compose an email to your state legislator on a topic of your choice (sending it

compose an email to your state legislator on a topic of your choice (sending it is optional). Use the composing process as an analytical assignment. Start by ascertaining just who your particular representatives are and then find a topic of interest.
Please use the course text and any additional references you may desire for this assignment. Submit this assignment in the following format: APA essay, include a cover and reference page, no more than 1 page typed and double spaced, with 12-point font and 1-inch margins and with proper grammar such as correct punctuation and complete sentences. Please use “in-text” citations showing in the body of your essay where you used your references.
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AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES: IN DISARRAY OR EXPERIENCING A REBIRTH?
A political party is defined as an organization that seeks to achieve power by winning public office in elections. Scholars and pundits have declared the party “over.” However, parties continue to play an important role in elections and in the democratic system.
The Responsible Party Model—This is a party system in which each party offers clear policy alternatives and holds their elected officials responsible for enacting these policies in office.
Components of the model: Parties
develop and clarify alternative policy positions for voters
educate people about issues and simplify choices
recruit candidates for public office who agree with policy positions
organize and direct candidates’ campaigns to win office
hold elected officials accountable for enacting parties’ policy positions
organize legislatures to ensure party control of policy making
Problems with the Model—The following are the most common shortcomings of the responsible party model:
Parties generally do not offer voters clear policy alternatives.
Voter decisions are not motivated primarily by policy considerations.
American political parties have no way to bind their elected officials to party positions or even to their campaign pledges.
The Rise of Candidate-Centered Elections—Candidate-centered politics occurs when individual candidates rather than parties raise funds, create personal organizations, and rely on professional consultants to direct their campaigns. An increase in candidate-centered politics is due to:
The rise of primary elections
An increase in split-ticket voting and the decline of party identification—self-described identification with a political party, usually in response to the question: “Generally speaking, how would you identify yourself: as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or something else?”
More focus on the candidate, less on his or her party affiliation
The influence of the mass media, particularly television and the Web.
The decline of patronage
The rise of single-issue interest groups, PACs, and “527s”
Parties Are Survivors—Political parties still perform important political functions.
Parties organize elections and narrow the choices of political office seekers confronting the voters.
Parties continue to play an important role in voter choice despite dealignment—a decline in party loyalty among voters and a rise in independent and split-ticket voting.
Party organizations and activists in the states play an important role in guiding their party and in shaping its image with the voters.
The Democratic and Republican parties perform the central task of organizing state legislatures.
MONEY IN STATE POLITICS
Running for public office is an expensive endeavor, especially for statewide office. Most often candidates have to find contributors, and fund-raising is never considered a pleasant task.
What Money Can Do—Money does cause a significant impact on the election outcome.
Campaign spending is more valuable in primary elections.
“Early money” is more valuable than money that comes late in the election cycle.
Campaign spending in primary elections is closely related to electoral outcomes in weak party states.
Campaign spending is more important in larger jurisdictions.
A law of diminishing returns exists after certain amounts of campaign spending levels are reached.
Incumbents have an advantage in raising funds over challengers.
The incumbency advantage itself is greater than heavy campaign spending.
Candidates who outspend their opponents win in two out of three elections.
Most contributors want to be personally asked for money by the candidate.
Fund-raising—Fund-raising techniques have become very sophisticated. Campaign money now is widely funded by political action committees (PACs) which mobilize group financial support for candidates. Most political contributors are well-educated, wealthy, older partisans. However, Internet fund-raising has opened the door for many people to contribute and get involved.
Big Money in the States—The principal sources of campaign donations in a state depend on the economic bases and population makeup.
Campaign Spending in the States—Campaign spending depends on the size of the state in statewide campaigns, and the competitiveness and district size in legislative campaigns.
Third-Party Candidates Face Long Odds—Third-party candidates are at a severe disadvantage in terms of both name recognition and the ability to raise campaign funds. Often their greatest achievement is getting the major parties to adopt some of their principles.
FUNCTIONS OF STATE LEGISLATURES
Enacting Laws
A legislature may enact more than a thousand laws in a single legislative session. The average legislator introduces 10 to 12 bills each year. Collectively, the 50 state legislatures consider more than 101,000 bills each session and pass nearly 19,000.
Considering Constitutional Amendments, Gubernatorial Appointments, and State Courts
State legislatures also have an important role in revising state constitutions and ratifying amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In addition, many gubernatorial appointments require legislative approval. State legislatures also have budgetary authority over state court systems and establishing new courts and more judges as required.
Approving Budgets
The most important constitutionally mandated function of state legislatures is to approve the state budget. This includes both the appropriations and tax measures in the state budget. This power over state finances makes the legislature a powerful branch of government.
Serving Constituents
Legislative work also includes answering the requests of the constituents, responding to letters, phone calls, and e-mails from interest groups in their districts, and servicing the district.
Overseeing State Agencies
Legislative oversight is the monitoring of the activities of state agencies by the legislature and its committees. Most states now have “sunset” laws, which fix termination dates for programs and agencies in order to force the legislature to renew them if the legislators wish the programs to continue.
MAKING OF A STATE LEGISLATOR
State legislators are not representative of the population in their states, and are generally selected from the better-educated, more prestigiously employed, upper-middle-class segments of the population.
Status
State legislators tend to come from the “upwardly mobile” sectors of the population—the “second-rung” elites in the status system rather than the established wealthy.
Occupation
State legislators tend to come from occupations that allow for flexibility, or they are retired. Many are lawyers, business people, educators, and doctors whose jobs allow for extensive public contact.
Education
State legislators are generally well educated.
Age
Legislators have gotten slightly older in recent years due to our aging population and more retired persons running for state legislative offices.
Personal Wealth
Legislators tend to be wealthier than average, and evidence suggests their net worth (the total value of all assets after subtracting the total value of all outstanding debts) increases while in legislative office.
Lawyers
Attorneys are no longer the dominant occupation in state legislatures. However, they are still overrepresented compared to their proportional makeup in the population at large. Lawyers in state legislatures oppose such legislation as insurance and tort reforms.
Amateurs
Most state legislators remain part-time governmental bodies. The “citizen legislator” who spends two months in the state capital and then returns home to his or her business or profession still predominates in the states, but the proportion of full-time legislators is growing.