When talking about politics people are quick to say “why are we talking about it so much” when in actuality we have gotten to a point where we don’t talk about it that much & people are truly ignorant of how the government works (because everyone over a certain age has a semester of government under their belt) & we use it like Spanish in Texas, sometimes & not so often depending on the area we live in when we should be prepared for the situation & ready to form some kind of opinion about it. The truth about it is that we have to deal with it on a daily basis & it’s intertwined in what we do whether we like it or not. I’m not saying that we have to beat a dead horse, however the whole purpose behind purple politics is to learn & be more knowledgeable for it. This will be a rough breakdown of the government we live in.
Government
OK so here is the breakdown of the federal government that we have in the US, I can feel someone saying “why we talking about this were not in Government in High School” & I say take several seats sir or miss because just because you have a grasp on it doesn’t mean everyone else does & on top of that not everything is meant for everyone, it’s been a pleasure having you here & if you leave more power to you. Our federal government has three parts. They are the Executive, which houses the President , Legislative (Senate and House of Representatives) also called congress and Judicial which houses the Supreme Court and lower Courts. Each of these wing of government plays a role in day to day things. Executive is built to carry out laws, legislative is supposed to make laws, & judicial evaluates laws in the country. The federal government was built in a way to keep one branch from having more power than another. Looking at a congress first off, we look at the House of Representatives which “represents” the populations of each state. The house holds 435 bureaucrats & is determined by the size of each state. When looking at senate it is a smaller population with a total of 100 people (2 per each state). Next we look the judicial branch which houses 6 justices in the Supreme Court & various other judges over federal courts. Finally we look at the executive branch which houses the President & is a population of 1 technically, but is supported by the president’s appointments of there cabinet & others helping in the branch. Government is very confusing thing at times and hopefully this helps give some clarity. Next we look at the voting of the previously mentioned politicians.
Voting & Terms
Alright if you been here this long you’re actually taking info in & learning something which is always the case with life in general. So the next thing we are gonna talk about is voting of politicians in each branch & how they become elected so bare with me & hang in there. First thing we’re gonna talk about is congress each comes with their own requirements to be considered for election the House you have to be twenty five (25), a citizen for seven (7) years, & a inhabitant of the state your representing at the time of the election while for senate you have to be thirty (30) , a citizen for 9 years, & a resident of your state. When looking at the terms & voting of each the house term is at 2 years with voting happens every 2 years or every even year, while a senator serves a 6 year term & voting happens 1/3 of seats at a time because that is the limit of how many seats can be up for grab a time. Voting is straight forward popular voting for each one & is voted on by each population of the state in question.
The next branch we come to is the Executive branch which houses the president, their not exempt from requirements they have to be thirty five (35) years old, a natural born citizen, & a resident of 14 years outside of that it gets complicated to become president like the playoffs for Baseketball the movie (go look it up). Once a candidate announces their running & gives what party they are running for, they have to go through the presidential primaries for the party they picked which allows the population to pick who they want to represent the party by giving a certain amount of delegates depending on each state. Once that process happens along with the conventions & each picks the candidate they want unless there is an incumbent (a person holding office) . Once that happens and candidates have there running mates & are picked from the primary they have to campaign (specifically swing states because of electoral college) & they do that till Election Day which is a Tuesday every 4 years. This process is still tedious and confusing at times, however it reaches a fever pitch now. On Election Day the people vote in each state for who they want as president then electors who vote in the electoral college vote on behalf of the state. What happens is the “electoral college” divvies up votes based on each states population & if a candidate wins a specific state they get the amount of electoral votes for that state (55 for California, 38 for Texas, & etc.) this is where red and blue states come from & why it’s so hard to get 270 (the magic number to get elected, they also serve 4 years) most times, because even though you win the popular vote you & still lose because of electoral college( It’s happened 5 times in history; 1824 John Quincy Adams; 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes; 1888 Benjamin Harrison; 2000 George W. Bush ; 2016 Donald J. Trump). This gets frustrating at times especially when you’re not in a swing state for example like myself I live in Texas which is considered a red state or republican so even if I vote for a certain candidate in the presidential election it can be blanketed by the the electoral college, unless it’s a lower election like the house, senate, or a local election. When the founding fathers came up with the idea it probably looked good on paper but a lot has changed in who can vote, who can’t (like u.s. territories can’t vote for president) or even how we vote now. It’s an archaic system & hopefully it gets some kind of refresh. Now that we’ve been over two branches the last is the Judiciary which houses Supreme Court & other parts of the federal court, our focus will on the first mentioned. Supreme Court Justices serve a lifetime to & are appointed by the president & go through a hearing before being confirmed by the senate. This can be dicey to some people because the appointments can be subjective because if the senate & the executive are the same political party a judge could be passed through with no push back or if it’s different parties in each a candidate can get grilled or not even confirmed. This whole system can be nuisances sometimes.