Copyright © 2015 Bert N. Langford (Images may be subject to copyright. Please send feedback)
Welcome to Our Generation USA!

Democracy
as practiced in the United States, is a representative form of Democracy consisting of the Federal Government (including the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches), along with the federation of 50 state governments (including local governments).
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Democracy and Politics of the United States
YouTube Video: For Democracy's Future: Education Reclaims Our Civic Mission​*
* -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, other senior Obama Administration officials and civic education, government, business and philanthropy leaders gather to discuss the importance of civic learning and engagement in democracy for the 21st century (January 10, 2012)
Pictured: Great Seal of the United States Federal Government

Democracy, or democratic government, is "a system of government in which all the people of a state or polity ... are involved in making decisions about its affairs, typically by voting to elect representatives to a parliament or similar assembly", as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Democracy is further defined as (a:) "government by the people; especially : rule of the majority (b:) "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections."

According to political scientist Larry Diamond, it consists of four key elements: (a) A political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; (b) The active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; (c) Protection of the human rights of all citizens, and (d) A rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.
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Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution.


Politics of the United States:

The United States is a federal republic in which the President of the United States, United States Congress, and United States federal courts share powers reserved to the national government. At the same time, the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.
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The executive branch is headed by the President and is formally independent of both the legislature and the judiciary. The cabinet serves as advisers to the President. They include the Vice President and heads of the executive departments.

Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The judicial branch (or judiciary), composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, exercises judicial power (or judiciary). The judiciary's function is to interpret the United States Constitution and federal laws and regulations. This includes resolving disputes between the executive and legislative branches. The federal government's layout is explained in the Constitution.

Two political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have dominated American politics since the American Civil War, although there are also smaller parties like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party.

There are major differences between the political system of the United States and that of most other developed democracies. These include greater power in the upper house of the legislature, a wider scope of power held by the Supreme Court, the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive, and the dominance of only two main parties.

Third parties have less political influence in the United States than in other developed country democracies; this is because of a combination of stringent historic controls. These controls take shape in the form of state and federal laws, informal media prohibitions, and winner-take-all elections, and include ballot access issues and exclusive debate rules.

This multiplicity of jurisdictions reflects the country's history. The federal government was created by the states, which as colonies were established separately and governed themselves independently of the others. Units of local government were created by the colonies to efficiently carry out various state functions. As the country expanded, it admitted new states modeled on the existing ones.


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United States Constitution and its List of Amendments
YouTube Video of Ronald Reagan "We the People"
Pictured: Separation of Powers in accordance with the U.S. Constitution

Click here to view the List of Constitutional Amendments of the United States.

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government.

Its first three articles entrench the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of:
Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government. 

Article Seven establishes the procedure subsequently used by the thirteen States to ratify it.

Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended twenty-seven times to meet the changing needs of a nation now profoundly different from the eighteenth-century world in which its creators lived.

In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government. The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections.

Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures. Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the end of the document. All four pages of the original U.S. Constitution are written on parchment.

According to the United States Senate: "The Constitution's first three words--We the People—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because its framers wisely separated and balanced governmental powers to safeguard the interests of majority rule and minority rights, of liberty and equality, and of the federal and state governments."
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The first constitution of its kind, adopted by the people's representatives for an expansive nation, it is interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by a large body of constitutional law, and has influenced the constitutions of other nations.

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Forms of Democracy
YouTube Video: Ronald Reagan - Strength of Democracy "believe in our capacity to perform great deeds"
Pictured Below: The United States of America is a Democracy

Types of democracy refers to kinds of governments or social structures which allow people to participate equally, either directly or indirectly.

Direct Democracies:

A direct democracy or pure democracy is a type of democracy where the people govern directly. It requires wide participation of citizens in politics. Athenian democracy or classical democracy refers to a direct democracy developed in ancient times in the Greek city-state of Athens.

A popular democracy is a type of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will.

An industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace (see also workplace)

Representative Democracies:
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A representative democracy is an indirect democracy where sovereignty is held by the people's representatives.
Types of representative democracy include:
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  • Electoral democracy – type of representative democracy based on election, on electoral vote, as modern occidental or liberal democracies.
  • Dominant-party system – democratic party system where only one political party can realistically become the government, by itself or in a coalition government.
  • Parliamentary democracy – democratic system of government where the executive branch of a parliamentary government is typically a cabinet, and headed by a prime minister who is considered the head of government.
    • Westminster democracy – parliamentary system of government modeled after that of the United Kingdom system.
  • Presidential democracy – democratic system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch.
    • Jacksonian democracy – a variant of presidential democracy popularized by U.S. President Andrew Jackson which promoted the strength of the executive branch and the Presidency at the expense of Congressional power.
  • Soviet democracy or Council democracy – form of democracy where the workers of a locality elect recallable representatives into organs of power called soviets (councils.) The local soviets elect the members of regional soviets who go on to elect higher soviets.
  • Totalitarian democracy – a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government.

A demarchy has people randomly selected from the citizenry through sortition to either act as general governmental representatives or to make decisions in specific areas of governance (defense, environment, etc.).

A non-partisan democracy is system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections (by secret ballot) take place without reference to political parties.

​An organic or authoritarian democracy is a democracy where the ruler holds a considerable amount of power, but their rule benefits the people. The term was first used by supporters of Bonapartism.

Types of Democracy based on location:

A bioregional democracy matches geopolitical divisions to natural ecological regions.

A cellular democracy, developed by Georgist libertarian economist Fred E. Foldvary, uses a multi-level bottom-up structure based on either small neighborhood governmental districts or contractual communities.

A workplace democracy refers to the application of democracy to the workplace (see also industrial democracy).

Types of Democracy based on level of freedom:

A liberal democracy is a representative democracy with protection for individual liberty and property by rule of law. In contrast, a defensive democracy limits some rights and freedoms in order to protect the institutions of the democracy.

Types of Democracy based on Religion:
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A religious democracy is a form of government where the values of a particular religion have an effect on the laws and rules, often when most of the population is a member of the religion, such as:
Other Types of Democracy:

Types of democracy include:
  • Anticipatory democracy – relies on some degree of disciplined and usually market-informed anticipation of the future, to guide major decisions.
  • Associationalism, or Associative Democracy – emphasis on freedom via voluntary and democratically self-governing associations.
  • Adversialism, or Adversial Democracy – with an emphasis on freedom based on adversial relationships between individuals and groups as best expressed in democratic judicial systems.
  • Bourgeois democracy – Some Marxists, Communists, Socialists and Left-wing anarchists refer to liberal democracy as bourgeois democracy, alleging that ultimately politicians fight only for the rights of the bourgeoisie.
  • Consensus democracy – rule based on consensus rather than traditional majority rule.
  • Constitutional democracy – governed by a constitution.
  • Delegative democracy – a form of democratic control whereby voting power is vested in self-selected delegates, rather than elected representatives.
  • Deliberative democracy – in which authentic deliberation, not only voting, is central to legitimate decision making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule.
  • Democratic centralism – organizational method where members of a political party discuss and debate matters of policy and direction and after the decision is made by majority vote, all members are expected to follow that decision in public.
  • Democratic dictatorship (also known as democratur)
  • Democratic republic – republic which has democracy through elected representatives
  • Economic democracy – theory of democracy involving people having access to subsistence, or equity in living standards.
  • Ethnic democracy – coined to describe democracy in China.
  • Grassroots democracy – emphasizes trust in small decentralized units at the municipal government level, possibly using urban secession to establish the formal legal authority to make decisions made at this local level binding.
  • Guided democracy – is a form of democratic government with increased autocracy where citizens exercise their political rights without meaningfully affecting the government's policies, motives, and goals.
  • Interactive democracy – proposed form of democracy utilizing information technology to allow citizens to propose new policies, "second" proposals and vote on the resulting laws (that are refined by Parliament) in a referendum.
  • Jeffersonian democracy – named after American statesman Thomas Jefferson, who believed in equality of political opportunity (for male citizens), and opposed to privilege, aristocracy and corruption.
  • Market democracy – another name for democratic capitalism, an economic ideology based on a tripartite arrangement of a market-based economy based predominantly on economic incentives through free markets, a democratic polity and a liberal moral-cultural system which encourages pluralism.
  • Multiparty democracy – two-party system requires voters to align themselves in large blocs, sometimes so large that they cannot agree on any overarching principles.
  • New Democracy – Maoist concept based on Mao Zedong's "Bloc of Four Classes" theory in post-revolutionary China.
  • Participatory democracy – involves more lay citizen participation in decision making and offers greater political representation than traditional representative democracy, e.g., wider control of proxies given to representatives by those who get directly involved and actually participate.
  • People's democracy – multi-class rule in which the proletariat dominates.
  • Radical democracy – type of democracy that focuses on the importance of nurturing and tolerating difference and dissent in decision-making processes.
  • Semi-direct democracy – representative democracy with instruments, elements, and/or features of direct democracy.
  • Sociocracy – democratic system of governance based on consent decision making, circle organization, and double-linked representation.

See also:







Campaign Financing in the United States
YouTube Video Explaining the Supreme Court on Campaign Finance by Associated Press
Pictured below: "As more money flows into campaigns, Americans worry about its influence" by PEW Research Center

Campaign finance in the United States is the financing of electoral campaigns at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, campaign finance law is enacted by Congress and enforced by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), an independent federal agency.

Although most campaign spending is privately financed, public financing is available for qualifying candidates for President of the United States during both the primaries and the general election. Eligibility requirements must be fulfilled to qualify for a government subsidy, and those that do accept government funding are usually subject to spending limits on money.

​Races for non-federal offices are governed by state and local law. Over half the states allow some level of corporate and union contributions. Some states have limits on contributions from individuals that are lower than the national limits, while four states (Missouri, Oregon, Utah and Virginia) have no limits at all. This article deals primarily with campaigns for federal office.

Campaign finance numbers:

In 2008, candidates for office, political parties, and independent groups spent a total of $5.3 billion on federal elections. The amount spent on the presidential race alone was $2.4 billion, and over $1 billion of that was spent by the campaigns of the two major candidates: Barack Obama spent $730 million in his election campaign, and John McCain spent $333 million. The total amount spent by Obama and McCain was a record at the time.

In the 2010 midterm election cycle, candidates for office, political parties, and independent groups spent a total of $3.6 billion on federal elections. The average winner of a seat in the House of Representatives spent $1.4 million on his or her campaign. The average winner of a Senate seat spent $9.8 million.

The money for campaigns for federal office comes from four broad categories of sources: (1) small individual contributors (individuals who contribute $200 or less), (2) large individual contributors (individuals who contribute more than $200), (3) political action committees, and (4) self-financing (the candidate's own money). In the 2010 Congressional races, the sources of campaign contributions broke down as follows:
Sources of campaign funding:

Federal contribution limits:

Federal law restricts how much individuals and organizations may contribute to political campaigns, political parties, and other FEC-regulated organizations. Corporations and unions are banned from donating money directly to candidates ("hard money") or national party committees. 
Footnotes for above Table:
  1. Jump up^ “PAC” here refers to a committee that makes contributions to other federal political committees. Independent-expenditure-only political committees (sometimes called “Super PACs”) may accept unlimited contributions, including from corporations and labor organizations.
  2. Jump up^ The limits in this column apply to a national party committee’s accounts for: (i) the presidential nominating convention; (ii) election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings; and (iii) national party headquarters buildings. A party’s national committee, Senate campaign committee and House campaign committee are each considered separate national party committees with separate limits. Only a national party committee, not the parties’ national congressional campaign committees, may have an account for the presidential nominating convention.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Indexed for inflation in odd-numbered years.
  4. Jump up^ Additionally, a national party committee and its Senatorial campaign committee may contribute up to $46,800 combined per campaign to each Senate candidate.

Bundling:

One consequence of the limitation upon personal contributions from any one individual is that campaigns seek out "bundlers"—people who can gather contributions from many individuals in an organization or community and present the sum to the campaign.

Campaigns often recognize these bundlers with honorary titles and, in some cases, exclusive events featuring the candidate.

Although bundling existed in various forms since the enactment of the FECA, bundling became organized in a more structured way in the 2000s, spearheaded by the "Bush Pioneers" for George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. During the 2008 campaign the six leading primary candidates (three Democratic, three Republican) had listed a total of nearly two thousand bundlers.

Lobbying:
Main article: Lobbying in the United States

Lobbyists often assist congresspersons campaign finance by arranging fundraisers, assembling PACs, and seeking donations from other clients. Many lobbyists become campaign treasurers and fundraisers for congresspersons.

Hard and soft money:

Contributions made directly to a specific candidate are called hard money and those made to parties and committees are called soft money. Soft money constitutes an alternative form of financing campaigns that emerged in the last years. It "derives from a major loophole in federal campaign financing and spending law that exempts from regulation those contributions made for party building in general rather than for specific candidates". 

There are no limits on soft money and some examples are donations for stickers, posters, and television and radio spots supporting a particular party platform or idea but not a concrete candidate. For the amounts of soft money contributed in recent years and the legislation that enabled this, see the section on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

Spending by outside organizations:
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Organizations other than individual campaigns also contribute to election spending. In addition to donating money to political campaigns (according to the limits described above), these organizations can spend money directly to influence elections.

Political action committees:
Main article: Political action committee

Federal law allows for multiple types of political action committees (PACs):

Connected PACs: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act prohibits corporations and labor unions from making direct contributions or expenditures in connection with federal elections.

These organizations may, however, sponsor a "separate segregated fund" (SSF), known as a "connected PAC". These PACs may receive and raise money only from a "restricted class", generally consisting of managers and shareholders in the case of a corporation and members in the case of a union or other interest group.

In exchange, the sponsor of the PAC may absorb all the administrative costs of operating the PAC and soliciting contributions. As of January 2009, there were 1,598 registered corporate PACs, 272 related to labor unions and 995 to trade organizations.

Nonconnected PACs: A nonconnected PAC is financially independent, meaning that it must pay for its own administrative expenses using the contributions it raises. Although an organization may financially support a nonconnected PAC, these expenditures are considered contributions to the PAC and are subject to the dollar limits and other requirements of the Act.

Leadership PACs: Elected officials and political parties cannot give more than the federal limit directly to candidates. However, they can set up a leadership PAC that makes independent expenditures. Provided the expenditure is not coordinated with the other candidate, this type of spending is not limited. 

Under the FEC rules, leadership PACs are non-connected PACs, and can accept donations from individuals and other PACs. Since current officeholders have an easier time attracting contributions, leadership PACs are a way dominant parties can capture seats from other parties.

A leadership PAC sponsored by an elected official cannot use funds to support that official's own campaign. However, it may fund travel, administrative expenses, consultants, polling, and other non-campaign expenses. Between 2008 and 2009, leadership PACs raised and spent more than $47 million.

"Super PACs": The 2010 election marked the rise of a new political committee, dubbed the "super PAC". They are officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees", because they may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but rather must do any political spending independently of the campaigns.

Unlike other PACs, there is no legal limit to the funds they can raise from individuals, corporations, unions and other groups, provided they are operated correctly. As of August 23, 2012, 797 super PACS had raised upwards of $349 million, with 60% of that money coming from just 100 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Super PACs were made possible by two judicial decisions:
Independent expenditures continue to grow with $17 million spent in 2002 on congressional elections, $52 million in 2006, and $290 million in 2010. In 10 states independent spending amounted to 19% of the total amount of money contributed to candidates between 2005 and 2010. In three of those states independent spending was greater than 25% of the contributions given to candidates.

501(c)(4) organizations:
Main article: 501(c) organization § 501(c)(4)

501(c)(4) organizations are defined by the IRS as "social welfare" organizations.
Unlike 501(c)(3) charitable organizations, they may also participate in political campaigns and elections, as long as the organization's "primary purpose" is the promotion of social welfare and not political advocacy. 501(c)(4) organizations are not required to disclose their donors publicly.

This aspect of the law has led to extensive use of 501(c)(4) organizations in raising and donating money for political activity. The NAACP, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, and National Rifle Association are well known examples of organizations that operate 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations that engage in political advocacy.

PACs and Super PACs are required by law to disclose all of their donors of over $200. However, 501(c)(4) organizations are only required to disclose their spending on political activity, and not information on their donors unless those donors give for the express purpose of political advocacy.

The use of 501(c)(4) organizations for political advocacy has contributed to the sharp rise in outside spending that occurs without disclosure of donors. In 2006 just a bit more than 1% of political spending other than that done by political parties and campaign committees did not disclose donors, but by 2010 it had risen to 44%. And as of August 2012, two of the biggest 501(c)(4) groups (Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity) had put more money into the presidential campaign than all the super PACs combined, according to ProPublica.

Traditionally 501(c)(4) organizations have been civic leagues and other corporations operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees with membership limited to a designated company or people in a particular municipality or neighborhood, and with net earnings devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.

527 organizations:
Main article: 527 organization

​A 527 organization or 527 group is a type of American tax-exempt organization named after "Section 527" of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Technically, almost all political committees, including state, local, and federal candidate committees, traditional political action committees, "Super PACs", and political parties are "527s."

However, in common practice the term is usually applied only to such organizations that are not regulated under state or federal campaign finance laws because they do not "expressly advocate" for the election or defeat of a candidate or party. When operated within the law, there are no upper limits on contributions to 527s and no restrictions on who may contribute.

There are no spending limits imposed on these organizations. However, they must register with the IRS, publicly disclose their donors and file periodic reports of contributions and expenditures.

Political parties:

Political party committees may contribute funds directly to candidates, subject to the contribution limits listed above. National and state party committees may make additional "coordinated expenditures," subject to limits, to help their nominees in general elections.

​National party committees may also make unlimited "independent expenditures" to support or oppose federal candidates. However, since 2002, national parties have been prohibited from accepting any funds outside the limits established for elections in the FECA.

Disclosure rules:

Current campaign finance law at the federal level requires candidate committees, party committees, and PACs to file periodic reports disclosing the money they raise and spend. Federal candidate committees must identify, for example, all PACs and party committees that give them contributions, and they must provide the names, occupations, employers and addresses of all individuals who give them more than $200 in an election cycle.

Additionally, they must disclose expenditures to any individual or vendor. The Federal Election Commission maintains this database and publishes the information about campaigns and donors on its web site. (Similar reporting requirements exist in many states for state and local candidates and for PACs and party committees.)

Various organizations, including the Center for Responsive Politics, aggregate data on political contributions to provide insight into the influence of various groups. In August 2014, a new smartphone app called "Buypartisan" was released to allow consumers to scan the barcodes of items in grocery stores and see where that corporation and its leaders directed their political contributions.

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Campaign Finance Reform in the United States including Electoral Reform
YouTube Video by Bernie Sanders: Campaign Finance Reform and Big Money in Politics
Pictured below: Despite public's concern, more money than ever flows into Political Campaigns for Federal Elections by PEW Research

Campaign finance reform is the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns.

Although attempts to regulate campaign finance by legislation date back to 1867, the modern era of "campaign finance reform" in the United States begins with the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 and, more importantly, 1974 amendments to that Act.

The 1971 FECA required candidates to disclose sources of campaign contributions and campaign expenditures. The 1974 Amendments essentially rewrote the Act from top to bottom.

The 1974 Amendments placed statutory limits on contributions by individuals for the first time, and created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as an independent enforcement agency. It provided for broad new disclosure requirements, and limited the amounts that candidates could spend on their campaigns, or that citizens could spend separate from candidate campaigns to promote their political views.

Specifically, this amendment attempted to restrict the influence of wealthy individuals by limiting individual donations to $1,000 and donations by political action committees (PACs) to $5,000. However, the Act's provisions limiting expenditures were struck down as unconstitutional in the 1976 Supreme Court decision Buckley v. Valeo.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, also known as "McCain-Feingold", after its sponsors, is the most recent major federal law on campaign finance, the key provisions of which prohibited unregulated contributions (commonly referred to as "soft money") to national political parties and limited the use of corporate and union money to fund ads discussing political issues within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election.

However, BCRA's provisions limiting corporate and union expenditures for issue advertising were narrowed in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, and later explicitly struck down on constitutional grounds in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Campaign Finance Reform in Federal Elections ___________________________________________________________________________

Electoral reform in the United States refers to efforts to change American elections and the electoral system used in the United States.

Most elections in the U.S. select one person; elections with multiple candidates selected by proportional representation are relatively rare. Typical examples include the U.S. House of Representatives, whose members are elected by a plurality of votes in single-member districts.

The number of representatives from each state is set in proportion to each state's population in the most recent decennial census. District boundaries are usually redrawn after each such census. This process often produces "gerrymandered" district boundaries designed to increase and secure the majority of the party in power, sometimes by offering secure seats to members of the opposition party. This is one of a number of institutional features that increase the advantage of incumbents seeking reelection.

The United States Senate and the U.S. President are also elected by plurality. However, these elections are not affected by gerrymandering (with the possible exception of presidential races in Maine and Nebraska, whose electoral votes are partially allocated by Congressional district)

Proposals for electoral reform have included overturning Citizens United, public and citizen funding of elections, limits and transparency in funding, Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), public or citizen funding of news, a new national holiday called "Deliberation Day" to support voters spending a full day in structured discussions of issues and candidates, abolishing the U.S. Electoral College or nullifying its impact through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and improving ballot access for third parties, among others.

The U.S. Constitution gives states wide latitude to determine how elections are conducted, although some details, such as the ban on poll taxes, are mandated at the federal level.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Electoral Reform in the United States:






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Lobbying in the United States, including the Conflict of Interest caused by the "Revolving Door" by which Elected Officials later become lobbyists. 

​YouTube Video: Obama, "Campaign Finance Ruling Devastating to Our Democracy"

Pictured below: "Where Have All the Lobbyists Gone?" by The Nation 2/19/2014

​Lobbying in the United States describes paid activity in which special interests hire well-connected professional advocates, often lawyers, to argue for specific legislation in decision-making bodies such as the United States Congress.

It is a highly controversial phenomenon, often seen in a negative light by journalists and the American public, with some critics describing it as a legal form of bribery or extortion.

While lobbying is subject to extensive and often complex rules which, if not followed, can lead to penalties including jail, the activity of lobbying has been interpreted by court rulings as constitutionally protected free speech and a way to petition the government for the redress of grievances, two of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Since the 1970s, lobbying activity has grown immensely in the United States in terms of the numbers of lobbyists and the size of lobbying budgets, and has become the focus of much criticism of American governance.

It is possible for foreign nations to hire American lobbyists to influence the foreign policy of the United States; for example, in 2016, Taiwanese officials hired American senator-turned-lobbyist Bob Dole to set up a controversial phone call between president-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen, a move marking a shift in US foreign policy.

Since lobbying rules require extensive disclosure, there is a large amount of information in the public sphere about which entities lobby, how, at whom, and for how much. The current pattern suggests much lobbying is done primarily by corporations, although a wide variety of coalitions representing diverse groups also occurs.

Lobbying takes place at every level of government, including federal, state, county, municipal, and even local governments. In Washington, D.C., lobbying usually targets members of Congress, although there have been efforts to influence executive agency officials as well as Supreme Court appointments.

Lobbying can have an important influence on the political system; for example, a study in 2014 suggested that special interest lobbying enhanced the power of elite groups and was a factor shifting the nation's political structure toward an oligarchy in which average citizens have "little or no independent influence".

While the number of lobbyists in Washington is estimated to be over twelve thousand, those with real clout number in the dozens, and a small group of firms handles much of lobbying in terms of expenditures. A report in The Nation in 2014 suggested that while the number of 12,281 registered lobbyists was a decrease since 2002, lobbying activity was increasing and "going underground" as lobbyists use "increasingly sophisticated strategies" to obscure their activity. [see also the above graph and description about this article].

Analyst James A. Thurber estimated that the actual number of working lobbyists was close to 100,000 and that the industry brings in $9 billion annually.

Lobbying has been the subject of academic inquiry in various fields, including law, public policy, and economics.

For more about Political Lobbying in the United States, click on any of the following blue hyperlinks:
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​In politics, the "revolving door" is a movement of personnel between roles as legislators and regulators, on one hand, and members of the industries affected by the legislation and regulation, on the other.I

n some cases, the roles are performed in sequence, but in certain circumstances they may be performed at the same time. Political analysts claim that an unhealthy relationship can develop between the private sector and government, based on the granting of reciprocated privileges to the detriment of the nation, and can lead to regulatory capture.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Revolving Door as a means by which elected Officials in the Federal Government later become lobbyists:






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Political Action Committees (PAC) in the United States, including a List

​YouTube Video: Senator Susan Collins: Every Single Word The President Says Matters 
by Morning Joe @ MSNBC

(Note that the charts below were provided by the following PAC)
Pictured below: (courtesy of NACS: Advancing Convenience & Fuel Retailing)
TOP: Look at how much money was spent in the last two elections
BOTTOM: Look at the contributions made by the NACS Political Action Committee (NACSPAC) and other benchmark PACs in the 2010 election.

Click here for a List of Political Action Committees.

​In the United States, a political action committee (PAC) is a type of organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaign for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation.

The legal term PAC has been created in pursuit of campaign finance reform in the United States. This term is quite specific to all activities of campaign finance in the United States.

Democracies of other countries use different terms for the units of campaign spending or spending on political competition (see political finance). At the U.S. federal level, an organization becomes a PAC when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election, and registers with the Federal Election Commission, according to the Federal Election Campaign Act as amended by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act).

At the state level, an organization becomes a PAC according to the state's election laws.
  • Contributions from corporate or labor union treasuries are illegal, though they may sponsor a PAC and provide financial support for its administration and fundraising;
  • Union-affiliated PACs may only solicit contributions from members;
  • Independent PACs may solicit contributions from the general public and must pay their own costs from those funds.

Federal multi-candidate PACs may contribute to candidates as follows:
  • $5,000 to a candidate or candidate committee for each election (primary and general elections count as separate elections);
  • $15,000 to a political party per year; and
  • $5,000 to another PAC per year.
  • PACs may make unlimited expenditures independently of a candidate or political party

In its 2010 case Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned sections of the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act) that had prohibited corporate and union political independent expenditures in political campaigns.

Citizens United made it legal for corporations and unions to spend from their general treasuries to finance independent expenditures related to campaigns, but did not alter the prohibition on direct corporate or union contributions to federal campaigns.

​Organizations seeking to contribute directly to federal candidate campaigns must still rely on traditional PACs for that purpose.

History:

The first PAC was the CIO-PAC, formed in July 1943 under CIO president Philip Murray and headed by Sidney Hillman.

Categories:
Further information: List of political action committees

Federal law formally allows for two types of PACs: connected and non-connected. Judicial decisions added a third classification, independent-expenditure only committees, which are colloquially known as "Super PACs".

​Connected PACs:

Most of the 4,600 active, registered PACs are "connected PACs" established by businesses, labor unions, trade groups, or health organizations. These PACs receive and raise money from a "restricted class", generally consisting of managers and shareholders in the case of a corporation and members in the case of a union or other interest group.

As of January 2009, there were 1,598 registered corporate PACs, 272 related to labor unions and 995 to trade organizations. 

Non-connected PACs:

Groups with an ideological mission, single-issue groups, and members of Congress and other political leaders may form "non-connected PACs". These organizations may accept funds from any individual, connected PAC, or organization. As of January 2009, there were 1,594 non-connected PACs, the fastest-growing category.

Leadership PACs:

Elected officials and political parties cannot give more than the federal limit directly to candidates. However, they can set up a Leadership PAC that makes independent expenditures. Provided the expenditure is not coordinated with the other candidate, this type of spending is not limited.

Under the FEC (Federal Election Commission) rules, leadership PACs are non-connected PACs, and can accept donations from individuals and other PACs. Since current officeholders have an easier time attracting contributions, Leadership PACs are a way dominant parties can capture seats from other parties.

A leadership PAC sponsored by an elected official cannot use funds to support that official's own campaign. However, it may fund travel, administrative expenses, consultants, polling, and other non-campaign expenses.

Between 2008 and 2009, leadership PACs raised and spent more than $47 million.
Controversial use of leadership PACs:
  • Former Rep. John Doolittle's (R) leadership PAC paid 15% to a firm that only employed his wife. Payouts to his wife's firm were $68,630 in 2003 and 2004, and $224,000 in 2005 and 2006. The Doolittle home was raided in 2007. After years of investigation, the Justice Department dropped the case with no charges in June 2010.
  • One Leadership PAC purchased $2,139 in gifts from Bose Corporation.
  • Former Rep. Richard Pombo (R) used his leadership PAC to pay hotel bills ($22,896) and buy baseball tickets ($320) for donors.Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D) leadership PAC, Team Majority, was fined $21,000 by federal election officials "for improperly accepting donations over federal limits."

Super PACs:

Super PACs, officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees", may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns. Unlike traditional PACs, they can raise funds from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size.

Super PACs were made possible by two judicial decisions: the aforementioned Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and, two months later, Speechnow.org v. FEC.

In Speechnow.org, the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that PACs that did not make contributions to candidates, parties, or other PACs could accept unlimited contributions from individuals, unions, and corporations (both for profit and not-for-profit) for the purpose of making independent expenditures.

The result of the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org decisions was the rise of a new type of political action committee in 2010, popularly dubbed the "super PAC". In an open meeting on July 22, 2010, the FEC approved two Advisory Opinions to modify FEC policy in accordance with the legal decisions.

These Advisory Opinions were issued in response to requests from two existing PACs, Club for Growth, and Commonsense Ten, which later became Senate Majority PAC. The opinions gave a sample wording letter which all Super PACs must submit to qualify for the deregulated status, and such letters continue to be used by Super PACs up to the present date.

FEC Chairman Steven T. Walther dissented on both opinions and issued a statement giving his thoughts. In the statement, Walther stated "There are provisions of the Act and Commission regulations not addressed by the court in SpeechNow that continue to prohibit Commonsense Ten from soliciting or accepting contributions from political committees in excess of $5,000 annually or any contributions from corporations or labor organizations." (emphasis in original)

The term "Super PAC" was coined by reporter Eliza Newlin Carney. According to Politico, Carney, a staff writer covering lobbying and influence for CQ Roll Call, "made the first identifiable, published reference to 'super PAC' as it’s known today while working at National Journal, writing on June 26, 2010, of a group called Workers’ Voices, that it was a kind of '"super PAC" that could become increasingly popular in the post-Citizens United world.'"

​According to FEC advisories, Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties. This restriction is intended to prevent them from operating campaigns that complement or parallel those of the candidates they support or engaging in negotiations that could result in quid pro quo bargaining between donors to the PAC and the candidate or officeholder.

However, it is legal for candidates and Super PAC managers to discuss campaign strategy and tactics through the media.

2008 Election:

In the 2008 election, the top nine PACs spent a total of $25,794,807 (directly, and via their affiliates and subsidiaries) as follows:
  1. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC $3,344,650
  2. AT&T Federal PAC $3,108,200
  3. American Bankers Association (BANK PAC) $2,918,140
  4. National Beer Wholesalers Association PAC $2,869,000
  5. Dealers Election Action Committee of the National Automobile Dealers Association $2,860,000
  6. International Association of Fire Fighters $2,734,900
  7. International Union of Operating Engineers PAC $2,704,067
  8. American Association for Justice PAC $2,700,500
  9. Laborers' International Union of North America PAC $2,555,350

​2012 presidential election:

Super PACs may support particular candidacies. In the 2012 presidential election, Super PACs played a major role, spending more than the candidates' election campaigns in the Republican primaries.

As of early April 2012, Restore Our Future—a Super PAC usually described as having been created to help Mitt Romney's presidential campaign—had spent $40 million. Winning Our Future (a pro–Newt Gingrich group) spent $16 million. Some Super PACs are run or advised by a candidate's former staff or associates.

In the 2012 election campaign, most of the money given to super PACs came from wealthy individuals, not corporations. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the top 100 individual super PAC donors in 2011–2012 made up just 3.7% of contributors, but accounted for more than 80% of the total money raised, while less than 0.5% of the money given to "the most active Super PACs" was donated by publicly traded corporations.

Super PACs have been criticized for relying heavily on negative ads.

As of February 2012, according to Center for Responsive Politics, 313 groups organized as Super PACs had received $98,650,993 and spent $46,191,479. This means early in the 2012 election cycle, PACs had already greatly exceeded total receipts of 2008. The leading Super PAC on its own raised more money than the combined total spent by the top 9 PACS in the 2008 cycle.

The 2012 figures do not include funds raised by state level PACs.

2016 presidential election:

Disclosure rules: By January 2010, at least 38 states and the federal government required disclosure for all or some independent expenditures or electioneering communications. These disclosures were intended to deter potentially or seemingly corrupting donations.

Yet despite disclosure rules, it is possible to spend money without voters knowing the identities of donors before the election. In federal elections, for example, political action committees have the option to choose to file reports on a "monthly" or "quarterly" basis. This allows funds raised by PACs in the final days of the election to be spent and votes cast before the report is due.

In one high-profile case, a donor to a super PAC kept his name hidden by using an LLC formed for the purpose of hiding their personal name. One super PAC, that originally listed a $250,000 donation from an LLC that no one could find, led to a subsequent filing where the previously "secret donors" were revealed. However, campaign finance experts have argued that this tactic is already illegal, since it would constitute a contribution in the name of another.

See also:
​







The 2016 Presidential Election Campaign
YouTube Video of Donald Trump's Acceptance Speech
YouTube Video of Hillary Clinton's Concession Speech​
Pictured Below: the four presidential candidates running as Republican or Democrat based on political issues. (by Pinterest)

​​The United States presidential election of 2016 was the 58th quadrennial American presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.

In a surprise victory, the Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana Governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator from Virginia Tim Kaine.

Trump took office as the 45th President, and Pence as the 48th Vice President, on January 20, 2017. Incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment. Concurrent with the presidential election, Senate, House, and many gubernatorial and state and local elections were also held on November 8.

Voters selected members of the Electoral College in each state, in most cases by "winner-takes-all" plurality; those state electors in turn voted for a new president and vice president on December 19, 2016. 

While Clinton received about 2.9 million more votes nationwide, a margin of 2.1%, Trump won 30 states with a total of 306 electors, or 57% of the 538 available. He won the three perennial swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Iowa, as well as the three "blue wall" stronghold states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He also won Maine's 2nd congressional district, which had not been won by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Leading up to the election, a Trump victory was considered unlikely by almost all media forecasts.

After his victory was assured, some commentators compared the election to President Harry S. Truman's victorious campaign in 1948 as one of the greatest political upsets in modern American history.

In the Electoral College vote on December 19, seven electors voted against their pledged candidates: two against Trump and five against Clinton. A further three electors attempted to vote against Clinton but were replaced or forced to vote again. Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton garnered 227, while Colin Powell won three, and John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one.

Trump is the fifth person in U.S. history to become president while losing the nationwide popular vote. He is the first president without any prior experience in public service or the military, as well as the wealthiest and the oldest at inauguration, while Clinton was the first woman to be the presidential nominee of a major American party.

​On January 6, 2017, the United States government's intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections. 

A joint U.S. intelligence community review ordered by President Barack Obama stated with high confidence that "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." Investigations about potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials were started by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel in May 2017 by Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to oversee the ongoing investigation into links between Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government as part of the election interference and any related illegal acts. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized these intelligence claims, citing a lack of evidence and repeatedly calling the claims a "hoax" and "fake news".

Background:
​Further information: United States presidential election § Procedure.

​Article Two of the United States Constitution provides that the President and Vice President of the United States must be natural-born citizens of the United States, at least 35 years old, and residents of the United States for a period of at least 14 years.

Candidates for the presidency typically seek the nomination of one of the political parties, in which case each party devises a method (such as a primary election) to choose the candidate the party deems best suited to run for the position.

Traditionally, the primary elections are indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The party's delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the party's behalf. The general election in November is also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College; these electors in turn directly elect the President and Vice President.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat and former U.S. Senator from Illinois, was ineligible to seek reelection to a third term due to the restrictions of the Twenty-second Amendment; in accordance with Section I of the Twentieth Amendment, his term expired at noon on January 20, 2017.

Primary Process:

​The series of presidential primary elections and caucuses took place between February and June 2016, staggered among the 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. This nominating process was also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who in turn elected their party's presidential nominee.

Speculation about the 2016 campaign began almost immediately following the 2012 campaign, with New York magazine declaring the race had begun in an article published on November 8, two days after the 2012 election. On the same day, Politico released an article predicting the 2016 general election would be between Clinton and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, while a New York Times article named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey as potential candidates.

Click on any of the following blue  hyperlinks for more about the 2016 Presidential Elections:







VoteSmart and Factcheck.org: Two Non-Partisan Websites helping Voters to know more about their candidates before they vote.
YouTube Video: Vote Smart - "No Political Poo!"
YouTube Video: How to Spot Fake News - FactCheck.org

[Your Web Host: the following two non-partisan organizations are trusted sources for me as I perform due-diligence on the candidates prior to any general election.]

Click here for accessing the official Vote Smart Website.

Vote Smart, formerly called Project Vote Smart (PVS), is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in six basic areas:
  1. background information,
  2. issue positions (via the Political Courage Test),
  3. voting records, 
  4. campaign finances, 
  5. interest group ratings,
  6. and speeches and public statements.

This information is distributed via their web site, a toll-free phone number, and print publications.

The president of the organization since its founding is Richard Kimball.

PVS also provides records of public statements, contact information for state and local election offices, polling place and absentee ballot information, ballot measure descriptions for each state (where applicable), links to federal and state government agencies, and links to political parties and issue organizations.

​In 1986, Richard Kimball ran unsuccessfully for one of Arizona's two U.S. Senate seats. In a candidates' debate, he described the campaign process to prospective voters: "Understand what we do to you. We spend all of our time raising money, often from strangers we do not even know. Then we spend it in three specific ways: First we measure you, what it is you want to purchase in the political marketplace — just like Campbell's soup or Kellogg's cereal. Next, we hire some consultants who know how to tailor our image to fit what we sell. Lastly, we bombard you with the meaningless, issueless, emotional nonsense that is always the result. And whichever one of us does that best will win."

Kimball used this philosophy to found Vote Smart in 1992. His founding board included:
Originally based at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, PVS established its headquarters and research center in 1999 at the Great Divide Ranch near Philipsburg, Montana.

In 2006, Vote Smart added a branch at The University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Coincident with this move, Vote Smart gave its president Richard Kimball a pay increase which was criticized by some alumni and which contributed to a reduction in its Charity Navigator score.

In December 2010, the Tucson office was closed in preparation for two new satellite research offices. The reason for the closure of the Tucson branch was also related to the university's budget cuts, which eliminated the Vote Smart's "rent-free space at a 1,500- square-foot house off the main campus."

In January 2011, Vote Smart moved its Key Votes Department and Political Courage Test Department to facilities offered by both the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Southern California. Vote Smart has since left the University of Southern California and moved its Political Courage Department to its Montana research center.

In March 2014, Vote Smart laid off six employees, citing financial difficulties. A seventh employee quit because of the sudden layoffs.

In August 2016, Vote Smart announced that it would be selling its 150-acre ranch near Philipsburg, Montana, and relocating its headquarters after the November 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kimball said the ranch's secluded location, which housed 40 interns, had caused issues: “We have all the problems a university does with the experimental, adventurous, hormonal torrent that is the young.

Only in the wilderness such things can become dangerous. Love was requited and denied, marriages were created, fights ensued, drinkers crashed, injuries of every sort, hospital trips too numerous to recall, some to sustain life, and distressingly, three deaths." Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa was later announced as the new headquarters.

Vote Smart says that it does not accept contributions from corporations, labor unions, political parties, or other organizations that lobby, support or oppose candidates or issues.

Donors to the organization have included:
Individual contributors are considered members, and are given the opportunity to visit their headquarters at the Great Divide Ranch where they work as research volunteers alongside interns and staff.

The Political Courage Test: (formerly the National Political Awareness Test, NPAT) is an American initiative intended to increase transparency in American politics.

It is part of the voter education organization Vote Smart's candidate information program. With a view towards elections, the test seeks to obtain answers from election candidates, describing their respective stances on a variety of popular issues in American politics. This information is then made available to voters in a selection-driven, standardized format.

In 2008, Project Vote Smart kicked John McCain off of the organization's board due to his refusal to fill out the Political Courage Test.

The response to the Political Courage Test has dropped, from 72% in 1996 to 48% in 2008, because politicians from both parties are afraid that challengers will use their responses out of context in attack ads, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Rep. Anne Gannon, Democratic leader pro tempore of the Florida House of Representatives, stated: "We tell our candidates not to do it. It sets them up for a hit piece." In response, Vote Smart has tried to shame politicians into it, and lets them leave up to 30% of answers blank.

VoteEasy is "the interactive tool that enables voters to compare their position on various issues with that of a candidate." It was introduced by Vote Smart during the 2010 election season.

Following its launch, VoteEasy was a topic of interest among several national news organizations including CBS News, The New York Times, and the Christian Science Monitor.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Click here for the official website for FactCheck.org.

FactCheck.org is a nonprofit non-partisan website that describes itself as a "consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics". It is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and is funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation.

FactCheck.org has won four Webby Awards in the Politics category, in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Most of its content consists of rebuttals to what it considers inaccurate, misleading, or false claims made by politicians. FactCheck.org has also targeted misleading claims from various partisan groups. Other features include:
  • Ask FactCheck: users can ask questions that are usually based on an online rumor.
  • Viral Spiral: a page dedicated to the most popular online myths that the site has debunked. It clarifies the answer as well as links readers to a full article on the subject.
  • Party Lines: talking points that have been repeatedly used by multiple members of a political party.
  • Mailbag: page for readers' sent letters and praise or disapproval of something said on the site.

FactCheck.org was launched in December 2003 by Brooks Jackson, a former Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, and CNN reporter who had covered Washington and national politics since 1970.

As a special assignment correspondent at CNN during the 1992 political campaign season, Jackson became well known for his “Ad Police” reports, which monitored candidates' advertising and financing strategies throughout the campaign.

​In 2003, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center approached Jackson about forming FactCheck.org, and the site was online in December of that year.

In 2007, UnSpun was published. This book was co-written by Brooks Jackson, the Director Emeritus of Factcheck.org and by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. It teaches readers how to be aware of the deceptions, or "spin", that is commonly used in media and by politicians.

In January 2013, Jackson stepped down as director of FactCheck.org. He now holds the title of Director Emeritus. Eugene Kiely, a former reporter and editor at The Record (of Hackensack, New Jersey), The Philadelphia Inquirer and USA Today, is now the site’s director. FactCheck.org employs a staff of four full-time journalists: Kiely, D’Angelo Gore, Robert Farley and Lori Robertson; and offers yearly fellowships to undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania.

Topic in the 2004 Vice-presidential debate:

FactCheck.org became a focus of political commentary following the 2004 vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. Cheney cited the website, claiming that the independent site defended his actions while CEO of Halliburton. Cheney's claim was disputed by FactCheck.org as wrong, saying that "Edwards was mostly right" when talking about "Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles".

​Cheney's reference created some controversy because he incorrectly cited the web site's address as "FactCheck.com." At the time of the debate, factcheck.com was controlled by Frank Schilling's company Name Administration Inc., who quickly redirected the address to point to an anti-Bush website owned by Bush critic George Soros.

Topic in the 2012 Presidential Election:

FactCheck.org also became a focus of national attention in the summer of 2012, during the presidential race between incumbent Democrat Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney. The Obama campaign ran a TV ad accusing Romney of involvement in the outsourcing of American jobs overseas by Bain Capital, the venture capital firm that he had founded in 1984.

FactCheck.org ruled this ad to be false, claiming that the acts of outsourcing occurred after Romney had left the company to head the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In response, the Obama campaign contested FactCheck.org’s ruling in a six-page letter that was distributed to major news corporations, holding that Romney still retained responsibility for the company’s actions.

2016 Presidential Election:

Since November 2014, FactCheck.org has published twenty-eight pages of articles checking the facts on the many 2016 presidential candidates. As of April 2016, the five remaining candidates had dedicated archives to their fact-checked claims.


Awards and recognition:

The site has gained recognition and won numerous awards for its contributions to political journalism. In 2006, Time magazine named FactCheck.org one of the "25 Sites We Can't Live Without." 

In 2008, PC Magazine called it one of the "20 Best Political Websites." Between 2008 and 2012, the site won four Webby Awards in the Politics category, in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012; as well as four People’s Voice Awards in Politics, in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012.

FactCheck.org also won a 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for reporting on deceptive claims made about the federal health care legislation.

See also:







Publicly Funded Elections in the United States
YouTube Video: President Obama on Citizens United Ruling
Pictured Below: "Never Mind Super PACs: How Big Business Is Buying the Election" (The Nation Sept. 17, 2012)

[Your Web Host: for the vast majority of Americans, private campaign financing benefits only the rich and powerful Americans (and their corporate holdings), who through misrepresenting themselves as having "conservative values", can maintain control of our government, in effect a form of plutocratic, not democratic, government: "by the Rich, for the Rich". IMHO, the only solution is to take money out of politics through public campaign finance reform.]

Publicly funded elections are designed to reduce corruption by funding elections with federal tax revenue or income tax donations as opposed to corporate campaign contributions or individuals with disproportionate wealth. The purpose is to remove undue monetary influence on politicians. It is an attempt to move toward one person one vote in a democracy.

In the United States, methods of publicly funded election legislation have been adopted in the following states:
  • Maine, 
  • Connecticut, 
  • Florida, 
  • Hawaii, 
  • Maryland, 
  • Michigan, 
  • Arizona, 
  • North Carolina, 
  • New Mexico, 
  • Wisconsin, 
  • Minnesota, 
  • Rhode Island, 
  • Vermont, 
  • West Virginia,
  • and Massachusetts.

In addition, public funding of elections have been incorporated at the municipal level in several cities. 

Wisconsin's 33 year old program was defunded by the state legislature in 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and the legislature's joint finance committee. California recently overturned its ban on publicly funded elections, but charter cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles were already exempt from the ban and already have some form of public financing.

Some of these laws have run into constitutional problems in the courts. When the Citizens United v. FEC decision defined money as a form of speech, the ability to limit campaign spending and publicly finance campaigns in cities and states came into question.

Some portions (such as state supplemental funds for publicly financed candidates whose opponents outspend them) of the Vermont system were found newly unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Randall v. Sorrell., but the core program of full funding of governor and lieutenant governor candidates remains in place.

Portions of Connecticut's statute were held unconstitutional in 2009, on the grounds that it unfairly discriminated against third party and independent candidates, but the core program of full funding of constitutional and legislative candidates remains in place. In July 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld portions of the District court's order but allowed the core program to continue.

On June 27, 2011, ruling in the consolidated cases Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett and McComish v. Bennett, the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional the matching-funds provision of the Arizona law.

The decision cast doubt on the new constitutionality of similar provisions in Maine, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. As a result, the Wisconsin legislature eliminated funding for its judicial elections in 2011.

Additionally, voters have not supported publicly funded elections in several referendums. In Massachusetts the system was repealed after a 2002 advisory initiative in which voters voted nearly 2 to 1 against using government funds to pay for political campaigns. 

Portland, Oregon's program was narrowly repealed by voters in a 2010 referendum.

In 2008, a Clean Elections bill, the California Fair Elections Act (AB583) passed the California Assembly and Senate and was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Because of the ban on publicly funded elections, the law had to be approved by voters in an initiative in June 2010.

On June 8, 2010, California voters defeated the measure by 57% to 43%. An earlier Clean Elections ballot initiative, Proposition 89 was also defeated in California in 2006, by 74% against to 26% in favor of a corporate tax to fund elections.

A Clean Elections ballot initiative in Alaska failed by a 64% to 35% margin in August 2008.

In 2013, North Carolina repealed its popular "Voter Owned Elections" program of public financing of judicial campaigns with 900 people arrested at the Moral Monday protests in Raleigh.

Comprehensive public funding systems have been in effect in Arizona and Maine since 2000.

In Maine, since enactment, approximately three quarters of state legislators have run their campaigns with government funds provided by the state program. 

In Arizona, a majority of the state house and both the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor ran publicly financed campaigns in 2006.

There has not yet been a statewide election in Maine in which both the Republican and Democratic candidates were financed through the public financing system.

"Clean Elections": Differences from traditional reforms:

​"Clean Elections" is the name supporters have given to some public financing efforts, used most prominently in Maine and Arizona.

Some Clean Elections laws provide a government grant to candidates who agree to limit their spending and private fundraising. Candidates participating in a Clean Elections system are required to meet certain qualification criteria, which usually includes collecting a number of signatures and small contributions (generally determined by statute and set at $5 in both Maine and Arizona) before the candidate can receive public support. In most Clean Elections programs, these qualifying contributions must be given by constituents.

To receive the government campaign grant, "Clean Candidates" must agree to forgo all other fundraising and accept no other private or personal funds. Candidates who choose not to participate are subject to limits on their fundraising, typically in the form of limits on the size of contributions they may accept and the sources of those contributions (such as limits on corporate or union contributions), and detailed reporting requirements.

In the US, in order to comply with Buckley v. Valeo, participation by candidates is not legally required. Originally, many Clean Elections programs provided that publicly financed candidates who were outspent by a privately funded candidate could receive additional funds (sometimes called "rescue funds") to match their privately funded opponent, up to a cap, with the intent of assuring that a candidate running with private funding would not outspend his government funded opponent.

​However, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, the U.S. Supreme Court held that such "rescue fund" provisions unconstitutionally burdened the rights of speakers by intentionally limiting the effectiveness of their own speech. Thus since Bennett clean elections systems in the U.S. have been forced to abandon the "rescue funds" approach.

Effectiveness:
​
A 2003 study by the federal government's nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), requested by Congress as part of the McCain–Feingold campaign finance law passed in 2002, found that the Clean Elections system had failed to produce measurable benefits in the two election cycles run under the system in both Maine and Arizona. The average number of candidates per district, percentage of contested races, incumbency rates, incumbency victory margins, perceptions of interest group influence among candidates and citizens, and voter participation did not change notably.

Campaign spending decreased in Maine but increased in Arizona and independent expenditures increased in both states. 60% of Maine and 37% of Arizona voters were unaware of the public financing program. The study concluded that "with ... only one election from which to observe most statewide races, it is too early to draw causal linkages".

A 2006 study of the 2004 and 2002 campaigns by conservative political scientists Mayer, Werner, and Williams of the University of Wisconsin—Madison argued that the GAO "understate[d] the reforms' impact, in part by making some unusual methodological choices and jettisoning valuable data." They found that the candidate pool and competitiveness increased significantly, while the incumbency rate dropped significantly.

A 2007 update, however, found that in the 2006 campaign competitiveness continued to increase slightly but reelection rates "returned to pre-reform levels". The number of at least nominally contested races also continued to increase, reaching 100% in Maine. Mayer, Werner and Williams also found that women were much more likely than men to accept public funding but this had no effect on the gender composition of the legislature.

The GAO updated its study in 2010, noting that the number of candidates participating and the number of elections conducted under the system provided a stronger base for evaluating the programs. The report concluded, "While there was some evidence of statistically significant changes in one of the five goals of Maine's and Arizona's public financing programs, we could not directly attribute these changes to the programs, nor did we find significant changes in the remaining four goals after program implementation.

Specifically, there were statistically significant decreases in one measure of electoral competition – the winner's margin of victory – in legislative races in both states. However, GAO could not directly attribute these decreases to the programs due to other factors, such as the popularity of candidates, which affect electoral outcomes. We found no change in two other measures of competition, and there were no observed changes in voter choice – the average number of legislative candidates per district race.

In Maine, decreases in average candidate spending in House races were statistically significant, but a state official said this was likely due to reductions in the amounts given to participating candidates in 2008, while average spending in Maine Senate races did not change. In Arizona, average spending has increased in the five elections under the program.

There is no indication the programs decreased perceived interest group influence."

A study by the non-partisan, privately funded Clean Elections Institute (which publicly supports Clean Elections) found that the number and geographic, economic, and ethnic diversity of campaign contributors increased significantly, with contributors almost quadrupling, contributions from people with incomes below $40,000 increasing by 40% and contributions from Latinos increasing significantly.

A 2008 study by the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Competitive Politics (which publicly opposes Clean Elections) concluded that the process of gathering small contributions needed to qualify for public funding still relied heavily on interest groups.

Another 2008 study by the Center for Competitive Politics of Clean Elections programs in Maine and Arizona found that neither state had seen a decline in legislators with “traditional” [law and business] backgrounds in the eight years since the campaign laws were first implemented.

Other studies conducted by the Center for Competitive Politics found that the programs in Maine, Arizona, and New Jersey had failed to accomplish other stated goals, including electing more women, reducing government spending (in fact in both states government spending grew more rapidly after the enactment of clean elections), or meeting most other stated objectives, including increasing competition or voter participation.

A 2006 study by the non-partisan, libertarian-leaning Goldwater Institute found that "incumbency rates have remained near 100% [while] the number of candidates fell substantially ... from 247 to 195. Moreover, the law has not increased minor or third-party participation in politics, and Arizona campaigns remain every bit as hard-edged."

However, according to the Clean Elections Institute, the number of legislative candidates increased from 135 in 1998, the last year before Clean Elections, to 188 in 2004, as reported in the Goldwater study—a 40% increase. In 2006 there were 204 legislative candidates, a 51% increase over the pre-Clean Elections numbers.

In 2008, a study released by the non-partisan, non-profit organization Public Campaign, examined the demographic profile of $5 qualifying contribution donors in Clean Elections gubernatorial campaigns in Arizona over the course of the 2002 and 2006 elections, comparing and contrasting them with contributions raised by candidates running with funding from private sources — more than 67,000 contributions in all.

The data were analyzed by zip code alongside U.S. Census data to determine the racial, ethnic, geographic, and economic characteristics of donors. The study, titled All Over The Map, found that Arizona’s qualifying contribution donors are more diverse racially, ethnically, economically, and geographically than donors giving to candidates who choose to rely on private fundraising.

In nearly every category, Clean Elections $5 donors were more representative of the state's population than were donors to privately funded campaigns. However, the study has been criticized because it compares donors to Clean Elections only to donors of $200 or more to federal campaigns - in other words, it compared $5 donors under clean elections to $200 donors in federal races, rather than comparing the common universe of all donors, or donors at the same levels of contributions. Federal candidates are not required to report names and addresses of contributors of less than $200 to federal candidates thus the information is not made public.

U.S. Supporters:
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In the US, SB 752, the Fair Elections Now Act, calling for publicly funded elections in U.S. Senate campaigns, was sponsored in the 111th Congress (2009–10) by Senators: Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (D-PA). A companion bill, H.R. 1826, was introduced in the House, sponsored by John Larson (D-CT), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), and Walter Jones (R-NC).

Unlike the Clean Elections laws in Maine and Arizona, H.R. 1826 did not include the "rescue funds" provision, perhaps due to concern about constitutionality in the wake of the Davis decision. Neither bill moved out of Committee.

Others who have endorsed clean elections include:
  • Elizabeth Warren Massachusetts senator a leading figure of the democratic party
  • Gavin Newsom Lt. Governor of California
  • Barack Obama as an Illinois senator was the first co-sponsor of the 2007 version of the Durbin–Specter bill. (Obama chose not to participate in the public financing system in 2008)
  • Bernie Sanders (I-VT), current U.S. Senator and 2016 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate 
  • John Bonifaz, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute
  • Bill Bradley (D-NJ), former U.S. Senator
  • John Edwards (D-NC), former 2008 U.S. Democratic Presidential Candidate and Senator
  • Adonal Foyle, NBA player, and founder of Democracy Matters
  • Cecil Heftel (D-HI), former U.S. Representative
  • Ned Lamont (D-CT), former U.S. Senate candidate
  • John McCain (R-AZ), former 2008 U.S. Republican Presidential Candidate and Senator (McCain has also expressed opposition to a national version of the system and has not endorsed or co-sponsored the bills introduced in the U.S. Senate.)
  • Ralph Nader of Connecticut, U.S. Independent Presidential Candidate
  • Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), former Governor, former Secretary of Homeland Security
  • Bill Richardson (D-NM), former 2008 U.S. Democratic Presidential Candidate and Governor
  • Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), former Governor

See also:







Dark Money in Political Campaigns
YouTube Video The Koch Brothers' "Dark Money"
YouTube Video: Charles Koch on the millions spent on politics, influence
(Koch Brothers)​
Pictured Below:
Top: "​Why You Should Care About Dark Money in Politics";
Bottom:  "At Least 1 in 4 Dark Money Dollars in 2012 Had Koch Links"

In the politics of the United States, dark money is funds given to nonprofit organizations—and include 501(c)(4) (social welfare) 501(c)(5) (unions) and 501(c)(6) (trade association) groups—that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals, and unions, and spend funds to influence elections, but are not required to disclose their donors.

Dark money first entered politics with Buckley v. Valeo (1976) when the United States Supreme Court laid out Eight Magic Words that define the difference between electioneering and issue advocacy.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, "spending by organizations that do not disclose their donors has increased from less than $5.2 million in 2006 to well over $300 million in the 2012 presidential cycle and more than $174 million in the 2014 midterms." 

The New York Times editorial board has opined that the 2014 midterm elections were influenced by "the greatest wave of secret, special-interest money ever raised in a congressional election."

The term "Dark Money" was first used by the Sunlight Foundation to describe undisclosed funds that were used during the United States 2010 mid-term election. Its practical effect has been described by Donald Trump as Congress "being under the magical spell of the donors.

In some elections, dark money groups have surpassed traditional political action committees (PAC) and "super PACs" (independent-expenditure-only committees) in the volume of spending. 

In 2014, the group Freedom Partners was identified as the "poster child" for the rise of dark money. In 2012, Freedom Partners had the ninth-highest revenues among all U.S. trade associations which filed tax returns that year, more than "established heavyweights" such as the American Petroleum Institute, PhRMA, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Freedom Partners largely acted as a conduit for campaign spending; of the $238 million it spent in 2012, 99 percent went to other groups, and Freedom Partners itself did not have any employees. This was a major distinction between other high-revenue trade associations, which typically have many employees and devote only about 6 percent of spending to grants to outside groups.

The largest and most complex network of dark money groups are funded by conservative billionaire business magnates Charles and David Koch; the Koch brothers' network accounted for about a quarter of dark money spending in 2012.

The rise of dark money groups was aided by the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2008) and Citizens United v. FEC (2010). In Citizens United, the Court ruled (by a 5–4 vote) that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against political candidates.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more Dark Money in U.S. Politics:







​​Government of the United States including both the Federal Government and the individual State Governments as well as their Local Governments
YouTube Video History in Five: Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation* 
​* --Courtesy of  Simon & Schuster
Pictured Below: Political system of the United States

The United States is a federal republic in which the President of the United States, United States Congress, and United States federal courts share powers reserved to the national government. At the same time, the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.

The executive branch is headed by the President and is formally independent of both the legislature and the judiciary. The cabinet serves as advisers to the President. They include the Vice President and heads of the executive departments.

Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The judicial branch (or judiciary), composed of the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, exercises judicial power (or judiciary). The judiciary's function is to interpret the United States Constitution and federal laws and regulations. This includes resolving disputes between the executive and legislative branches. The federal government's layout is explained in the Constitution.

Two political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have dominated American politics since the American Civil War, although there are also smaller parties like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party.
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There are major differences between the political system of the United States and that of most other developed democracies. These include greater power in the upper house of the legislature, a wider scope of power held by the Supreme Court, the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive, and the dominance of only two main parties.

Third parties have less political influence in the United States than in other developed country democracies; this is because of a combination of stringent historic controls. These controls take shape in the form of state and federal laws, informal media prohibitions, and winner-take-all elections, and include ballot access issues and exclusive debate rules.

This multiplicity of jurisdictions reflects the country's history. The federal government was created by the states, which as colonies were established separately and governed themselves independently of the others. Units of local government were created by the colonies to efficiently carry out various state functions. As the country expanded, it admitted new states modeled on the existing ones.

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The Federal Government:

​The government of the United States of America is the federal government of the republic of fifty states that constitute the United States, as well as one capital district, and several other territories.

The federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, respectively. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of Congress, including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the Supreme Court.

Click on any of the following Hyperlinks for amplification: ________________________________________________________

State Governments:

State governments of the United States include the governments of the original 13 states and the governments of the remaining 37 which were admitted to the United States as authorized under Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution of the United States.

While state governments within the United States may enact their own laws and prosecute crimes pursuant thereto, they are not sovereign in the Westphalian sense in international law*. 

*-- In that latter which says that each State has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another State's domestic affairs, and that each State (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law. 

Additionally, the member states of the United States do not possess international legal sovereignty, meaning that they are not recognized by other sovereign States such as, for example, France, Germany or the United Kingdom, nor do they possess full interdependence sovereignty.

The idea of "dual sovereignty" or "separate sovereigns" is derived from the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Structured in accordance with state law (including state constitutions and state statutes), state governments share the same structural model as the federal system, with three branches of government--executive, legislative, and judicial.

The governments of the 13 colonies that formed the original union under the Constitution trace their history back to the royal charters which established them during the era of colonialism.

Most of the other states admitted to the union after the original 13 have been formed within territories of the United States (that is, land under the sovereignty of the federal government but not part of any state) that were organized by an act or resolution of the United States Congress, subject to the Congress' plenary powers under the territorial clause of Article IV, sec. 3, of the U.S. Constitution. Notable exceptions are Texas, California and Hawaii, which were sovereign nations before joining the union.

Click on any of the following for amplification about State Governments:

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Local government in the United States:

Local government in the United States refers to governmental jurisdictions below the level of the state. Most states have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities.

In some states, counties are divided into townships. There are several different types of jurisdictions at the municipal level, including the city, town, borough, and village. The types and nature of these municipal entities varies from state to state.

Many rural areas and even some suburban areas of many states have no municipal government below the county level. In other places consolidated city–county jurisdictions exist, in which city and county functions are managed by a single municipal government. In some New England states, towns are the primary unit of local government and counties have no governmental function but exist in a purely perfunctory capacity (e.g. for census data).

In addition to general purpose local governments, there may be local or regional special-purpose local governments, such as school districts and districts for fire protection, sanitary sewer service, public transportation, public libraries, or water resource management. Such special purpose districts often encompass areas in multiple municipalities. As of 2012, using the Census Bureau's definition, there were 89,055 local government units in the United States.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification:







​Political Parties in the United States, including a List
YouTube Video: President-Elect Barack H. Obama Takes The Oath Of Office
Pictured: Symbols for LEFT: The Democratic Party; RIGHT: The Republican Party

Click here for a List of Political Parties in the United States.

The political parties in the United States are the political parties in American politics that are mostly dominated by a two-party system. However, the United States Constitution has always been silent on the issue of political parties; at the time it was signed in 1787, there were no parties in the nation.

Indeed, no nation in the world had voter-based political parties. The need to win popular support in a republic led to the American invention of voter-based political parties in the 1790s. 

Americans were especially innovative in devising new campaign techniques that linked public opinion with public policy through the party.

Political scientists and historians have divided the development of America's two-party system into five eras. The first two-party system consisted of the Federalist Party, who supported the ratification of the Constitution, and the Democratic-Republican Party or the Anti-Federalists, who opposed the powerful central government, among others, that the Constitution established when it took effect in 1789. 

The modern two-party system consists of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

Several third parties also operate in the U.S., and from time to time elect someone to local office. The largest third party since the 1980s is the Libertarian Party.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for amplification:









Democracy Index for all Countries
YouTube Video: Threats to democracy in the Trump era by the Brookings Institution
Pictured below: The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index map for 2017. Bluer colors represent more democratic countries as reported by the company courtesy of Goemon - Own work, derived from File:BlankMap-World-Microstates.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the UK-based company the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) that intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 165 are UN member states.

The index was first produced in 2006, with updates for 2008, 2010 and the following years since then. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture.

In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorises countries as one of four regime types: 
  1. full democracies, 
  2. flawed democracies, 
  3. hybrid regimes 
  4. and authoritarian regimes.

Method:

As described in the report, the democracy index is a weighted average based on the answers of 60 questions, each one with either two or three permitted alternative answers.

Most answers are "experts' assessments"; the report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts.

Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.

The questions are distributed in the five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Each answer is translated to a mark, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer alternative questions, 0.5.

With the exceptions mentioned below, the sums are added within each category, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures.

In a few cases, an answer yielding zero for one question voids another question; e.g., if the elections for the national legislature and head of government are not considered free (question 1), then the next question, "Are elections... fair?" is not considered, but automatically marked zero.

Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely:
  1. "Whether national elections are free and fair";
  2. "The security of voters";
  3. "The influence of foreign powers on government";
  4. "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".

The five category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the Democracy Index for a given country. Finally, the Democracy Index, rounded to two decimals, decides the regime type classification of the country.

The report discusses other indices of democracy, as defined e.g. by Freedom House, and argues for some of the choices made by the team from the Economist Intelligence Unit. In this comparison, a higher emphasis has been put on the public opinion and attitudes, as measured by surveys, but on the other hand, economic living standard has not been weighted as one criterion of democracy (as seemingly some other investigators have done).
​
The report is widely cited in the international press as well as in peer reviewed academic journals.

Classification Definitions:

​Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and basic political freedoms are not only respected, but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and media that is diverse and independent. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.
​
Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honored but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement). Nonetheless, these nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Hybrid regimes are nations where consequential irregularities exist in elections regularly preventing them from being fair and free. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opponents, non independent judiciaries, and have widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Authoritarian regimes are nations where political pluralism has vanished or is extremely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meager significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair and free, the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and they are characterised by the presence of omnipresent censorship and suppression of governmental criticism.

Recent Changes:

In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been experiencing a persistent downward trend, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016.

The report states that this was not due only to the election of Donald Trump, but was caused by other factors as well — dating back to the late 1960s — that led to his election.

The 2017 Democracy index registered the worst year for global democracy since 2010–11 in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis. 89 countries experienced a decline in their total score compared with 2016, more than three times as many as the countries that recorded an improvement.

Asia was the worst performing region overall, while Venezuela was downgraded from a "hybrid regime" to an "authoritarian regime" and Armenia was upgraded from an "authoritarian regime" to a "hybrid regime".

Australia (ranked 8th) and Taiwan (ranked 33rd) both legalized gay marriage in 2017.

In China, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, further entrenched his power by writing his theoretical contribution to the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology, dubbed “Xi Jinping Thought”, into the party’s constitution.

Moldova was downgraded from a “flawed democracy” to a “hybrid regime” as a result of problematic elections. By contrast, Armenia moved from the authoritarian category to a “hybrid regime” as a result of constitutional changes that shifted power from the presidency to parliament.

Click on any of the following blue hyprlinks for more about the Democracy Index:





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Federal Judicial Branch: Supreme Court, including: YouTube Video: Stephen Works Out with Ruth Bader Ginsberg*
*  -- The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Pictured below: The Roberts Court (April 2017–July 2018):
Click here for a List of Supreme Court Justices by Time in Office.

The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS) is the highest federal court of the United States.

Established pursuant to Article Three of the United States Constitution in 1789, it has ultimate (and largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal courts and state court cases, involving issues of federal law plus original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.

In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is generally the final interpreter of federal law including the United States Constitution, but it may act only within the context of a case in which it has jurisdiction. The Court may decide cases having political overtones, but does not have power to decide nonjusticiable political questions, and its enforcement arm is in the executive rather than judicial branch of government.

According to federal statute, the Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Once appointed, justices have lifetime tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed after impeachment.

In modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while a far greater number of cases in recent history have been decided unanimously, decisions in cases of the highest profile have often come down to just one single vote, thereby exposing the justices' ideological beliefs that track with those philosophical or political categories. The Court meets in the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Supreme Court of the United States:​​







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