Government Exam 3 2
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- In a campaign where is the most money spent?
- On tv and radio advertizing.
- What are some examples of free media?
- Talk shows and the News
- What is the most effective way to spend campaign time?
- Visiting people personally
- Where does most funding for campaigns come from?
- Individuals
- How much money can an individual give?
- $2,000 per election
- What are PAC's and what do they do?
- Political Action Comitties, they can give up to $5,000 per canidate.
- Is party money limited or unlimited? Individual money?
- Party money limited, individual money unlimited.
- When can matching funds be used and where does this come from. What was the spending limit in 2004?
- Matching funds can be used in presidential elections and they come from donations 1040 tax returns. Spending limit wsa $73 million.
- Where does other money, soft money come from?
- Party money
- What is final money?
- Independent expendeture, campaign spending = free speech.
- What are some major structural long term force of individual elections?
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1) Distribution of party ID
2) Nature of times (economy and peace/war)
3) Incombancy
4) Complexity of the district
5) Turnout, high turnout democrats do better, low turnout republicans do better. - What are some minimal short term forces in elections?
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1) Campaign
2) Debates
3) Conventions
4) Fleeting Issues - What is a realingment?
- A permanent shift in party ID
- What is a dealingment?
- Less party ID and more independent identities
- What is the surge phenomena?
- In presidential elections the presidents party gains seats in the house and senate (coat tail effect)
- What is the decline phenomena?
- In midterm elections the presidents party loses seats in the House and Senate.
- What do parties do?
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1) Run for office, nominate canidates
2) Aggregate interests, lure groups together
3) Propose alternative programs
4) Structure the vote choice
5) Cooridnate the actions of govnernment officals - What are two ways parties structure the vote choice?
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1) Reduce the number of canidates.
2) Parties provide cues, the rule of thumb to help voters. - What are three ways/places parties coordinate the actions of government officals?
- Across branches, across levels of government, within legislature.
- What are some characteristics of US parties comparatively?
- They are weak and they are decentralized grass roots organizations.
- What are some downfalls of decentralized grass root organizations?
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1) They have access to the ballot but nominations are local.
2) Funding is often a local decision and it is limited. - What are the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties?
- Different social bases, differnt party ID's, different party unity voting in Congress, the way interest groups rate members, broad policy differences.
- Do difference between the two parties matter?
- It depends on what the voter cares about.
- Why are there only two parties? What athe causes of the two party system?
- Because of SMP, causes are from funding issues,debates and the way we elect our public officals, single member districts with plurality voting systems (SMP) are winner take all.
- What are some indicators of party decline in the form of parties as organizations?
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1) Reduction of power over nominations by way of primaries and ballot access.
2) Limited funding
3) Patronage - What are some indicators of party decline in the form of the party in the electorate?
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1) Party ID is down
2) There are more independents
3) Increase of split ticket voting - What are some myths of the independent voter?
- They are informed, They vote on the issus and show little partisan patterns.
- What are some indicators of party decline in the form of parties in government?
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1) More divided governement
2) Weakening of sured and decline phenomena
3) Parties in Congress are stronger - What are some consequences of party decline?
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1) Decline of collective responsibility and accountablity.
2) Immobilism or grid lock.
3) More single issue politics. - What are some functions of interest groups?
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1) Representation
2) Participation
3) Education among group members, the broader public and public officals.
4) Monitoring of policy
5) Agenda building - What are some barriers to interest group formation?
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1) Lack of consciousness of interests
2) Collective action problems, free riding - What are some ways to over come these barriers?
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1) A charasmatic leader
2) Disturbance theory
3) Wealthy benefactors
4) Pruposive incentives
5) Selective incentives
6) Social Solidary benefits
7) Coersion - What are some group resoruces other than money?
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1) Cohesion, organization and agreement
2) Higher number of members
3) Prestige of group
4) Information, knowledge
5) Dispersion, diffusion
6) Intensity of the group - How does the intensity of an interest group a resource of influence?
- Intensity shows motivation and violates the norm of equality also if there is more at stake it causes intensity on an issue.
- What are some inside strategies of interest groups?
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1) Lobbying
2) Experts testifying before Congress
3) Litigation
4) Good strategies of research rich groups
5) Good at getting special benefits for the group
6) Good at blocking
7) Good at providing sustained representation - What are some outside strategies of interst groups?
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1) Grassroots lobbying
2) Protests - What is grassroots lobbying? What is the purpose of it?
- Going to peoples homes and letter writing campaigns. The purpose is to raid issus in public opinion in the for of an information campaign.
- What are some perks of protests?
- They are good for resource poor groups and inexpensive. They are also good for getting alot of attention all at once as well as providing sustained representation.
- What are some biases in the interest group system?
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1) Membership of the middle/upper class
2) Public and special interest being more numerous that public interests
3) More economic interests with business and labor groups represented. - What are some forms of representation in Congress?
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1) Descriptive representation
2) Delegate representation
3) Trustee representation - In terms of descriptive representation does Congress look like America? Why or why not?
- No, Congress is mostly white, male, wealthy, ivy league educated and most are lawyers and are older.
- Does it matter that Congress doesn't look like America?
- No, in terms of voting but yes, in what bills get introduced.
- What forms of representation is there tension between and why?
- Delegate representation and trustee represenation. Delegate representation says that members should simply follow their constituents views and trustee representation says that members should be our trustees and exercise their own judgement.
- What is Burkes dilemma?
- Should representation follow the district or its own conscience?
- Why do members of Congress desire reelection?
- Power, higher office and good policy.
- Why is reelection rate so high?
- The incumbency advantage, funding advantages, name recognition, free mail, pork barrel projects, case work from staff
- How does the make-up of the district influence reelection rate within Congress?
- If there is a greater complexity of people in the district as well as their party ID.
- Why are committies formed?
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1) To process the workload.
2) Divide the labor.
3) Help member achieve thier goals.
4) It easier to block action, legislation and control. - What are the different typed of committies?
- Standing committies, select committies, joint committies and conference committies.
- What are standing committies?
- More permanent committies in the House and Senate.
- What are select committies?
- Temporary committies that are often involved with research or investigation and are set up for a very specific purpose.
- What are joint committies?
- A committe formed by members from the House and the Senate.
- What are conference committies?
- A committe that reconciles House and Senate versions of a bill.
- How does one get assigned to a committe?
- Senior members get reassigned, each party get seats proportinate to their control and the dominant criteria for selection to committe is the members preference.
- What is an example of a bias committe?
- An agriculture committee which is pro farming or a foreign affaris committe which is pro military.
- How are chairs assigned to committies?
- The assignment of chairs is often the senior member and is always a majority party member.
- What power do the chairs of committies have?
- They control the agenda, schedule votes and hearings and choose who testifys before the committe.