Extend Term Limits for Members of the House The House needs to elongate its’ terms to more than two years if it wants to be effective. For the amount of policy that needs to get through Congress, the current system is not working. That is because every two years, the House welcomes in new people that have to blend with incumbents, and it is a rebuilding process that occurs way too often. Every time a Congressman is elected to a seat, it takes time to learn the legislative process and adjust to the new position. However, they are not being given that time and before they are able to effectively create the policy their constituents elected them for, their term is nearly up, and they are focused on running for re-election with nothing to show from their work the last two years. Members of the House become consume...
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Katelyn Mueller The Whistleblower Protection Act Politicians have a lot of responsibility and power. With all of this comes inevitable opportunities to abuse this power. However, the United States recognizes that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law. This is where the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 comes into play. It is vital to understand and acknowledge this vital piece of legislation, especially given its current relevance today. This blog post explores the history of this act, the use of it in this current presidential administration, its involvement with congress, and its meanings and implications. Overall, the Whistleblower act is fascinating and essential for keeping accountability within the federal government. To start, the Whistleblower Protection Act, established in 1989, is designed to protect federal whistleblowers who report suspected activity that violates the constitution, the law, established workplace rules, or that is an abuse of power. The act...
Tim Milbrodt Pols 304 Blog Post 1 Impeaching a Supreme Court Justice In the last week more allegations of sexual assault or misconduct have surfaced against recently appointed Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh. In the wake of these new allegations, Democratic Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment (Zhou 2019). The calls from Harris and Warren for impeachment are examples of national representation because these Senators are trying to display leadership on a national scale; something which may also serve to increase the chances of each Senator becoming the next Democratic candidate for President (Adler et al 2019). While these Senators themselves cannot initiate an impeachment based on Article I of the U.S. Constitution, their calls for impeachment have spurred younger colleagues in the House of Representatives to take action. ...
The role of money in United States politics is both a legal and political issue that has interested and often divided the public sphere for decades. Citizens United set the precedent that independent expenditures as campaign contributions were protected from government limitation under free speech. Even after the reaction to Citizens United , which set restrictions and transparency regulations for campaign donors, the role that money plays in regards to the policies proposed and endorsed by lawmakers appears somewhat unclear. How do politicians understand members of their constituency and what their policy desires are? Do campaign contributions play any role in policy making? One study conducted by Joshua L. Kalla and David E. Broockman indicates that campaign contributions can facilitate access to congressional officials. In a randomized field experiment, Kalla and Brockman determined that senior policy makers were significantly more likely to attend meetings when they were in...
Nick Beach POLS-304 18 September 2019 Equal Pay for Equal Work In today’s working world it may not matter how hard you work, how equal your work is to your co-workers or hell even if you are doing better work than your co-worker, you may still be paid less. Does this sound wrong to many of you? Well it should, and as a matter of fact it is. Today, this is a sad truth and reality for many women living in America. This naturally arises the question of, what is our government doing about this? In 2014, the U.S. Senate blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act. This act would have made it illegal for employers to pay unequal wage gaps to men and women who are performing the same work. Now before all of that, the equal pay act was passed as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1963. This prohibited discriminati...
Bella Ueda Professor Hitt POLS304 18 Sept 2019 Wanted: Occupational Teachers The shortage of occupational teachers in the US is characterized by state-to-state position vacancies, data from state and school districts, educators own personal experience, and a decrease in individuals enrolling in teacher preparation programs (Garcia & Weiss). This shortage began after the mortgage/financial crisis of 2008 and nearly 12 years later, is still painstakingly evident. Motivating individuals to work in certain labor sectors is difficult in and of itself, let alone jobs within government which cannot offer the greater monetary incentives that businesses can. Thus, and most unfortunately, the simple solution of raising annual income for teachers, isn’t actually that simple. In the Congressional budgetary process, subcommittees propose appropri...
Jonathan Kniss Blog Post 1 Broken Legislature. In a seemingly extremely polarized time period in our nations political history, one opinion seems to be held unanimously by Americans, and that is that congress is doing a bad job. This recently completed Gallup poll conducted this year shows the consistent disapproval of congressional representatives. After hitting its peak of 84% in 2002, the congress has experience a steep and steady decline in support of their work. even dropping to a low of 9% during President Obama’s second term in 2014. But what exactly is contributing to this negative view of our legislature, especially in the last few years? A major part of this issue is addressed in the article “Bias in Perceptions of Public Opinion among Political Elites’ by Brookman and Skovron. The constitution states that the job of the congress is to represent the individual constituents that they represent. However, the system suffers a major hit when the ...
Kaylin Brooks Is the Green New Deal Realistic? Early this year the country heard the interesting, but familiar sounding words: The Green New Deal. This is a proposed “legislation” that was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts in February of 2019. Its goal is aimed at fighting climate change and inequality. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels the United States uses and to reduce the carbon we emit into the atmosphere. The other huge goal is to essentially to generate high paying jobs, to help fix social problems, and to fight inequality. However, an important f...
Jacquelin Chota Matthew Hitt POLS 304 September 18, 2019 A Difference In Interpretations As old as the Constitution is, our entire nation still uses it as a reference for policy making, court cases, citizens’ rights, etc. While the constitution is useful as a reference, it is often interpreted different, especially by different partisans. A recent case that has taken place this year is the Rucho v. Common Cause case. Arguing that gerrymandering is unconstitutional and a violation of voter’s rights. Gerrymandering has been around for almost as long as the nation. The idea to manipulate boundaries, favoring a partisanship or class. It has an enormous effect on the electoral constituency and has been a problem individuals who are negatively affected, are trying to eliminate for decades. Minorities are often the ones who take the hit because it ...