Be yourself (unless you’re an unlikable jerk)



Name: __________________________________________________________________ Period: _________AP US Government and PoliticsSchool Closure Work PacketYou are expected to keep up with your work while schools are closed in March 2020. Complete these assignments and submit your packet when you return to school. You should also be keeping up with your homework readings on the calendar. Part 1: Practice FRQRespond to the following question. Then evaluate your answer. Use the information in the graphic to respond to the tasks below. Identify the most common type and tone of super PAC spending. Describe the difference between traditional PAC and super PAC spending. Draw a conclusion about the cause of the difference identified in (B). Explain how the information in the graphic may demonstrate a factor in the public’s view of Congress as a whole. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Practice FRQ Self EvaluationRubric RowAnswerYour ScoreAIdentify/ Describe (0-1 point)Republican Super PACs with ads against a candidate are the most common type of spending. BDescribe(0-1 point)Possible responses: A chief difference between traditional PACs and Super PACs is the different amounts they spend towards campaigns. Traditional PACs can coordinate with a candidate but are limited in the amount of money they can contributeSuper PACs cannot coordinate with a candidate but they can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money supporting or opposing a candidate as long as they disclose their donors. Traditional PACs focus more on spending in favor of a candidate or policy while Super PACs focus more on spending against a candidate or policy. CDraw a Conclusion(0-1 point)Possible responses: The decision in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) ushered in the Super PAC by linking political contributions from corporations to freedom of political speech, which is protected by the First Amendment. Because Super PACs are not directly tied to a specific candidate or party they are more likely to spend money on negative messaging. Any logical conclusion based off of part BDExplain(0-1 point)The information in the graphic suggest that much negative messaging is run about members of Congress in an effort to unseat them or to keep candidates from becoming elected, and these message may have a lasting impact on the opinion of the public about Congress in general. Total Score: _______/ 4Part 2: Electoral CollegeRead and annotate. Then answer the question. Does My Vote Count?Yes, your vote counts. Some people have complained since 2000 that if the winner of the popular vote doesn't become president, their vote doesn't really count, so why vote at all? But every vote does count; it just counts in a more complicated way. When you vote for president, remember that you're voting in a?state election, not a national election. So your vote counts just as much as anyone else's in your state — but it may count more or less than that of someone living in another state!What's a vote worth?Why does the actual weight of your vote vary by state? Remember that every state gets a number of electors that is the total of all of its representatives in Congress, both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. The House of Representatives is divided approximately by population — big states have the most representatives, small states have the fewest — but every state has exactly two senators, regardless of size. That means that while big states have more electors than small states, they don't have as many more as they would based on population alone.Consider three states: California (the state with the biggest population), North Carolina (a medium-sized state), and Alaska (with one of the smallest populations). This table shows their population and number of electoral votes in 2000. The fourth column shows the number of residents per elector (population divided by electoral votes), and the last column shows the?weight of an individual vote?in the given state — that is, how the number of residents per elector compares to the national average.As you can see, Alaska, a very small state, has far fewer residents per electoral vote than the national average, so individual votes cast in Alaska count more than the national average — twice as much, in fact! A voter in California has a little less influence than the average American, about 83% as much. A voter in North Carolina has about 91% the influence of the average American. (You can calculate?weight of vote?in a given state by dividing the national average of residents per elector by that state's residents per elector. Since we're comparing each state to the national average, the weight of vote for the entire United States is exactly 1.A paradoxWhile every American's vote counts, then, your vote counts more if you live in a small state like Alaska than it does if you live in a big state like California. This seems like a paradox, because clearly a big state?as a whole has more influence than a small state. If you're running for president, you are more concerned about winning California, with its 54 electoral votes, than you are about winning Alaska with its 3 electoral votes. As a matter of strategy, you'd probably spend more time and money campaigning in the big states than in smaller states. As a result, residents of big states tend to get more attention in presidential elections than residents of small states, and so small-staters may feel left out and unimportant. Yet in reality, each individual voter has less influence in a big state than in a small state.But is it fair?Ah, that's the question! It certainly doesn't seem fair that a voter in Alaska effectively has more say about who becomes president than a voter in California. But Alaska is a perfect example of why the electoral college was created. Because it's such a big state geographically, and because it is so far from the 48 contiguous states, Alaska has unique interests that, many would argue, deserve representation equal to the interests of New York or California. Other big western states with small populations, such as Montana and North Dakota, would make similar arguments. Of course, it's hard to argue that Delaware, which had 3 electors and only 783,600 residents in 2000 (for a weight of vote of 2.00), really has unique interests that deserve special consideration. The fairness of the electoral system has been debated for more than 200 years, and it doesn't appear that the debate is going to die down anytime soon.Do you think the Electoral College is fair? Why or why not? Part 3: Electoral College Reform ProposalsRead and annotate each proposal. Then fill out the chart and answer the question. Direct Election with Instant Runoff VotingInstant runoff voting (IRV) could be used for Presidential elections with or without the Electoral College. With a direct vote, voters would rank their preferences rather than marking only one candidate. Then, when the votes are counted, if no single candidate has a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated. The ballots are then counted again, this time tallying the second choice votes from those ballots indicating the eliminated candidate as the first choice. The process is repeated until a candidate receives a majority, reducing time and money wasted in a normal runoff election.?Instant runoff voting on a national scale has the potential to solve many of the current dilemmas introduced by the Electoral College as well as the problems introduced by some of the other alternatives. It would end the spoiler dynamic of third party and independent candidates and consistently produce a majority, nationwide winner. It also allows voters to select their favorite candidate without ensuring a vote for their least favorite (as often happens when the spoiler dynamic is a factor and a voter prefers a third candidate the most).?Individual states can also adopt instant runoffs without a Constitutional amendment. Unlike proportional allocation, which could be unfair if only used in some states, IRV would not have negative consequences if only adopted by a few states. Each state’s electors would still be appointed through a winner-take-all method, but the IRV states would now be guaranteed to have a winner with majority approval. IRV would be best instituted without the Electoral College though, so that the winner would not just enjoy a majority within any state, but within the entire country.?Direct Vote with Plurality RuleThis method would abolish the Electoral College and require each person to cast one vote for the candidate of their choice. The candidate who receives the most votes nationwide would win the election, with or without a majority of the votes. This option would require a constitutional amendment to be implemented and would therefore need the support of 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states.?This method of voting would more accurately reflect the popular will of the nation at large. Statistics have shown that more people vote when they know that their vote has a better chance at making a difference. Since each vote would affect the final total used to determine the winner, a direct vote would eliminate the Electoral College’s ability to create a non-competitive winner-take-all enclave that essentially dilutes people’s votes. Direct elections are simple and popular, and eliminate the potential problem of “faithless electors” betraying their pledges to party and public, and unfairly negating any number of popular votes.?A direct vote, however, would not eliminate the entrenchment of the two party system nor the “spoiler” considerations of minor parties and independent candidates. In a close race, voting for a candidate from a minor party could reinforce the same spoiler dynamic as exists within the current system. There is a possibility that with multiple candidates, a winner could be declared with just a small plurality of votes instead of a strong majority. Also, a close election would require a nation-wide recount rather than just recounting the states in question, which would make the process in such a situation much longer.?Proportional Allocation of Electoral Votes This system has been proposed with a number of variations, most recently in Colorado. As a popular alternative, it splits each state’s electoral votes in accordance with their popular vote percentages. This way, a candidate who come in second place in a state with 45% of the popular vote would receive 45% of the electoral votes from that state, instead of 0%.?This system would greatly increase voter turnout and the representation of all parties in a state. It would also encourage candidates to campaign in all states rather than just those that are competitive. Though the majority, as always, would come out on top in each state, the minority's supporters would not be effectively contributing to their candidate's defeat when the whole of their state's electoral votes go a candidate they do not support.?One problem with this system is the question of how to allocate electors proportionally. Percentages will seldom be equal to a whole elector after being proportioned, and a single elector could not be evenly divided among two or more candidates. Some suggest that one way to patch this problem of uneven electors would be to increase the number of electoral votes by a factor of 10 or 100 or more to reduce the margin of error. Others suggest rounding to whole votes, tenth votes, and a whole variety of decimal places beyond this. However, each of these, though reducing the amount of error, would still permit error and not succeed as thoroughly in making each vote count equally.?This would be difficult to pass on a nationwide basis and would most likely have to pass state-by-state. During this process, or even in the end if some states do not adopt the process, one party might gain an unfair advantage. This could happen if some states were dividing up their electoral votes while others were still giving all of their votes to the majority party. For instance, imagine California switching to a proportional allocation while Texas sticks with winner-take-all.?Congressional District MethodThis method divides electoral votes by district, allocating one vote to each district and using the remaining two as a bonus for the statewide popular vote winner. This method of distribution has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though neither state has had a statewide winner that has not swept all of the Congressional districts as well. Consequently, neither state has ever spilt its electoral votes.?This system does not address the disproportional aspects of the Electoral College. Using Congressional districts to determine each elector would also draw more attention to the way districts are drawn, already a hot-topic in politics today. The vast majority of districts are drawn as “safe zones” for one of the two major political parties. For this reason, basing electoral vote allocation on Congressional districts as well would raise the stakes of redistricting considerably and make gerrymandering even more tempting. (For more information see our page on the controversial process of redistricting).?Also, while the current system causes the candidates to pay the most attention to just a handful of states, the Congressional District method would actually make their attention even more tunneled. There are normally anywhere from 10-20 competitive swing states in any given election. However, with this method, candidates would rather shift their focuses to competitive districts, the number of which would be small enough to further reduce the reach of presidential campaigns, promises and attention.?National Bonus Plan:?This idea, proposed by historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., retains the current Electoral College system, but also awards extra electoral votes as a bonus to the winner of the popular vote. The amount suggested by Schlesinger in his National Bonus Plan is 102 extra electoral votes (two for every state and two for Washington, DC). The extra boost of electoral votes would almost always be able to guarantee that the popular vote winner would also be the electoral college winner. While technically maintaining the institution, this option compensates for the uneven power given to the states by the Electoral College.?This method does not eliminate the spoiler dynamic of third party participation, but it would encourage people to campaign and vote in non-competitive states in an attempt to win the popular vote. In the 2000 election, for example, Gore had no reason to campaign in Texas because, with a winner take all allocation of electoral votes, Bush’s conservative home state was clearly going to bring in a Republican majority. However, the Democratic voters living in Texas would have had more incentive to go to the polls if the popular vote affected the election. This situation is the same for the second place party in every state.?ProposalWhat is it?How would it fix issues with the Electoral College?Direct Election with Instant Runoff VotingProportional Allocation of Electoral VotesDirect Vote with Plurality RuleCongressional District MethodNational Bonus PlanDo you think the Electoral College facilitates or impedes democracy in the United States? Explain your answer using 2 pieces of evidence.Part 4: Congressional ElectionsRead and annotate the article. Then answer the questions. The Washington Post: How to run for CongressAlmost anyone can do it. But here are some pro tips, if you actually want to win.By Bonnie Berkowitz and Chris Alcantara, November 15, 2019You’re watching the news, you’re talking to people, you’re annoyed at Congress. No, you’re furious at Congress, and you know you could do so much better in that job.But wait — you hate speaking in public, you’re not rich and your name isn’t Kennedy, Bush, Clinton or Trump. Would anyone vote for you? Would your friends help out? Would your family implode from the craziness?And anyway, where do you start?While traditionally most national-level candidates wade into state and local offices first, more than half of the 2019 freshman class cannonballed straight into Congress. The electorate is obviously in a nontraditional mood.Stacks of books, terabytes of videos and podcasts, and organizations from all sorts of ideological perspectives can help rookie candidates with the many, many details of mounting a campaign, but here are some of the big things experts say you need to know.If any of these sounds like a dealbreaker, running for Congress may not be for you.Be yourself (unless you’re an unlikable jerk)Attempting to run for Congress is not for the lazy, but just about any other personality type will work, said A’shanti F. Gholar, political director of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office.“People think you have to be this crazy, extroverted candidate, that you’ve got to be Elizabeth Warren running off the bus, high-fiving everybody, but that doesn’t have to be you,” Gholar said. “The best personality trait that you can have is just being authentic, being who you are.”Case in point: Georgia’s Stacey Abrams says she is an introvert, but she came within a whisker of winning the 2018 race for governor, and she continues to help shape the national discussion around voter suppression.However, because your campaign will be built around who you are and why you’re running, the first thing you need to do is come up with a strong and simple message.“Whatever you’re running on, your motivation — that’s your brand,” said Jessy Mejia Terry, a Maryland consultant who has worked on several congressional campaigns as well as campaigns for other offices. Long-shot wins happen because the candidates “are very much aware of the power of their own story and can attract followers, attract media attention and attract voters,” she said.For example, Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) was a flight attendant in 2012 when her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot in a friend’s car by a man who didn’t like the teens’ loud music. Heartbroken and outraged, she became an advocate for stricter gun laws and a national spokeswoman for firearms policy group Moms Demand Action. When she ran in Georgia’s 6th in 2018, she was known as the bereaved mom crusading for gun safety, a potent narrative that resonated with voters.First-time officeholders in the House’s 2019 freshman class come from all sorts of fields. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) and Colin Allred (D-Tex.) played in the NFL. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) is a manufacturing executive; Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) is a pediatrician. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) is a lawyer and also was a mixed-martial-arts fighter. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) is a law professor, and Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) was a CIA agent.Probably the best-known newcomer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a bartender and the longest of long shots until she won New York’s 14th District primary against 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley, then-chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.“The narrative that you have to have a certain background … is harmful,” Gholar said. “Because what you’re saying is that politics is only for a certain type of person. Everyday Americans — they pay attention, they know what is going on, and they should be the ones running for Congress.”And let’s face it, even unlikable jerks get elected, too.Homework is required (and some of it is math)After retiring from the Air Force in 2010, now-Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) ignored advice to seek lower office first and plunged directly into a House campaign. She joked about the hurdles to a Post reporter at the time: “I had nothing to lose; I already had quit my job. So I said, ‘Now, what do I have to do? Probably file some paperwork, right?’”As McSally obviously knew, there is a little more to it than that.The Constitution says you can run for Congress if you are at least 25, have been a citizen for the past seven years and live in the state — but not necessarily the district — you would represent.After that, the rules vary by state. Check with the state board of elections right away to find out how to get your name on the ballot, which often requires a certain number of signatures on a petition, a filing fee or both. That’s the easy part.After you’ve filed, figured out your message and got your family on board — do not let your spouse find out that you’re running for office from a sign in your yard — one of a first-time candidate’s first calls should be to the state party don’t have to have a “D” or “R” beside your name, but winning as an independent or write-in is very difficult, especially for a political newbie with little name recognition.You need to learn everything possible about your would-be constituents. Know the national issues that concern them, but also the local issues, such as high housing costs or health-care scarcity or even that dangerous intersection that is always under construction near the entrance to the region’s largest employer.Check out the incumbent (and size up your primary opponents). Find out how much money winning candidates have raised in recent elections. Know their strengths and weaknesses and how they voted on key issues so you can tell voters why you’d be better.Most important: Calculate your “win number” — literally the number of votes you will need to win.The party can help you with that by selling you an electronic database called a “voter file,” the mother lode of detailed data on voting-age people in your area. The file won’t tell you how a person voted, but it will tell you where every registered Democrat, Republican and undecided voter lives and which elections they voted in — including primaries.Say you’re running to represent Wisconsin’s 1st District in 2020. The voter file would help you identify where every registered Democrat and Republican lived that year. (You’d have to make your own map, however.)You’ll figure out your win number using the numbers of registered voters, the percentage of them who usually vote, the ones who may be likely to vote for you, and some educated guessing.Everything you do until Election Day will be working toward getting to that number.You’ll need to write a plan (and plan for chaos)Next, you will need a written, detailed strategy for how to reach those target voters.“A campaign plan is really a road map,” said Ned Ryun, founder and CEO of American Majority, a nonprofit organization that trains conservative candidates. “Point A is the filing deadline and point B is Election Day, and in between is a campaign plan.”It should include staff you’d like to hire, what you’ll ask volunteers to do, how you’ll raise money (PAC contributions vs. small donors), how you’ll spend money, how you’ll budget your time (door-to-door vs. speaking at events), which groups you hope to persuade to endorse you, and so on.“All campaigns are chaos,” Ryun said, “and whoever can minimize the chaos has a better chance of winning. The only way you can minimize the chaos is to have a plan that’s metric-driven and then try and stick to the plan as much as possible.”And don’t be afraid to try something that seems off-the-wall.Think of Republican Scott Brown making ads and campaigning from the front seat of his pickup truck in his successful bid to become a Massachusetts senator. Think of Warren’s now-famous selfie strategy, which Mejia Terry called “genius.” The post-rally grin-a-thons have become a trademark for the Democrat who ousted Brown and is now running for president. Her campaign said she had topped 60,000 selfies by late September. As each selfie is shared, it collects likes and spreads through personal social networks in an intimate way that a campaign ad couldn’t hope to replicate.Get a posse together (and choose them wisely)The two most important people in the campaign other than the candidate are the campaign manager and the treasurer, Ryun said.“The campaign manager actually facilitates the day-to-day, because if you become a micromanager as a candidate you’re probably not doing what you should be doing, which is taking a lot of time fundraising or actually speaking at events,” he said. “And the treasurer keeps you out of jail.”In fact, federal law requires congressional campaigns to have a treasurer, because rules about how money can be raised and spent are complicated and unforgiving.“Luckily I was told from the get-go, when you get your treasurer, it can’t just be your buddy who has a CPA,” said Joshua Scott, who got 31 percent of the vote in 2018 in a long-shot Republican campaign in the California 32nd against 10-term Democratic incumbent Grace Napolitano. “It has to be someone who’s experienced with federal campaigns, because there are so many dates, so many little aspects that need to be covered. I’m not going to lie, if I weren’t given that advice and hadn’t worked on a campaign previously, I probably just would’ve called my dad’s friend who was our family accountant and said, ‘Hey, want to be my treasurer?’ ”A campaign manager is not required by law, but strategists and training groups say first-time candidates need one. This person must be someone you trust completely: They’ll speak for you, keep the campaign from veering off the rails, and ideally tell you to your face when you are about to make a terrible decision.Well-funded campaigns also have paid staffers in more positions — often many more — such as communications director, social media strategist, volunteer coordinator, political director, database manager and others who do various things to move the ball toward your goal. You may want to retain, or at least consult, an elections lawyer.Most of all, make sure everyone is working toward your goals.“The one thing that I learned is that you can’t listen to everybody,” said Lisa Ring, a former corrections officer who got 42.3 percent of the vote in Georgia’s 1st District and is trying again in 2020. “Certainly listen to voters and what they have to say about issues, but don’t listen to all the people who are going to tell you how to run your campaign.”This time around, Ring’s campaign is run by a small circle of trusted decision-makers rather than a single campaign manager.In addition to your paid posse, you will need legions of volunteers. Put on your networking hat and mine all your connections: school and religious groups, clubs, professional organizations, neighborhood groups, college alumni, social media groups.“The lifeblood of any campaign is your volunteers,” said Mejia Terry. “Those volunteers will come from the folks that know you, that trust you, that feel like you are the right person to be in that place. Those folks will get you going, but they will also pull in others.”Start raising money and don’t stop (even when you’d like to)“Now is the time to call in all favors,” wrote Quintus Tullius Cicero to his older brother, Marcus, who was running for consul of the Roman Republic in 64 B.C. “Make good use of the young people who admire you and want to learn from you, in addition to all the faithful friends who are daily at your side.” (Some scholars question the letter’s author but not its advice.)Politics works remarkably similarly to the way it did in Cicero’s day: Wealthy candidates can use their own money; everyone else has to raise it. A lot of it. The priciest 2018 House campaign was that of David Trone (D), of Maryland’s 6th District, who, according to campaign data from the Federal Elections Commission, spent more than $18 million, most of it his own money. (He co-owns a $3 billion wine company.) That works out to $112.40 for every vote he got in the general election.You probably won’t need to raise that much.3438525161925The biggest bargain was the seat in New York’s 15th, which longtime Democratic incumbent Jose Serrano kept for less than $240,000 — less than $2 per vote.You probably can’t get away with that little.In her 2017 book “Don’t Just March: Run for Something,” Amanda Litman wrote that it costs $500,000 to $2 million to run a credible campaign for Congress.“Generally speaking, the ‘experts’ recommend that you shouldn’t run for a seat in the House unless you can pretty quickly figure out how you’ll raise at least $300,000 from your network,” she wrote. “For senators, that number is much, much bigger.”-9524638175How you spend your money varies among campaigns. Are you targeting a community where fliers often land in the trash? Maybe go with radio and TV ads. Are your would-be constituents packed in a large city? Plaster your highly electable face on subway and bus stop posters.Here’s how Democratic newcomer Ben McAdams and Republican incumbent Mia Love spent some of their money in the 2018 race for Utah’s 4th District, which McAdams won.Ryun tells his would-be candidates to expect to spend 30 to 50 percent of their time raising money. He also tells them that money isn’t the whole picture. Love outspent McAdams by more than $2 million and still lost — by less than 700 votes.“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” Ryun said, “but money doesn’t make an ugly baby pretty. So there has to be a certain amount of money that you raise to fund things, because if you don’t have any money, obviously you’re not going to win. At the same time, I’ve seen so many people with so much money who have just never connected with the voters. They could’ve had 20 times as much money, and they were never going to win.”Lawyer Shelia Bryant had plenty of life experience as a prosecutor, criminal justice activist and Marine Corps colonel before deciding to challenge Democratic incumbent Anthony Brown in the 2020 primary for Maryland’s 4th. She talked to her former political science professors at Harvard; she did Emerge boot camp and trained with New Politics Leadership Academy, which helps veterans run for office; and she took an online course from the National Democratic Training Committee.“But even knowing what I knew, it’s still difficult,” she said. “The biggest surprise is how hard it is to raise money when you’re going against an incumbent. I have everything except money.”Keep your sense of humor (and lose your sense of glamour)Buried in the glossary of a campaign instructional manual put out by the nonpartisan National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is this entry: “Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”Staffers defect. Volunteers don’t show up. Your website crashes. “Saturday Night Live” makes fun of you — and that’s if you’re lucky.Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.), who wears an eye patch after losing an eye to a bomb in Afghanistan, had largely flown under the national radar until three days before the 2018 election, when comedian Pete Davidson on SNL said Crenshaw looked like “a hit man in a porno movie” during an ill-advised riff on a few candidates’ personal appearances.Viewer outrage led to Crenshaw getting enormous publicity, including a nearly seven-minute segment on CNN the day before the election. He won. He also appeared on the next weekend’s SNL with a contrite Davidson, whom Crenshaw thanked “for making a Republican look good.”Ring, the woman running again in the Georgia 1st, had plenty of political experience as a grass-roots organizer and recruiter for the Democratic Party before she decided to run.Still, she said she was surprised by “all of it” — especially being in the spotlight.“If you want it to be glamorous you can make it glamorous,” she said. “There are some people who treat you as if you’re royalty. But for the most part it is not that. It is really just being accessible to people and working as hard as you can work every single day.”If that sounds empowering rather than impossible, maybe you should think about a run.“Deciding to put yourself out there — I think that’s the hardest part,” Gholar said. “Because the thing is, you can learn everything else.”What are the dealbreakers that might mean running for Congress is not for you? What is the best personality trait for a candidate? Why do you think this is the best personality trait? Once you’ve decided to run for Congress, what “homework” should you do? What should be included in your plan to run for Congress? What does a Congressional campaign manager do for the campaign? Why are campaigns required to have a treasurer? What qualifications should the treasurer have? What other positions should campaigns fill? How much does it take to run a credible Congressional campaign? Why do some people who raise a ton of money still lose their race?What are some other things that can go wrong in a campaign? Based on what you read in the article, plan a campaign to run for Congress. Identify at least 4 things you would want to include. Look up your congressional district if you want to know more information about your electorate. Part 5: Citizens United v. FEC (2010)Read and annotate the description of the SCOTUS case and answer the questions. This is a required case for the AP exam. FactsOne of the federal laws that regulates how election money can be raised and spent is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Passed in 2002, one part of this law dealt with how corporations and unions could spend money to advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. The law said that corporations and unions could not spend their own money on campaigns. Instead, they could set up political action committees (PACs). Employees or members could donate to the PACs, which could then donate directly to candidates or spend money to support candidates. The law prohibited corporations and unions from directly paying for advertisements that supported or denounced a specific candidate within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. It is this part of the BCRA that is at issue in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In 2008, Citizens United, a non-profit organization funded partially by corporate donations, produced Hillary: The Movie, a film created to persuade voters not to vote for Hillary Clinton as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. Citizens United wanted to make the movie available to cable subscribers through video-on-demand services and wanted to broadcast TV advertisements for the movie in advance. The Federal Election Commission said that Hillary: The Movie was intended to influence voters, and, therefore, the BCRA applied. That meant that the organization was not allowed to advertise the film or pay to air it within 30 days of a primary election. Citizens United sued the FEC in federal court, asking to be allowed to show the film. The district court heard the case and decided that even though it was a full length movie and not a traditional television ad, the film was definitely an appeal to vote against Hillary Clinton. This meant that the bans in the BCRA applied: corporations and organizations could not pay to air this sort of direct appeal to voters so close to an election. Because of a special provision in the BCRA, Citizens United was allowed to appeal the decision directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which the organization did. Citizens United asked the Court to decide whether a feature-length film really fell under the rules of the BCRA and whether the law violated the organization’s First Amendment rights to engage in political speech. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and heard oral argument in March 2009. Two months later the Supreme Court asked both parties to submit additional written responses to a further question: whether the Court should overrule its prior decisions about the constitutionality of the BCRA. The Court scheduled a second oral argument session for September 2009. IssueDoes a law that limits the ability of corporations and labor unions to spend their own money to advocate the election or defeat of a candidate violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech?Law and Supreme Court PrecedentsAustin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) A state law in Michigan said that for-profit and non-profit corporations could not use their money to run ads that support or oppose candidates in state elections. The Supreme Court decided that the Michigan law was constitutional, even though it did restrict corporations’ speech. First, the justices said that the government had a very important reason for restricting speech—reducing corruption or the appearance of corruption. Corporations, they reasoned, can accumulate a lot of money and they might use that money to unfairly influence elections. The justices also pointed out that the Michigan law allowed corporations to set up separate special funds with money from donors and spend that money on election ads. That allowed the corporations other avenues for their speech. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BRCA) of 2002 (Also known as the McCain-Feingold Act)Among other things, this federal law banned any corporation (for-profit or non-profit) or union from paying for “electioneering communications.” It defined an “electioneering communication” as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that named a federal candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary.In 2003, in a case called McConnell v. FEC, the Supreme Court said that the portion of the BCRA about electioneering communications was constitutional. Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC (2007)The BCRA banned corporations and unions from paying broadcast advertisements that named specific candidates for office near election time. This included both “express advocacy” (ads that specifically appealed to voters to vote for or against a certain candidate) and “issue advocacy” (ads that expressed a view about a political issue and mentioned a candidate). The Supreme Court decided that the ban on issue advocacy was unconstitutional. The Court said that issue advocacy was political speech, and the government could not prevent organizations from discussing issues simply because the issues might be relevant in an upcoming election. The justices said that issue ads are not equivalent to contributions, and there is not a compelling reason that banning the issue ads would reduce corruption. They also said that issue ads can reasonably mention public officials, as long as they are not direct appeals to vote for or against a specific candidate.Arguments for Citizens United (petitioner)Freedom of political speech is vital to our democracy and spending money on political advertisements is one way of spreading speech. The First Amendment applies equally to speech by individuals and speech by groups. Companies, unions, and other organizations should not face stricter rules about their speech than individuals do. Newspapers are corporations. Through editorials, news organizations and media companies try to influence elections. If Congress is allowed to ban corporations from placing political ads, what prevents them from regulating the media as well?If a movie about a political candidate produced by a corporation can be banned, then books about political candidates that are published within 60 days of an election might be banned as well. Government censorship of this kind would have far reaching implications.Though some people or organizations have more money and can therefore speak more, the First Amendment does not allow for making some forms of speech illegal in order to make things “fair.” Merely spending money to support a candidate—particularly when the money is not given to the candidate, but rather spent independently—does not create or even suggest the corruption that campaign finance reform was originally created to address.Incumbents (the public officials already in office) have the most to gain by banning independent spending by companies and organizations. The incumbents have access to much more free visibility and media time. Americans, including organizations and corporations, should be able to criticize the existing government and advocate for a change in leadership. Arguments for the Federal Election Commission (respondent)The First Amendment does not apply to corporations because the Constitution was established for “We the People” and was set up to protect individual, rather than corporate, liberties. The BCRA leaves corporations other ways to speak and to spend money on elections. The law allows corporations and unions to form Political Action Committees and to fund advertisements through the PAC. PACs can only use money that has been given to them for the purpose of political advocacy, unlike a corporation’s general income, which comes from all sorts of people who might not agree with the corporation’s message. The Supreme Court has ruled on these issues before in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and in McConnell v. FEC, which upheld the BCRA’s bans. The Court should not completely change the law, which has clear public support.Corruption is not limited to bribes and direct transactions. By being allowed to spend unlimited sums of money in support of a candidate, corporations and unions will have a certain amount of access to, if not power over, that candidate. Even if no corruption takes place, the public may view the vast sums spent by corporations and unions for specific candidates and see the appearance of corruption. That could cause people to lose faith in the electoral system. Corporations can accumulate so much money that they could overwhelm the conversation and drown out the speech of less wealthy individuals in an election. DecisionJustice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Justice Stevens dissented and was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. MajorityThe Court ruled, 5–4, that the First Amendment prohibits limits on corporate funding of independent broadcasts in candidate elections. The Court reversed two earlier decisions that held that political speech by corporations may be limited (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and portions of McConnell v. FEC). The justices said that the government’s rationale for the limits on corporate spending—to prevent corruption—was not persuasive enough to restrict political speech. A desire to prevent corruption can justify limits on donations to candidates, but not on independent expenditures (spending that is not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign) to support or oppose candidates for elected office. Moreover, the Court said, corporations have free speech rights and their political speech cannot be restricted any more than that of individuals. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that political speech is “indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.” The majority did not strike down parts of the BCRA that require that televised electioneering communications include disclosures about who is responsible for the ad and whether it was authorized by the candidate.Facts of the CaseHow did BCRA (McCain-Feingold) regulate expenditures by corporations and unions? Why did the FEC rule that Citizens United could not advertise Hillary: The Movie or pay to air it within 30 days of a primary election?Arguments for the PetitionerSummarize the arguments that Citizens United made. Arguments for the RespondentSummarize the argument that the FEC made. DecisionWhat was the ruling in the case? How many justices ruled on each side? What was the Supreme Court’s rationale for this ruling? How do you think this ruling affected campaign finance? Write a complete paragraph with a claim and 2 pieces of evidence/analysis to support it. Go onto the back of this page if you need extra space. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download