US Politics 101: A Beginners' Guide to The System

With Congressional elections two weeks away, EA US Politics correspondent Lee Haddigan launches a series of articles to place them within the complexities of the American political system:

The United States is a representative democracy. This means that the "people" (the demos) elect representatives to reflect the interests of voters. Those elected form a government which, in theory, a servant of the voters and not the other way round.

America has a bicameral legislature. The body that votes for the country’s laws is composed of two Houses independent of each other. The approval of both is needed for a proposed bill to become law. The lower body of Congress, the House of Representatives, consists of 435 members, representing in theory an equal number of US citizens. The upper House, the Senate, has 100 members: two each from every state.

Elections for all 435 seats of the House of Representatives take place every two years. Senators are elected for a term of six years, so every two years a third of the upper House's seats are contested.

These mechanics are based on the constitutional theory that for a government to avoid descending into tyranny, there must be checks and balances.

That theory has solid historical foundations. The independence of the US was declared in 1776 against a British Parliament which had supposedly become tyrannical, and as America ratified its constitution 16 years later, France was about to witness a Reign of Terror that validated fears of what could happen in the name of a democratic majority.

Hence, the American respect for checks and balances, and, most importantly, the idea that government is conducted best as an exercise in considered compromise.

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Afghanistan: Wikileaks and the Pentagon's Deceptive Response

Remember the fuss this summer, after Wikileaks released almost 92,000 documents on the US military intervention in Afghanistan, when the Pentagon and US military said that the primary effect of the published material would be the exposure of troops and those helping the Americans, putting their lives at risk at the hands of the Taliban?

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, spared no words accusing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, "Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." 

At the time --- while not ignoring the possibility --- it felt primarily like a campaign by the Obama Administration and the Department of Defense, not only to limit the damage of the documents but to turn the story into one of Wikileaks' responsibility rather than the complications of American military action. At the start of 2010, the US Government had been slow to respond to Wikileaks' presentation of the "Collateral Murder" video, showing the apparent gunning down of Iraqi civilians by American planes. This time would be different.

This weekend, however, there was a twist in the Obama Administration's tale. A 16 August letter from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Senator Carl Levin, the head of the Armed Services Committee, emerged: "The review [by the Department of Defense] to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by the disclosure."

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US Elections: The Power of Money and Democrat Losses in Congress (and the White House?)

Democrats are becoming resigned to losing heavily in November. And, as politicians are apt to do, they are looking for someone other than themselves to blame. The argument, put out by Obama himself, runs that the electorate would fully support progressive policies if only the message was not insidiously sabotaged by the dirty campaign money of wealthy individuals and big business. 

The Citizens United ruling of the Supreme Court, and the resulting spending during this election, has only reinforced this liberal worldview. So although the Democrats may have given up on this election, expect the real fireworks to begin next year as they try to fend off the assault of a Sarah Palin or Mike Huckerbee, bankrolled by conservative 501 groups, on the reelection bid of President Obama. The current president may like to present himself as the representative of a new transparent politics, but if he doesn’t get down and dirty next year, come January 2013 he will find himself on the outside looking in.

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