SYSTEM BIAS. Select one demographic or interest cohort that you believe is systematically advantaged or disadvantaged by the current operation of input institutions in American politics.

RICH PEOPLE

Explain how the selected cohort is systematically advantaged or disadvantaged in each of the following input institutions: (a) public opinion, (b) interest groups, (c) voting and other citizen participation, (d) parties, (e) campaigns, and (f) elections.

Policy Proposal & Contentions

Systematic Review

Keep policy proposals conceptually simple and specific.

Bad

•Congress should provide greater incentives for states to preserve lands from development.

•Welfare reform should emphasize child care.

•Campaign spending should be restricted.

•An educational initiative should be conducted.

Good

•Congress should prohibit any taxation by states of Indian casinos on reservation lands.

•Congress should abolish the death penalty for federal crimes.

•The United States should pay the back dues it owes the United Nations.

Keep your language direct and concise.

Bad

• Congress should enact legislation to make it a crime against federal law to discriminate on account of race in who you rent hotel and motel rooms to.

Good

•Congress should prohibit racial discrimination in the rental of hotel and motel rooms.

Make sure your contentions are contentions.

•Is each a complete sentence?

•Does each assert that something is true?

•Does the truth asserted strengthen the case for your policy recommendation?

Good

•The plan would reduce the rate of illegitimate births.

•The policy would be easily enforced.

•My policy is consistent with the First Amendment.

•The spotted owls will all die anyway.

•There is no record of wolves eating children in the United States.

•43% of the benefits will go to the wealthiest 1% of the population.

•Opponents are wrong to argue that the benefits of Head Start can't be measured past second grade.

•Convert your list of contentions into a hierarchical outline.

•Group your contentions into logical categories. For example:

•economic efficiency — the economic benefits of my policy outweigh the economic costs;

•social efficiency — the social benefits of my policy outweigh the social costs;

•equity or justice — my policy treats people equally; my policy gives people what they've got coming; my policy is fair to all concerned;

•legality — my policy is consistent with the constitution and laws of the United States;

•political culture — my policy is consistent with values which are widely shared in the United States;

•my critics – their arguments are incorrect, unpersuasive, or outweighed by my own.

Write out you policy proposal and an outline of your contentions.

Make two copies and come see me on Monday!

Sign up for a time slot today.

Term Limits

• The call for Term Limits is a policy proposal.• What do we have to do to reach a reasoned

judgment about the wisdom of a policy proposal?– We must anticipate the consequences of adopting the

policy and evaluate the relative costs and benefits of each. After all, a good policy is a policy where the benefits outweigh the costs.

Consequences of Term Limits

• What are the likely effects on voters?

• What are the likely effects on elections?– Would it favor one political party over another?– Would it affect the quality of candidates?

Consequences of Term Limits

• What are the likely effects on who serves in Congress?– Would term limits increase the turnover in Congress?

– Would term limits make Congress more or less responsive to national moods?

– Would term limits advance or retard the election of women and minorities?

– Would term limits increase or decrease the the specialized knowledge and experience of members?

Consequences of Term Limits

• What are the likely effects on power balance in Congress?– Will power be more or less equally distributed among

members? – Will members be more or less dependent on staff?– Will members be more or less dependent on lobbyists?– Will members be more or less subservient to special

interests?– How will the career motivations of members be

affected?

Consequences of Term Limits

• What are the likely effects on the power balance between Congress and the President?

• What are the likely effects on the power balance between Congress and the bureaucracy?

• What are the likely effects on the power balance between Congress and the courts?

Research:If you can answer all these questions

– and support your answers with good evidence – then you can write one great

policy paper on term limits.

Argument:Questions to be investigated in the research phase become contentions to be supported

in the argument phase.

Social Welfare Policy

• It reflects our political culture: individual self-reliance trumps equality.

• It reflects our political parties: the policies of each party reflect the interests of the core constituencies they represent.

• It reflects the strength of business interest groups: most welfare programs pay private businesses to service the poor rather than giving money to the poor or having government provide the services directly.

• It reflects the general distribution of power in society: more welfare dollars actually flow to the non-poor than to the poor.

The American Presidency

THERE is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government. The enlightened well‑wishers to this species of government must at least hope that the supposition is destitute of foundation; since they can never admit its truth, without at the same time admitting the condemnation of their own principles. Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high‑handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. . . . A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

--Alexander Hamilton, “Federalist #70”

Foreign Policy Powers under the Constitution

President:

1. Commander in Chief

2. commission all officers

3. receive ambassadors

President and Senate:

1. appoint ambassadors

2. make treaties

Congress (conditional veto):

1. impose duties… to provide for the common defense

2. regulate commerce with foreign nations

3. establish a rule of naturalization

4. regulate the value of foreign coin

6. define & punish piracies & felonies committed on the high seas & offenses against the Law of Nations

7. declare war, grant letters of marque & reprisal, & make rules concerning captures

8. raise & support armies9. provide & maintain a navy10. make rules for armed forces11. provide for calling forth the

militia to repel invasions12. prescribe training of militia13. exercise exclusive jurisdiction

over forts, arsenals, etc.14. make all laws which shall be

necessary and proper

The Imperial Presidency & Beyond

• control over information • executive privilege • commander-in-chief• Mexican War• Civil War• Emancipation Proclamation• Andrew Johnson impeachment• Spanish American War• World War I• Treaty of Versailles• League of Nations • permanent crisis• Great Depression• World War II• Cold War cult of the presidency

• Revolutionary Presidency

• policy impoundment

• selective enforcement

• pocket veto

• perpetual and universal privilege

• police powers of national government

• War Powers Act

• Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act

• secret wars in Laos and Cambodia

• Watergate

• threatened impeachment & Nixon resignation

Growth of Presidential Power: Technology & the Constitution

• The Framers’ fear of unified power.

• Secrecy and dispatch.

• One voice.

• Chief bureaucrat.