Quiz #3 for State and Local Government

Australian Ballot

printed by a state that allows voters to pick and choose among different candidate and party preferences in private

Before - you would have a party ticket and that would just have only listed the republican or the democratic candidates and parties had more a heavy hand on how people vote and could see who people would vote fore 

• Multiple candidate for each office and everyone gets the same ballot and no one can tell who you are voting for 

• Parties lost power because before they could see how people voted because there used to be two ballots one for each party so people could see who you voted for 

• Ballot can not tell how people voted and everyone have the same ballot

Texas Executive Branch

Unlike the federal government this government has separate elections for every position and all positions are elected by the people instead of appointed

Governor

Chief executive of the state

Sings and vetoes bills

One line Veto

Elected

Lieutenant Governor

President of the State Senate

Committee Appointments

Tie-Breaking Vote

Elected

Land Commissioner

Manages public land

oil/gas rights

Disaster relied

Veterans Land Board

Elected

Attorney General

Chief legal officer

Lawyer for the state

Elected

Comptroller of public Accounts

Chief financial officer

Tax Collector

Account

Revenue estimator

Elected

Treasure

No Longer Exists

Agricultural Commissioner

Industry Regulation

Consumer Protection

Public health

Elected

Railroad Commissioners (3)

Primary regulatory agency for the energy sector

Elected

Trend in recalls

• Local officials 

  • A small majority of municipalities 

  • Allow theme 

• State officials 

  • 19 states allow for recalls 

• 2010s recalls dramatically more popular than previous decades a lot with state official who are not governors such as state legislature 

  • State legislators and state officials

Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008)

• Indian is not a covered jurisdiction - Indiana did not need pre clearance to make changes to their voting laws 

• By a vote of 6 to 3, the Court upheld the law, concluding that the photo I.D. requirement was closely related to Indiana's legitimate state interests in preventing voter fraud. The slight burden the law imposed on voters' rights did not outweigh these interests, which the Court characterized as "neutral and nondiscriminatory." Although there was no majority opinion, the Court's decision included concurring opinions written by Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia. Justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer each wrote dissenting opinions. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Justice Souter's dissent.

Capperton v. Massey (2009)

• - a large donation to a state supreme court justice could be a conflict of interest and can be preventing due process

• State supreme court justice and campaign contributions, Virginia, judicial elections and a judge accepted a nice 2 million donation from a  person of the court and this did not cap the donation limit but they found that a justice not requiring himself could conflict with due process

Shelby County v. Holder (2012)

• List of covered jurisdiction 

• The list is made of old data and does not meet the burden of proof anymore and if the court made a new one they could possibly allow it but now there is no covered jurisdictions

Parties and Interest Groups

Can have the same Ideology

Parties are structured by rules and elections while groups are more free.

Parties want to win the election while groups are concerned about policy and how someone votes

Parties have organizations and legislative causes

Elephants

Republicans

Donkeys

Democrats

Cash Cows

A group, issue, or strategy that is systematically used to generate continuous , reliable campaign donations or financial revenue without requiring a proportional investment in return

Top- Two Primary

California - Top two election where regardless of party they pick the two candidates with the most votes and sometimes they end up with a democrat v democrat

Also in Louisiana

Closed Primary

You must be register to the party to qualify to vote

Open Primary

Any legal voter is able to vote - Texas

States and party competition

• Not franchises - they are not copy of the national party in they way they have to follow a certain formula, they are allowed to take different positions than the once established by the national party 

  • Parties, state parties, and bellow that more branches 

  • Miller says that texas may become more competitive than it was during the time he wrote the gov. 

  • Can disagree with national 

    • Michicgan mike rogers criticism of the iran war 

  • Parties divided below state level 

    • Precinct have their own elections - mero

Buckley v. Valeo (1976)

the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that limits on political campaign spending are unconstitutional violations of First Amendment free speech rights, while limits on direct contributions to candidates are permissible

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)

is a landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that the First Amendment protects the right of corporations, labor unions, and non-profit organizations to spend unlimited amounts of money on independent political advocacy

McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission  (2014)

• the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that biennial aggregate limits on how much money an individual can donate to all federal candidates, parties, and political action committees (PACs) combined violate the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause 

• There was also a cap on the national cap you can only give so much money to political campaigns in total overall cap and this group said that was against free speech

Mancur Olson’s (1965) typology of groups

• Privileged groups  - groups who are able to provide what they are asking for are the most likely to get what they want 

• Intermediate groups - Middle, there are small enough where someone’s contribution is notice 

• Latent groups - the most likely to get what they are asking, free writing which is economically rational, without selective incentives then they will not be able to organize 

• Group size matter

New Deal Democratic coalition

Mid 20th century the new deal brought a lot a people into the democratic fold without losing the southern states that were reliably democrats and this started to come part because of the African American rights and the divided view on the Vietnam war

Smith v. Allwright (1944)

• In an opinion written by Justice Stanley F. Reed, the Court struck down the law. The Court reasoned that the rule restricting primary voters to whites denied ——- equal protection under the law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. By delegating its authority to the Democratic Party to regulate its primaries, the state was allowing discrimination to be practiced, which was unconstitutional 

Eisenhower’s Texas victories

• First republican presidential candidate to win back to back elections in Texas 52 and 56 east texas still voted for democratic

1970s and New Left

• Texas has had a somewhat conservative culture from early on however they were still electing democrats and with the new left such as abortion and the vitname war 

• Acid, Amnesty, abortion

1988 and 1992 Presidential Elections

• Set up which states where going to be the blue states going forward some moderate republican were still winning and since then a bigger number of states who only vote democratic and have an unbroken streak of always backing the democratic party 

• California turning blue chapter

Texas and straight - ticket voting

• 2016 texas changed its laws and got rid of the straight ticket ballot and the first election is in 2020 and their is a suspicion where it was because of 2020 and there was concern about people just picking all democrats and losing votes because of Trump 

California and the 2016 Presidential popular vote

• Trumps lose in california is why he did not win the popular vote