Fluent Essays

1. Discussion Post & ResponsesPlease choose one of the following questions and react to it briefly. You need to reply to 2 other students post. I will give you my peers posts later. (I need the discussion question answer in 24 hours, you can give me the response part later.)When you submit answer, please begin by pasting the question you are responding to in the text field. Then write your answer below.Federal justices serve on the bench “during good Behaviour,” typically meaning until they resign, retire, or pass away. Some have proposed a number of modifications to this, including rotating 18-year terms, staggered such that vacancies are uniform across time. Do you believe justices should have rotating, fixed terms? Why or why not?Federal justices are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, so voters have no direct say in who is selected. However, many state courts (like Texas) use competitive elections to select judges, while other states (like California) hold retention elections where the governor first appoints a justice and voters then decide in the next election if they want that individual to continue on. Which selection method do you think is superior? Should justices be elected or appointed? How might these mechanisms change their decisions?The power of “special interests” in DC is often decried by many. Do you believe that interest groups have too much power in the United States? Why or why not? If you believe they have too much power, how could this be addressed?Before You begin:Posts and responses should be thorough and thoughtful. Just posting an I agree or Good ideas will not be considered adequate. Support statements with examples, experiences, or references. Be brief — keep each post and response to one or two short paragraphs. Keep in mind that fellow learners will be reading and responding to you, too.Posts should be within a range of 75-150 words.Make certain that all posts and responses address one of the the questions, problems, or situations as presented for discussion. This does not mean you should not extend the topic, but do not stray from the topic.Discussions occur when there is dialogue; therefore, you need to build upon the posts and responses of other learners to create discussion threads. Make sure to revisit the discussion forum and respond (if necessary) to what other learners have posted to your initial responses.When relevant, add to the discussion by including prior knowledge, work experiences, references, web sites, resources, etc. (giving credit when appropriate).Contributions to the discussions (posts and responses) should be complete and free of grammatical or structural errors.2. Question set: The Bureaucracy, The Courts, and Interest GroupsPlease respond to each of the four short response questions posted below.Your answers should be short, focused, and complete, ranging from one to three paragraphs.Please make sure to answer each specific part of every question.Successful answers will provide details and context that support your arguments and explain your position to the readers. You may also want to provide real world examples taken from the readings, lectures, group discussions, or your own independent thinking. These illustrations can be from the course materials or your own ideas.Providing this context and being able to apply the material to YOUR OWN understanding of politics really shows us that you have mastered the material.Who controls the bureaucracy? How do they do so? How does this competition affect the bureaucracy? Why and when do elected officials delegate power to the bureaucracy? How do judges decide cases? Highlight several types of factors that contribute to their rulings. Why are the courts often considered the weakest branch? Why might this be wrong?Highlight the types of benefits politicians and bureaucrats receive from interest groups. What is the pluralist defense of interest groups? What might undermine this perspective? Why might it not be so bad? Describe the difference between insider and outsider lobbying tactics. What types of interest groups generally use each? Under what circumstances will one by more impactful than the other?You should read the following course reading materials before you begin:Please be sure to read the entire chapter. The link takes you to the introduction.American Government, Chapter 13: The Courts (Links to an external site.)American Government, Chapter 10: Interest Groups and LobbyingAmerican Government, Chapter 15: The Bureaucracy (Links to an external site.)McCrain, Josh. 2017. (the file I uploaded) The Washington Post’s The Monkey Cage.Lewis, Michael. 2017. The 5th Risk (Links to an external site.).” Vanity Fair. what_does_donald_trump_need_for_a_successful_presidency__bureaucrats.___the_washington_post.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview What does Donald Trump need for a successful presidency? Bureaucrats. - The Washington Post 5/11/20, 2:00 PM What does Donald Trump need for a successful presidency? Bureaucrats. Josh McCrain President Trump, with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press) The Trump administration’s first week has been characterized, from both left and right, as “shock and awe.” Among other abrupt changes, the State Department’s senior leadership team either resigned or has been fired. That gives us significant insight into how President Trump will govern. Despite regular attacks on the bureaucracy during his campaign, Trump needs federal agencies to be fully staffed and competent if he hopes to succeed. Political science research suggests that his problems are only beginning. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/14/what-does-donald-trump-need-for-a-successful-residency-bureaucrats/ Page 1 of 4 What does Donald Trump need for a successful presidency? Bureaucrats. - The Washington Post 5/11/20, 2:00 PM Lawmaking is not just a process by which Congress passes a bill and the president signs it. Much of it relies on federal agencies. Their rulemaking, which accounts for 90 percent of all federal laws, is how much policymaking in the United States actually occurs. An incompetent, understaffed bureaucracy bodes poorly for effective governing. Staffing key agency posts is already a difficult task. Officials in President Bill Clinton’s administration describe the appointment process as “chaotic,” “emotional” and “overwhelming,” according to David Lewis’s research. It looks as though Trump’s team is a living testament to these challenges. Research on presidential appointments around transitions shows that, first, presidents attempt to control agencies they don’t trust by appointing loyal partisans to middle-management positions. The key question is then whether these loyalists also have the requisite qualifications and experience. As Marissa Golden argues, career bureaucrats — those not appointed by the president — are willing to work with political appointees, but the quality of the appointees matters. When presidents do appoint qualified people, some bureaucrats may leave because of ideological differences with their new boss, but not because of any deeply held concerns about the mission of the agency. But appointing less-qualified loyalists is a different matter. When presidents seek to politicize agencies via purely patronage appointments, agencies will suffer much more. Many career bureaucrats, believing that their efforts will be wasted under incompetent leadership pursuing objectionable goals, leave the agency for good. The challenge confronting Trump is that many qualified appointees — such as Republicans who served under George W. Bush — publicly opposed https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/14/what-does-donald-trump-need-for-a-successful-residency-bureaucrats/ Page 2 of 4 What does Donald Trump need for a successful presidency? Bureaucrats. - The Washington Post 5/11/20, 2:00 PM Trump during the election. As a result, Trump’s transition team is having difficulty filling national security jobs. Similarly, careerists in the Education Department and the Justice Department, observing the published lists of possible Cabinet appointees, are considering leaving en masse. A week before the election, a survey of federal workers found that only 65 percent would commit to serving under a Trump administration. The actual number is likely to be higher, but empty posts in the bureaucracy are still a cause for concern. A large-scale exodus of career bureaucrats has serious consequences for policy outcomes. For example, according to work by Anthony Bertelli and David Lewis, the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Bush suffered from high turnover as a result of appointed executives and the inexperienced leadership of Michael Brown. In the months immediately before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 17 of 46 FEMA policy positions were empty. Another example involves the CIA. In 2004, as David Lewis describes, the Bush administration and congressional Republicans viewed the CIA as “dysfunctional” and a “rogue agency.” Bush appointed Porter Goss as CIA director with a clear mandate to hire loyal partisans to get the agency in line. Goss and his appointees told career CIA employees that they needed to support the administration and then froze out those who disagreed. Mass resignations quickly followed — among them 20 top managers, including the director of central intelligence and the executive director. Bureaucratic agencies are pivotal actors in American policymaking. For his presidency to succeed, Trump’s transition team must reach out to qualified public servants and forgo any desire for revenge. It needs to limit turnover of career bureaucrats as much as possible. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/14/what-does-donald-trump-need-for-a-successful-residency-bureaucrats/ Page 3 of 4 What does Donald Trump need for a successful presidency? Bureaucrats. - The Washington Post 5/11/20, 2:00 PM If his administration fails at this, a wave of unqualified partisans entering the bureaucracy could damage some of our government’s most resilient institutions. You might also be interested in: Here’s what Trump voters said when asked to compare his inauguration crowd with Obama’s Trump wants to investigate purported ‘mass voter fraud.’ We predebunked his evidence. This is how Donald Trump engineers applause How Trump changed Americans’ view of Islam — for the better is a doctoral student in political science at Emory University. An earlier version of this post appeared on November 14, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/14/what-does-donald-trump-need-for-a-successful-residency-bureaucrats/ Page 4 of 4 ... Purchase answer to see full attachment