Q You are required to post a 300-word referenced response to one of the following discussion prompts by Wednesday at 11:55pm. You are required to post two 100-word referenced responses to two of your classmates posts by Friday at 11:55pm. (Incorporate what you read in the text, heard in the lecture, and learned conducting your interview to answer the prompt. Make sure you cite the course textbook in the body of your post at least once.) One of the major values of higher education is the opportunity to discuss the material with others. Please take full advantage of this opportunity for learning and engage in ongoing discussion with your classmates here. Don't short change yourself by posting once and walking away. Keep coming back and keep replying just as you would in the physical classroom to get the most out of this opportunity. Please review the Quality Discussion forums page before completing the assignment. Prompt(s): Please respond to one from each of the following sections: Section 1: 1. Is gerrymandering fair? Are there better ways to redistrict? Are their fairer ways to redistrict? Should there be fairer ways to redistrict? Could there realistically be a more objective method of choosing districts? 2. Should Congress be more descriptively representative? How could this be ensured? Would it threaten democracy if representatives of particular demographic groups were favored in elections in order to bring about more descriptive representation? Section 2: 1. How much executive privilege should there be? The Bush administration pushed to shield certain information from the public. Their reasoning was that, to make effective policy, policymakers must be able to have candid conversations with advisers that are not shared with the public. How much should the president and the executive branch be able to use executive privilege? What are the downsides to not releasing information? What would our founders (who met in private but also did not trust any branch with too much power) say about this? 2. Remember Supreme Court justices are elected for “life” and that some states follow the same procedure. How should judges be selected? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the federal appointment process? What are the pros and cons of judges being elected by the people? What are the benefits of the mixture of both selection processes? Doesn’t the process of appointing judges rather than electing them allow judges to do what is right instead of what is popular? Would the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education have been different if the judges were up for election the next year? Associated Course Level Learning Outcomes: ? Demonstrate development of critical, analytical, research, and writing skills. ? Understand and utilize a variety of theoretical approaches to the analysis of institutional/ policy outcomes of government. ? Analytical use of concepts and research to support hypotheses and conclusions. Unit Objectives: ? Evaluate the legislative process in the United States. ? Compare the president’s roles as head of state and head of government. ? Explain the origin of executive powers and what role the founders had imagined. ? Evaluate five recent presidents’ leadership styles and the implications for policy and public approval. ? Explain the rule of law and the role the legal system plays in democratic society. ? Evaluate Hamilton’s claim that the judiciary was the “least dangerous branch of government” in light of the power it wields. ? Discuss the role politics and ideologies play in judicial appointments and decisions. Before submission make sure to review the rubric by clicking on the three dots in the upper left and selecting "show rubric".