Reference no: EM133534501

Assignment: American History

Pick one of the following topics and write a 2 to 3 page essay using what you learned throughout the semester to explain how you would address the issue. What is background of the issue? What can be done? How would you fund the effort? What population would this affect?

1) Marijuana & Federalism: Who's in Charge?

What's It About? With recreational and medicinal cannabis legal in certain states, marijuana businesses and users are caught between permissive state laws and federal statutes that criminalize all forms of cannabis use. The Issue? What is the effect of federalism on drug policy in America?

A. What is federalism? In answering this question, be explicit about what is meant by enumerated powers, reserved powers, and concurrent powers.

B. Why are state laws that conflict with federal law permitted to be enacted if, as the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution states, federal law takes precedence over state laws?

C. What is the significance of the Cole Memorandum?

D. Are there appropriate roles for the federal government and the states in setting drug policy? How would you define those roles?

2) What Is the Electoral College and Is It Still Relevant in Our Democracy?

What's It About? The reasons why the Electoral College exists are often poorly understood. They needn't be. The Issue? Is the Electoral College obsolete?

A. Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 wanted members of Congress to elect the president of the United States. Other delegates argued for election by popular vote-that is to say, fora direct election by the people. Why did the Framers of the Constitution ultimately reject both these ideas?

B. What is the three-fifths compromise? How would you assess its impact on the results of the presidential elections in the early history of the American republic?

C. What are the strongest arguments for and against the relevance of the Electoral College today?

D. What factors may have enabled Donald J. Trump and George W. Bush, who lost the popular vote in the presidential elections of 2016 and 2000, to win the presidency?

3) How Is a Rapidly Changing Media Affecting Democracy?

What's It About? Understanding how people engage with the media is as important as the substance of any of the debatable issues affecting American politics and government. The Issue? Thanks to the Internet, is the public better informed about the issues and policies that affect democracy?

A. The statisticthat 67 percent of U.S adults access news via social mediais misleading in one crucial respect, according to one of the media experts presented in the video. Why is it misleading?

B. Briefly describe the reality of your media-consuming habits. How does your individual media landscape both affect and reflect your identity?

C. What is confirmation bias and why is it relevant to discussions of an informed public being the key to a lasting democracy?

D. What steps can the public can take to demand more substance and less sensationalism from the press?

4) When Is It Legal for the Police to Search and Seize My Property or Me?

What's It About? Often young people are profiled by law enforcement for search and seizure, especially in states and locales where drug laws areaggressively enforced. The Issue? What are a citizen's rights regarding lawful and unlawful search and seizure? Where do those rights come from?

A. What is the gist of the Supreme Court's decision in Terry v. Ohio (1968)? Why did the defense cite the Fourth Amendment as grounds for dismissing Terry's conviction for carrying a concealed weapon?

B. What is the source of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures?

C. Why has stop-and-frisk policing been criticized as "indirect racial profiling"? In your opinion, is the criticism justified?

D. Since the Terry decision, "reasonable suspicion" is the standard by which police may lawfully detain people and conduct searches.Is a new standard needed? What new standard do you envision?

5) Can Totally Free Speech Lead to Less Inclusive Discussion?

What's It About? The First Amendment guarantees every American the right to free speech. But in an increasingly diverse country with seemingly louder-than-ever fringe groups, some people are beginning to question this right. The Issue? Is the right to free speech as free as we think?

A. Why was Google able to terminate the employment of a software engineer who wrote a memo blasting the company's efforts to promote diversity? Is the firing of that employee evidence that free speech is under threat in corporate America?

B. When is speech subject to prosecution?

C. When, if ever, should speech on a college campus be limited?

D. What is the role of the marketplace of ideas in debates about the freedom of speech?

6) What Are "Executive" Actions and Do They Give the President Too Much Power?

What's It About? The American system of government is predicated on an intricate system of checks and balances. But in times of divided government, presidents from both parties have bypassed Congress and instead have relied on executive actions to achieve policy goals. The Issue? What are the merits of executive action? What are its deficiencies?

A. What distinguishes executive actions from laws?

B. What three forms can executive actions take? Why are executive orders numbered?

C. What recourse does Congress have to check executive actions? How else can executive actions be challenged? Are these checks sufficient for maintaining the balance of power among federal, legislative, and judicial branches of government?

D. Can you identify any commonalities that characterize the circumstances that may have led Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Bush, respectively, to issue the executive orders that interned Japanese Americans during World War II (in 1942), integrated the U.S. armed forces (in 1948), and established the Office of Homeland Security (in 2001)?

7) Why Is Affirmative Action So Controversial and Do We Still Need It?

What's It About? Affirmative action was established after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a corrective to better balance historic prejudice against disadvantaged applicants for employment and admissions to college. The Issue? Do we still need affirmative action?

A. Outline the terms of the debate regarding affirmative action in college admissions using the facts of the Supreme Court case in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003).

B. What is meant by "positive discrimination"?

C. Explain structural racism in terms of racial versus socioeconomic diversity.

D. In our increasingly diverse society, why should one group, or class, of college applicants be treated differently than others?

8) Is Discrimination Ever Legal?

What's It About? Who knew? Discrimination-the unequal treatment of a person or persons on the basis of age, disability, ethnicity, national origin, race, religious belief, sex, orsexual identity-can be legal in specific circumstances. The Issue? When is it OK to discriminate?

A. Identify some of the circumstances in which a group of persons may be lawfully discriminated against. What reasons for discrimination will the courts uphold?

B. Explain the claims of discrimination that underlie the Masterpiece Cakeshop suit.

C. Do sincere religious belief sexempt restaurant owners from adhering to anti-discrimination law if their beliefs permit them, for example, to single out some groups for privileged treatment or to refuse to serve other groups?

D. Should the First Amendment right to free speech outweigh the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, or to any other right protected by the First Amendment, when those rights come into conflict?

9) What's Next for Political Parties in America?

What's It About? Any consideration of the two-party system and its durability over the course of U.S. history surely touches on all the following and more: the functions of political parties, trends in party identification among American voters today, and third parties. The Issue? How will each party define itself for the next generation?

A. What are some of the possible reasons why over 40 percent of Americans don't identify themselves as either Republicans or Democrats?

B. Can you provide examples of the four functions of political parties itemized in the video-mobilize voters, recruit candidates, facilitate governance, and monitor opposing party-at work?

C. What are the arguments for and against third-party solutions to issues in American politics?

D. Are you registered to vote? If not, why not?

10) What Is the Filibuster and How Is It Being Used?

What's It About? The filibuster is a tool that allows U.S. senators to halt progress on legislation by engaging in extensive debate. The Issue? Once universally acknowledged as a means of protecting minority rights and of facilitating compromise, filibusters are now often derided as grossly unfair. Is the filibuster a legislative atrocity?

A. What is the relationship between the filibuster and the rights of the party in the minority?

B. How does cloture work?

C. What is the so-called nuclear option? How did the nuclear option affect the nomination and eventual confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court?

D. Do the merits of the filibuster outweigh its defects, and would you support or oppose the elimination of the Senate rule that permits filibusters?

11) What Is Gerrymandering and What Does It Mean for Me as a Voter?

What's It About? Political party officials have vested interests in gerrymandering the boundaries of voting districts to produce "safe seats," where there is little chance of anyone who doesn't belong to that party of winning that seat. The Issue? If gerrymandering is so unfair, why is it tolerated?

A. What does it mean to be disenfranchised? Is voter suppression real?

B. What do representatives owe to constituents in their districts who either did not vote for them or did not vote at all?

C. Are state legislatures capable of taking action to limit or eliminate partisan gerrymandering?

D. What do you imagine "perfect representation" in the U.S. House of Representatives would look like? Consider why voting district maps are redrawn every 10 years.

12) What's the Big Deal about Campaign Financing?

What's It About? In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Supreme Court fundamentally altered the campaigning and electioneering landscape in the United States by easing restrictions on corporate donations to political campaigns. The Issue? How have campaign financing practices changed after the Citizens United decision?

A. PACs versus Super PACs. What distinguishes these two forms of political action committees?

B. Should all political speech be transparent-that is, should we always know who the speakers are?

C. Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United? State your reasons.

D. Has your knowledge of the Citizens United case caused you to become more cynical or less cynical about the American political process?

13) Why Is the Government in So Much Debt and Should I Be Worried?

What's It About? The national debtseems to have a life of its own independent of human control. The Issue? What are the implications of the national debt on public policy and how should we weigh the dangers that debt may pose?

A. Is the United States in a debt crisis? Make your case.

B. The dollar amount that the United States has borrowed and owes to creditors (now in the tens of trillions of dollars) is one measure of the national debt. What other statistics or ratios might be used to express it? Is it useful to compare the country's financial situation with the debt and earnings of a family?

C. Think of the relationship between debt and investment in the both the private and in the public sense. Are debt and investment always intertwined?

D. What is the link between foreign policy and the national debt? Does the U.S. debt owned by foreign governments pose any immediate dangers to U.S. foreign policy?

14) Should We Consider the Constitution to Be "Living" or "Dead"?

What's It About? Over the course of U.S history, Supreme Court justices have used-and will continue to use-alternative judicial philosophies to render legal decisions about the constitutionality of laws and executive actions. The Issue? What role didjudicial philosophyplay in the District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) decision, a Second Amendment case on the right to bear arms.

A. Two judicial philosophies (among others not discussed in the video) guide interpretation of the U.S. Constitution: living constitutionalism and originalism. How would you compare living constitutionalism with originalism? Is the nation better served by having justices with different judicial philosophies on the Supreme Court?

B. Is it possible for two originalist jurists to interpret the intentions of the Framers differently?

C. What are the implications for gun-control policy in the United States given the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller?

D. Did the Explainer video change or influence your thinking about whether we should consider the U.S. Constitution to be living or dead?