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Mundos Anglófonos UNED. Estados Unidos. Unit 3. The Political System
Mundos Anglófonos UNED. Estados Unidos. Unit 3. The Political System
Federalism
The Constitution in the Tenth Amendment reserves to the states or people those
powers not specified or reasonably inferred as federal. The governing power is shared
between the national government and the states. The powers of both are limited by
the rights preserved for the people (the idea that the people are the power behind
government), the peoples representatives created the government and can alter or
totally replace it.
The USA has a hierarchy of law. The federal Constitution is the countrys supreme law.
Acts of Congress as well as state and local law must conform to it. State and local laws
must in addition conform to the state constitution. Connecting state and national law,
the federal Supreme Court decides what government activity is permissible on any
level under the Constitution. The US Constitution limits the courts work and thus
judicial review to cases and controversies
Government activity in the USA today falls into three categories: that allowed the
states alone, that permitted only to the national government and that shared by both
levels of government.
The third basic principle in the Constitution is the separation of powers between the
legislative (Congress), executive (the President) and judicial (the US Supreme Court
and other federal courts) branches. No person may serve in more than one branch at
the same time. The President, senators and representatives are selected through
independent elections that do not all occur at the same time. The areas that elect
them are different and so are the lengths of their terms of office.
Senate
Constitutional change
Amendments can proposed by two-thirds majorities in Congress or by a constitutional
convention called by two-thirds of the states. Any changes must be ratified in threequarters of the states. Important changes in the constitutional framework have come
through the amendments process as well as through evolving customs and changing
historical circumstances.
Amendments have generally enhanced federal power at the expense of the states.
Among amendments we find: the three Civil War Amendments which abolished slavery
(13th) gave all the former slaves citizenship (14th) and allowed former male slaves the
right to vote (15th), the 16th which granted Congress the right to tax incomes or the 19 th
which granted women the vote.
Among the so-called extra constitutional changes in the political system (without the
amendment process) are political parties, primary elections, the Executive Office of the
President and the Supreme Courts power of judicial review.
Party organization
The federal system results in parties that organize and function on three distinct levels.
State and local party organizations are affiliated but not controlled by the national
parties. The parties have organizing committees in every level. Cooperation between
the party levels is growing stronger. The state and local parties are active on a
continuous basis, while the national organizations have lain dormant between
presidential elections. The party which loses presidential elections can sustain its
strength in Congress and state governments.
Its main functions are law-making, forming structures and programs to implement
policy, overseeing the resulting bureaucracy, raising and allocating government funds
(federal budget), regulate foreign and inter-state commerce, advising the President on
foreign affairs and appointments, finance and regulate military forces and to declare
war.
Congress does most of its work in committees (and subcommittees). The committee
system assigns members to specific legislative work, the supervision of executive
departments
and
agencies,
hearings
on
public
issues
and
on
presidential
appointments.
Congressional elections
Elections for Congress take place in congressional districts, each of which chooses one
member of the House, and states, each of which selects two members of the Senate.
Congressional elections take place every two years, when all members of the House
and one-third of the Senate face re-election. The Constitution guarantees each state a
minimum of one representative.
Congress does not choose the chief executive; this means that members can give their
first allegiance to their state or congressional district, rather than to their party or to
the chief executive. Members of Congress owe their seats to elections in which their
personalities and individual positions on issues matter more than party labels. The
parties cannot control who enters congressional elections or directs these campaigns.
Most candidates organize their own campaign staff and cover the cost of running for
office.
To run for a seat in Congress, a person must usually win a primary election first. In the
general election there are usually two candidates, a Democrat and a Republican,
although independent or third-party candidates sometimes run.
The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States,
who also acts as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The
President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress
and, to that end, appoints the heads of the federal agencies, including the Cabinet.
The Vice President is also part of the Executive Branch. The Cabinet and independent
federal agencies are responsible for the day-to-day enforcement and administration
of federal laws. Including members of the armed forces, the Executive Branch
employs more than 4 million Americans.
Fifteen executive departments each led by an appointed member of the President's
Cabinet carry out the day-to-day administration of the federal government. The
President also appoints the heads of more than 50 independent federal commissions.
executive power at the expense of the traditional balance among the three federal
branches.
Chief law-maker
The President has the power either to sign legislation into law or to veto bills enacted
by Congress, although Congress may override a veto with a two-thirds vote of both
houses.
The Presidents role as legislative leader requires him to inform Congress about the
state of the nation and to suggest the measures he considers necessary or
expedient. He could also convene a special session of Congress if he deems it
necessary.
Vetoes can take place in two ways: with a veto message giving presidential objections
or by no action being taken within ten days of the adjournment of Congress on bills
that come to the White House.
The President and foreign policy
The Constitution names the President as a commander-in-chief, but gives Congress the
power to declare war. Since the Second World War most wars the USA has engaged in
have never been declared. Congress has instead passed resolutions giving the chief
executive nearly carte blanche to conduct these armed conflicts as he sees fit.
The Executive Branch conducts diplomacy with other nations, and the President has
the power to negotiate and sign treaties, which also must be ratified by two-thirds of
the Senate. The National Security Advisor has become most Presidents main advisor
in formulating foreign policy and decisions are most often carried out through
executive agreements, which do not have to be approved by the Senate. The President
has at his disposal four major organizations to support his conduct of foreign affairs:
the Department of State and Defense, the CIA, the National Security Council and since
2002 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
narrow the field of candidates, but others held party meetings called presidential
caucuses.
Both the state legislatures and the national party committees issue decisions about the
timing and nature of caucuses and primaries. The government provides some financing
for party conventions and full public funding for the post-convention campaigns of
major partys nominees up to a spending cap if they opt for government funding.
The parties and their candidates eventually face each other in the post-convention
campaign that runs from late August until the voters go to the polls at the beginning of
November. Candidates still criss-cross the country to make themselves and their stands
on the issues known. Short television spots are used by all the major parties and
candidates. In the closing months of campaign, public debates that are televised live
nationwide.
Election day
There are two different tallies (count) of the results. One is the popular vote (a count
of how many voters across the country have supported the candidates) which is not
counted nationally but by state. The popular vote does not determine who wins. The
second tally is the electoral-college vote. Each state has a number of votes in the
college equal to its members in Congress (two senators plus its number of
representatives in the House). In total there are 538 electors in the college. The
candidate who wins a state (even with a minority of its popular vote) receives all votes
in the college. Most people are concentrated in a dozen or so big states and only a
few of these are competitive (divided in their support for the candidates).
Judicial review
The Supreme Courts has the right to decide in cases determining whether
congressional, presidential and states acts are in accordance with the Constitution and
to declare them void if it deems they are not. The courts review power maintains the
supremacy of federal law and a uniform interpretation of the Constitution from state to
state. Once the Supreme Court interprets a law, inferior courts must apply the
Supreme Court's interpretation to the facts of a particular case.
There are two views on how the court should exercise the power of judicial review. One,
called judicial restraint, holds that the justices should limit their review to applying the
rules explicitly stated or clearly implied in the Constitution. If cases raise questions not
clearly answered by existing law, the court should leave those questions for the
elected politicians to decide. The other view, termed judicial activism, maintains that
justices ought to let the general intent or principles underlying the text of the
Constitution and federal statutes be their guide in applying often vague legal language
to a changing society. In the activist view, the court should not hesitate to intervene in
political questions to protect the Constitution and prevent infringements on individual
rights. In the course of US history, there have been cycles of judicial activism and
restraint.
to fund some kinds of activities and not others, the federal government has often been
able to set states policy agenda.
The
combined
effect
on
concurrent
powers,
national
crises,
constitutional
Dual federalism
When the federal government attempted to legislate in the areas of public health,
safety and order in the 1800s, the Supreme Court ruled that these were solely the
concern of the states. Likewise it decided that the regulation of business was purely a
matter for the states. On the whole, the Court acted in accordance with the theory
known as dual federalism. The court asserted that state and federal governments
have clearly separated spheres in which each is sovereign.
At the start of the Great Depression, the states were still the sole provider of most
services. The combination of the economic crisis, Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal
legislation and the courts advocacy of a new theory of federalism transformed the
governmental landscape.
Cooperative federalism
By the late 1930s the national authorities regulation of the economy and creation of a
social-security safety net ushered in the era of cooperative federalism. The court
viewed the division of powers between state and federal governments as less distinct
and less important than the ways they might work together. Many of the most vital
activities of the authorities were now assumed to be among the concurrent powers of
government.
The federal government became active in local law enforcement, low-rent housing
projects, urban mass-transit, health services and job training. It shared responsibility
for virtually all the services that had been exclusively the functions of the states.
Grants-in-aid programs began with the New Deal laws. In the 1950s there was a heavy
federal involvement in secondary and higher education. They also supplied states with
funds for the massive interstate highway system. In the 1960s grants helped pay for
efforts to enforce civil- and voting-rights legislation as well as the Lyndon B. Johnsons
Great Society and War on Poverty programs.
New federalism
By the early 1970s state and local governments complained of over-regulation and
conservatives in both parties called for a return to dual federalism.
President Nixons proposals in 1972 were called New Federalism. The primary
objective of New Federalism is the restoration to the states of some of the autonomy
and
power
which
they
lost
to
the
federal
government
as
consequence
Then in late 2008 the greatest economic crisis since the stock market crash of 1929
struck the nation. In the attempt to prevent a decline into another long depression, by
the end of that year the federal government had bought the nations largest insurer to
save it from bankruptcy, rescued the leading financial institution to prevent the
collapse of the banking industry, and let some $15 billion to bail out the failing
automakers in Detroit. A combination of the domestic ambitious of the Bush
presidency, its foreign policy and the economic crisis had produced a situation in which
the imbalance between federal and state power was arguably as great as in the 1930s
or even greater.
Regarding the judiciary branch, many state and local judges are elected, rather than
appointed. This makes the judicial branch more responsive to changes in public opinion
and it makes easier the removal or unpopular or incompetent judges. Of course, state
and local judges are more frequently accused of being swayed by political pressures.
The state supreme court cannot be sure of handing down the final decision in most
important cases that come to it as the US Supreme Court has the power to review the
constitutionally of both federal and state laws.
There are arguments for and against the great number, variety and overlapping
authority of governments in the USA. Some observers maintain that the situation is
quite democratic in that it gives many citizens opportunities to participate in
government and to affect the making of policy, allow the nation to experiment with
alternative solutions to problems on a small scale, states and cities have pioneered:
new plans for public education, health-service management, pollution control and
welfare reform. In a country as diverse as the USA smaller units of governments can
respond more quickly and appropriately to such differences.
Critics, however, note that voter participation is highest in national elections and
lowest in local elections. Another disadvantage often cited is that the complex sharing
of powers and functions has become too difficult to disentangle for many people and
many turn to organized lobbies that have the time and resources to influence policy.
Thus the current situation encourages the growth and power of special-interest groups.