Notes
for Pol Sc 311:
These notes are very rough, a direct copy of scribbling from
class.
Powers of Congress = Law making powers.
Procedure to vote – In order to get a bill discharged from the house rules committee there must be a total of 218 votes.
Soft Money – Official name is federal money.
Money that is used for issue ads, party, get out the vote, no limit on amount or source.
Can’t run issue ads last 2 months of campaign
Beckley v Vallejo – Money in campaign is speech
Pleasy v Ferguson
2/14/02
President doesn’t have line item veto
Congress must raise existing debt limit in order to approve budget deficit
Congress can affect the behavior of people by changing tax structure.
Cycles of economy
Recession is GDP decrease, negative growth, for 3 years straight; depression is when we have 7 years of recession.
GDP – All products produced in one year
Keynes – Cause of negative growth is a lack of spending cure is spending done by tax cuts, or increased govt. (revenue or expend.) Keynesian economics.
Deficits – cause, no work Federal Reserve goes down, fed. Benefits go up increasing deficits.
JFK – Planned deficit
Federal Reserve – Federally run, privately owned.
Presidential – Congressional system
2/24/02
System was constructed with balance of power distributed due to fear of consolidation of power.
10th amend – federalism
Parliamentary systems fuse power
1275 first parliamentary system established
Louisiana has a codified system
Stare decis – Dragoons
Lords moved the people to the House of Commons
1912 parliamentary act, lords could only delay budget bills
2 houses essentially equal in the US
2/26/02
Powers of Congress
6. Amending powers
Proposal
Ratification
At the option of congress
State legislation or state convention
And congress can set time limit
7. Electing powers of congress
- If no candidate receives the majority of the Electoral College vote. House or Reps will choose president from the top three candidates; each state delegation has one vote. Senate chooses the vice president, each senator has one vote.
Amends to const. must be ratified in 7 years.
In most states gov. and lt. Gov are together
5. Confirmation Powers
a. –Was the rep. Fairly and legally elected
b. – Requires regular and fair elections
c. – Requires for fair apportionment and contiguous districting
Represent – To make present what isn’t present.
Apportionment – Allocation of house members by the states, is done by the entire congress.
No state shall be denied its equal representation in the senate.
Members of the house divided by the population = the population per district.
435 is the number of house reps. can be changed by law but has been in effect since 1910
Districting – Dividing of the state into districts is done by the state legislature.
Internal Migration – Occurs when a population moved within a state. i.e. rural pop. Moves to urban area thus changing the demographics of both.
Mal-apportionment – Drawing districts in such a way as to produce districts of unequal apportionment. Initially the Sup. Ct. said that the issue is not judiciable. This is a political issue.
Baker v Carr – Mal-apportionment unconstitutional, is a judicial matter.
Wesbury v Sanders – Mal-apportionment unconstitutional “one person one-vote” districts must be equal in population
Reynolds v Simms – Both houses must be apportioned on basis of population.
Gerrymandering – Drawing districts to favor candidates or parties. Has been found that gerrymandering according to race is legal as long as some other thing such as part is considered. Must be valid beyond reason of race. Affirmative action gerrymandering.