Elections Test Question

In today's political environment there is a lot that goes into being elected. In order to even start a campaign a candidate must choose their side of the political spectrum, or political party. They could be democratic, republican, or independent and this is determined by their choice of political ideals. It is not just choosing a party and running with it that gets a candidate elected though. Each politician needs money to run their campaign, without money their campaign would not even get off the ground. This money can come from many different places. One of which is a Political Action Committee, which is an organization that must contribute to at least five campaigns and can contribute up to 5,000 dollars. These organizations can provide this money basically just to help which ever candidate they would like to win. With more money it makes it much easier for a campaign to run and can make the campaign larger and thus outstretching to more voters and followers of the campaign. This money that they give the campaigns is labeled soft money because it is given to the candidate only once and is typically for a special purpose. Soft money is not the only type of money that campaigns receive as there is also hard money, which is given repetitively to a campaign. Other aspects that can effect elections are media bias and voter turnout. Media bias is the way the media slants their stories to favor which ever political party they are a larger fan of. This bias can often times effect the viewer's opinions of political candidates as well and thus forcing more people to vote one way or another. Voter turnout is the number of people that actually do show up and vote for the elections. With more voters obviously more opinions are given and more uninformed people vote. These uninformed votes are often times empty and could just be random votes and could cause a different candidate to be elected into office. In some cases low voter turnout is a good thing. It is good because it keeps the uninformed and people without a true opinion on the candidates out of the polls. Empty votes can cause a candidate that will not do as much for their position to be elected and thus negatively affecting the people. Throughout this entire process i believe that it is, for the most part, truly democratic because in the end it is determined by the people even though many different factors can help a candidate boost themselves to the top.

Civil Liberties Test

When freedoms and protections collide it tests our government and makes them decide what is more important for the people. From the Supreme Court cases that we looked at in class it seemed pretty easy to tell which one would win, however that can differ in schools. In the case of Near v. Minnesota a man named Jay Near wanted to publish something that said local officials were involved with gangsters. At first he was not allowed to publish it, but he appealed and fought for his right to publish it under freedom of speech and freedom of press under the first amendment. Near won this and had the right to publish his document, in this case freedoms won. Another case we looked at was Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. In this case, a student wanted to publish the school newspaper but the principal withheld certain pages. This particular student got angry about this and wanted to fight what the principal had done. The question then became did withholding the pages violate the students rights under the first amendment? The answer to this was no because it was in school and editorial control is completely reasonable because while in school the administrators are to act in place of the parents. In this case, protections won. The difference between something happening in a school or not pretty much makes the decision of a case. Outside of a school people can publish almost whatever they want and are protected to do so, while inside a school the students must follow what the administrators say and cannot publish anything they want. Another case we looked at was Mapp v. Ohio. Mapp was convicted of possessing obscene materials after her house was originally being searched for a fugitive. Mapp appealed this under the fourth amendment. The question was may evidence obtained through a search in violation of the fourth amendment be admitted in a state criminal proceeding? The answer to this was no because Mapp had been convicted on illegally obtained materials. Due to the fact that the evidence against her was illegally obtained, freedoms won. Another case similar to Mapp v. Ohio is New Jersey v. T.L.O. However, the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O. was in a school. This case was when a 14 year old girl was accused of smoking in a school bathroom and she was questioned, searched, and found with marijuana and other drug paraphernalia. This case was fought and the question was did the search violate the fourth amendment and the fourteenth amendment? The answer was no because she was in a school and the school had reasonable suspicion to search her. This is a case where protections win because it was in a school. Once again, the difference between a case in and outside of school is huge. Outside of a school, officials cannot just search a person or their belongings, but in a school the administrators have the right if they have reasonable suspicion. The final case I looked at was Miranda v. Arizona. In this case Miranda confessed to his crime, but then recanted because he was not informed of his right to remain silent. He fought this because he thought it violated the fifth amendment. When it went to the Supreme Court, Miranda won under the fifth amendment because it protects people from self-incrimination. This case is also where the name of the Miranda Rights came from and once again, freedoms win outside of a school. After examining these cases it is pretty easy to tell what happens when freedoms and protections collide. Freedoms usually win in cases outside of schools, while protections seem to win inside of schools.

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