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PS360 - Essay 3 - Fall 2000
Professor Renka (rdrenka@semo.edu )
Monday, 4 December 2000

Essay is worth 100 points.  Choose one of the following topics.   The essay should be a paper of approximately 2 and ½ to 3 normal, honest pages in length.  Be sure to properly cite all source material, including regular class readings.  Due:  any time up to Sunday, December 10, by 12:00 noon via email to rdrenka@semo.edu, or by FAX at 573/6512695.

Source materials:  Remember that we are reading articles (per syllabus) by Kerbel (on the media), by Sinclair and Brady/Buckley (both on conditional party government in Congress), and by MacKenzie (on influence of party upon those chosen for service with a president); and we had short handout pieces on the election; but we're omitting Crotty and Shribman from the final itinerary.

1.  Presidential campaigns confer two important things upon their winners:  a) political legitimacy, and b) signals and indications of what the policy direction of the new administration will be.  Both of these will affect the president-elect's relations with the also-new 107th Congress.  The Congress in turn is affected by seat share held by each party, ideological distance between each party's mainstream persons, and attitude of partisans toward bipartisanship.
    The probable President-elect George W. Bush professes a fondness for bipartisanship.  What will affect his ability to get the necessary congressional support to pass a policy agenda?  Will bipartisanship be possible in light of recent history of congressional partisanship, plus effect of the November/December 2000 political events?

2.  Why have the political parties become more powerful within the U.S. Congress in the 1990s and 2000 compared to the 1960s or 1970s?  What factors have moved the congressional membership to let party leaders have enhanced authority in the House and the Senate?  What factors have constrained this tendency?  Finally, which of the two houses is more difficult to run via party government?

3.  In the past month since 7 November 2000, the State of Florida has taught us much about machine balloting, hanging chads, dimpled chads, the Secretary of State's office, manual vote recounts, absentee balloting, count deadlines, the state and federal Supreme Courts, the naming of electors, the Electoral College itself, and the nature of political operations amidst active combat to determine who wins an election.
    In light of this, what recommendations would you make to resolve the future operations of the nation's presidential election system?  Be sure to specify why that recommendation would improve future elections.  I assume here that you fervently hope that another such embarrassing fiasco will not visit the Mother of Democracies (the U.S.).