Thursday, October 23, 2014

Politics and Government - Homework - Due - Mon, Oct 27

1 - Read Dahl pgs 73 - 89

2 - Answer the following questions. Support your answers with evidence from the text.

a) Discuss the James Wilson quotes regarding the electoral college:

"This subject has greatly divided the House, and will also divide the people out of doors. It is in truth the most difficult of all on which we have to decide."

"The convention, sir, were perplexed with no part of this plan, so much as with the mode of choosing the president of the United States."

Analyze as a primary source. What does Wilson want people to know, think, and believe? What does it say about the time period? How does this connect back to the essential question?

b) Why did the Framers go with the Electoral College?

c) Why were some Framers concerned about the Senate selecting the president in case of an tie in the electoral college?

d) Analyze and interpret the following quote from Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #68:

"The immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice" (76).

e) Why was the Twelfth Amendment passed?

f) How many times has someone won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote?

g) Discuss the election of 1876.

h) Discuss the evolution in the way states choose their electors.

i) Discuss two disadvantages of the winner-take-all system.

h) Discuss James Madison and James Wilson's views on representation. Consider the following quotes:

" Can we forget for whom we are forming a government? Is it for men or imaginary beings called States?'

"Experience suggests [that] the states were divided into interests not by their difference in size, but by other circumstances."

i) Are there "legitimate rights and interests that need to be protected for people in small states? What are they? Why do you think Dahl uses the word "legitimate?"

j) What suggestions does Dahl make regarding a change in the Electoral College?

k) What happened regarding the Electoral College in 1989?

l) How many Senate votes does it take to pass a Constitutional amendment?

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