TED readings

chapter 54 Morris P. Fiorina (The Decline of Collective Responsibility in American Politics)

-political parties provide benefits for American democracy

—clarify policy alternatives and let citizens know whom to hold accountable when they are dissatisfied with government performance

-a decline in political activity

-The decline eliminates the motivation for elected officials of the parties to define broad policies (policies aimed at the narrow interests of various single-interest groups rather than broad constituencies)

-without strong political parties to provide electoral accountability, there has been a decline in collective responsibility

61 Mancur Olson “The Logic of Collective Action”

-the larger the group, the harder it is to organize and lower amount of personal benefit therefore harder for a group to produce their desired public goods (changing political decisions)

-the larger the group, the higher the tendency to free ride

-selective incentives help with this issue

-homogenous groups will help achieve consensus

63 Ian Millhiser (The supreme court just made citizens united even worse)

-citizens united took away gov ability to limit spending on elections

-political orgs have to disclose their donors

-now rich ppl can give more in secret

-argues its bad!

23 David R. Mayhew (From Congress: The electoral connection)

David R. Mayhew argues that politicians’ motivations are not so idealistic or complex. Members of Congress simply want to be re-elected, and most of their behavior—advertising, credit claiming, and position taking—is designed to make re-election easier.

24 Richard F. Fenno Jr

-argues that members perceive their districts as a set of concentric circles: the geographic, re-election, primary, and personal constituencies.

-members develop a distinctive “home style” in dealing with their constituency, which determines the components of district representation: the allocation of resources, the presentation of self, and the explaining of Washington activity.

-argue that presidents ability to persuade is true influence, not constitutional command

25 John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse (Too much of a good thing: more representation is not necessarily better)

-it may not be in the nation’s interest to always do what the public wants, especially when it comes to issues of institutional reform.

-the public is usually convinced that the only thing preventing ideal policies is that the “people in power” are serving their own interests rather than the public’s interests.

-argue that these reforms (ex: term limits) might make people even more disillusioned when they discover that weakening Congress will not solve our nation’s problems.

29 Richard Neustadt (The power to persuade from presidential power)

-gap between what the public expects of the office and the president’s actual powers.

-formal powers (the constitutional powers set out in Article II and the statutory powers that Congress grants) are not the president’s most important resource

-with a system of separation of powers, there are other independent sources of power and president cant expect to always get their way

-the key to getting what they want is the power to persuade- the power to get people to think doing something is in their best interest

31 Christina Villegas (Electing the peoples president: the popular origins of the electoral college)

-the electoral college is very misunderstood by most people

-yet a majority of people feel strongly about getting rid of it

-common belief that the system is undemocratic

-The Electoral College is frequently misunderstood as an elitist mechanism, yet its foundations were deeply rooted in a desire to reflect the popular will. 

32 Darrell M. West (Its time to abolish the electoral college)

-electoral college was a compromise between small and large states

-large debate over electoral college

-argues it is time to move ahead with abolishing the Electoral College before its clear failures undermine public confidence in American democracy, distort the popular will, and create a genuine constitutional crisis.

37 Alexander Hamilton (federalist papers 78)

-argues that the judiciary branch is the weakest

-doesnt have power of purse of sword

-But Hamilton saw an independent judiciary as an important check on the other branches’ ability to assume too much power

38 David M’ Obrien (“The Court and American Life,” from Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics)

-the Supreme Court is very much a political institution, whose members pay more attention to the political cycle and public opinion than one might expect

-When deciding major issues of public law and policy, justices must consider strategies for getting public acceptance of their rulings.

39 Gerald N. Rosenburg (From the hollow hope; can courts bring about social change)

-when Congress and the president have not been inclined to act, the Court has pushed the nation to change important policies.

-areas such as civil rights, environmental policy, women’s and reproductive rights, and political reform, the standard view is of a “dynamic court” that is a “powerful, vigorous, and potent proponent of change.”

-Echoing Hamilton, Rosenberg points out that courts depend on political support to produce reform; that they are unlikely to produce change if they face any serious resistance because of their lack of implementation powers

- weak position to change public opinion because most Americans are only vaguely aware of most landmark Supreme Court decisions.

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40 Antonin Scalia (constitutional interpretation the old fashioned way)

-constitution should be interpreted by the text as the original intentions

41 Stephen Breyer (Our democratic constitution)

-the Constitution, considered as a whole, creates a framework for a certain kind of government. Its general objectives can be described abstractly as including (1) democratic self-government, (2) dispersion of power (avoiding concentration of too much power in too few hands), (3) individual dignity (through protection of individual liberties), (4) equality before the law (through equal protection of the law), and (5) the rule of law itself.

-illustrates how increased focus upon the Constitution’s basic democratic objective might make a difference—in refining doctrinal rules, in evaluating consequences, in applying practical cautionary principles, in interacting with other constitutional objectives, and in explicating statutory silences.

-suggests how that increased focus might mean better law. And “better” in this context means both (a) better able to satisfy the Constitution’s purposes and (b) better able to cope with contemporary problems.

-The pattern suggests a need for increased judicial emphasis upon the Constitution’s democratic objective.

33 James Q. Wilson (From Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies do and why they do it)

-argues that government will never operate like a business, nor should we expect it to.

-many of the popular stereotypes about government agencies and their members are either questionable or incomplete.

35 Rebecca Ingber (Bureaucratic Resistance and the Deep State Myth)

-President has sought to weaponize, to delegitimize, or to dismiss the work of the public servants who keep the many offices and agencies of the modern-day administrative state running.

-The executive branch bureaucracy is not a “deep state”—in part because it does not have the organizational capacity or motivation to hold the reins of the state.

-the bureaucracy is not a polarized dichotomy between a sharply defined civil service on one hand and the President on the other

-deep state, which is characterized by unaccountability to the public, and empowered by secrecy, not disclosure

-Our elected President, wielding the enormous power of the executive branch, powers that our elected officials in Congress have over the years delegated to it, is the threat that should concern us.

36 Jon D. Michaels (The American Deep State)

-Such a deep state, characterized by Team Trump as disloyal and undemocratic forces within and around government, has served as an all-purpose scapegoat.

-in those rare instances when the American bureaucracy takes sides against the elected leadership, it tends to show its work, laying bare the justifications for any apparent affront to the White House.

-In any event, the very fact that bureaucratic scapegoating can so easily pervade contemporary political discourse underscores the present weakness of our deep state.

-It is this deep state that helped usher us through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, Watergate, and the more recent travails of 9/11 and the Great Recession. Now, in this moment of great political, economic, and geostrategic upheaval, we will need to rely on the steadying hand of this deep state more than ever.