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Electoral Reform In The United States
Electoral reform in the United States refers to efforts to change American elections and the electoral system used in the United States. Most elections in the U.S. select one person; elections with multiple candidates selected by proportional representation are relatively rare. Typical examples include the House of Representatives, whose members are elected by a plurality of votes in single-member districts. The number of representatives from each state is set in proportion to each state's population in the most recent decennial census. District boundaries are usually redrawn after each such census. This process often produces "gerrymandered" district boundaries designed to increase and secure the majority of the party in power, often by offering secure seats to members of the opposition party. This is one of a number of institutional features that increase the advantage of incumbents seeking reelection. The Senate and the president are also elected by plurality. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electoral Reform
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of: * Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-runoff voting (alternative voting, ranked-choice voting, or preferential voting), Instant Round Robin Voting called Condorcet Voting, range voting, approval voting, citizen initiatives and referendums and recall elections. * Vote-counting procedures * Rules about political parties, typically changes to election laws * Eligibility to vote * How candidates and political parties are able to stand (nomination rules) and how they are able to get their names onto ballots (ballot access) * Electoral constituencies and election district borders * Ballot design and voting equipment * Scrutineering (election monitoring by candidates, political parties, etc.) * Safety of voters and election workers * Measures against bribery, coercion, and conflicts of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Electoral College
The United States Electoral College is the group of presidential electors required by the Constitution to form every four years for the sole purpose of appointing the president and vice president. Each state and the District of Columbia appoints electors pursuant to the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators). Federal office holders, including senators and representatives, cannot be electors. Of the current 538 electors, an absolute majority of 270 or more ''electoral votes'' is required to elect the president and vice president. If no candidate achieves an absolute majority there, a contingent election is held by the United States House of Representatives to elect the president, and by the United States Senate to elect the vice president. The states and the District of Columbia hold a statewide or districtwide popular vote on Election Day in November to choose electors based upon how they have pled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tax Avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdictions that facilitate reduced taxes. Tax avoidance should not be confused with tax evasion, which is illegal. Forms of tax avoidance that use legal tax laws in ways not necessarily intended by the government are often criticized in the court of public opinion and by journalists. Many corporations and businesses that take part in the practice experience a backlash from their active customers or online. Conversely, benefiting from tax laws in ways that were intended by governments is sometimes referred to as tax planning. The World Bank's World Development Report 2019 on the future of work supports increased government efforts to curb tax avoidance as part of a new social contract focused on human capital investments and expanded social p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2012 United States Federal Budget
The 2012 United States federal budget was the budget to fund government operations for the fiscal year 2012, which lasted from October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012. The original spending request was issued by President Barack Obama in February 2011. That April, the Republican-held House of Representatives announced a competing plan, ''The Path to Prosperity'', emboldened by a major victory in the 2010 Congressional elections associated with the Tea Party movement. The budget plans were both intended to focus on deficit reduction, but differed in their changes to taxation, entitlement programs, defense spending, and research funding. The House resolution did not pass the Senate, nor did the Senate pass a resolution of their own, so there was no 2012 budget of record. The actual appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2012 included four continuing resolutions and three full-year appropriations bills enacted in November and December 2011, in accordance with the United State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corporate Welfare
Corporate welfare is a phrase used to describe a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment for corporations. The definition of corporate welfare is sometimes restricted to direct government subsidies of major corporations, excluding tax loopholes and all manner of regulatory and trade decisions. Origin of term The term "corporate welfare" was reportedly coined in 1956 by Ralph Nader. Alternative adages "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor" Believed to have been first popularised by Michael Harrington's 1962 book ''The Other America'' in which Harrington cited Charles Abrams, a noted authority on housing. Variations on this adage have been used in criticisms of the United States' economic policy by Joe Biden, Martin Luther King Jr., Gore Vidal, Joseph P. Kennedy II, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dean Baker, Noam Chomsky, Robert Reich, John Pilger, Bernie Sanders, and Yanis Varoufakis. "Privatizing profits and social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Documenting Crony Capitalism
A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" or "lesson": the verb ''doceĊ'' denotes "to teach". In the past, the word was usually used to denote written proof useful as evidence of a truth or fact. In the computer age, "document" usually denotes a primarily textual computer file, including its structure and format, e.g. fonts, colors, and images. Contemporarily, "document" is not defined by its transmission medium, e.g., paper, given the existence of electronic documents. "Documentation" is distinct because it has more denotations than "document". Documents are also distinguished from " realia", which are three-dimensional objects that would otherwise satisfy the definition of "document" because they memorialize or represent thought; documents are considered more as 2-dimensional repre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crony Capitalism
Crony capitalism, sometimes called cronyism, is an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of free enterprise, but rather as a return on money amassed through collusion between a business class and the political class. This is often achieved by the manipulation of relationships with state power by business interests rather than unfettered competition in obtaining permits, government grants, tax breaks, or other forms of state intervention over resources where business interests exercise undue influence over the state's deployment of public goods, for example, mining concessions for primary commodities or contracts for public works. Money is then made not merely by making a profit in the market, but through profiteering by rent seeking using this monopoly or oligopoly. Entrepreneurship and innovative practices which seek to reward risk are stifled since the value-added is little by crony businesses, as hardly anything of significant value is created by them, wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Presidential Election
The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the Electoral College. These electors then cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for president, and for vice president. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (at least 270 out of 538, since the Twenty-Third Amendment granted voting rights to citizens of D.C.) is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for president, the House of Representatives elects the president; likewise if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for vice president, then the Senate elects the vice president. In contrast to the presidential elections of many republics around the world (operating under either the presidential ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OpenSecrets
OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP). History The ''Center for Responsive Politics'' was founded in 1983 by retired U.S. Senators Frank Church of Idaho, of the Democratic Party, and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, of the Republican Party. It was officially incorporated on February 1, 1984. In the 1980s, Church and Scott launched a "money-in-politics" project, whose outcome consisted of large, printed books. Their first book, published in 1988, analyzed spending patterns in congressional elections from 1974 through 1986, including 1986 soft money contributions in five states. It was titled ''Spending in Congressional Elections: A Never-Ending Spiral.'' In 2021, the CRP announced its merger with the National Institute on Money in Politics. The combined organization is known as O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mother Jones (magazine)
''Mother Jones'' (abbreviated ''MoJo'') is an American progressive magazine that focuses on news, commentary, and investigative journalism on topics including politics, environment, human rights, health and culture. Clara Jeffery serves as editor-in-chief of the magazine. Monika Bauerlein has been the CEO since 2015. ''Mother Jones'' is published by the Foundation for National Progress. The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, known as Mother Jones, an Irish-American trade union activist, socialist advocate, and ardent opponent of child labor. History For the first five years after its inception in 1976, ''Mother Jones'' operated with an editorial board, and members of the board took turns serving as managing editor for one-year terms. People who served on the editorial team during those years included Adam Hochschild, Paul Jacobs, Richard Parker, Deborah Johnson, Jeffrey Bruce Klein, Mark Dowie, Amanda Spake, Zina Klapper, and Deirdre English. According to Hochschil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Elections Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act, the commission describes its duties as "to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections." The commission was unable to function from late August 2019 to December 2020, with an exception for the period of May 2020 to July 2020, due to lack of a quorum. In the absence of a quorum, the commission could not vote on complaints or give guidance through advisory opinions. As of May 19, 2020, there were 350 outstanding matters on the agency's enforcement docket and 227 items waiting for action. In December 2020, three commissioners were appointed to restore a quorum; however, deadlocks arising f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
