THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES



Political parties in the U.S.

Lecture Notes no. 5, Oct. 15, 2010

Many countries have numerous political parties, but to an extent quite extraordinary in democratic countries, the American political system is dominated by two political parties: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party (also known as the 'Grand Old Party' or GOP). These are very old and very stable parties - the Democrats go back to the 1824 and the Republicans were founded in 1854. The Democratic Party is sometimes represented as a donkey, while the Republican Party is sometimes featured as an elephant.

The main reasons for the dominance of these two parties:

( The electoral system is 'first past the post' or simple majority → ensures that effectively only two parties can play

( The huge influence of money in the American electoral system:

Since effectively a candidate can spend any amount he can raise (not allowed in many other countries) and since one can buy broadcasting time (not allowed in many countries), the US can only 'afford' two parties or, to put it another way, candidates of any other party face a formidable financial barrier to entry.

Some people tend to view the division between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the United States as the same as that between Labor and Conservative in Britain or between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats in Germany. The comparison is valid in the sense that, in each country, one political party is characterized as Centre-Left and the other as Centre-Right or, to put it another way, one party is more economically interventionist and socially radical than the other. However, the analogy has many weaknesses.[1]

1. The Centre in American politics is considerably to the Right of the Centre in most European states including Britain, Germany, France, Italy and (even more especially) the Scandinavian countries. So, for instance, most members of the Conservative Party in the UK would support a national health service, whereas many members of the Democratic Party in the US would not.

2. As a consequence of the enormous geographical size of the United States and the different histories of the different states (exemplified by the Civil War), geography is a factor in ideological positioning to a much greater extent than in other democratic countries. For instance, a Northern Republican could be more liberal than a Southern Democrat. Conversely there is a group of Democratic Congressmen that are fiscally very conservative - they are known as "blue dog" Democrats (or even DINO: Democrats In Name Only).

3. In the United States, divisions over social matters - such as abortion, capital punishment, same-sex relationships and stem cell research - matter and follow party lines in a way which is not true of most European countries. In Britain, for instance, these sorts of issues would be regarded as matters of personal conscience and would not feature prominently in election debates between candidates and parties.

4. In the USA, religion is a factor in politics in a way unique in western democracies. Candidates openly proclaim their faith in a manner which would be regarded as bizarre elsewhere (even in a Catholic country like France) and religious groupings - such as the Christian Coalition of America [click here] - exert a significant political influence in a manner which would be regarded as improper in most European countries (Poland is an exception here).

5. In the United States, the 'whipping system' - that is the instructions to members of the House and the Senate on how to vote - is not as strict or effective as it is in most European countries. As a consequence, members of Congress are less constrained by party affiliation and freer to act individually (→ They are easier “lobbied” (meaning “convinced”/corrupted by money…).

6. In the USA, political parties are much weaker institutions than they are in other democracies. Between the selection of candidates, they are less active than their counterparts in other countries and, during elections, they are less influential in campaigning, with individual politicians and their campaigns having much more influence.

7. The cost of elections is much greater in the US than in other democracies which has the effects of limiting the range of candidates, increasing the influence of corporate interests and pressure groups, and enhancing the position of the incumbent office holder (especially in the winning of primaries).

8. Whereas in other countries, voters shape the policies and select the candidates of a party by joining it, in the USA voters register as a supporter of one of the major parties and then vote in primary elections to determine who should be the party's candidate in the 'real' election.

One other oddity of the American party system is that, whereas in most countries of the world the color red is associated with the Left-wing party and the color blue with the Right-wing party, in the United States the reverse is the case. So the 'blue states' are those traditionally won by the Democrats, while the 'red states' are those normally controlled by the Republicans.

Two interesting features of American political elections are low turnout and the importance of incumbency.

Traditionally turnout in US congressional elections is much lower than in other liberal democracies especially those of Western Europe. When there is a presidential election, turnout is only about half; when there is no presidential election, turnout is merely about one third.

The exception was the elections of 2008: the excitement of the candidacy of Barack Obama led to an unusually high turnout of 63%, the highest since 1960 (the election of John F Kennedy).

While Congress as an institution is held in popular contempt, voters like their member of Congress and indeed there is a phenomenon known as 'sophomore surge' whereby incumbents tend to increase their share of the vote when they seek re-election. More generally most incumbents win re-election for several reasons: they allocate time and resources to waging a permanent re-election campaign; they can win "earmarks" which are appropriations of government spending for projects in the constituency; and they find it easier than challengers to raise money for election campaigns.

Links:

The Democratic Party click here

The Republican Party click here

The Democratic Party

[pic]Previous logo (kicking donkey, still often used) [pic] The new logo of the Democratic Party

( Color: BLUE

● The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted: 1931-1995

● Won most presidential elections until 1968.

● Their most famous presidents were: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), John F. Kennedy (JFK), Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) and recently Bill Clinton (1993-2000)

Ideology:

Historically, the party has favored:

● farmers

● laborers and labor unions

● religious minorities

● ethnic minorities (only since the 1960s ( Civil Rights)

● the poor (since the 1930s ( New Deal Programs, welfare programs)

Since the 1890s, the Democratic Party has favored "liberal" positions (social liberalism, not classical liberalism!!)

In recent decades (with the voter base having shifted considerably) the party has adopted

● A centrist economic agenda[2]

● Welfare spending programs (helping the poor)

● A socially progressive agenda: largely favors the adoption of ‘universal health care’

(~ European countries)

● Social freedoms

● Affirmative action

● favors legislation that helps the country towards a balanced budget

● A mixed economy: free enterprise system coupled with government intervention

● Progressive taxation (since Clinton) to reduce economic inequality

● Environmental protection (since the 1970s)

● In foreign policy: internationalism including interventionism: 1913 to the mid-1960s (and now the Obama administration)

Liberals

[pic]

Social liberals (= modern liberalism ↔ classical liberalism)

● Liberalism + social justice:

Recognizes a legitimate role for the state in economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education, while simultaneously expanding civil rights. Under social liberalism, the good of the community is viewed as harmonious with the freedom of the individual. Social liberal ideas and parties tend to be considered centrist or centre-left.

- For human rights concerns they oppose the Patriot Act (85%)

- Social justice:

▪ universal health care (even support for single-payer system)

▪ higher minimum wage

▪ low-cost, publicly funded college education with low tuition fees (like in much of Europe and Canada), which should be available to every eligible American student

▪ Affirmative action programs: which benefit (positively discriminate) an underrepresented group: usually ethnic minorities

- Tolerance:

▪ reproductive rights:

▪ ‘Pro-choice’: support elective abortion rights of women

▪ public funding of contraception for poor women

▪ 42% support same-sex marriage (while 23% support civil unions)

▪ adoption rights to homosexual couples

- Cultural diversity: cultural pluralism (immigrants should keep their native culture in addition to adopting the American culture)

- Secular government: separation of church and state! (The government should in no way give money to religious schools, churches, etc. These should fund themselves.)

- Social market economy

- Environmental sustainability:

▪ opposed to giving tax cuts to oil companies

▪ favoring a policy of developing domestic renewable energy

▪ most notably former Vice President Al Gore (in 2007 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to build greater knowledge about man-made climate change)

- Stricter gun-control

- International solidarity

- But (normally) prefers diplomacy over military intervention:

▪ "Nearly two thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan. Three quarters of Democrats oppose the war." CNN polling director Keating Holland[73]

▪ Reaction against Social Liberalism [3]

Voter base of the Democratic Party

The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southern US, is now strongest in

1. the Northeast (New England and Mid-Atlantic)

2. Great Lakes region

3. the Pacific Coast

4. in major cities

Self-identified Democrats (BLUE) versus self-identified Republicans (RED) (January-June 2010 data)

● Working class

[pic]

American social classes

Working class + Lower classes = 52% (only 15% had a college degree, compared to 27% at the national average and 49% of liberals, respectively)

- The working class is an essential part of the Democratic base!

- The majority of those with low incomes and little education vote for the Democratic Party

- Today, roughly a third of the Americans

- Not very likely to show up to vote ( underrepresented in the electorate…!

- Even though most in the working class are able to afford an adequate standard of living, high economic insecurity and possible personal benefit from an extended social safety net, make the majority of working class person left-of-center on economic issues.

- They differ from most liberals (!) in their more socially conservative views. Working class Democrats tend to be more religious and likely to belong to an ethnic minority (the least educated and lowest earning people)

● Labor unions:

They supply a great deal of the money and voting base of the Democratic party

Important issues for the unions: Employee Free Choice Act

- supporting protectionism that sustains unionized manufacturing jobs,

- raising the minimum wage

- promoting broad social programs such as Social Security and universal health care.

● Professionals

Professionals lean in favor of the Democratic Party (may be traced to the prevalence of social liberal values among this group) e.g.:

- Medical students

- Scientists (with 55% identifying as Democrats) and most of the Academia:

72% of full-time university faculty members identified as liberal, while 15% identified as conservative

- Those with graduate education, have become increasingly Democratic beginning in the 1992

● African Americans: 85-95% Democratic since the mid-1960s

They used to vote Republican until mid-1960s!! (Civil War: African Americans almost unanimously favored the Republican Party due to its overwhelming efforts in achieving abolition, particularly through President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The Ku Klux Klan were composed almost entirely of white Democrats angry over poor treatment by northerners.) Political developments that brought about a shift in the African-American electorate towards the Democratic Party:

- FDR’ New Deal programs gave economic relief to all minorities, including African Americans and Hispanics.

- Support for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson

- Congressional Black Caucus: 44 black Democrats, serves to represent the interests of African Americans and advocate on issues that affect them.[4]

● Hispanic Americans[5]

Obama received 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008

(Exception: Cuban Americans + Pentecostal Hispanics still heavily vote Republican)

● Youth: since Clinton (1992)

2004: John Kerry received 54% of the vote from voters of the age group 18–29, while Republican George W. Bush received 45% of the vote from the same age group.

2006: (midterm elections) the Democrats received 60% of the vote from the same age group.

2008: Barack Obama carried 66% of their votes

● Women:

Women of ethnic minority, single women, divorced women, and women living together with a partner (instead of being married) tend to be Democrats[6]

● Native Americans

● Jewish Americans (~60%)

2008: 60% of Conservative Jews and Reform Jews voted for Obama

- BUT only 13% of Orthodox Jews

● LGBT Americans

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans typically vote Democratic (70-77%, in large cities 85-94%. In 2008 Barack Obama won 70% of the LGBT vote.[7]

New development:

● Arab and Muslim Americans: Started leaning Democrat since the Iraq War[8]

(Arab Americans used to be a Republican voter base as they are generally socially conservative)

The Republican Party

[pic] [pic]

Logos of the Republican Party (with the traditional elephant)

( Color: RED

● Their most famous presidents were: Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush

Ideology: The Republican Party includes many different groups (factions)

Most Republicans tend to be pro-federalists:

Federal power (central government in Washington DC) should be limited and a larger role reserved for the individual States (e.g. individual states should decide for themselves whether they want to legalize abortion, gay-marriage, capital punishment, etc)

( The Republican Party has supported various bills within the last decade to strip some or all federal courts of the ability to hear certain types of cases

( Fiscal conservatives:

1. Reduce government spending on welfare:

( Reduce public spending on health care: Medicare (government health insurance for those above 65, unemployment and other benefits, public education, etc) + Medicaid (gov. health insurance for the very poor)

( Reduce benefits: eligibility needs to be reduced! (E.g. illegal immigrants need to be barred from receiving free education, Medicaid, etc.)

…Because there tends to be too much abuse of the ‘safety net’ → so eligibility should be limited

…and also because the private sector is more effective (private spending of the same money is more efficient than it being spent by bureaucratic institutions) → Republicans support giving government grants to faith-based and other private charitable organizations to replace welfare spending.

2. Reduce the national debt

3. Work towards a balanced budget

4. Free markets and laissez-faire economics (instead of government intervention in the economy!) Deregulation of the economy (less restrictions for big businesses). Job creation and unemployment are not the responsibility of government!

5. Tax cuts especially for the wealthy (lead to higher GDP → higher revenue for the government)

6. Against progressive taxation (it unfairly targets the rich businessmen who create the jobs!)

7. Oppose raising the minimum wage (→ would hurt many businesses by forcing them to cut jobs and services, export jobs overseas, and raise the prices of goods)

( Social conservatives: Believe the government needs to encourage (and enforce) traditional

values and morality:

1 Support defining marriage as exclusively between 1 man + 1 woman (called the Federal Marriage Amendment)

2 Promote the family model as society's foundational unit → oppose expansion of marriage rights and child adoption rights to homosexual couples

3 Pro-life: oppose elective abortion on religious/moral grounds

4 Oppose the legalization of drugs, prostitution, euthanasia, pornography, obscenity, etc

5 Against gun-control

6 Stricter immigration control (limits on immigration)

7 Generally against affirmative action for women and some minorities (describing it as a quota system…)

8 Support parents’ right to CHOOSE the school of their children (and giving government money to private schools as well: school vouchers)

9 Historically, most Republicans have opposed LGBT people serving openly in the military and supported the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy.

( Neoconservatives:

- Some form of social conservatism: against liberal stances on moral and crime issues. Dislike of counterculture since it undermines the essence of a society: family values based on religious values and tradition. Strength and self-restraint deemed especially important.

- Economic liberalism BUT also support for limited welfare state (( fiscal conservatives and libertarians!)

- Foreign policy: first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival (How? 1,2,3)

1. Unilateralism: rejects U.S. dependence and reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish its objectives. Number one

(( Democrats tend to be more multilateralists, being committed to international agreements like the Geneva Convention (no torturing of terrorist suspects), adhering to the Kyoto Protocol, …)

Bush doctrine: Axis of evil (North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria) Portrays enemies as ‘evil nations’ and the US as the defender of liberty, democracy, the force of good → Preemptive ‘strikes’ (war) " The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed . . . even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack... The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."[38]

Support for the Patriot Act

Many support the use of torture when interrogation terrorist suspects

1. Defines national interest (differently than others!) in terms of ideological interests e.g. the defense of other nations with similar ideologies for geopolitical purposes: Staunch supporters of Israel (Zionism)

2. ‘Exporting democracy’ and freedom abroad: is the best solution against both left and right wing dictators + also for promoting American ‘strategic’ interests abroad (securing access to natural resources…oil, gas, food, etc)

Criticism: In July 2008 Joe Klein wrote in TIME magazine that today's neoconservatives are more interested in confronting enemies than in cultivating friends. He questioned the sincerity of neoconservative interest in exporting democracy and freedom, saying, "Neo-conservatism in foreign policy is best described as unilateral bellicosity cloaked in the utopian rhetoric of freedom and democracy."[56]

Voter base of the Republican Party

The Republican Party (once dominant in the northeast) is now strongest in:

1. The South

2. Great Plains states: Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota

3. Mountain States: Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah

4. Rural areas and the suburbs of cities

[pic]

Self-identified Democrats (BLUE) versus self-identified Republicans (RED) (January-June 2010 data)

( Business community. The GOP is usually seen as the traditionally pro-business and corporate interest party. (Republicans are about 50 percent more likely to be self-employed, and are more likely to work in the area of management.)

( Race: not much support from racial minorities…!

The Republican Party abolished slavery under Abraham Lincoln, defeated the Slave Power, and gave blacks the vote during Reconstruction in the late 1860s. Until the New Deal of the 1930s, blacks supported the GOP by large margins. Most black voters switched to the Democratic Party in the 1930s when the New Deal offered them employment opportunities, and later in the when the Democrats began to support civil rights (Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act), and ever since have formed a significant portion of the Democratic vote in that region.

( White, married couples tend to vote Republican. Unmarried and divorced women were far more likely to vote Democrat.

( High-income people tend to favor the Republican Party.

( Religious people are much more likely Republicans than Democrats.

( People with a college degree tend to be Republican supporters. (Those with an MA or PhD degree are 50-50 Dem-Reps. University professors are overwhelmingly Democrats.)

( Age. The Democrats do better among younger Americans and Republicans among older Americans.

( Sexual Orientation. (only about 25% of LGBT people vote Republican)

-----------------------

[1] Source: Roger Darlington

[2] The economic policy adopted by the modern Democratic Party, including the former Clinton administration, has been referred to as the "Third Way"

[3] Reaction against Social Liberalism in the late twentieth century: neoliberalism

( monetarist economic policies

( a reduction in government provision of services

( a return to classical liberalism (as governments continued to provide social services and retained control over economic policy)

[4] Criticism of the Black Caucus in Congress:

"It is utterly hypocritical for Congress to extol the virtues of a color-blind society while officially sanctioning caucuses that are based solely on race. If we are serious about achieving the goal of a colorblind society, Congress should lead by example and end these divisive, race-based caucuses.”

2007. Representative Tom Tancredo, (R-Co)

Clay issued an official statement from his office:

"Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept – there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives."

[5] Congressional Hispanic Caucus: 23 Democratic members

[6] 41% of women identify as Democrats while only 25% of women identify as Republicans and 26% as independents

[7] There are 3 openly gay members of Congress, (all Democrats)

1. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and

2. Jared Polis of Colorado(2009): He is the first openly gay man elected to the House as a freshman.[3] (The other openly gay male Representative currently serving in the House, Barney Frank, did not make his orientation public until after he was first elected.)

3. Tammy Baldwin (1999) of Wisconsin: the first ever openly gay non-incumbent to be elected to the House of Representatives

The LGBT Equality Caucus is a congressional group of 81 Democrats and 1 Republican that work and advocate for LGBT rights within the House of Representatives. Unlike the Congressional Black Caucus, famous for admitting only black members, the LGBT Equality Caucus admits any member who is willing to advance LGBT rights, regardless of their sexual identity or orientation

[8] 39% of Arab Americans identify as Democrats, 26% as Republicans, and 28% as independents

................
................

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

Google Online Preview   Download