...Introduction: “Partisan gerrymandering is almost as old as the nation, and both parties have used it. In the 1980s, when Democrats had more political power in state legislatures, they were enthusiastic proponents of partisan gerrymandering. In recent years, the two major political parties, leveraging the technologies of the modern age, have intentionally and systematically excluded each other from state legislatures like never before.”1 Gerrymandering is collective and bi-partisan in nature. Considering, the span of citizens across the United States and levels of government it impacts. Background: Gerrymandering has had a background with both political parties. Maryland’s 3rd district in Democratic Representative John Sarbanes is currently...
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...electing the commander-in-chief. Over the past 200 years, many changes have been made to the Electoral College when a problem has risen to give us the Electoral College of today. The people of the United States have seen what the Electoral College has become and want the election process to change into a popular vote system. The popular vote system isn’t the answer. Only a combination of the two systems will help to give fair representation to all of the states, while keeping the essence of majority rule that the people desire. This system includes a single vote for districts that are won by popular vote, getting rid of the human form of electors, and using today’s technology to make it easier to maneuver through the complexities of the voting process. The Electoral College: How Our System of Elections Needs to be Changed When our country was first created, a debate emerged on how to elect the President of our country. Many ideas were expressed but our forefathers decided on an Electoral College that cast the votes for the President instead of the people. For 226 years we’ve used this process with some controversy and with hardly any changes made to it. A growing concern for the process...
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...Contents Title Page Dedication Prologue CHAPTER ONE: Republicans and Democrats CHAPTER TWO: Values CHAPTER THREE: Our Constitution CHAPTER FOUR: Politics CHAPTER FIVE: Opportunity CHAPTER SIX: Faith CHAPTER SEVEN: Race CHAPTER EIGHT: The World Beyond Our Borders CHAPTER NINE: Family Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Barack Obama Copyright Prologue IT’S BEEN ALMOST ten years since I first ran for political office. I was thirty-five at the time, four years out of law school, recently married, and generally impatient with life. A seat in the Illinois legislature had opened up, and several friends suggested that I run, thinking that my work as a civil rights lawyer, and contacts from my days as a community organizer, would make me a viable candidate. After discussing it with my wife, I entered the race and proceeded to do what every first-time candidate does: I talked to anyone who would listen. I went to block club meetings and church socials, beauty shops and barbershops. If two guys were standing on a corner, I would cross the street to hand them campaign literature. And everywhere I went, I’d get some version of the same two questions. “Where’d you get that funny name?” And then: “You seem like a nice enough guy. Why do you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics?” I was familiar with the question, a variant on the questions asked of me years earlier, when I’d first arrived in Chicago to work in low-income neighborhoods. It signaled a cynicism...
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