Module 8 Voting, Political Parties and Elections

Overview

Module 8 for the eighth week of the course includes the following page giving an overview of the Module’s content and the week’s activities:

VOTING, POLITICAL PARTICIPATION and ELECTIONS (Chapter 8)

[Insert photo: Voters lined up waiting to vote in Georgia (2020 – Getty Images)]

Federal elections are about voting for candidates, usually from either Republican or Democratic parties, to represent their constituents in Congress or the White House. The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights that Americans claim. Yet less than half of eligible voters actually bother to vote in elections, even in those years with the largest turnouts. If this right is so cherished, one that American soldiers have died in wars to protect, why do so few people vote?

Voter turnout and voter suppression. For many years, trends have shown that higher voter turnout tends to favor Democratic candidates, while lower voter turnout favors Republicans. In past decades, to counter this trend the Republican Party would try to appeal to voters “in the middle” with policies and other appeals to attract those who were undecided. While this approach still happens, it has been overshadowed by efforts to suppress the vote (of pro-Democratic voters) rather than expand it. The idea is – if WE can’t get MORE votes, we will make sure THEY get FEWER votes. This is a major shift away from how Republican party leaders have approached voting in the past.

Trump claims voting fraud and incites an insurrection. During the campaign in the lead-up to the November 2020 election, Trump repeatedly claimed the only way he could lose was if there was massive voter fraud. He accelerated those claims as vote tallies showed him losing and as states began certifying their states’ election results. His campaign or his supporters filed more than 60 lawsuits to challenge these election results as fraudulent, losing all but one (the one they won simply said election observers could stand 6 feet away from vote counters instead of 10 feet, and had nothing to do with alleged fraud). This “big lie” about election fraud has now been adopted by Republican supporters in Congress and among ordinary Republicans.

As most people are aware, on January 6, 2021, as the electoral vote counting process began in Congress, Trump spoke to a rally of supporter outside the White House – a rally he helped organize – repeating his false claim that the election was stolen. He urged the crowd to proceed to the Capitol (where the vote count was proceeding) and “fight” for their country. What ensued was the first violent insurrection against members of Congress (and the Vice President, who was presiding over the count) in the country’s history, resulting in the deaths of 5 people, including 2 police officers trying to defend the Capitol. The House of Representatives, a week later, impeached President Trump for inciting the insurrection, but he was acquitted after trial in the Senate when 57 senators voted to convict, short of the 67 required by the Constitution.

Voter suppression continues and intensifies. Spurred on by Trump’s claims, Republican leaders in many states have now redoubled their efforts to “purge” registered voters from the rolls and enact other voter suppression measures. This not new, but it has intensified and expanded. Because Trump claimed that mail-in voting was illegal in some states and/or susceptible to fraud, these same states are also seeking to repeal laws that allowed more mail voting and more in-person polling stations, in order to suppress the vote among Democratic supporters, mostly in communities of color. While they claim they are simply trying to stop voter fraud (vote by ineligible voters), they have never provided proof that this is a problem.

Gerrymandering, as you know, is another tool that has been used by both parties in various states to depress the voting strength of the opposing party. How these efforts will affect the 2024 presidential election is one of the most significant political questions of the day. The House of Representatives in the 117th Congress passed HR 1, For the People Act of 2021, that would make it easier for eligible voters to vote. But Democrats in the Senate could not get the 60 votes needed to pass it, nor the 50 votes they needed to change the filibuster rule and allow a simple majority to pass the voting rights bill.

POLITICAL PARTIES (Chapter 9)  

The Partisan Divide. The two major US political parties (Democrats and Republicans) have never been more divided. This fact has been written about by both scholars and news organizations. It has often resulted in gridlock in Congress, where the two parties are so polarized they are often unwilling to agree to legislation even when it serves their own interests, and the public’s, simply because it would generate a “win” for their opponent. It has too often become what is called a “zero-sum game” – for one party to win the other must lose. This kind of toxic atmosphere makes it nearly impossible for compromise on major issues. What has led us to this state of affairs, and is there any way out for the future? What are the consequences for our country if these conditions continue indefinitely?

How did we get the political parties we have today? As you may recall, the Founders were dead set against political parties – “the mischief of factions” as they called them. They were confident that their new Constitution had been written with such sufficient checks and balances that no need for political parties would arise. Yet, almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified, political parties formed. The Federalist Party favored a stronger role for the national government, while the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans (JDR) feared giving it too much power. These views continue to modern times, only under different party labels – today, Democrats tend to favor a more active role for government, akin to the old Federalist Party, while Republicans generally believe that less government is better, similar to the old JDR party. No matter what name has been attached to parties as they have evolved over the years, their objective has never changed – use the political process to gain as much power as possible.

Divided government. During the four years of the Trump presidency, we had a divided government, meaning different parts of the government were controlled by different parties: Republicans controlled the Senate and the Presidency, while Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. In the first 2 years of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency Democrats had a majority in the House and an even 50/50 split in the Senate. With Democrat VP Kamala Harris able to cast tie-breaking votes as President of the Senate, that slight edge gave Democrats control of that body.

The 2022 midterm elections gave Republicans majority and control of the House, while Democrats expanded control of the Senate by one vote. With the filibuster in the Senate, Republicans can stop any major legislation Democrats put forward, and Republicans in the House are unlikely to pass and send to the Senate an bill that Democrats would support. So again, likely gridlock on major issues.

The third branch of government – the Judicial Branch – is currently dominated by justices who were appointed by Republican presidents. As a result, it is not surprising that the Court is making decisions that conform more to Republican political views than Democratic views, as seen in the 6-3 decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health abortion case overturning Roe v. Wade.  Although judges are supposed to be non-partisan, they are human and they do vote, and many arose to positions of influence because of their political connections with a particular party. A judge is nominated to a federal court position by a president who (in  modern times) is either a Democrat or a Republican. As such, that president wants someone serving in the courts (for life) who will lean toward his own views.

Political parties in other countries. In other countries, especially those with parliamentary systems, numerous political parties, by various names and ideologies, dominate the political scene and influence government. But the American system, with its winner-take-all elections, has remained a two-party system throughout its history. In China, there is only one party – the Chinese Communist Party – and it has total control of the government, which allows it to outlaw any other political parties and remain solidly in control. In European parliaments, parties get the number of seats in the parliament based on the percentage of votes won in the election. This allows for more than two parties to become part of government (UK has seven different political parties holding seats in Parliament at various times). Then the party or parties with the most seats in parliament form and lead the government.

While there are many more than just two political parties in the US, without a parliamentary type system it is difficult to imagine a “third party” ever getting enough candidates elected to assume a significant role in government. At this writing, even though he lost the 2020 election, Trump remains in control of the Republican party while out of office. Mainstream Republicans who are more moderate than Trump have been leaving political office in significant numbers rather than profess loyalty to Trump. Even so, it seems unlikely that these disaffected Republicans will form a third party to challenge Trump.

[insert image of money in campaigns]

CAMPAIGNS and ELECTIONS (Chapter 10)

“Dark money” in campaigns. Despite Congressional efforts to reform campaign spending, enormous sums of money are spent on both presidential and congressional campaigns. While most of that money in years past was raised and spent by political parties, times have changed. The 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United invalidated laws Congress had passed years before to limit how much money could be spent and by whom to influence the outcome of elections. As a result, so-called “dark money”, from wealthy anonymous corporate donors, has come to play an outsized role in election campaigns. Raising the question: do ordinary citizens really have the ultimate say in who gets elected to lead this country? Or are we simply voting for the candidates that the wealthiest people have already chosen? Can a nation “of the people, by the people, and for the people” survive under these conditions?

Classroom Lessons and Activities

DISCUSSION 8.1: Voter Suppression

“ [I]t was shameful and a disgrace that we consigned people to have to choose between their health and their right as citizens to participate and vote [in Wisconsin]. No question. But I also am compelled to see the extraordinary, powerful nobility of those people standing—some of them in wheelchairs—staggered and separated from each other as best they could by six feet, for hours on end, determined to participate in the political process. That has to be the power that really fuels us to do the work that we do.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/the-ticket-coronavirus-voter-suppression/609883/Links to an external site.

This is a quote from an interview with Sherrilyn Ifill (shown in  photo) from a podcast by The Atlantic news organization. Ifill is the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Using the link above, read the transcript of the interview, and/or listen to the podcast (“The Ticket: Voter Suppression by Pandemic”), then answer these questions:

1. What does Ms. Ifill say about the historical connection between current voter suppression efforts and those of past decades that sought to deny African Americans the right to vote? Are you persuaded by her argument, or by other evidence that you are aware of from your own knowledge of recent voter restriction laws passed by states? Why or why not?
2. What does her own devotion to protecting the right to vote say about the importance of this democratic freedom? What are you willing to do to protect your own right to vote and that of others?

ANSWER due Wednesday (10 points; 200 words minimum); REPLY  to two other students due Friday (5 points)