder to collect evidence. Today’s digital eavesdropping requires collecting hun- dreds upon hundreds of gigabytes of digital data and then mak- ing sense of the material. Standards for formatting and delivering data to investigators still need resolution to work across national borders.

Third, perhaps the biggest issue, remains encryption. Not all VoIP calls are encrypted. But telecoms that do encrypt their calls must provide law enforcement agencies with the appropriate decryption keys. The one exception is Skype, the most popular VoIP service, with over 663 million users by 2011. Skype is a ‘‘peer-to-peer’’ system, routing calls entirely over the public Inter- net. Skype cannot provide investigators with access to a suspect’s calls because Skype does not handle any of the traffic itself. Even if law enforcement investigators could intercept a Skype call, they would still face the task of unraveling the strong encryption used for those calls. While the National Security Agency (NSA) has the computing power to unravel Skype packets, the NSA’s resour- ces focus on intelligence gathering, not law enforcement.

In a world made ever smaller by technology, eavesdropping on criminals today will require governments to be nimble in lawmaking and persuasive in their efforts to secure cooperation from other nations.

Sources: ‘‘Bugging the Cloud,’’ Economist Technology Quarterly, 8 March 2008, pp. 28–30; and Skype S.á r.l., Amendment No. 2 to United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form S-1 Registration Statement, filed 4 March 2011, http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1498209/ 000119312511056174/ds1a.htm.

Critical Thinking Should changing technologies affect our constitutional rights and liberties? Does the mandate for telecoms to build monitor- ing capabilities into their systems change our level of freedom?

Applying the Bill of Rights to the States 423

Detainees and the War on Terrorism An important debate has arisen over whether suspected terrorists held by the U.S. government overseas are guaranteed access to attorneys and to the judicial system under the Constitution. Presi- dent Bush maintained that detainees held as ‘‘enemy combatants’’ were not entitled to basic legal requirements such as attorneys or hearings and that his actions could not be reviewed in the courts. In 2004 the Supreme Court handed down two decisions rejecting that view. In Rasul v. Bush, the Court ruled that U.S. judges have the jurisdiction to consider the legality of detaining foreign nationals captured abroad and held at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.65

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Court considered the case of a Saudi Arabian resident who was born in the United States and was thus a citizen. Hamdi was picked up on an Afghan battlefield and detained as an enemy combatant. In the 8–1 vote, the Court declared that he is entitled by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to a ‘‘meaningful opportunity’’ to contest the basis for his detention. In blunt language, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, speaking for herself and three other justices, rebuffed the president’s claim: ‘‘We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens.’’66

The Supreme Court issued a third critical decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in July 2006. Hamdan was a Yemeni citizen captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in anticipation of prosecution before a military commission. In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that the military commissions were not authorized by federal law and would violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Convention because of the lack of procedural rights for the defendants.67

The detainee debate took on added layers of complexity when President Bush confirmed news accounts that the Central Intelli- gence Agency (CIA) had been running secret prisons abroad, in which ‘‘high-value’’ terrorism suspects had been kept and interro- gated. The president announced the CIA’s high-value detainees had been transferred from their secret prisons abroad to Guantánamo Bay to await trial by tribunal. While the ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was initially a setback for the Bush administration, Bush’s transfer of the high-value detainees to Guantánamo Bay put the Congress under pressure to explicitly authorize military tribunals.

424 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

In October 2006 the Congress passed the Military Commission Act of 2006, authorizing the establishment of the commissions, lim- iting the use of habeas corpus petitions from noncitizen detainees, eliminating some traditional defendant rights associated with mili- tary prosecutions, and authorizing the CIA to continue detainment and tough interrogation techniques.68 In 2008 the Supreme Court responded by striking down these limits on habeas corpus petitions. In its narrow 5–4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, the Court ruled again that detainees have a right to challenge their imprisonment in courts of law.69 While the Constitution does allow Congress to for- mally (and temporarily) suspend habeas rights ‘‘when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it,’’ legislation simply banning federal judges from hearing detainee habeas cases did not meet the constitutional standard.70

12.6 The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The wording and history of the Ninth Amendment remain an enigma. The evidence supports two different views: the amend- ment may protect rights that are not enumerated, or it may sim- ply protect state governments against the assumption of power by the national government.71 The meaning of the amendment was not an issue until 1965, when the Supreme Court used it to pro- tect privacy, a right that is not enumerated in the Constitution.

Controversy: From Privacy to Abortion In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court struck down, by a 7–2 vote, a seldom-enforced Connecticut statute that made the use of birth control devices a crime.72 Justice William Douglas,

The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy 425

writing for the majority, asserted that the ‘‘specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras [partially illuminated regions surrounding fully lit areas]’’ that give ‘‘life and substance’’ to broad, unspecified protections in the Bill of Rights. Several specific guarantees in the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth amendments cre- ate a zone of privacy, Douglas argued, and this zone is protected by the Ninth Amendment and is applicable to the states by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Griswold established a zone of personal autonomy, protected by the Constitution, which was the basis of a 1973 case that sought to invalidate state antiabortion laws. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court in a 7–2 decision declared unconstitutional a Texas law making it a crime to obtain an abortion except for the purpose of saving the woman’s life.73

Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who authored the majority opinion, based the decision on the right to privacy protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court declared that in the first three months of pregnancy, the abortion decision must be left to the woman and her physician. In the interest of pro- tecting the woman’s health, states may restrict but not prohibit abortions in the second three months of pregnancy. Finally, in the last three months of pregnancy, states may regulate or even prohibit abortions to protect the life of the fetus except when medical judg- ment determines that an abortion is necessary to save the woman’s life. In all, the Court’s ruling affected the laws of forty-six states.

The dissenters—Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist—were quick to assert what critics have frequently repeated since the decision: the Court’s judgment was directed by its own dislikes, not by any constitutional compass. In the absence of guiding principles, they asserted, the majority justices simply substituted their views for the views of the state legislatures whose abortion regulations they invalidated.74

There was a perceptible shift away from abortion rights in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989). In Webster, the Court upheld the constitutionality of a Missouri law that denied the use of public employees or publicly funded facilities in the performance of an abortion unless the woman’s life was in dan- ger.75 Furthermore, the law required doctors to perform tests to determine whether fetuses twenty weeks and older could survive outside the womb. This was the first time the Court upheld signif- icant government restrictions on abortion.

426 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

The Court has since moved cautiously down the road toward greater government control of abortion. In 1990, the justices split on two state parental notification laws. Since then, the Court has reaf- firmed Roe while tolerating additional restrictions on abortion. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court opted for O’Connor’s test that restrictions must not place ‘‘an undue burden’’ on a wom- an’s ability to choose an abortion. Although the Court struck down a Nebraska law in 2000 that had banned partial-birth abortions in that state in a 5–4 decision, it upheld a more narrowly tailored fed- eral law banning the procedure in Gonzales v. Carhart (2007) in another 5–4 vote. The Court remains deeply divided on abortion.76

Personal Autonomy and Sexual Orientation The right-to-privacy cases may have opened a Pandora’s box of divisive social issues. Does the right to privacy embrace private homosexual acts between consenting adults? Consider the case of Michael Hardwick, who was arrested in 1982 in his Atlanta bed- room while having sex with another man. In a standard approach to prosecuting homosexuals, Georgia charged him under a state criminal statute with the crime of sodomy, which means oral or anal intercourse. Hardwick sued to challenge the law’s constitution- ality. He won in the lower courts. However, in a bitterly divided ruling in 1986, the Supreme Court held in Bowers v. Hardwick that the Constitution does not protect homosexual relations between consenting adults, even in the privacy of their own homes.77

Justice White’s majority opinion was reconsidered in 2003 when the Supreme Court considered a challenge to a Texas law that criminalized homosexual but not heterosexual sodomy. This time, in Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, a new coalition of six jus- tices viewed the issue in a different light. Speaking through Justice Kennedy, the Court observed ‘‘an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.’’ Since the Texas law furthered no legitimate state interest but intruded into the intimate personal choices of individuals, the law was void. Kennedy, along with four other justices, then took the unusual step of reaching back in time to declare that the Bowers decision was wrong and therefore should be overruled.78

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a stinging dissent. Scalia charged

The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy 427

the majority with ‘‘signing on to the homosexual agenda’’ aimed at eliminating moral opprobrium traditionally attached to homo- sexual conduct. The consequence is that the Court would be departing from its role of ensuring that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. He continued:

What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new ‘‘constitu- tional right’’ by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that ‘‘later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,’’ … and when that happens, later genera- tions can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.79

The challenge of democracy calls for the democratic process to sort out value conflicts whenever possible. And according to Scalia, the Court’s majority has moved from its traditional role of umpiring the system to favoring one side over another in the struggle between freedom and order.

Issues around sexual orientation have shifted toward the states, where various groups continue to assert their political power. Some states have been innovators in legitimizing homosexuality. Same- sex couples may now marry in nine states (Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington) plus the District of Columbia. Legisla- tures in Washington and Maryland approved same-sex marriage in February 2012, though implementation was postponed in both states until after voter referenda approved the laws in November. Additional states have recognized same-sex ‘‘unions’’ but not same- sex marriages.

Same-sex marriage still remains a flash point for political and judicial conflict. In 2009, Maine voters, relying on a public refer- endum, became the thirty-first state to ban same-sex marriages. The state reversed itself three years later in another referendum. In 2008, the California Supreme Court struck down a law limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, declaring that under the state constitution marriage is a basic civil right guaranteed to all Cali- fornians. But opponents struck back six months later with an initiative—known as Proposition 8—asking voters to ban same-sex

428 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

marriage. It passed with 52 percent of the vote.80 In the interim, 18,000 couples married and their marriages are duly recognized by the state. When Proposition 8 was challenged in a federal dis- trict court, Judge Vaughn Walker declared it unconstitutional in 2010. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed Walker’s decision, setting the stage for an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.81

The pluralist model provides one solution for groups dissatis- fied with rulings from the nation’s highest court. State courts and state legislatures have demonstrated their receptivity to positions that may be untenable in the federal courts. Pluralist mechanisms like the initiative and referendum offer counterweights to judicial intervention.

SUMMARY 12.1 The Bill of Rights

• The Bill of Rights was ratified with ten amendments in 1791.

• Liberties and rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. • Civil liberties are freedoms that are

guaranteed to the individual by restraint of government.

• Civil rights are powers or privileges that are guaranteed to the individ- ual, must be provided equally, and are protected against arbitrary re- moval by the government or other individuals.

• Both liberties and rights are enshrined in the Bill of Rights and in the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment.

12.2 Freedom of Religion

• The establishment clause, as inter- preted today, requires government neutrality toward religions and between the religious and the nonreligious.

• According to judicial interpretations of the free-exercise clause, religious beliefs are inviolable, but the Consti- tution does not necessarily protect all behavior motivated by religious belief.

• Historically, neutral laws that infringed upon religious exercise were subject to strict scrutiny; they could be upheld only if the govern- ment could demonstrate the law was justified by a compelling

Summary 429

governmental interest and used the least restrictive means for achieving that interest.

• After Employment Division v. Smith, neutral state laws that indirectly infringe on religious exercise are usu- ally constitutional if they apply to the public and do not target religious observance.

• RFRA reestablished the strict scrutiny test for evaluating federal laws that infringe upon religious exercise.

12.3 Freedom of Expression

• Freedom of expression encompasses many freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government.

• Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are considered to be funda- mental freedoms, but the right to exercise them is not absolute. • The government can regulate or

punish the advocacy of ideas if they promote ‘‘imminent lawless action’’ with a high likelihood of success.

• The government can impose reason- able restrictions on the means (e.g., time, manner, and place) for communicating ideas.

• Freedom of the press is essential to a free society so the print media has enjoyed great freedoms, whereas broadcast media has accepted limitations because of limited broadcast frequencies.

12.4 The Right to Bear Arms

• The nature and scope of the Second Amendment have long been a source of contention for gun-control advo- cates and their opponents.

• After nearly seventy years of silence, in 2008 the Supreme Court declared that the right to bear arms protects an individual’s right to own a gun for personal use.

• Restrictions on gun ownership have been found to be constitutional; gen- eral prohibitions on gun ownership have not.

12.5 Applying the Bill of Rights to the States

• The Constitution bars both state and national governments from • passing bills of attainder (laws that

make an individual guilty of a crime without a trial).

• passing ex post facto laws (laws that declare an action a crime after it has been performed).

430 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

• impairing the obligation of con- tracts (the obligation of the parties in a contract to carry out its terms).

• The adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 extended the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to the states. The due process clause became the vehicle for applying specific provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states.

• The Supreme Court has tolerated some variation from state to state in the mean- ing of certain constitutional rights. It has also imposed a duty on governments to inform citizens of their rights so that they are equipped to exercise them.

12.6 The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy

• The Ninth Amendment has two interpretations:

• The amendment may protect rights that are not enumerated.

• It may protect state governments against the assumption of power by the national government.

• Since 1965, the Supreme Court has used the Ninth Amendment to protect privacy, a right that is not enumer- ated in the Constitution.

• The right to privacy served as the basis for the right of women to ter- minate a pregnancy, which in turn suggested a right to personal autonomy. The abortion controversy is still raging, and the justices, rely- ing in part on the abortion cases, have extended protections against state criminal prosecution of private consensual sexual behavior for homosexuals.

KEY CASES Lemon v. Kurtzman Engel v. Vitale Sherbert v. Verner Employment Division v. Smith Brandenburg v. Ohio Tinker v. Des Moines Independent County

School District

Snyder v. Phelps Citizens United v. Federal Election

Commission

New York Times v. Sullivan

New York Times v. United States District of Columbia v. Heller McDonald v. Chicago Palko v. Connecticut Gideon v. Wainwright Miranda v. Arizona Griswold v. Connecticut Roe v. Wade Gonzales v. Carhart Lawrence and Garner v. Texas

Summary 431

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

12.1 Explain the role of the Bill of Rights in protecting civil liberties and civil rights. 1. How are civil liberties and civil rights

different? 2. Identify the liberties and rights

that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

12.2 Identify the mechanisms that guarantee freedom of religion. 1. Which clause formalizes the separa-

tion of church and state? 2. Under what conditions may state or

federal laws infringe upon religious exercise?

3. What aspect of religion does the First Amendment not protect?

12.3 Identify the free-expression clauses and describe the scope of their protection. 1. Define and explain the significance

of the clear and present danger test. How has the Court’s use of this principle changed?

2. Identify some of the exceptions to free speech protections.

3. What must public officials and other public figures demonstrate in order to successfully claim defamation of character by the press?

12.4 Discuss the controversy over the Second Amendment and explain how Supreme Court rulings have addressed that debate. 1. What distinguishes the interpretation

of the Second Amendment of gun- control advocates from that of their opponents?

2. On what basis has the Second Amendment been applied to the states?

12.5 Explain the process by which the Supreme Court extended the protections of the Bill of Rights to the local and state levels of government. 1. What is the due process clause, and

how does it hold the states to the provisions of the Bill of Rights?

2. What are Miranda warnings, and to which amendment are they related?

3. How does the USA-PATRIOT Act forgo some liberties in the name of greater order?

432 Chapter 12 Order and Civil Liberties

12.6 Explain how the Supreme Court interpreted the Ninth Amendment to broaden the individual’s constitu- tional protection of personal pri- vacy, a right not enumerated in the Constitution, beyond the language in the Bill of Rights. 1. Which principle did the decision in

Griswold v. Connecticut establish regarding the Bill of Rights as a whole?

2. In Roe v. Wade, what was the opin- ion of the majority of the justices? What was the argument of the dissenters?

Assessing Your Understanding 433

13 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Equality and

Civil Rights

13.1 Two Conceptions of Equality

Explain how the concepts of equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes mirror the tension between freedom and equality.

13.2 The Civil War Amendments

Trace the Supreme Court rulings and state legislative efforts that prevented African Americans from achieving ‘‘equal protection of the laws.’’

13.3 The Dismantling of School Segregation

Identify the Supreme Court decisions that dismantled school segregation and explain the significance of each.

13.4 The Civil Rights Movement

Describe the context in which the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed and the evolving interpretation of civil rights in subsequent Supreme Court decisions.

13.5 Civil Rights for Other Minorities

Evaluate the effect of the civil rights movement on other minority groups’ struggles for equality.

13.6 Gender and Equal Rights: The Women’s Movement

Trace the evolution of women’s legal rights beginning with laws based on protectionism and concluding with Supreme Court rulings prohibiting gender-based discrimination.

13.7 Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome?

Compare and contrast the consequences that follow from policies aimed at equal opportunities versus those aimed at equal outcomes.

434 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

A bigail Fisher was a senior at StephenF. Austin High School in Sugar Land, Texas, when she applied for admission in 2008 to the University of Texas–Austin, the flagship of the state’s university system. All Texas students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their classes must be admitted to the state university. Students falling short of this threshold may be admitted according to a formula that takes into account several factors, including the race of each applicant. The university denied Fisher admission. Fisher, who is white, contended that the government may not consider race in making such decisions. The university used race to hold her back, she argued, denying Fisher her freedom.

Fisher brought a lawsuit in federal court against the university arguing that the inclusion of race in university admissions violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Fisher lost the first two rounds as federal courts applied the prevailing

rules based on previous Supreme Court cases. These decisions fall under the umbrella of affirma- tive action, a wide range of programs aimed at expanding opportunities for minority groups and women. Universities justify the use of racial pref- erences in admissions to assure a critical mass of diverse students.

The Supreme Court selected the Fisher case for argument in 2012 with a decision probably to come in 2013.1 Given the current makeup of the Court, it is conceivable that the justices will overturn Fisher’s prior rulings and end the role of race in public university admissions.

Why do affirmative action policies like the admissions policy at the University of Texas con- tinue to generate opposition? Why do racial and other forms of unlawful discrimination persist in the United States despite laudable efforts to end it? The answer may appear deceptively simple. Laws and policies that promote equality inevita- bly come into conflict with demands for freedom. The conflict between freedom and equality

A P

Ph ot

o/ D

an ny

M ol

os ho

435 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

intensifies when we recognize that Americans advocate competing conceptions of equality.

In this chapter, we will consider the different ideals of equality and the quest to realize them through government action. We begin with the struggle for racial equality, which continues to cast a long shadow in government policies. This struggle has served as a model for the diverse groups that chose to follow in the same path.

13.1 Two Conceptions of Equality

Explain how the concepts of equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes mirror the tension between freedom and equality.

Most Americans support equality of opportunity—the idea that people should have an equal chance to develop their talents and that effort and ability should be rewarded equitably. This form of equality glorifies personal achievement and free competition, and it allows everyone to play on a level field where the same rules apply to all. Special recruitment efforts aimed at identifying quali- fied minority or female job applicants, for example, ensure that everyone has the same chance starting out. Low-bid contracting illustrates equality of opportunity because every bidder has the same chance to compete for work.

Americans are far less committed to equality of outcome, which means greater uniformity in social, economic, and political power among different social groups. For example, schools and businesses aim at equality of outcome when they allocate admissions or jobs on the basis of race, gender, or disability, which are unrelated to ability. Some observers refer to these allocations as quotas; others call them goals. The difference is subtle. A quota requires that a specified, pro- portional share of some benefit go to a favored group. A goal aims for a proportional allocation of benefits without requiring it. The government seeks equality of outcome when it adjusts the rules to handicap some bidders and favor others. The vast majority of Ameri- cans, however, consistently favor low-bid contracting and merit-

equality of opportunity The idea that each person is guaranteed the same chance to succeed in life.

equality of outcome The concept that society must ensure that people are equal, and governments must design policies to redistribute wealth and status to achieve economic and social equality.

436 Chapter 13 Equality and Civil Rights

based admissions and employment over preferential treatment.2

Recent survey results signal that Americans remain firmly against the preferential treatment of minorities, even as they tend to be sup- portive of certain affirmative action policies.3 Quota- or goal-based policies muster only modest support.

Quota policies generate the most opposition because they confine competition. Quotas limit advancement for some individ- uals and ensure advancement for others by taking into account factors unrelated to ability. Quotas seem to be at odds with indi- vidual initiative. In other words, equality clashes with freedom. To understand the ways government resolves this conflict, we have to understand the evolution of civil rights in this country. The strug- gle of blacks has been a beacon lighting the way for Native Ameri- cans, Hispanic Americans, women, and people with disabilities. Each of these groups has confronted invidious discrimination. Discrimination is simply the act of making or recognizing distinc- tions. When making distinctions among people, discrimination may be benign (that is, harmless) or invidious (harmful).

Remember that civil rights are powers or privileges guaranteed to the individual and protected from arbitrary removal at the hands of the government or other individuals. Sometimes people refer to civil rights as ‘‘positive rights.’’ In this chapter, we concentrate on the rights guaranteed by the constitutional amendments adopted after the Civil War and by laws passed to enforce those guarantees. Prom- inent among them is the right to equal protection under the law.

13.2 The Civil War Amendments Trace the Supreme Court rulings and state legislative efforts that prevented African Americans from achieving ‘‘equal protection of the laws.’’

The Civil War amendments were adopted to provide freedom and equality to black Americans. The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, provided that

neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

invidious discrimination Discrimination against persons or groups that works to their harm and is based on animosity.

civil rights Powers or privileges guaranteed to individuals and protected from arbitrary removal at the hands of government or individuals.

The Civil War Amendments 437

The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted three years later, pro- vides first that freed slaves are citizens:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

It also prohibits the states from abridging the ‘‘privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States’’ or depriving ‘‘any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’’ The Fourteenth Amendment then goes on to protect equality under the law, declaring that no state shall

deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro- tection of the laws.

The Fifteenth Amendment, adopted in 1870, added a measure of political equality:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

American blacks were thus free and politically equal—at least according to the Constitution. But for many years, the courts sometimes thwarted the efforts of other branches to protect these constitutional rights.

Congress and the Supreme Court: Lawmaking Versus Law Interpreting In the years after the Civil War, Congress went to work to protect the rights of black citizens. In 1866, lawmakers passed a civil rights act that granted all citizens, white and black, the right to make and enforce contracts; sue or be sued; give evidence; and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, or convey property. Later, in the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Congress attempted to guarantee blacks equal access to public accommodations (streetcars, inns, parks, theaters, and the like).

Although Congress enacted laws to protect the civil rights of black citizens, the Supreme Court weakened some of those rights. In 1873, the Court ruled that the Civil War amendments had not changed the relationship between the state and national governments.4 State citizenship and national citizenship remained

438 Chapter 13 Equality and Civil Rights

separate and distinct. According to the Court, the Fourteenth Amendment did not obligate the states to honor the rights guar- anteed by U.S. citizenship. In effect, the Court stripped the amendment of its power to secure for black citizens the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

In 1883, the Court struck down the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.5 The justices declared that the national government could prohibit only government action that discriminated against blacks. Private acts of discrimina- tion or acts of omission by a state, they maintained, were beyond the reach of the national government. The Court refused to see racial discrimination as an act that the national government could prohibit. By tolerating racial discrimination, the justices abetted racism, the belief that there are inherent differences among the races that determine people’s achievement and that one’s own race is superior to, and thus has a right to dominate, others.

The Court’s decisions gave the states ample room to maneu- ver around civil rights laws. In the matter of voting rights, for example, states that wanted to bar black men from the polls sim- ply used non-racial means to do so. One popular tool was the poll tax, first imposed by Georgia in 1877. This was a tax of $1 or $2 on every citizen who wanted to vote. The tax was not a burden for most whites. But many blacks were tenant farmers who did not have any extra money for voting. Other bars to black suffrage included literacy tests, minimum education requirements, and a grandfather clause that restricted suffrage to men who could es- tablish that their grandfathers were eligible to vote before 1867 (three years before the Fifteenth Amendment declared that race could not be used to deny individuals the right to vote).6 Intimi- dation and violence were also used to keep blacks from the polls.

The Roots of Racial Segregation Well before the Civil War, racial segregation was a way of life in the South: blacks lived and worked separately from whites. After the war, southern states began to enact Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation (Jim Crow was a derogatory term for a black person). Once the Supreme Court took the teeth out of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, such laws proliferated. They required blacks to live in separate (generally inferior) areas and restricted them to separate sections of hospitals, separate cemeteries, separate

racism The belief that there are inherent differences among the races that determine people’s achievement and that one’s own race is superior to, and thus has a right to dominate, others.

racial segregation Separation from society because of race.

poll tax A tax of $1 or $2 on every citizen who wished to vote, first instituted in Georgia in 1877. Although it was no burden on most white citizens, it effectively disenfranchised blacks.

The Civil War Amendments 439

schools, and separate sections of streetcars, trains, jails, and parks. Each day, in countless ways, blacks were reminded of the inferior status accorded them by white society.

In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy, who was seven-eighths Caucasian, took a seat in a ‘‘whites only’’ car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. Plessy argued that Louisiana’s law mandating racial segregation on its trains was an unconstitutional infringement on the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and its equal protection clause. The Supreme Court disagreed. The majority in Plessy v. Ferguson* (1896) upheld state-imposed racial segregation.7 They based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, which held that separate facili- ties for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.

Three years later, the Supreme Court extended the separate- but-equal doctrine to schools.8 The justices ignored the fact that black educational facilities (and most other ‘‘colored-only’’ facili- ties) were far from equal to those reserved for whites.

By the end of the nineteenth century, racial segregation was firmly and legally entrenched in the American South. Although constitutional amendments and national laws to protect equality under the law were in place, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of those amendments and laws rendered them ineffective. Several decades passed before any change was discernible.

13.3 The Dismantling of School Segregation

Identify the Supreme Court decisions that dismantled school segregation and explain the significance of each.

By the middle of the twentieth century, public attitudes toward race relations were slowly changing. Black troops had fought with honor, albeit in segregated military units, in World War II. Blacks

*Key cases are highlighted in bold, and a list of key cases appears at the end of the chapter.

separate-but-equal doctrine The concept that providing separate but equivalent facilities for blacks and whites satisfies the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

440 Chapter 13 Equality and Civil Rights

and whites were working together in unions and in service and re- ligious organizations. Social change and court decisions suggested that government-imposed segregation was vulnerable.

President Harry S. Truman risked his political future with his strong support of blacks’ civil rights. In 1947, he established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The committee’s report, issued later that year, became the agenda for the civil rights move- ment over the next two decades. It called for national laws prohibit- ing racially motivated poll taxes, segregation, and brutality against minorities and for guarantees of voting rights and equal employment opportunity. In 1948, Truman ordered the desegregation (the dis- mantling of authorized racial segregation) of the armed forces.

In 1947, the U.S. Department of Justice had begun to submit briefs to the courts in support of civil rights. Perhaps the depart- ment’s most important intervention came in Brown v. Board of Education.9 This case was the culmination of twenty years of planning and litigation by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to invalidate racial segregation in public schools.

Linda Brown was a black child whose father tried to enroll her in a white public school in Topeka, Kansas. Brown’s request was refused because of Linda’s race. A federal district court found that the black public school was, in all major respects, equal in quality to the white school; therefore, according to the Plessy doc- trine, Linda was required to go to the black public school. Brown appealed the decision.

Brown v. Board of Education reached the Supreme Court in late 1951. The justices delayed argument on the sensitive race issue, placing the case beyond the 1952 national election. Brown was merged with four similar cases into a class action (see Chapter 11). The class action was supported by the NAACP and coordinated by Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first black justice to sit on the Supreme Court. The five cases squarely challenged the separate- but-equal doctrine. By all tangible measures (standards for teacher licensing, teacher-pupil ratios, library facilities), the two school sys- tems in each case—one white, the other black—were equal. The issue was legal separation of the races.

On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had recently joined the Court, delivered a single opinion covering four of the cases. Warren spoke for a unanimous Court when he declared that ‘‘in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no

desegregation The ending of authorized segregation, or separation by race.

The Dismantling of School Segregation 441

place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,’’10 depriving the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws. Segregated facilities gen- erate in black children ‘‘a feeling of inferiority … that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.’’11 In short, the nation’s highest court found that state-imposed public school segrega- tion violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court deferred implemen- tation of the school desegregation decisions until 1955. Then, in Brown v. Board of Education II, it ruled that school systems must desegregate ‘‘with all deliberate speed,’’ and it assigned the process of supervising desegregation to the lower federal courts.12

Some states quietly complied with the Brown decree. Others did little to desegregate their schools. Many communities in the South defied the Court, sometimes vio- lently. This resistance, along with the Supreme Court’s ‘‘all deliberate speed’’ order, placed a heavy bur- den on federal judges to dismantle what was the fundamental social order in many communities.13

Gradual desegregation under Brown was in some cases no desegregation at all. By 1969, a unanimous

Supreme Court ordered that the operation of segregated school systems must stop ‘‘at once.’’14

Two years later, the Court approved several remedies to achieve integration, including busing, racial quotas, and the pairing or grouping of noncontiguous school zones. But these remedies applied only to de jure segregation, government-imposed

Anger Erupts in Little Rock

In 1957, the Little Rock, Arkansas, school board attempted to implement court-ordered desegregation: nine black teenagers were to be admitted to Little Rock Central High School. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to bar their attendance. A mob blocked a subsequent attempt by the students. Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to escort the students to the high school. Among them was fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford (right). Hazel Brown (left) angrily taunted her from the crowd. This image seared the nation’s conscience. The violence and hostility led the school board to seek a postponement of the desegregation plan. The Supreme Court, meeting in special session, affirmed the decision in Brown v. Board of Education and ordered the plan to proceed. Fifty years later, a federal judge declared Little Rock’s schools desegregated.

de jure segregation Government-imposed segregation.

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segregation (for example, government assignment of whites to one school and blacks to another within the same community). Court- imposed remedies did not apply to de facto segregation, segrega- tion that is not the result of government influence (for example, racial segregation resulting from residential patterns).

Public opinion strongly opposed the busing approach, and Congress sought limits on busing as a remedy. In 1974, a closely divided Court ruled that lower courts could not order busing across school district boundaries unless each district had practiced racial discrimination or unless school district lines had been delib- erately drawn to achieve racial segregation.15

13.4 The Civil Rights Movement Describe the context in which the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed and the evolving interpretation of civil rights in subsequent Supreme Court decisions.

The NAACP concentrated on school desegregation but made head- way in other areas as well. The Supreme Court responded to NAACP efforts in the late 1940s by outlawing the whites-only primary elec- tions in the South, declaring them to be in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court also declared segregation on interstate bus routes to be unconstitutional, and it desegregated restaurants and hotels in the District of Columbia. Despite these and other decisions that chipped away at existing barriers to equality, the realization of equality required the political mobilization of the people—black and white—into what is now known as the civil rights movement.

Civil Disobedience Rosa Parks, a black woman living in Montgomery, Alabama, sounded the first call to action. That city’s Jim Crow ordinances required blacks to sit in the back of the bus and empowered drivers to order blacks to vacate an entire row of seats to make room for one white or to order blacks to stand even when some seats were vacant. In December 1955, Parks boarded a city bus on her way home from work and took an available seat near the front of the bus. She refused to give up her seat when the driver asked her to do so and was arrested and fined $10 for violating the city ordinance.

de facto segregation Segregation that is not the result of government influence.

civil rights movement The mass mobilization during the 1960s that sought to gain equality of rights and opportunities for blacks in the South and to a lesser extent in the North, mainly through nonviolent unconventional means of participation. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the leading figure and symbol of the civil rights movement, but it was powered by the commitment of great numbers of people, black and white, of all sorts and stations in life.

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Under the leadership of a charismatic twenty-six-year-old Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery’s black community responded to Parks’s arrest with a boycott of the city’s bus system. A boycott is a refusal to do business with a company or individual, as an expression of disapproval or a means of coercion. A year after the boycott began, the federal courts ruled that segregated transportation systems violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

In 1957, King helped organize the Southern Christian Leader- ship Conference (SCLC) to coordinate civil rights activities. King was totally committed to nonviolent action to bring racial issues into the light. To that end, he advocated civil disobedience, the willful but nonviolent breach of unjust laws.

Martin Luther King, Jr., had risen to worldwide prominence by August 1963, when he joined in a march on Washington, D.C., called ‘‘A March for Jobs and Freedom.’’ More than 250,000 people, black and white, gathered peaceably at the Lincoln Memorial to hear King speak. ‘‘I have a dream,’’ he told them, ‘‘that my little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’’16

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson considered civil rights his top legis- lative priority. Within months after he assumed office, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most comprehensive legis- lative attempt ever to erase racial discrimination in the United States. Among its many provisions, the act:

• Entitled all persons to ‘‘the full and equal enjoyment’’ of goods, services, and privileges in places of public accommo- dation without discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, or national origin

• Established the right to equality in employment opportunities • Strengthened voting rights legislation • Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

(EEOC) and charged it with hearing and investigating com- plaints of job discrimination*

• Provided that funds could be withheld from federally assisted programs that were administered in a discriminatory manner

boycott A refusal to do business with a firm, individual, or nation as an expression of disapproval or as a means of coercion.

civil disobedience The willful but nonviolent breach of laws that are regarded as unjust.

*Since 1972, the EEOC has had the power to institute legal proceedings on behalf of employees who allege that they have been victims of illegal discrimination.

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President Johnson’s goal was a ‘‘great society.’’ Soon a consti- tutional amendment and a series of civil rights laws were in place to help him meet his goal:

• The Twenty-fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, banned poll taxes in primary and general elections for national office.

• The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 focused on education and training to combat poverty.

• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 empowered the attorney gen- eral to send voter registration supervisors to areas in which fewer than half the eligible minority voters had been regis- tered. This act has been credited with doubling black voter registration in the South in only five years.17

• The Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned discrimination in the rental or sale of most housing.

The Continuing Struggle over Civil Rights Civil rights laws on the books do not ensure civil rights in action. While Congress has tried to expand civil rights enforcement, the Supreme Court has weakened it in recent years. In 1989, the Court restricted minority contractor set-asides of state public works funds, an arrangement it had approved in 1980. (A set- aside is a purchasing or contracting provision that reserves a cer- tain percentage of funds for minority-owned contractors.) The five-person majority held that past societal discrimination alone cannot serve as the basis for rigid quotas.18

Buttressed by Republican appointees, the Supreme Court continued to narrow the scope of national civil rights protections in a string of decisions that suggested the ascendancy of a new conservative majority concerned more with freedom than with equality.19 To counter the Court’s changing interpretations of civil rights laws, liberals turned to Congress to restore and enlarge earlier Court decisions by writing them into law. The result was a comprehensive new civil rights bill. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 reversed or altered twelve Court decisions that had narrowed civil rights protections. The new law clarified and expanded earlier legislation and increased the costs to employers for intentional, illegal discrimination. Continued resentment gen- erated by equal outcomes policies moved the battle back to the courts, however.

set-aside A purchasing or contracting provision that reserves a certain percentage of funds for minority- owned contractors.

The Civil Rights Movement 445

13.5 Civil Rights for Other Minorities

Evaluate the effect of the civil rights movement on other minority groups’ struggles for equality.

Recent civil rights laws and court decisions protect members of all minority groups. The Supreme Court underscored the breadth of this protection in an important decision in 1987.20 The justices ruled unanimously that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (known today as ‘‘Section 1981’’) offered broad protection against discrimination to all minorities. Previously, members of white ethnic groups could not invoke the law in bias suits. The 1987 decision allows members of any ethnic group—Italian, Iranian, Norwegian, or Chinese, for example—to recover money damages if they prove they were denied a job, excluded from rental housing, or subjected to another form of discrimination prohibited by the law. The 1964 Civil Rights Act offers similar protections but specifies strict procedures for filing suits that tend to discourage litigation.

Clearly, the civil rights movement has had an effect on all minor- ities. Here we examine the civil rights struggles of three groups: Native Americans, immigrant groups, and persons with disabilities.

Native Americans During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the U.S. govern- ment took Indian lands, isolated Native Americans on reserva- tions, and denied them political and social rights. The government’s dealings with the Indians were often marked by vio- lence and broken promises.

The national government switched policies at the beginning of the twentieth century, promoting assimilation instead of separation. The government banned the use of native languages and religious rituals; it sent Indian children to boarding schools and gave them non-Indian names. In 1924, Indians received U.S. citizenship. Until that time, they were considered members of tribal nations whose relations with the U.S. government were determined by treaties. The agencies responsible for administering Indian reservations kept Native Americans poor and dependent on the national government. And Indian lands continued to shrink through the 1950s and into

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the 1960s—despite signed treaties and the religious significance of portions of the lands they lost.

Anger bred of poverty, unemployment, and frustration with an uncaring government exploded into militant action in Novem- ber 1969, when several Indians seized Alcatraz Island, an aban- doned island in San Francisco Bay. The group cited an 1868 Sioux treaty that entitled them to unused federal lands; they remained on the island for a year and a half. In 1973, armed members of the American Indian Movement seized eleven hostages at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the site of an 1890 massacre of two hundred Sioux (Lakota) by U.S. cavalry troops. They remained there, occasionally exchanging gunfire with federal mar- shals, for seventy-one days until the government agreed to exam- ine the treaty rights of the Oglala Sioux.21

In 1946, Congress enacted legislation establishing an Indian claims commission to compensate Native Americans for land that had been taken from them. In the 1970s, the Native American Rights Fund and other groups used that legislation to win important victo- ries in the courts. The tribes won the return of lands in the Midwest and in the states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Washington. In 1980, the Supreme Court ordered the national government to pay the Sioux $117 million plus interest for the Black Hills of South Dakota, which had been stolen from them a century before.

The special status accorded Indian tribes in the Constitution has proved attractive to a new kind of Indian leader. Some of the 566 federally recognized tribes have successfully instituted casino gambling on their reservations, even in the face of state opposi- tion.22 Congress allows these developments provided that the tribes spend their profits on Indian assistance programs. The wealth created by casino gambling and other ventures funded with gambling profits may prove to be Native Americans’ most effec- tive weapon for retaining and regaining their heritage.

Immigrant Groups For most of the first half of the twentieth century, immigration rules established a strict quota system that gave a clear advantage to Northern and Western Europeans and guaranteed that few Southern or Eastern Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Jews would enter the country by legal means. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed a new immigration bill into law. Henceforth, the invidious quota system was gone; everyone was supposed to have

Civil Rights for Other Minorities 447

an equal chance of immigrating to the United States. One purpose of the new law was to reunite families. Another provision gave preference in much smaller numbers to immigrants with needed skills, such as doctors and engineers.

The demand for cheap labor in agriculture and manufacturing proved an enticing lure to many of the poor with access to Ameri- ca’s southern border. The personal risk in crossing the border ille- gally was often outweighed by the possible gain in employment and a new, though illegal, start. In 1986 Congress placed the burden of enforcement on employers by imposing fines for hiring undocu- mented workers and then by offering amnesty to resident illegal immigrants who were in the United States for at least five years.

Frustration brought about by hard economic times tends to make illegal immigrants easy targets. This is especially the case in Arizona, which experiences the greatest number of illegal border crossings from Mexico and has a large Hispanic population. With a surge in violence resulting from drug smuggling and human traffick- ing at its border, the Arizona legislature—backed by strong public opinion—adopted the strictest state immigration law in the nation in 2010. The Arizona law made it a crime for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying legal documents and obligates the police to determine a person’s immigration status if there’s a reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien. It also stepped up state and local law enforcement of federal immigration laws and cracked down on those sheltering, hiring, and transporting illegal aliens. In June 2012, the Supreme Court struck down three of the law’s provi- sions on federalism grounds, because the Constitution vests exclu- sive power over naturalization and citizenship in the national government. The Court upheld the part of the law that instructs law enforcement officials to check a person’s immigration status where there is a reasonable suspicion of the person’s illegal status.23

Many Latinos have a rich and deep-rooted heritage in America, but until the 1920s that heritage was largely confined to the south- western states and California. Then unprecedented numbers of Mex- ican immigrants came to the United States in search of employment and a better life. Businesspeople who saw in them a source of cheap labor welcomed them. Many Mexicans became farm workers, but a good number also settled in crowded, low-rent, inner-city districts. Like blacks who had migrated to northern cities, most of them met poverty and discrimination. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, about one-third of the Mexican American population (mainly those who had been migratory farm workers) returned to Mexico.

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World War II gave rise to another influx of Mexicans, this time pri- marily courted to work on farms in California. But by the late 1950s, most farm workers—blacks, whites, and Hispanics—were living in pov- erty. Latinos who lived in cities fared little better. Yet millions of Mexicans continued to cross the border into the United States, both legally and illegally. The effect was to depress wages for farm labor in California and the Southwest.

The Latino population continues to grow. The 20 million Latinos liv- ing in the United States in the 1970s were still mainly Puerto Rican and Mexican American, but they were joined by immigrants from the Do- minican Republic, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and elsewhere. Although civil rights legislation helped them to some extent, they are among the poorest and least-educated groups in the United States.

One effect of the language bar- rier is that voter registration and voter turnout among Hispanic citizens are lower than among other groups. Also, voter turnout depends on effective political advertis- ing, and Hispanics are not targeted as often as other groups with political messages that they can understand. But despite these stum- bling blocks, Latinos have started to exercise a measure of political power.

Hispanics or Latinos constitute over 16 percent of the U.S. pop- ulation and account for 56 percent of all growth between the 2000 and 2010 censuses. Yet they comprise only 5 percent of the Con- gress. The 112th Congress (2011–2012) convened with a group of twenty-seven Hispanic House members and two Hispanic senators. Eleven members—nine in the House and two in the Senate— are of Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Island heritage. Eight U.S. representatives and one senator were born outside the United States.24 The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme

Turning Up the Heat in Arizona

Arizona’s get-tough attitude toward illegal immigration brought a heated response from this protester at a large rally in Phoenix shortly after Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law in April 2010. A legal challenge stalled the law’s implementation. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in and struck down three of the law’s four provisions.

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Court in 2009 and the growing number of Hispanics appointed to the lower federal courts signal other milestones in the quest for equality for America’s largest minority group. The Census Bureau estimates that by 2050, one-third of all residents will be Hispanic. With such growth will come greater political power.25

Americans with Disabilities Minority status is not confined to racial and ethnic groups. Forty- three million Americans with disabilities gained recognition in 1990 as a protected minority with the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The law extends the protections embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to people with physical or mental disabilities, including people with AIDS, recovering alcoholics, and drug abusers. It guarantees them access to employment, transporta- tion, public accommodations, and communication services.

Advocates for people with disabilities found a ready model in the existing civil rights laws. Opponents argued that the changes mandated by the 1990 law (such as access for those confined to wheelchairs) could cost billions of dollars, but supporters replied that the costs would be offset by an equal or greater reduction in federal aid to people with disabilities, who would rather be working.

The law’s enactment set off an avalanche of job discrimination complaints filed with the national government’s discrimination watchdog agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). By 2012, the EEOC had received over 345,000 ADA- related complaints. Most complaints charged that employers failed to provide reasonable accommodations as required by the law.26

The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 increased protections for people with disabilities by making it easier for workers to prove discrimination. The legislation gives protection to people with epi- lepsy, diabetes, cancer, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. Federal court decisions had denied protection under the ADA because the disabling conditions were controlled by medica- tion or were in remission.

A change in the law, no matter how welcome, does not ensure a change in attitudes. Laws that end racial discrimination do not extinguish racism, and laws that ban biased treatment of persons with disabilities cannot mandate their acceptance. But civil rights advocates predict that bias against people with disabilities, like similar attitudes toward other minorities, will wither away as they become full participants in society.

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13.6 Gender and Equal Rights: The Women’s Movement

Trace the evolution of women’s legal rights beginning with laws based on protectionism and concluding with Supreme Court rulings prohibiting gender-based discrimination.

The Supreme Court has expanded the array of legal weapons available to all minorities to help them achieve social equality. Women, too, have benefited from this change.

Political Equality for Women Until the early 1970s, laws that affected the civil rights of women were based on traditional views of the relationship between men and women. At the heart of these laws was protectionism—the notion that women must be sheltered from life’s harsh realities. And pro- tected they were, through laws that discriminated against them in employment and other areas. With few exceptions, women were also ‘‘protected’’ from voting until early in the twentieth century.

In 1878, Susan B. Anthony, a women’s rights activist, per- suaded a U.S. senator from California to introduce a constitu- tional amendment requiring that ‘‘the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.’’ The amendment was introduced and voted down a number of times over the next twenty years. Meanwhile, a number of states, primarily in the Midwest and West, granted limited suffrage to women.

By the early 1900s, the movement for women’s suffrage had become a political battle to amend the Constitution. The battle was won in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in the wording first suggested by Anthony.

Prohibiting Sex-Based Discrimination The movement to provide equal rights to women advanced a step with the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. That act requires equal pay for men and women doing similar work. However, to remove the restrictions of protectionism, women needed equal

protectionism The notion that women must be protected from life’s cruelties, the basis, until the 1970s, for laws affecting women’s civil rights.

Nineteenth Amendment The amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1920, that assures women of the right to vote.

Gender and Equal Rights: The Women’s Movement 451

opportunity for employment. They got it in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later legislation. The EEOC, which had been created by that law, was empowered to act on behalf of victims of invidi- ous sex discrimination, or sexism.

Stereotypes Under Scrutiny After nearly a century of protectionism, the Supreme Court began to take a closer look at gender-based distinctions. In 1971, it struck down a state law that gave men preference over women in adminis- tering the estate of a person who died without naming an adminis- trator.27 Two years later, the justices declared that paternalism operated to ‘‘put women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.’’28 They then proceeded to strike down several gender-based laws that either prevented or discouraged departures from ‘‘proper’’ sex roles. In 1976, the Court finally developed a workable standard for reviewing these kinds of laws. Gender-based distinctions are justified only if they serve some important government purpose.29

The courts have not been reluctant to extend to women the con- stitutional guarantees won by blacks. In 1994, the Supreme Court extended the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee by forbid- ding the exclusion of potential jurors on the basis of their sex.30 The 1994 decision completed a constitutional revolution in jury selection that began in 1986 with a bar against juror exclusions based on race.

In 1996, the Court spoke with uncommon clarity when it declared that the men-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), a state-supported military college, violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In an effort to meet women’s demands to enter VMI—and to stave off continued legal challenges—Virginia had established a separate-but-equal institu- tion, the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (VWIL). Writ- ing for a six-member majority in United States v. Virginia, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg applied a demanding test she labeled ‘‘skeptical scrutiny’’ to official acts that deny individuals rights or responsibil- ities based on their sex. ‘‘Parties who seek to defend gender-based government action,’’ she wrote, ‘‘must demonstrate an ‘exceedingly persuasive justification’ for that action.’’ Ginsburg declared that ‘‘women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the State’s obligation to afford them gen- uinely equal protection.’’31 The upshot is that distinctions based on sex are now almost as suspect as distinctions based on race.

sexism Invidious sex discrimination.

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Despite the lack of a constitutional amendment explicitly guaranteeing equal rights for both genders, the Supreme Court has largely implemented that principle through its decisions. It has struck down distinctions based on sex and held that stereo- typed generalizations of sexual differences must fall.32 In recent rulings, the Court has held that states may require employers to guarantee job reinstatement to women returning from maternity leave, sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal, and a hostile work environment will be judged by a reasonable perception of abuse rather than a demonstration of psychological injury.33

13.7 Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome?

Compare and contrast the consequences that follow from policies aimed at equal opportunities versus those aimed at equal outcomes.

In his vision of the Great Society, President Johnson linked economic rights with civil rights and equality of outcome with equality of oppor- tunity. ‘‘Equal opportunity is essential, but not enough,’’ he declared. ‘‘We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.’’34

This commitment led to affirmative action programs to expand opportunities for women, minorities, and those who are disabled.

Affirmative action is a commitment by a business, employer, school, or other public or private institution to expand opportuni- ties for women, blacks, Hispanic Americans, and members of other minority groups. It embraces a range of public and private programs, policies, and procedures, including special recruitment, preferential treatment, and quotas in job training and professional education, employment, and the awarding of government con- tracts. The point of these programs is to move beyond equality of opportunity to equality of outcome.

Arguments for affirmative action programs (from increased recruitment efforts to quotas) tend to use the following reasoning. Certain groups have historically suffered invidious discrimination, denying them educational and economic opportunities. To elimi- nate the lasting effects of such discrimination, the public and private

affirmative action Any of a wide range of programs, from special recruitment efforts to numerical quotas, aimed at expanding opportunities for women and minority groups.

Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome? 453

sectors must take steps to provide access to good education and jobs. If the majority once used discrimination to hold groups back, discriminating to benefit those groups is fair. Therefore, quotas are a legitimate means to provide a place on the ladder of success.35

Affirmative action opponents maintain that quotas for desig- nated groups necessarily create invidious discrimination (in the form of reverse discrimination) against individuals who are them- selves blameless. Moreover, they say, quotas lead to the admission, hiring, or promotion of the less qualified at the expense of the well qualified. In the name of equality, such policies thwart individuals’ freedom to succeed. Do preferential policies in other nations offer lessons for us? (See ‘‘Compared with What? How India Struggles with Affirmative Action,’’ pp. 456–457.)

Reverse Discrimination The Supreme Court confronted an affirmative action quota program for the first time in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.36 Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times. The school had reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for qualified minority applicants as part of the university’s affirmative action program. Bakke’s qualifications (college grade point average and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years his applications were rejected. Bakke contended, first in the California courts and then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race. He argued that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited this reverse discrimination.

The Court’s decision in Bakke contained six opinions and spanned 154 pages. But even after careful analysis of the decision, discerning what the Court had decided was difficult. No opinion had a majority. One bloc of four justices opposed the medical school’s plan; a second bloc of four justices supported the plan. Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., agreed with parts of both arguments. With the first bloc, he argued that the school’s rigid use of racial quotas violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. With the second bloc, he contended that the use of race was permissible as one of several admissions criteria. Powell cast the deciding vote ordering the medical school to admit Bakke.

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Despite the confusing multiple opinions, the Court signaled its ap- proval of affirmative action programs in education that use race as a plus factor (one of many such factors) but not as the factor (one that alone determines the outcome).

True to the pluralist model, groups opposed to affirmative action continued their opposition in federal courts and state legislatures. They met with some success. In 1995, the Supreme Court struck down government mandated set-aside programs in the U.S. Department of Transportation, declaring that such programs must be subject to the most searching judicial inquiry (‘‘strict scrutiny’’) and must be ‘‘nar- rowly tailored’’ to achieve a ‘‘compelling government interest.’’37

By 2003, twenty-five years after Bakke, the Supreme Court was ready to weigh in again on affirmative action in two cases that challenged aspects of the University of Michigan’s racial prefer- ence policies. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the Court considered the uni- versity’s undergraduate admissions policy, which conferred twenty points automatically to members of favored groups (100 points guaranteed admission). In a 6–3 opinion, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist argued that such a policy violated the equal protection clause because it lacked the narrow tailoring required for permissi- ble racial preferences and it failed to provide for individualized consideration of each candidate.38 In the second case, Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court considered the University of Michigan’s law school admissions policy, which gave preference to minority appli- cants. The school defended its policy on the ground that it served a ‘‘compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body.’’ This time, the Court, in a 5–4 decision, held that the equal protection clause did not bar the school’s narrowly tailored use of racial preferences to further a compelling interest that flowed from a racially diverse student body.39 Since each applicant is judged individually on his or her merits, race remains only one among many factors that enter into the admissions decision.

The issue of race-based classification in education arose again in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, in which a group of parents brought suit against a Washington school district policy concerning voluntary school integration plans based on race.40 When multiple students applied to transfer to an oversubscribed school, one of the district’s tie-breaking factors was to consider which students would help create a racial balance in that particular school. In 2007, a slim majority of the Supreme Court struck down the school board’s policy, ruling that there was no

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Compared with What?

How India Struggles with Affirmative Action Americans are not alone in their disagreements over affirmative action. Controversies, even bloodshed, have arisen around the world where governments treat certain groups of citizens preferen- tially. One study found several common patterns among countries that had enacted preferential policies. Although begun as tempo- rary measures, preferential policies tended to persist and even to expand to include more groups. The policies usually sought to improve the situation of disadvantaged groups as a whole, but they often benefited the better-off members of such groups more than the worse-off members. Finally, preferential policies tended to increase antagonisms among different groups within a country.

Of course, there were variations across countries in terms of who benefited from such policies, what types of benefits were bestowed, and even the names the policies were given. Although India is the world’s largest democracy, its society is rigidly strati- fied into groups called castes. The government forbids caste- based discrimination, but members of the lower castes (the lowest being the Dalits, or ‘‘untouchables’’) were historically restricted to the least prestigious and lowest-paying jobs. To improve their sta- tus, India has set aside government jobs for the lower castes, who make up half of India’s population of 1 billion. India now reserves 27 percent of government jobs for the lower castes and an addi- tional 23 percent for untouchables and remote tribe members. Gender equality has also improved since a 1993 constitutional amendment set aside one-third of all seats in local government councils for women. By 2004, 900,000 women had been elected to public office, and 80,000 of them now lead local gov- erning bodies. These efforts have intensified tensions between the lower and upper castes. A 2010 proposal to create a one-third set-aside for women in the parliament and state legislatures has met stiff resistance from the political parties representing the lower

456 Chapter 13 Equality and Civil Rights

castes. The Dalits view the proposal as a threat to their monopoly quota. Lower-caste women oppose the idea while feminists from higher-caste parties support it. The bill is now pending in India’s lower house of parliament after passing in the upper house in 2010. The issue is not the use of quotas but which group should benefit from quotas. No longer considered temporary, quotas have become a fact of life in the world’s largest democracy.

Under a majoritarian model, group demands could lead quickly to conflict and instability because majority rule leaves little room for compromise. By parceling out benefits, pluralism miti- gates disorder in the short term. But in the long term, repeated demands for increased benefits can spark instability. A vigorous pluralist system should provide acceptable mechanisms to vent such frustrations and yield new allocations of benefits.

Sources: Trudy Rubin, ‘‘Will Democracy Survive in India?’’ Record (Bergen County, N.J.), 19 January 1998, p. A12; Alex Spillius, ‘‘India’s Old Warriors to Launch Rights Fight,’’ Daily Telegraph, 20 October 1997, p. 12; Robin Wright, ‘‘World’s Leaders: Men, 187, Women, 4,’’ Los Angeles Times, 30 September 1997, p. A1; ‘‘Indian Eunuchs Demand Government Job Quotas,’’ Agence France Presse, 22 October 1997; Juergen Hein and M. V. Balaji, ‘‘India’s First Census of New Millennium Begins on February 9,’’ Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 7 February 2001; Gillian Bowditch, ‘‘You Can Have Meritocracy or Equality, but Not Both,’’ Sunday Times, Features Section: Scotland News, 19 January 2003, p. 21; Press Trust of India, ‘‘About a Million Women Elected to Local Bodies in India,’’ 10 February 2004; Somini Sengupta, ‘‘Quotas to Aid India’s Poor vs. Push for Meritocracy,’’ New York Times, 23 May 2006, p. A3; ‘‘Caste in Doubt,’’ Economist, 12 June 2010, p. 46; and Shikha Dalmia, ‘‘India’s Government by Quota,’’ Wall Street Journal, 1–2 May 2010, p. A13.

Critical Thinking Preferential policies have at times threatened to disrupt order in rigidly stratified societies. What are some of the risks associated with affirmative action? How do different institutional models address these risks? Which do you think matters more for bolstering group participation and opportunity: institutional or social change?

Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome? 457

compelling interest for school districts to use race as a basis to assign seats in schools. In effect, the Court’s decision meant that integrating public schools is not a compelling interest if de jure segregation is not present as it was in the case of Brown v. Board of Education.

The Politics of Affirmative Action A comprehensive review of nationwide surveys conducted over the past twenty years reveals an unsurprising truth: blacks favor affirma- tive action programs, and whites do not. Women and men do not differ on this issue. The gulf between the races was wider in the 1970s than it is today, but the moderation results from shifts among blacks, not whites. Perhaps the most important finding is that ‘‘whites’ views have remained essentially unchanged over twenty-five years.’’41

How do we account for the persistence of equal outcomes pol- icies? A majority of Americans have consistently rejected explicit race or gender preferences for the awarding of contracts, employ- ment decisions, and college admissions, regardless of the groups such preferences benefit. Nevertheless, preference policies have survived and thrived under both Democrats and Republicans. The list of protected groups has expanded beyond African Americans to include Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Subcontinental Asian Americans, and women. Politi- cians have a powerful motive—votes—to expand the number of protected groups and the benefits such policies provide.

The conflict between freedom and equality will continue as other individuals and groups press their demands through litiga- tion and legislation. The choice the country makes will depend on whether and to what extent Americans are prepared to change their minds on these thorny issues.

SUMMARY 13.1 Two Conceptions of Equality

• Most Americans support equality of op- portunity, which is the idea that people should have an equal chance to develop their talents and be rewarded equally.

• Americans are less committed to equality of outcomes, which is the idea that different groups should

have greater uniformity of social, economic, and political power.

13.2 The Civil War Amendments • Congress enacted the Civil War

Amendments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments—to provide full civil rights to black Americans.

458 Chapter 13 Equality and Civil Rights

• In the late nineteenth century, the Supreme Court interpreted the amendments very narrowly, declaring that they did not restrain individuals from denying civil rights to blacks and did not apply to the states.

• The Court’s rulings enabled states in the American South to deny the vote to most blacks and to institutionalize racism.

• In 1896, the Court upheld state- imposed separate-but-equal doctrines that asserted that rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were met with separate yet comparable facilities.

13.3 The Dismantling of School Segregation • Attitudes toward segregation began to

change after World War II, during which blacks served in the military with valor.

• President Harry S. Truman estab- lished the President’s Committee on Civil Rights and ordered the desegre- gation of the armed forces.

• In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared that separate-but-equal facilities are inher- ently unequal and ruled that schools must be desegregated.

• The Court has continued to approve remedies to achieve integration and end de jure segregation (supported by law) but has pulled back from challenging de facto segregation (not the result of government action).

13.4 The Civil Rights Movement • The civil rights movement used civil

disobedience and boycotts to draw attention to the injustice of segrega- tion and discrimination.

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964: • entitled all to full and equal enjoy-

ment of goods, services, and privi- leges in public accommodation.

• established equal opportunity in employment.

• strengthened voting rights. • created the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission, a govern- ment agency, to oversee that laws were carried out.

• created provisions whereby federal funds could be withheld from programs that discriminated.

• The Equal Opportunity Act focused on programs that attempted to end poverty.

13.5 Civil Rights for Other Minorities • Native Americans were granted citi-

zenship in 1924 and obtained some redress for past injustices, winning, for example, the return of lands in various states throughout the country and financial reparations in some cases.

• Hispanic Americans have immigrated from Mexico and Central and South America and now live throughout the United States. • Despite legislation, poverty is wide-

spread. A large number of nonciti- zens and a common language barrier lead to very low voter partic- ipation.

• Political representation for Latinos is improving.

• With enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, disabled Americans won civil rights protections enjoyed by African Amer- icans and others.

Summary 459

13.6 Gender and Equal Rights: The Women’s Movement • Women were discriminated against

by laws that limited their participation in society. Early laws were protection- ist in that they were based on the notion that women needed to be shel- tered from life’s realities.

• In 1920, after much lobbying by the suffrage movement led by Susan B. Anthony, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote.

• The Civil Rights Act was advanced by the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which guaranteed equal pay for equal work regardless of gender.

13.7 Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome? • Affirmative action is a commitment

by a business, employer, school, or

other public or private institution to expand opportunities for women, blacks, Hispanic Americans, and members of other minority groups.

• Arguments in favor of affirmative action programs state that protected groups have suffered from genera- tions of discrimination that require concerted effort—even preferences— to overcome.

• Arguments against affirmative action programs maintain that quotas create reverse discrimination against indi- viduals who are blameless, leading to admission, hiring, or promotion of the less qualified at the expense of the well qualified.

• While Americans do not support equal outcomes policies, preference policies have persisted and the num- ber of protected groups has grown.

KEY CASES Plessy v. Ferguson Brown v. Board of Education Brown v. Board of Education II United States v. Virginia Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

Gratz v. Bollinger Grutter v. Bollinger Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

13.1 Explain how the concepts of equal- ity of opportunity and equality of outcomes mirror the tension between freedom and equality. 1. Differentiate between equality of op-

portunity and equality of outcomes.

2. What is invidious discrimination? Provide examples of groups that have confronted this.

460 Chapter 13 Equality and Civil Rights

13.2 Trace the Supreme Court rulings and state legislative efforts that prevented African Americans from achieving ‘‘equal protection of the laws.’’ 1. What was the purpose of Jim Crow

laws? 2. How did the poll tax prevent black

men from voting on election day? 3. Define the separate-but-equal doc-

trine and explain how it satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment while upholding racial segregation.

13.3 Identify the Supreme Court deci- sions that dismantled school segre- gation and explain the significance of each. 1. Why was the Brown v. Board of

Education ruling so important for the fight against racial segregation?

2. What is the difference between de jure segregation and de facto segregation?

13.4 Describe the context in which the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed and the evolving interpretation of civil rights in subsequent Supreme Court decisions. 1. What did Rosa Parks do that

sparked a boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama?

2. Define civil disobedience and give two examples of it.

3. Identify the major provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

13.5 Evaluate the effect of the civil rights movement on other minority groups’ struggles for equality. 1. Why was assimilation an ineffective

tool for successfully integrating Native Americans with the rest of American society?

2. How does the language barrier pre- vent some Hispanics from participat- ing in government?

3. Describe the progress that persons with disabilities have made with equality and protection.

13.6 Trace the evolution of women’s legal rights beginning with laws based on protectionism and con- cluding with Supreme Court rulings prohibiting gender-based discrimi- nation. 1. How did protectionism promote the

discrimination of women? 2. What role did Susan B. Anthony play in

advancing the equal rights of women? 3. Define the concept of skeptical scrutiny.

13.7 Compare and contrast the conse- quences that follow from policies aimed at equal opportunities versus those aimed at equal outcomes. 1. Who is Allan Bakke, and what court

case is he associated with? 2. Explain the central arguments in

support of affirmative action for minor- ities, then critique these reasons.

3. Why are explicit quota policies generally unpopular with the public?

Assessing Your Understanding 461

14 and Learning OutcomesCHAPTER

TOPICS

Policymaking

and the

Budget

14.1 Government Purposes and Public Policies

Categorize different types of public policies and outline the process by which policies are formulated and implemented.

14.2 Fragmentation, Coordination, and Issue Networks

Identify the forces that work against coherent problem solving in government.

14.3 Economic Policy and the Budget

Describe the process by which the national budget is prepared and passed into law and the reforms undertaken by Congress to balance the budget.

14.4 Taxing and Spending Decisions

Identify the objectives of tax policy and the major reasons for the growth of government spending.

462 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

T wenty-two-year-old Sara may look like anaverage college student, but when she was ten years old, she was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. Life as a busy student became more difficult when Sara lost her health care insurance coverage; her part-time job made her ineligible for the government-run program that previously covered the costs of her insulin, pump supplies, and test strips (costs running over $800 per month!). Without government aid, Sara looked into private health insurance plans, but purchas- ing private insurance was too expensive. For now, she is uninsured, trying to balance school, her health, and the costs of diabetes.1

Determining whether—and how—government should help people like Sara meet their basic needs is a perennial challenge. Any call for a new program raises questions related to values, process, and budget. Should government take on such responsibilities? Can it do so without infring- ing on personal or economic freedoms? If a policy is enacted, how do we know if it is effective or

whether there are unintended consequences? And what of the cost?

These complicated questions are prominent in the realm of health care. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), enacted in 2010, aimed to help Sara and the millions of Americans in similar positions. Before the law was passed, insurance compa- nies were able to deny individuals coverage sim- ply because they had a serious and expensive health condition. One recent study concluded that up to 50 percent of non-elderly Americans, including 24 percent of people under age eight- een and 35 percent of people aged eighteen to thirty-four, have at least one preexisting condition that could lead them to be denied coverage. Starting in 2014, people with such conditions cannot be denied coverage.2

The ACA also allows young adults like Sara to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26, a change that many young people welcome given today’s tough economic climate and the high costs of health care. According to the Centers for

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463 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

Disease Control and Prevention, about 2.5 million young people have taken advantage of this provision since it went into effect in 2010. The percentage of insured Americans aged nineteen to twenty-five has since risen from 64 to 73 percent.3 Another provision of the law eliminates lifetime caps on health-care payments.

There are trade-offs to make these provisions economically viable, most notably the requirement that virtually all Americans obtain insurance or face a penalty.4 Simply requiring insurance companies to sell insur- ance to individuals with chronic long-term conditions would drive the cost of insurance up dramatically unless more healthy individuals also share the costs. In June 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in National Fed- eration of Independent Business v. Sebelius that the commerce clause did not give Congress the authority to require individuals to purchase in- surance, but the mandate did not violate the Constitution because the penalty was essentially a tax (on noncompliance). The authority of Con- gress to tax is granted specifically in Article I of the Constitution.

Though the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the ACA by a 5–4 vote, debates over the act remain fierce. First is the philosophical debate about whether government has the authority to require people to get insurance. Then come logistical debates about whether the act’s other provisions are the most appropriate ways to address rising health-care costs, the effect of the law on government spending and individual tax burdens, the impact of the law on state-level finances and agencies, and more. Health care, like other policy realms, is complicated. The challenge of devising, implementing, and assess- ing a policy that protects the citizenry’s standard of living while also satisfying other basic principles, such as federalism, the economic freedom of private employers and insurance providers, and the indi- vidual freedom of people to shun insurance coverage if they want to, will continue to feature prominently in policy debates.

Previous chapters focused on individual institutions of govern- ment. Here we focus on government more broadly and ask how policymaking takes place across institutions. We first identify dif- ferent types of public policies and then analyze the stages in the policymaking process. We examine how policy is made when many competing interest groups are trying to influence the out- come and how relationships between those groups, and between such groups and different parts of government, structure the poli- cymaking process. Finally, we take a closer look at budgeting and policies relating to the economy.

464 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

14.1 Government Purposes and Public Policies

Categorize different types of public policies and outline the process by which policies are formulated and implemented.

In Chapter 1, we noted that most citizens are willing to accept limitations on their personal freedom in return for various bene- fits of government. We defined the major purposes of government as maintaining order, providing public benefits, and promoting equality. Different governments place different values on each broad purpose, and those differences are reflected in their public policies. A public policy is a general plan of action adopted by a government to solve a social problem, counter a threat, or pursue an objective.

People disagree about public policies because they disagree about one or more of the following elements: the goals that govern- ment should have, the means it should use to achieve goals, and the perception of the situation at hand. When people disagree on goals, that disagreement is often rooted in a basic difference in values. As emphasized throughout this book, such value conflict is often man- ifested as disputes pitting freedom versus order or freedom versus equality. The roots of the values we hold can run deep, beginning with childhood socialization as the values of parents are transmitted to their children. Disputes involving values are in many ways the hardest to bridge since they reflect a basic world-view and go to the core of one’s sense of right and wrong.

The problem of illegal drugs illustrates how different core val- ues lead us to prefer different public policies. Everyone agrees that government should address the problems created by drugs. Yet views of what should be done differ sharply. Recall from Chapter 1 that libertarians prioritize individual freedom and want to limit government as much as possible. Many libertarians argue that drugs should be decriminalized; if people want to take drugs, they should be free to do so. If drugs were decriminalized, they suggest, the crime associated with illegal drugs would largely evaporate. Conservatives emphasize order. In their mind, a safe and civilized

public policy A general plan of action adopted by the government to solve a social problem, counter a threat, or pursue an objective.

Government Purposes and Public Policies 465

society does not allow people to debase themselves through drug abuse. Pointing to the broad costs to society brought on through alcoholism, such as drunk driving accidents, conservatives argue that government should punish those who violate the law rather than decriminalize the behavior. Liberals promote treatment as a policy option. They regard drug addiction as a medical problem and believe that government should offer the services that help addicts stop their self-destructive behavior. Liberals value equality and argue that government should help people in need. Many drug offenders cannot pay for treatment because their drug habit has left them impoverished.

Types of Policies Although values underlie choices, analysis of public policy does not usually focus explicitly on core beliefs. Political scientists often categorize public policies by their objectives. That is, in the broad scheme of things, what are policymakers trying to do by choosing a particular policy direction? One common purpose is to allocate resources so that some segment of society can receive a service or benefit. We can call these distributive policies. One example of the distribution of resources toward a local project involves the roughly $45,000 per year that the National Endowment for the Arts gives to the Western Folklife Center, which hosts an annual Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada. Some argue that the gov- ernment should not distribute funds for such local projects, espe- cially during a recession. Others, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), say that the funding preserves and celebra- tes the culture of the American West while also enhancing the region’s economy, since the yearly festival generates millions in economic activity.5

With distributive policies, all of us, by paying our taxes, support those who receive the benefit, presumably because that benefit works toward the common good, such as stronger security, mod- ernized infrastructure, a cleaner environment, or a richer national culture. In contrast, redistributional policies are explicitly designed to take resources from one sector of society and transfer them to another (reflecting the core value of greater equality). For example, some states, like Connecticut, have increased taxes on the wealthiest residents and cut taxes for low-income workers as a way to raise

distributive policies Government policies designed to confer a benefit on a particular institution or group.

redistributional policies Policies that take government resources, such as tax funds, from one sector of society and transfer them to another.

466 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

revenue and redistribute income. This approach views taxation as a shared sacrifice that helps people out of poverty (freeing them from government safety net programs) and spurs further economic activity.6

Another policy approach is regulation. In Chapter 10, we noted that regulations are the rules that guide the operation of government programs. When regulations apply to businesses, they are an attempt to structure the market in a particular way. Gov- ernment becomes a referee, setting rules. Both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have authority to regulate the production and marketing of food. In 2011, the government added to existing regulations by enacting the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which was motivated by several high-profile food recalls involving contaminated products such as spinach, eggs, and peanut butter. One provision of the new law empowers the FDA to issue its own recalls instead of relying on voluntary recalls from food producers. It also provides greater inspection authority to the FDA, in the hope of preventing unsafe foods from reaching consumers in the first place.7

Americans disagree over the extent to which markets should operate freely. In the case of food safety, the new regulations were supported by major food producers, including General Mills and Kraft Foods, while it was opposed by associations representing smaller farms, who feared new regulations and paperwork.8

This framework of distributive, redistributional, and regula- tory policies is rather general, and there are surely policy approaches that do not fit neatly into one of these categories.9

Nevertheless, the framework is a useful prism to examine public policymaking. Understanding the broad purposes of public policy allows a better evaluation of the tools necessary to attain these objectives.

A Policymaking Model Not only do political scientists distinguish among the different types of policies, but also they distinguish among different stages of the policymaking process and try to identify patterns in the way people attempt to influence decisions and in the way decisions are reached. We can separate the policymaking process into four stages: agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, and

regulation Rules that guide the operation of government programs and business markets.

Government Purposes and Public Policies 467

policy evaluation.10 Figure 14.1 shows the four stages in sequence. As the figure indicates, policymaking is a circular process: the end of one phase is the beginning of another.

Agenda setting is the stage at which problems are defined as political issues. Many problems confront Americans in their daily lives, but government is not actively working to solve them all. For example, the problem of poverty among the elderly did not sud- denly arise during the 1930s, but that is when inadequate income for the elderly was defined as a political problem. When the govern- ment begins to consider acting on an issue it has previously ignored, we say that the issue has become part of the political agenda.

Why does a social problem become redefined as a political problem? There is no single reason; many factors can stimulate new thinking about a problem. Sometimes highly visible events or developments push issues onto the agenda. Issues may also reach the agenda through the efforts of scholars and activists to get more people to pay attention to a condition about which the gen- eral public seems unaware. The likelihood that a certain problem will move onto the agenda is also affected by who controls the government and by broad ideological shifts. Agenda building also may involve redefining old issues so that people look at them in different ways.11

Policy formulation is the stage of the policymaking process in which formal policy proposals are developed and officials decide whether to adopt them. Although policy formulation is depicted in Figure 14.1 as a single stage, it actually takes place over several stages and across different levels of government. The most obvious

FIGURE 14.1 The Policymaking Process

Agenda setting

Policy formulation Implementation

Policy evaluation

This model, one of many possible ways to depict the policymaking process, shows four stages. Feedback on program operations and on performance from the last two stages stimulates new cycles of the process. Source: ª Cengage Learning 2013.

agenda setting The stage of the policymaking process during which problems get defined as political issues.

policy formulation The stage of the policymaking process during which formal proposals are developed and adopted.

468 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

kind of policy formulation is the proposal of a measure by the president or the development of legislation by Congress. Adminis- trative agencies also formulate policy through the regulatory proc- ess. Courts formulate policy when their decisions establish new interpretations of the law.

Policies are not self-executing; implementation is the stage at which they are carried out. When agencies in Washington issue regulations, some government bodies must put those policies into effect. In the case of the Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, the owners of office buildings probably would not have repositioned their water fountains simply because Washington had published new regulations. Administrative bodies at the re- gional, state, or local level had to inform them of the rules, give them a timetable for compliance, communicate the penalties for noncompliance, answer questions, and report to Washington on how well the regulations were working.

One of the biggest problems at the implementation stage of policymaking is coordination. After officials in Washington enact a law and write the new regulations, people outside Washington typically are designated to implement the policy. The agents may be local officials, state administrators, or federal bureaucrats head- quartered in regional offices around the country. Although imple- mentation may sound highly technical, it is very much a political process calling for a great deal of bargaining and negotiation among different groups of people in and out of government.

Policy evaluation is the analysis of how well a policy is work- ing. Evaluation tends to draw heavily on approaches used by aca- demics, including cost-effectiveness analysis and statistical methods designed to provide quantitative measurements of program out- comes. Technical studies can be quite influential in decisions about whether to continue, expand, alter, reduce, or eliminate programs.

Evaluation is part of the policymaking process because it helps to identify problems and issues arising from current policy. In other words, evaluation studies provide feedback about program performance. The dotted line in Figure 14.1 represents a feedback loop. Feedback can be positive or negative.12 Consider the govern- ment approval process for medical devices. The FDA crafts rules for determining when a medical device is safe and can be used on the general public. One device it approved is a lap band used in weight loss surgery. The band is placed around the stomach in order to limit how much a person can eat. Since its approval,

implementation The process of putting specific policies into operation.

policy evaluation Analysis of a public policy so as to determine how well it is working.

feedback Information received by policymakers about the effectiveness of public policy.

Government Purposes and Public Policies 469

studies have emerged indicating high rates of complications from the device. In 2012, members of Congress called for hearings not only to assess the safety of the product but also to evaluate the procedures used by the FDA for determining its safety. The hear- ings would lay the foundation for a more comprehensive evalua- tion of the FDA’s procedures.13

Feedback reflects the dynamic nature of policymaking. By drawing attention to emerging problems, policy evaluation influen- ces the political agenda. The end of the policy process—evaluating whether the policy is being implemented as it was envisioned when it was formulated—marks the beginning of a new cycle of public policymaking.

14.2 Fragmentation, Coordination, and Issue Networks

Identify the forces that work against coherent problem solving in government.

The policymaking process encompasses many stages and includes different participants at each stage. Here we examine some forces that pull the government in different directions and make prob- lem solving less coherent than it might otherwise be. We also look at some structural elements of American government that work to coordinate competing approaches to the same problems.

Multiplicity and Fragmentation A single policy problem may be attacked in different ways by gov- ernment for many reasons. At the heart of this fragmentation of policymaking is the fundamental nature of government in America. The separation of powers divides authority among the branches of the national government, and federalism divides authority among national, state, and local levels of government. These multiple cen- ters of power are a primary component of pluralist democracy. Within any issue area, a number of interest groups try to influence different parts of government. No one entity completely controls policymaking.

fragmentation In policymaking, the phenomenon of attacking a single problem in different and sometimes competing ways.

470 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

Differing policies among the states and between states and the federal government cause confusion because of the fragmented approach of the different levels of government. Frustrated because the federal government had taken no action regarding the poi- soning of children who unknowingly drank out of containers of antifreeze, California and Oregon passed laws requiring manufac- turers to add a bitter-tasting ingredient to the mix. But this legis- lation meant that different states required different things from manufacturers.14

American federalism is often lauded because the states can be ‘‘fifty laboratories’’ for developing policy alternatives. Yet this can be frustrating to the federal government because states may de- velop policies at odds with federal approaches. Currently, states vary widely in their policies regarding the use of mobile devices while driving. Such distracted driving led to over 3,000 deaths in the United States in 2010. In response to this growing problem, some state have banned all handheld phone use by all drivers, some ban it only for young drivers, some ban texting while driv- ing, and some have practically no restrictions at all.15

The Pursuit of Coordination How does the government overcome fragmentation so that it can make its public policies more coherent? Coordination of different elements of government is not impossible. Fragmentation often creates a productive pressure to rethink jurisdictions and to create incentives for coordination. To encourage coordination, the Safe Drivers Act was been introduced in Congress. It would impose a national policy banning the use of handheld mobile devices while driving except in emergencies. States that fail to comply with the law would lose a portion of their federal transportation funds.16

The policy fragmentation created by federalism may be solved when an industry asks the national government to develop a sin- gle regulatory policy. In the antifreeze case discussed previously, the state actions convinced the industry trade group that repre- sents antifreeze manufacturers that it should drop its opposition to federal safety regulations.17 Although an industry may prefer no regulation at all, it generally prefers one instead of fifty.

In a decentralized, federal system of government with large numbers of interest groups, fragmentation is inevitable. Beyond the structural factors is the natural tendency of people and

Fragmentation, Coordination, and Issue Networks 471

organizations to defend their base of power. Government officials understand, however, that mechanisms of coordination are neces- sary so that fragmentation does not overwhelm policymaking.

Government by Policy Area Another counterweight to fragmentation is the working relation- ships that develop among the many participants in the pluralist system. Suppose that Congress is considering amendments to the Clean Air Act. Because Congress does not function in a vacuum, other parts of government affected by the legislation participate in the process too. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has an interest in the outcome because it will have to administer the law. The White House is concerned about any legislation that affects such vital sectors of the economy as the steel and coal industries. As a result, officials from both the EPA and the White House work with members of Congress and the appropriate com- mittee staffs to try to ensure that their interests are protected. At the same time, lobbyists representing corporations, trade associa- tions, and environmental groups try to influence Congress, agency officials, and White House aides. Experts from think tanks and universities might be asked to testify at hearings or to serve in an informal advisory capacity in regard to the technical, economic, and social effects of the proposed amendments.

The various individuals and organizations that work in a par- ticular policy area form a loosely knit community known as an issue network. The boundaries and membership of issue networks are hardly precise, but participants share expertise in a policy do- main and interact frequently.18 Such networks include members of Congress, committee staffers, agency officials, lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, scholars, and public relations specialists. Overall, a net- work can be quite large. One study identified over twelve hundred interest groups that had some contact with government officials in Washington in relation to health care over a five-year period.19

The common denominator in a network is not the same polit- ical outlook; it is policy expertise. One must have the necessary expertise to enter the community of activists and politicians who influence policymaking in an issue area. Consider Medicare. The program is crucial to the health of the elderly, and with millions of baby boomers beginning to retire, it needs to be structured carefully to make sure there will be enough money available to

issue network A shared-knowledge group consisting of representatives of various interests involved in some particular aspect of public policy.

472 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

care for them all. But to enter the political debate on this issue requires specialized knowledge. What is the difference between ‘‘global capitation’’ and ‘‘fee for service’’? What is the ‘‘doughnut hole’’ in Medicare Part D? ‘‘Advance directives’’ and ‘‘withholds for never events’’ may be grating jargon to the uninitiated, but they are meaningful terms to those in this network.

In a number of ways, issue networks promote pluralist de- mocracy. They are open systems, populated by a wide range of in- terest groups. Decision making is not centralized in the hands of a few key players; policies are formulated in a participatory fashion. But there is still no guarantee that all relevant interests are repre- sented, and those with the greatest financial resources have an advantage. Nevertheless, issue networks provide access to govern- ment for a diverse set of competing interests and thus further the pluralist ideal.20

Those who prefer majoritarian democracy, however, see issue networks as an obstacle to achieving their vision of how government should operate. The technical complexity of contemporary issues makes it difficult for the public at large to influence policy out- comes. However, majoritarian influences on policymaking are still significant. The broad contours of public opinion can be a dominant force on highly visible issues. Elections, too, send messages to poli- cymakers about the most widely discussed campaign issues. What issue networks have done, however, is facilitate pluralist politics in policy areas in which majoritarian influences are weak.

14.3 Economic Policy and the Budget

Describe the process by which the national budget is prepared and passed into law and the reforms undertaken by Congress to balance the budget.

While the Washington policy community includes thousands of actors scattered throughout many issue networks, their issues share one thing in common. Whether large or small, there are economic and budgetary consequences to the acceptance of their policy pro- posals. Policymakers must consider not only the direct costs of a new antipollution measure or health program, but also the broader

Economic Policy and the Budget 473

impact that starting such programs might have on the nation’s economy. Tinkering with the economy is not a task to be under- taken lightly. Economists often disagree about the budgetary impact of various programs and whether they would help or hurt broader efforts to control the ups and downs of the nation’s economy.

Economic Theory Government efforts to control the economy rely on theories about how the economy responds to government taxing and spending policies and its control of the money supply. How policymakers tax and spend, or loosen and tighten interest rates, depends on their beliefs about how the economy functions and the proper role of government in the economy.

Keynesian theory, developed by John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, holds that government can stabilize the econ- omy through a combination of fiscal and monetary policies.21

Fiscal policies, which are enacted by the president and Congress, involve changes in government spending and taxing. When demand for goods and services is too low, according to Keynes, government should either spend more itself—hiring people and thus giving them money—or cut taxes, leaving people more of their own money to spend. When demand is too great, the gov- ernment should either spend less or raise taxes, leaving people less money to spend. Governments frequently use the Keynesian tech- nique of deficit financing—spending in excess of tax revenues to combat an economic slump. Most deficits are financed with funds borrowed through the issuing of government bonds, notes, or other securities. President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package in 2009 drew heavy fire, but even conservative economists credit it with saving millions of jobs and contributing to 5.7 percent eco- nomic growth by the end of the year.22

Monetary policies involve changes in the money supply and operate less directly on the economy. Increasing the amount of money in circulation increases demand and thus increases inflation, price increases that decrease the value of currency. Decreasing the money supply decreases aggregate demand and inflationary pres- sures. Monetary policies in the United States are largely determined by the Federal Reserve System (the Fed), which acts as the coun- try’s central bank. At the top of the system is the board of gover- nors, seven members who are appointed by the president for

Federal Reserve System (the Fed) The system of banks that acts as the central bank of the United States and controls major monetary policies.

Keynesian theory An economic theory stating that the government can stabilize the economy—that is, can smooth business cycles—by controlling the level of aggregate demand, and that the level of aggregate demand can be controlled by means of fiscal and monetary policies.

fiscal policies Economic policies that involve government spending and taxing.

deficit financing The Keynesian technique of spending beyond government income to combat an economic slump. Its purpose is to inject extra money into the economy to stimulate aggregate demand.

monetary policies Economic policies that involve control of, and changes in, the supply of money.

inflation An economic condition characterized by price increases linked to a decrease in the value of the currency.

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staggered terms of fourteen years. The president designates one member of the board to be its chairperson, serving a four-year term that extends beyond the president’s term of office. Although the Federal Reserve Board’s economic policies are not perfectly insu- lated from political concerns, they are sufficiently independent that the president is not able to control monetary policy without the Fed’s cooperation. Given the Fed’s role in the economy and the con- trol Congress exercises over the budget, presidents are much less re- sponsible for the state of the economy than most people assume.

Budgeting for Public Policy Though it might be hard to imagine, to national politicians the national budget is an exciting script for high drama. The numbers, categories, and percentages that numb normal minds cause politi- cians’ nostrils to flare and their hearts to pound. The budget is a battlefield on which politicians wage war over the programs they support.

Today, the president proposes the budget before Congres- sional deliberation. This was not always the case. Before 1921, Congress prepared the budget under its constitutional authority to raise taxes and appropriate funds. The budget was formed piecemeal by enacting a series of laws that originated in the many committees involved in the highly decentralized process of raising revenue, authorizing expenditures, and appropriating funds.

Congressional budgeting (such as it was) worked well enough for a nation of farmers but not for an industrialized nation with a growing population and an increasingly active government. Soon after World War I, Congress realized that the budget-making process needed to be centralized. With the Budget and Account- ing Act of 1921, it thrust the responsibility for preparing the budget onto the president. The act established the Bureau of the Budget to prepare the president’s budget for submission to Con- gress each January. Congress retained its constitutional authority to raise and spend funds, but now it would begin its work with the president’s budget as its starting point. And all executive agen- cies’ budget requests had to be funneled for review through the Bureau of the Budget (which became the Office of Management and Budget in 1970); requests that were consistent with the presi- dent’s overall economic and legislative program were incorporated into the president’s budget.

Economic Policy and the Budget 475

The Nature of the Budget The national budget is complex, but its basic elements are not beyond understanding. We begin with some definitions. The Budget of the United States Government is the annual financial plan that the president is required to submit to Congress at the start of each year. It applies to the next fiscal year (FY), the inter- val the government uses for accounting purposes. Currently, the fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. The budget is named for the year in which it ends, so the FY 2013 budget applies to the twelve months from October 1, 2012, to September 30, 2013.

Broadly, the budget defines budget authority (how much government agencies are authorized to spend on current and future programs); budget outlays, or expenditures (how much agencies are expected to spend this year); and receipts (how much is expected in taxes and other revenues). President Obama’s FY 2013 budget proposal contained authority for expenditures of $3.667 trillion, but it called for outlays of $3.803 trillion. His budget also anticipated receipts of $2.902 trillion, leaving an esti- mated deficit of $901 billion—the difference between receipts and outlays in a single fiscal year.23 A deficit is different from the public debt, which represents the accumulated sum of borrowing (mainly to finance past annual deficits) that remains to be paid. The total public debt on August 1, 2012, was a staggering $15.9 trillion, over 66 percent more than it had been a mere four years earlier.24 However, about $4.8 trillion of that total public debt is in ‘‘intragovernmental holdings’’—money that one part of the government owes to another part. An example of intragovern- mental holding would be when the Treasury Department borrows money from the Social Security Trust Fund. The money might be used to pay for highway construction, but it is still owed to the Social Security Trust Fund and is part of the public debt. Of the portion of the public debt actually owed to the public, almost half is held by institutions or individuals in other countries (see ‘‘Politics of Global Change: We Buy More, and We Borrow More’’).

Preparing the President’s Budget The budget that the president submits to Congress each winter is the end product of a process that begins the previous spring under

fiscal year (FY) The twelve-month period from October 1 to September 30 used by the government for accounting purposes. A fiscal year budget is named for the year in which it ends.

budget authority The amounts that government agencies are authorized to spend for current and future programs.

budget outlays The amounts that government agencies are expected to spend in the fiscal year.

receipts For a government, the amount expected or obtained in taxes and other revenues.

public debt The accumulated sum of past government borrowing that remains to be paid.

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Politics of Global Change

We Buy More, and We Borrow More Globalization produces economic interdependence among nations. Over the past four decades, Americans have been buying more goods and services from other countries than we are selling to them. Foreigners have been using their profits to buy U.S. government securities, thus acquiring increasing shares of our public debt. Excluding the $4.6 trillion in intragovernmental holdings, the publicly held portion of the debt totaled over $10.1 trillion in 2011, of which foreign individuals, institutions, and governments held almost half. In effect, foreigners have been lending us money to buy their goods and services.

SOURCES: Office of Management and Budget, ‘‘Table 6-7: Foreign Holdings of Federal Debt,’’ in Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2013 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012); and U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Division, ‘‘U.S. Trade in Goods and Services, Balance of Payments (BOP) Basis,’’ http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/ gands.txt.

Critical Thinking What costs and benefits to the economy does a trade deficit represent? What would the result be if foreigners stopped loaning money to the government of the United States?

1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 Year

Percentage of national debt in foreign ownership Percentage of international trade as surplus or deficit

–30

–20

–10

In 1965, the positive U.S. balance of trade (exports-imports) was 7% of the total trade.

In 2011, the U.S. balance of trade (–$558 billion) was 11.7% of the total trade.

In 2011, foreigners held 46% of publicly owned U.S. debt of $10.1 trillion.

In 1965, foreigners held 4.7% of U.S. public debt of $261 billion.

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the supervision of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB is located within the Executive Office of the President and is headed by a director appointed by the president with the approval of the Senate. The OMB, with a staff of more than five hundred, is the most powerful domestic agency in the bureaucracy, and its director, who attends meetings of the president’s cabinet, is one of the most powerful figures in government.

Thousands of pages long, the president’s budget contains more than numbers. It also explains individual spending pro- grams in terms of national needs and agency objectives, and it analyzes proposed taxes and other receipts.25

The OMB initiates the budget process each spring by meeting with the president to discuss the economic situation and his budg- etary priorities. It then sends broad budgeting guidelines to every government agency and requests their initial projection of how much money they will need for the next fiscal year. The OMB assembles this information and makes recommendations to the president, who then develops more precise guidelines describing how much each is likely to get. By summer, the agencies are asked to prepare budgets based on the new guidelines. By fall, they sub- mit their formal budgets to the OMB, where budget analysts scru- tinize agency requests, considering both their costs and their consistency with the president’s legislative program. A lot of poli- ticking goes on at this stage as agency heads try to circumvent the OMB by pleading for their pet projects with presidential advisers and perhaps even with the president himself.

Political negotiations over the budget may extend into the early winter, often until it goes to the printer. The voluminous document looks very much like a finished product, but the figures it contains are not final. In giving the president the responsibility for preparing the budget in 1921, Congress simply provided itself with a starting point for its own work.

Passing the Congressional Budget The president’s budget must be approved by Congress. Its proc- ess for doing so is a creaky conglomeration of traditional pro- cedures overlaid with structural reforms from the 1970s, external constraints from the 1980s, and changes introduced by

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) The budgeting arm of the Executive Office of the President; prepares the president’s budget.

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the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act. The cumbersome process has had difficulty producing a budget according to Congress’s own timetable.

The Traditional Procedure: The Committee Structure. Tradition- ally, the tasks of budget making were divided among a number of committees, a process that has been retained. Three types of com- mittees are involved in budgeting:

• Tax committees are responsible for raising the revenues to run the government. The Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Finance Committee in the Senate consider all proposals for taxes, tariffs, and other receipts contained in the president’s budget.

• Authorization committees (such as the House Armed Serv- ices Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee) have jurisdiction over particular legisla- tive subjects. The House has about twenty committees that can authorize spending and the Senate about fifteen. Each pores over the portions of the budget that pertain to its area of responsibility. However, in recent years, power has shifted from the authorization committees to the appropriations committees.

• Appropriations committees decide which of the programs approved by the authorization committees will actually be funded (that is, given money to spend). For example, the House Armed Services Committee might propose building a new line of tanks for the army, and it might succeed in getting this pro- posal enacted into law. But the tanks will never be built unless the appropriations committees appropriate funds for that pur- pose. Thirteen distinct appropriations bills are supposed to be enacted each year to fund the nation’s spending.

Two serious problems are inherent in a budgeting process that involves three distinct kinds of congressional committees. First, the two-step spending process (first authorization, then appropri- ation) is complex; it offers wonderful opportunities for interest groups to get into the budgeting act in the spirit of pluralist de- mocracy. Second, because one group of legislators in each house plans for revenues and many other groups plan for spending, no one is responsible for the budget as a whole.

tax committees The two committees of Congress responsible for raising the revenue with which to run the government.

authorization committees Committees of Congress that can authorize spending in their particular areas of responsibility.

appropriations committees Committees of Congress that decide which of the programs passed by the authorization committees will actually be funded.

Economic Policy and the Budget 479

In the 1970s, Congress added a new committee structure to combat the pluralist politics inherent in the old procedures and to make budget choices in a more majoritarian manner, by roll-call votes in both chambers. The Budget and Impound- ment Control Act of 1974 retained all the tax and appropria- tions committees (and chairpersons), while superimposing new House and Senate budget committees over the old committee structure. It created budget committees to supervise a com- prehensive budget review process, aided by a new Congres- sional Budget Office (CBO), with a staff of more than two hundred, to supply budgetary expertise equal to that of the president’s OMB, so it can prepare credible alternative budgets for Congress. Congress still failed to prevent annual budget deficits.

Congress tried again by passing the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) of 1990, which defined two types of spending: mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Spending is mandatory for entitlement programs (such as Social Security and veterans’ pensions) that provide benefits to individuals legally entitled to them and cannot be reduced without changing the law. Discre- tionary spending, which entails expenditures authorized by annual appropriations, was subject to limits, or caps.26

To get the Democratic Congress to pass the BEA, President George H. W. Bush accepted some modest tax increases—de- spite having vowed at the 1988 Republican National Conven- tion: ‘‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’’ The tax hike may have cost him reelection in 1992. Nevertheless, the 1990 law did limit dis- cretionary spending and slowed unfinanced entitlements and tax cuts. The 1993 Deficit Reduction Act under President Bill Clin- ton made even more progress in reducing the deficit by cutting spending and raising taxes. By 1997, the deficit declined to $22 billion.

In 1997, President Clinton and Congress negotiated the Balanced Budget Act.27 Empowered by strong tax revenues dur- ing a long period of economic growth, the Balanced Budget Act accomplished what most observers thought was beyond political possibility. It not only led to the balanced budget it promised but actually produced a budget surplus ahead of schedule—the first surplus since 1969. In the early 2000s, President Bush and Repub- licans in Congress advocated using the budget surplus for large across-the-board tax cuts to return money to taxpayers.28

budget committees One committee in each house of Congress that supervises a comprehensive budget review process.

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) The budgeting arm of Congress, which prepares alternative budgets to those prepared by the president’s OMB.

Budget Enforcement Act (BEA) A1990 law that distinguished between mandatory and discretionary spending.

mandatory spending In the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, expenditures required by previous commitments.

discretionary spending In the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, authorized expenditures from annual appropriations.

entitlement A benefit to which every eligible person has a legal right and that the government cannot deny without changing the law.

Balanced Budget Act A1997 law that promised to balance the budget by 2002.

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Although the caps on discretionary spending, established by the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act, helped balance the budget entering 2000, many members of Congress in both parties resented its restrictions on their freedom to make fiscal decisions. Accord- ingly, Congress allowed the caps on discretionary spending to expire at the end of 2002.29 Since 2002, the government has run budget deficits, not surpluses.

Repeated failures to eliminate annual budget deficits renewed calls for a constitutional amendment requiring Con- gress to balance the budget—as required by most state con- stitutions. Congressional proposals for a balanced budget amendment (BBA) were first introduced in 1936 and often since.30 House Republicans tried again in 2011 but failed to win the needed two-thirds vote. Democrats opposed it for rea- sons similar to those given by most economists: a serious BBA would prevent the government from running a deficit to stim- ulate the economy in an economic slump. Some conservatives feared that a BBA would increase the courts’ role in deciding government spending cases certain to arise under it.31 Others noted that Congress could pass balanced budgets if it wished without a constitutional requirement, and such requirements would only encourage Congress to work around the law to increase deficits. That is what Congress did after passing the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Control Act in 1985. It set annually decreasing deficit targets that would trigger automatic spending cuts if not met. Each year, Congress simply raised the targets to meet them. The law was an utter failure, and the deficit targets were eliminated in 1990.

Congress’s repeated failure to limit the national debt is simi- lar and instructive. Prior to World War II, Congress limited indebtedness to $45 billion, only 10 percent above the existing debt of $40.4 billion.32 Every time the debt neared its legal limit—over 100 times since 1940—Congress raised the ceiling.33

Under pressure from the tea party movement in 2011, congres- sional Republicans opposed raising the debt ceiling again, but fi- nancial groups within the Republican Party argued that failing to pay our debts would cause financial chaos.34 Congress complied once more. Given that the ineffective debt ceiling causes so much partisan rancor and that only one other modern democracy (Denmark) legislates a similar debt ceiling, some wonder why it exists at all.35

Economic Policy and the Budget 481

14.4 Taxing and Spending Decisions

Identify the objectives of tax policy and the major reasons for the growth of government spending.

Ultimately, the budget is a policy document in which programs are funded in an effort to achieve policy objectives and address national problems. Decisions on how to raise and spend government funds are inherently political, because members of the public, governmen- tal leaders, and the political parties all hold diverse and competing perspectives on what policies should be adopted. Many of these

policy decisions are shaped by circum- stances outside the government’s im- mediate control.

Tax Policies Tax policy is designed to provide a continuous flow of income. A major text on government finance says that tax policy is sometimes changed to ac- complish one or more of several objec- tives:

• To adjust overall revenue to meet budget outlays

• To make the tax burden more eq- uitable for taxpayers

• To help control the economy by raising taxes (thus decreasing demand) or lowering taxes (thus increasing demand)36

In 1986 Congress passed one of the most sweeping tax reform laws in his- tory. The new policy reclaimed a great deal of revenue by eliminating many deductions for corporations and weal- thy citizens. By eliminating many tax

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482 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

brackets, the new tax policy approached the idea of a flat tax—one that requires everyone to pay at the same rate. A flat tax has the appeal of simplicity, but it violates the principle of progressive taxation, under which the rich pay proportionately higher taxes than the poor. Governments can rely on progressive taxation to redistribute wealth and thus promote economic equality.

After the 1986 tax reform, there were only two tax rates: 15 and 28 percent. In 1990 George H. W. Bush was forced to violate his pledge of ‘‘no new taxes’’ by creating a third tax rate, 31 per- cent. Bill Clinton created a fourth level, 39.6 percent in 1993, moving toward a more progressive tax structure.

Soon after his election, George W. Bush got Congress to pass a complex $1.35 trillion tax cut, with a top personal tax rate of 35 percent. Intended to stimulate the economy, the tax cuts also reduced the government’s tax revenue to match spend- ing.37 Budget deficits quickly returned under Bush, owing to reduced revenue, a downturn in the stock market, and unantici- pated expenses for homeland security and military action follow- ing the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The recession that began at the end of 2007 significantly reduced government tax revenues. One study showed that from Decem- ber 2007 to May 2008, approximately one-third of the adults in the work force were unemployed at some point, and 55 percent of the adults in the work force either were unemployed, had wages cut, or had their hours reduced involuntarily.38 All of these events reduce tax revenue. The deficit zoomed to over a trillion dollars in Bush’s last budget, which reflected costs of his $168 billion stimulus package and his $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). The deficit grew further with Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package in 2009. In 2012, Obama campaigned to restore the 39.6 tax bracket for those with the highest incomes.

Spending Policies The FY 2013 budget projects spending over $3,800,000,000,000— that’s almost four trillion dollars (or four thousand billion, if you prefer). Where does the money go? Figure 14.2 (p. 484) shows the relative size of eighteen categories of budget outlays proposed in President Obama’s budget for FY 2013.

progressive taxation A system of taxation whereby the rich pay proportionately higher taxes than the poor; used by governments to redistribute wealth and thus promote equality.

Taxing and Spending Decisions 483

To understand current expenditures, it is a good idea to examine national expenditures over time, as shown in Figure 14.3. The effect of World War II is clear: spending for national defense rose sharply after 1940, peaked at about 90 percent of the budget in 1945, and fell to about 30 percent in peacetime. The percentage allocated to defense rose again in the early 1950s,

FIGURE 14.2 Federal Spending in 2013, by Function

National defense Social Security

Income security Medicare

Health Net interest

Education, employment, social services Veterans’ benefits

Transportation

Community, regional development Natural resources, environment

Billions of dollars

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

702 826

559 530

386

114

140

Administration of justice 63

41 International affairs 60

General government 26 Science, space, technology 31

Agriculture 26 Energy 14

248

122

Federal budget authorities and outlays are organized into about twenty categories, some of which are mainly for bookkeeping purposes. This graph shows expected outlays for each of seventeen substantive functions in President Obama’s FY2013 budget. The final budget differed somewhat from this distribution because Congress amended some of the president’s spending proposals. The graph makes clear the huge differences among spending categories. Although the nation is engaged in wars abroad and military spending accounts for 18.5 percent of the budget, over 36 percent of government outlays is for payments to individuals through Social Security and income security programs. Taken together, health costs (including Medicare) account for 24 percent (more than national defense), and net interest consumes almost 7 percent of all outlays. This leaves relatively little for transportation, agriculture, justice, science, and energy—matters often regarded as important centers of government activity. Source: Executive Office of the President, Budget of the United States Government, Historical Tables, Fiscal Year 2013 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), Table 3.1.

484 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

reflecting rearmament during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Thereafter, the share of the budget devoted to defense decreased steadily (except for the bump during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s). This trend was reversed by the Carter administration in the 1970s but shot up during the Reagan presidency. Defense spending significantly decreased under George H. W. Bush and continued to fall under Clinton. Follow- ing the September 11 terrorist attacks, however, defense spending rose sharply. President George W. Bush’s proposed FY 2009 budget estimated outlays for national defense more than double the national defense budget for FY 2001. Even taking inflation into account, this represented a 59.5 percent increase in constant

FIGURE 14.3 National Government Outlays over Time

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ge Payments to individuals

All other

Net interest on debtNational defense

World War II

Vietnam War

Korean War

Reagan military buildup

Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

Year 1940 1945 0

100

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2013

This chart plots the percentage of the annual budget devoted to four major expense categories over time. It shows that significant changes have occurred in national spending since 1940. During World War II, defense spending consumed more than 80 percent of the national budget. Defense again accounted for most national expenditures during the Cold War of the 1950s. Since then, the military’s share of expenditures has declined, while payments to individuals (mostly in the form of Social Security benefits) have increased dramatically. Although recent defense spending to support wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes more constant dollars (adjusted to eliminate the effects of inflation) than defense spending at any time since 1945, this chart shows that as a proportion of the budget, defense has been dwarfed by the even more rapidly growing payments to individuals. Source: Executive Office of the President, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2013: Historical Tables (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), Table 6.1.

Taxing and Spending Decisions 485

dollars over the course of his administration.39 The Iraq war eventually cost over $800 billion and the war in Afghanistan over $500 billion.40

Government payments to individuals (e.g., Social Security) consistently consumed less of the budget than national defense until 1971. Since then, payments to individuals have accounted for the largest portion of the national budget, and they have been increasing. Net interest payments also increased substantially dur- ing the years of budget deficits. Pressure from payments for national defense, individuals, and interest on the public debt has squeezed all other government outlays.

There are two major explanations for this steady increase in government spending. One is bureaucratic, the other political. The bureaucratic explanation for spending increases involves incremental budgeting. When compiling their funding requests for the coming year, bureaucrats traditionally ask for the amount they received in the current year, plus some incremental increase to fund new projects. Because Congress already approved the agency’s budget for the current year, it pays little attention to the agency’s current size (the largest part of its budget) and focuses instead on the extra money (the increment) requested for the next year. As a result, few agencies are ever cut back, and spending continually goes up.

Incremental budgeting produces bureaucratic momentum that continually raises spending. Once an agency is established, it attracts a clientele that defends its existence and supports its requests for extra funds year after year. Because budgeting is a two-step process, agencies that get cut back in the authorizing committees sometimes manage (assisted by their interest group clientele) to get funds restored in the appropriations commit- tees—and if not in the House, then perhaps in the Senate. So incremental budgeting and the congressional budget-making process itself are ideally suited to pluralist politics.

Most spending is enshrined in law and uncontrollable unless the law is changed. For example, Social Security legislation guar- antees certain benefits to program participants when they retire. Medicare and veterans’ benefits also entitle citizens to certain pay- ments. These represent mandatory outlays. In Obama’s FY 2013 budget, about 67 percent of all budget outlays were uncontrollable or relatively uncontrollable—mainly payments to individuals under Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public assistance;

incremental budgeting A method of budget making that involves adding new funds (an increment) onto the amount previously budgeted (in last year’s budget).

mandatory outlay A payment that government must make by law.

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interest on the public debt; and farm price supports. Over two- thirds of the rest went for ‘‘security’’ (national defense, homeland security), leaving less than 11 percent of the total outlays in ‘‘non- security’’ discretionary spending.41

To be sure, Congress could change the laws to abolish entitle- ment payments, but what spending cuts would be acceptable to the public? In the abstract, voters favor cutting government spending, but they tend to favor maintaining ‘‘government pro- grams that help needy people and deal with important national problems.’’42 In fact, when a national poll asked whether respond- ents thought federal spending should be ‘‘increased, decreased, or kept about the same’’ for twelve different purposes—highways, welfare, public schools, crime, child care, border security, terror- ism, aid to the poor, Social Security, science and technology, the environment, and foreign aid—respondents favored increasing or keeping about the same level of spending for every purpose!43 A perplexed Congress, trying to reduce the budget deficit, faces a public that favors funding programs at even higher levels than those favored by most lawmakers.44 Moreover, spending for the most expensive of these programs—Social Security and Medi- care—is uncontrollable.

Social Security. The largest entitlement program is Social Security, a social insurance program that provides economic assis- tance to people faced with unemployment, disability, or old age; it is financed by taxes on employers and employees. Initially, Social Security benefits were distributed only to the aged, the unem- ployed, and surviving spouses—most of whom were widows— with dependent children. Today, Social Security also provides medical care for the elderly and income support for the disabled.

Social Security is not a form of personal savings; it is a pay- as-you-go tax system. Until recently, Social Security taxes col- lected from current workers and their employers in a given year paid the benefits of retirees, with surpluses held over in a trust fund to help finance the retirement of future generations. Since 2010, current retiree benefits have exceeded Social Security tax revenues, but interest income from the trust fund has made up the difference.45

When the program began, it had many contributors and few beneficiaries. The program could thus provide relatively large benefits with low taxes. In 1937, for example, the tax rate was 1

Social Security Social insurance that provides economic assistance to persons faced with unemployment, disability, or old age; it is financed by taxes on employers and employees.

Taxing and Spending Decisions 487

percent, and the Social Security taxes of nine workers supported each beneficiary. As the program matured and more people retired or became disabled, the ratio of workers to recipients decreased.

In FY 2012, the Social Security system paid old age, survivor, and disability benefits of a little over $778 billion to 56 million people and collected tax revenue from 159 million, a ratio of roughly 2.8 workers for every beneficiary.46 As the bulk of the baby boom generation retires between 2010 and 2030, the number of retirees will grow at a much faster rate than the number of workers. By 2035, the ratio will decline to two workers for every beneficiary.47

In 2012, approximately $53 billion in trust fund interest will be needed to pay current retirees.48 Benefit payments will perma- nently exceed tax receipts unless significant structural changes are made to the program. Ultimately, the Social Security Administra- tion will need to tap into not only the interest revenue but also the trust fund itself to help cover monthly payments starting around 2021.49 That will create a new challenge. The money in the trust fund has been invested in government securities. In other words, the Social Security funds for the future have been bor- rowed by the Treasury Department (and spent) to finance part of the government’s general debt. (See Figure 14.4.) When it is time to begin cashing in the trust fund, the Treasury Department will need to find a source of revenue to repay more than $2.7 trillion it has already borrowed from Social Security. This places a new layer of complexity on any effort to fight the deficit and lower the national debt.

While we focus here on the long-term challenges facing Social Security’s program for retirees, remember that there are multiple programs in Social Security including one for those with disabil- ities. If the old-age and survivors trust fund sounds like it is in dire shape, consider that costs will exceed total income for the dis- ability trust fund in 2013, and that fund is expected to be com- pletely depleted by 2016. The fund for retirees, assuming the Treasury Department can pay back what it has borrowed, should last until 2035.50

Politicians will face an inevitable dilemma: whether to reduce benefits and generate the ire of retirees or to raise taxes and gener- ate the ire of taxpayers. As a group, older Americans exercise enormous political power. People at or approaching retirement

488 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

age now make up over 30 percent of the potential electorate, and voter turnout among older Americans is reported to be more than twice that of younger people.51

Medicare and Medicaid. The Social Security Act was amended in 1965 to provide Medicare, health care for all people aged sixty- five or older. Fearful of the power of the American Medical Asso- ciation (AMA), which then opposed any form of government-pro- vided medical care, the Democrats confined their efforts to a compulsory hospitalization insurance plan for the elderly (this is

FIGURE 14.4 Day of Reckoning

B ill

io ns

o f d

ol la

Year

Assets at end of year Total income Cost

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035

Since 2010, tax revenues alone have been inadequate to cover Social Security benefits for current retirees. Taken together with interest income from the trust fund, total revenues still exceed expenses, but this will change in less than a decade. The Social Security Administration will then need to cash in the special Treasury notes that form the trust fund itself, and the Department of the Treasury will need to find a way to cover those IOUs. With bankruptcy of the system looming, the debate over change boils down to two questions that politicians politely decline to answer: How soon will the national government change the current system, and how much will it change it? The combined trust funds for retirement and disability programs will be gone before 2035. Source: Social Security Administration, ‘‘2012 OASDI Trustees Report,’’ Table VI.F8, www.ssa.gov.

Social Security Act The law that provided for Social Security and is the basis of modern American social welfare.

Medicare A health insurance program for all persons older than sixty-five, as well as for some younger individuals with disabilities.

Taxing and Spending Decisions 489

known today as Part A of Medicare). In addition, the bill contained a version of an alternative Republican plan that called for voluntary government-subsidized insurance to cover physicians’ fees (this is known today as Part B of Medicare). In 2011, almost 49 million people were enrolled in Medicare, which cost roughly $550 bil- lion.52 A third program, added a year later, is called Medicaid; it provides medical aid to the poor through federally assisted state health programs. Medicaid provides comprehensive medical and hospitalization coverage to people whose income is below a level determined by individual states. Finally, in 2003, the Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Mod- ernization Act to provide beneficiaries with voluntary subsidized prescription drug coverage through private insurers. By 2011, 12 percent of government spending on Medicare was devoted to the prescription plan.53

Unlike Medicare, which is solely a federal program, Medicaid is jointly run and financed by the federal government and the states. The program paid benefits on behalf of almost 68 million people in FY 2010 (more than participate in Medicare) at a cost of $404 billion (federal and state expenditures combined). The federal share of Medicaid costs was over two-thirds of the total cost.54 Since Medicaid is one of the most expensive items in state budgets, rising healthcare costs and declining tax revenues in a recession place enormous economic pressures on states as well as the national government.55

Entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are expensive, and expenses are projected to rise as the American public ages. This will place increasing pressure on budgets and complicate any serious efforts to tackle annual defi- cits and the growing national debt. Debates in these areas often come down to differing perspectives on freedom and equality, involve coordination problems across levels of government, and are influenced by complex issue networks indicative of our plural- ist system.

Medicaid A need-based comprehensive medical and hospitalization program.

490 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

SUMMARY 14.1 Government Purposes and Public

Policies • A public policy is a general plan of

action adopted by a government to solve a social problem, counter a threat, or pursue an objective.

• The basic objectives of government tend to be distributive, redistribu- tional, and regulatory.

• The policymaking process can be separated into four stages: • agenda setting: the stage at which

problems are defined as political issues; problems can be considered sources of policies for many rea- sons.

• policy formulation: the stage at which formal policy proposals are developed and officials decide to adopt them; this can occur through a measure proposed by the presi- dent or legislation.

• implementation: the stage at which the policy is carried out and coordi- nation is critical.

• policy evaluation: analysis of policy performance through feedback gathered by studies that measure the success of the policy.

14.2 Fragmentation, Coordination, and Issue Networks • These policymaking stages are

often marked by fragmentation and

by efforts intended to achieve coordination.

• The multiplicity of participants in policymaking, the diffusion of authority within both Congress and the executive branch, the separation of powers, and federalism are chief causes of fragmented policymaking.

• The fragmentation of government accentuates pluralism because it facil- itates the participation of interest groups, which works in favor of well- organized, aggressive constituencies and against the broader but more passive public at large.

• Issue networks provide opportunities for compromise and negotiation in order to create solutions and promote pluralist democracy. These are based on shared expertise rather than ideo- logical similarity.

14.3 Economic Policy and the Budget • The national budget defines

• budget authority, or how much government agencies are authorized to spend on programs.

• budget outlays, or actual expendi- tures by agencies in a fiscal year.

• receipts, or how much is expected in tax and other revenues.

• The OMB supervises the budget process in the executive branch by

Summary 491

• initiating the process by meeting with the president and ascertaining his priorities.

• assembling information and making recommendations to the president.

• receiving budget requests from other agencies and negotiating the budget.

• Approving budgets in Congress is cumbersome because • there are opportunities for special

interest groups to get into the process.

• it is an uncoordinated process in which one group of legislators in each house reviews the budget while others authorize programs and appropriate funds.

• The Balanced Budget Act (BBA) was passed in 1997, and a balanced budget was delivered.

• A serious economic downturn, increased defense spending after 9/11, and skyrocketing entitlement programs have brought back enormous deficits.

14.4 Taxing and Spending Decisions • Tax policies are designed to provide

a continuous flow of income. • Entitlement programs (Social Security,

Medicare, Medicaid) are mandatory outlays because they are required under current law and continue to increase.

• Most of the budget now consists of either defense and homeland security spend- ing, which is difficult to cut, or manda- tory programs of one form or another like interest payments or entitlements. Nonsecurity discretionary spending is less than 15 percent of the budget.

ASSESSING YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH APLIA...YOUR VIRTUAL TUTOR!

14.1 Categorize different types of public policies and outline the process by which policies are formulated and implemented. 1. Define distributive, redistributional,

and regulatory public policies. 2. Explain how public policies

originate. 3. What are the four main stages of the

policymaking process?

14.2 Identify the major forces that work against coherent problem solving in government. 1. How do federalism and the separa-

tion of powers contribute to fragmen- tation in policymaking?

2. What are issue networks? 3. Do fragmentation and issue networks

reflect the pluralist or majoritarian model of democracy?

492 Chapter 14 Policymaking and the Budget

14.3 Describe the process by which the national budget is prepared and passed into law and the reforms undertaken by Congress to balance the budget. 1. What executive agency is charged

with preparing the national budget? 2. What is the difference between a

budget authorization and an appro- priation?

3. What efforts has Congress made to control the deficit?

4. Distinguish between mandatory and discretionary spending.

14.4 Identify the objectives of tax policy and the major reasons for the growth of government spending. 1. What is the difference between a flat

tax and a progressive tax? Which do you think is fairer?

2. What part of the budget poses the most serious long-term challenge to eliminating the deficit? Why?

3. What are the key problems facing Social Security and Medicare in coming years?

Assessing Your Understanding 493

Appendix

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States

of America

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are cre- ated equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 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 power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accord- ingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the

A-1 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of govern- ment. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for oppos- ing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapa- ble of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreign- ers; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the ten- ure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

A-2 Appendix

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giv- ing his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for

any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; For imposing taxes on us without our consent; For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended

offenses; For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring

province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instru- ment for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies;

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign merce- naries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, al- ready begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeav- ored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruc- tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

The Declaration of Independence A-3

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigra- tion and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of Amer- ica, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly pub- lish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political con- nection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent States they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, estab- lish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

JOHN HANCOCK and fifty-five others

The Constitution of the United States of America*

[Preamble: outlines goals and effect] We the people of the United States, in order to form a more per- fect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and

*Passages no longer in effect are printed in italic type.

A-4 Appendix

secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I [The legislative branch]

[Powers vested]

Section 1 All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

[House of Representatives: selection, term, qualifications, appor- tionment of seats, census requirement, exclusive power to impeach]

Section 2 The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

The Constitution of the United States of America A-5

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

[Senate: selection, term, qualifications, exclusive power to try impeachments]

Section 3 The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the expi- ration of the sixth Year, so that one-third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a Presi- dent pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirma- tion. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the members Present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from the Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

A-6 Appendix

[Elections]

Section 4 The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

[Powers and duties of the two chambers: rules of procedure, power over members]

Section 5 Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its proceedings, pun- ish its Members for disorderly behaviour, and with the Concur- rence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

[Compensation, privilege from arrest, privilege of speech, disabilities of members]

Section 6 The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Com- pensation for their services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respec- tive Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be ques- tioned in any other Place.

The Constitution of the United States of America A-7

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Author- ity of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

[Legislative process: revenue bills, approval or veto power of president]

Section 7 All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with Objections to that House in which it ori- ginated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, to- gether with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and, if approved by two thirds of that house, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Man- ner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be re-passed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

[Powers of Congress enumerated]

Section 8 The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to

pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general

A-8 Appendix

Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the

several States, and with the Indian tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform

Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign

Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities

and current Coin of the United States; To establish Post Offices and post Roads; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by secur-

ing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the

high Seas, and offenses against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and

make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money

to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make rules for the Government and Regulation of the land

and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of

the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Mi-

litia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all places purchased by the Consent of the Legis- lature of the State in which the Same shall be, for Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

The Constitution of the United States of America A-9

[Elastic clause] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

[Powers denied Congress]

Section 9 The Migration or Importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be pro- hibited by the Congress prior to the Year 1808; but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding $10 for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be sus- pended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in

Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce

or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Conse- quence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office or Profit or trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

[Powers denied the states]

Section 10 No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto law, or Law impairing the obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

A-10 Appendix

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a for- eign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Article II [The executive branch]

[The president: power vested, term, electoral college, qualifica- tions, presidential succession, compensation, oath of office]

Section 1 The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabi- tant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each: which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal

The Constitution of the United States of America A-11

Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immedi- ately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the Presi- dent the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Ma- jority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In cases of the Removal of the President from Office or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of Removal, Death, Resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Offi- cer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—‘‘I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability preserve, pro- tect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’’

[Powers and duties: as commander in chief, over advisers, to par- don, to make treaties and appoint officers]

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Section 2 The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the sev- eral States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Sen- ators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassa- dors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Com- missions which shall expire at the end of their next Session.

[Legislative, diplomatic, and law-enforcement duties]

Section 3 He shall from time to time give to the Congress Infor- mation of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Offi- cers of the United States.

[Impeachment]

Section 4 The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and on Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The Constitution of the United States of America A-13

Article III [The judicial branch]

[Power vested; Supreme Court; lower courts; judges]

Section 1 The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Con- gress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

[Jurisdiction; trial by jury]

Section 2 The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Min- isters and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Reg- ulations, as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

[Treason: definition, punishment]

Section 3 Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason

A-14 Appendix

unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Article IV [States’ relations]

[Full faith and credit]

Section 1 Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

[Interstate comity, rendition]

Section 2 The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privi- leges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due.

[New states]

Section 3 New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this

The Constitution of the United States of America A-15

Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

[Obligations of the United States to the states]

Section 4 The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

Article V [Mode of amendment] The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three- fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hun- dred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI [Prior debts, supremacy of Constitution, oaths of office] All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

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, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

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The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a Qual- ification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Article VII [Ratification] The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be suffi- cient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present, the seventeenth day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and of the Inde- pendence of the United States of America the twelfth. In WIT- NESS whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.

GEORGE WASHINGTON and thirty-seven others

Amendments to the Constitution [The first ten amendments—the Bill of Rights—were adopted in 1791.]

Amendment I [Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly] Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of reli- gion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the free- dom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II [Right to bear arms] A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Constitution of the United States of America A-17

Amendment III [Quartering of soldiers] No Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house with- out the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV [Searches and seizures] The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, sup- ported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V [Rights of persons: grand juries, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, due process, eminent domain] No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infa- mous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any crim- inal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Amendment VI [Rights of accused in criminal prosecutions] In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and dis- trict wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining Wit- nesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.

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Amendment VII [Civil trials] In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII [Punishment for crime] Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX [Rights retained by the people] The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X [Rights reserved to the states] The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitu- tion, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Amendment XI [Suits against the states; adopted 1798] The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another state, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

Amendment XII [Election of the president; adopted 1804] The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by bal- lot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in

The Constitution of the United States of America A-19

distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—the person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Represen- tatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the rep- resentation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice Presi- dent shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President shall be the Vice Presi- dent, if such number be a majority of the whole number of elec- tors appointed; and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list the Senate shall choose the Vice President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole num- ber shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the Office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States.

Amendment XIII [Abolition of slavery; adopted 1865]

Section 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

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Section 2 Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XIV [Adopted 1868]

[Citizenship rights; privileges and immunities; due process; equal protection]

Section 1 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State 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.

[Apportionment of representation]

Section 2 Representatives shall be apportioned among the sev- eral States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

[Disqualification of Confederate officials]

Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Con- gress, or Elector of President and Vice President, or hold any Office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Con- gress, or as an Officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial Officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid

The Constitution of the United States of America A-21

or comfort to the enemies thereof. Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.

[Public debts]

Section 4 The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pen- sions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss of emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.

[Enforcement]

Section 5 The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appro- priate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Amendment XV [Extension of right to vote; adopted 1870]

Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XVI [Income tax; adopted 1913] The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Amendment XVII [Popular election of senators; adopted 1913]

Section 1 The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in

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each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

Section 2 When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the Legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the Legislature may direct.

Section 3 This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

Amendment XVIII [Prohibition of intoxicating liquors; adopted 1919, repealed 1933]

Section 1 After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof, for beverage purposes, is hereby prohibited.

Section 2 The Congress and the several States shall have concur- rent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legisla- tures of the several States, as provided by the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission thereof to the States by the Congress.

Amendment XIX [Right of women to vote; adopted 1920]

Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Constitution of the United States of America A-23

Amendment XX [Commencement of terms of office; adopted 1933]

Section 1 The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Sena- tors and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meetings shall begin at noon on the 3d day of Jan- uary, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

[Extension of presidential succession]

Section 3 If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been cho- sen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the Pres- ident elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a Presi- dent-elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such persons shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4 The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Represen- tatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5 Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the Legisla- tures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

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Amendment XXI [Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment; adopted 1933]

Section 1 The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitu- tion of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2 The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of submission thereof to the States by the Congress.

Amendment XXII [Limit on presidential tenure; adopted 1951]

Section 1 No person shall be elected to the Office of President more than twice, and no person who has held the Office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the Office of President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any per- son holding the Office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the Office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the Office of Presi- dent or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legisla- tures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Amendment XXIII [Presidential electors for the District of Columbia; adopted 1961]

Section 1 The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

The Constitution of the United States of America A-25

A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce this arti- cle by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XXIV [Poll tax outlawed in national elections; adopted 1964]

Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Repre- sentative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce this arti- cle by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XXV [Presidential succession; adopted 1967]

Section 1 In case of the removal of the President from Office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

[Vice-presidential vacancy]

Section 2 Whenever there is a vacancy in the Office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take Office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3 Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of

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Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to dis- charge the powers and duties of his Office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

[Presidential disability]

Section 4 Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the Presi- dent pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his Office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the Office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representa- tives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall re- sume the powers and duties of his Office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department(s) or of such other body as Congress may by law pro- vide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their writ- ten declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his Office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his Office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his Office.

Amendment XXVI [Right of eighteen-year-olds to vote; adopted 1971]

Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

The Constitution of the United States of America A-27

Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XXVII [Congressional pay raises; adopted 1992] No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect, until an election of Repre- sentatives shall have intervened.

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Notes

CHAPTER 1 / DILEMMAS OF DEMOCRACY / PAGES 2–41 1. Adam Liptak, ‘‘In Health Law, Asking Where U.S. Power

Stops,’’ New York Times, 14 November 2011, pp. A1, A17.

2. Ibid. 3. Adam Liptak, ‘‘Congress’s Taxing Powers Cited—

Medicaid Growth Limited,’’ New York Times, 29 June 2012, p. A1.

4. David Easton, The Political System (New York: Knopf, 1953), p. 65.

5. There are more elaborate definitions. A recent book defines globalization as ‘‘the intensification of cross- national interactions that promote the establishment of trans-national structures and the global integration of cultural, economic, environmental, political, technological and social processes on global, suprana- tional, national, regional and local levels,’’ in Axel Dreher, Noel Gaston, and Pim Martens, Measuring Globalisation: Gauging Its Consequences (New York: Springer, 2008), p. 15.

6. Mark Andreas Kayser, ‘‘How Domestic Is Domestic Politics? Globalization and Elections,’’ Annual Review of Political Science 10 (2007): 341–362.

7. Thomas Biersteker and Cynthia Weber (eds.), State Sov- ereignty as Social Construct (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1996), p. 12. For a definition of sovereignty at the national level, see Bernard Crick, ‘‘Sovereignty,’’ in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 15 (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1968), p. 77. In the same encyclopedia, David Apter, ‘‘Government,’’ vol. 6, links sovereignty to ‘‘a national autonomous community,’’ (p. 215).

8. Michael Goodhart and Stacy Bondanella Taninchev, ‘‘The New Sovereigntist Challenge for Global Governance: Democracy Without Sovereignty,’’ International Studies Quarterly 55 (2011): 1047–1068.

9. Jess Bravin, ‘‘U.S. to Pull Out of World Court on War Crimes,’’ Wall Street Journal, 6 May 2002, p. A4.

10. Charles M. Madigan and Colin McMahon, ‘‘A Slow, Painful Quest for Justice,’’ Chicago Tribune, 7 September 1999, pp. 1, 8.

11. Tom Hundley, ‘‘Europe Seeks to Convert U.S. on Death Penalty,’’ Chicago Tribune, 26 June 2000, p. 1; and Salim Muwakkil, ‘‘The Capital of Capital Punishment,’’ Chicago Tribune, 12 July 1999, p. 18.

12. Alemayehu Fentaw, ‘‘Anarchy, Terrorism, and Piracy in Somalia: New Rules of Engagement for the International Community,’’ American Chronicle, 27 May 2009, http:// www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/103942; and Ruchita Beri, ‘‘Piracy in Somalia: Addressing the Root Causes,’’ Strategic Analysis 35 (2011): 452–464.

13. 1977 Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub- lics, Article 11, in Constitutions of Countries of the World, ed. A. P. Blaustein and G. H. Flanz (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1971).

14. Edward Cody, ‘‘Chinese Lawmakers Approve Measure to Protect Private Property Rights,’’ Washington Post, 17 March 2007, p. A10.

15. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Critique of the Gotha Programme (New York: International Publishers, 1938), p. 10. Originally written in 1875 but published in 1891.

16. Abby Goodnough, ‘‘Gay Rights Rebuke May Bring Change in Tactics,’’ New York Times, 5 November 2009, pp. A1, A4.

17. Erik Eckholm, ‘‘As Victories Pile Up, Gay Rights Advo- cates Cheer ‘Milestone Year,’’’ New York Times, 8 November 2012, p. P7.

18. One scholar holds that freedom came from northern European languages, and liberty from Latin, and they originally had opposite meanings. Liberty meant separation and freedom meant connection. See David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America’s Founding Ideas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 1–15.

19. See the argument in Amy Gutmann, Liberal Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 9–10.

20. Transportation Security Administration, ‘‘Imaging Technology: Innovation & Technology,’’ n.d., http:// www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/ait/index.shtm.

21. See John H. Schaar, ‘‘Equality of Opportunity and Beyond,’’ in Nomos IX: Equality, ed. J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman (New York: Atherton Press, 1967), pp. 228–249.

22. Lydia Said, ‘‘Most Americans Believe Crime Is Worsen- ing,’’ Gallup Poll Report, 31 October 2011.

23. See generally Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

24. Joseph Kahn, ‘‘Anarchism, the Creed That Won’t Stay Dead,’’ New York Times, 5 August 2000, p. A15.

25. For a similar approach, see Scott Keeter and Gregory A. Smith, ‘‘In Search of Ideologues in America,’’ Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 11 April

N-1 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

2006, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/17/in-search-of- ideologues-in-america.

26. The communitarian category was labeled ‘‘populist’’ in early editions of this book. We have relabeled it for two reasons. First, we believe that communitarian is more de- scriptive of the category. Second, we recognize that the term populist has been used increasingly to refer to the political styles of candidates such as Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader. In this sense, a populist appeals to mass resentment against those in power. Given the debate over what populist really means, we have decided to use com- munitarian, a less familiar term with fewer connotations. For a discussion of definitions in print, see Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (New York: Basic Books, 1995).

27. Keeter and Smith call this grouping ‘‘Populist.’’ 28. The communitarian movement was founded by a group

of ethicists and social scientists who met in Washington, D.C., in 1990 at the invitation of sociologist Amitai Etzioni and political theorist William Galston to discuss the declining state of morality and values in the United States. Etzioni became the leading spokesperson for the movement. See his Rights and the Common Good: The Communitarian Perspective (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), pp. iii–iv. The communitarian political movement should be distinguished from communitarian thought in political philosophy, which is associated with theorists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Charles Taylor, who wrote in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In essence, communitarian theorists criticized lib- eralism, which stressed freedom and individualism, as excessively individualistic. Their fundamental critique was that liberalism slights the values of community life. See Allen E. Buchanan, ‘‘Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,’’ Ethics 99 (July 1989): 852–882; and Patrick Neal and David Paris, ‘‘Liberalism and the Communitarian Critique: A Guide for the Perplexed,’’ Canadian Journal of Political Science 23 (September 1990): 419–439. Communitarian philosophers attacked liberalism over the inviolability of civil liberties. In our framework, such issues involve the trade-off between freedom and order. Communitarian and liberal theorists differ less concerning the trade-off between freedom and equality. See William R. Lund, ‘‘Communitarian Politics and the Problem of Equality,’’ Political Research Quar- terly 46 (September 1993): 577–600. But see also Susan Hekman, ‘‘The Embodiment of the Subject: Feminism and the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,’’ Journal of Politics 54 (November 1992): 1098–1119.

29. Etzioni, Rights and the Common Good, p. iv; and Etzioni, ‘‘Communitarian Solutions/What Communitarians Think,’’ Journal of State Government 65 (January– March): 9–11. For a critical review of the communitarian program, see Jeremiah Creedon, ‘‘Communitarian Mani- festo,’’ Utne Reader (July–August 1992): 38–40.

30. Etzioni, ‘‘Communitarian Solutions/What Communitar- ians Think,’’ p. 10. See also Lester Thurow, ‘‘Communi- tarian vs. Individualistic Capitalism,’’ in Etzioni, Rights

and the Common Good, pp. 277–282. Note, however, that government’s role in dealing with issues of social and economic inequality is far less developed in communitar- ian writings than is its role in dealing with issues of order. In the same volume, an article by David Osborne, ‘‘Beyond Left and Right: A New Political Paradigm’’ (pp. 283–290), downplays the role of government in guaranteeing entitlements.

31. Etzioni, Rights and the Common Good, p. 17. 32. See Sarah Sobieraj, Soundbitten (New York: New York

University Press, 2011). 33. http://occupywallst.org. 34. Frank Newport, ‘‘Americans Favor Jobs Plan Proposals,

Including Taxing Rich,’’ Gallup Poll, September 20, 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/149567/Americans- Favor-Jobs-Plan-Proposals-Including-Taxing- Rich.aspx.

35. Kenneth Janda, ‘‘What’s in a Name? Party Labels across the World,’’ in The CONTA Conference: Proceedings of the Conference of Conceptual and Terminological Analysis of the Social Sciences, ed. F. W. Riggs (Frankfurt: Indeks Verlage, 1982), pp. 46–62.

36. Christopher Wlezien and Stuart N. Soroka, ‘‘Inequality in Policy Responsiveness?’’ in Who Gets Represented? ed. Pe- ter K. Ennis and Christopher Wlezien (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), pp. 285–310.

37. See the discussion in Dietrich Rueschemeyer, ‘‘Address- ing Inequality,’’ Journal of Democracy 15 (October 2004): 76–90.

38. Kenneth Janda, ‘‘Do Our People’s Republics Work?’’ Newsday, 6 August 2003, p. A27.

39. Deborah Ball and Nicholas Birch, ‘‘Swiss Ban Minarets in Controversial Vote,’’ Wall Street Journal, 30 November 2009.

40. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, ‘‘Campaign Interest Comparable to Most Previous Elec- tion, Well Below 2008,’’ News Release, 15 March 2012, http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/3-15- 2012%20NII%20final.pdf.

41. John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Stealth De- mocracy: Americans’ Beliefs about How Government Should Work (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 7.

42. See Robert A. Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 5.

43. Ibid., p. 24. 44. Jeffrey M. Berry, The New Liberalism (Washington, D.C.:

The Brookings Institution, 1999). 45. Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E.

Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy (Prince- ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012).

46. The classic statement on elite theory is C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).

47. Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, ‘‘Oligarchy in the United States?’’ Perspectives on Politics 7 (December 2009): 731–751.

N-2 Notes

48. Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, ‘‘Two Faces of Power,’’ American Political Science Review56 (December 1962): 947–952; and John Gaventa, Power and Powerless- ness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980).

49. Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnacki, David C. Kimball, and Beth L. Leech, Lobbying and Policy Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

50. See Larry M. Bartels, Unequal Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009).

51. See, for example, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Assessing the Quality of Democ- racy: A Practical Guide (Stockholm, Sweden: Interna- tional IDEA, 2008), http://www.idea.int/publications/aqd/ index.cfm.

52. Freedom in the World 2009 (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2009).

53. Sam Dagher and Julian E. Barnes, ‘‘Sectarian Feud Roils Post-U.S. Iraq,’’ Wall Street Journal, 21 December 2011, p. A12.

54. The classic treatment of the conflict between freedom and order in democratizing countries is Samuel P. Hun- tington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Ha- ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968).

55. E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1960), p. 35.

CHAPTER 2 / THE CONSTITUTION / PAGES 42–79 1. Introductory speech by President V. Giscard d’Estaing to

the Convention on the Future of Europe, 28 February 2002, http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/speeches/ 1.pdf.

2. Letter from George Washington to James Madison, 31 March 1787, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/ constitution/1787/madison3.html.

3. Günter Burghardt, ‘‘The Development of the European Constitution from the U.S. Point of View,’’ in The Euro- pean Union Constitutional Treaty: A Guide for Ameri- cans, ed. Esther Brimmer (Washington, D.C.: Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University, 2004).

4. Kevin Sullivan, ‘‘Ireland Shoots Down Plan for a More Unified E.U.,’’ Washington Post, 14 June 2008, p. A8; and Charles Forelle and Quentin Fottrell, ‘‘Irish Vote Deci- sively to Support EU Reform,’’ Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB125456184521661679.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFT- WhatsNews (accessed 4 October 2009).

5. Stephen Castle, ‘‘Europeans Planning for Less Unanim- ity,’’ New York Times, 3 January 2012, p. A4.

6. Samuel Eliot Morison, Oxford History of the American People (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 172.

7. John Plamentz, Man and Society, rev. ed., ed. M. E. Pla- mentz and Robert Wokler, vol. 1, From the Middle Ages to Locke (New York: Longman, 1992), pp. 216–218.

8. Jack N. Rakove (ed.), The Annotated U.S .Constitution and Declaration of Independence (Boston: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 23.

9. Extrapolated from U.S. Department of Defense, Selected Manpower Statistics, FY 1982 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), Table 2–30, p. 130; and U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1985 Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), Tables 1 and 2, p. 6.

10. Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles (New York: Knopf, 2011), p. 9.

11. Joseph T. Keenan, The Constitution of the United States (Homewood, Ill.: Dow-Jones-Irwin, 1975).

12. Rakove, p. 30. 13. David P. Szatmary, Shays’ Rebellion: The Making of an

Agrarian Insurrection (Amherst: University of Massachu- setts Press, 1980), pp. 82–102.

14. ‘‘The Call for the Federal Constitutional Convention, Feb. 21, 1787,’’ in The Federalist, ed. Edward M. Earle (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 577.

15. Robert H. Jackson, The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy (New York: Knopf, 1941), p. 8.

16. Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985), pp. 205–209.

17. U.S. Constitution, Article V. 18. Donald S. Lutz, ‘‘The Preamble to the Constitution of the

United States,’’ This Constitution 1 (September 1983): 23–30.

19. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: Wiley, 1960), p. 33.

20. Robert A. Goldwin, letter to the editor, Wall Street Jour- nal, 30 August 1993, p. A11.

21. Herbert J. Storing (ed.), The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).

22. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835–1839, ed. J. P. Mayer and Max Lerner (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 102.

23. Jerold L. Waltman, Political Origins of the U.S. Income Tax (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985), p. 10.

CHAPTER 3 / FEDERALISM / PAGES 80–109 1. Alan Dean Foster, ‘‘Garden Variety Javelinas,’’ New York

Times, 7 Aug 2010, p. WK10. 2. Daniel B. Wood, ‘‘Opinion Polls Show Broad Support for

Tough Arizona Immigration Law,’’ The Christian Science Monitor, 30 April 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/ Society/2010/0430/Opinion-polls-show-broad-support- for-tough-Arizona-immigration-law.

3. Compare 8 U.S.C. § 1302 and § 1304(e) with Arizona’s SB1070, http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/ sb1070s.pdf.

4. United States of America v. Arizona, CV 10-1413-PHX- SRB (USDC AZ), 28 July 2010, http://www.azd.uscourts.

Chapter 2 / The Constitution / pages 42–79 N-3

gov/azd/courtinfo.nsf/983700DFEE44B56- B0725776E005D6CCB/$file/10-1413-87.pdf.

5. United States v. Arizona, 641 F.3d 339 (2011). 6. Robert Barnes, ‘‘Justices Throw Out Parts of Arizona Im-

migration Law,’’ Washington Post, 26 June 2012, p. A01. 7. William H. Stewart, Concepts of Federalism (Lanham,

Md.: University Press of America, 1984). 8. Edward Corwin, ‘‘The Passing of Dual Federalism,’’ Uni-

versity of Virginia Law Review 36 (1950): 4. 9. See Daniel J. Elazar, The American Partnership (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1962); and Morton Grodzins, The American System (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966).

10. James T. Patterson, The New Deal and the States: Federal- ism in Transition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969).

11. Lisa Mascaro, ‘‘Patriot Act Provisions Extended Just in Time,’’ Los Angeles Times, 27 May, 2011, http://articles.lati- mes.com/2011/may/27/nation/la-na-patriot-act-20110527.

12. John Dinan and Shama Gamkhar, ‘‘The State of Ameri- can Federalism 2008–2009: The Presidential Election, the Economic Downturn, and the Consequences for Federal- ism,’’ Publius: The Journal of Federalism 39, no. 3 (2009): 369–407.

13. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819). 14. Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824). 15. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 19 How. 393, 426 (1857). 16. Jeff Shesol, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the

Supreme Court (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010). 17. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995). 18. Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 98 (1997). 19. United States v. Morrison, 120 S. Ct. 1740 (2000). 20. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). 21. Roper v. Simmons, 343 U.S. 551 (2005). 22. United States v. Comstock, 560 U.S. ___ (2010). 23. Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Govern-

ment, FY2009 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008), Table 12.1.

24. Brandy Anderson, ‘‘Congress Passes National .08 BAC Law,’’ DRIVEN (Fall 2000).

25. Terry Sanford, Storm over the States (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).

26. Quoted in Cynthia J. Bowling and Deil S. Wright, ‘‘Public Administration in the Fifty States: A Half-Century Administrative Revolution,’’ State and Local Government Review 30, (Winter 1998): 52.

27. David M. Hedge, Governance and the Changing American States (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998).

28. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, ‘‘State and Local Government, Excluding Education and Hospitals,’’ in Career Guide to Industries, 2010–11 Edi- tion, http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs042.htm.

29. Paul Manna, School’s In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda (Washington D.C.: Georgetown Uni- versity Press, 2006).

30. Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act of 2004. 31. Joseph Zimmerman, ‘‘Congressional Preemption during

the George W. Bush Administration,’’ Publius 37, no. 3 (2007): 432–452.

32. Ibid., 436. 33. Ibid., 432. 34. John Kincaid, ‘‘From Cooperative to Coercive Federal-

ism,’’ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 509 (May 1990): 139–152.

35. ‘‘Unfunded Federal Mandates,’’ Congressional Digest (March 1995): 68.

36. Paul Posner, ‘‘The Politics of Coercive Federalism,’’ Pub- lius 37, no. 3 (2007): 390–412.

37. National Conference of State Legislatures, ‘‘States Legisla- tures Face Unsettled Conditions in 2008,’’ NCSL News, 14 December 2007, http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx? tabid=16893.

38. National Conference of State Legislatures Budget and Reform Committee, ‘‘Introduction to UMRA,’’ Mandate- Monitor7, no. 1 (January 2010): http://www.ncsl.org/ default.aspx?tabid=19450.

39. U.S. Department of Justice, ‘‘Guidance Concerning Redis- tricting in Retrogression under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,’’ 42 U.S.C. 1973c, 66 Federal Register 5411, 5413, 18 January 2001; and David E. Rosenbaum, ‘‘Fight over Political Map Centers on Race,’’ New York Times, 21 February 2002, p. A20.

40. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of The United States: 2012 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), Table 428: ‘‘Number of Govern- mental Units by Type, 1962–2007,’’ http://www.census.gov/ compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0428.pdf.

41. U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).

CHAPTER 4 / PUBLIC OPINION, POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION, AND THE MEDIA / PAGES 110–151 1. Amnesty International data reported at http://

www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/march/29/ death-penalty-countries-world.

2. Frank Newport, ‘‘In U.S., Support for Death Penalty Falls to 39-Year Low,’’ Gallup Poll Report, 13 October 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/150089/Support- Death-Penalty-Falls-Year-Low.aspx.

3. Peter Applebome, ‘‘Bill to Repeal Death Penalty in Con- necticut Goes to Malloy,’’ New York Times, 12 April 2012, p. A21.

4. Warren Weaver, Jr., ‘‘Death Penalty a 300-Year Issue in America,’’ New York Times, 3 July 1976.

5. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). 6. Gregg v. Georgia, 248 U.S. 153 (1976). 7. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics,

‘‘Capital Punishment 2010—Statistical Tables,’’ Table 15, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ cp10st.pdf.

8. Sixty-eight percent of whites favor the death penalty, while 56 percent of non-whites oppose it. Newport, ‘‘In U.S., Support for Death Penalty Falls to 39-Year Low.’’

N-4 Notes

9. Newport, ‘‘In U.S., Support for Death Penalty Falls to 39-Year Low.’’

10. Death Penalty Information Center, ‘‘Facts about the Death Penalty,’’ 26 September 2012, http://www.death- penaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf.

11. Death Penalty Information Center, ‘‘Methods of Execu- tion,’’ 4 March 2012, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ methods-execution.

12. David Masci, ‘‘An Impassioned Debate: An Overview of the Death Penalty in America,’’ Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 19 December 2007, http://pewforum. org/docs/?DocID=270.

13. George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1991 (Rowman and Littlefield, 1992), p. 132.

14. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, ‘‘Key Facts at a Glance: Executions,’’ 4 March 2012, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/ exetab.cfm.

15. Stephen E. Frantzich, Political Parties in the Technologi- cal Age (New York: Longman, 1989), p. 152. Frantzich presents a table showing that more than 60 percent of children in homes in which both parents have the same party preference will adopt that preference. When parents are divided, the children tend to be divided among Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

16. Recent research on twins separately raised confirms that party identification ‘‘is driven almost entirely by familial socialization,’’ but there appears to be a genetic propen- sity for twins ‘‘to be intense or apathetic’’ regardless of which party they were raised to support. See Peter K. Hatemi et al., ‘‘Is There a ‘Party’ in Your Genes?’’ Politi- cal Research Quarterly 62 (September 2009): 584–600.

17. In a panel study of parents and high school seniors in 1965 and in 1973, some years after their graduation, Jennings and Niemi found that 57 percent of children shared their parents’ party identification in 1965, but only 47 percent did by 1973. See Jennings and Niemi, Political Character, pp. 90–91. See also Robert C. Lus- kin, John P. McIver, and Edward G. Carmines, ‘‘Issues and the Transmission of Partisanship,’’ American Jour- nal of Political Science 33 (May 1989): 440–458. They found that children are more likely to shift between par- tisanship and independence than to ‘‘convert’’ to the other party. When conversion occurs, it is more likely to be based on economic issues than on social issues.

18. See Roberta S. Sigel (ed.), Political Learning in Adult- hood: A Sourcebook of Theory and Research (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

19. One study found that additional media coverage of po- litical issues did not change the impact of education on political knowledge. See Benjamin Highton, ‘‘Political Knowledge Gaps and Changes in the Information Envi- ronment: The Case of Education’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill., 2008).

20. Pew Research Center, ‘‘The Internet’s Broader Role in Campaign 2008,’’ 11 January 2008, http://www. pewresearch.org.

21. The American National Election Studies are jointly done by Stanford University and the University of Michigan, with funding by the National Science Foundation.

22. Other scholars have analyzed opinion on abortion using six questions from the General Social Survey. See R. Mi- chael Alvarez and John Brehm, ‘‘American Ambivalence toward Abortion Policy,’’ American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995): 1055–1082; and Elizabeth Adell Cook, Ted G. Jelen, and Clyde Wilcox, Between Two Absolutes: Public Opinion and the Politics of Abortion (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992).

23. Although some people view the politics of abortion as single-issue politics, the issue has broader political sig- nificance. In their book on the subject, Cook et al. say, ‘‘Although embryonic life is one important value in the abortion debate, it is not the only value at stake.’’ They contend that the politics is tied to alternative sexual relationships and traditional roles of women in the home, which are ‘‘social order’’ issues. See Between Two Absolutes, pp. 8–9.

24. Russell J. Dalton, The Good Citizen (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2008), Chap. 5.

25. Ibid., p. 50. 26. For years, scholars have been debating whether the

increasing wealth in industrialized societies is replacing class conflict with conflict over values. See the exchange between Ronald Inglehart and Scott C. Flanagan, ‘‘Value Change in Industrial Societies,’’ American Political Sci- ence Review 81 (December 1987): 1289–1319.

27. Earl Black and Merle Black, The Vital South (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), and The Rise of Southern Republicans (Cambridge, Mass.: Har- vard University Press, 2002); David Lublin, The Republi- can South: Democratization and Partisan Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004); and Nicholas Valentino and David O. Sears, ‘‘Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realign- ment in the Contemporary South,’’ American Journal of Political Science 49 (2005): 672–688.

28. Nathan Glazer, ‘‘The Structure of Ethnicity,’’ Public Opinion 7 (October–November 1984): 4.

29. U.S. Census Bureau, Overview of Race and Hispanic Ori- gin: 2010 (C2010BR-02), March 2011, http://www. census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02. pdf. See also Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘Summary Table 6: Percent of the Projected Population by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T6),’’ 14 August 2008, http:// www.census.gov/population/www/projections/summar- ytables.html.

30. U.S. Census Bureau, The Hispanic Population: 2010 (C2010BR-04), May 2011, ‘‘Table 2: Hispanic or Latino Population for the United Sates, Regions, and States, and for Puerto Rico: 2000 and 2010,’’ http://www. census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf.

31. For up-to-date population statistics for the states, see U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘State and County Quick Facts,’’ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html.

Chapter 4 / Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media / pp. 110–151 N-5

32. Michael Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contempo- rary African American Political Ideologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), and Behind the Mule (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994); John Garcia, Latino Politics in America (Lanham, Md.: Row- man and Littlefield, 2003); Peite Lien, The Making of Asian America through Political Participation (Philadel- phia: Temple University Press, 2001); Wendy Tam, ‘‘Asians—a Monolithic Voting Bloc?’’ Political Behavior 17 (1995): 223–249; and Katherine Tate, Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S .Congress (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 2003).

33. Glazer, ‘‘Structure of Ethnicity,’’ p. 5; and Dennis Chong and Dukhong Kim, ‘‘The Experiences and Effects of Economic Status among Racial and Ethnic Minorities,’’ American Political Science Review 100 (August 2006): 335–351.

34. Frank Newport, ‘‘Christianity Remains the Dominant Religion in the United States,’’ Gallup Poll Report, 23 December 2011.

35. Some scholars have argued that Americans are not as polarized as the news media would have us think. See Morris P. Fiorina, Culture Wars? The Myth of a Polar- ized America (White Plains, N.Y.: Longman, 2004).

36. Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Understanding Americans’ Support for the Death Penalty,’’ Gallup News Service, 3 June 2003.

37. Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, ‘‘Gender Gap Evident in the 2008 Election,’’ press release, 5 November 2008, http:// www.cawp.rutgers.edu/press_room/news/documents/ PressRelease_11-05-08_womensvote.pdf.

38. When asked to describe the parties and candidates in the 1956 election, only about 12 percent of respondents volunteered responses that contained ideological terms (such as liberal, conservative, and capitalism). Most respondents (42 percent) evaluated the parties and can- didates in terms of ‘‘benefits to groups’’ (farmers, work- ers, or businesspeople, for example). Others (24 percent) spoke more generally about ‘‘the nature of the times’’ (e.g., inflation, unemployment, and the threat of war). Finally, a good portion of the sample (22 percent) gave answers that contained no classifiable issue con- tent. See Angus Campbell et al., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960), Chap. 10.

39. Marjorie Connelly, ‘‘A ‘Conservative’ Is (Fill in the Blank),’’ New York Times, 3 November 1996, sec. 4, p. 5.

40. Ibid. 41. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, ‘‘Opin-

ion of State Governments Drops with the Economy, Budget Gaps: New Administration Changes Partisan Views of Federal Government,’’ 11 August 2009, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1307/state-government- favorability-falls-partisan-split-federal-government.

42. A relationship between liberalism and political tolerance was found by John L. Sullivan et al., ‘‘The Sources of Po- litical Tolerance: A Multi-variate Analysis,’’ American

Political Science Review 75 (March 1981): 102. See also Robinson, ‘‘Ups and Downs,’’ pp. 13–15.

43. Herbert Asher, Presidential Elections and American Pol- itics (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1980), pp. 14–20. Asher also constructs a two-dimensional framework, distin- guishing between ‘‘traditional New Deal’’ issues and ‘‘new lifestyle’’ issues.

44. John E. Jackson, ‘‘The Systematic Beliefs of the Mass Public: Estimating Policy Preferences with Survey Data,’’ Journal of Politics 45 (November 1983): 840–865.

45. Milton Rokeach also proposed a two-dimensional model of political ideology grounded in the terminal values of freedom and equality. See The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973), especially Chap. 6. Rokeach found that positive and negative references to the two values permeate the writings of socialists, com- munists, fascists, and conservatives and clearly differenti- ate the four bodies of writing from one another (pp. 173– 174). However, Rokeach built his two-dimensional model around only the values of freedom and equality; he did not deal with the question of freedom versus order.

46. In our framework, opposition to abortion is classified as a communitarian position. However, the communitarian movement led by Amitai Etzioni adopted no position on abortion. Personal communication from Vanessa Hoff- man by e-mail, in reply to a query of 5 February 1996.

47. See W. Russell Neuman, The Paradox of Mass Politics: Knowledge and Opinion in the American Electorate (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 81. See also Aaron Wildavsky, ‘‘Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Pref- erence Formation,’’ American Political Science Review 81 (March 1987): 13.

48. The same conclusion was reached in a major study of British voting behavior. See Hilde T. Himmelweit et al., How Voters Decide (New York: Academic Press, 1981), pp. 138–141. See also Wildavsky, ‘‘Choosing Preferen- ces,’’ p. 13; and Stanley Feldman and Christopher John- ston, ‘‘Understanding Political Ideology’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Politi- cal Science Association, Toronto, Canada, September 2009).

49. Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Ameri- cans Know about Politics and Why It Matters (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996).

50. Ibid., p. 269. See also Scott L. Althaus, Collective Prefer- ences in Democratic Politics: Opinion Surveys and the Will of the People (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

51. Program for Public Consultation, ‘‘How the American Public Would Deal with the Budget Deficit,’’ 3 February 2011, at http://www.public-consultation.org/pdf/ Budget_Feb11_quaire.pdf.

52. Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

53. Stephan Lewandowsky et al., ‘‘Memory for Fact, Fiction, and Misinformation: The Iraq War 2003,’’ Psychological Science 16 (March 2005): 190–195.

N-6 Notes

54. A significant literature exists on the limitations of self- interest in explaining political life. See Jane J. Mans- bridge (ed.), Beyond Self-Interest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

55. Aaron Wildavsky, ‘‘Choosing Preferences by Construct- ing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference For- mation,’’ American Political Science Review 81 (March 1987): 3–21.

56. Henry Brady and Paul Sniderman, ‘‘Attitude Attribu- tion: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning,’’ American Political Science Review 79 (1985): 1061–1078; Samuel Popkin, The Reasoning Voter, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1994); and Paul M. Sniderman, Richard A. Brody, and Philip E. Tetlock, Reasoning and Choice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Psychologists have tended to emphasize the distorting effects of heuristics. See Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky (eds.), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1982); and Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980).

57. Political psychologists refer to beliefs that guide infor- mation processing as opinion ‘‘schemas.’’ See Pamela Johnston Conover and Stanley Feldman, ‘‘How People Organize the Political World: A Schematic Model,’’ American Journal of Political Science 28 (February 1984): 95–127; and Milton Lodge and Kathleen M. McGraw, Political Judgment: Structure and Process (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). For an excellent review of schema structures in contemporary psychology, especially as they relate to political science, see Reid Hastie, ‘‘A Primer of Information-Processing Theory for the Political Scientist,’’ in Political Cognition, ed. Richard R. Lau and David O. Sears (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1986), pp. 11–39.

58. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, ‘‘Reli- gion and Politics: Contention and Consensus,’’ 24 July 2003, http://people-press.org//reports/display.php3? ReportID=189.

59. J. Kuklinski and N. L. Hurley, ‘‘On Hearing and Inter- preting Political Messages,’’ Journal of Politics 56 (1994): 729–751.

60. On framing, see William Jacoby, ‘‘Issue Framing and Public Opinion on Government Spending,’’ American Journal of Political Science 44 (October 2000): 750– 767; and James N. Druckman, ‘‘The Implications of Framing Effects for Citizen Competence,’’ Political Behavior 23 (September 2001): 225–253. On political spin, see Lawrence Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, Poli- ticians Don’t Pander (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

61. Benjamin I. Page, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Glenn R. Dempsey, ‘‘What Moves Public Opinion?’’ American Political Science Review 81 (March 1987): 23–43.

62. Michael Margolis and Gary A. Mauser, Manipulating Public Opinion: Essays on Public Opinion as a Depen- dent Variable (Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole, 1989).

63. See Markus Prior, Post-Broadcast Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

64. John December, Neil Randall, and Wes Tatters, Discover the World Wide Web with Your Sportster (Indianapolis, Ind.: Sams.net Publishing, 1995), pp. 11–12.

65. Netcraft conducts a monthly survey of Internet host registrations and active websites. A summary of their data is available at http://news.netcraft.com/archives/ category/web-server-survey. Reported data from ‘‘March 2012 Web Server Survey,’’ http://news.netcraft.com/ archives/2012/03/05/march-2012-web-server-survey.html; and Internet World Stats, ‘‘Internet Usage Statistics,’’ http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

66. ‘‘Demographics of Internet Users,’’ Pew Internet and American Life Project, May 2011 survey, http://www. pewinternet.org.

67. ‘‘Press Widely Criticized but Trusted More than Other Information Sources,’’ report by Pew Research Center for People and the Press, 22 September, 2011.

68. Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, The State of the News Media: 2011, http://www.stateofthemedia.org/ 2011/newspapers-essay/; Newspaper Association of America, ‘‘Advertising Expenditures,’’ http:// www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expendi- tures.aspx; Bloomberg News, ‘‘Seattle Newspaper Ends Print Edition,’’ 17 March 2009, http://www.boston.com/ business/articles/2009/03/17/seattle_newspaper_end-s_ print_edition; Michael Liedke and Andrew Vanacore, ‘‘Newspaper Upheaval Seen with Filings,’’ Associated Press, 24 February 2009, http://www.boston.com/ae/ media/articles/2009/02/24/newspaper_upheaval_seen_ with_filings; and Lynn DeBruin and Lisa Ryckman, ‘‘Rocky Mountain News to Close, Publish Final Edition Friday,’’ Rocky Mountain News, 26 February 2009, http://www.rockymountain-news.com/news/2009/feb/ 26/rocky-mountain-news-closes-friday-final-edition.

69. Farah Stockman, ‘‘State Dept. Spokesman Quits over Remarks,’’ New York Times, 14 March 2011; Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein, ‘‘P.J. Crowley Resigns over Manning Remark,’’ Los Angeles Times, 14 March 2011; and Kristen Purcell et al., ‘‘Understanding the Participatory News Consumer,’’ Report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, 1 March, 2010, http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/ Online-News.aspx.

70. Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 8th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2010), pp. 84–87. See also W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion, 3rd ed. (White Plains, N.Y.: Long- man, 1996), Chap. 2.

71. Gannett, ‘‘A Brief Company History,’’ May 2009, http:// www.gannett.com/about/history.htm.

72. Bill Carter and Brian Shelter, ‘‘In NBC Universal Bid, Comcast Seeks an Empire,’’ New York Times, 1 October 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/business/ media/02nbc.html.

73. Frank Ahrens, ‘‘At Wall Street Journal, Change of Accents,’’ Washington Post, 5 March 2008, p. D01.

Chapter 4 / Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media / pp. 110–151 N-7

74. Matthew Rose and Joe Flint, ‘‘Behind Media-Owner- ship Fight, an Old Power Struggle Is Raging,’’ Wall Street Journal, 15 October 2003, p. 1. In 2003, the Fed- eral Communications Commission (FCC) voted to increase the percentage share of the market to 45 per- cent. In 2007, the FCC ruled that no company can con- trol more than 30 percent of the cable television market and relaxed newspaper-broadcast cross-owner- ship rules in the nation’s twenty largest media markets. See Stephen Labaton, ‘‘F.C.C. Reshapes Rules Limiting Media Industry,’’ New York Times, 19 December 2007, p. A1.

75. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p. 42. 76. Robert Entman, Democracy without Citizens: Media and

the Decay of American Politics (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1989), pp. 103–108; and John Leland, ‘‘Why the Right Rules the Radio Waves,’’ New York Times, 8 December 2003, sec. 4, p. 7.

77. Wes Allison, ‘‘Are Democrats Really Trying to Hush Rush?’’ St. Petersburg Times, 20 February 2009, p. 1A; Prior, Post-Broadcast Democracy; and Jason Gainous and Kevin Wagner, Rebooting American Politics: The Internet Revolution (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Little- field, 2011). For a discussion of the prevalence and pos- sible consequence of incivility among fragmented media sources, see Sarah Sobieraj and Jeffrey M. Berry, ‘‘From Incivility to Outrage: Political Discourse in Blogs, Talk Radio, and Cable News,’’ Political Communication 28 (2011): 19–41.

78. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi (eds.), Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2011–2012 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), p. 161.

79. For the point of view of a reporter who covered Wash- ington for over sixty years, see Helen Thomas, Watch- dogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public (New York: Scribner, 2006).

80. Gainous and Wagner, Rebooting American Politics. 81. ‘‘Press Going Too Easy on Bush,’’ in The State of the

News Media: 2007, http://www.stateofthemedia.org. 82. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, p. 259. 83. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press,

‘‘Summary of Findings: Modest Interest in 2008 Campaign News,’’ 23 October 2007, http://people- press.org.

84. Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, ‘‘The Nightly News Nightmare Revisited: Network Televi- sion’s Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election’’ (pa- per presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 2005); and ‘‘Contest Lacks Content,’’ MediaTenor 1 (2005): 12–15.

85. Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, ‘‘Online: Key Questions Facing Digital News,’’ in The State of the News Media: 2011, http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/ online-essay/#audience.

86. Kristen Purcell et al., Understanding the Participatory News Consumer (Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet and

American Life Project, 1 March 2010), p. 2, http:// www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-News. aspx.

87. Ibid., p. 9. 88. Zogby International, ‘‘Zogby Poll: Online News Sources

Top All Other Outlets,’’ 15 June 2009, http://www. zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1710.

89. Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, ‘‘Survey: Mo- bile News and Paying Online,’’ in The State of the News Media: 2011, http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/mobile- survey/.

90. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, ‘‘What the Public Knows—in Words and Pictures,’’ 7 Novem- ber 2011, http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/07/ what-the-public-knows-in-words-and-pictures/1/.

91. William P. Eveland, Jr., and Dietram A. Scheufele, ‘‘Connecting News Media Use with Gaps in Knowledge and Participation,’’ Political Communication 17 (July- September, 2000): 215–237.

92. W. Russell Neuman, Marion R. Just, and Ann N. Cri- gler, Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 10. For a more optimistic assessment of televi- sion’s instructional value, see Doris A. Graber, Process- ing Politics: Learning from Television in the Internet Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), esp. pp. 120–128. Another negative note is sounded by Alan B. Krueger, ‘‘Economic Scene,’’ New York Times, 1 April 2004, p. C2.

93. Doris A. Graber, Processing the News: How People Tame the Information Tide, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1988), pp. 166–169.

94. James N. Druckman, ‘‘Media Matter: How Newspapers and Television News Cover Campaigns and Influence Voters,’’ Political Communication 22 (October–December 2005): 463–481. For a complementary study finding that television news has little effect on campaign learning, see Stephen C. Craig, James G. Kane, and Jason Gainous, ‘‘Issue-Related Learning in a Gubernatorial Campaign: A Case Study,’’ Political Communication 22 (October–December 2005): 483–503.

95. Diana Mutz, ‘‘Effects of ‘In-Your-Face’ Television Dis- course on Perceptions of a Legitimate Opposition,’’ American Political Science Review 101 (November 2007): 621–635.

96. James M. Avery, ‘‘Videomalaise or Virtuous Circle? The Influence of the News Media on Political Trust,’’ Inter- national Journal of Press/Politics 14, no. 4 (2009): 410–433.

97. Laurence Parisot, ‘‘Attitudes about the Media: A Five- Country Comparison,’’ Public Opinion 10 (January- February 1988): 60.

98. The statistical difficulties in determining media effects owing to measurement error are discussed in Larry M. Bartels, ‘‘Messages Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure’’ (paper presented at the annual meet- ing of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1993). According to

N-8 Notes

Bartels, ‘‘More direct and convincing demonstrations of significant opinion changes due to media exposure will require data collections spanning considerably longer periods of time’’ (p. 27).

99. Lydia Saad. ‘‘Obama’s Approval Bump Hasn’t Trans- ferred to 2012 Prospects,’’ 11 May 2011, http://www.gal- lup.com/poll/147500/obama-approval-bump-hasnt- transferred-2012-prospects.aspx.

100. Maxwell McCombs, ‘‘The Agenda-Setting Function of the Press,’’ in The Institutions of American Democracy: The Press, ed. Geneva Overholser and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 156–168.

101. Danilo Yanich, ‘‘Kids, Crime, and Local TV News,’’ report of the Local TV News Media Project (Newark: University of Delaware, January 2005). See also Jeremy H. Lipschultz and Michael L. Hilt, Crime and Local Tel- evision News: Dramatic, Breaking, and Live from the Scene (Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2002).

102. Lipschultz and Hilt, Crime and Local Television News, p. 2; and U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization, 2010, NCJ 235508, September 2011, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/ pdf/cv10.pdf. The Criminal Victimization in the United States series dates back to 1973 and is updated annually.

103. Lawrie Mifflin, ‘‘Crime Falls, but Not on TV,’’ New York Times, 6 July 1997, sec. 4, p. 4.

104. Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presi- dential Leadership, 4th ed. (Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2006).

105. Doris Graber reviews some studies of socially undesir- able effects on children and adults in Processing Politics, pp. 91–95, and in Mass Media and American Politics.

106. James Fallows, Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). See also Paul Gronke and Timothy Cook, ‘‘Disdaining the Media,’’ Political Communication 24 (July 2007): 259–281.

107. Jonathan Ladd, Why Americans Hate the Media and How It Matters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).

108. See Bernard Goldberg, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2002); and Ann Coulter, Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right (New York: Crown, 2002).

109. See Eric Alterman, What Liberal Media? The Truth about Bias and the News (New York: Basic Books, 2003); and Al Franken, Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right (New York: Penguin, 2003).

110. Pew Research Center of the People & the Press, ‘‘Finan- cial Woes Now Overshadow All Other Concerns for Journalists,’’ 17 March 2007, http://people-press.org/ files/legacy-pdf/403.pdf.

111. Farnsworth and Lichter, ‘‘The Nightly News Nightmare Revisited,’’ p. 31.

112. The People, the Press, and Their Leaders (Washington, D.C.: Times-Mirror Center for the People & the Press, 1995). See also Pew Research Center, ‘‘Self Censorship: How Often and Why,’’ a survey of nearly three hundred journalists and news executives in February–March 2000, released 30 April 2000.

113. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statis- tics on American Politics,2007–2008 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2010); and ‘‘2012 Presidential Endorse- ments,’’ Editor & Publisher, 7 November 2012, http:// www.editorandpublisher.com/election/

114. Maura Clancey and Michael J. Robinson, ‘‘General Elec- tion Coverage: Part I,’’ Public Opinion 7 (December– January 1985): 54. See also Pew Research Center, ‘‘Strik- ing the Balance, Audience Interests, Business Pressures and Journalists’ Values,’’ 30 March 1999, http://people- press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=67.

115. Center for Media and Public Affairs, ‘‘Election Watch: Campaign 2008 Final,’’ Media Monitor 23, no. 1 (Win- ter 2009): http://www.cmpa.com/pdf/media_monitor_ jan_2009.pdf.

116. W. Lance Bennett and William Serrin, ‘‘The Watchdog Role,’’ in Institutions of American Democracy: The Press, ed. Geneva Overholser and Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 169–188.

117. For a critique of the press on these grounds, see W. Lance Bennett et al., When the Press Fails (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

118. See New York Times Polls Index, http://www.nytimes. com/ref/us/polls_index.html.

119. Robert Shapiro, ‘‘Public Opinion and American Democ- racy,’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 75, no. 5 (2011): 982–1017.

120. William Schneider and I. A. Lewis, ‘‘Views on the News,’’ Public Opinion 8 (August–September 1985): 11. For similar findings from a 1994 study, see Times- Mirror Center for the People & the Press, ‘‘Mixed Mes- sage about Press Freedom on Both Sides of the Atlantic,’’ press release, 16 March 1994, p. 65. See also Thomas E. Patterson and Wolfgang Donsbach, ‘‘News Decisions: Journalists as Partisan Actors,’’ Political Communication 13, no. 4 (October–December 1996): 455–468.

121. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, ‘‘Bush a Drag on Republican Midterm Prospects,’’ 9 February 2006, http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3? ReportID=270.

CHAPTER 5 / PARTICIPATION AND VOTING / PAGES 152–185 1. Time, 178, 26 December 2011, p. 53. 2. David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘‘March in Cairo Draws Women by

Thousands,’’ New York Times, 21 December 2011, p. 1. 3. Amro Hassan, ‘‘Egyptian Court Halts Virginity Tests on

Female Protesters,’’ Los Angeles Times, 27 December 2011, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/

Chapter 5 / Participation and Voting / pages 152–185 N-9

2011/12/court-verdict-abolishes-military-virginity-tests. html.

4. Lester W. Milbrath and M. L. Goel, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1977), p. 2.

5. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2010 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Au- gust 2011), p. 242. The definition is contained in Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d). On the problem of defining terrorism, see Walter Laqueur, No End to War: Terrorism in the 21st Century (New York: Continuum International, 2003), esp. the appendix.

6. Lou Nichel and Dan Herbeck, American Terrorist: Timo- thy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 350–354.

7. William E. Schmidt, ‘‘Selma Marchers Mark 1965 Clash,’’ New York Times, 4 March 1985.

8. See Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), p. 3.

9. World Values Survey Association, 2005–2008 World Val- ues Survey, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org. The World Values Survey Association, based in Stockholm, conducts representative surveys in nations across the world.

10. Stephen C. Craig and Michael A. Magiotto, ‘‘Political Dis- content and Political Action,’’ Journal of Politics 43 (May 1981): 514–522. But see Mitchell A. Seligson, ‘‘Trust Effi- cacy and Modes of Political Participation: A Study of Costa Rican Peasants,’’ British Journal of Political Science 10 (January 1980): 75–98, for a review of studies that came to different conclusions.

11. Philip H. Pollock III, ‘‘Organizations as Agents of Mobili- zation: How Does Group Activity Affect Political Partici- pation?’’ American Journal of Political Science 26 (August 1982): 485–503. Also see Jan E. Leighley, ‘‘Social Interac- tion and Contextual Influence on Political Participation,’’ American Politics Quarterly 18 (October 1990): 459–475.

12. Arthur H. Miller et al., ‘‘Group Consciousness and Politi- cal Participation,’’ American Journal of Political Science 25 (August 1981): 495. See also Susan J. Carroll, ‘‘Gender Politics and the Socializing Impact of the Women’s Movement,’’ in Political Learning in Adulthood: A Source- book of Theory and Research, ed. Roberta S. Sigel (Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 307.

13. Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 177.

14. See James L. Gibson, ‘‘The Policy Consequences of Politi- cal Intolerance: Political Repression during the Vietnam War Era,’’ Journal of Politics 51 (February 1989): 13–35. Gibson found that individual state legislatures reacted quite differently in response to antiwar demonstrations on college campuses, but the laws passed to discourage dissent were not related directly to public opinion within the state.

15. See Verba and Nie, Participation in America, p. 69. See also John Clayton Thomas, ‘‘Citizen-Initiated Contacts with Government Agencies: A Test of Three Theories,’’ American Journal of Political Science 26 (August 1982): 504–522; and Elaine B. Sharp, ‘‘Citizen-Initiated Contacting

of Government Officials and Socioeconomic Status: Determining the Relationship and Accounting for It,’’ American Political Science Review 76 (March 1982): 109–115.

16. Elaine B. Sharp, ‘‘Citizen Demand Making in the Urban Context,’’ American Journal of Political Science 28 (November 1984): 654–670, esp. pp. 654, 665.

17. Verba and Nie, Participation in America, p. 67; and Sharp, ‘‘Citizen Demand Making,’’ p. 660.

18. See Joel B. Grossman et al., ‘‘Dimensions of Institutional Participation: Who Uses the Courts and How?’’ Journal of Politics 44 (February 1982): 86–114; and Frances Kahn Zemans, ‘‘Legal Mobilization: The Neglected Role of the Law in the Political System,’’ American Political Science Review 77 (September 1983): 690–703.

19. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 20. The government provides access to the Federal Register at

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/. Compare the status of bills and voting records on the government site Thomas. loc.gov and the private site www.govtrack.us. Campaign finance data is exhaustively reported on www.fec.gov and www.opensecrets.org. A private site keeps track of cam- paign promises and other claims in politics at http:// www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter.

21. Jan-Erik Lane and Svante Ersson, Democracy: A Compar- ative Approach (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 238; and International Institute for Democracy and Educational Assistance, ‘‘Voter Turnout,’’ online database, http:// www.idea.int/vt/index.cfm.

22. Max Kaase and Alan Marsh, ‘‘Political Action: A Theo- retical Perspective,’’ in Political Action: Mass Participa- tion in Five Western Democracies, ed. Samuel H. Barnes and Max Kaase (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979), p. 168.

23. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944). 24. Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663

(1966). 25. Everett Carll Ladd, The American Polity (New York:

Norton, 1985), p. 392. 26. Ivor Crewe, ‘‘Electoral Participation,’’ in Democracy at

the Polls: A Comparative Study of Competitive National Elections, ed. David Butler, Howard R. Penniman, and Austin Ranney (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981), pp. 219–223.

27. International IDEA, ‘‘Frequently Asked Questions,’’ http://www.idea.int/vt/faq.cfm#9.%20Which%20is% 20the%20minimum%20voting%20age?

28. Initiative and Referendum Institute, ‘‘Election Results 2012: Breakthrough Wins for Marijuana and Same-Sex Marriage,’’ Ballot Watch (November 2012), http:// www.iandrinstitute.org/ballotwatch.htm.

29. David B. Magleby, Direct Legislation: Voting on Ballot Propositions in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hop- kins University Press, 1984), p. 59. See also Ernest Toller- son, ‘‘In 90’s Ritual, Hired Hands Carry Democracy’s Petitions,’’ New York Times, 9 July 1996, p. 1.

30. Expenditure data on California’s Proposition 87 is avail- able at http://www.cal-access.ss.ca.gov/; search for 1282414 and 1282352.

N-10 Notes

31. Frederick M. Hess and Olivia Meeks, School Boards Circa 2010: Governance in the Accountability Era (Alexandria, Va.: National School Boards Association, 2010), http:// www.nsba.org/Board-Leadership/Surveys/School-Boards- Circa-2010.

32. Crewe, ‘‘Electoral Participation,’’ p. 232. A rich literature has grown to explain turnout across nations. See Pippa Norris, Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activ- ism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Chap. 3; and Mark N. Franklin, Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Established Democ- racies since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

33. Verba and Nie, Participation in America, p. 13. 34. Russell J. Dalton, Citizen Policies, 3rd ed. (New York:

Seven Bridges, 2002), pp. 67–68. For the argument that greater economic inequality leads to greater political in- equality, see Frederick Solt, ‘‘Economic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement,’’ American Journal of Political Science 52, no. 1 (January 2008): 48–60.

35. Russell J. Dalton, The Good Citizen: Howa Younger Gen- eration Is Reshaping American Politics (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2008).

36. Cliff Zukin et al., A New Engagement? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 188–191.

37. For a concise summary of the effect of age on voting turnout, see William H. Flanigan and Nancy H. Zingale, Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 11th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2005).

38. Richard Murray and Arnold Vedlitz, ‘‘Race, Socioeco- nomic Status, and Voting Participation in Large Southern Cities,’’ Journal of Politics 39 (November 1977): 1064–1072; and Verba and Nie, Participation in America, p. 157. See also Flanigan and Zingale, pp. 46–47.

39. M. Margaret Conway, Gertrude A. Steuernagel, and David W. Ahern, Women and Political Participation: Cul- tural Change in the Political Arena (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1997), pp. 79–80.

40. Ronald B. Rapoport, ‘‘The Sex Gap in Political Persuad- ing: Where the ‘Structuring Principle’ Works,’’ American Journal of Political Science 25 (February 1981): 32–48.

41. Bruce C. Straits, ‘‘The Social Context of Voter Turnout,’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 54 (Spring 1990): 64–73.

42. See Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Scholzman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in Ameri- can Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 433.

43. Associated Press, ‘‘Voter Turnout Tops since 1968,’’ St. Paul Pioneer Press, 14 December 2008, p. A4.

44. Stephen D. Shaffer, ‘‘A Multivariate Explanation of Decreasing Turnout in Presidential Elections, 1960– 1976,’’ American Journal of Political Science 25 (February 1981): 68–95; and Paul R. Abramson and John H. Aldrich, ‘‘The Decline of Electoral Participation in Amer- ica,’’ American Political Science Review 76 (September 1981): 603–620. However, one scholar argues that this research suffers because it looks at voters and nonvoters only in a single election. When the focus shifts to people

who vote only sometimes, the models do not fit so well. See M. Margaret Conway and John E. Hughes, ‘‘Political Mobilization and Patterns of Voter Turnout’’ (paper pre- sented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1993).

45. Apparently Richard A. Brody was the first scholar to pose this problem as a puzzle. See his ‘‘The Puzzle of Political Participation in America,’’ in The New American Political System, ed. Anthony King (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1978), pp. 287–324. Since then, a siz- able literature has attempted to explain the decline in voter turnout in the United States. Since then, a sizable literature has attempted to explain the decline in voter turnout in the United States. One scholar contends that postindustrial societies experience a ‘‘ceiling effect’’ that blunts increased voting due to increased education; see Norris, Democratic Phoenix, Chap. 3. Another finds that the perceived importance of electoral contests and the closeness of the vote are major factors explaining differ- ences in turnout; see Franklin, Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition.

46. See Jack Doppelt and Ellen Shearer, America’s No-Shows: Non-Voters (Washington, D.C.: Medill School of Journal- ism, 2001); Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter (New York: Vintage Books, 2003); and Deborah J. Brooks and John Geer, ‘‘Beyond Negativity: The Effects of Inci- vility on the Electorate,’’ American Journal of Political Science 51 (January 2007): 1–16.

47. Some scholars argue that Americans generally have become disengaged from social organizations (not just political parties), becoming more likely to act ‘‘alone’’ than to participate in group activities. See Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

48. See Eric Pultzer, ‘‘Becoming a Habitual Voter: Inertia, Resources, and Growth in Young Adulthood,’’ American Political Science Review (March 2002): 41–56; Alan S. Gerber, Donald P. Green, and Ron Shachar, ‘‘Voting May Be Habit-Forming: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment,’’ American Journal of Political Science (July 2003): 540–550; and David Dreyer Lassen, ‘‘The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment,’’ American Journal of Political Science 49 (January 2005): 103–111. For the argument that turnout may be genetic, see James H. Fowler and Christopher T. Dawes, ‘‘Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout,’’ Journal of Politics 70 (July 2008): 579–594.

49. For the latest analysis of voting trends in the United States, see the research done by Michael McDonald at http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm.

50. The negative effect of registration laws on voter turnout is argued in Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, ‘‘Government Statistics and Conflicting Explanations of Nonvoting,’’ PS: Political Science and Politics 22 (Septem- ber 1989): 580–588. Their analysis was hotly contested in Stephen Earl Bennett, ‘‘The Uses and Abuses of Registra- tion and Turnout Data: An Analysis of Piven and

Chapter 5 / Participation and Voting / pages 152–185 N-11

Cloward’s Studies of Nonvoting in America,’’ PS: Political Science and Politics 23 (June 1990): 166–171. Bennett showed that turnout declined 10 to 13 percent after 1960, despite efforts to remove or lower legal hurdles to regis- tration. For their reply, see Frances Fox Piven and Rich- ard Cloward, ‘‘A Reply to Bennett,’’ PS: Political Science and Politics 23 (June 1990): 172–173. You can see that reasonable people can disagree on this matter.

51. There is, however, debate over which party benefits from same day registration. See Jacob R. Neiheisel and Barry C. Burden, ‘‘The Impact of Election Day Registration on Voter Turnout and Election Outcomes,’’ American Poli- tics, published online before print, 8 February 2012, http://apr.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/01/30/ 1532673X11432470.

52. Ruth Goldway, ‘‘The Election Is in the Mail,’’ New York Times, 6 December 2006; and Randal C. Archibold, ‘‘Mail-In Voters Become the Latest Prize,’’ New York Times, 14 January 2008.

53. David Glass, Peverill Squire, and Raymond Wolfinger, ‘‘Voter Turnout: An International Comparison,’’ Public Opinion 6 (December-January 1984): 52. Wolfinger says that because of the strong effect of registration on turnout, most rational choice analyses of voting would be better suited to analyzing turnout of only registered voters. See Raymond E. Wolfinger, ‘‘The Rational Citizen Faces Elec- tion Day,’’ Public Affairs Report 6 (November 1992): 12.

54. Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, ‘‘About the National Voter Registration Act,’’ 28 June 2010, http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/nvra/activ_nvra.php.

55. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘NVRA Report Submitted to Congress: Almost 148 Million Registered to Vote in States Covered by Act,’’ press release, 1 July 2003, http:// www.fec.gov/press/20030701nvrareport.html.

56. Pew Center on the States, ‘‘Bringing Elections into the 21st Century: Voter Registration Modernization,’’ issue brief (August 2009), p. 2.

57. Research finds that ‘‘party contact is clearly a statistically and substantively important factor in predicting and explaining political behavior.’’ See Peter W. Wielhouwer and Brad Lockerbie, ‘‘Party Contacting and Political Par- ticipation, 1952–1990’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1992), p. 14. Of course, parties strategically tar- get the groups that they want to vote in elections. See Peter W. Wielhouwer, ‘‘Strategic Canvassing by Political Parties, 1952–1990,’’ American Review of Politics 16 (Fall 1995): 213–238.

58. Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network, ‘‘America Goes to the Polls: A Report on Voter Turnout in the 2006 Elec- tion,’’ http://www.nonprofitvote.org.

59. See Charles Krauthammer, ‘‘In Praise of Low Voter Turn- out,’’ Time, 21 May 1990, p. 88. Krauthammer says, ‘‘Low voter turnout means that people see politics as quite mar- ginal to their lives, as neither salvation nor ruin…. Low voter turnout is a leading indicator of contentment.’’ A major study in 1996 that compared one thousand likely nonvoters with twenty-three hundred likely voters found

that 24 percent of the nonvoters said they ‘‘hardly ever’’ followed public affairs versus 5 percent of likely voters. See Dwight Morris, ‘‘No-Show ’96: Americans Who Don’t Vote,’’ summary report to the Medill News Service and WTTW Television, Northwestern University School of Journalism, 1996.

60. Crewe, ‘‘Electoral Participation,’’ p. 262. 61. For research showing that economic inequality depresses po-

litical engagement of the citizenry, see Frederick Solt, ‘‘Eco- nomic Inequality and Democratic Political Engagement,’’ American Journal of Political Science 52 (2008): 48–60.

62. Barnes and Kaase, Political Action, p. 532. 63. 1971 Congressional Quarterly Almanac (Washington,

D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1972), p. 475. 64. Benjamin Ginsberg, The Consequences of Consent: Elec-

tions, Citizen Control, and Popular Acquiescence (Read- ing, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1982), pp. 13–14.

65. Ibid., pp. 6–7. 66. Some people have argued that the decline in voter turnout

during the 1980s served to increase the class bias in the electorate because people of lower socioeconomic status stayed home. But others have concluded that ‘‘class bias has not increased since 1964.’’ Jan E. Leighley and Jona- than Nagler, ‘‘Socioeconomic Class Bias in Turnout, 1964–1988: The Voters Remain the Same,’’ American Po- litical Science Review 86 (September 1992): 734. Neverthe- less, Rosenstone and Hansen say, ‘‘The economic inequalities in political participation that prevail in the United States today are as large as the racial disparities in political participation that prevailed in the 1950s. Ameri- ca’s leaders today face few incentives to attend to the needs of the disadvantaged.’’ Steven J. Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America (New York: Macmillan, 1993), p. 248.

CHAPTER 6 / POLITICAL PARTIES, CAMPAIGNS, AND ELECTIONS / PAGES 186–237 1. Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party

and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 22.

2. See Kenneth Janda, ‘‘The Tea Party: A Political Revolu- tion or Tempest in a Teacup?’’ PowerPoint talk, 3 April 2011, available on request.

3. American National Election 2008 Time Series Study, http://www.electionstudies.org.

4. See, for example, Peter Mair, ‘‘Comparing Party Sys- tems,’’ in Comparing Democracies 2: New Challenges in the Study of Elections and Voting, ed. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 88–107.

5. See James M. Snyder, Jr., and Michael M. Ting, ‘‘An Informational Rationale for Political Parties,’’ American

N-12 Notes

Journal of Political Science 46 (January 2002): 90–110. They formalize the argument that political parties acquire ‘‘brand names’’ that help voters make sense of politics.

6. See Jerome M. Clubb, William H. Flanigan, and Nancy H. Zingale, Partisan Realignment: Voters, Parties, and Government in American History (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980), p. 163.

7. See Gerald M. Pomper, ‘‘Classification of Presidential Elections,’’ Journal of Politics 29 (August1967): 535–566. Decades later, an update of Gerald Pomper’s analysis of presidential elections through 1996 determined that 1960, 1964, and 1968 all had realigning characteristics. See Jon- athan Knuckley, ‘‘Classification of Presidential Elections: An Update,’’ Polity 31 (Summer 1999): 639–653.

8. Seth C. McKeen, ‘‘Rural Voters and the Polarization of American Presidential Elections,’’ PS: Political Science and Politics 41 (January 2008): 101–108.

9. Jeffrey M. Stonecash, Political Parties Matter: Realign- ment and the Return of Partisan Voting (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2006), pp. 129–130.

10. The discussion that follows draws heavily on Austin Ran- ney and Willmoore Kendall, Democracy and the American Party System (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), Chaps. 18–19. See also John F. Bibby and L. Sandy Maisel, Two Parties—or More? (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998).

11. J. David Gillespie, Politics at the Periphery: Third Parties in a Two-Party America (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993). For an analysis of third-party pres- idential campaigns in 2008, see Brian J. Brox, ‘‘Running Nowhere: Third Party Presidential Campaigns in 2008’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill., 3–6 April 2008). See Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, and Edward H. Lazarus, Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1984), pp. 5–6.

12. In an 18–29 June 2008 Pew Research Center Poll, 56 per- cent of the respondents agreed that ‘‘we should have a third major political party in this country in addition to the Democrats and Republicans.’’ See also Shigeo Hirano and James M. Snyder, Jr., ‘‘The Decline of Third-Party Voting in the United States,’’ Journal of Politics 69 (February 2007): 1–16.

13. See Rosenstone et al., p. 8. 14. Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela S. Karlan, and Richard H.

Pildes, The Law of Democracy, rev. 2nd ed. (New York: Foundation Press, 2002), pp. 417–436.

15. See James Gimpel, National Elections and the Autonomy of American State Party Systems (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Univer- sity of Pittsburgh Press, 1996).

16. Measuring the concept of party identification has had its problems. See R. Michael Alvarez, ‘‘The Puzzle of Party Identification,’’ American Politics Quarterly 18 (October 1990): 476–491; and Donald Philip Green and Bradley Palmquist, ‘‘Of Artifacts and Partisan Instability,’’ Ameri- can Journal of Political Science 34 (August 1990): 872–902.

17. This breakdown used data from the 2012 Pew Research Center survey.

18. Rhodes Cook, ‘‘GOP Shows Dramatic Growth, Especially in the South,’’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 13 January 1996, pp. 97–100.

19. Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘Summary Ta- ble 6: Percent of the Projected Population by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T6),’’ 14 August 2008, http://www.census.gov/ population/www/projections/summarytables.html.

20. The relationship between age and party identification is quite complicated, but research finds that it becomes more stable as people age. See Elias Dinas and Mark Franklin, ‘‘The Development of Partisanship during the Life-Course’’ (paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, 2 April 2009), http:// www.allacademic.com/meta/p363000_index.html.

21. Two scholars on voting behavior describe partisanship as ‘‘the feeling of sympathy for and loyalty to a political party that an individual acquires—sometimes during childhood— and holds through life, often with increasing intensity.’’ See William H. Flanigan and Nancy H. Zingale, Political Behav- ior of the American Electorate, 10th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2002), p. 60.

22. ‘‘The GOP’s Spending Spree,’’ Wall Street Journal, 25 November 2003, p. A18.

23. See The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, ‘‘Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years,’’ American Values Survey, 4 June 2012.

24. See, for example, Gerald M. Pomper, Elections in America (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968); Benjamin Ginsberg, ‘‘Election and Public Policy,’’ American Political Science Review 70 (March 1976): 41–50; and Jeff Fishel, President sand Promises (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quar- terly Press, 1985).

25. The platforms are available at http://www.gop.com/2012- republican-platform_home/ and http://www.democrat- s.org/democratic-national-platform.

26. Ian Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945–1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 49.

27. See Ralph M. Goldman, The National Party Chairmen and Committees: Factionalism at the Top (Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe, 1990). The subtitle is revealing.

28. Cornelius P. Cotter and Bernard C. Hennessy, Politics without Power: The National Party Committees (New York: Atherton Press, 1964).

29. Phillip A. Klinkner, ‘‘Party Culture and Party Behavior,’’ in The State of the Parties, ed. Daniel M. Shea and John C. Green (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994), pp. 275–287; and Philip A. Klinkner, The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees,1956–1993 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994).

30. Daniel J. Galvin, Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. ix–x.

31. John Frendreis et al., ‘‘Local Political Parties and Legisla- tive Races in 1992,’’ in Shea and Green, The State of the Parties, p. 139.

Chapter 6 / Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections / pages 186–237 N-13

32. Robert Biersack, ‘‘Hard Facts and Soft Money: State Party Finance in the 1992 Federal Elections,’’ in Shea and Green, The State of the Parties, p. 114.

33. Martin P. Wattenberg, The Decline of American Political Parties, 1952–1994 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1996).

34. Taylor Dark III, ‘‘The Rise of the Global Party? American Party Organizations Abroad,’’ Party Politics 9 (March 2003): 241–255.

35. Barbara Sinclair, ‘‘The Congressional Party: Evolving Organizational, Agenda-Setting, and Policy Roles,’’ in The Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns, 3rd ed., ed. L. Sandy Maisel (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998), p. 227.

36. The model is articulated most clearly in a report by the American Political Science Association, ‘‘Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System,’’ American Political Sci- ence Review 44 (September 1950): pt. II. See also Gerald M. Pomper, ‘‘Toward a More Responsible Party System? What, Again?’’ Journal of Politics 33 (November 1971): 916–940. See also the seven essays in the symposium ‘‘Divided Government and the Politics of Constitutional Reform,’’ PS: Political Science and Politics 24 (December 1991): 634–657.

37. This is essentially the framework for studying campaigns set forth in Barbara G. Salmore and Stephen A. Salmore, Candidates, Parties, and Campaigns: Electoral Politics in America, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1989).

38. Adam Nagourney, ‘‘Internet Injects Sweeping Change into U.S. Politics,’’ New York Times, 2 April 2006, pp. 1, 17.

39. Martin P. Wattenberg, The Rise of Candidate-Centered Politics: Presidential Elections of the 1980s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991).

40. Reuven Y. and Gideon Rahat, Democracy within Parties: Candidate Selection Methods and Their Political Conse- quences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). See also Krister Lundell, ‘‘Determinants of Candidate Selection: The Degree of Centralization in Comparative Perspec- tive,’’ Party Politics 10 (January 2004): 25–47.

41. The Book of the States, 2003 (Lexington, Ky.: Council of State Governments, 2003), pp. 295–296. See also Federal Election Commission, ‘‘2004 Presidential and Congres- sional Primary Dates,’’ 26 May 2004, http://www.fec.gov/ pubrec/fe2004/2004pdates.pdf.

42. Talar Aslanian et al., ‘‘Recapturing Voter Intent: The Nonpartisan Primary in California’’ (capstone seminar report, Pepperdine University, April 2003), Appendix C.

43. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 1788–2008 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2008). According to state- by-state delegate totals in ‘‘The Green Papers’’ website, about 15 percent of the delegates to each party’s 2008 presidential nominating convention were selected through the caucus/convention system.

44. William G. Mayer and Andrew E. Busch, The Front- Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2004). See

also the symposium ‘‘Reforming the Presidential Nomi- nation Process,’’ PS: Political Science & Politics 42 (Janu- ary 2009): 27–79.

45. See Rhodes Cook, The Presidential Nominating Process: A Place for Us? (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), Chap. 5. Nations that have copied the American model have experienced mixed results. See James A. McCann, ‘‘The Emerging International Trend toward Open Presi- dential Primaries,’’ in The Making of the PresidentialCan- didates2004, ed. William G. Mayer (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 265–293.

46. Gary R. Orren and Nelson W. Polsby (eds.), Media and Momentum: The New Hampshire Primary and Nomina- tion Politics (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1987), p. 23.

47. ‘‘Presidential Primary Season Is Longer than Ever,’’ Ballot Access News, 27 (November, 2011), p. 6.

48. Dan Balz, ‘‘Santorum Ends Bid—and the GOP Fight,’’ Washington Post, 11 April 2012, p. A1.

49. In general, Democratic winners are less predictable. See Wayne P. Steger, ‘‘Who Wins Nominations and Why? An Updated Forecast of the Presidential Primary Vote,’’ Political Research Quarterly 60 (March 2007): 91–99.

50. See James R. Beniger, ‘‘Winning the Presidential Nomina- tion: National Polls and State Primary Elections, 1936– 1972,’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 40 (Spring 1976): 22–38.

51. For a recent review, see Gary Bugh (ed.), Electoral College Reform: Challenges and Possibilities (Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2010).

52. See Alexis Simendinger, James A. Barnes, and Carl M. Cannon, ‘‘Pondering a Popular Vote,’’ National Journal, 18 November 2000, pp. 3650–3656.

53. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2008 (Washington, D.C.: Congres- sional Quarterly Press, 2009), Table 3.10.

54. Peter Baker, ‘‘Smoke Clears to Show a Battlefield Little Changed,’’ New York Times, 8 November 2012, p. P3; Naftali Bendavid, ‘‘Democrats Get Stronger Hand in Congress,’’ Wall Street Journal, 8 November 2012, p. A4; and Dan Eggen and T.W. Farnam, ‘‘Money Down the Drain: Spending a Lot, with Little Effect,’’ Washington Post, 8 November 2012, pp. A1, A27.

55. Salmore and Salmore, Candidates, Parties, and Campaigns.

56. See Edward I. Sidlow, Challenging the Incumbent: An Underdog’s Undertaking (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004), for an engaging look at what challengers face.

57. Quoted in E. J. Dionne, Jr., ‘‘On the Trail of Corporation Donations,’’ New York Times, 6 October 1980.

58. Salmore and Salmore, Candidates, Parties, and Campaigns, p. 11. See also David Himes, ‘‘Strategy and Tactics for Campaign Fund-Raising,’’ in Campaigns and Elections: American Style, ed. James A. Thurber and Candice J. Nel- son (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 62–77.

59. For tactical reasons in Congress, the bill that actually passed was the Shays-Meehan bill, sponsored by repre- sentatives Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Martin Mee- han (D-Mass.), but it became known as McCain-Feingold for the early work done by both senators.

N-14 Notes

60. ‘‘527s: Advocacy Group Spending,’’ Opensecrets.org, http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/index.php.

61. Brody Mullins, ‘‘Stealthy Groups Shake Up Races,’’ Wall Street Journal, 4 February 2008, p. A12.

62. Adam Liptak, ‘‘Justices, 5–4, Reject Corporate Campaign Spending Limit,’’ New York Times, 22 January 2010, pp. A1, A16.

63. Editorial, ‘‘A Free Speech Landmark,’’ Wall Street Jour- nal, 22 January 2010, p. A18.

64. Editorial, ‘‘The Court’s Blow to Democracy,’’ New York Times, 22 January 2010, p. A20.

65. ‘‘Changing the Rules,’’ Wall Street Journal, 22 January 2010, p. A6.

66. SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 599 F.3d 686 (D.C. Circuit, 26 March 2010). See also http://www.fec.gov/press/ press2011/FEC_Joint_Statement-Nov3.pdf.

67. ‘‘With New Political Committees, Possible Channels for Unlimited, Anonymous Donations,’’ New York Times, 16 October 2011, p. 24.

68. Tom Hamburger and Melanie Mason, ‘‘PACs Upend, Outspend Pack,’’ Chicago Tribune, 1 January 2012, p. 23.

69. Nicholas Confessore, Michael Luo, and Mike McIntire, ‘‘In G.O.P. Race, a New Breed of Superdonor,’’ New York Times, 22 February 2012, pp. A1, A14.

70. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘2004 Presidential Cam- paign Financial Activity Summarized,’’ news release, 3 February 2005.

71. James A. Barnes, ‘‘Matching Funds, R.I.P.,’’ National Journal Magazine, 26 April 2008, http://www.national- journal.com/njmagazine/pi_20080426_9817.php.

72. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘Federal Election Commis- sion Certifies Federal Matching Funds for Roemer,’’ news release, 30 March 2012, http://www.fec.gov/press/ press2012/20120330RoemerCertif.shtml.

73. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘2008 Presidential Campaign Financial Activity Summarized: Receipts Nearly Double 2004 Total,’’ news release, 8 June 2009, http://www.fec.gov/ press/press2009/20090608PresStat.shtml.

74. Salmore and Salmore, Candidates, Parties, and Cam- paigns, p. 11.

75. David Moon, ‘‘What You Use Depends on What You Have: Information Effects on the Determinants of Electoral Choice,’’ American Politics Quarterly 18 (January 1990): 3–24.

76. See the ‘‘Marketplace’’ section in monthly issues of the magazine Campaigns and Elections, which contains scores of names, addresses, and telephone numbers of people who supply ‘‘political products and services’’—from ‘‘campaign schools’’ to ‘‘voter files and mailing lists.’’

77. Bruce I. Newman, ‘‘A Predictive Model of Voter Behav- ior,’’ in Handbook of Political Marketing, ed. Bruce I. Newman (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1999), pp. 259– 282. For studies on campaign consultants at work, see James A. Thurber and Candice J. Nelson (eds.), Cam- paign Warriors: The Role of Political Consultants in Elec- tions (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000).

78. See Darrell M. West, Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns, 1952–2004, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2005).

79. T. W. Farnam, ‘‘Study: Negative Campaign Ads Much More Frequent, Vicious Than in Primaries Past,’’ Washington Post (20 February 2012), http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/study-negative- campaign-ads-much-more-frequent-vicious-than-in- primaries-past/2012/02/14/gIQAR7ifPR_story.html.

80. Project for Excellence in Journalism, ‘‘How the Presiden- tial Candidates Use the Web and Social Media,’’ Pew Research Center, 15 August 2012, http://www.journalis- m.org/analysis_report/how_ presidential_candidates_use_web_and_social_media.

81. ‘‘Cable Leads the Pack as Campaign News Source,’’ The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 7 Feb- ruary 2012, http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/ 2012%20Communicating%20Release.pdf.

82. Emily Steel, ‘‘Why Web Campaign Spending Trails TV,’’ Wall Street Journal, 14 December 2008, p. B4.

83. Pamela Johnston Conover and Stanley Feldman, ‘‘Candi- date Perception in an Ambiguous World: Campaigns, Cues, and Inference Processes,’’ American Journal of Political Science 33 (November 1989): 912–940.

84. Kevin Merida, ‘‘Racist Incidents Give Some Campaigners Pause,’’ Washington Post, 13 May 2008, p. A01.

85. Michael M. Gant and Norman R. Luttbeg, American Elec- toral Behavior (Itasca, Ill.: Peacock, 1991), pp. 63–64. For recent research indicating a growth in issue voting, see Martin Gilens, Jynn Vavreck, and Martin Cohen, ‘‘The Mass Media and the Public’s Assessments of Presidential Candidates, 1952–2000,’’ Journal of Politics 69 (Novem- ber 2007): 1160–1175.

86. Martin Gilens et al., ‘‘The Mass Media and the Public’s Assessments of Presidential Candidates, 1952–2000.’’

87. Craig Goodman and Gregg R. Murray, ‘‘Do You See What I See? Perceptions of Party Differences and Voting Behavior,’’ American Politics Research 35 (November 2007): 905931.

88. Conover and Feldman, ‘‘Candidate Perception,’’ p. 938. 89. Party identification has been assumed to be relatively resist-

ant to short-term campaign effects, but see Dee Allsop and Herbert F. Weisberg, ‘‘Measuring Change in Party Identifi- cation in an Election Campaign,’’ American Journal of Polit- ical Science 32 (November 1988): 996–1017. They conclude that partisanship is more volatile than we have thought.

90. For a contrary view, see Nicol C. Rae, ‘‘Be Careful What You Wish For: The Rise of Responsible Parties in Ameri- can National Politics,’’ Annual Review of Political Science 10 (2007): 169–191.

CHAPTER 7 / INTEREST GROUPS / PAGES 238–265 1. Miguel Helft and Matt Richtel, ‘‘Facebook Prepares to Add

Friends in Washington,’’ New York Times, 29 March 2011, p. B1; Jessica Guynn, ‘‘Facebook Hires Former Bush Aides as Washington Lobbyists,’’ Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2011, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/05/face- book-hires-former-bush-aides-as-washington-lobbyists.html;

Chapter 7 / Interest Groups / pages 238–265 N-15

Jon Swartz, ‘‘Facebook Changes Its Lobbying Status in Washington,’’ USA Today, 13 January 2011, http://www. usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2011-01-13- facebook13_CV_N.htm; and Sara Forden, ‘‘Facebook Builds a Washington Lobbying Team,’’ Business Week 9 December 2010, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/ content/10_51/b4208036753172.htm.

2. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835–1839, ed. Richard D. Hefner (New York: Mentor Books, 1956), p. 79.

3. The Federalist Papers (New York: Mentor Books, 1961), p. 79.

4. Ibid., p. 78. 5. See Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chi-

cago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 4–33. 6. Alan Rosenthal, The Third House (Washington, D.C.:

Congressional Quarterly Press, 1993), p. 7. 7. This discussion follows from Jeffrey M. Berry and Clyde

Wilcox, The Interest Group Society, 5th ed. (New York: Longman, 2009), pp. 7–8.

8. John Mark Hansen, Gaining Access (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 11–17.

9. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, ‘‘Union Member—2011,’’ news release, 27 January 2012, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ union2_01272012.pdf. See also Terry Moe, Special Interests (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011).

10. David B. Truman, The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf, 1951).

11. Herbert Gans, The Urban Villagers (New York: Free Press, 1962).

12. Robert H. Salisbury, ‘‘An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups,’’ Midwest Journal of Political Science 13 (Febru- ary 1969): 1–32.

13. See Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (New York: Schocken, 1968).

14. Marshall Ganz, Why David Sometimes Wins (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

15. Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy (Prince- ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012).

16. See Olson, The Logic of Collective Action. 17. See Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty (eds.),

Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action (New York:Cambridge University Press, 2010). On the underlying motivation to contribute, see Hahrie Hahn, Moved to Action (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009).

18. See, for example, Edward O. Laumann and David Knoke, The Organizational State (Madison: University of Wis- consin Press, 1987), p. 3, cited in Robert H. Salisbury, ‘‘The Paradox of Interest Groups in Washington—More Groups, Less Clout,’’ in The New American Political Sys- tem, 2nd ed., ed. Anthony King (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1990), p. 226.

19. ‘‘Health Lobbyist Has Great Sway,’’ Associated Press, 24 May 2009.

20. Eric Lipton, ‘‘Ex Lawmaker Still Working for Old Allies,’’ New York Times, 6 August 2011, p. A1.

21. Ethan Smith and Brody Mullins, ‘‘Studios Tap Dodd to Lead Lobbying,’’ Wall Street Journal, 2 March 2011, p. B1; and ‘‘Official: Chris Dodd to Lead MPAA,’’ The Hol- lywood Reporter, 1 March 2011, http://www.hollywoodre- porter.com/news/official-chris-dodd-lead-mpaa-162817.

22. Brody Mullins and Susan Pulliam, ‘‘Hedge Funds Pay Top Dollar for Washington Intelligence,’’ Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2011, p. A1.

23. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘Table 1: PAC Financial Activity 2009-2010,’’ http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/ cf_summary_info/2010pac_fullsum/1summary2010.pdf.

24. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘Table 6; PAC’s Grouped by Total Spent—2009–2010,’’ http://www.fec.gov/press/ bkgnd/cf_summary_info/2010pac_fullsum/6groupby- spending2010.pdf.

25. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘Table 10: Top 50 PACs by Contributions to Candidates, January 1, 2009–Decem- ber 31, 2010,’’ http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/cf_sum- mary_info/2010pac_fullsum/10top50paccontrib2010.pdf. PAC expenditure data are available online from the Fed- eral Election Commission through its ‘‘Summary Report Search,’’ http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/ srssea.shtml.

26. Michael M. Franz, Choices and Changes (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008).

27. Federal Election Commission, ‘‘Table 1: PAC Contribu- tion Summary, 2009–2010,’’ http://www.fec.gov/press/ bkgnd/cf_summary_info/2010pac_fullsum/1summary 2010.pdf.

28. Ibid. 29. Stephen Ansolabehere, John de Figueredo, and James N.

Snyder, Jr., ‘‘Why Is There So Little Money in U.S. Poli- tics?’’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (Winter 2003): 161–181; and Mark Smith, American Business and Politi- cal Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000): 115–141.

30. Marie Hojnacki and David Kimball, ‘‘The Contribution and Lobbying Strategies of PAC Sponsors in Committee’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, September 1998); John R. Wright, ‘‘Contributions, Lobbying, and Commit- tee Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives,’’ Ameri- can Political Science Review 84 (June 1990): 417–438; and Richard L. Hall and Frank W. Wayman, ‘‘Buying Time: Money Interests and the Mobilization of Bias in Congres- sional Committees,’’ American Political Science Review 84 (September 1990): 797–820.

31. See Kristin A. Goss, Disarmed (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006).

32. Frank R. Baumgartner et al., Lobbying and Policy Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 166–189.

33. Eric Pianin, ‘‘For Environmentalists, Victories in the Courts,’’ Washington Post, 27 January 2003, p. A3.

34. Jim Puzzanghera, ‘‘AT&T Finds Big-Money Lobbying, Ad Efforts Don’t Always Pay Off,’’ Los Angeles Times, 21 December 2011, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/21/

N-16 Notes

business/la-fi-att-regulators-20111221; and Shira Ovide, ‘‘AT&T Sets Ad Blitz in Capital,’’ Wall Street Journal, 20 September 2011, p. B4.

35. On competition and cooperation among Washington lobbies, see Thomas T. Holyoke, Competitive Interests (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011).

36. Marc K. Landy and Mary Hague, ‘‘Private Interests and Superfund,’’ Public Interest 108 (Summer 1992): 97–115.

37. Dara Z. Strolovitch, Affirmative Advocacy (Chicago: Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 181.

38. See Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, The Unheavenly Cho- rus; and Matt Grossman, The Not-So-Special Interests (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012).

39. Kay Lehman Schlozman, Traci Burch, and Samuel Lamp- ert, ‘‘Still an Upper-Class Accent?’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Ill., September 2004), pp. 16, 25.

40. Jeffrey M. Berry, The New Liberalism (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1999).

41. These figures are the authors’ calculations, derived from the Center for Responsive Politics. Summary statistics for health care can be found at http://www.opensecrets.org/ industries/indus.php?cycle=2012&ind=H. Growth in the lobbying industry slowed during 2011. See Anna Palmer, ‘‘Lobby Shop Growth Flat in 2011,’’ Politico, 20 January 2012, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/ 71722.html.

42. Baumgartner et al., Lobbying and Policy Change, pp. 190– 214. On the power of the status quo, see Amy McKay, ‘‘Negative Lobbying and Policy Outcomes,’’ American Politics Research 40 (January 2012): 116–146.

43. Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse, ‘‘Congress Votes to Tighten Rules on Lobbyist Ties,’’ New York Times, 3 August 2007, p. A1.

44. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).

45. Fred Schulte, John Aloysius Farrell, and Jeremy Borden, ‘‘Obama Rewards Big Bundlers with Jobs, Commissions, Stimulus Money, Government Contracts, and More,’’ iWatch News, 15 June 2011, http://www.iwatchnews.org/ 2011/06/15/4880/obama-rewards-big-bundlers-jobs-com- missions-stimulus-money-government-contracts-and; and Fred Schulte and Aaron Mehta, ‘‘Obama Rainmakers Enjoy White House Invites, Appointments, and Con- tracts,’’ iWatch News, 19 January 2012, http://www. iwatchnews.org/2012/01/19/7897/obama-rainmakers- enjoy-white-house-invites-appointments-and-contracts.

CHAPTER 8 / CONGRESS / PAGES 266–303 1. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics

on American Politics, 2011–2012 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), p. 42.

2. Barbash, Fred. ‘‘Divided Government Could Result in Stalemate.’’ CQ Weekly, 10 January 2011, p. 96.

3. Hulse, Carl. ‘‘Unruly G.O.P. Puts Boehner to a Test in Budget Vote,’’ New York Times, 14 April 2011, http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/us/politics/15boeh- ner.html.

4. Clinton Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (New York: Mentor, 1968), p. 158.

5. James M. Lindsay and Randall B. Ripley, ‘‘How Congress Influences Foreign and Defense Policy,’’ in Congress Re- surgent, ed. Randall B. Ripley and James M. Lindsay (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 25–28.

6. Monika McDermott and David Jones, ‘‘Do Public Evalua- tions of Congress Matter? Retrospective Voting in Con- gressional Elections,’’ American Politics Research 31, no. 2 (2003): 155–177.

7. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi (eds.), Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2011–2012 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), pp. 46–47.

8. For more on public opinion about Congress, see John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes toward American Political Insti- tutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and David Jones and Monika McDermott, Americans, Congress, and Democratic Responsiveness (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010).

9. Alan Abramowitz, Brad Alexander, and Matthew Gun- ning, ‘‘Incumbency, Redistricting, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections,’’ Journal of Politics 68 (February 2006): 75–88.

10. Steven Yaccino, ‘‘Illinois Redistricting Forces Republican Face-Off,’’ New York Times, 21 September 2011, http:// thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/illinois-redis- tricting-forces-republican-face-off/.

11. Thomas E. Mann, ‘‘Polarizing the House of Representa- tives: How Much Does Gerrymandering Matter?’’ in Red and Blue Nation, ed. Pietro S. Nivola and David W. Brady (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution and Hoover Institution, 2006), pp. 263–283; and Sean Ther- iault, Party Polarization in Congress (New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 2011). For a contrasting view, see Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, ‘‘Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?’’ American Journal of Political Science 53, no. 3 (2009): 666–680.

12. Timothy E. Cook, Making Laws and Making News (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1989), p. 83.

13. Dennis Conrad, ‘‘House Spends Big on Home Mailings,’’ Boston Globe, 28 December 2007, p. A2; and Michael Glassman, ‘‘Congressional Official Mail Costs (RL34188),’’ CRS Report for Congress, 16 August 2010.

14. Jordan Fabian, ‘‘Critics Say Franking Rules Should Change to Suit the Age of Twitter,’’ The Hill, 14 October 2009, http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/62969-critics- say-franking-rules-should-change-for-twitter; Alex Katz, ‘‘Not Much Tweeting from Mass. Delegation,’’ Boston Globe, 4 November 2011, http://bostonglobe.com/news/ nation/2011/11/03/not-much-tweeting-from-mass- delegation/bR5jndH4Y2eoIBWNnNoc4H/story.html; and

Chapter 8 / Congress / pages 266–303 N-17

Jennifer Moire. ‘‘Survey: U.S. Congressmen Really Like Facebook,’’ http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-like- congress-us-2011-07. See also http://tweetcongress.org/, which tracks tweets sent by members of Congress.

15. Campaign finance data for each election cycle are avail- able from the Federal Election Commission. Cited data were calculated from the FEC’s ‘‘2009–2010 Financial Activity of All Senate and House Campaigns (January 1, 2009-December 31, 2010),’’ http://www.fec.gov/ press/bkgnd/cf_summary_info/2010can_fullsum/ 1all2010afinal.pdf.

16. Ibid. 17. Jonathan S. Krasno, Challengers, Competition, and

Reelection (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994).

18. Paul S. Herrnson, Congressional Elections, 5th ed. (Wash- ington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2008), pp. 65–66; and ‘‘Most Members of Congress Enjoy Robust Financial Status, Despite Nation’s Sluggish Economic Recovery,’’ 15 November 2011, http:www. opensecrets.org.

19. Jennifer E. Manning, ‘‘Membership of the 112th Con- gress: A Profile (R41647),’’ CRS Report for Congress, 11 April 2011. These data do not include territorial delegates or the resident commissioner for Puerto Rico.

20. Hanna Fenichel Ptikin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 60–91; and Jane Mansbridge, ‘‘Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent ‘Yes,’’’ Journal of Politics 61 (1999): 628–657.

21. Carol M. Swain, Black Faces, Black Interests (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 197.

22. Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2011–2012 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), pp. 49–50.

23. Mark Hugo Lopez, ‘‘The Latino Electorate in 2010,’’ Pew Hispanic Center Report, 26 April 2011, pp. 4–5, http:// pewhispanic.org/files/reports/141.

24. Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993). 25. Bush v. Vera, 116 S. Ct. 1941 (1996). 26. Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234 (2001). 27. See David Lublin, The Paradox of Representation (Prince-

ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997); and Kenneth W. Shotts, ‘‘Does Racial Redistricting Cause Conservative Policy Outcomes?’’ Journal of Politics 65 (2003): 216–226, presents an alternative view.

28. Walter J. Oleszek, Congressional Procedures and the Pol- icy Process (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996), p. 91.

29. See Frank R. Baumgartner et al., Lobbying and Policy Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

30. 112th Congress, H.R. 196, http://thomas.loc.gov. 31. Loretta Sanchez. ‘‘Protecting the Vulnerable by Cracking

Down on Cyberstalking,’’ 13 January 2011, http://loretta- sanchez.house.gov/new-opinion-editorial-article.

32. Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885), p. 79.

33. Karen Foerstal, ‘‘Gingrich Flexes His Power in Picking Panel Chiefs,’’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 7 January 1995, p. 3326.

34. Jamie Goldberg, ‘‘Mexico Left in the Dark on Fast and Furious, Ambassador Says,’’ Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/01/nation/la- na-fast-furious-20120601.

35. Joel D. Aberbach, Keeping a Watchful Eye (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990), pp. 162–183.

36. John D. Huber and Charles R. Shipan, Deliberate Discretion? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

37. See Steven S. Smith, Party Influence in Congress (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

38. Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins, Legislative Le- viathan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); and Keith Krehbiel, Information and Legislative Organization (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992).

39. Matthew N. Green. The Speaker of the House (New Ha- ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010).

40. Jonathan Franzen, ‘‘The Listener,’’ New Yorker, 6 October 2003, p. 85.

41. Robert Draper. ‘‘There’s No ‘I’ in ‘Tea,’’’ New York Times Magazine, 17 July 2011, p. 30.

42. Charles O. Jones, The United States Congress (Home- wood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1982), p. 322.

43. See Gregory Kroger, Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2010); Norman Ornstein, ‘‘Our Broken Senate,’’ The American, May/April 2008, http://www. american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine- contents/our-broken-senate; Barbara Sinclair, ‘‘The 60 Vote Senate,’’ in U.S. Senate Exceptionalism, ed. Bruce Oppenheimer (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002), pp. 241–261.

44. Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins, Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Smith, Party Influence in Congress.

45. Cox and McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan; D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew D. McCubbins, The Logic of Delega- tion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Kreh- biel, Information and Legislative Organization.

46. These ideological views affect policy outcomes as well as the structure of the institution itself. See Nelson Polsby, How Congress Evolves: Social Bases of Institu- tional Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

47. Dan Carney, ‘‘As Hostilities Rage on the Hill, Partisan- Vote Rate Soars,’’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 27 January 1996, pp. 199–201; Martin P. Wattenberg, The Decline of American Political Parties, 1994 (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), Chap. 11.

48. See Mark A. Peterson, Legislating Together (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990).

49. James Sterling Young, The Washington Community (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1964).

N-18 Notes

50. Barry C. Burden, The Personal Roots of Representation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007).

51. Richard F. Fenno, Jr., Home Style (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), p. 32.

52. Louis I. Bredvold and Ralph G. Ross (eds.), The Philoso- phy of Edmund Burke (Ann Arbor: University of Michi- gan Press, 1960), p. 148.

53. For an alternative and more highly differentiated set of representation models, see Jane Mansbridge, ‘‘Rethinking Representation,’’ American Political Science Review 97 (November 2003): 515–528.

54. Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, ‘‘Constituency Influence in Congress,’’ American Political Science Review 57 (March 1963): 45–57. On minority legislators, see James B. Johnson and Philip E. Secret, ‘‘Focus and Style: Representational Roles of Congressional Black and His- panic Caucus Members,’’ Journal of Black Studies 26 (January 1996): 245–273.

55. Ron Nixon, ‘‘Cost-Cutters, Except When the Spending is Back Home.’’ New York Times, 19 July 2011. See also Citizens Against Government Waste, 2012 Congressional Pig Book (Washington, D.C.: CAGW, 2012), http:// www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2012. CAGW also has an online database of over 150 earmarks from FY2012 available at http://www.cagw.org/reports/ pig-book/2012/pork-database.html.

56. ‘‘Possible Negatives for Candidates: Vote for Bank Bail- out, Palin Support,’’ Pew Center for People and the Press, 6 October 2010, http://www.people-press. org/2010/10/06/possible-negatives-for-candidates-vote- for-bank-bailout-palin-support/.

57. Robert Weissberg, ‘‘Collective vs. Dyadic Representation in Congress,’’ American Political Science Review 72 (June 1978): 535–547.

CHAPTER 9 / THE PRESIDENCY / PAGES 304–337 1. On Obama’s ‘‘education’’ on the elusiveness of a post-

partisan presidency, see Ryan Lizza, ‘‘The Obama Memos,’’ New Yorker, 30 January 2012, pp. 36–49.

2. Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Majority Rates Obama Same or Worse Compared with Bush,’’ Gallup.com, 23 September 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/149666/Majority-Sees- Obama-Performing-Worse-Bush.aspx.

3. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, ‘‘34% – Was TARP Passed under Bush or Obama?’’ Poll conducted 1–5 July 2010, http://pewresearch. org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1057.

4. Alan S. Blinder and Mark Zandi, ‘‘How the Great Reces- sion Was Brought to an End,’’ 27 July 2010, http:// www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of- Great-Recession.pdf.

5. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, ‘‘56% – a Majority of Americans Disapprove of Health Care Law’s Individual Mandate,’’ poll conducted 7–11

May 2012, http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynum- ber/?NumberID=1459; and National Federation of Inde- pendent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. ____ (2012).

6. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘‘Unemployment Rate,’’ 4 May 2012, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000.

7. See Louis Fisher, Presidential War Power (Lawrence: Uni- versity Press of Kansas, 1995).

8. Lyn Ragsdale, Vital Statistics on the Presidency: Washing- ton to Clinton (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quar- terly Press, 1996), p. 396.

9. Charles Cameron, Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 2000).

10. Jeffrey Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987).

11. Cecil V. Crabb, Jr., and Pat M. Holt, Invitation to Strug- gle: Congress, the President and Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1984); and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989).

12. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). 13. Wilfred E. Binkley, President and Congress, 3rd ed. (New

York: Vintage, 1962), p. 155. 14. William G. Howell, Power without Persuasion: The Poli-

tics of Direct Presidential Action (Princeton, N.J.: Prince- ton University Press, 2003); and Adam Warber, Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2005).

15. See Jack Goldsmith, Power and Constraint (New York: Norton, 2012).

16. James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, ‘‘Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers without Courts,’’ New York Times, 16 December 2005, p. A1; and Lauren Etter, ‘‘Is Someone Listening to Your Phone Calls?’’ Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2006, p. A5.

17. James P. Pfiffner, Power Play (Washington, D.C.: Brook- ings Institution, 2008), pp. 190–191.

18. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Print- ing Office, 2011), Table 499: Federal Civilian Employ- ment by Branch and Agency: 1990 to 2010, http:// www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/ 12s0499.pdf; and Table 472: Federal Budget Outlays by Agency: 1990 to 2011, http://www.census.gov/ compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0472.pdf.

19. Richard Tanner Johnson, Managing the White House (New York: Harper and Row, 1974); and John P. Burke, The Institutional Presidency (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).

20. Irving Janus, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972); and Andrew Rudalevige, ‘‘The Structure of Leadership: Presidents, Hierarchies, and Information Flow,’’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 (June 2005): 333–360.

21. John Cochran, ‘‘GOP Turns to Cheney to Get the Job Done,’’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 31 May 2003, pp. 1306–1308.

Chapter 9 / The Presidency / pages 304–337 N-19

22. Howards Kurtz, ‘‘Finding Virtue in Vice: Despite Gaffes, Biden Has Blossomed as Obama’s Prime Spokesman,’’ Washington Post, 10 June 2010, p. C1.

23. Edward Weisband and Thomas M. Franck, Resignation in Protest (New York: Penguin, 1975), p. 139, quoted in Thomas E. Cronin, The State of the Presidency, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), p. 253.

24. See Richard W. Waterman, ‘‘Combining Political Resour- ces: The Internalization of the President’s Appointment Power,’’ in The Presidency Reconsidered, ed. Richard W. Waterman (Itasca, Ill.: Peacock, 1993), pp. 172–210.

25. Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: Signet, 1977), p. 363.

26. See Merrill McLoughlin (ed.), The Impeachment and Trial of President Clinton: The Official Transcripts, from the House Judiciary Committee Hearings to the Senate Trial (New York: Random House, 1999); Richard Posner, An Affair of State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); and Jeffrey Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy (New York: Touchstone, 1999).

27. James David Barber, Presidential Character, 4th ed. (Eng- lewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992); Fred I. Green- stein, The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000); and Stanley Renshon, High Hopes: The Clin- ton Presidency and the Politics of Ambition (New York: Routledge, 1998).

28. Donald Kinder, ‘‘Presidential Character Revisited,’’ in Po- litical Cognition, ed. Richard Lau and David O. Sears (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1986), pp. 233–255; W. E. Miller and J. M. Shanks, The New American Voter (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); and Frank Newport and Joseph Carroll, ‘‘Analysis: Impact of Per- sonal Characteristics on Candidate Support,’’ Gallup News Service, 13 March 2007, http://www.gallup.com.

29. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power, rev. ed. (New York: Wiley, 1980), p. 10.

30. Ibid., p. 9. 31. George C. Edwards III, At the Margins (New Haven,

Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989). See also Jon R. Bond and Richard Fleisher, The President in the Legislative Arena (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

32. See Edwards, At the Margins, pp. 101–125. 33. Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presiden-

tial Leadership, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006).

34. Richard A. Brody, Assessing the President (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 27–44; and Gary C. Jacobson, ‘‘The Bush Presidency and the Ameri- can Electorate,’’ in The George W. Bush Presidency, ed. Fred I. Greenstein (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 197–227.

35. Paul Brace and Barbara Hinckley, Follow the Leader (New York: Basic Books, 1992); Richard Brody, ‘‘Presi- dent Bush and the Public,’’ in The George W. Bush Presi- dency, Fred I. Greenstein, pp. 228–244; and George C. Edwards III and Tami Swenson, ‘‘Who Rallies?

The Anatomy of a Rally Event,’’ Journal of Politics 59 (February 1997): 200–212.

36. Richard C. Eichenberg and Richard J. Stoll, The Political Fortunes of War: Iraq and the Domestic Standing of Presi- dent George W. Bush (London: The Foreign Policy Centre, 2004), p. 8.

37. Ezra Klein, ‘‘The Unpersuaded,’’ New Yorker, 19 March 2012, pp. 32–38.

38. Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Obama Job Approval at 51% after Healthcare Vote,’’ Gallup Poll, 25 March 2010, http:// www.gallup.com/poll/126989/Obama-Job-Approval-51- After-Healthcare-Vote.aspx.

39. Francis Lee, Beyond Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

40. Anna Manchin, ‘‘Two-Thirds of Italians Disapprove of Their Leadership,’’ Gallup Poll, 16 November 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/150785/Two-Thirds-Italians- Disapprove-Leadership.aspx.

41. Jeffrey E. Cohen, Presidential Responsiveness and Public Policy-Making (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999); and Lawrence C. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, Politicians Don’t Pander (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

42. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schus- ter, 1992), p. 914.

43. Bond and Fleisher, The President in the Legislative Arena; and Mark Peterson, Legislating Together (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990).

44. Clea Benson, ‘‘Presidential Support: The Power of No,’’ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 14 January 2008, p. 137.

45. See Sarah H. Binder, ‘‘The Dynamics of Legislative Grid- lock, 1947–96,’’ American Political Science Review 93 (September 1999): 519–534.

46. Sean M. Theriault, Party Polarization in Congress (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Polar- ized America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008).

47. ‘‘Prepared Text of Carter’s Farewell Address,’’ New York Times, 15 January 1981, p. B10.

48. Surbhi Godsay, Amanda Nover, and Emily Kirby, The Minority Youth Vote in the 2008 Presidential Election, CIRCLE, Tisch College of Citizenship, Tufts University, October 2010, http://www.civicyouth.org/wp-content/ uploads/2010/10/fs_race_09_final1.pdf.

49. Public Papers of the President, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 72.

50. Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 88.

51. John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Poli- cies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), p. 25.

52. Seth King, ‘‘Reagan, in Bid for Budget Votes, Reported to Yield on Sugar Prices,’’ New York Times, 27 June 1981, p. A1.

53. Matt Bai, ‘‘Taking the Hill,’’ New York Times Magazine, 7 June 2009, p. 35.

N-20 Notes

54. Jeffrey M. Berry and Kent E. Portney, ‘‘Centralizing Reg- ulatory Control and Interest Group Access: The Quayle Council on Competitiveness,’’ in Interest Group Politics, 4th ed., ed. Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis (Wash- ington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1994), pp. 319–347.

55. Sidney M. Milkis, Jesse H. Rhodes, and Emily J. Char- nock, ‘‘What Happened to Post-Partisanship? Barack Obama and the New American Party System,’’ Perspec- tives on Politics 10 (March 2012): 57–76.

56. Richard M. Skinner, ‘‘George W. Bush and the Partisan Presidency,’’ Political Science Quarterly 123 (Winter 2008–2009): 605–622.

57. For an inside account of the Bush administration’s response to September 11, see Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002). For an account of the decision to go to war with Iraq, see Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

58. Lydia Saad, ‘‘Majority in U.S. Say Bin Laden’s Death Makes America Safer,’’ Gallup Poll, 4 May 2011, http:// www.gallup.com/poll/147413/Majority-Say-Bin-Laden- Death-Makes-America-Safer.aspx.

59. Robert Jervis, ‘‘Why Intelligence and Policymakers Clash,’’ Political Science Quarterly 125 (Summer 2010): 125.

60. For example, see Richard M. Pious, Why Presidents Fail (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).

61. Alexander George, ‘‘The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Foreign Policy,’’ American Political Science Review (September 1972): 751–782.

62. John P. Burke and Fred I. Greenstein, How Presidents Test Reality (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1989); and Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time (New York: Free Press, 1986).

CHAPTER 10 / THE BUREAUCRACY / PAGES 338–363 1. Steven Ertelt, ‘‘Obama Admin Will Force Coverage of

Birth Control, Abortion Drug,’’ LifeNews.com, 1 August 2011, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/11/21/will-obama- force-coverage-of-birth-control-abortion-drugs/; Rob Stein, ‘‘Obama Administration Refuses to Relax Plan B Restrictions,’’ Washington Post, 7 December 2011, http:// www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/ obama-administration-refuses-to-relax-plan-b-restric- tions/2011/12/07/gIQAF5HicO_story.html; Jennifer Cor- bett Dooren, ‘‘Obama Health Chief Blocks FDA on ‘Morning After’ Pill,’’ Wall Street Journal, 8 December 2011, p. A1; Sal Gentile, ‘‘Did Politics Trump Science in the Obama Administration’s Ruling on Plan B for Teens?’’ Need to Know, 8 December 2011, http://www. pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/did-politics- trump-science-in-the-obama-administrations-ruling-on- plan-b-for-teens/12608/; and Patti Neighmond, ‘‘The

‘Morning After’ Pill: How It Works and Who Uses It,’’ Morning Edition, 6 February 2012, http://www.npr.org/ blogs/health/2012/02/06/146358069/the-morning-after- pill-how-it-works-and-who-uses-it.

2. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy (New York: Basic Books, 1989), p. 25.

3. Bruce D. Porter, ‘‘Parkinson’s Law Revisited: War and the Growth of American Government,’’ Public Interest 60 (Summer 1980): 50.

4. See generally Ballard C. Campbell, The Growth of Ameri- can Government (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).

5. See generally Marc Allen Eisner, Regulatory Politics in Transition, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

6. See Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram, ‘‘Social Construc- tion of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy,’’ American Political Science Review 87 (June 1993): 334–347.

7. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Po- litical Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).

8. Paul C. Light, The True Size of Government (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1999).

9. Binyamin Applebaum and Annie Lowrey, ‘‘For Deficit Panel, Failure Cuts Two Ways,’’ New York Times, 21 No- vember 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/us/ politics/behind-deficit-panels-failure-a-surprise.html.

10. U.S. Department of Defense, ‘‘Active Duty Military Personnel by Rank/Grade, March 31, 2012,’’ http:// siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/ miltop.htm.

11. John T. Tierney, ‘‘Government Corporations and Manag- ing the Public’s Business,’’ Political Science Quarterly 99 (Spring 1984): 73–92.

12. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), Table 496: Federal Civilian Employment and Annual Payroll by Branch: 1970 to 2010, http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/12statab/ fedgov.pdf.

13. U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Employment and Trends March 2009, Chart 4: Distribution of Federal Ci- vilian Employment by Major Geographic Area for March 2009, http://www.opm.gov/feddata/html/2009/March/ charts.asp.

14. Lyndsey Layton and Lois Romano, ‘‘‘Plum Book’ Is Oba- ma’s Big Help-Wanted Ad,’’ Washington Post, 13 No- vember 2008, p. A01. The positions are all listed in what Washingtonians refer to as the ‘‘Plum Book’’ or, more formally, United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, published by the Senate Committee on Home- land Security and Governmental Affairs, http:// www.gpoaccess.gov/plum-book/2008/2008_plum_ book.pdf.

15. Though formally located within the executive branch, the bureaucracy is ‘‘caught in the middle’’ between the Con- gress and the president. See Barry Weingast, ‘‘Caught in

Chapter 10 / The Bureaucracy / pages 338–363 N-21

the Middle: The President, Congress, and the Political- Bureaucratic System,’’ in The Executive Branch, ed. J. Aberbach and M. Peterson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 312–343.

16. See, for example, Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. For- eign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 331–352.

17. Theodore J. Lowi, Jr., The End of Liberalism, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1979).

18. Doris A. Graber, Mass Media and American Politics, 8th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2010), p. 70.

19. See Jack Goldsmith, Power and Constraint (New York: Norton, 2012).

20. Jeffrey M. Berry, Feeding Hungry People (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984).

21. Cornelius M. Kerwin, Rule Making: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy, 3rd ed. (Washing- ton, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003).

22. Stuart Shapiro, ‘‘The Role of Procedural Controls in OSHA’s Ergonomics Rulemaking,’’ Public Administration Review 67 (July–August 2007): 688–701.

23. Department of Transportation, ‘‘New DOT Consumer Rule Limits Airline Tarmac Delays,’’ press release, http:// www.dot.gov/affairs/2009/dot19909.htm; Matthew L. Wald, ‘‘Stiff Fines Are Set for Long Wait on Tarmac,’’ New York Times, 22 December 2009; and Joe Sharkey, ‘‘Tough Rule Eliminates Most Tarmac Strandings,’’ New York Times, 4 May 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/ 05/05/business/05TARMAC.html?_r=1&pagewanted= print.

24. Charles E. Lindblom, ‘‘The Science of Muddling Through,’’ Public Administration Review 19 (Spring 1959): 79–88.

25. See Michael T. Hayes, Incrementalism and Public Policy (White Plains, N.Y.: Longman, 1992). For a critical ex- amination of determining what is a small increment, see Sarah Anderson and Laurel Harbridge, ‘‘Incremen- talism in Appropriations: Small Aggregation, Big Changes,’’ Public Administration Review 70 (May 2010): 464–474.

26. Frank R. Baumgartner et al., Lobbying and Policy Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); and Bryan D. Jones and Frank R. Baumgartner, The Politics of Atten- tion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

27. ‘‘Bureaucratic culture’’ is a particularly slippery concept but can be conceived of as the interplay of artifacts, val- ues, and underlying assumptions. See Irene Lurie and Norma Riccucci, ‘‘Changing the ‘Culture’ of Welfare Offices,’’ Administration and Society 34 (January 2003): 653–677.

28. Curry L. Hagerty and Jonathan L. Ramseur, ‘‘Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Selected Issues for Congress (R41262),’’ CRS Report for Congress, 27 May 2010.

29. Justin Pritchard, Tamara Lush, and Holbrook Mohr, ‘‘AP IMPACT: BP Spill Response Plans Severely Flawed,’’ Associated Press, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ wireStory?id=10863376; and Joel Achenbach and

David A. Fahrenthold, ‘‘Oil-Leak Gush Hits Record Levels,’’ Washington Post, 28 May 2010, p. A1.

30. Scott Wilson and Joel Achenbach, ‘‘BP Preliminarily Agrees to $20B Escrow Account to Handle Claims,’’ Washington Post, 16 June 2010, http://www.washington- post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/16/ AR2010061602614.html.

31. See generally Terry M. Moe, ‘‘The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure,’’ in Can the Government Govern? ed. John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1989), pp. 267–329.

32. Daniel J. Fiorino, The New Environmental Regulation (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006); and Del Quentin Wilber and Marc Kaufman, ‘‘Judges Toss EPA Rule to Reduce Smog, Soot,’’ Washington Post, 12 July 2008, p. A01.

33. Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil, Full Dis- closure (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

34. Eric Lipton, ‘‘With Obama, Regulations Are Back in Fashion,’’ New York Times, 13 May 2010, p. A15.

35. See generally E. S. Savas, Privatization and Public Private Partnerships (New York: Chatham House, 2000).

36. Steven Rathgeb Smith, ‘‘Social Services,’’ in The State of Nonprofit America, ed. Lester M. Salamon (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution and Aspen Institute, 2002), p. 165.

37. Beryl A. Radin, Challenging the Performance Movement (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006).

38. David G. Frederickson and H. George Frederickson, Measuring the Performance of the Hollow State (Wash- ington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006), pp. 56–57.

39. Vassia Gueorguieva et al., ‘‘The Program Assessment Rat- ing Tool and the Government Performance and Results Act,’’ American Review of Public Administration 39 (May 2009): 225–245.

40. See Carolyn J. Heinrich, ‘‘Outcomes-Based Performance in the Public Sector,’’ Public Administration Review 62 (November–December 2002): 712–725; and David Hirschmann, ‘‘Thermometers or Sauna? Performance Measurement and Democratic Assistance in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),’’ Public Administration 80 (2002): 235–255.

41. See Amahai Glazer and Lawrence S. Rothenberg, Why Government Succeeds and Why It Fails (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001).

CHAPTER 11/ THE COURTS / PAGES 364–395 1. Philip Elman (interviewed by Norman Silber), ‘‘The

Solicitor General’s Office, Justice Frankfurter, and Civil Rights Litigation, 1946–1960: An Oral History,’’ Harvard Law Review 100 (1987): 840.

2. David O’Brien, StormCenter, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1990), p. 324.

N-22 Notes

3. Bernard Schwartz, The Unpublished Opinions of the War- ren Court (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 446.

4. Ibid., pp. 445–448. 5. Felix Frankfurter and James M. Landis, The Business of

the Supreme Court (New York: Macmillan, 1928), pp. 5–14; and Julius Goebel, Jr., The History of the Supreme Court of the United States, vol. 1, Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801 (New York: Macmillan, 1971).

6. Maeva Marcus (ed.), The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789–1800, vol. 3, The Justices on Circuit, 1795–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

7. Robert G. McCloskey, The United States Supreme Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 31.

8. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 at 177, 178 (1803). The Supreme Court had earlier upheld an act of Congress in Hylton v. United States (3 Dallas 171 [1796]). Marbury v. Madison was the first exercise of the power of a court to invalidate an act of Congress.

9. Interestingly, the term judicial review dates only to 1910. It was apparently unknown to Marshall and his contem- poraries. Robert Lowry Clinton, Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989), p. 7.

10. Lee Epstein et al., The Supreme Court Compendium, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2007), Table 2–15.

11. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dallas 199 (1796). 12. Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304 (1816). 13. Epstein et al., The Supreme Court Compendium,

Table 2-16. 14. Garry Wills, Explaining America: The Federalist (Garden

City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981), pp. 127–136. 15. State Justice Institute News 4 (Spring 1993): 1. 16. Charles Alan Wright, Handbook on the Law of Federal

Courts, 3rd ed. (St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1976), p. 7. 17. Thomas F. Hogan, 2011 Annual Report of the Director:

Judicial Business of the United States Courts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), p. 32, Table 11, http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/Statistics/ JudicialBusiness/2011/JudicialBusiness2011.pdf.

18. Hogan, ‘‘Caseload Highlights,’’ in 2011 Annual Report of the Director, p. 9.

19. Hogan, 2011 Annual Report of the Director, p. 34, Table 13.

20. Hogan, 2011 Annual Report of the Director, p. 12, Table 1.

21. Linda Greenhouse, ‘‘Precedent for Lower Courts: Tyrant or Teacher?’’ New York Times, 29 January 1988, p. B7.

22. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989); and United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).

23. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).

24. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003); and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).

25. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007).

26. ‘‘Reading Petitions Is for Clerks Only at High Court Now,’’ Wall Street Journal, 11 October 1990, p. B7; and Robert Barnes, ‘‘Justices Continue Trend of Hearing Fewer Cases,’’ Washington Post, 7 January 2007, p. A4.

27. Jeffrey Rosen, ‘‘Supreme Court Inc: How the Nation’s Highest Court Has Come to Side with Business,’’ New York Times Magazine, 16 March 2008, pp. 38 et seq.

28. H. W. Perry, Jr., Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991); and Gregory A. Caldiera and John R. Wright, ‘‘The Discuss List: Agenda Building in the Supreme Court,’’ Law and Society Review 24, no. 3 (1990): 807.

29. Doris M. Provine, Case Selection in the United States Supreme Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 74–102.

30. Perry, Deciding to Decide, p. 286. 31. ‘‘Rising Fixed Opinions,’’ New York Times, 22 February

1988, p. 14. See also Linda Greenhouse, ‘‘At the Bar,’’ New York Times, 28 July 1989, p. 21.

32. Jeffrey A. Segal and Harold J. Spaeth, The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

33. Thomas G. Walker, Lee Epstein, and William J. Dixon, ‘‘On the Mysterious Demise of Consensual Norms in the United States Supreme Court,’’ Journal of Politics 50 (1988): 361–389.

34. Greenhouse, ‘‘At the Bar,’’ p. 21. 35. Justice at Stake, ‘‘2011–2012 Contestable Supreme Court

Elections,’’ 9 October 2012, http://www.justiceatstake.org/ media/cms/2012_Supreme_Court_ElectionsContest_ 9642E65205FD6.pdf.

36. Charlie Savage and Raymond Hernandez, ‘‘Filibuster by Senate Republicans Blocks Confirmation of Judicial Nominee,’’ 7 December 2011, p. A16, http://www. nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/senate-gop-blocks- confirmation-of-caitlin-halligan-as-judge.html.

37. Calculated with data from Federal Judicial Center, ‘‘Biographical Directory of Federal Judges,’’ 6 June 2012, http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/ judges.html.

38. Ronald Stidham, Robert A. Carp, and Donald R. Songer, ‘‘The Voting Behavior of Judges Appointed by President Clinton’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Houston, Tex., March 1996). See also Susan B. Haire, Martha Anne Humphries, and Donald R. Songer, ‘‘The Voting Behavior of Clinton’s Courts of Appeals Appointees,’’ Judicature 84 (March–April 2001): 274–281.

39. Robert A. Carp, Ronald Stidham, and Kenneth L. Man- ning, ‘‘The Voting Behavior of George W. Bush’s Judges: How Sharp a Turn to the Right?’’ in Principles and Prac- tice of American Politics: Classic and Contemporary Read- ings, 3rd ed., ed. Samuel Kernell and Steven S. Smith (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2006).

40. U.S. Senate, ‘‘Supreme Court Nominations, Present- 1789,’’ http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/ nominations/Nominations.htm.

Chapter 11/ The Courts / pages 364–395 N-23

41. See Frank J. Colucci, Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009).

42. ‘‘Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s Speech at Berkeley Law in 2001,’’ Berkeley La Raza Law Journal (2002): http://www.law.berkeley.edu/4982.htm.

43. Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955). 44. Alexander M. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch (India-

napolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962); and Robert A. Dahl, ‘‘Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National Policy Maker,’’ Journal of Public Law 6 (1962): 279.

45. William Mishler and Reginal S. Sheehan, ‘‘The Supreme Court as a Countermajoritarian Institution? The Impact of Public Opinion on Supreme Court Decisions,’’ Ameri- can Political Science Review 87 (1993): 87–101.

46. Barry Friedman, The Will of the People (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

47. Engel v. Vitale, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). 48. Lydia Saad, ‘‘High Court to Start Term with Near Dec-

ade-High Approval,’’ Gallup Poll, 9 September 2009, http://www.gallup.com/poll/122858/High-Court-Start- Term-Near-Decade-High-Approv.aspx?CSTS=alert.

49. Jeffrey M. Jones, ‘‘Supreme Court Approval Rating Dips to 46%,’’ Gallup Poll, 3 October 2011, http://www.gallup. com/poll/149906/Supreme-Court-Approval-Rating-Dips. aspx.

50. William J. Brennan, Jr., ‘‘State Supreme Court Judge ver- sus United States Supreme Court Justice: A Change in Function and Perspective,’’ University of Florida Law Review 19 (1966): 225.

CHAPTER 12 / ORDER AND CIVIL LIBERTIES / PAGES 396–433 1. Ahlquist v. City of Cranston, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3348

(USDC, D. RI) (11 January 2012). 2. Abby Goodnough, ‘‘Student Faces Town’s Wrath in Pro-

test against a Prayer,’’ New York Times, 27 January 2012, p. A12.

3. Learned Hand, The Bill of Rights (Boston: Atheneum, 1958), p. 1.

4. Leonard W. Levy, The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment (New York: Macmillan, 1986); Leo Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom (Boston: Beacon Press, 1953); and Leonard W. Levy, ‘‘The Original Mean- ing of the Establishment Clause of the First Amend- ment,’’ in Religion and the State, ed. James E. Wood, Jr. (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 1985), pp. 43–83.

5. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879). 6. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). 7. Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236 (1968). 8. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). 9. Agostini v. Felton, 96 U.S. 552 (1997). 10. Zelman, Superintendent of Public Instruction of Ohio,

et al. v. Simmons-Harris et al., 536 U.S. 639 (2002).

11. Engle v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962); and Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985).

12. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992). 13. Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290

(2000). 14. Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98

(2001). 15. Michael W. McConnell, ‘‘The Origins and Historical

Understanding of the Free Exercise of Religion,’’ Harvard Law Review 103 (1990): 1409.

16. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963). 17. Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872(1990). 18. Boerne v. Flores, 95 U.S. 2074 (1997). 19. Gonzales v. O Centro Espı́rita Beneficente União do Vege-

tal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006). 20. Laurence Tribe, Treatise on American Constitutional Law

2nd ed. (St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1988), p. 566. 21. Zechariah Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (Cam-

bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941). 22. Leonard W. Levy, The Emergence of a Free Press (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 23. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). 24. Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). 25. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925). 26. Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951). 27. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). 28. Anthony Lewis, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate:

A Biography of the First Amendment (New York: Basic Books, 2008).

29. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent County School District, 393 U.S. 503 at 508 (1969).

30. Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007); and Charles Lane, ‘‘Court Backs School on Speech Curbs,’’ Washing- ton Post, 26 June 2007, p. A6.

31. See Rick Musser, ‘‘Fred Phelps versus Topeka,’’ in Culture Wars and Local Politics, ed. Elaine B. Sharp (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), pp. 158–177.

32. Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. _____ (2011). 33. Kathleen M. Sullivan, ‘‘Two Concepts of Political Free-

dom,’’ Harvard Law Review 124 (November 2010): 143–177.

34. New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). 35. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931). 36. For a detailed account of Near, see Fred W. Friendly,

Minnesota Rag (New York: Random House, 1981). 37. New York Times v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971). 38. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665 (1972). 39. Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978). 40. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260

(1988). 41. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876); and Con-

stitution of the United States of America: Annotated and Interpreted (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 1031.

42. DeJonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937). 43. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). 44. District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008). 45. McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. _____ (2010).

N-24 Notes

46. Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243 (1833). 47. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R .v. Chicago, 166 U.S.

226 (1897). 48. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 666 (1925). 49. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937). 50. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968). 51. McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332 (1943). 52. Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66 (1970). 53. Anthony Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet (New York: Random

House, 1964). 54. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). 55. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). 56. Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428 (2000). 57. Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004). 58. Berghuis v. Thompkins 560 U.S. ( 2010). 59. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949). 60. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). 61. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984). 62. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. __ (2009). 63. Liane Hansen, ‘‘Voices in the News This Week,’’ NPR

Weekend Edition, 28 October 2001 (NEXIS transcript). 64. Patriot Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, Public Law 112-14. 65. Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004). 66. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004); and Charles

Lane, ‘‘Justices Back Detainee Access to U.S. Courts,’’ Washington Post, 29 June 2004, p. A1.

67. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006). 68. Michael A. Fletcher, ‘‘Bush Signs Terrorism Measure,’’

Washington Post, 18 October 2006, p. A4. 69. Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008). 70. Article I, Sec. 9. 71. Paul Brest, Processes of Constitutional Decision-Making

(Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), p. 708. 72. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). 73. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). 74. See John Hart Ely, ‘‘The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Com-

ment on Roe v. Wade,’’ Yale Law Journal 82 (1973): 920. 75. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490

(1989). 76. Steinberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000); and Gonzales v.

Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007). 77. Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986). 78. Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). 79. Ibid. 80. Glenn Kessler, ‘‘California Voters Narrowly Approve

Same-Sex Marriage Ban,’’ Washington Post, 6 November 2008, p. A44.

81. Perry v. Brown, formerly Perry v. Schwarzenegger, No. 3:09-cv-02292 (U.S. Dist. Ct., N.D. Cal.).

CHAPTER 13 / EQUALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS / PAGES 434–461 1. Fisher v. University of Texas, 645 F.Supp.2d 587 (2009);

Fisher v. University of Texas, 631 F. 3d 213 (2011); and Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 11-345 (cert. granted, February 21, 2012).

2. Sam Howe Verhovek, ‘‘In Poll, Americans Reject Means but Not Ends of Racial Diversity,’’ New York Times, 14 December 1997, sec. 1, p. 1; Jack Citrin, ‘‘Affirmative Action in the People’s Court,’’ Public Interest 122 (1996): 40–41; Charlotte Steeh and Maria Krysan, ‘‘Affirmative Action and the Public, 1970–1995,’’ Public Opinion Quar- terly 60 (1996): 128–158; and Gallup Poll, 25–28 October 2000: ‘‘Would you vote … for or against a law which would allow your state to give preferences in job hiring and school admission on the basis of race?’’ For, 13 per- cent; against, 85 percent; and no opinion, 2 percent.

3. Michael I. Norton and Samuel R. Sommers, ‘‘Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing,’’ Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 3 (2011): 215– 218, http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20som- mers.pdf. A Pew Research Center survey released in May 2009 found that 65% of Americans disagreed with the statement: ‘‘we should make every effort to improve the position of blacks and minorities, even if it means giving them preferential treatment.’’ Americans have mostly dis- agreed with this statement since 1987, when the question was first asked. See Pew Research Center, ‘‘Public Backs Affirmative Action, but Not Minority Preferences,’’ http:// pewresearch.org/pubs/1240/sotomayor-supreme-court- affirmative-action-minoritypreferences.

4. The Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873). 5. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883). 6. Mary Beth Norton et al., A People and a Nation: A His-

tory of the United States, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), p. 490.

7. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). 8. Cummings v. County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528

(1899). 9. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 10. Ibid., pp. 483, 495. 11. Ibid., pp. 483, 494. 12. Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955). 13. Jack W. Peltason, Fifty-Eight Lonely Men, rev. ed.

(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971). 14. Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 396 U.S.

19 (1969). 15. Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974). 16. Norton et al., People and a Nation, p. 943. 17. But see Abigail M. Thernstrom, Whose Vote Counts? Af-

firmative Action and Minority Voting Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).

18. Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989). 19. Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755 (1989); Wards Cove Pack-

ing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 (1989); Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164 (1989); Price Water- house v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989); Lorance v. AT&T Technologies, 490 U.S. 900 (1989); and EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244 (1991).

20. Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987). 21. Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian

History of the American West (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971).

22. In January 2012, the Department of the Interior con- firmed the Tejon Tribe’s status as a federally recognized Indian tribe, bringing the total number of listed tribes to

Chapter 13 / Equality and Civil Rights / pages 434–461 N-25

565. U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Assist- ant Secretary-Indian Affairs, ‘‘Echo Hawk Issues Reaffir- mation of the Tejon Indian Tribe’s Government-to- Government Status,’’ news release, 3 January 2012, http:// www.bia.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/text/ idc015898.pdf.

23. Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. ___ (2012). 24. Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, ‘‘Summary

Table 6: Percent of the Projected Population by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States: 2010 to 2050 (NP2008-T6),’’ 14 August 2008, http://www.census.gov/ population/www/projections/summarytables.html; and Jennifer E. Manning, ‘‘Membership in the 112th Con- gress: A Profile (R40086),’’ CRS Report for Congress, 1 March 2011, pp. 6–7. The tally for gender and ethnicity in this publication is updated frequently. These statistics do not include nonvoting delegates from American terri- tories or the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico.

25. Stephen Ceasar, ‘‘Hispanic Population Tops 50 Million in U.S.,’’ Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/ mar/24/nation/ la-na-census-hispanic-20110325.

26. Calculated from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, ‘‘Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) Charges FY 1992-FY 1996,’’ http://www.eeoc.gov/ eeoc/statistics/enforcement/ada-charges-a.cfm, and ‘‘Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) Charges (includes concurrent charges with Title VII, ADEA, and EPA) FY 1997–FY 2011,’’ http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/ statistics/enforcement/ada-charges.cfm.

27. Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971). 28. Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973). 29. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976). 30. J.E.B. v. Alabama exrel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127 (1994). 31. United States v. Virginia, slip op. 94–1941 and 94–2107

(decided 26 June 1996). 32. Melvin I. Urofsky, A March of Liberty (New York: Knopf,

1988), p. 902. 33. Harris v. Forklift Systems, 510 U.S. 17 (1993). 34. Facts on File 206B2 (4 June 1965). 35. As quoted in Melvin I. Urofsky, A Conflict of Rights: The

Supreme Court and Affirmative Action (New York: Scrib- ner’s, 1991), p. 29.

36. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).

37. Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Penia, 518 U.S. (1995). 38. Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003). 39. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003). 40. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School

District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007). 41. Stephen Earl Bennett et al., Americans’ Opinions about

Affirmative Action (Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati, Institute for Policy Research, 1995), p. 4; and Lawrence Bobo, ‘‘Race and Beliefs about Affirmative Action,’’ in Racialized Politics: The Debate about Racism in America, ed. David O. Sears, Jim Sidanius, and Lawrence Bobo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

CHAPTER 14 / POLICYMAKING AND THE BUDGET / PAGES 462– 493 1. ‘‘Stories,’’ Young Invincibles, http://www.younginvinci-

bles.org/Stories/index.html. 2. ‘‘At Risk: Pre-existing Conditions Could Affect 1 in 2

Americans,’’ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 19 January 2011, http://www.healthcare.gov/ law/resources/reports/preexisting.html.

3. Tim Langmaid, ‘‘CDC: Health Reform Extends Coverage to Young Americans,’’ CNN.com, 14 December, 2011; and Kevin Sack, ‘‘More Young Adults Insured since Health Law Took Effect,’’ New York Times, 22 September 2011, p. A1.

4. Huma Khan, ‘‘Health Care Bill: What Does It Mean for You?’’ ABC News, 22 March 2010, http://abcnews.go. com/Politics/HealthCare/health-care-bill-obama-sign- bill-tuesday/story?id=10169801.

5. Adam Nagourney, ‘‘For Cowboy Poets, Unwelcome Spotlight in Battle over Spending,’’ New York Times, 11 April 2011, p. A15; and Danielle Switalski, ‘‘Cowboy Poetry Gathering Drawn into Budget Battle,’’ Elko Daily Free Press, 10 March 2011, http://elkodaily. com/news/article_f75c6b5c-4b34-11e0-9a1c-001cc 4c03286.html.

6. ‘‘State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools,’’ Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, September 2011, http://www.itepnet.org/pdf/poverty2011report.pdf.

7. Peter Katel, ‘‘Food Safety,’’ CQ Researcher, 17 December 2010, www.cqresearcher.com; and FDA, ‘‘The New FDA Food Safety Modernization Act,’’ www.fda.gov.

8. Gardiner Harris and William Neuman, ‘‘Senate Passes Sweeping Law on Food Safety,’’ New York Times, 1 December 2010, p. A1.

9. This typology is adapted from Theodore Lowi’s classic article ‘‘American Business, Public Policy Case Studies, and Political Theory,’’ World Politics 16 (July 1964): 677–715.

10. The policymaking process can be depicted in many ways. Another approach, a bit more elaborate than this, is described in James E. Anderson, Public Policy Making, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), p. 37.

11. See Christopher J. Bosso, ‘‘The Contextual Bases of Prob- lem Definition,’’ in The Politics of Problem Definition, ed. David A. Rochefort and Roger W. Cobb (Lawrence: Uni- versity Press of Kansas, 1994), pp. 182–203.

12. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, ‘‘Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics,’’ in Policy Dynamics, ed. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 3–28.

13. ‘‘House Democrats Seek Hearing on J&J Mesh, Allergan Lap-Band,’’ Bloomberg Businessweek, 26 January 2012, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-26/house- democrats-seek-hearing-on-j-j-mesh-allergan-lap- band.html.

N-26 Notes

14. Eric Lipton and Gardiner Harris, ‘‘In Turnaround, Indus- tries Seek U.S. Regulations,’’ New York Times, 16 Septem- ber 2007, p. 1.

15. ‘‘Texting While Driving up 50 Percent,’’ press release from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), 8 December 2011, http://carolynmccarthy.house.gov/recent-news/rep- mccarthy-calls-for-passage-of-national-texting-law-in- wake-of-report-showing-texting-while-driving-up-50- percent/; and Kara Rose, ‘‘More States Crack Down on Texting While Driving,’’ USA Today, 14 October 2011, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/ 2011-10-13/texting-driving-crackdown/50757010/1.

16. Ibid. 17. Lipton and Harris, ‘‘In Turnaround.’’ 18. Jeffrey M. Berry and Clyde Wilcox, The Interest Group

Society, 5th ed. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2009), pp. 155–176.

19. Michael T. Heaney, ‘‘Coalitions and Interest Group Influ- ence over Health Care Policy’’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, August 2003), p. 16.

20. Jeffrey M. Berry, ‘‘Subgovernments, Issue Networks, and Political Conflict,’’ in Remaking American Politics, ed. Richard A. Harris and Sidney M. Milkis (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 239–260.

21. Paul Peretz, ‘‘The Politics of Fiscal and Monetary Policy,’’ in The Politics of American Economic Policy Making, 2nd ed., ed. Paul Peretz (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharp, 1996), pp. 101–113.

22. Jackie Calmes and Michael Cooper, ‘‘New Consensus Views Stimulus as Worthy Step,’’ New York Times, 21 November 2009, pp. A1, A10; and Alec MacGillis, ‘‘Eco- nomic Stimulus Has Created or Saved Nearly 2 Million Jobs, White House Says,’’ Washington Post, 13 January 2010, p. A13.

23. Executive Office of the President, Budget of the United States Government: Analytic Perspectives, Fiscal Year 2013 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), Tables 12-1 and 13-1.

24. The Bureau of the Public Debt publishes historical data and a revised total debt figure daily at ‘‘The Debt to the Penny, and Who Holds It,’’ http://www.treasurydirect. gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np.

25. The federal budget, with appendixes, is now available electronically on the OMB website at http://www.white- house.gov/omb.

26. For a concise discussion of the 1990 budget reforms, see James A. Thurber, ‘‘Congressional-Presidential Battles to Balance the Budget,’’ in Rivals for Power: Presidential-Con- gressional Relations, ed. James A. Thurber (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996), pp 196–202.

27. For a brief account of presidential attempts, from Carter to Clinton, to deal with budget deficits, see Alexis Simen- dinger et al., ‘‘Sky High,’’ National Journal, 7 February 2004, pp. 370–373.

28. Ibid., p. 377; Concord Coalition, ‘‘Budget Process Reform: An Important Tool for Fiscal Discipline, but Not a Magic Bullet,’’ Issue Brief, 5 February 2004.

29. Concord Coalition, ‘‘Budget Process Reform,’’ p. 3. 30. James V. Saturno, A Balanced Budget Constitutional

Amendment: Procedural Issues and Legislative History, Congressional Research Service Report 98-671 (5 August 1998), p. 14.

31. Peter H. Schuck, ‘‘The Balanced Budget Amendment’s Fatal Flaw,’’ Wall Street Journal, 22 July 2011, p. A15.

32. D. Andrew Austin and Mindy R. Levit, The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases, CRS Report for Congress, RL31967 (20 January 2012), p. 8.

33. Executive Office of the President, The Budget for Fiscal Year 2013, Historical Tables (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), Table 7.3.

34. Binyamin Appelbaum, ‘‘After Aiding Republicans, Busi- ness Groups Press Them on Debt Ceiling,’’ New York Times, 27 July 2011, p. A16.

35. Amy Bingham, ‘‘Only One Democratic Country, Besides America, Has a Debt Ceiling,’’ ABC News, 19 July 2011, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/07/only-one- democratic-country-besides-america-has-a-debt-ceiling/.

36. Richard A. Musgrave and Peggy B. Musgrave, Public Finance in Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), p. 42.

37. Jill Barshay, ‘‘‘Case of the Missing Revenue’ Is Nation’s Troubling Mystery,’’ CQ Weekly, 17 January 2004, p. 144.

38. Pew Social & Demographic Trends, A Balance Sheet at 30 Months: How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, 30 June 2010), p. i, http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/ 759-recession.pdf.

39. Executive Office of the President, ‘‘Table 8.7: Outlays for Discretionary Programs: 1962–2009’’ and ‘‘Table 8.8: Outlays for Discretionary Programs in Constant (FY2000) Dollars: 1962–2009,’’ in Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009, Historical Tables (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2007), pp. 154–155, 160–161.

40. Amy Belasco, ‘‘Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations since 9/11 (RL33110),’’ CRS Report for Congress, 29 March 2011, p. 3. See ‘‘The Cost of War,’’ by the National Priorities Project, http://costofwar.com/en/, for an unofficial run- ning tally.

41. Executive Office of the President, ‘‘Table S-5: Proposed Budget by Category,’’ in Budget of the United States Gov- ernment, Fiscal Year 2013, Summary Tables (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2012), p. 210.

42. Times-Mirror Center for the People and the Press, ‘‘Voter Anxiety Dividing GOP: Energized Democrats Backing Clinton,’’ press release, 14 November 1995, p. 88.

43. These questions were asked in the 2008 American National Election Survey conducted by Stanford Univer- sity and the University of Michigan.

44. Fay Lomax Cook et al., Convergent Perspectives on Social Welfare Policy: The Views from the General Public, Mem- bers of Congress, and AFDC Recipients (Evanston, Ill.: Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, North- western University, 1988), Table 4-1.

Chapter 14 / Policymaking and the Budget / pages 462–493 N-27

45. Social Security Administration, The 2012 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survi- vors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 25 April 2012), p. 10, http://www.socialsecurity.gov/ OACT/TR/2012/tr2012.pdf.

46. Social Security Administration, ‘‘Fact Sheet: Social Security 2012,’’ 15 May 2012, http://www. socialsecurity.gov/pressoffice/factsheets/basicfact-alt.pdf.

47. Social Security Administration, The 2012 Annual Report, p. 53.

48. Ibid., p. 2. 49. Ibid., p. 3. 50. Ibid., p. 3. 51. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Com-

merce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2012 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), Table 7: Resident Population by Sex and Age: 1980

to 2010; and U.S. Bureau of the Census, ‘‘Voting and Registration by Age in the United States, Nov 2010’’ in Voting Hot Report 1996–2010, http://www.census. gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/index.html.

52. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, The 2012 An- nual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospi- tal Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds, 23 April 2012, p. 6.

53. Kaiser Family Foundation Fast Facts, ‘‘Medicare at a Glance,’’ November 2011, http://www.kff.org/medicare/ upload/1066-14.pdf.

54. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, ‘‘2011 Actuarial Report on the Financial Outlook for Medicaid,’’ 16 March 2012, p. iii.

55. ‘‘Critical Care: The Economic Recovery Package and Medicaid,’’ Families USA, January 2009, http://www. familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/critical-care.pdf.

N-28 Notes

Index

Note: Entries followed by f indicate figures and/or photos.

A abortion: Ninth Amendment, 426–427; Plan B contraceptive pill, 339–340; public opinion, 117–118, 119f, 122, 126f; Roe v. Wade, 390

Abramoff, Jack, 267–301 ACA (Affordable Care Act), 3–4, 305, 463–464

activists, 205 ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), 18–19, 450

ADA Amendments Act of 2008, 450 Adams, John, 367 administrative discretion, 348–349 Advanced Research Projects Agency, 133 Adventist Sabbath, 403 affirmative action, 453–458; defined, 453; in India, 455–456; politics of, 458; reverse discrimination, 454–457

Affordable Care Act (ACA), 3–4, 305, 463–464

African Americans, 121; elections, 276; enfranchisement of, 165–166; party identification, 202; political participa- tion, 173; racial segregation, 439–440; representations, 276; school desegre- gation, 365–366, 376–377, 440–443

age, party identification by, 201f agenda building, 242–243 agenda setting, 468 Agricultural Adjustment Act, 329 airlines, regulation of, 349–350 Alabama, 165 alien, 81 Alito, Samuel, 377f, 388 Allen, Robert, 96 Allen, Thad, 86f, 353 Alvarez, Xavier, 408f amendments: 11 through 27, 71t; Bill of Rights, 66–67; Fifteenth Amendment, 165–166, 438–439; Fifth Amendment, 416; First Amendment, 137, 405, 408, 410, 413; Fourteenth Amendment, 277, 415–416, 438–439; Fourth

Amendment, 420; Nineteenth Amendment, 167, 451; Ninth Amendment, 425–429; process for, 69–71; Second Amendment, 413–414; Sixteenth Amendment, 73; Sixth Amendment, 418; Thirteenth Amendment, 73, 437; Twelfth Amendment, 55; Twenty-fourth Amendment, 445; Twenty-sixth Amendment, 168, 181

American Crossroads, 225 American Dental Association, 261 American Independent Party, 195 American Indian Movement, 447 American National Election Study

(ANES), 117 American Political Science Association, 257f American Recovery and Reinvestment

Act, 89 American Telephone and Telegraph

(AT&T), 255, 357 Americans for Prosperity, 187 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),

18–19, 450 Americas Elect, 226 amicus curiae brief, 380 anarchism, 21–22 ANES (American National Election

Study), 117 Anthony, Susan B., 451 Antifederalists, 64, 66, 192–193 appellate jurisdiction, 378 Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, Switzerland, 32f appropriations committees, 479 Arab Spring, 153, 296 argument, 382 Arizona, 81–82, 170, 448 Arkansas National Guard, 311 Army Corps of Engineers, 253, 352 ARPANET, 133 Article I (legislative article), 59–60, 63,

73, 87, 90–91, 165, 464 Article II (executive article), 60 Article III (judicial article), 60–61

Article IV (states), 61 Article V (amendments), 61 Article VI (supremacy clause), 61–62 Article VII (ratification), 62 Articles of Confederation, 50–51, 307 Ashton, Catherine, 45f Asian Americans, 121, 202 AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph), 255, 357

authorization committees, 479

B Bachmann, Michelle, 215 Bahrain, 153 Bakke, Allan, 454 Balanced Budget Act, 480 balanced budget amendment (BBA), 481 Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, 280

Bates, Paddy Roy, 6f BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act), 223–224

BEA (Budget Enforcement Act), 480–481

Belgium, 168 Bell System, 357 Berghuis v. Thompkins, 420 Berlusconi, Silvio, 322, 324–325 Bible, 122f Biden, Joe, 315 Bill of Rights, 66–67, 398–399; applying to states, 415–425; civil liberties, 399; civil rights, 399; freedom of expression, 405–413; incorporation of, 417f; right to bear arms, 413–415

bills, 277, 280 bills of attainder, 415 Bin Laden, Osama, 305, 332 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), 223–224

Blackmun, Harry A., 426 block grants, 94

I-1 Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).

blogs, 133 Bloody Sunday, 156, 166 Blue Bloods, 143 Boehner, John, 267–268 bolter parties, 195 Bolton, Susan, 82 Boston Tea Party, 46–47, 157 Boumediene v. Bush, 425 Bowers v. Hardwick, 427 boycott, 444 Brady Bill, 92 Brandenburg, Clarence, 408–409 Brandenburg v. Ohio, 408–409 Brewer, Jan, 81 Breyer, Stephen J., 377f Britain, 7, 10 British Petroleum, 86f, 353, 356 broad policies, 162–163 broadcast media, 132; biased reporting, 145–146; government regulation of, 136–137; influence on knowledge and opinion, 140–142; Internet, 132–134; political socialization, 143–144; setting political agenda, 142–143; as source of news, 140

Brock, William, 208 Brown, Hazel, 442f Brown, Linda, 163 Brown v. Board of Education, 163, 365–366, 376–377, 441

Brown v. Board of Education II, 442 Bryan, William Jennings, 196 Buchanan, Pat, 216 budget, 473–481; budgeting for public policy, 475; economic theory, 474–475; incremental budgeting, 486; nature of, 476; passing congressional, 479–481; preparing president’s, 476–478

Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, 480

budget authority, 476 budget committees, 480 Budget Enforcement Act (BEA), 480–481

budget outlays, 476 Bureau of Budget, 475 bureaucracy, 338–362; administrative policymaking, 347–352; civil service, 346; culture of, 351–352; defined, 341; growth of, 342–343; organization matters, 340–344; organization of government, 344–346; presidential control over, 346–347; problems in implementing policy, 352–356; reducing size of government, 343–344; reforming, 356–361

bureaucrats, 341, 345f Bush, George H. W., 216, 315, 387–388, 480, 483, 485

Bush, George W., 81, 89, 103, 129, 131, 145, 204, 217, 219, 221, 225, 305, 310–311, 315, 332, 340, 387

Bush v. Gore, 92–93

C c2 Group, 250f cabinet, 315–316, 344 CALEA (Communications Assistance

for Law Enforcement Act), 422 California, 11, 121, 169–170 campaigns, 221–228; defined, 211;

financing, 222–226, 274; nomination for congress and state offices, 212–213; nomination for president, 213–217; strategies and tactics, 226–228

candidate-oriented strategy, 226 candidates: advertising, 227; nominating,

190–191; nomination for Congress, 212–213; nomination for president, 213–217; nomination for state offices, 212–213; strategies and tactics, 226–228

cap and trade, 357 capital punishment, 111–113, 115 capitalism, 21 Cardozo, Benjamin N., 416–417 Carpini, Delli, 128 Carter, Jimmy, 103, 217, 387, 485 casework, 274 casinos, 447 Castro, Fidel, 333–334 categorical grants, 94 Catholics, 122 caucus/convention, 214 CBO (Congressional Budget Office), 480 Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,

260 Center for Disease Control and

Prevention, 463–464 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 348,

424 challenger, 221–222 charity, 10 Chavez, Cesar, 245–246 checks and balances, 58, 59f The Chicago Code, 143 Chicago Tribune, 133, 145 chief justice, 383 Children’s Defense Fund, 260 China, 7, 9, 111 Chrysler Corp., 9 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 348,

424 Cincinnati Internal Revenue Service

Center, 482f citizen groups, 260

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 224, 262–263, 410

City of Boerne v. Flores, 404 civil cases, 371 civil disobedience, 443–444 civil liberties, 29, 399 civil rights, 29, 399, 437; immigrant groups, 447–450; Native Americans, 446–447; people with disabilities, 450

Civil Rights act of 1866, 446 Civil Rights Act of 1875, 439 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 254, 444–446, 452

Civil Rights Act of 1991, 445 civil rights movement, 443–446; civil disobedience, 443–444; Civil Rights Act of 1964, 444–445; continuing struggle over civil rights, 445; defined, 443

civil service, 346 civil unions, 10 Civil War, 121, 437–440 Civilian Conservation Corps, 329 class action, 392 class-action suits, 163 Clean Air Act, 472 Clean Water Act, 253 clear and present danger test, 406–408 climate change, 130f Clinton, Bill, 103, 114f, 131, 270, 314, 318, 388, 404, 480

Clinton, Hillary, 217 Clooney, George, 157f, 254 closed primaries, 213 cloture, 288 coalition building, 256 Coercive (‘‘Intolerable’’) Acts (1774), 46f coercive federalism, 101 Colbert, Stephen, 225f The Colbert Report, 225f Cold War, 485 colonial America, freedom in, 46–47 Colorado, 170 Comcast, 135 commerce clause, 91 committees, congressional, 278–285. See also Congress; conference committees, 282; division of labor among, 281– 282; expertise and seniority, 283; joint committees, 282; majoritarian view of, 284–285; oversight, 284; pluralist view of, 284–285; select committees, 282; standing committees, 281–282

common law, 373 communication, 132 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), 422

communism, 9, 20–21 Communist Party, 407 Communitarian Network, 24–25

I-2 Index

communitarians, 24–25, 125–127 competition, 358–360 concepts, defined, 11 conceptual framework for analyzing government, 11–25; equality, 14–15; freedom, 13; order, 13–14

concurrence, 382 confederation, 50–51 conference committees, 282 Congress, 3–4, 267–301. See also House of Representatives; legislative branch; budget, 479–481; Civil War amendments, 438–439; committees, 278–285; delegation of powers, 311–312; descriptive representation, 276; duties of the House and Senate, 269–270; elections, 271–277; getting issues on agenda, 277–278; Great Compromise, 269; implied powers, 85; leadership, 286–287; legislative environment, 288–293; legislative process, 279f; nomination for, 212–213; origin and powers of, 268–271; partisanship, 290f; pluralism vs. majoritarianism, 298–299; rules of procedure, 287–288; trustees vs. delegates, 293–294

Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 480 congressional campaign committees, 207 congressional elections, 220–221 congressional party conferences, 207 Connecticut, 10, 428 conservatives, 22–23, 125–127 constituents, 291 Constitution, U.S., 3–4, 72–78, 137; amendment process, 69–71; articles of, 59–62; basic principles, 56–59; Bill of Rights, 66–67; compromise on presidency, 55; electoral process and, 58f; executive article, 60; Federalist papers, 64–66; First Amendment, 137; framers’ motives for, 62; freedom, order, and equality in, 72–73; Great Compromise, 54; legislative article, 59–60; models of democracy, 73–76; New Jersey Plan, 53–54; ratification, 68; revolutionary roots of, 45–49; slavery issue, 62; Virginia Plan, 52–53

Constitutional Convention, 43, 51 constitutional guarantees, 418–421 Consumer Product Safety Commission, 260

contacting behavior, 161 Continental Congress, 47, 49 Convention on the Future of Europe, 43 conventional participation, 159–164; in America and world, 163–164; defined, 155; influencing behaviors, 160–163; supportive behaviors, 160

Cook County Central Committee, 209 cooperative federalism (marble-cake

federalism), 85f, 86–87 coordination, 471–472 county governments, 105 court of appeals, 4, 374–376; defined,

373; precedents and making decisions, 375–376; proceedings, 375

courts, 364–394. See also Supreme Court; consequences of judicial decisions, 389–391; criminal and civil cases, 371–372; federal and state court system, 372f; judicial recruitment, 383–389; judicial review, 368–371; organization of, 371–376; procedures and policymaking, 373

crime, 135, 142–143 criminal cases, 371 criminal procedure, 418–421 crisis management, 333–334 Crowley, P.J., 133–134 Cuban missile crisis, 333–334 cyberstalking, 278

D Davis, Gray, 169 de facto segregation, 443 de jure segregation, 442–443 Dean, Howard, 225 death penalty, 111–113, 115 Declaration of Independence, 48–49 Deep Throat, 139 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, 353 defamation of character, 411 deficit financing, 474 Deficit Reduction Act, 480 delegates, 294 delegation of powers, 312 democracy: defined, 27; direct vs.

indirect, 28–29; globalization and, 36–38; institutional models of, 30–36; majoritarian model of, 31–32, 34; media contributions to, 146–147; models of, 73–76; participatory, 28; pluralist model of, 32–34; political participation and, 154–156; procedural view of, 27–28; procedural vs. substantive, 30; representative, 28; substantive view of, 29

Democratic National Committee (DNC), 207–209

Democratic Party. See also political parties: African Americans, 121; ideology, 204–210; party identification, 199–204

democratic socialism, 21 democratization, 36

Department of Agriculture, 467 Department of Defense, 345 Department of Education, 360 Department of Homeland Security, 89 Department of Justice, 89 Department of Transportation, 349 departments, 344–345 deregulation, 356–358 descriptive representation, 276 desegregation, 376–377, 440–443 Dewey, John, 169 Dewey, Thomas, 114f direct action, 158 direct lobbying, 252–253 direct primary, 169 discretionary spending, 480 discrimination, 18–19; genetic, 19; invidious, 437; reverse, 454–457; sex-based, 451–452

dissent, 382 distributive policies, 466 district courts, 373–374 District of Columbia, 10 District of Columbia v. Heller, 414 disturbance theory, 244–245 divided government, 326 DNC (Democratic National Committee), 207–209

docket, 378 Dodd, Christopher, 250 Donilon, Tom, 313 Douglas, William, 425–426 Dow Jones & Company, 136 Dred Scot decision, 91 dual federalism (layer-cake federalism), 84–86

due process, 415–416 Duncan v. Louisiana, 418

E Eckford, Elizabeth, 442f Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, 445 economic rights, 29 economic theory, 474–475 education, 118. See also school desegregation; interest groups, 242; party identification, 201f; political participation and, 173–174; public opinion, 118; social groups and, 118

Edwards, George, 321 Edwards, John, 219 EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), 450

Egypt, 153, 296–297 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 199, 309, 311, 314, 365, 442f

elastic clause, 60, 87

Index I-3

election campaigns. See campaigns elections, 217–221; congressional, 220–221; federalism and, 102–103; general election, 217; national capital- state capital links, 102–103; open election, 222; presidential, 217–220; primary, 212–213; purposes of, 181; redistricting, 103–104; tea party groups and, 187; voting for candidates, 170–172

electoral college, 55, 218–220 electoral mandate, 327 electoral process, Constitution and, 58f Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), 97

elite theory: overview, 34–35; pluralist theory vs., 35–36

Ellsberg, Daniel, 412 Employment Division v. Smith, 404 Engel v. Vitale, 402 entitlement, 480 enumerated powers, 60 Environmental Defense, 260 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 260, 357, 472

EOP (Executive Office of the President), 313–314

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 450

equal opportunities rule, 137 equal pay, 18–19 Equal Pay Act, 451 equality, 14–15, 436–443; Civil War amendments, 437–440; conceptions of, 436–437; Constitution, 72–73; free speech and, 410; freedom vs., 18–19; media effects on, 147; political, 14–15; political participation and, 180; promoting, 9; public opinion, 119f; school desegregation, 440–443; social, 15; women’s rights, 451–453

equality of opportunity, 15, 436 equality of outcome, 15, 436 ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act), 97

establishment clause, 401–402; defined, 400; government support of religion, 400

Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, 403 ethnicity, 120–122; party identification, 202; party identification by, 201f

Etzioni, Amitai, 24–25 European Union, 43–44, 325, 354–355 Evangelical Protestants, 122 ex post facto laws, 415 exclusionary rule, 420 executive article (Article II), 60 executive branch, 52, 312–317. See also president; school desegregation; Article II, 60; cabinet, 315–316; checks

and balances, 58; Executive Office of the President, 313–314; separation of powers, 57; vice president, 314–315

Executive Office of the President (EOP), 313–314

executive orders, 311 extraordinary majority, 58

F Face the Nation, 143 Facebook, 274 factions, 64–65, 192–193, 241 Fair Housing Act of 1968, 445 fairness doctrine, 137 faithless electors, 219 Family Research Council, 340 farmer-labor parties, 196 FDA (Food and Drug Administration),

339–340, 342, 357, 358f, 467, 469–470 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 348 Federal Communications Commission

(FCC), 136–137, 348 Federal Convention, 43 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA),

222–223 Federal Election Commission (FEC),

216, 223 federal government. See government,

U.S. federal judges, 386 Federal Kidnapping Act, 14 federal question, 378 Federal Register, 163 Federal Reserve System, 474 federal spending, 484f federalism, 80–107; coercive federalism,

101; cooperative federalism, 86–87; defined, 57, 83; dual federalism, 84–86; dynamics of, 87–97; electoral politics and, 102–104; ideology and policymaking, 97–102; intergovernmental system and, 104–106; judicial interpretation, 90–93; metaphors of, 85f; pluralism and, 106–107; theories of social problems, 83–87

Federalist No. 10, 241 Federalist No. 78, 370 Federalist papers, 64–66, 83, 241 Federalists, 64–66, 192–193 feedback, 469–470 Felt, W. Mark, 139 Ferraro, Gerald, 229 Fifteenth Amendment, 165–166, 438–439 Fifth Amendment, 416 filibuster, 287 Financial Services Committee, 280

First Amendment, 137, 405, 408, 410, 413 First International Congress, 47 first-past-the-post elections, 221 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), 311

fiscal policies, 474 fiscal year, 476 Fisher, Abigail, 435 527 committees, 224 Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 339–340, 342, 357, 358f, 467, 469–470

Food Safety Modernization Act, 467 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 311

foreign policy, 129 foreign relations, 332–333 formula grants, 94 Fortas, Abe, 409 Forti, Carl, 225f Forza Italia, 324 Fourteenth Amendment, 277, 415–416, 438–439

Fourth Amendment, 420 Fox Network, 135 Fox News, 135 fragmentation, 470–471 France, 7, 168 franchise, 164 Frankfurter, Felix, 365 franking privilege, 273–274 Franklin, Benjamin, 57 free-rider problem, 248–249, 260 Free Soil Party, 196 freedom: in colonial America, 46–47; concept of, 13; Constitution, 72–73; equality vs., 18–19; media effects on, 147; order vs., 17–18; political participation and, 179

freedom from, defined, 13 freedom of, defined, 13 freedom of expression, 405–413 freedom of press, 410–413. See also media; defamation of character, 411; prior restraint and press, 411–412

freedom of religion, 399–402 freedom of speech, 406–410; clear and present danger test, 406–408; equality and, 410; order versus free speech, 409–410; symbolic expression, 408–409

Freedom Works, 187 free-exercise clause, 402–405; defined, 400; using drugs as religious sacraments, 403–405; working on Sabbath, 403

free-expression clauses, 405 free-rider problem, 248–249 Friedman, Milton, 21 front-loading, 214 FX cable channel, 135

I-4 Index

G Gaddafi, Muammar, 6, 305 Gallup, George, 114f Gallup Organization, 112 Gallup Poll, 114f, 146, 257f, 317t Gans, Herbert, 244 gatekeepers, 139 gender: equal rights and, 451–453; party identification, 201f; public opinion, 123

gender discrimination, 451–452 general election, 217 General Electric, 135 General Motors, 9 Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), 19

George III, King, 307 gerrymandering, 272 Gibbons v. Ogden, 91 Gideon, Clarence, 418 Gideon v. Wainwright, 418–419 GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act), 19

Gingrich, Newt, 215–216, 283 Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 377f Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 43 Gitlow, Benjamin, 407 Gitlow v. New York, 407 globalization: of American government, 5–7; defined, 5; democracy and, 36–38; U.S. public debt and, 477f

God, 122f going public, 143 Gonzales v. Carhart, 427 good faith exception, 420 Google News, 141f Gore, Al, 217, 219 government: conceptual framework for analyzing, 11–25; defined, 5; divided, 326; ideology and scope of, 19–25; maintaining, 8–9; order and, 8–9; promotion of equality, 9–11; public goods and, 9; public policies, 465–470; purposes of, 7–11, 465–470

government, U.S.: Constitution, 72; dilemmas of, 16–19; globalization of, 5–7; grants-in-aid, 93–96; number of employees, 98–99; reducing size of, 343–344; spending policies, 483–490; theory of democratic government, 27–30

government corporations, 346 Government Performance and Results Act, 360–361

government policies: coordination, 471–472; evaluation of, 469; feedback, 469–470; formulation of, 468–469; fragmentation, 470–471;

implementation of, 469; policymaking model, 467–470; types of, 466–467

The Governmental Process (Truman), 244 governors, 103 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit

Control Act, 481 grants-in-aid, 93–96 grassroots lobbying, 254 Gratz v. Bollinger, 457 Great Compromise, 54, 269 Great Depression, 10, 88, 312, 329 Great Society, 328 Greece, 44 Green Party, 196–197 gridlock, 326 Griswold v. Connecticut, 425–426 groupthink, 314 Grutter v. Bollinger, 457 Guam, 206 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 310 Gulf of Mexico, 86f gun control, 91–92

H Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 424 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 424 Hamilton, Alexander, 64–66, 370 Hardwick, Michael, 427 Harper Collins, 136 Harper v. Virginia State Board of

Elections, 166 Hastert, Dennis, 287 hate speech, 408 Hawaii, 121 health insurance, 3–4, 463–464 Health Insurance Plans, 249 Health Resources and Services

Administration (HRSA), 360 health-care industry, 261 Healthy Start program, 360 Hispanics, 121; civil rights, 448–450;

elections, 276; party identification, 202; representations, 276

Hobbes, Thomas, 8 hold, 288 Holmes, Oliver W., 406 Holocaust, 408 homosexuality, 427–429 Hoover, Herbert, 328 hopper, 277 horse race journalism, 149 House Agriculture Committee, 282 House Judiciary Committee, 281 House of Representatives, 269. See also

Congress; duties of, 269–270; leadership, 286–287; legislative process, 279f; Speaker of the House, 286

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 282

HRSA (Health Resources and Services Administration), 360

Hughes, Evan, 411 Hultgren, Joe, 272 Huntsman, John, 215 Hussein, Saddam, 36

I ideology, 19–25; anarchism, 21–22; capi- talism, 21; communism, 20–21; con- servatives, 22–23; liberals, 22–23; libertarianism, 21; political parties, 204–210; public opinion, 124–128; socialism, 20–21; totalitarianism, 19–20; two-dimensional classification of, 23–25

Ignani, Karen, 249 illegal immigration, 81–83 Illinois, 165 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 325 immigrant groups: civil rights, 447–450; illegal immigration, 81–83

impeachment, 270 implementation, 353, 469 implied powers, 60, 85 income, 118–120 incremental budgeting, 486 incrementalism, 351 incumbency effect, 271 incumbent, 221, 271 Independence Caucus, 187 independent agencies, 345 India, 455–456 Indiana, 165 inflation, 474 influencing behaviors, 160–163 information campaigns, 255–256 inherent powers, 310–311 initiative, 31, 169 insurance, 3–4, 463–464 interest group entrepreneurs, 245–246 interest groups, 33–34, 240–244; agenda building, 242–243; business mobilization, 260–262; citizen groups, 259–260; Congress and, 292–293; defined, 240; disturbance theory, 244–245; formation of, 244–246; free- rider problem, 248–249; good or evil, 240–241; interest group entrepreneurs, 245–246; lobbyists, 249–250; members, 247–249; membership patterns, 258; political action committees, 250–252; program monitoring, 243–244; reform, 262–263; resources, 247–252; roles of, 241–244; trade associations, 249

Index I-5

International Commission of Jurists, 7 International Criminal Court, 6–7 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 325 Internet, 132–134, 140, 227–228, 254 Internet service providers (ISPs), 136–137

‘‘Intolerable’’ (Coercive) Acts (1774), 46f invidious discrimination, 437 Iowa, 10, 428 Iowa caucuses, 215 Iran, 111 Iraq, 36–37 Ireland, 44 ISPs (Internet service providers), 136–137 issue network, 472–473 issue-oriented strategy, 226 Italy, 44, 168, 324–325

J Jackson, Janet, 349 Jackson, Jesse, 131 Jackson, Robert H., 51 Japan, 168 Jay, John, 367 Jefferson, Thomas, 48–49, 66, 400 Jim Crow laws, 439 Job Corps, 328 Johnson, Andrew, 270 Johnson, Gary, 226 Johnson, Lyndon, 97, 208, 315, 318, 328, 444–445, 453

joint committees, 282 Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, 282

judge-made law, 373 judges: appointment to Supreme Court, 387; federal, 386–387; selection of, by country, 384–385

judgment, 382 judicial activism, 382 judicial article (Article III), 60–61 judicial branch, 52; Article III, 60–61; checks and balances, 58; separation of powers, 57

judicial restraint, 381 judicial review, 61, 368–371 Judicial Selection Committee, 386 Judiciary Act of 1789, 367

K Kagan, Elena, 389 Kelsey, Frances, 357, 358f Kennedy, Anthony, 92, 106, 377f, 388 Kennedy, John F., 229, 315, 333–334 Kennedy, Robert, 208 Kennedy, Ted, 131

Kerry, John, 145, 219, 225 Keynesian theory, 474 King, Martin Luther, III, 157f King, Martin Luther, Jr., 158, 444 Kissinger, Henry, 333 Kogan, Elena, 377f Ku Klux Klan, 408 Kuwait, 168

L La Follete, Robert, 169 laissez faire, 21 Latinos, 121; civil rights, 448–450;

elections, 276; party identification, 202; representations, 276

Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, 427–428 layer-cake federalism (dual federalism),

84–86 League of Nations, 6 left-wing manifesto, 407 legal advocacy, 253 legislative article (Article I), 59–60 legislative branch, 52. See also Congress;

Article I, 59–60; checks and balances, 58; separation of powers, 57

legislative liaison staff, 330 legislative process, 279f Lemon v. Kurtzman, 401 Leviathan (Hobbes), 8 Lewinsky, Monica, 318 libel, 411 liberals, 22–23, 125–127 Libertarian Party, 196 libertarianism, 21 libertarians, 23, 124–128 Libya, 153 Lincoln, Abraham, 310–311 Lindblom, Charles, 350–351 Little Rock, Arkansas, 442f lobbies. See interest groups lobbying, 251, 262f; coalition building,

256; direct, 252–253; grassroots, 254; information campaigns, 255–256; public agenda vs. lobbying agenda, 257f; tactics, 252–256

lobbyists, 249–250, 261 Locke, John, 8, 48 Los Angeles times, 133 Louisiana, 440

M Madison, James, 43, 64, 83, 241 Maher, Bill, 225 Maine, 11, 428 majoritarian model of democracy,

31–32. See also models of democracy;

Congress, 298–299; congressional committees, 284–285; courts and, 391–393; pluralist model of democracy vs., 34; political participation, 161, 182; political parties, 231–232; public opinion, 115

majority leader, 286 majority representation, 197 majority rule, 28 mandate, 100 mandatory outlays, 486 mandatory spending, 480 Mapp v. Ohio, 420 marble-cake federalism (cooperative federalism), 85f, 86–87

Marbury, William, 368 Marbury v. Madison, 70, 368–369 markup sessions, 283 Marshall, John, 368 Marshall, Thurgood, 389, 441 Marx, Karl, 9 Maryland, 11, 428 mass communication, 132 mass media, 132. See also media Massachusetts, 3–4, 10, 428 McCain, John, 145, 226, 305–306 McCarthy, Hubert, 208 McCulloch v. Maryland, 90, 93 McDonald v. Chicago, 414 McGovern, George, 217, 229 McVeigh, Timothy, 155 media, 132–137. See also freedom of press; biased reporting, 144–146; contributions to democracy, 146–147; covering national politics, 138–139; effects on freedom, order, and equality, 147; government regulation of, 136–138; influence on knowledge and opinion, 140–142; Internet, 132–134; mass media, 132; political socialization, 143–144; presenting news, 139–140; private ownership of, 133–134; setting political agenda, 142–143; where public gets news, 140

Medicaid, 490 Medicare, 328, 489–490 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, 490

middle class, 118 Military Commission Act, 425 Minear, Jeffrey, 389f Minerals Management Services (MMS), 353

minimum wage, 10 minority groups, 120–122; civil rights, 447–450; elections, 276; representations, 276

minority leader, 286

I-6 Index

minority rights, 30 Miranda v. Arizona, 419 Miranda warnings, 419 Missouri, 170 MMS (Minerals Management Services), 353

models of democracy: Congress, 298–299; congressional committees, 284–285; Constitution, 73–76; courts and, 391–393; majoritarian model of democracy, 31–32, 34; pluralist model of democracy, 32–34; political participation, 181–182; public opinion, 113–115

modified closed primaries, 213 modified open primaries, 213 Monahan, Jeanne, 340 monetary policies, 474 Monti, Mario, 325 Moran, Jim, 157f Morse v. Frederick, 409 Motion Picture Association of America, 250

Mubarak, Hosni, 332–333 municipal governments, 105 Murdoch, Rupert, 135 MySpace, 135

N Nader, Ralph, 197 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 163, 441

National Association of Broadcasters, 242

National Association of Realtors, 251 national committee, 207 National Conference of State Legislatures, 102

national convention, 206–207 national debt, 477f National Endowment for the Arts, 466 National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 464

National Industrial Recovery Act, 329 national party organization, 206–209 National Security Agency (NSA), 311, 423

national sovereignty, defined, 6 National Tea Party Federation, 187 National Teacher Corps, 328 Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, 187 Native American Church, 404 Native American Rights Fund, 447 Native Americans, 121, 446–447 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 6, 332

NBC, 135 Near v. Minnesota, 411 necessary and proper clause, 60 Netherlands, 168 Neustadt, Richard, 320 New Deal, 88–89 New Hampshire, 10, 428 New Hampshire primary, 215, 216f New Jersey Plan, 53–54 New Mexico, 121 New York, 10, 428 New York Times, 146 New York Times v. Sullivan, 411 New York Times v. United States, 412 news aggregators, 141f news briefings, 138 news conferences, 138 News Corporation, 135 news releases, 138 newspapers, 134–135 newsworthiness, 34 NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard), 162 Nineteenth Amendment, 167, 451 Ninth Amendment, 425–429; abortion,

426–427; personal autonomy, 427–429; privacy, 425–426

Nixon, Richard, 94, 139, 270, 312, 318 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, 97,

360 nomination, 190 norms, 352 North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO), 6, 332 Norway, 168 not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY), 162 NSA (National Security Agency), 311,

423

O Obama, Barack, 3, 86f, 89, 134, 145,

206f, 216–217, 221, 226–229, 287, 305, 322, 332, 340, 343, 353, 387–389

obligation of contracts, 415 Occupational Safety and Health

Administration (OSHA), 260 Occupy Wall Street, 25–26 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 92 Office of Management and Budget

(OMB), 313, 475–478 Office of the Press Secretary, 138 Oglala Sioux, 447 Oklahoma, 113, 170 oligarchy, 34–35 OMB (Office of Management and

Budget), 313, 475–478 O’Neill, Thomas, 222 open election, 222

open primaries, 213 order, 8–9; concept of, 13–14; Constitution, 72–73; defined, 8; free speech vs., 409–410; freedom of expression vs., 412–413; freedom vs., 17–18; media effects on, 147; political participation and, 180–181; public opinion, 119f; social, 13

Oregon, 170 original jurisdiction, 378 OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), 260

outsourcing, 358–360

P pack journalism, 139 PACs (political action committees), 223–225, 250–252, 262–263, 274–275

Palko, Frank, 416–417 Palko v. Connecticut, 416–417 pardons, 309 Parents Involved in Community Schools v Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 377, 457

Parks, Rosa, 443 parliamentary government, 295–298 participation. See political participation participatory democracy, 28 parties of ideological protests, 196 party conferences, 207 party identification, 199–204; distribution of, 200f; in other countries, 203; by social groups, 201f; voting choice, 228–231, 229f

party machine, 209 party platforms, 205–206 party-centered strategy, 226 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 3

Patriot Action Network, 187 Paul, Ron, 215 Pentagon, 133–134 People’s Party, 196 performance standards, 360–361 Perry, Rick, 215 personal autonomy, 427–429 peyote, 404 Plan B, 339–340 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 427 plea-bargains, 373 Pledge of Allegiance, 160 Plessy, Homer Adolph, 440 Plessy v. Ferguson, 440 pluralism, 33 pluralist model of democracy, 32–34. See also models of democracy; Congress, 298–299; congressional committees, 284–285; courts and, 391–393;

Index I-7

elite theory vs., 35–36; federalism and, 106–107; majoritarian model of democracy vs., 34; political participation, 161, 182; political parties, 231–232; public opinion, 115

pocket veto, 280 police power, 14 policy evaluation, 469 policy formulation, 468–469 policymaking, 347–356; administrative discretion, 348–349; coordination, 471–472; courts, 373; culture of bureaucracy, 351–352; economic policy and budget, 473–481; federalism and, 97–102; fragmentation, 470–471; ideology and, 97–102; incrementalism, 351; issue network, 472–473; policymaking model, 467–470; problems in implementing policy, 352–356; rule making, 349–350; types of policies, 466–467

political action committees (PACs), 223–225, 250–252, 262–263, 274–275

political agenda, 142 political equality: defined, 14; women, 451 political ideology, 19. See also ideology political knowledge, 128–131 political leadership, 129–131 political participation, 152–182; conventional participation, 155, 159–164; defined, 155; democracy and, 154–156; equality and, 180; freedom and, 179; interest groups, 242; low voter turnout, 174–179; majoritarianism and, 182; models of democracy, 181–182; order and, 180–181; patterns of, 172; pluralism and, 182; socioeconomic explanation, 172–174; through voting, 164–172; unconventional participation, 155–159

political parties, 189–217. See also Dem- ocratic Party; Republican Party; acti- vists, 205; alternative government programs, 191; Congress, 288–289; coordinating actions of government officials, 191–192; defined, 190; functions of, 190–192; history of, 192–195; ideology, 204–210; majori- tarian model of democracy, 231–232; minor parties, 195–197; nomination, 190; platforms, 205–206; pluralist model of democracy, 231–232; responsible party government, 210–211; tea party groups and, 187; two-party system, 195–204

political socialization, 115–116 political system, 190 politics, defined, 5

poll tax, 439 Populist Party, 196 Portugal, 44 Post-Intelligencer, 133 Powell, Lewis F., Jr., 454 precedent, 375 preclearance, 104 preemption, 100–101 president, 304–335. See also executive

branch; Article II, 60; budget, 476–478; character of, 318–319; as chief lobbyist, 330–331; as com- mander in chief, 308, 310, 311; Congress, 289–291; congressional delegation of power, 311–312; constitutional basis of power, 307–309; control over bureaucracy, 346–347; elections, 326–327; Executive Office of the President, 313–314; expansion of power, 309–312; formal powers, 309–310; going public, 143; inherent powers, 310–311; leadership, 317–328; as national leader, 328–331; nomina- tion for, 213–217; partisans in Con- gress, 323–328; as party leader, 331; political parties, 327–328; power to per- suade, 320; powers of, 308–309; public and, 321–323; ranking of, 317t; wish list, 319f; as world leader, 332–334

president pro tempore, 286 presidential elections, 217–220 Presidential Power (Neustadt), 320 presidential primary, 214 primary election, 212–213 print media, 132; private ownership of,

134–135; as source of news, 140 Printz v. United States, 92 prior restraint, 405, 411–412 Priorities USA Action, 225 privacy, 425–426 procedural democratic theory, 27–28, 30 professional associations, 261 program monitoring, 243–244 Progressive movement, 169–170 Progressive Party, 195 progressive taxation, 73, 483 progressivism, 168 Prohibition Party, 196 project grants, 94 proportional representation, 198, 296 Proposition 8, 428–429 protectionism, 451 Protestants, 122 public debt, 476, 477f public figures, 411 public goods, defined, 9 public opinion: characteristics of,

112–113; costs, benefits, and cues, 129;

defined, 112–113; education, 118; equality, 119f; ethnicity, 120–122; forming, 128–131; gender, 123; ideology, 124–128; income, 118–120; media influence on, 140–142; models of democracy, 113–115; order, 119f; political leadership and, 129–131; race, 120–122; region, 120; religion, 122–123; Supreme Court and, 390–391

public policies, defined, 465 public relations campaign, 255 public sector employment, 98–99 Puerto Rico, 206

R race, 120–122 racial gerrymandering, 276–277 racial segregation: Brown v. Board of Education, 163, 365–366, 376–377; civil rights movement, 443–444; de facto, 443; defined, 439; de jure, 442–443; roots of, 439–440; school desegregation, 376–377, 440–443

racism, 439 Rakove, Johm, 48 Randolph, Charlotte, 86f Randolph, Edmund, 51 Rastafarians, 403 Rasul v. Bush, 424 Reagan, Ronald, 94, 103, 309, 315, 329, 387, 485

RealID, 102 reapportionment, 269 reasonable access rule, 137 recall, 31, 169 receipts, 476 redistributional policies, 466 redistricting, 103–104, 271–273 Reed, Stanley, 366 referendum, 31, 169 Reform Treaty, 44 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 377, 454

regime change, 14 region, 120 regulation, 349, 356, 467 regulatory commissions, 345 Rehnquist, William H., 92, 401, 426–427, 457

Reid, Harry, 466 religion, 122–123. See also freedom of religion; government support of, 400–401; party identification, 201f; school prayer, 402; using drugs as religious sacraments, 403–405

Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 404–405

I-8 Index

representation, 241–242 representative democracy, 28 republic, 49 Republican National Committee (RNC), 207–209

Republican Party: ideology, 204–210; party identification, 199–204

republicanism, 56–57 research, sponsoring, 256 responsible party government, 210–211 responsiveness, 28 restraint, 100 reverse discrimination, 454–457 RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act), 404–405

Ribble, Reid, 287 right to assemble peaceably, 413 right to bear arms, 413–415 rights. See also Bill of Rights: civil, 29; defined, 15; economic, 29; minority, 30; social, 29

RNC (Republican National Committee), 207–209

Roberts, John, Jr., 141, 377f, 388, 389f, 410 Rocky Mountain News, 133 Roe v. Wade, 390, 426 Roemer, Buddy, 226 Rogers, Will, 204 Romney, Mitt, 3, 206f, 215–216, 227–228 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 13, 88, 120–121, 138, 169, 312, 314, 327, 329–330

Roosevelt, Teddy, 195 rule making, 349 rule of hour, 379 Rules Committee, 280, 287 Ryan, Paul, 292

S Sabbath, working on, 403 Salisbury, Robert, 245 Salmore, Barbara, 221 Salmore, Stephen, 221 same-sex marriage, 10–11, 428–429 Sanchez, Loretta, 253f, 278 Sanford, Terry, 96 Santorum, Rick, 215–216 Saudi Arabia, 111, 168 Scalia, Antonin, 92, 377f, 404, 427–428 Schenck, Charles T., 406 Schenck v. United States, 406–407 school desegregation, 365–366, 376–377, 440–443

school districts, 105 school prayer, 401 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 169 ‘‘The Science of Muddling Through’’ (Lindblom), 350–351

SCLC (Southern Christian leadership Conference), 444

Sealand, Principality of, 6f seat belt law, 3 SEC (Securities and Exchange

Commission), 342 Second Amendment, 413–414 Second International Congress, 47, 50 Section 1981, 446 Securities and Exchange Commission

(SEC), 342 Security Council, 313 segregation: Brown v. Board of

Education, 163, 365–366, 376–377; civil rights movement, 443–444; de facto, 443; defined, 439; de jure, 442–443; roots of, 439–440; school desegregation, 376–377, 440–443

select committees, 282 self-interest principle, 129 Senate, 269. See also Congress; duties of,

269–270; legislative process, 279f; majority leader, 286; rules of procedure, 287–288

Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 281

Senate Judiciary Committee, 386 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,

282 senatorial courtesy, 386 seniority, 283 separate-but-equal doctrine, 440 separation of powers, 57, 59f set-aside, 445 sex offenders, 93 sex-based discrimination, 451–452 sexism, 452 sexual orientation, 427–429 Shaw v. Reno, 276–277 Shays, Daniel, 51 Sherbert, Adeil, 403 Sherbert v. Verner, 403 Sherman, Roger, 54 Shiites, 36 Sibelius, Kathleen, 340 Simmons, Harold, 225 single-issue parties, 196 Sixteenth Amendment, 73 Sixth Amendment, 418 slavery: Constitution, 62–63, 72–73, 91;

Free Soil Party, 196; party systems and, 193; Thirteenth Amendment, 437

Smith Act, 407 Smith v. Allwright, 166 Snyder, Matthew, 409 Snyder v. Phelps, 410 social change, 14 social contract theory, 48 social equality, defined, 15

social groups, 116–123; education, 118; ethnicity, 120–122; gender, 123; income, 118–120; party identification by, 201f; race, 120–122; region, 120; religion, 122–123

social order, 13 social rights, 29 Social Security, 487–489 Social Security Act, 489 socialism, 20–21 Socialist Party, 196 socioeconomic status, 121, 173 sodomy, 427 solicitor general, 380 Somalia, 8 Sotomayor, Sonia, 377f, 388, 449–450 Souter, David H., 388 South Africa, 168 South Carolina, 215 South Dakota, 170 Southern Christian leadership Conference (SCLC), 444

sovereignty, 6–7, 82 Soviet Union, 9, 333–334 Spain, 44 Speaker of the House, 286 special districts, 105 SpeechNow.org v. FEC, 224 spending policies, 483–490 split ticket, 221 STALKERS Act, 278 stalking, 278 standard socioeconomic model, 173 standing committees, 281–282 stare decisis, 375 state capitals, 102–103 state constitutions, 3–4 state government: police power of, 14; professionalization of, 94

state’s rights, 84 Stein, Jill, 226 stereotypes, 452–453 Stevens, John Paul, 389 Stevenson, Adlai E., 217 Stewart, Jon, 225f straight ticket, 221 strict scrutiny, 403 substantive democratic theory, 29–30 Sudan, 157f suffrage, 164 suffragettes, 167 Sunnis, 36 Super PACs, 224–225, 251, 263 Super Tuesday primaries, 32 supportive behaviors, 160 supremacy clause, 61 Supreme Court, 376–383; access to, 378; appointment to, 387–389; chief justice, 383; Civil War amendments, 438–439;

Index I-9

death sentence, 112–113, 115; decision making, 380–383; implementation and impact of rulings, 390; judicial review, 368–371; public opinion and, 390–391; school desegregation, 365–366, 376–377; solicitor general, 380

Sweden, 10 Switzerland, 32, 168 symbolic expression, 408–409 Syria, 153

T Taliban, 310 Tammany Hall, 209 Taney, Roger B., 91 TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program), 305, 483

tax committees, 479 taxation: policies, 482–483; progressive, 73, 483

Tea Act (1773), 46f Tea Party Express, 187 tea party movement, 187–188 Tea Party Nation, 187 Tea Party Patriots, 187 television hypothesis, 141 television networks, 135–136 terrorism, 155 Teva Pharmaceuticals, 339–340 Texas, 121 thalidomide, 357 Thirteenth Amendment, 73, 437 Thomas, Clarence, 92, 131, 377f, 427 Thurmond, Strom, 287 Time Magazine, 153 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent County School District, 408–409

T-Mobile, 254 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 68, 241 Topeka, Kansas, 163 Topeka Capital Journal, 133 totalitarianism, 19–20 trade associations, 249 Transportation Security Administration, 14 treaties, 308 Treaty of Lisbon, 44 trial balloons, 139 Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), 305, 483

Truman, David, 244

Truman, Harry S., 114f, 330, 441 trustees, 294 Tunisia, 153, 296–297 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 169 Twelfth Amendment, 55 20th Century Fox, 135 Twenty-fourth Amendment, 445 Twenty-sixth Amendment, 168, 181 Twitter, 227, 254, 274 Two Treatises on Government (Locke), 8 two-party system, 195–204; federal basis

of, 199; minor parties, 195–197; party identification, 199–204; reasons for, 197–199

U unconventional participation, 156–159;

in America and world, 159; defined, 155; effectiveness of, 158–159; support for, 156–157

Unfunded Mandates Relief Act of 1995, 101–102

United Arab Emirates, 168 United Nations, 6, 332 United States v. Alvarez, 408f United States v. Comstock, 93 United States v. Leon, 420 United States v. Lopez, 91 United States v. Virginia, 452 universal participation, 28 University of Texas–Austin, 435 The Urban Villagers (Gans), 244 U.S district courts, 374 USA Today, 134–135 USA-PATRIOT Act, 89, 421–423 Utah, 113

V Venezuela, 168 Verizon, 255 Vermont, 10, 428 veto, 280, 308 vice president, 314–315 Vietnam War, 310, 485 Vinson, Fred, 365 Violence Against Women Act, 92 Virginia, 165 Virginia Military Institute, 452 Virginia Plan, 52–53 Von Rampuy, Herman, 45f

voter registration, 15f, 177–178, 445 voter turnout, 164 voting, 164–172; for candidates, 170–172; expansion of suffrage, 165; explaining choice, 228–231; fluctuation in voting over time, 174–177; party identification, 228–231, 229f; on policies, 168–170

Voting Rights Act of 1965, 104, 159, 166, 254, 276–277, 445

W Walker, Scott, 169 Walker, Vaughn, 429 Wall Street Journal, 136, 187 Wallace, George, 156, 195, 204 Walsh, Joe, 272 Walt Disney, 135 War of Independence, 49 Warren, Earl, 365–366, 441 Washington, 11, 428 Washington, George, 43, 66 Washington Post, 139, 255 watchdog journalism, 146 Watergate scandal, 139, 270 weblogs, 133 Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 426

welfare programs, 10 Westboro Baptist Church, 409 Western Folklife Center, 466 White, Byron, 426 Wikileaks, 133 Wilson, Woodrow, 310 wiretapping, 422–423 Wolf v. Colorado, 420 women: enfranchisement of, 167; political equality for, 451; political participation, 173

Woodward, Bob, 139 World Wide Web, 133. See also Internet

Y Yemen, 153

Z Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 401

I-10 Index

Brief Contents
Contents
Boxed Features
Preface
Ch 1: Dilemmas of Democracy

1.1 The Globalization of American Government
1.2 The Purposes of Government
1.3 A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Government
1.4 The American Governmental Process: Majoritarian or Pluralist?
1.5 Democracy and Globalization
Summary
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Ch 2: The Constitution

2.1 The Revolutionary Roots of the Constitution
2.2 From Revolution to Confederation
2.3 From Confederation to Constitution
2.4 The Final Product
2.5 Selling the Constitution
2.6 Constitutional Change
2.7 An Evaluation of the Constitution
Summary
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Ch 3: Federalism

3.1 Theories and Metaphors
3.2 The Dynamics of Federalism
3.3 Ideology, Policymaking, and American Federalism
3.4 Federalism and Electoral Politics
3.5 Federalism and the American Intergovernmental System
3.6 Federalism and Pluralism
Summary
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Ch 4: Public Opinion, Political Socialization, and the Media

4.1 Public Opinion and the Models of Democracy
4.2 Political Socialization
4.3 Social Groups and Political Values
4.4 From Values to Ideology
4.5 Forming Political Opinions
4.6 The Media in America
4.7 Reporting and Following the News
4.8 Evaluating the Media in Government
Summary
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Ch 5: Participation and Voting

5.1 Democracy and Political Participation
5.2 Unconventional Participation
5.3 Conventional Participation
5.4 Participating Through Voting
5.5 Explaining Political Participation
5.6 Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order
5.7 Participation and the Models of Democracy
Summary
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Ch 6: Political Parties, Campaigns, and Elections

6.1 Political Parties and Their Functions
6.2 A History of U.S. Party Politics
6.3 The American Two-Party System
6.4 Party Ideology and Organization
6.5 The Model of Responsible Party Government
6.6 Parties and Candidates
6.7 Elections
6.8 Campaigns
6.9 Explaining Voting Choice
6.10 Campaigns, Elections, and Parties
Summary
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Ch 7: Interest Groups

7.1 Interest Groups and the American Political Tradition
7.2 How Interest Groups Form
7.3 Interest Group Resources
7.4 Lobbying Tactics
7.5 Is the System Biased?
Summary
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Ch 8: Congress

8.1 The Origin and Powers of Congress
8.2 Electing the Congress
8.3 How Issues Get on the Congressional Agenda
8.4 Committees and the Lawmaking Process
8.5 Leaders and Followers in Congress
8.6 The Legislative Environment
8.7 The Dilemma of Representation: Trustees or Delegates?
8.8 Pluralism, Majoritarianism, and Democracy
Summary
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Ch 9: The Presidency

9.1 The Constitutional Basis of Presidential Power
9.2 The Expansion of Presidential Power
9.3 The Executive Branch Establishment
9.4 Presidential Leadership
9.5 The President as National Leader
9.6 The President as World Leader
Summary
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Ch 10: The Bureaucracy

10.1 Organization Matters
10.2 Bureaus and Bureaucrats
10.3 Administrative Policymaking: The Formal Processes
10.4 Administrative Policymaking: Informal Politics
10.5 Problems in Implementing Policy
10.6 Reforming the Bureaucracy: More Control or Less?
Summary
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Ch 11: The Courts

11.1 National Judicial Supremacy
11.2 The Organization of Courts
11.3 The Supreme Court
11.4 Judicial Recruitment
11.5 The Consequences of Judicial Decisions
11.6 The Courts and Models of Democracy
Summary
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Ch 12: Order and Civil Liberties

12.1 The Bill of Rights
12.2 Freedom of Religion
12.3 Freedom of Expression
12.4 The Right to Bear Arms
12.5 Applying the Bill of Rights to the States
12.6 The Ninth Amendment and Personal Autonomy
Summary
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Ch 13: Equality and Civil Rights

13.1 Two Conceptions of Equality
13.2 The Civil War Amendments
13.3 The Dismantling of School Segregation
13.4 The Civil Rights Movement
13.5 Civil Rights for Other Minorities
13.6 Gender and Equal Rights: The Women's Movement
13.7 Affirmative Action: Equal Opportunity or Equal Outcome?
Summary
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Ch 14: Policymaking and the Budget

14.1 Government Purposes and Public Policies
14.2 Fragmentation, Coordination, and Issue Networks
14.3 Economic Policy and the Budget
14.4 Taxing and Spending Decisions
Summary
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Appendix A-1

The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States of America

Notes
Index