Blog 2.7

1. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) might try to avoid this case; why do they have to hear it?

2. How can Trump impact the outcome of this case, in the event that it wasn't decided this year?

3. How big do Democrats have to win national elections in order to actually win control of the House?

4. Why has SCOTUS been unwilling to weigh in on partisan gerrymandering before?

5. Why does SCOTUS look bad for intervening in Bush v. Gore?

6. How does the lack of political parties during the writing of the Constitution allow for political parties to take advantage of the current laws in place?

7. Why have judges in the past found it so difficult to come up with a solution for partisan gerrymandering? (They don't like gerrymandering, but don't have a solution; why?)

8. What do the new litigants mean when they use the term "wasted votes"?

9. Why is Wisconsin a particularly good place to try their ideas?

10. If gerrymandering is struck down by SCOTUS, who feels the effects immediately? When would most people feel the effects of the decision?

Answers:

1. "Due to special procedural rules for certain voting rights cases, the Supreme Court must hear this case. Rather than “deny cert” and say nothing, as the Court does with almost all the cases it is asked to review, it must either affirm or reverse the lower court decision. (The Court can “summarily” affirm or reverse, but that’s also why the district court win matters here. The Court is highly likely to give the case a full-blown review given that plaintiffs won below.)"

2. "The odds are that President-Elect Donald Trump will have replaced at least one justice on the left [by then], depriving Justice Kennedy of his swing vote and probably foreclosing any chance of policing partisan gerrymandering during the next redistricting cycle. Today’s Court will be as friendly as any reformers will see for a good long while."

3. "The GOP controlled much of redistricting during the 2010 cycle. It drew itself a set of plans that ensured... that Democrats would have had to win the popular vote by at least 9 percentage points to take control of the House this year... A partisan gerrymandering rule could make all the difference."

4. They do not wish to appear as if they are interfering with Democratically elected leaders the people chose.

5. They were a primarily Republican Court that decided the Republican candidate should win the election.

6. "The Constitution is almost silent about how our democracy is supposed to work... America’s framers didn’t even anticipate that there would be political parties in the first place. As a result, they didn’t think hard about which institutions would referee political battles, let alone how to protect those institutions from partisan taint."

7ai. It's hard to define what is and is not fair.

7aii. Certain groups will and will not be protected, and this is hard for courts to sort out.

7aiii. Getting one thing wrong can screw up an entire election.

7b. "If there’s no way for different judges to apply a rule consistently and predictably to resolve an agreed-upon problem, those disputes are not 'justiciable.'"

8. "The concept of “wasted votes” is crucial to understanding and challenging gerrymandering. If your party is in power, you want its votes deployed efficiently, with sensible but not overwhelming majorities in as many districts as possible. You also want the other party to waste as many votes as possible — either by voting for lost-cause candidates or by widening the margins for candidates who were going to win in any case."

9. "The case isn’t an ideal test case, by any means. Usually gerrymanders involve... outlandishly shaped districts, like the one that gave gerrymandering its name, but Wisconsin’s districts were relatively compact. Moreover, Republicans are now in the majority in Wisconsin, so this is no longer a case where the minority is gerrymandering itself into majority control. But a better case isn’t coming along anytime soon. It may be now or never."

10a. "If the Court were to find partisan gerrymanders justiciable, the immediate effects would only be felt in Wisconsin, which would have to redraw its districts."

10b. "The decision would hang like the sword of Damocles over every single districting effort that takes place after the 2020 census. The mere threat of future lawsuits would do a great deal to tamp down on partisan gerrymandering."

Blog 2.6

1. What are the reasons given that suggest that Trump will likely follow Ryan's legislative agenda instead of Ryan following Trump's?

2. What is the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities [(CBPP)]?

3. What Lyndon Johnson programs are likely to be cut significantly?

4. What happened to welfare in the 1990's that will likely happen to these programs?

5. If states have freedom to make decisions in spending for these programs, what are they most likely to do?

6. Why does Paul Ryan's plan advocate for allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines?

7. What would be the effect of funding Medicaid through block grants?

8. What are the two areas the article claims are the things Paul Ryan does not want  to cut?

9. Ryan wants to cut spending for all sorts of programs, but where does he want to increase federal spending?

10. According to the article, what was the impact of poverty fighting programs implemented in the 1960's?

11. Who would benefit most from Paul Ryan's tax plan?

12. What does he want to do to Social Security & Medicare (programs in which ALL people use)?

Answers:

1a. "Republicans... have won Congress, and it’s House Speaker Paul Ryan who... leads those Republicans." Therefore, if legislation is passed, it will likely be under Ryan's guidance.

1b. "Ryan has spent the better part of a decade crafting a coherent, sweeping agenda to reform and slash the American safety net." Because Ryan has been forming a coherent plan for quite sometime, coming up with a new plan would be a waste of time for Trump.

1c. "Trump enters office as a historically unpopular president distrusted by his own party in Congress. He’s not in a position to dictate to them what he wants. To keep [Congress] on his side, he’s going to have to do what they [want, and] what they want — and have repeatedly voted to pass in recent Congresses — is Ryan’s budget."

2. "The Center On Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is an American think tank that analyzes the impact of federal and state government budget policies from a progressive perspective. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Center's stated mission is to 'conduct research and analysis to help shape public debates over proposed budget and tax policies and to help ensure that policymakers consider the needs of low-income families and individuals in these debates.'" It is led by Robert Greenstein.

3. "Ryan’s proposals would repudiate the federal government’s 50-year guarantee of medical care and food to America’s poorest residents, a promise generated by Lyndon B. Johnson when he made food stamps permanent in 1964 and created Medicaid in 1965."

4. Medicaid and food stamps will move to the state level, but "no state will have a program anywhere near as generous or comprehensive as the ones they did have. The 1996 welfare reform law effectively rendered welfare dead, according to sociologists of poverty, particularly in the eyes of the extreme poor, who ceased to see it as a program that can help them at all."

5. "The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, or “food stamps”) will be slashed and turned over to states, which will likely use the money as a slush fund for other endeavors."

6. "By enabling the selling of insurance across state lines, [it] would effectively ban states from enacting stricter regulations."

7. "If Medicaid is block granted and cut, and the [Affordable Care Act] repealed and replaced according to Trump’s plan, the total increase in the uninsured could very well reach 30 million to 40 million."

8. "He wants to drastically cut basically everything the government does outside of defense and retirement spending."

9. "Ryan, like most Republicans, wants to increase defense spending."

10. Paul Ryan claimed that, "'After a 50-year war on poverty and trillions of dollars spent, we still have the same poverty rates,' [but...] if you measure poverty properly, taking safety net programs into account, poverty fell by 40 percent from 1967 to 2012."

11. "His tax plan, which would cost at least $3 trillion over the first decade,... would give 99.6 percent of its cuts to the top 1 percent."

12. "He intends to cut it, drastically, to return it to the states, and give the states unprecedented flexibility in how to spend that money. That would mean the end of the guarantee of health care and food to America’s poorest residents."

Blog 2.5

1. What was the makeup of the Congress that began in 2009 with Obama's first term?

2. What is the current makeup of the Congress (Before the new one takes office in January)?

3. Why is a 60 vote majority so critical in the Senate?

4. When did the Republicans take control of each house of Congress?

5. Why was Republican John Boehner forced out of his role as Speaker of the House?

6. What has been the main issue that Obama [and] Congress have been fighting over?

7. How are the Tea Party Caucus and the Freedom Caucus different from other Republicans?

8. What is happening to moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans? Which types of elections are they losing to lose their seats?

9. Why does the article predict that there will be little conflict between the president and Congress over his last year in office?

Answers:

1. "Democrats held a 16-seat Senate majority and 79-seat House edge."

2. "[Paul] Ryan leads 246 House Republicans, [and] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell... has a comfortable majority of 54 Republicans."

3. 

4. "A GOP takeover of the House [occurred] in 2010. The Senate fell into Republican hands in 2014."

5. "The Ohio Republican [John Boehner] was ousted... by conservatives dissatisfied with his leadership."

6. The arguments were largely related to the economy of the United States.

7a. The Tea Party Caucus believes they are more conservative than the leaders of the Republican party. The group has previously pushed for reduced spending and the elimination of taxes, for they believe doing such would reduce our debt and deficit.

7b. The Freedom Caucus formed out of dissatisfaction in the GOP agenda. They desire the "[empowerment of] rank-and-file members, [the rewriting of] the tax code, [an overhaul of] Social Security and Medicare, and [the offering of] a Republican alternative to Obamacare."

7c. Both caucuses have a problem with core elements of the Republican party, unlike one's everyday Republican representative.

8a. Both parties are seeing their number of moderate party members decrease in Congress.

8b. Midterm elections (I think) are taking the greatest toll on the moderates.

9. There is virtually nothing left to argue over in the Obama Administration, for Congress does not want to work with the White House in Obama's last year.

Blog 2.4

1. How does a candidate win in the Electoral College system?

2. When people cast their vote for president, what are they actually voting for?

3. When will the actual Electoral College vote count take place?

4. What 3 problems with the Electoral College does the article identify?

5. What are the penalties for an elector that does not vote as their state voted?

6. Why haven't there been many faithless electors before?

7. Why did the Framers choose to use the Electoral College?

8. How did political parties change this process?

9. What does the article say are the 3 reasons the Electoral College is a good system?

10. How do the American people feel about the Electoral College?

11. Explain how the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would work

12. Which states would be opposed to this plan?

Answers:

1. A candidate wins when 270 or more electors (that are picked by the popular vote) vote for a single candidate.

2. When citizens vote, they are actually voting for which party should send electors to vote for a presidential candidate.

3. On December 19th, the vote by the electors will take place.

4a. Candidates ignore non-swing states, for it is almost certain that there is a large number of states that will vote in their favor or their opponent's favor; this number is so large that it is not strategic to go attempt to win them.

4b. Electors don't even have to vote the way that the popular vote wants them to vote; there is such thing as faithless electors, who can vote rogue.

4c. This system was developed back when our country was created and hasn't really been altered to accommodate how times have changed.

5. Most states merely fine faithless electors, and in the cases where the state's penalty is not just a fine, no one has ever really upheld the stiffer penalties that states have.

6. Faithless electors are never really a problem because the parties almost always make sure during their vetting processes that the electors they send will not vote rogue.

7. "The founding fathers specifically did not want a nationwide vote of the American people to choose their next president. Instead, the framers gave a small, lucky group of people called the “electors” the power to make that choice. These would be some upstanding citizens chosen by the various states, who would make up their own minds on who should be the president."

8. "Political parties began to nominate slates of electors in each state [they won] — electors they believed could be counted on to vote for the presidential nominee [they wanted]."

9a. "Swing states tend to swing along with the nation rather than overriding its will, [and] the popular vote winner almost always wins."

9b. "The Electoral College ensures regional balance, since it’s mathematically impossible for a candidate with overwhelming support from just one region to be elected. "

9c. "The most serious objections to reforming the Electoral College come from rural and small-state elites who fear that under a national popular vote system, they’d be ignored and elections would be decided by people who live in cities."

10. "Large majorities of Americans would prefer a popular vote system instead of the Electoral College."

11. It sounds like it's saying that all of the votes in states where the NPVIC has been signed into law will be pledged to whoever wins the popular vote, if and only if the other states signed on to the NPVIC number 270 electoral votes total.

12. Republican and swing states would not sign this into law, though, for the states that have signed the NPVIC now are all Democratic, it would be a sign of big government (which Republicans don't like), and swing states like being able to flip flop when they want.

Blog 2.3

1. Which health based interest groups are identified as receiving funding from Coke?

2. What did these health based groups do in return for Coca Cola?

3. What does the article claim the sugar industry did 50 years ago to the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine study?

4. What kinds of policies is Coca Cola trying to lobby against now?

5. What legislation was being considered in California that would have impacted ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft?

6. How much money did those companies spend lobbying California lawmakers?

7. Which political parties are giving support to Uber and Lyft?

8. Who seems to be the loser when policies regulating Uber and Lyft are not adopted?

9. How many lobbyists does AT&T keep on staff?

10. Where does AT&T rank among telecommunications companies in terms of amounts donated?

11. What % of the House and what % of the Senate does AT&T currently donate to?

12. How do you expect this to benefit AT&T as they try to acquire Time Warner, a deal which will need government approval?

Answers:

1. The American Heart Association (AHA), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) all receive funding from Coke.

2. They all seemed to skew findings and information in a way that would not be detrimental toward sugar producers and soda producers, specifically Coke.

3. "The sugar industry... exerted strong influence on early research about heart disease. That study, in JAMA Internal Medicine, showed how the sugar industry funded research by Harvard scientists that claimed cholesterol and saturated fat were the primary culprits of heart disease, and played down studies that suggested that sugar played a critical role."

4. "The New York Times reported in August 2015 that Coca-Cola was funding and providing logistical support to a nonprofit called the Global Energy Balance Network, which played down the role that diet and sugary drinks have  in the obesity epidemic, and stressed the importance of exercise."

5. "The companies are also resolving high-profile court cases that challenged how they hire drivers — without hurting their shared core position that drivers aren't their employees."

6. "In the current legislative session, Uber and Lyft have spent nearly $900,000 combined on lobbying."

7. Democrats support Uber and Lyft because the supporters, who are young politicians that believe in new technologies (such as Uber and Lyft), see this to be of as great importance to our quality of life as light bulbs and whatnot.

8. The state of California loses in this battle of regulations as policies keep getting delayed; the longer Uber and Lyft are not regulated, the longer they are given to grab a hold of society.

9. AT&T has one hundred registered lobbyists on staff.

10. "AT&T is the biggest donor to federal lawmakers and their causes among cable and cellular telecommunications companies..."

11a. 85.98% of the House of Representatives receives funding from AT&T.

11b. 85% of the Senate receives funding from AT&T.

12. Because 85% of Congress is receiving funding from AT&T, it is likely that Congress will likely allow for Time Warner to be acquired by AT&T, seeing as how the answer of, "No," would possibly lead to funding cuts.

Blog 2.2

1. What kind of voters did Ross Perot appeal to?

2. What similar message do voters hear from Trump and Perot?

3. What similar strategy is used by both Trump and Perot?

4. What was the result of the Perot campaign in 1992?

5. Why does the author suggest that Perot helped lead to Trump's success in 2016?

6. What is the most likely Electoral Vote outcome at this point?

7. What was the only date in which Trump had a better chance of winning the election than Clinton?

8. What percent chance does Clinton have of winning the election today? 

9. Which date did she have the best chance of winning the election?

10. Which three states (or districts) does the forecast predict Clinton will win by the biggest margin?

11. Which three states does the forecast predict Trump will win by the biggest margin?

12. What percent chance does Clinton have of winning the popular vote? How about Trump?

13.  HOW ABOUT GARY JOHNSON?

Answers:

1. He appealed to what is now called the "alt-right."

2. There is a certain something that is "destroying our country."

3. "Both the Perot and Trump campaigns relied on their candidate’s charisma, a simple message and a successful media strategy."

4. "Nearly 20 million people cast a ballot for him, but he didn’t win a single vote in the Electoral College."

5. Perot essentially paved the way for Trump, seeing as how their campaigns are radically similar.

6. Clinton is most likely going to win the election.

7. On July 31st, Trump was 2.0% more likely to win the election than Hillary.

8. Clinton has an 81.1% chance of winning the election today.

9. On August 14th, Clinton had a chance of winning 78.4% higher than that of Trump's: 89.2% to 10.8%, respectively.

10. Clinton is supposed to have the largest margin of victory in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Vermont.

11. Trump is supposed to have the largest margin of victory in Nebraska's third district, Wyoming, and West Virginia.

12a. Clinton has a 49.5% chance of winning the popular vote.

12b. Trump has a 44.0% chance of winning the popular vote.

13. GARY-FREAKING-JOHNSON CURRENTLY HAS A 4.9% CHANCE OF WINNING THE POPULAR VOTE

Note: My answers were given with the forecast set to consider "what polls alone tell us about [November 8th]," as of 7:30 pm on 10/29/16.

Blog 2.1

1. Right before the first debate, how close was the race?  How much do debates typically impact the polls?

2. Why are these debates less important than the debates that take place in the primaries?

3. Why can we not be sure that the debates themselves are what causes changes in the polls during the debate season?

4. How was the Obama-Romney campaign affected by the first debate?

5. What aspects of Richard Nixon & Al Gore's debate performances may have swung the outcome of elections?  Is this related to how they would perform at president in any way?

6. How might low expectations of Trump's performance end up helping him?

7.  How can the media impact what people think about the performances in the debate?

8. How did the Arizona State study measure the media's effects on people's perception? What was the result of their study?

Answers:

1a. "Recent polls suggest Hillary Clinton is still on track to win — but just barely."

1b. "Debates have the potential to make a small but real impact on the race. Polls have often shifted by a few percentage points during debate season, and in a close race, that could really matter."

2. During the primary debates, not as many people are whole-heartedly committed to a candidate; therefore, the primary debates are of greater importance because they are more likely to win over voters as compared to the general election debates.

3. Many things can occur during debate season; that is to say, "Because events can occur outside of debates that have effects on the election but still during debate season, we cannot assume that the only changes during debate season are a result of said debates."

4. Obama lost his four point lead over Romney, possibly due to how people viewed his performance in the first debate.

5a. The way the two presented themselves during their respective debates, i.e. appearance and body language, may have swung the outcome.

5b. Not at all; we, as Americans, are just very superficial.

6. Because Trump sets the bar so low, a moderate performance during the debates can actually make him look like a huge success.

7. The media is who decides who "won" the debate, and for some reason, the public cares about this; therefore, the media can shape how the public thinks about who had a better performance in the debate.

8a. To Group A, they only showed the debate. To Group B, they showed the debate along with twenty minutes of post-commentary by NBC. To Group C, they showed the debate along with commentary on CNN's website.

8b. A majority of Group A thought John Kerry won against George W. Bush; a majority of Group B thought George W. Bush won against John Kerry; and most in Group C either thought there was no clear winner OR Kerry had the edge.

Blog 1.5

1. What do people who do blame the media for Trump argue that they did?

2. What did Berelson and Lazarsfeld find in their study of media impact?

3. What aspects of the election does the media tend to focus on?

4. What does "priming" mean?

5. What does the article claim is the main thing the media did that impacted Trump's success?

6. What impacts did this have exactly?

7. What evidence does this author use to refute the claims that Trump has benefited from the coverage?

8. When does the author claim that media coverage is most important to a candidate?

9. How does the article characterize the media coverage of Trump during the primaries?

10. Why does the author claim that the "media is the effect, not the cause?"

Answers:

1. They feel Trump gained too much media attention, which gave him a greater platform. 

2. "They found very little evidence that the media exerted an independent influence on whom voters decided to back. They found that the voters’ choices owed much more to their partisan predispositions and socioeconomic standing..."
3. The media focuses on what they think are the major issues along with how candidates stand on said issues.
4. Priming is "the way the press can influence the standards by which audiences evaluate a candidate. [For examples,] when... researchers exposed viewers to programs focused on national defense, [they] asked them to evaluate a president’s performance... [V]iewers were more likely to judge the president by how well they thought he had provided for the nation’s security (as opposed to, say, domestic issues)."
5. The media gave Trump large amounts of extra attention he should not have been entitled to.
6a. "It signaled that Trump’s candidacy was something to take seriously, rather than a novelty act that viewers might dismiss."
6b. "The disproportionate coverage of Trump’s views on issues like trade and immigration made these issues more salient to voters, meaning they were more likely to consider them when choosing a candidate."
6c. "His 16 Republicans rivals, and the issues they might like to see highlighted, were not getting beneficial exposure."
7. "He now is viewed negatively by 70 percent of voters, and would lose to Hillary Clinton by 12 points if the general election were held today."
8.  Positive media coverage is most important during the invisible primary.
9. "Trump enjoyed more 'positive or neutral' news coverage than the other Republican primary candidates,... that the volume and tenor of early coverage were disproportionate to voters' interest in Trump's candidacy."
10. The authors feels that "[t]he media [was merely] noting—often to their collective surprise—that more and more Republican primary voters were becoming receptive to Trump's message," not necessarily inherently advocating it.