The left and right might converge over increasing the minimum wage

Most stories about ideology in the United States point out where the differences lie, but there are areas where the far right and the far left converge.

A Washington Post writer covers a recent conference where conservatives joined liberals in arguing that in increase in the minimum wage would benefit the economy. Whether this gains traction in Congress is unclear. One of the arguments made is that higher wages leads to less demand for social services. The government may well be subsidizing businesses, allowing them to pay low wages with these programs.

One conservative even argued that increased wages might be good for the Republican Party's competitiveness. The wealthier people are, the more likely they are to pay income taxes, and the more likely they are to adopt fiscally conservative positions, which might make them consider voting Republican.

- Click here for the article.

Democrats have made the argument that an increase is morally right and that the only thing standing in the way is corporate greed. That may be so, but it hasn’t won them enough Republican support to get the increase through Congress. But what if Democrats were to make a free-market argument that a higher minimum wage would shrink the federal government and reduce the welfare state?

That’s the argument Ron Unz made to Nader’s gathering. Unz, a wealthy businessman known for his 1994 Republican primary challenge to California Gov. Pete Wilson and his fight against bilingual education, has serious conservative credentials, most recently as publisher of the American Conservative magazine. But now he’s leading a ballot measure in California to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

“The government spends over $250 billion a year in social welfare programs aimed at the working poor,” he said, addressing the group via Skype. “If we simply made the working poor much less poor by raising their wages to a much more reasonable level, a lot of that money would be saved, probably in the range of $40 to $50 billion a year.” The $250 billion spent on welfare for the working poor, Unz said, amounts to a “massive subsidy for businesses” that are paying less than a living wage and “forcing taxpayers to make up the difference.”

But what about the Congressional Budget Office study this year predicting that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 would cost 500,000 workers their jobs? Actually, Unz argued, the study found that 98 percent of minimum-wage workers would benefit from a wage increase, while only 2 percent would lose their jobs. Further, he said, the higher minimum wage would mean a reduction in Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” — those who, Romney said, won’t consider voting Republican because they don’t pay income taxes — as these new taxpayers become “open to a traditional Republican conservative economic message.”

Texas Primary Runoff Election Wrap-Up

Some random stories about yesterday's election:

- Tea Party Conservatives Win Top GOP Runoff Contests.
- Statewide Election Results.
- Analysis: Conservative Groups Enjoy Runoff Wins.
- Ralph Hall loses Texas GOP runoff.
- Democrat David Alameel handily defeats Kesha Rogers in Senate runoff.
- The Brief: Tea Party Ascendant as Curtain Falls on Two Careers.

A few hints for the final

I'm - maybe - 25% done with the final and have gotten through the first 8 set of slides. Let that be a hint. Almost all the questions will be new to you - no repeats - unless I run out of ideas and have to.

A few things to cover:

- ideology
- the framers' attitudes about the public
- the public policy process
- the Declaration of Independence
- what drove the Federalists
- the basic principles in the Constitution
- detail about each

My goal is to have 200 questions that you have to answer in 2 hours. This makes is difficult for you to look them up. You either know them or you don't. I hope you know them

Is democracy in long-run decline?

This theme should sound familiar if you've been paying attention to the opening slides in the class - the one's that touch on the pros and cons of democracy, oligarchy and autocracy. Democracies are inefficient, slow, and prone to conflict and autocracies are efficient, but subject to arbitrary rule.

NYT commentator David Brooks thinks that many of the problems we face - especially as compared to autocratic governments he calls "the guardian state" - are because of the consequences of democracy. We might benefit from less democracy - at least at the national level.

- Click here for the article.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

The events of the past several years have exposed democracy’s structural flaws. Democracies tend to have a tough time with long-range planning. Voters tend to want more government services than they are willing to pay for. The system of checks and balances can slide into paralysis, as more interest groups acquire veto power over legislation.

. . . A new charismatic rival is gaining strength: the Guardian State. In their book, Micklethwait and Wooldridge do an outstanding job of describing Asia’s modernizing autocracies. In some ways, these governments look more progressive than the Western model; in some ways, more conservative.

In places like Singapore and China, the best students are ruthlessly culled for government service. The technocratic elites play a bigger role in designing economic life. The safety net is smaller and less forgiving. In Singapore, 90 percent of what you get out of the key pension is what you put in. Work is rewarded. People are expected to look after their own.

These Guardian States have some disadvantages compared with Western democracies. They are more corrupt. Because the systems are top-down, local government tends to be worse. But they have advantages. They are better at long-range thinking and can move fast because they limit democratic feedback and don’t face NIMBY-style impediments.

. . . So how should Western democracies respond to this competition? What’s needed is not so much a vision of the proper role for the state as a strategy to make democracy dynamic again.

The answer is to use Lee Kuan Yew means to achieve Jeffersonian ends — to become less democratic at the national level in order to become more democratic at the local level. At the national level, American politics has become neurotically democratic. Politicians are campaigning all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Legislators are terrified of offending this or that industry lobby, activist group or donor faction. Unrepresentative groups have disproportionate power in primary elections.

The quickest way around all this is to use elite Simpson-Bowles-type commissions to push populist reforms.

The process of change would be unapologetically elitist. Gather small groups of the great and the good together to hammer out bipartisan reforms — on immigration, entitlement reform, a social mobility agenda, etc. — and then rally establishment opinion to browbeat the plans through.

Sounds like the a rehash of those age old arguments. And ironically, what he is describing is similar the systems the framers of the Constitution envisioned, where the mass public had very little input in the formation of national laws, but much more on the state and local level - at least among those that were able to participate politically.

A commentator at the Washington Post isn't buying it. Our problems are more due to rules that interfere with the proper workings of our institutions.

- Click here for the article.

Democratic self-doubt is nothing new. In the 1930s, Americans worried that, unlike fascist states that could "get things done," our government was too sclerotic to get us out of the Depression. In the 1960s, we worried that communist states that were rapidly industrializing and sending satellites into space were leaving us behind. And today, we're worried that one-party capitalism is more effective than multi-party capitalism. These authoritarian states, Brooks tells us, "are better at long-range planning and can move fast because they limit democratic feedback." You can see the future if you go to Shanghai — and it works, at least at breathtaking catch-up growth.

Well, not really. These paeans to government of, by and for the elite ignore China as it actually exists. Their air is unbreathable. Their high-speed railways are unsafe andshoddily made. And their government's credit-driven stimulus might have inflated a monster housing bubble that's now popping. Not exactly examples of superior long-range planning.

The truth, as boring as it may be, is that Winston Churchill was right: Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, James Robinson and Pascual Restrepo have a new paper that finds that countries that switch to democracy have about 20 percent higher GDP per capita 30 years later. That seems to be because greater civil liberties lead to governments that reform more economically and invest more in education and health care — in short, that are more responsive to the people.

. . . Our problem isn't too much democracy. It's too little. The filibuster means you need a Senate super-majority to get anything done. The Hastert rule — which, remember, is more of a guideline — keeps bills that have majority support from even coming up for consideration. We could get immigration reform and tax reform and every other kind of reform we need done — first among them ones that help the long-term unemployed — if we didn't have these parliamentary rules that enable obstructionism.
Now, calling for the end of the filibuster isn't as thought leader-y as calling for Simpson-Bowles forever, but it might actually, you know, work.

From the Bangkok Post: Is Thailand a failed state?

It's a question that can be asked of the governments in may countries where there seems to be no one in charge. In some of the early slides in class you'll notice content that points out that just because a nation has borders and can be spotted in a map, it does not follow that they posses the two things argued to be necessary to have a government - the ability to collect revenue and the ability to compel people to follow the law.

Here's concern that the Thai government can no longer do so, and has become what is called a failed state.

- Click here for the article.

There is no definitive consensus on what constitutes a failed state, but let’s consider this one. Washington-based NGO Fund for Peace outlined the following characteristics associated with failed states. One Loss of control of territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein. Two: Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions. Three: Inability to provide public services. Four: Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.

On the first characteristic — discounting the area surrounding the Phreah Vihear temple — the conflict in the southern provinces of Songkhla, Yala and Narathiwat makes for a good argument. It is still Thai soil and under military rule, but we don’t have much control over it either.

For a government to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders, the police and military must be in charge, as opposed to warlords, paramilitary or terrorist groups.

they can take over the streets of the capital. Not to the mention the storming of various government buildings.

Similar arguments are made about other nations.

For a systematic look at these, click here for the Failed - Fragile - State Index.

From the Observer: From autocracy to democracy, to ‘mobocracy’

Some of the terms we've come to grips with in this class are all over this recent piece of commentary.

The author analyzes the results of recent revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Ukraine and Thailand and wonders if what had been a from autocracy to democracy is now becoming a shift from democracy to "mobocracy."

The ideals of democracy - where the people rule in a manner which benefits the general public - are often thwarted by the practical realities of how people in fact behave. Groups define their well being in terms of whatever groups they identify with and do whatever is necessary to obtain those benefits.

A well constructed constitution is meant to minimize the ability of a faction to undermine a democratic republic in large measure by establishing institutions that contain their actions, but the democratic masses in these nations see little reason to uphold those institutions - assuming that they even exist.

As the factors that existed to prevent democracy from slipping into mobocracy disappear, instability increases in each nation.

. . . while these ‘mobocrats’ tear down civilisations of centuries, they have no mechanism, means or ways to manage democracy, and propel themselves into peace, unity, security and prosperity.

To that effect, Libya after Col Gaddafi is neither a democracy nor an autocracy. National oil wells are being scrambled for by tribal militias and diplomats. In neighbouring Egypt, the former ‘democratic’ masses and their governors have now been labelled ‘terrorists’, as they continue to destroy what may need a new martial plan to reconstruct.

In Ukraine, the masses started off somewhat civilized, but sooner degenerated into destructive mobs against their “commonwealth”, as they demanded to belong to their maternal Europe, while the governors preferred to remain with their paternal Russia.

In Thailand, the masses demanded the stepping down of their elected lady prime minister. When she called for elections, to give them an opportunity to elect whoever they thought was a better choice, they did not want them.

These are the mobs and masses.

He is also critical of the leadership in other nations that have seen changes in their governing systems where elites have taken charge - Iraq, Juba, and Lebanon among them. In these cases democracy cannot take hold since no institutions exist to restrain the ambitions of the leadership (Egypt fits here as well).

This supports the argument we make in class that while it is true that democracies are difficult systems to establish, they are even more difficult to maintain. It was a chief concern of the Constitution's framers, and one of the points the authors of the Federalist Papers tried to make - that the Constitutional system they were able to develop would be able to restrain both the elites and the masses.  

States are becoming more gerrymandered over time

The Washington Post has a great article illustrating the increased tendency of states to draw legislative districts in ways that enhance the power of whichever political party dominates the state.

- Click here for the article.

The concept is called gerrymandering - which you should know by now if you've been reading your notes - and will likely be covered in your final. One of the features of gerrymandered districts is their unusual shapes, these are necessary in order to contain as many partisans - reliable Democratic or Republican voters - in single districts. This is how state legislatures can guarantee that a specific district remain in Democratic or Republican hands.

The author highlights changes in the design of these two districts over the past 50 years to make his point:

Evaluating Democracy in America

I have a long series of posts that attempt to evaluate the quality of democracy in the United States, and touch on the suspicion that increased gaps between the rich and poor (and middle class) have made elected officials more responsive to the needs of the wealthy and less responsive to everyone else.

You can find many of these by clicking on this blog label: democracy.

In the Spring 2014 semester, we spent time looking through this study, and especially the following graph which points out that shifts in the opinions of the top 10% of income earners correlate with shifts in public policy, while this of the lower 90% have none:




But Andrew Sullivan flags a study that suggests that in one area of public policy, incarceration, shifts in attitudes about being "tough on crime" do correlate with the incarceration rate.

- Click here for the link.

This doesn't necessarily argue against the broader point that the opinions of the wealthy matter more for public policy, since their opinions and that of everyone else may be the same. But this does suggest that in specific areas of public policy, changes in it follow changes in public opinion - which is what democracy is supposed ot be all about.

From the Guardian: We must defend Thailand's fragile democracy – or civil war looms

As if on cue - since I've posted on the instability of democracy, and suggested students pay close attention to the framer's thoughts on the nature on democratic instability and how it ought to be contained - there's a military coup in the news.

From the Guardian:

In recent months, the F-word has been gaining currency in Thailand: observers are increasingly using "fascist" to describe the goals and methods of those determined to bring down the elected government, which is clinging to power despite a series of blows from its opponents in the courts and on the streets.

The army's declaration of martial law in the early hours of Tuesday – without consulting the government – further undermines the embattled administration and the kingdom's fragile democracy. Under the Martial Law Act of 1914, military commanders now have wide-ranging powers to detain suspects, censor the media, impose curfews and prohibit public gatherings.

Fourteen television stations have been taken off the air, and theBangkok Post reported on Wednesday that the military was "restricting comments on TV and in the print media by prohibiting remarks that could confuse society or provoke violence". There were also reports that books on Thai politics had been taken off the shelves at some shops.

This was a clearly a coup in all but name, and it was greeted with deep concern by the international community. As Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch said, "Thailand's friends in the world's capitals should make it clear that they expect this de facto coup to be reversed immediately."

The causes of the bitter conflict tearing Thailand apart are complex, and civil war remains a strong possibility. The army justified the imposition of martial law by claiming it was necessary to restore order amid heightened tensions and fears that rival groups would clash in the streets.

For the past six months, the former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban has led protests aimed at unseating the Pheu Thai government, which won a 2011 election observers said was largely free and fair.

In February, it won another election, which was boycotted by the opposition Democrat party while Suthep's thugs blocked polling stations. The inept, elitist and misnamed Democrats, led by the Eton- and Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva, appear to have given up on parliamentary democracy altogether.

Lots to unpack here - and it's worth thinking about this in terms of Kirkpatrick's essay. I'm drawn to the comment that a former official refused to accept the results of an election, which led to the instability that the military used to justify its action. I'm no expert on Thai politics, but do political participants in Thailand accept their own constitutional system? Opposition members seem to not wish to abide by electoral rules.

For background:

- Wikipedia: Coup d'eta.
- Wikipedia: Thailand.

Kirkpatrick on the gradual development of democracy

Here's another extended quote from Kirkpatrick's 1979 essay referred to in the previous post.

It reinforces a point I make in several sets of slides that try to tied in the basic design of governing institutions to British history, and the gradual development of independent legislative and judicial institutions that can limit the power of the executive. It's the gradual nature of this development that is important, and once accomplished, freedom can expand to encompass greater numbers of people. It's the result of the process, and it takes time.

That seems to be Kirkpatrick's basic complaint about Carter's foreign policy - if not of the entire ideological point of view he represented to her.

Here's the quote:

In the relatively few places where they exist, democratic governments have come into being slowly, after extended prior experience with more limited forms of participation during which leaders have reluctantly grown accustomed to tolerating dissent and opposition, opponents have accepted the notion that they may defeat but not destroy incumbents, and people have become aware of government’s effects on their lives and of their own possible effects on government. Decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits. In Britain, the road from the Magna Carta to the Act of Settlement, to the great Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, and 1885, took seven centuries to traverse. American history gives no better grounds for believing that democracy comes easily, quickly, or for the asking. A war of independence, an unsuccessful constitution, a civil war, a long process of gradual enfranchisement marked our progress toward constitutional democratic government. The French path was still more difficult. Terror, dictatorship, monarchy, instability, and incompetence followed on the revolution that was to usher in a millennium of brotherhood. Only in the 20th century did the democratic principle finally gain wide acceptance in France and not until after World War II were the principles of order and democracy, popular sovereignty and authority, finally reconciled in institutions strong enough to contain conflicting currents of public opinion.

Think about this when you look at the sections in this class on democracy, the expansion of suffrage, and the development of the three key institutions of government - the legislative, executive and judicial. It also lies in the background of the section on ideology. One of the key differences between what we now refer to as liberalism and conservatism is a dispute over whether changes in society can be achieved quickly and deliberately, or only slowly through the development of solid and stable institutions.

All this can end up on your final.

Jeane Kirkpatrick weighs in on what it takes to keep the republic.

I want to highlight some of the material in the opening set of slides.

You'll find quote this on slides 20 and 21. It comes from a 1979 article written by Jeane Kirkpatrick which was critical of the Carter Administration's foreign policy. For our purposes here, that is insignificant, but her analysis of what it takes for a constitutional government to be both established and maintained is worth noting. It fits within the broader subject raised in the introduction, what does it take to sustain a democratic republic. A constitution is not enough - though a well designed one helps - it takes a public that has the traits necessary to do so.

- Here's a link to the full article.

Here's the quote I pulled out for the slides:

In his essay on Representative Government, John Stuart Mill identified three fundamental conditions. . . . These are: "One, that the people should be willing to receive it [representative government]; two, that they should be willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation; three, that they should be willing and able to fulfill the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them. 

Fulfilling the duties and discharging the functions of representative government make heavy demands on leaders and citizens, demands for participation and restraint, for consensus and compromise. It is not necessary for all citizens to be avidly interested in politics or well-informed about public affairs–although far more widespread interest and mobilization are needed than in autocracies. What is necessary is that a substantial number of citizens think of themselves as participants in society’s decision-making and not simply as subjects bound by its laws. Moreover, leaders of all major sectors of the society must agree to pursue power only by legal means, must eschew (at least in principle) violence, theft, and fraud, and must accept defeat when necessary. They must also be skilled at finding and creating common ground among diverse points of view and interests, and correlatively willing to compromise on all but the most basic values.

Let's break this down a bit. Hopefully you've noticed that John Stuart Mill is referenced in a couple places in the class - mostly having to do with establishing the limits of what a government should be able to do. This is the harm principle - which I might ask a question about in the final exam. He also provided one of the better reasons why freedom provides tangible benefits for society, more on this later - but again, very likely things I'll ask questions about on the final exam.

Here are key points from the quote.

Three qualities are necessary in the general public for a republic (a representative government) to survive.

1 - people have to want it
2 - people have to want to work to preserve it
3 - people should be able to perform the function and duties it requires.

Part of the point of the first section was that an educated population is necessary to meet those three requirements.

Kirkpatrick goes a bit further in clarifying the last of these requirements: the demands on the public. To me this gets to the meat of the matter:

- people have to participate
- - they have to see themselves as participants in the process
- - not just subjects
- people have to practice restraint
- - legal means only must be used to achieve objectives
- - violence, fraud and theft must be avoided
- - people must be willing to accept defeat
- people have to work to achieve consensus
- - common ground among people with diverse points of views have to be found
- people have to be willing to compromise
- - unless it is a fundamental value, people have to be willing to give things up

Its a good starting point for a discussion about works and does not work in a republic, which means not just what works and does not work in the government, but since it a government based on the consent of the governed, what works and does not work in the general public, within each of us.

An example of demagoguery

Building off the post below - a newspaper item intended to get the white majority agitated and ready to move.

Moore v. Dempsey and mobocracy

Mini 3's should prepare for finals questions related to the relative pros and cons of different systems of government (principally autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy). I pull a lot of material from the opening set of slides - Why do I have to take this class? You can expect to see maybe 5 - 10 finals questions from that set of slides.

As you'll note, the biggest suspicion the framers of the Constitution had about democracies was that they tended to turn into mobocracy - the fancy term is ochlocracy. The term is obviously biased. Who wants to be ruled by a mob? It can also refer to rule by a mass of people. The framers argued that these forms of government were unstable, and could lead to tyranny of the majority. A close reading of their comments reveals that they were also worried the democracies that were developing in the states under the Articles of Confederation were undermining their power.

One of their concerns was that an uneducated population could be persuaded to become violent by a demagogue - "a political leader in a democracy who appeals to the emotions, fears, prejudices, and ignorance of the lower classes in order to gain power and promote political motives." This could create the instability that could not only spell the end of the democratic republic they sought to establish, but also allow a numeric majority the ability to dominate a numeric minority.

This points out a tension between majority rules and minority rights that I try to highlight in key section of the class - it plays a key role in the design and role of the courts as well as the nature of the Bill of Rights.

Aside from pointing your attention in this direction, I'm writing this because as I was working on the notes for the Supreme Court and stumbled across the court case of Moore v. Dempsey which involves accusations that an Arkansas mob was preventing the criminal justice system from working in the neutral fashion we expect it to.

It seems to me to be a good example of mobocracy in action

Here are links for background on the case

- Moore v. Dempsey.
- Elaine Race Riot.
- Sharecropping.
- Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America.
- Robert L. Hill.

The incident appears to have begun when a group of African American sharecroppers met in order to develop a strategy for addressing grievances they had against the landlords they worked for. The meeting was interrupted by a group of white men, shots were exchanged (it was uncertain who shot first) and one of the white men was killed.

The links can give you detail on what happened next (lots of violence), but one of the eventual results was a trial process dominated by the majority white population. The rights of the African American defendants were not recognized, which raised issues that ultimately led the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices would rule that the national government had the power to compel state courts to provide due process guarantees for criminal defendants, especially if the process was tainted by the a dominant mob.

Click here for the decision.

A few stories related to the VRA

The question I asked mini 3 students to consider is whether Congress is likely to redraw the map that outlined which are the covered jurisdictions under the Voting Rights Act. Until it is redrawn, no changes in election can be overseen - which suggests that efforts to minimize the voting rights of minorities can be put in place.

Here are a few stories related to the effort to redraw (or not) the map of covered jurisdictions:

- Voting Rights fixes should get a vote in the House and Senate.
- Push stalls to revive VRA provision in Congress.
- Republicans drag their feet on fixing the VRA.
- Last week's affirmative action setback could be a boost to voting rights.
- How Supreme Court rulings encourage racial discrimination.

Consider this a start.

GOVT 2305 3 week mini

We're one week into the 3 week mini 2305 class, meaning that it the semester is already 1/3rd over. Students who take classes like this tend to be smart and self motivated, and this looks to be the case so far. I'm not worried about most of you - most of you that is.

I gave myself a break after the end of the spring semester, but I'll start posting a items related to the class. These will fall into three categories.

1 - those related to the topic of the assigned paper - which will be due in two weeks
2 - those related to the final exam - which will be opened in two weeks
3 - current even stories that tie class material to events in the news.

Students are free to send comments, as well as email me through the address listed on the right hand column.

A last list of hints - 5/4/14

The first final will be tomorrow at 8am - so in order to be fair there will be no more hints after this one.

I mentioned in class several times - for those that come to class - that I recommend reviewing the assessment questions repeatedly, then thinking about their content broadly. Keep in mind that anything we covered in class can be on the test. This is designed to be the toughest part of the class.

You still have until Thursday at 4pm to turn in all your work on Blackboard.

The tests for online classes will be opened on Blackboard on noon Wednesday and will be closed on noon Thursday. You'll have 2 hours to answer the questions.

Some last minutes things to review - count on questions about these. These are in addition to the previous reviews.

2305:

- free speech
- the design of the branches
- opinions of the framers
- the formation of parties and interest groups
- Supreme Court cases
- Supreme Court process
- voter turnout
- strict scrutiny
- constitutional interpretation
- the growth of each branch of government
- military power / declared wars
- organizations within Congress
- original intent
- lobbying
- democracy
- poverty
- the wall of separation
- the grievances in the Declaration of Independence
- tyranny
- liberalism
- conservatism
- sub governments
- the two party system

2306:

- amendments to the Texas Constitution
- counties
- appellate courts
- the budgetary process
- the comptroller
- urbanization
- content of the Texas Constitution
- the 1869 Constitution
- primary elections
- the governor's powers
- city councils
- state board of education
- voter registration
- gerrymanderting
- single member districts
- the law making process
- the powers of the Speaker
- voting rights
- the Texas Supreme Court
- political culture in Texas
- Article 4 of the Texas Constitution
- city managers
- isd's

A few more hints for 2305 and 2306 - 5/2/14

2305:

- Review the relative powers of each of the branches of government
- Review how each check the others
- Be able to define key, basic terms
- Review the nature of public policy and the factors that bind sub-governments together.
- Delegated, reserved, implied, expressed, inherent powers . . .
- Which phrases in the Constitution are especially vague and subject to interpretation?
- What are the political institutions?
- What factors make some groups politically stronger than others?
- Be able to answer factual questions about voter turnout, party identification and campaign finance.

2306:
- Be able to answer questions about the bill making and budgeting process.
- Know facts about the plural executive - each of the offices contained in it.
- Don't worry about the nuances of the judicial system, but do know general issues about it.
- What factors strengthen and weaken each of the branches.
- How are elections conducted in the state?
- What relationships exist between the state and county governments?
- Be familiar with basic facts associated with the electoral process
- How are parties organized in the state?
- What are the different ways city governments are organized?