Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

In America, citizens have a unique privilege that people do not get in most other countries. Americans have the privilege to vote; however, most do not vote. People who run for office are called candidates and they get financial support from a multitude of different groups and by individual donors. This phenomenon is called campaign finance. From local to national offices, money fuels votes. From studying campaign finance briefly, I learned about court cases, types of groups, superpacs, FEC…

Federalism plays a large role into the lives of everyday Americans. One key policy issue which has long been pulled between the federal and state powers is the issue of voting rights. This is currently a very hot subject has the laws behind who can vote are continuing to be shaped within federal and state courts through new voter identification laws. The purpose of this paper will be to first present how the current voting laws have been developed through federalism. In the context of historical…

acts is called judicial review. Coming about as a result of the Marbury v. Madison case of 1803, having been established by John Marshall, the policy still remains relevant today. Essentially, if a state were to make a law(s) that limited the rights of a certain group of people, such as in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court has the right to deem it unconstitutional and prohibits enforcing the law. In the Brown v. Board of Education case, segregation of schools was argued and…

Do we really live in a democratic society? If we don’t, how can we make us live in a democratic society? Democracy came from two Greek words, “demos”, meaning people, and “kratos”, meaning rule or power. Combining the two terms, that gives us “people rule” or “people power”. In theory, this system of government gives ordinary people the power to influence and change the government. The first modern democratic system established in England, in 1689, 327 years ago. But in what way did democracy…

In 1803, Marbury v. Madison was sent to court and the long trial began. Many events had been leading up to the case that would change the United States government forever. Marbury v. Madison proved to be no ordinary case when it increased the powers of the judicial branch. The continuing expansion of the government forced the existence of the case to be debated. It was only a matter of time before the branches would increase in power. The United States’ population had multiplied for many years;…

of three branches: the Legislative which talks about the Court Case of Wesberry v Sanders and how one man’s vote should be equal to another’s ( one person, one vote). The Executive; it has the Court Case of Marbury v United States. It also includes how a panel in the Court is trying to override Congress’ purpose to create a board to practice law enforcement. Then the Judicial on the Court Case on Marbury v Madison with how the British are now in their own little case that is…

attacks of September 9, 2001, the United States Congress rushed a bill through its system, called the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001” or the “U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act,” and signed into effect by President George W. Bush. Its goal is “to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the World, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes” (United States, Congress,…

Federal courts have recently made headlines when they blocked several of Donald Trump’s executive orders sparking rigorous debate as to what the role of the Judicial Branch is. Much of this debate is centered around whether the judges blocking the orders is judicial activism. The argument for or against judicial activism is always heated around important supreme court cases, but in the end no consensus is reached. In order to take an alternate approach to the argument against judicial activism,…

to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”.* It seems, sometimes, that the Supreme Court is involved in issues where they have no business being, and similarly with the federal government. While their intervention is supposed to be in the name of the freedom of the American people, it acts as an infringement upon that freedom. As it is seen in US Term Limits v Thornton and Arizona State Legislature v…

The Attitudinal Model is a model used to help explain how Justices reach decisions. It states that a Justice will reach a decision based on their own personal views which are influenced by those of their peers and their individual background. This means that Justices pay little to no attention to things such as precedent, statutes, etc. This form of decision making is often more prominent in high-profile, controversial cases in which a direct solution to the problem at hand cannot be easily…