Chapter 8 Questions

Reviewing Facts and Ideas

1. Name the pairs of major parties that have existed in American history.

Republican

Democratic

2. Compare the three types of third parties and name a party of each type.

A Single-Issue Party focuses exclusively on one major social, economic, or moral issue (i.e. the Liberty Party)

A Ideological Party focuses on overall change in society rather than on an issue (i.e. the Libertarian Party)

A Splinter Party is one that splits away from one of the major parties because of some disagreement (i.e. the Bull Moose Party)

3. Cite two reasons why people belong to political parties.

-they support most of its ideas or candidates

-helps increase their influence on the government

4. Name the main function of the two major political parties.

To recruit and offer candidates for public office

5. Contrast open and closed primaries.

In an open primary, all voters may participate, even if they do not belong to the party, but they can vote in only one party’s primary. In a closed primary, only members of a political party can vote.

6. Trace the changing methods used to select presidential candidates.

First, Individuals may seek nomination for public office in one of four ways:

I. Caucuses – private meetings of party leaders who choose the candidates for office

II. Nominating Conventions – official public meetings of a party to choose candidates for office

III. Primary Election – includes several types of election.

a.     direct primary – san election which party members select people to run in the general election. This is the most commonly used method today.

b.     Closed primary – only members of a political party can vote.

c.      Open primary – all voters may participate, even if they do not belong to the party, but they can vote in only one party’s primary.

IV. Petition – under this method, a person announces his or her candidacy and files petitions a specific number of voters have signed to be placed on the ballot.

Applying Themes

1. What relationship exists between the methods of representation in democratic nations and their political-party system?

The parties select government officials. The multi-party system allows diversity and equal representation for many groups of people.

2. How has the presence of minor parties affected American politics?

They challenge the major parties and promote ideas that were at first unpopular or hotly debated. Major parties later adopt many of their issues. They can also draw voters out of a particular major party and make the other one win the election instead.

3. Why have third parties had so little success in the United States?

Because most Americans are convinced a third party cannot win, they are reluctant to contribute to such a campaign.

4. Identify the various ways that a person can support a political party.

By contributing money or doing volunteer work for the party or its candidates

Chapter 7 Section 2 Questions

2. List three guidelines or tests the Supreme Court uses in its judgment of cases involving equal protection under the law.

Rational base test – the court will uphold a state law when the state can show a good reason to justify the classification.

Suspect Classifications – when a classification is made on the basis of race or national origin and is subject to strict judicial scrutiny.

Fundamental rights – rights the constitution explicitly guarantees

3. Describe the circumstances in which the Court requires the state to bear the burden of proof to justify a law on the basis of “some compelling public interest.”

When a classification is made on the basis of race or national origin.

4. Explain the court’s reasoning in overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine in the Brown decision.

Segregated school were not and could never be equal, thus making them unconstitutional. This allowed Brown to win the case.

5. Does the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment allow the government to draw distinctions between different classes of people? Explain.

Yes because the government must draw distinctions between different groups of people, such as people under 18, but cannot discriminate against specific groups.

6. What were the far-reaching effects of the Brown decision?

It opened the doors for scores of court cases dealing with equal rights. It established a precedent for court decisions striking down segregation in public parks, beaches, playgrounds, libraries, golf courses, state and local prisons, transportation systems, and anywhere else the principle of segregation had been applied.

Chapter 7 Section 1 #1-6

Chapter 7 Section 1

1.Define the following:

Exclusionary Rule – holds that any illegally obtained evidence, no matter how incriminating, cannot be used in a federal court.

Counsel – an attorney

Self-Incrimination - giving testimony in a trial or other legal proceeding that could subject one to criminal prosecution

Double Jeopardy – a person may not be tried twice for the same crime, thus protecting people from continual harassment.

2. Describe the procedure that police must follow in making a lawful search.

They must obtain a warrant from a court official before searching for evidence or making an arrest. The warrant must describe the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.

3. Identify the case in which the exclusionary rule was first applied to state courts.

Weeks v. United States

4. Explain the importance of the Court’s decision in Gideon vs. Wainwright.

Gideon was refused an attorney. He was convicted and petitioned the government. Later it was decided that no matter how poor the accused is, he or she has a right to a lawyer from the time of arrest through the appeals process.

5. How does the right to counsel help guarantee a fair trial?

People who couldn’t afford a lawyer were often convicted because they didn’t understand the law, and the right to counsel helps their case become stronger.

6. How has the court differentiated between a search by a public school official and a search by the police?

School officials do not need warrants or probable cause to search students or their property. All that is needed are reasonable grounds to believe a search will uncover evidence that a student has broken school rules. Police need a warrant unless someone commits a crime in their presence.

Chapter 6 Section 4

1. What is prior restraint?

Censorship of information before it is published

  

2.   In The Pentagon Papers Case, an employee leaked secret government reports. It showed that government officials had lied to the American public. The court ruled that stopping publication would be prior restraint. In later rulings the court has indicated that even where national security is not an issue protection against prior restraint is not absolute.

3. the court allowed school officials to censor school newspapers, plays, and other school-sponsored expressive activities

4. before an during a trial, news stories about said crime makes it difficult to find a jury that will fairly decide the case. In order to prevent press coverage from interfering, the court allowed moving the trial to reduce pretrial publicity, limiting the umber of reporters in the courtroom, placing controls on reporters’ conduct in the courtroom, isolating witnesses and jurors from the press, and having the jury held in trial until the trial is over.

5. a gag order is an order by a judge barring the press from publishing certain types of information about a pending court case

6. the court ruled the first amendment does not give special privileges to news reporters. Like other citizens, they must respond to relevant questions put to them in the course of a valid grand jury investigation or criminal trial

7. because they use public airwaves

8. the court has voided laws that ban advertising prescription prices, legal services, and medical services.  Society has the right to protection from obscene speech, pictures, and written material.

Chapter 6 Section 3

1. Why do most groups have to obtain a permit to parade or hold a demonstration?

To maintain public order and safety and make sure it doesn’t interfere with other citizens

2. Why were the Nazi party in Skokie allowed to march?  What dilemmas or controversies just this case bring up?
-because no community could use parade permits to interfere with free speech and assembly.

-It is illegal to prevent a group from marching

 hecklers veto – public vetoes groups rights because it is going to be unpopular and cause violence and or great disruption

3. Describe dilemmas that a free society faces in setting limits on freedom of assembly? 
the court upheld that the state has the power “to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated.” The court upheld a law that banned demonstrations and parades near courthouses if they could interfere with trials, as well as a ban on demonstrations near school that were intended to disrupt class.

4. When may the right to assemble be limited on public and private property? 

Groups can’t block entrances, cannot assemble on private property even if it is open to the public.

Chapter 6 Section 2

1. List and describe the three types of speech.

-Pure Speech may be delivered calmly in the privacy of one’s home or passionately in front of a crowd. Most protected by the first amendment.

-Speech Plus is when actions such as marching or demonstrating happen as well as speech. They cannot obstruct traffic, block sidewalks, illegally trespass, or endanger public safety.

-Symbolic Speech involves using actions and symbols instead of words to express opinions. Supreme Court decisions on First Amendment protection of symbolic speech have been mixed.

2. How has Congress regulated speech? List three ways and describe each.
-Clear and Present Danger Test

When the speech in question clearly presents an immediate danger, the first amendment does not protect it.

-The Bad Tendency Doctrine

Speech could only be restricted if it had only a tendency to lead to illegal action.

-The Preferred Position Doctrine

First Amendment freedoms are more fundamental than other freedoms because the provide the basis of all liberties

Any law limiting these freedoms should be presumed unconstitutional unless the government can show it is absolutely necessary

-Sedition Laws

The first Amendment does not protect speech intended to advocate immediate and concrete acts of violence.

People are free to speak out in support of their political objectives, however, as long as they do not use violence.

3. What types of speech is not protected?
-Defamatory Speech: false speech that damages a person’s good name, character, or reputation.

-Fighting Words: words that are so insulting that they provoke immediate violence do not constitute free speech. (i.e. “your mom” jokes)

-Student Speech: students do not give up all of their rights to free speech while in high school, but school authorities can determine what is and isn’t appropriate (“BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” is no bunk)

4. How have changes in Supreme Court definitions of seditious speech expanded First Amendment rights? Cite cases to support your answer. 

In Dennis v. United States, the court used the “clear and present danger” test to uphold the conviction of 11 communist party leaders under said act.

In Yates v. United States, a case that rhymes beautifully, the court overturned convictions of several other communist party members because it decided that merely expressing the opinion the government should be overthrown is not illegal. Because of this case, the court distinguished the difference between urging the people to believe in an action versus urging them to take action in something.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court realized that the first amendment does not protect speech intended to advocate immediate and concrete acts of violence. People are free to speak out in support of their political objectives as long as they do not use violence.

5. List how the Supreme court has limited student speech.

students do not give up all of their rights to free speech while in high school, but school authorities can determine what is and isn’t appropriate

the first amendment does not prevent school officials from suspending students for lewd or indecent speech at school events