1 / 16

Political Parties

Political Parties . Chapter Five. Homework. In preparation for our discussion and work on the political party project, please read C hapter 5 Sections 1and 2. What is a Party?.

mandell
Download Presentation

Political Parties

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Political Parties Chapter Five

  2. Homework • In preparation for our discussion and work on the political party project, please read Chapter 5 Sections 1and 2

  3. What is a Party? • Definition: a group of persons who seek to control government through the winning of elections and the holding of public office

  4. Another definition: a group of persons, joined together on the basis of common principles, who see to control government in order to affect certain public policies and programs British political parties

  5. What are the US’s major Political Parties? • The definitions we’ve looked at so far though, do not fit our two major parties. Why? They are election oriented and not primarily focused on one principle or one issue.

  6. So, what do they do? • Nominate Candidates – THE primary function! • In order for a democracy to function, there must be a way for candidates to be found and elected.

  7. Informing and Activating Supporters

  8. Bonding Agent – Making sure candidate behave.

  9. Governing • Candidates are often chosen based on their party. • Congress and state legislatures are organized along party lines, and they conduct their business that way. • Partisanship = the strong support of their party and its policy stands • Appointments to political offices are often made according to party lines. • The way parties behave often dictates the way government works or doesn’t work.

  10. Supreme Court Appointments Alito by Bush Jr. Ginsburg by Clinton Roberts by Bush Jr. Breyer by Clinton Scalia by Reagan Kennedy by Reagan Sotomayor by Obama Thomas by Bush Sr. Kagan by Obama

  11. Acting as Watchdog • The party OUTof power watches and critiques the party IN power. Joe Biden – President Of the Senate Senate Party standings (at the beginning of this Congress)  51 Democrats  2 Independents, both caucusing with Democrats  47 Republicans Daniel Inouye – President pro Tempore of the Senate

  12. House Party standings (at the beginning of this Congress) 193 Democrats 242 Republicans John Boehner – Speaker of the House

  13. So if the Senate is controlled by the Democrats and the House is controlled by the Republicans and Obama is in the White House, which party is OUT of power?

  14. Why a Two-Party System? • History – The Constitution of the US purposely made no mention of political parties and yet . . . • Federalists v. Anti-Federalists – two factions that evolved when the document was up for ratification.

  15. Force of Tradition – We started this way and it is pretty hard to break the habit. Most Americans accept the idea of a two-party system simply because there has always been one.

  16. The Electoral System – the way we vote • Single-member districts = contests in which only one candidate is elected to each office on the ballot; a winner-take-all election • Plurality = largest number of votes cast for the office • Most voters believe a candidate not in the major party doesn’t have a chance to win, so why ‘waste’ the vote. • Republicans and Democrats regularly work to keep their parties in power and to discourage third parties.

More Related