American Government
The three branches of government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial - each play a crucial role in maintaining the balance of power.
The book covers a broad subject in a concise and informative fashion.
It attempts to concentrate on the facts and eliminate the “spin."
Chapter 5 exposes the abuses of the nonprofit sector, and the hide and seek tactics of super PACs and 527 groups.
The influence of these groups continues to saturate almost every major political campaign at state and federal elections.
Growing jobs and the necessity of improving the skill sets of Georgians in order to do so, technical skills that would be taught in our Technical College System of Georgia, and the importance of offering degrees in our colleges and universities that would lead to employability.
Changes to our HOPE Program to keep it from going bankrupt.
The cost of our correctional system (over $1.2 billion per year) which was a revolving door for criminals, was revamped with amazing positive results.
Over 800,000 new private sector jobs were created, that Georgia was named the “Top State for Business” for seven consecutive years, that our criminal justice reforms have become a model for the nation, that we maintained a AAA bond rating, and that people came to Georgia moving it from the 10th to the 8th most populous state in the nation.
All of this took place without tax increases, but with targeted tax cuts.
My first election to public office was in 1980, when I went to the Georgia State Senate where I served for 12 years.
In 1992 I was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the 9th Congressional District of Georgia.
I resigned from that office in 2010 to campaign for Governor and was elected to that office in November 2010.
Politics certainly changed during those past thirty-eight plus years, for me personally and for our State and Nation.
When I was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 1980, I ran as a Democrat and for each of my six elections to that body, I was a Democrat.
At that time there were only five Republicans in the fifty-six members of that body. Today, the Georgia State Senate has thirty-four Republicans.
Republicans now control both the State Senate and the State House of Representatives and have done so for many years.
When I arrived in Washington, D.C., in January 1993, as a new member of the United States House of Representatives, Democrats controlled that body.
Bill Clinton was the newly-elected president.
I was part of the largest freshman class since World War II, and the vast majority of those were Democrats.
President Clinton’s first budget passed by only one vote.
Many members, especially those from the South, including me, believed the budget was too large.
Over the first two years of the Clinton administration, the regional and racial divides within the Democrat Party became more pronounced.
As the election of 1994 approached, the leadership of Republicans in the House, especially Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Dick Armey of Texas, began to draw clear lines as to where the two major parties stood on important issues of the day.
This was embodied in what they called the “Contract with America."
Republicans had aggressive campaigns to recruit candidates who would run on the “Contract” issues.
It was one of the most impressive and effective campaign strategies in modern history.
The “Contract” was a promise to the American people that if they would elect Republican representatives and put them in control of the House, the items set forth in the “Contract” would be voted on in the first 100 days of the next Congress.
The issues that were in the “Contract” had been extensively polled and had an 80% or better approval rating with the public.
As the issues of the “Contract” came to final votes, there was extreme pressure placed on every Democrat to vote against these measures.
Therefore, I wound up voting for most of the items in the “Contract."
When I came home for the Easter Recess in 1995, my wife and I decided that I should switch parties, since I could no longer support the positions being taken by the Democrat Party.
Without consulting anyone in Washington and attempting to negotiate any favorable concessions, I held a news conference in our home town and announced my decision to become a Republican.
After my decision to change parties, four other Democrat members of the House did the same.
While these events were significant at the federal level, it took longer for the political realignment to take place at the State level.
Conservative, Southern Democrats had been voting for Republican presidential candidates for years, and gradually they started to vote for Republican candidates for Congress and the State General Assembly.
Today, Republicans hold eight of the 14 congressional seats in Georgia and have majorities in both chambers of the State General Assembly.
Every Constitutional Officer in the State is a Republican.
This party realignment is possibly the most significant change in the politics of Georgia in modern times.
Even though the party labels have switched, the underlying conservative opinions of many Georgians have not changed.
While much discussion centers around “grass roots politics,” this phenomenon of political realignments did not begin at the bottom of the political spectrum; instead, it started at the top and filtered down.
A study of “how” and “why” those occurred should be instructive to those who aspire to work in politics.
Theories of Democracy and Types of Government Learning Objectives
Understand how democracy has evolved historically and in the present.
Understand how democracy in America functions, comparing and contrasting it with other systems around the world.
Understand the contributions of John Locke and other foundational political philosophers to the establishment of the American republic.
Abstract
This chapter addresses foundational questions about democracy and contrasts it with other political structures and systems.
It examines Locke’s Second Treatise of Government to determine its effect on the American brand of democracy.
Introduction—Toward a Definition of Democracy
Most texts on American politics begin by attempting to define democracy as ‘‘rule by the people.’’
Democracy differs from other systems of government.
Aristotle, in The Politics, outlined six possible forms—three positive or ‘‘good’’ and three negative or ‘‘bad’’—each linked with another.
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