Congress The Electoral Connection Summary

They are using TV, Social Media, Internet to get popular and known in people. They also launch many advertising campaign and introduces their different promotional offer to the customers.

This written report is appertaining to the book How Congress Works and Why You Should Care, written by Lee H. Hamilton. This book is published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington, IL, it was copyrighted in 2004 by the publisher.

The structure of our government is complex. With local, state, and federal levels of government, it can be confusing to understand how the government works. Luckily, Morris Fiorina wrote a document about the structure of the government called The Rise of the Washington Establishment. The Washington establishment simply refers to big government workers such as, included but not limited to, house representatives, senators, congressmen, and party leaders. These legislators and bureaucrats are the ones who run the government and establish laws. In his document, Fiorina argued that these people are in office only for personal gains. He strongly focused on congress, in which he believes they act in favor of their reelection. Power, money, and insurance benefits are the main influences that motivate congressmen to hold their position. Governmental representatives are supposed to reflect the values of the people, but they ultimately act in a selfish manor. The Rise of the Washington Establishment analyzes how congressmen act for their own self-interest.

The political system many of us know today as the Electoral College is one that has been in place in our country for over 100 years. The Electoral College is a system that helps determine who is elected as President and Vice President during major elections. The Electoral College is the primary source of determining who is elected. This system although having withheld through the times and stayed in place is not effective to me, and can lead to unfair elections in the eyes of some American People.

     The third factor that seems to have an influence on the operations of Congress is the public opinion. Logically, if the public thinks that a certain congressman doesn’t know how to do his job, then he won’t get elected. That’s why the public opinion has a major influence the operations of Congress because the public has say if that Congressman or Congressmen will get elected again.

The Electoral College is a group of people who are “appointed by a larger group” of people to represent each state in the U.S. who then vote for the presidential elections (Dictionary.com 2015). The founding fathers created the Electoral College so that qualified citizens could vote for the president. They believed that the average American is uniformed, so they decided that a few educated people would make the correct choice for the entire population. The founding fathers also thought the Electoral College would be effective because at that time the only way of communication was through word of mouth and through letters. With the Electoral College, it was a more simple way to get the votes to one place and count them. A major criticism of the Electoral College is the popular candidate may lose to the electoral vote. This means that if majority of the population voted for candidate A, but majority of the electoral votes were for candidate B, the president of the nation would become candidate B. This situation has occurred four out of the fifty-six presidential elections that have been held in the United States. I believe that the Electoral College should be abolished so that the popular candidate would win the election, people would feel that they are making a difference in the society they live in, and we should replace the Electoral College with popular choice or allow our house of representatives to vote for the presidents instead.

The Electoral College system has been in place for over 200 years and Americans are still not sure how it works or if it is the best system. Many Americans feel they go to the polls every year and vote for the president, and in the long run they are in control of the fate of our executive branch. With the 1992 election it was clear that many people had little understanding for how a president is chosen; the 1992 election came close to having no majority of electors due to Ross Perot and his third party. However, after this last debacle over the presidency, many people are crying "foul" even though they still understand little or nothing about the benefits of the Electoral College. We

The United States Congress is more than likely the most significant representative institution in the United States government. Each member of Congress has a primary obligation to the district, to his or her constituency. Though Congress is divided into two parts, called the House of Representatives and the Senate, they both play different roles in the legislature process. Senate is more deliberative and the House is the more centralized and organized. Congress is supposed to represent the American people but they will not always make the “right” decisions, according to some individuals. Obviously it is impossible to please everybody, but surely the laws that are being passed are because Congress views some sort of usefulness from it. There are two different types of representation that was spoken about in the chapter including sociological and agency representation. Sociological is based off of the idea that if two individuals have similar background, character, interests, and perspectives, then they can correctly represent others’ views. Agency is when a representative is held accountable to a constituency for when that constituency is represented poorly. The constituents have the power to hire and fire their representatives.

In “Congressional Government”, Woodrow Wilson tries to explain the system of Congress and in it he thoroughly discusses the predominance of Congressional Committees in the legislative body. He argues that our legislature is more analogous to a conglomerate, not a homogenous body and that “we are ruled by a score and a half of ‘little legislatures’”(Wilson p. 323). There is little unity in the House and party organization is not strong according to Wilson. The many distinct, disconnected committees has leads Congress to have weak leadership and therefore decreases decision making. Also Wilson shows how multiple committee jurisdictions creates a system where there is no clear voice on the issue and since committees differ in political ideology broad questions of policy suffer. Lawrence C. Dodd also discusses the committee system in “Congress and the Quest for Power”. In it, he argues that the solution to congressmen’s need for power is a decentralized congress with a committee system that allows members to gain considerable power in their small committees. “Each member wants to exercise power, to make the key policy decisions. … Given this widespread power motive, an obvious way to resolve the conflict is to disperse power”(Dodd p. 335). Dodd argues that the solution to member Congress constantly seeking power is the current

Our Founding Fathers’ idea of an Electoral College is not the same as our current Electoral College as amendments have changed their structure and function. Despite the changes and adaptations to our country’s changes, the Electoral College is still the method that selects presidents and vice presidents. Exploration of the structure and function of the Electoral College will provide an opportunity to understand its formation and operation while the debate between the Electoral College and popular vote usage and its effects on election results will provide an understanding of issues and misalignment with the popular vote while the understanding of how an individual’s vote is valued by the Electoral College will provide a clear demonstration that the vote informs the Electoral College for their duties.

In my opinion the Electoral College is very misunderstood. The Electoral College is a group of officials who elect the president every four years. It is the indirect method of elections. Many people think that they would be voting directly for a presidential candidate when voting, but it is not that simple.

A third point made by Weissert and Weissert is that the power, effectiveness and popularity of Congressional committees can be influenced and weakened. When party leadership is stronger, the power of committees is lessened. Party leaders can find ways to get their pet

“Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.” These words from the Greek philosopher Plato summarize the most fundamental concern of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention when they considered what the best way to conduct presidential elections would be. While, in concept, democracy sounds like the fairest form of government, in practice, it is less than ideal. Fear of “tyranny of the majority” prompted discussion over how the president should be elected. The Founders chose the Electoral College—which incorporates democracy, federalism, and republicanism—for presidential selection, because it provided for the best balance of power. The Electoral College was the product of no small amount of debate during the Constitutional

The American Electoral College is the most confusing part of the American government. In addition, Kenneth Davis, author of Don’t Know Much About History, noted, “Grown men turn weak and stammer when asked who makes up the Electoral College.” However, there will be an effort to clear this enigma up for those who “turn weak and stammer” (2011, p. 653). America’s election system is important because their citizens need to know what they are doing on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The Electoral College has an interesting structure, procedure, and history, while also serving America well.

As you can see from these examples though this problem is not just unique to Congress. It can also be seen in the "state legislatures of the colonial era, and in the British House of Commons of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries"