Do Now Who do you think has more power a representative/senator, the president, or a Supreme Court justice? Why?
Political Parties Today, political parties are one of the most important aspects of American government, but there is nothing written about them in the Constitution. In fact, the writers of the Constitution were against the idea of political parties and wanted politicians to act as independent individuals. What is a political party? A political party is a group of politicians who agree to a certain set of shared beliefs and generally vote together and support each other in government. There have been many political parties throughout American history that have come and gone, but there have always been two main ones, that have changed names over time. They started as the Federalists and Anti-Federalists - those in favor of a strong federal government, and those opposed to it. Over the years, those parties changed names, but today have become the Democratic and Republican parties. Above: Democratic Party symbol Below: Republican Party symbol
Benefits of Political Parties They allow people who share beliefs to help each other pass laws that are important to them, sometimes because they're both interested in the law, and sometimes they support each other in exchange for each other's vote on another law. It also makes it easier for ordinary people to choose someone to vote for without actually researching the individual candidates. If someone knows they generally agree with Democrats more than Republicans, they will feel good about voting for a Democrat politician even if they know nothing about them besides that.
Costs of Political Parties They discourage cooperation and compromise by making politicians feel like they're part of a team; "us against them." So rather than working together, politicians sometimes refuse to work with someone of the other party (this is becoming especially common today). It's hard to categorize every issue in society as either Democrat or Republican, so it's hard to make priorities that match individual interests. You might end up supporting someone of the same political party because you share SOME beliefs in common, but might have completely different beliefs about something else. They can encourage corruption and secret deals that help individual politicians' careers rather than helping the country or society.
Political Parties Today The main political parties in the US today are the Democrats and the Republicans. Democrats come from the old Federalist party. They're interested in a strong federal government that can be used to make people's lives better through social programs like welfare, Social Security for retirement, and cheap (or free) healthcare. The only major office not held by a Republican is the presidency. Republicans come from the old Anti-Federalist party. They're interested in a smaller federal government that leaves most decisions and social programs up to the individual states. They generally believe that people should be independent and not rely on government programs for help. Republicans currently make up the majority of politicians in both the federal and state governments. Republicans make up 54% of the Senate, 57% of the House of Representatives, 62% of state governors, and control 69% of state legislative houses. As today is Election Day, though, some or all of those numbers could change.
Electoral College When Americans vote on Election Day, they're actually NOT directly voting the president. What they're actually doing is stating their preference for president. Then each individual state gives out all of its electoral votes to the candidate that won their state. The number of electoral votes is determined by the total number of representatives that state has (2 senators, plus at least 1 representative). This system benefits small states because they're guaranteed at least 3 electoral votes, no matter how small their population is. So each individual person's vote in a small state is worth more than someone who lives in a state with a large population. Technically, this system means that someone who gets fewer votes overall across the country can still win the presidency by getting more electoral votes (winning in particular states, rather than others). This has actually happened 4 times - in 1824, 1876, 1888, and recently in 2000, when George Bush only won 47% of the popular vote (actually individual preference votes), but got more electoral votes than his opponent, Al Gore, because of the states that he won.