repare a 300-400-word summary of Unit One summarizing what you learned from the

repare a 300-400-word summary of Unit One summarizing what you learned from the readings, lectures, Power Points, research, and discussion activities during the unit. Your summary will include a brief abstract of a “current event” that fits into the units discussions. The abstract should consist of approximately 100 words of your total summary, taken from a reputable online news source (a good suggestion is news.google.com) summarizing the news item for the class. Be sure to include the APA reference for the news source.
POLITICAL APPROACH TO STATES AND COMMUNITIES
Politics is concerned with managing conflict. The functions of state and local governments, from education and taxation to dealing with racial tensions, are political in nature and involve decisions as to how these problems need to be solved. Politics is an understanding of both the major conflicts confronting society and the political processes and governmental organizations designed to manage conflict.
THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STATES AND COMMUNITIES
Political scientists attempt to explain why differences emerge in state and local communities: what programs were enacted, who benefited, and how these programs will be implemented. In order to compare across states or local governments, it is necessary to undertake a comparative study to answer these questions. States are excellent “laboratories” for new and inventive public policies. States and communities have different sociodemographic characteristics and unique historical circumstances and political cultures that help explain public policy choices.
State Economic Development
Influential in explaining the direction of public policy in a given state, it includes the following three variables:
Population Growth
Population growth rates refer to “the percentage of population increase over a decade,” which is a good indicator of how governments must adjust to the changing circumstances and the public services that need to be provided (see “Rankings of the States: Population Size and Projected Growth Rate, 2010–2030”).
Income
Money that is received as a result of normal business activities of an individual or a business; for example, wages. Rising personal income shows increased worker productivity and the creation of wealth. Income is not distributed evenly across the states.
Education
Higher levels of educational attainment in a state provide for an economically developed society comprising an efficient workforce and increased volumes of research and development overall (see: “Rankings of the States: Income and Education”).
RACE AND ETHNICITY
Much of the variation in public policy and political decision making is largely due to the racial and ethnic composition of those states.
African Americans
In the United States, there are approximately 41 million blacks comprising 13 percent of the total population, with more than half living in the South. The internal migration of blacks to the urban North was one of the largest migrations in U.S. history. Blacks have been most successful in winning elected offices in the southern states.
Hispanics
Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States, growing in number and percentage. (The term Hispanic refers to persons of Spanish-speaking ancestry and culture, regardless of race, and includes Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Central and South Americans, and Puerto Ricans.) Hispanics are not politically monolithic and differ in their party affiliations and participation rates due to varied cultural backgrounds and length of residency in the United States (see: “Rankings of the States: Hispanic and African American Populations”).
Asians and Pacific Islanders
Just like Hispanics, Asians are not ethnically or politically monolithic. They comprise 5 percent of the nation’s total population. There are significant differences in both language and culture. Asians are a majority of the population in Hawaii, the only state with a “majority-minority” population.
Native Americans
In the United States there are over 562 Indian tribes and Alaska Native groups. They number nearly 4 million, or 1 percent of the U.S. population. Each tribe has its own culture, identity, and history. Almost half of the Native American population lives on semiautonomous reservations in states throughout the United States.
THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants—most arriving to fulfill the “American Dream” of economic prosperity or at least to pursue economic opportunities not afforded them in their homeland.
National Immigration Policy
The responsibility of immigration policy rests with the national government. Some immigrants reside as “lawful permanent residents” and others as political refugees seeking asylum in the United States for fear of persecution in their native country. Others
are here as illegal aliens, considered undocumented residents. The Simpson–Mazzoli Act of 1986 addressed the issue of illegal immigration and granted amnesty to those illegal aliens living in the United States since 1982.
Illegal Immigration
The unlawful entry of people from other nations into the United States has become a major political issue again in recent years because the United States has been unable and unwilling to secure its borders. After September 11, 2001, this issue has received intense scrutiny by both sides of the political aisle. Hispanics have been particularly concerned about any efforts to control illegal immigration and fear the possible discrimination against all Hispanics as a result of reform.
DREAM Act
Congress considered but failed to pass the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act in 2010. The DREAM Act would offer permanent residency to undocumented aliens who came into the United States as minors, are under the age of 30, have lived in the country continuously for five years, and are either studying in a college or serving honorably in the military.
President Barack Obama announced that his administration would not deport young undocumented aliens who matched the DREAM Act’s requirements. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) now accepts application under this Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Immigration and Federalism
Some states are more directly affected by illegal immigration than others, especially those states along the Mexican border and states with major urban centers. Because the federal government has not been successful in establishing a policy that curbs illegal immigration, many states have resorted to enacting reforms of their own. Some more liberal cities have declared themselves “sanctuary cities” where federal immigration laws are not enforced.
Conflict over Immigration Reform
Beginning during George W. Bush’s and continuing with Obama’s administration, Washington has struggled with comprehensive immigration reform. The conversations centered on strengthening border enforcement and constructing additional fencing along the border with Mexico, granting legal status to undocumented immigrants in the United States, providing a path to citizenship complete with background checks, fines and fees, and English language training, establishing a temporary guest-worker program, and shifting the criteria for legal immigration from family-based preferences to skills and education. Consensus has not been achieved on these divisive issues.
LISM AND CONSERVATISM IN THE STATES
In order to determine the ideological profile of a state, one can look to the public policies on a liberal to conservative scale: their policy liberalism or policy conservatism on several policy measures. Another option to determine a state’s predominant ideological leanings is through voter self-identification and opinion polling. Both the scales of policy liberalism or policy conservatism highly correlate with ideological voter self-identification.
STATE POLITICAL CULTURES
Historical styles and traditions in states’ politics that cannot be directly attributed to demographic factors make up a state’s political culture. Political culture often helps explain the partisan and ideological distributions within a state in a way that social and economic factors cannot.
STATE CONSTITUTIONS: AN OVERVIEW
Bill of Rights
All state constitutions have a bill of rights, which includes basic freedoms such as the right to free speech, press, religion, and assembly. Most mimic what is already listed in the U.S. Constitution, but some state constitutions go further to include rights not found under the national Constitution. (See also “Up Close: The Sandy Hook Shootings and the Right to Bear Arms.”)
Separation of Powers
All state constitutions reflect the basic principle of separation of powers among the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), ensuring a system of checks and balances. Traditionally, however, most state constitutions reflect the distrust of gubernatorial executive authority and emphasize legislative power over executive power.
Weak Governors
State executive branches are weakened due to the separation of executive power among the governor and separately elected executive officials. In addition, separate boards and commissions that do not report directly to the governor can severely weaken the power of the governor in state affairs.
Legislative Powers
Forty-nine state legislatures are bicameral—consisting of two separate chambers. Only Nebraska is unicameral, with one house chamber.
Local Governments
Local governments are subdivisions of the state government, and not independent governmental bodies. State constitutions establish the organization and powers of local governments. In their absence, state legislatures carry out the same. Constitutional home rule is a more secure grant of power to communities than legislative home rule.
Interest Group Regulation
Many interest groups prefer regulatory language to be included in the state constitutions. This is because special protections written in the constitution cannot be easily amended.
Taxation and Finance
Many state constitutions place severe restrictions on the taxation authority of state and local governments. Some of these include exceptions to certain taxable properties like homesteads—owner-occupied homes.
Debt Limitation
Most state constitutions require balanced budgets that prohibit state and local governments from running deficits.
INITIATIVE CAMPAIGNS
Initiative campaigns have become costly and politically sophisticated. These campaigns are often sponsored by “special interests” that have the funding and organizational capacity to promote these initiatives statewide.
Initiatives Impact a Candidate’s Campaign
Candidates often take a stance on ballot initiative measures, and are impacted by the resultant voter turnout and competition for money, votes, and interest.
The Threat of Initiatives
Legislatures may be called to action with a looming threat of initiatives, especially those that are popular with voters. Another threat is to the rights of petition signers, to keep the names confidential.
Reform Proposals
Reform efforts to limit the initiative process in the eighteen states that have these provisions have not met with much success because they remain popular devices among the electorate.
Citizens’ Initiatives and Term Limits
Term limits—constitutional limits on the number of terms or the number of years that a public official can serve in the same office—have been popular with voters. (Table 2-6 lists states that term limit their state legislators. Also see “Did You Know? Term Limits Are Still Controversial.”)
U.S. Supreme Court Rejection of Congressional Term Limits by States
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that states did not have the constitutional authority to limit congressional terms. The only three qualifications valid in this regard are age, citizenship, and residence.
Term Limits Kick In
Fifteen states currently have term limits on the books. While there has been numerical turnover and a large increase in the number of freshman legislators, there has also been institutional memory loss. This has tended to increase the influence of legislative staff and lobbyists in the policy-making process. Most state legislators are strongly opposed to term limits.