Institutional Reform In The United States

Hi! I’m an inhabitant of Connecticut, which you probably already know, is a small state. There have been many arguments between the large and small states about representation. That’s why the states are currently going through a compromise, or an agreement between two or more sides in which each side gives up some of what it wants. States with large populations, such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, favor the Virginia Plan. In the Virginia Plan, the number of representatives is proportional, or corresponding, to the amount of people in the population. On the other hand, states with smaller populations, such as New Jersey and Connecticut, rather have equal representation within all the states, which is why they prefer the New Jersey Plan. Anyways, enough with the facts. It’s time for me to share my

Forgette Richard, Garner Andrew, and Winkle John. “Do redistricting principles and practices affect US state legislative electoral competition? State Politics and policy quarterly, 20(9) (2009): 151 175.

Throughout history, political, social, and economical issues have erupted and caused society to reform. These reform movements are created in order for the people of America to have the ability to resolve the issues they see in their communities. Some of the movements that have been most prominent in the united States during the early 19th century are the Women’s Reform Movement, the Prison Reform and the Education reform. All of these developments allowed awareness to be created about the problems that everyday citizens were experiencing and how they were going those change problems into resolutions.

Recently, many political scientists have argued over whether today’s Congress is centralizing or decentralizing. Centralization allows Congress to act quickly and decisively, but at the expense of the members of Congress and their constituents, while decentralization protects and enhances the interests of individual members and their constituents, but at the expense of its ability to act quickly and decisively. At its birth, Congress was created as a decentralized body, and although it has fluctuated over the years, the Constitution, congressional incentive for reelection, the committee system, and weak central leadership has certainly maintained such a decentralized institution.

There are big states and small states, and the small states felt that they were not being represented fairly. This is when the New Jersey Plan was made. There would be a House of Representatives which was based on population. The Constitution state in Article 1, Section 2 that “representatives… shall be apportioned… according to… (population)...” (Document D). There was also the Senate, and there would be two representatives from each state. The Constitution stated “The senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state…” (Document D). This was fight between big states and small states for equal representation and this was a fair compromise for everyone. No one state or person is able to gain too much power this way and everyone is fairly

In Article 1, Sections 2, House of Representatives it reads, “Representatives...shall be apportioned...according to…(population)...” (Doc. D). This lets the bigger states voice their needs and concerns more than the little states, because they would have more voting power. In addition, in Article 1, Section 3, Senate it says, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state” (Doc. D). Now, the all of the state's representation in the Senate is equal, so that not one state has more voting power, which means that all the needs are met for all states, and that nobody has more power than anybody else. These help keep the powers among the states equal, and helps to guard against tyranny as

This allows all states, no matter the size, population or wealth to have equal power and vote in government. Congress has a bicameral Legislature meaning that it is separated by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Depending on population, ever state will get a set numbers of representatives in the House but is assigned two senators who have one vote each. According to Article 1, Section 2 of the constitution, “Representatives. . . Shall be . . .

Analyze criticism of the "Electoral College" system and the alleged advantages and disadvantages of various reform proposals.

Proportional representation is an electoral system where parties will earn congressional seats in proportion to how many votes people cast for them. This would be an extreme opposite to the result of gerrymandering. People would then feel the need to vote because they know that their vote will actually go towards something. If 25% of the voters supported a certain party, that party would then get about 25% of congressional seats. Proportional representation is a way that could help fix the unfairness of the plurality system. The plurality system allows for larger parties to get an unfair amount of congressional seats whereas smaller parties do not have this advantage and also have a huge difficulty in winning any representation at all, also known as Duverger’s law. This would be a great way to prevent gerrymandering which helps with the redistricting issue majorly. Proportional representation could be brought in without a constitutional amendment in some cases, but the system born from this would not work well unless the powers of the Governor General were made clear. What would require a constitutional amendment would be a change to the powers of the Governor General. If it were simple enough to not require a constitutional amendment, I feel as if this would be an excellent idea and help solve many problems and unhappy people with our current

Northern California now needs a electoral system because the state which once California is now Northern and Southern California. Setting up an electoral system means more than just determining how the people should be elected into positions within the government, it has to do with a broader scope. The way that the electoral system is set up encompasses the way that it deals with representation, and we learned through lecture that this term representation had to do with “how a person acts on behalf of another person or a group of people”. So in this scenario of setting up the system that voters are going to elect politicians to represent their values and problems, it is very important that the right system be used. To create this system we must answer 4 key elements of how the electoral system will be ran such as what type of representation the state will have, the voting method that will be used, and what we discuss first which is the number of member’s that we have per district.

As the United States enters another presidential election year in 2016, the subject of tax reform has taken central stage to many of the issues being discussed. Today, many Democratic lawmakers continue to support rising tax rates under the current progressive tax system, while Republican lawmakers are making a push for a flat-tax system. As concerns over slow economic growth, high unemployment rates, and large government spending deficits grow among millions of Americans, the idea of a Eastern European modeled flat-tax system has grown. Some presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, have experimented with the flat-tax system, but Eastern Europe has provided the essential model of success for this type of

Redistricting, the process of adjusting states’ district lines to “even” the population among said districts, has transformed into a science. Depending on a state 's’ population, a certain amount of agents represent that state in the House of Representatives. Well each representative has his or her own district in their home state. These districts then play a role in electing that specific representative to the House. This seems like a standard government function, but the Constitution does not specify any limits on how or by who the districts should be drawn. This process has been left to the state legislatures. The issue that we run into is that once placed in legislature hands, those in power have the ability to draw the congressional

This essay determine how 100 congressional seats should be divided among the 10 states of the union. The number of seats in a state should (in any fair distribution) be proportional to its ratio in the population. Therefore rounding according to some (acceptable) rule should be applied.

Russian and American political systems are alike in the perspective of comparison. Both governments provide a framework for three branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and judicial. Both countries also have a bicameral legislature as well as separate elections of the legislature and the executive branch. Both countries are the lead legislative body. There is assurance of this author in Section One, Chapter Five, and Article One of the Russian Constitution that declares “The Federal Assembly -- Parliament of the Russian Federation --shall be the supreme representative and legislative body of the Russian Federation (The Constitution of the Russian Federation). There is also a judicial branch that is elected a bit differently in each country, but ultimately have the same responsibilities. However, they are different in political parties and the order of the country. Tocqueville states, “Without comparisons to make, the mind does not know how to proceed” (Comparing Political Systems). This political thinker emphasizes that in order for any country to advance, some type of evaluation must be done to see what works for a place and what doesn’t. What perhaps works for Russia may not work for the United States of America. As for my part of the group presentation, I will be comparing the legislature of the

The distinctive qualities between the parliamentary system and the presidential system emphasizes the unique characteristics in each system. Firstly, the parliamentary system acts on a dual executive role while the presidential system focuses on a single executive power role. States with dual executive roles tends to have a joined up governance where the power is shared between the head of government- the prime minister and the head of state- the governor general. Within the executive branch, the cabinet appointed