Candidates and Campaigns: Effect of Contributions on a Politician's Vote, The
Serious academic studies of the effects of campaign contributions on an elected official's behavior in Congress find very little relationship. What contributions do buy is access to politicians, a valuable commodity considering how busy members of C...
Balancing Act: Debate over the Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve
When the economy began to slow at the start of the new millennium, the Federal Reserve employed another policy used to control the economy, adjusting the federal funds rates. The Federal Reserve is an independent body appointed by the president with...
Candidates and Campaigns: Campaigns and the Media
In presidential campaigns, media consumes over half the dollars a presidential candidate spends. Increasingly, candidates for public office rely on television ads to get their message out. Some experts decry the fact that candidates can buy televisi...
Balancing Act: Revival of Belief in the Free Market
One of the most important changes in business and political world in the last few decades has been the growing sense that the market is best system for equitably distributing the benefits of society. Several industries like trucking, financial servi...
Candidates and Campaigns: Campaign Finance: Call for Reform
Campaign finance reform is difficult to achieve because the people who must vote to change the system are its chief beneficiaries, the incumbent members of Congress. In addition the two political parties differ on what reform means. The Supreme Cour...
Global Politics: Attempts to Protect Human Rights
Human rights has become one of the dominant concerns in the international political arena. It is difficult to determine whether intervention will be productive or counterproductive. For example, some people say that intervention in Kosovo ultimately...
The Fourth Estate: License to Blame
Public officials and public bodies like Congress are criticized by the press. As Barbara Sinclair points out, "You want a skeptical media, but too often the media goes across the line and interprets everything that's done in Washington through the l...
The Fourth Estate: First Amendment Protections Require Greater Public Responsibility
Many critics argue that the special protection and benefits the news media receive demand a greater degree of public responsibility. As Mickey Edwards puts it, "Did the founders intend to protect this business enterprise that prints newspapers inste...
The First Branch: Motivation to Run for Public Office
What motivates a person to run for public office? Three people who have served in the House of Representatives--Mickey Edwards, Jim McDermott, and Loretta Sanchez--talk about the factors that caused them to compete for a Congressional seat. Fifty ye...
Pressure Politics: Right to Petition Government, The
From its inception, the Constitution has supported both individual and group needs. The right to petition your government, a clause in the First Amendment that is sometimes overlooked, is an essential part of a democratic society. Certain interests,...