Who is who of congress

house    

speaker:Nancy Pelosi

majority leader-Steny Hoyer

minority leader-John A. Boehner

majority whip-Jim Clyburn

minority whip-Roy Blunt

 

Senate

Majority Leader-Harry Reid

Minority Leader-Mitch McConnell

Majority Whip- Dick Durbin

Minority Whip-Jon Kyl

G-R-I-D-L-O-C-K-S

It is said that the US congress is the only true government that can govern. Unlike the systems seen in Japan and the British House of Commons, the US congress doesn't merely represent, but has the power to govern according to the constitution. As it has this unique power, congress is slow to move (when compared to the parliamentary systems). Often times debates will end up in what is called a gridlock. The primary source of this stalemate is a filibuster. For example, a bill can pass through the house easily, but when faced in the senate a simple 41 person minority can block the bill from passing on to the president. Such delaying tactics include cloture votes and measures such as reading out the entire bill (a long time when most bills are over five hundred pages). While gridlocks may seem the result of arcane rules, the have a valuable place in that they prevent decisions being made on a whim. Gridlocks can make legislators take a closer look at provisions in the bill that may or may not be suitable.

Courts or legislatures?i

While it can be said that the legislative branch has the greatest power of the government's three branches (i.e. legislative supremacy), I personally believe the judicial branch has the most power. I believe the reason is simple: judicial review. The process of judicial review allows the courts the power to look over (review) laws made by congress. If the court rules that a law violates the constitution, then the court essentially has the power to re-write the law. This "informal amendment" process is extremely significant because in a way the judicial branch can get the "last say". In terms of desegregation, the courts had the greatest impact on history. Since the ruling of Plessy vs Ferguson,  states were able to maintain segregated schools through the separate but equal principle. While Brown vs Board  was a benchmark case in that it declared separate but equal unconstitutional, it is more significant because it set a precedent for the changes that came in the following civil rights movements. I feel as if it isn't fair to criticize the court. Of course race relations would have worsened because the court is changing centuries worth of race relations. 

118-127

Selective incorporation can be described as a way of allowing portions of the bill of rights to be selected by through the states through the fourteenth amendment. This type of incorporation is clearly different from total incorporation,in which all of the rights listed in the first ten amendments are included...obviously. Prime examples of the differences in incorporation can be illustrated when looking at the following supreme court cases: Barron vs Baltimore , Gitlow vs New York , and Palko vs Connecticut. In Barron vs Baltimore, the supreme court ruled that the bill of rights applied only to federal situations and the states were able to hold their own constitutions without the provision of a bill of rights. However, a landmark case, Gitlow vs New York, reversed the barron case by using the due process clause. In a similar manner, the case Palko vs Connecticut used the due process law and 14th amendment to state that Connecticut was in violation of the law since he was accused of double jeopardy. 

Federalism, mandates, and devolution

An unfunded mandate is "a National standard or program imposed on state and local governments by the federal government without accompanying funding or reimbursement." Unfunded mandates became such a big problem in the early 90's that the Republican congress in 1994 created a new law called the unfunded mandates reform act (UMRA). Essentially, this law stopped all mandates that cost the state over 50 million dollars.Devolution on the other hand, is the practice of "delegating to the states more and more authority over a range of policies that had held up under national government authority, plus providing states with a significant potion of the cost." Therefore a a program is removed from a higher source of government to a lower portion. Personally, I feel as if devolution is more effective in reducing unfunded mandates. As the text illustrates, devolution allows individual states to try and see what works for them. So what might not be good for Tennessee might work out fine for California. So in this type of way devolution allows for more ability to change policies to see what system is right.