Though packets

Civil disobedience

 The Good Friday march in Birmingham, Alabama was also a great example of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders were arrested for protesting segregation in the city, which was against an injunction placed by a state judge prohibiting anti-segregation protests. While in jail, King wrote his famous letter from Birmingham jail, which today is used as the blueprint for valid civil disobedience by many. This march also was a part of the Birmingham campaign, which included the Birmingham children's march, which eventually led to the passage of the civil rights act.

Ada Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience is a valid form of protest when it follows the structure set out by Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. There are four steps: collection of the facts to determine if injustices exist; negotiation; self purification (such as getting rid of anger and training not to act violently) ; and direct action. Civil disobedience seeks to create tension in a society after negotiation has failed, because then it must be addressed and fixed. The law they’re trying to fix must be morally unjust, and the protestors must accept the consequences for breaking any laws.

Forums

 Designated Public forums are government property that are intentionally opened for public expression. Once a designated public forum is open, it is subject to the same first amendment protection as traditional public forums, meaning any restrictions must be content neutral. An example of a designated public forum is a city-owned theater or a public university's meeting facilities. The supreme court case widmar v vincent established that when a public university establishes a public forum generally for student groups it becomes a public forum and therefore any content restrictions must meet strict scrutiny, which in this case it did not.

Property Violence

 Violence against people is less justifiable than property damage because while property damage can directly harm an individual, it does not always, whereas assault always directly harms an individual. According to FIRE, 91% of Americans are against violence in protests on college campuses, whereas only 72% are against property damage on college campuses. This shows that while the majority of Americans are against both property damage and violence against people, there are more people that accept property damage than assault in protests. 

Treason

Additionally, there have been charges for treason that have arisen from protest but were later thrown out. The 1851 Christiana resistance, an armed protest by abolitionists and free black people to free people being held under the fugitive slave act, resulted in 37 charges of treason, but all charges were thrown out.

Examples of invalid protest

One example of an invalid protest is the 1939 Madison square garden German-American Bund rally. This rally consisted of 22,000 Nazis protesting in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Outside the arena, 100,000 counter-protestors stood, according to Politico. The fact that 5 times the amount of Nazi protestors were against them demonstrates the public view being against the Nazis, making the protest invalid..

intermediate scrutiny

An example of intermediate scrutiny would be The Police Department of Chicago v Mosely, where the supreme court held that a Chicago law prohibiting picketing within 150ft of a school unless it was a labor protest was unconstitutional because the law was not content neutral.

Strict scrutiny

Strict scrutiny applies for content based restrictions and requires that the restriction serve a compelling government interest, be narrowly tailored, and have the least restrictive means possible

Trump chilling speech

This is not the first time Trump has chilled speech. In the AAUP v Rubio case, A district court ruled that Trump’s “ideological deportation” policy,  which targeted non-citizen students and faculty who participated in pro-palestinian protests, was a first amendment violation. The court also ruled that a viewpoint discrimination that chilled protected speech. 

Other ways to increase voter participation

Voters can often feel overwhelmed by how much there is to vote for, and it can be difficult to obtain all the information you need to be informed. One way we can get rid of the stress surrounding voting would be for more states to adopt voter information packets. Voter information packets include information about the candidates and helps voters feel less overwhelmed. In fact, 10/13 states that have voter information packets have higher voting rates in federal elections compared to the national average.

Abolish electoral college

 Adopting a National popular vote would make everyone's votes have the same weight. In competitive states like Michigan and Wisconsin in the 2024 election, voter votes had more sway than votes in highly blue or highly red states. This would also i\ensure that the president reflects what the people want. Five times in the US the president did not win the popular vote, meaning that a candidate with less votes won the presidency because of the electoral college. While this is against what the founders envisioned, According to Pew research, 80% of democrats, 60% of independents, and 55% of republicans support abolishing the electoral college and adopting a national popular vote. 

Past parties

Despite the founders not accounting for political parties in the constitution, political factions developed almost immediately. These factions were the federalists and antifederalists. The federalists believed in a strong national government, while antifederalists were more pro states rights. Figures like Alexander Hamilton were federalists, while Jefferson was an antifederalist.

Third party influence

Sometimes, third parties act as “spoilers” in a tight election. For example, in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore lost the presidential election because of Florida's electoral votes. Green party candidate Ralph Nader received 97,000 votes in Florida, while Al Gore lost by a margin of 571 votes. He also won the popular vote that year by a little under 550k votes. If Al Gore had won the Florida electors, he would have become president, which illustrates how Ralph Nader was a spoiler in the 2000 presidential election.