Next Semester

I will be teaching two groups of L1 LEA E22ANY3 British Culture & Civilization. Here are the times/place if you would like to be in my group:

Tuesday 15h45-16h45 F004A
Wednesday 15h45-16h45 F106

Best,
Megan Oprea

Exam #3

Don't forget that you have your last exam this week. The exam will be on the articles from week 11 and 12. I have just posted the discussion questions to help you to study.

The format: 5 short questions for each essay for a total of 10 questions. Each question is worth 2 points for a total of 20 possible points.

Email me if you have any questions.

Discussion Questions for Week 11 & 12

Week 11 Discussion Questions:

1.     What happens once a decade? Why?

2.     What is a legislative district?

3.     Why do districts need to be made equal?

4.     What does “one-person, one-vote” mean?

5.     Why is redistricting difficult & contentious?

6.     What did the Democrats do in Georgia? Why?

7.     What happened in New York?

8.     What was the difference between Georgia & New York?

9.     What is another way districts are made uneven sometimes?

Week 12 Discussion Questions

1.     What bill did the House of Representatives pass?

2.     Which party was “for” the bill?

3.     What is the Obama administration’s reaction?

4.     Where does the bill say funds should come from?

5.     What is the main benefit of the bill?

6.     Why do democrats say it is dangerous?

7.     What does “special interests” mean?

8.     Did Obama or McCain use public financing in 2008?

Week 12 Reading

Please read this article for next week, which is also our last week of normal class. The week following that there will be your final exam which will cover the articles from week 11 and 12.

House passes bill to end public funding of campaigns

By Catalina Camia, published: January 26, 2011, from USA TODAY

The U.S. House passed a bill today to end public financing of presidential campaigns, but the bid to kill a system considered outdated by some Republicans could end there.

The vote was 239-160. Ten Democrats supported the measure and one Republican voted no.

The Obama administration is "strongly opposed" to the bill and wants to see public financing for presidential campaigns "fixed rather than dismantled."

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., sponsor of the measure says the Watergate-era program of taxpayers helping to pay for presidential campaigns is "obsolete."

Instead, the bill seeks to have presidential candidates rely on private funds for their campaigns and transfer the remaining balance in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to the Treasury to help pay off debt.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said Republicans are trying "to further erode whatever protections our government has left against a state of democracy for the highest bidder."

Republicans won the House majority on promises to chop federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the campaign bill would save $617 million over 10 years -- a fraction of the $1.5 trillion budget deficit now projected for this year.

The Obama administration said the measure would deal another blow to the campaign financing system, on the heels of last year's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case that opened the door to more election spending by corporations and unions.

"This is not the time to further empower the special interests or to obstruct the work of reform," said the official Statement of Administration Policy, issued earlier this week by the White House budget office.

The public-financing system was created in the 1970s, as a way to end the abuses highlighted during the Watergate scandal. USA TODAY's Fredreka Schouten reported earlier this week that taxpayer support has waned, with only 7.3% of taxpayers choosing in 2009 to check off a box on their federal income tax forms to donate $3 toward the public-financing fund.

Shortly after the House passed its bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a companion measure in the Senate. "The American people have spoken and the verdict is clear," said McConnell, R-Ky. "They'd rather reduce the deficit than pay for attack ads and robo-calls."

President Obama set a record for fundraising in his 2008 campaign, relying on private donors, and bypassed the public financing system.

Republican John McCain, however, did not forgo public funds and received more than $84 million in taxpayer money to help pay for his general election bid against Obama.

Source:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/01/house-presidential-campaign-financing-/1

Week 11 Discussion Questions

Week 11 Discussion Questions:

'One person, one vote' still an unsettled question for states

1.     What happens once a decade? Why?

2.     What is a legislative district?

3.     Why do districts need to be made equal?

4.     What does “one-person, one-vote” mean?

5.     Why is redistricting difficult & contentious?

6.     What did the Democrats do in Georgia? Why?

7.     What happened in New York?

8.     What was the difference between Georgia & New York?

9.     What is another way districts are made uneven sometimes?

Week 11 Reading

Please read the following article and be prepared for our normal discussion in class.

'One person, one vote' still an unsettled question for states

Friday, February 11, 2011

By Josh Goodman

From Stateline

Legislatures will begin tying themselves in knots in a matter of weeks as they redraw the boundaries of their own districts. The difficult, costly, contentious once-a-decade process occurs for one reason: Population has shifted over the past ten years, giving some districts too many people and some too few. To abide by the principle of "one-person, one-vote," district populations must be made equal — more or less.

But just how equal is equal enough? For state legislative districts, that’s a key legal issue that remains unresolved. The muddle comes from two relatively obscure court cases originating in the last redistricting cycle.

A decade ago, Democratic dominance in Georgia was waning. The party still controlled the state Legislature, though, and as a result had the power to draw state House and Senate lines to try to perpetuate its hold on power a little bit longer. That’s just what the Democrats did. One of their tactics was to create suburban Republican-tilting districts that were over-populated — they had more people than the statewide average — while under-populating Democratic seats in cities and rural areas. The most populous districts had almost 10 percent more people than the smallest ones. The end result was more Democratic districts and fewer Republican ones.

Predictably, Republicans cried foul. A federal district court agreed with them, throwing the map out on one-person, one-vote grounds in a case called Larios v. Cox. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision.

In New York, the Republicans who controlled the state Senate also were clinging to power in a state Democrats increasingly dominated. Their redistricting plan looked a lot like the one in Georgia. They stretched their power by underpopulating Republican-leaning upstate districts, while over-populating Democratic seats in New York City. Once again, the population deviations were just under 10 percent. This time, though, in the case of Rodriguez v. Pataki, a U.S. district court said the plan was constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision, too.

Given the conflicting Supreme Court judgments, which occurred just five months apart, courts are nearly certain to revisit the issue this cycle. What’s at stake is how much power legislators have to draw maps for partisan ends. If the courts follow Larios, and limits variations even in the 10 percent range, political gerrymandering will be harder. If they follow Rodriguez, it will be easier.

Population deviations, though, aren’t all about partisan politics. States often draw legislative districts with unequal populations in order to keep communities intact or make life more convenient for election administrators. State lawmakers hope they’ll be able to keep that power. 

Source: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=549681

Exam #2 & Discussion Questions

As you know, you have an exam next week (week 10 on the calendar).
Exam dates are: November 16, 17, 18, depending on which group you are in. If you know that you are going to miss class you MUST email me BEFORE the exam so that you can come to one of my other groups.

The exam will consist of 1 essay question for each article for a total of 4 essay questions. The articles are: a) Is health care-reform constitutional, b) House adopts resolution scolding Obama on Libya, c) Obama picks Kagan..., d) Who is the Tea Party?

Below are the discussion questions from each week. You should go back over these questions, making sure you can answer them. You should also re-read the articles carefully making sure that you understand them.

If you have any questions email me. Megan.Oprea@univ-montp3.fr

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Is Health Care Reform Constitutional?

      1. Where will the battle over federal control of health care shift if the health-care bill becomes law?
2. What does the health-care bill require everyone to do? What clause of the constitution discusses this?
3. Has Congress ever used the commerce clause to affect economic inactivity? Did it in WWII?

      4. What was done to get some senators to vote for the bill?

      5. What are some states thinking of doing? Will it work?
6. How can a state make the bill unconstitutional? When was the last time this happened?

House Scolds Obama

1.     Why did the House of Representatives adopt a resolution rebuking Obama?

2.     What did Obama do in Libya? Why?

3.     Why does the President need approval from Congress?

4.     What does the resolution do?

5.     Who is Boehner and what does he want from the Obama administration?

6.     What does Obama’s administration say in response?

7.     What does the War Powers Act say?

8.     Why is it important to have a War Powers Act and to require approval from Congress before going to war?

      9.   How do Republicans & Democrats feel about Obama’s treatment of Congress?

Obama Chooses Kagan

1.     How are Supreme Court Justices (judges) chosen?

2.     How many has Obama chosen?

3.     What worries Obama about the current Supreme Court?

4.     What is Obama’s “agenda”?

5.     Why did he choose Kagan?

6.     What is her background (name 3 things)

7.     What makes her different from other Supreme Court Judges?

8.     Why is it a big deal when a president gets to appoint a Supreme Court Judge?

Who is the Tea Party?

1.     Who has been asking, “Who is the Tea Party”?

2.     What does this imply?

3.     What is Jonathan Rauch’s definition of a Tea Party member? (List 3 things)

4.     What does RINO mean? How doe Tea Partiers feel about them?

5.     What is a RUAN?

6.     How do Tea Partiers think of themselves? How does this affect how they vote?

7.     How do Tea Partiers generally feel about compromise?

8.     What does the Tea Party want to do?

 

Week 9 Reading and Assignment

Please read the following article and come to class PREPARED to discuss it. Remember, you MUST bring a copy of the article (or your computer) to class. Without the article you cannot answer the questions. Read the article CAREFULLY so that you can answer the questions quickly in class. 

Remember, there is an exam on November 16,17, 18, depending on your group. More information to come. 

Who Is The Tea Party? Republicans By Another Name

NPR

September 15, 2010

Steve Yeater/Associated Press

Tea Party activists arrive for a rally at the former McClellan Air Force Base site,  Sept. 12, 2010. So who are exactly are these Tea Party people and what do they want? It's a question not only Republican Party leaders have been asking themselves and each other for a number of months; students of American politics have been seeking answers as well.

One of the best outsider guides to the Tea Party movement is Jonathan Rauch, a contributing editor at National Journal and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Rauch, who has done a lot of deep reporting on the Tea Party, explained that a member of the movement is essentially someone who would've earlier identified as a Republican but now calls himself an independent despite being a conservative and voting pretty much exclusively for Republicans. In other words, they are the opposite of the Republicans In Name Only or the RINOs many Tea Partiers revile. They are Republicans Under Another Name (RUAN doesn't really work as well as RINO, but it's the best I could do for the time being.)

 

Here is an excerpt from Rauch's comments: “Tea Partiers are white, bright and right on average. The minority presence is relatively small. I don’t think that’s because they’re racist. I don’t think they are. I think it’s because they’re conservative and conservatives tend to attract more white voters than minority voters. They are bright. They are well educated. Finally, they are, many of them debranded Republicans. That is to say they look and talk and sound like Republicans. They often vote like republicans. But many of them think of themselves as independents. That’s one reason they’re so unafraid to vote for Republican candidates in primaries who might lose to Democrats. They say it’s not about party and in their minds it really isn’t.”

Rauch has talked with Tea Party movement people and scholars of political movements and reported his findings in a National Journal piece that fills in a lot of details, such as they are.

The big political challenge for the Tea Party, as Rauch points out, is how does the Tea Party change the policies of government, especially if its preferred candidates don't get elected in general elections in large numbers, or it doesn't have leaders who can speak authoritatively on the Tea Party's issues?

As Rauch pointed out, enacting legislation takes compromise and having someone at the negotiating table. But many in the Tea Party apparently see this as the kind of impure, old-style politics that, to their minds, has gotten the country in so much fiscal trouble, with big deficits and debt.

So the question remains, how does the Tea Party as it's currently organized (or disorganized as the case may be) become more than just a spoiler for the candidacies of establishment Republican Party candidates?

Rauch says the Tea Party doesn't care as much about political gains as it does for cultural change. It wants to change the "hearts and minds" of Americans so they become more skeptical of government and more self-reliant, Rauch says.

That seems like a tall order, especially with Baby Boomers entering the years when they will become more dependent on the federal government than ever because of Social Security and Medicare.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/09/15/129876488/who-is-the-tea-party-republicans-by-another-name

Week 8 Reading and Assignment

Please read this article CAREFULLY and be prepared to answer the questions in class. The idea is that you read the article closely at home (looking up words you don't know etc.) and then answering the questions in class should be EASY. I would like everyone to write up a short "profile" of Elena Kagan: this means where she went to school, what she is like etc.

Obama Picks Kagan as Justice Nominee

From The New York Times

May 09, 2010

By Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny

WASHINGTON — President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan as the nation’s 112th justice, choosing his own chief advocate before the Supreme Court to join it in ruling on cases critical to his view of the country’s future.

What Kagan Will Bring to the Court

After a monthlong search, Mr. Obama informed Ms. Kagan and his advisers on Sunday of his choice to succeed the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, but the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience. […]

Replacing Justice Stevens with Ms. Kagan presumably would not alter the broad ideological balance on the court, but her relative youth means that she could have an influence on the court for decades to come, underscoring the stakes involved.

In making his second nomination in as many years, Mr. Obama was not looking for a liberal firebrand as much as a persuasive leader who could attract the swing vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and counter what the president sees as the rightward direction of the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Particularly since the Citizens United decision invalidating on free speech grounds the restrictions on corporate spending in elections, Mr. Obama has publicly criticized the court, even during his State of the Union address with justices in the audience.

As he presses an ambitious agenda expanding the reach of government, Mr. Obama has come to worry that a conservative Supreme Court could become an obstacle down the road, aides said. It is conceivable that the Roberts court could eventually hear challenges to aspects of Mr. Obama’s health care program or to other policies like restrictions on carbon emissions and counterterrorism practices. […]

Ms. Kagan defended her experience during confirmation hearings as solicitor general last year. “I bring up a lifetime of learning and study of the law, and particularly of the constitutional and administrative law issues that form the core of the court’s docket,” she testified. “I think I bring up some of the communications skills that has made me — I’m just going to say it — a famously excellent teacher.”

Ms. Kagan was one of Mr. Obama’s runners-up last year when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the court, and she was always considered the front-runner this year. […] Ms. Kagan had several advantages from the beginning that made her the most obvious choice. For one, she works for Mr. Obama, who has been impressed with her intelligence and legal capacity, aides said, and she worked for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. when he was a senator. For another, she is the youngest of the four finalists, meaning she would most likely have the longest tenure as a justice.

Ms. Kagan was also confirmed by the Senate just last year, albeit with 31 no votes, making it harder for Republicans who voted for her in 2009 to vote against her in 2010.

The president can also say he reached beyond the so-called “judicial monastery,” although picking a solicitor general and former Harvard law dean hardly reaches outside the Ivy League, East Coast legal elite. And her confirmation would allow Mr. Obama to build on his appointment of Justice Sotomayor by bringing the number of women on the court to its highest ever (three, with Justice Sotomayor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg).

Moreover, in his selection of finalists, Mr. Obama effectively framed the choice so that he could seemingly take the middle road by picking Ms. Kagan, who correctly or not was viewed as ideologically between Judge Wood on the left and Judge Garland in the center.

Judge Garland was widely seen as the most likely alternative to Ms. Kagan and the one most likely to win easy confirmation. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, he had a number of conservatives publicly calling him the best they could hope for from a Democratic president. […]

But Mr. Obama ultimately opted to save Judge Garland for when he faces a more hostile Senate and needs a nominee with more Republican support. Democrats expect to lose seats in this fall’s election, so if another Supreme Court seat comes open next year and Mr. Obama has a substantially thinner margin in the Senate than he has today, Judge Garland would be an obvious choice. […]

A New Yorker who grew up in Manhattan, Ms. Kagan earned degrees from Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School, worked briefly in private practice, clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, served as a Senate staff member and worked as a White House lawyer and domestic policy aide under President Bill Clinton. She was nominated for an appeals court judgeship in 1999, but the Senate never voted on her nomination.

She has been a trailblazer along the way, not only as the first woman to run Harvard Law School but also as the first woman to serve as solicitor general. Her inexperience as a judge makes her a rarity in modern times, but until the 1970s many Supreme Court justices came from outside the judiciary, including senators, governors, cabinet secretaries and even a former president.

If the Senate confirms Ms. Kagan, who is Jewish, the Supreme Court for the first time will have no Protestant members. In that case, the court would be composed of six justices who are Catholic and three who are Jewish. It also would mean that every member of the court had studied law at Harvard or Yale. […]

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10court.html