Partisan Elections Essay

For over 200 years people have argued about whether or not political parties are helpful, or even healthy. In 1879 during his farewell address the first president of the united states of American George Washington warned that….” The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it”. Even with all the controversy that surrounds, the American two-party- system hasn’t faulted, from challenges of third parties to changes in our society, it has again and again proven itself as a strong system. One good thing about the two-party- system is that each political party helps voters make sense of our country’s political scene, by working to get voters more involved by using specific platforms that are important to that certain party’s constitutes. So that voters can fully evaluate each candidate and choose the one they feel is best to be an advocate for the platforms that closely relate to their specific beliefs. On the bad side the two-party-system is just that, only allowing voters two parties to choose from, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, each with its own specific platforms, and its views on current issues. This limits choices of the voters by only allowing them to see the world in two colors, red for republican and blue for democrats, thus leaving out all the others on a color spectrum. At times it can be difficult to choose between the different parties,

While there are many ways to build up and have a government run, different democratic institutions have been made to encourage a more balanced and efficient government that well-represents each state and its needs. However, there is no perfect government which means that each type of institution has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to efficiency and being able to represent every voter. Beginning with the most traditional form, the electoral system, it is clear that though candidate’s are from the same party, they may not all hold the same views. This means that a voter may agree with the beliefs of one candidate on one issue but disagree with another. There are many candidates that will represent a state for the electoral vote; the most common parties represented in America are Democrats and Republicans. If a candidate must campaign

Political parties produce presidents that mend or break rights. Considering a vote can be a huge deal concerning how a person’s life will be for the next four years until they have to vote to decide their fate again. One thing they have to think about is how do they want their life to be affected. Presidents have a big impact on people’s lives and the people have the choice.

The purpose of elections is to allow the people to voice their opinions on who they wish should hold public office in the government. Whichever candidate has the most votes, win the election.

The strongest argument that judicial review is democratic lies upon the legal fact that judicial review is controlled and governed by the state. The state relies upon their set of laws (example: the United States Constitution) which reflects that state’s system of check and balances for rules in which the population will adhere to. The power of the people is directly linked to the electoral process where elected government in a democratic society should echo the voice of their citizens. Although judges are not directly voted on by the people, the state government (who elects the judges) is. By electing state representation, the society is electing the individuals who

Aligning with a political party grants you access to the support needed to run your campaign competitively, both in the form of money and the manpower needed to mobilize voters. As a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives, you will need money in order to get your campaign off the ground and to compete with your opponent. While a nonpartisan campaign may still appeal to citizens enough to receive hard money donations from individual donors, without a party affiliation your funds will be limited. Partisanship ensures donations not only from wealthy, partisan individuals, but also from groups associated with the party. As the Citizens’ United ruling says that spending money is a form of free speech, it is not only the voters’ opinions that can affect your election, but the opinions of corporations, unions, and special interest groups. Running a partisan campaign can open your appeal to more of these groups, increasing your funding opportunities. In addition, there is a good chance that your district has been gerrymandered to favor one party over the other – by aligning with this party, you can benefit from this redistricting in order to win the

Building on the example of the appointment process of a federal judge or Supreme Court Justice, there is a distinction between the state and federal levels in the constitutional provisions dealing with selecting Supreme Court Justices. While the appointment of a United States Supreme Court Justice is subject to the advice and consent of the Senate the process outlined in the Alabama Constitution of 1901 is drastically different. As is the case for federal Justices once they are confirmed they “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” which has been interpreted as a lifetime appointment. However, the Justices of the Alabama Supreme Court are elected by the state electorate to terms of six years. Additionally, while federal Justices are appointed under non-partisan labels in the state of Alabama candidates for the various courts run under party labels. Being that the selection of Alabama state judges is a more complex process than that of the federal system, the articles dealing with the judicial branch are extremely lengthy.

A deep divide between political parties in the United States is nothing new. Heated, ideological debates can be traced back to over two centuries ago between the founding fathers, most notably between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, who birthed the two party system through their differing views on the extent of federal power. Today, this system continues on, but with a stark and alarming difference between the value and discussions taking place due to the severe polarization that has gripped American politics. Recently factors including the infiltration of party politics by extremism, biased news, and the unrelenting desire of politicians to remain in power has culminated into the disastrous partisanship that afflicts government today.

The article introduces the Supreme Court’s decision in Republican party of Minnesota v. White which rendered the speech restriction on judicial candidates unconstitutional, and explains the undue politicization of judicial elections that resulted from it. It also acknowledges scholars who consider judicial elections to be the examples of a proper democratic process. Cann mentions the various interest groups that manipulate the results of the elections through massive funding and biased media coverage; also, the political parties which themselves are an interest group in most of the judicial elections as reflected in their explicit recruiting and endorsement of candidates. It mentions how voting patterns and party identification define the outcomes of an election and how retention election of judges can lead to gross miscarriage of justice.

Personally, I believe political ideology shouldn’t play a role in the appointment of a court justice system because not everyone shares the same ideology and by appointing those with the same ideology then when it comes to making decisions on issues everything will be one sided, and can affect a certain group. A perfect example of this is the 5-4 ruling on same-sex marriage and a response from who was considered to be “…the lion of the Court’s conservative wing, always ready to issue scathing assessments of liberal opinions (Bardes, Shelley, Schmidt 393), Antonin Scalia. According to the website CNN, Scalia found the court’s ruling to be a “…threat to American democracy", and further stating the Court has gone from dealing with serious issues

I don’t support the idea of electing judges based on political parties. This is unethical since the judges elected into office based on party grounds are more likely to favor their parties in most issues and sideline what is antiparty even though it may seem to be right. The idea of being partisan comes in which in turn paves the way for corruption. In most cases the judges may be incompetent due to blind elections based on party in favor other than one’s ability, experience and credibility. As explained by Maxwell et. al, in the state of Texas, the public has a negative perception of the justice system. Many judges are biased, untrained in the law or are rather ignorant, and quite often incompetent (Maxwell et. al, 207). One of the reasons

We present results involving civil and criminal cases reviewed by over 2,200 judges, including federal district judges, federal magistrate judges, federal bankruptcy judges, trial judges from nine states, and judges from multiple states attending national conferences. Our results suggest that politics has only a modest influence on trial judges. We find that politics has an impact on judges’ decisions in only a few of our hypothetical cases, but when we aggregate across scenarios (as political scientists do in their research), we do find a pattern of political influence. Although we conclude that political attitudes influence judges, the effect of political influence is sufficiently small that trial judges likely do not notice it in their day-to-day decision making. (Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Andrew J. Wistrich Chris Guthrie, 2017). In my opinion there is no way that a Judge can be appointed without politics coming into play. The lower court’s Judges are elected by the public. They are part of the Democratic Party or the Republican

It is therefore inconsequential if they all read from the same script of confirmation. In the history of senator confirming the nomination of the judges in order to give a go ahead for the appointment of the president, there has been only little rejection. In the current 111th congress of United State of America, there are 55 democrat senators, 2 independent senators and 41 republicans. All the candidates that have been sponsored by a specific party are bound by their political party constitution to be loyal to its political demand. They cannot oppose what their president has proposed. Crandall (2014), confirm this fact where the nomination of the prospective judge end up being an appointment. The purpose of the senators on the either side of the political divide is to check on the powers of the president and prevent skewed nomination. This purpose is not served since the numbers of the majority in the congress are all fighting for the common political interest in the country. The majority is always on the side of the president hence rendering their role null and void. It is therefore justifiable to argue that the measure put in place to check the president is ineffective and inefficient in delivering an impartial judge that will serve the interest of the country and not being loyal to the interest of the president.

The political system of the United States of America is based upon democratic and republican principles, giving birth to the representative democracy that is our government today. Over the many years since the founding of the nation and our first president, George Washington, politics has separated itself into factions, more commonly called parties, based on common and shared beliefs, religion, and ideals. The development of these parties has encouraged corruption to run rampant throughout the government, and this corruption has lead to a decrease in efficiency and effectiveness in the government as well. Parties have become increasingly polarized as well, drawing closer to the extremes rather than a more moderate, common ground. This increased polarization has created an almost unbreachable ideological gap within the members of congress, and any sort of collaboration has been made impossible by this new trend of loyal opposition, the opposition of one bill or piece of legislature simply because the other party drafted it. This begs the question of the genesis of such a divide, and from this inquiry it is discovered that there have been three major contributions to this party polarization: redistricting methods, also known as gerrymandering, the development of super PACs, and slanted Supreme Court decisions. This investigation will explore the ways in which and the extent that redistricting methods, super PACs, and Supreme Court decisions have

Another advantage is that the results of the elections are produced very quickly. The votes are counted for each of the candidates in a constituency and whoever gets the most votes wins. This is a reasonably quick process with the whole election results getting counted the next day.