Politics in the United States
Figure 17.9 Americans' voting rights are fundamental to the U.S. democratic structure. In elections people care about, the turnout can be very high, and people go to great lengths to ensure their vote is counted.
When describing a nation's politics, we should define the term. We may associate the term with freedom, power, corruption, or rhetoric. Political science looks at politics as the interaction between citizens and their government. Sociology studies politics as a means to understand the underlying social norms and values of a group. A society's political structure and practices provide insight into the distribution of power and wealth and larger philosophical and cultural beliefs. A cursory sociological analysis of U.S. politics might suggest that Americans' desire to promote equality and democracy on a theoretical level is at odds with the nation's real-life capitalist orientation.
Lincoln's famous phrase "of the people, by the people, for the people" is at the heart of the U.S. system. It sums up its most essential aspect: that citizens willingly and freely elect representatives they believe will look out for their best interests. Although many Americans take free elections for granted, it is a vital foundation of any democracy. However, when the U.S. government was formed, African Americans and women were denied the right to vote. Each of these groups struggled to secure the same suffrage rights as their White male counterparts, yet this history fails to inspire some Americans to show up at the polls and cast their ballots. Problems with the democratic process, including limited voter turnout, require us to examine complex social issues that influence political participation more closely.
Voter Participation
Voter participation is essential to the success of the U.S. political system. Although many Americans are quick to complain about laws and political leadership, roughly half the population does not vote in any given election year. Some years have seen even lower turnouts; in 2010, only 37.8 percent of the population participated in the electoral process. Poor turnout can skew election results, particularly if one age or socioeconomic group is more diligent in its efforts to make it to the polls.
Certain voting advocacy groups work to improve turnout. Vote.org focuses on absentee voting, mail-in voting, and similar practices. Native Vote is an organization that strives to inform Native Americans about upcoming elections and encourages their participation. National Council of La Raza and Voto Latino strive to improve voter turnout among the Latino population. William Frey, author of Diversity Explosion, points out that the number of Hispanic people, Asian people, and multiracial populations is expected to double in the next forty years.
Race, Gender, and Class Issues
Although recent records have shown more minorities voting now than ever before, this trend is still fairly new. Historically, African Americans and other minorities have been underrepresented at the polls. Black men were not allowed to vote at all until after the Civil War, and Black women gained the right to vote along with other women only with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. For years, African Americans who were brave enough to vote were discouraged by discriminatory legislation passed in many southern states, which required poll taxes and literacy tests of prospective voters. Literacy tests were not outlawed until 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
The 1960s saw other important reforms in U.S. voting. Shortly before the Voting Rights Act was passed, the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case Reynolds v. Sims changed the nature of elections. This landmark decision reaffirmed the notion of "one person, one vote," a concept holding that all people's votes should be counted equally. Before this decision, unequal distributions of population enabled small groups of people in sparsely populated rural areas to have as much voting power as the denser populations of urban areas. After Reynolds v. Sims, districts were redrawn so that they would include equal numbers of voters.
Unfortunately, in June 2013, the Supreme Court repealed several important aspects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, ruling that southern states no longer needed the stricter scrutiny that was once required to prohibit racial discrimination in voting practices in the South. Following this decision, several states moved forward with voter identification laws that federal courts had previously banned. Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama officials claim that new identification (ID) laws are needed to reduce voter fraud. Opponents point to the Department of Justice statistics indicating that only 26 voters, of 197 million voters in federal elections were found guilty of voter fraud between 2002 and 2005. "Contemporary voter identification laws are trying to solve a problem that hasn't existed in over a century." Opponents further note that new voter ID laws disproportionately affect minorities and the poor, potentially prohibiting them from exercising their right to vote.
Evidence suggests that legal protection of voting rights does not directly translate into equal voting power. Relative to their presence in the U.S. population, women and racial/ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the U.S. Congress. White men still dominate both houses. And until the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009, all U.S. presidents had been White men.
Like race and ethnicity, social class also has influenced voting practices. Voting rates among lower-educated, lower-paid workers are lower than for people with higher socioeconomic status, which fosters a system in which people with more power and access to resources have the means to perpetuate their power. Several explanations have been offered to account for this difference. Workers in low-paying service jobs might find it harder to get to the polls because they lack flexibility in their work hours and quality daycare to look after children while they vote.
Because a larger share of racial and ethnic minorities is employed in such positions, social class may be linked to race and ethnicity influencing voting rates. New requirements for specific types of voter identification in some states are likely to compound these issues because it may take additional time away from work and additional child care or transportation for voters to get the needed IDs. The impact on minorities and the impoverished may cause a further decrease in voter participation. Attitudes play a role as well. Some people of low socioeconomic status or minority race/ethnicity doubt their vote will count or their voice will be heard because they have seen no evidence of their political power in their communities. Many believe that what they already have is all they can achieve.
As suggested earlier, money can have a lot of influence on U.S. democracy. But there are other means to make one's voice heard. Free speech can be influential, and people can participate in the democratic system through volunteering with political advocacy groups, writing to elected officials, sharing views in a public forum such as a blog or letter to the editor, forming or joining cause-related political organizations, and interest groups, participating in public demonstrations, and even running for a local office.
The Judicial System
The third branch of the U.S. government is the judicial system, which consists of local, state, and federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States and has the final say on decisions about the constitutionality of laws that citizens challenge. As noted earlier, some rulings directly impact the political system, such as recent decisions about voter identification and campaign financing. Other Supreme Court decisions affect different aspects of society, and they are useful for sociological study because they help us understand cultural changes.One example is a recent and highly controversial case that dealt with the religious opposition of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. to providing employees with specific kinds of insurance mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Another example is same-sex marriage cases, which were expected to be heard by the Court; however, the Court denied review of these cases in the fall of 2014. For now, the rulings of federal district courts stand, and states can continue to have differing outcomes on the same.
Source: Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang; OpenStax, https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/17-3-politics-in-the-united-states
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