Agenda

• Today

    1. Announcements
    2. Elections and political parties

• Wednesday

    1. Congress

Announcements

• Exam 2 is March 3
• Practice Exam is posted

Review

• Why do we care about public opinion?
• Is the US a democracy?
• Is the US a republic?

Review

• Why do we care about public opinion?

    - Our democracy is a consensual democracy, not a majoritiarian democracy
    - Everyone is entitled to representation, not just the winners of elections
    - Public opinion is a barometer of the health of our democracy

• Is the US a democracy? Yes

    - It is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy
    - It is a consensual democracy, not a majoritarian democracy
    - The rights of political minorities matter

• Is the US a republic? Yes

    - Simple: not a monarchy
    - More complex: res publica, the public thing
    - The people own the government not vice versa
    - This also means that all the people own the government, not that the majority own the minority

Barack Obama at UN General Assembly

“As we do every time this year, Presidents and Prime Ministers converge on this great city to advance important work. But as leaders, we are not the most important people here today. It is the civil society leaders who, in many ways, are going to have the more lasting impact, because as the saying goes, the most important title is not president or prime minister; the most important title is citizen.”

Review: Why does this matter for today’s topic?

• Elections matter

• The type of elections matter, too

    - not just majoritarian
    - the way we handle elections takes rights of political minorities into account
    - If the stakes of elections are too high, consent of the minority is threatened

Campaigns and Elections

Who runs elections in the United States

Who ran elections in the Colonial era?

Who runs elections in the United States

Who ran elections in the Colonial era?

Who ran elections in the early Republic (1776 to 1789)?

Who runs elections in the United States

Who ran elections in the Colonial era?

Who ran elections in the early Republic (1776 to 1789)?

What powers over elections did the Constitution give to Congress?

Question to consider: Who should run elections?

If the national government runs elections, what option do the citizens have if the national government becomes tyrannical?

If the state governments run elections and maintain that power, what option do the citizens have if the national government becomes tyrannical?

Who runs elections in the United States

• State and local governments

• Federal government sets some rules

    - Centered on 14th Amendment
    - Voting Rights Act
    - Help America Vote Act

• Parties also play a role in primary elections, caucuses, and conventions

Types of electoral rules (voting systems)

• Plurality system

    - First-past-the-post system
    - Winner-take-all system
    - Common in the United States
    - Big contributor to two major party dominance
    - If there are a dozen closely matched candidates, the winner may only get 20% of the vote

• Majority system: candidate must win 50% + 1 vote

Types of electoral rules (voting systems)

• Runoff election: if no candidate wins majority, top two candidates face off in a second election

• Ranked choice voting / instant runoff voting

    - voters rank candidates in order of preference
    - Uncommon now but used in the past in some major cities
    - Now used in Maine and Alaska for federal elections

Types of Elections

• Primary elections
• General elections
• Special elections

Types of Elections: Primaries

• Usually set by state law along with party rules

What are political parties?

What are political parties?

What are political parties?

What are political parties?

How do parties decide their interests and rules?

• primary elections
• party committees
• party conventions

Typical party structure in the US

• local party committees elected by primary or caucus
• local party committees elect state party committees and state convention delegates
• state party committees elect national party committee members and national delegates

What are political parties?

What are political parties?

Types of Elections: Primary elections

• Select the parties nominees for the general election

    - Closed primary 
    - Open primary 
    - Blanket primary 
    - Jungle primary / Top two primary / Louisiana primary
    - Caucus

Types of Elections: General elections

• Select officeholders
• Most use plurality system
• Some use majority system or runoff elections
• Maine and Alaska use ranked choice voting

Types of Elections: Special elections and other elections

• Fill vacancies
• Recall elections
• Ballot initiatives
• Referendums

Party conventions

• Held every four years

• Delegates are elected in the state primaries and caucuses

    - Delegates are pledged to support a candidate
    - Delegates select the party’s nominee for president
    - Delegates also draft the party platform
    - Usually a formality
    - In the past, conventions were more important

• Rules set by party National Committees

Democratic Convention Rules

• Superdelegate

    - party leader or elected official who is automatically a delegate
    - not pledged to support a candidate
    - can vote for any candidate
    -  out of total delegates       

• 2024:

    - 747 superdelegates
    - 3,949 pledged delegates
    - 4,696 total delegates

• Superdelegates helped defeat Independent Bernie Sanders in 2016

    - Sanders won the most pledged delegates
    - Hillary Clinton won the most superdelegates
    - Clinton won the nomination

Republican Convention Rules

• Superdelegates are not used in the Republican Party

• Former Democrat and Reform Party Member Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016

    - took over the Republican Party from the outside
    - getting a plurality in primaries (most votes but less than 50%)
    - won a plurality of primaries (not a majority)
    - No superdelegates existed to defend the GOP against the hostile takeover by a non-Republican

Presidential General Election

Electoral College

    - Indirect election
    - Candidate names are on the ballot
    - We elected Electors pledged to those candidates
    - Electors meet in December to cast their votes
    - Congress counts the Electoral College votes in January
    

• Indirect election of the chief executive is not unique to the United States

    - The Electoral College is unique to the United States
    - Most democracies are parliamentary systems where the chief executive is chosen by the legislature
    - The Electoral College is a compromise between direct election and election by the legislature
    - Preserves federalism and the power of the states
    - Preserves the Separation of Powers (Congress role is extremely limited)

Election campaigns

• Campaigns are long and expensive

• Campaigns are run by professional staff

• Campaigns are media-driven

• Expensive campaigns favor incumbents over challengers

    - incumbents: current officeholders
    - challengers: candidates running against incumbents

• Incumbents have name recognition and a record to run on

• Incumbents have access to campaign funds from PACs and other sources

Federal Election Campaign finncing

• Campaign Finance Legal Framework

    - Goes back to 1867
    - Federal Election Campaign Act (1971)
    - Federal Election Commission (1974)
    - Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002)

• Free speech issues (important cases)

    - Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
    - McCutcheon v. FEC (2014)

• Campaign finance entities

    - Campaign committees
    - Political Action Committees (PACs)
    - Super PACs
    - 501(c)(4) committees (IRS designation for a type of nonprofit social welfare organization)

State and local elections

• State and local governments have their own campaign finance laws for state and local races

Overview

• Constitutional powers and organization

    - General
    - House
    - Senate

• Congressional rules and operation

    - Committees
    - Leadership
    - Conference Committees

• Bills and Laws

    - How a bill becomes a law
    - Types of bills
    - Types of laws

• Relationship to other branches

    - Executive branch
    - Judicial branch
    - Delegation of authority to executive agencies

Authorship and License

Do not submit to Quizlet, Chegg, Coursehero, or other similar commercial websites.

• Author: Tom Hanna

• Website: tomhanna.me

• License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.