Midterm Flashcards
Fundamental theory of politics
one person one vote
Everyone has an equal say in the
formulation of public policy
US has what type of democracy?
A representative democracy; elect someone to office to make decisions on our behave
California allows direct democracy feature
(prop 8)
In a representative democracy there are tensions
- Public Interest vs Private (Special) Interest
- Rights of the Majority vs. Rights of the Minority
- Obligation to do what constituents want vs the Obligation to what you (the candidate) would believe in (social issues)
Who gets to vote
3 Buckets
-1st bucket: who has legal right to cast a vote in the country (1 person originally was a male who owned property, then extended to whites who were in military, women didn’t have right to vote until 1920, 18, 19 and 20 year olds didn’t have right to vote until 1971, African americans couldn’t vote until the end of the civil war; people in jail can’t vote, non citizens can’t vote)
-2nd bucket: If you have a legal right to cast a vote in this country, will you be allowed to vote. African americans had to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy to test.
-3rd bucket: if you have legal right to vote and are permitted to vote – how much does your vote matter?
(Create districts that don’t have the same number of people was easiest way to do this)
Legislature v Reinecke
- Case in which when you say that all districts have to have equal population, masters said this meant numerical equality. Each districts need to have to have the same amount of people +/- a percent (1 percent federal, 2 percent in non federal)
- Every ten years lines are redrawn based on consensus. Lines must be contiguous and compact. Counties and cities shouldn’t be cut into pieces. Geographical regions should be respected. Social and economic areas should be consistent
Cracking and Packing
Packing: putting all the minority in one district
Cracking: Take concentrated minority population and you cut it up so it elects nobody
Elements of campaign (talking about election law)
Campaign is an org. that is formed to elect someone to office, win ballot measure or something like that. Campaigns are legal enteritis.
- M: MONEY → most regulated
- O: ORGANIZATION: → least regulated. 2 parts – internal (phones, office, equipt. function like a biz), external (human message deliver mechanism)
- M: MESSAGE
money will be under the strictest of scrutiny, and message is the least regulated because of freedom of speech
When looking at election law, it will be looked under the 14th amendment ->
most cases will be whether or not it is being violated
Strict scrutiny
- if it infringes a suspect class ability to vote and rational scrutiny- the gov is limiting your rights but they are not under a suspect class they just need a reason
The three braches all make laws
- legislation passes laws
- executive branch passes statutes
- judicial branch passes court decisions
- constitution
Avery v. Midland County
local must have equal districts
Common law system
->court decisions are part of the law of the land; set a precedent
Civil law
->court decisions are not law of the land, it just decides that case
Court System
1st level: Trial Court (District Court)
2nd level: Appellate Court aka Court of Appeals (Circuit Court)
3rd level: Supreme Court
voting rights act of 1965
required pre clearance to get rid of the ways states where stopping voters. Section 5 required pre clearance if a jurisdiction had an insufficient amount of people participating in elections it was presumed that you where preventing ethnic groups from voting. Once you were in that category it required federal approval to change anything. Section 4b determined the cutoff for preclearance.
Shelby V. Holder
-> did not invalidate the pre clearance requirement. It is still law. What it did was say that the data being used is outdated-> new measurement must be enacted to help the disparity of voting
Reason for our current voting system
Westminister System
Lower house of fed legislature is called
House of Rep.
Elected for tern of 2 years. NOT subject to term limits
435 members
Upper house of Fed Legislature called
US Senate
100 voting memebrs
each state gets 2
Lower house of legislature in CA is called
Assembly
80 members
2 years
12 yrs terms
Upper house of legislative body in
CA State Senate
40 members
4 years
term limits = 12 years in legislature collectively
4 sources of law
- US Constitution
- legislation
- Regulations
- court decisions
Reynolds v Simons
State districts must be equal
Scatte v Rorex
Legal aliens can’t vote
Kramer v Union
Got ride of the requirement to rent or own property to vote in district
Harper v Virginia
Poll tax made illegal
State court system
Trial = superior
Appellate = Court of appeals
State Supreme Court
Federal court system
Trial = District court
Appellate Court = Circuit court
SCOTUS
