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The Supreme Court recently ruled in a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Committee. The man who started this case is called Shaun McCutcheon. He is a resident of Alabama and is a wealthy business owner. The law that limits spending was made in 1970 and it regulated that only $123,000 was able to be given to a candidate per election. Shaun McCutcheon believed that any donor should be able to give as much as he/she wants to give no matter the candidate. McCutcheon argues that this case was a type of 'freedom of speech' and he and other donors that wanted to do this were protected under the 1st Amendment. The Supreme Court decided to reject the limits in federal law on the overall campaign contributions that the biggest individual donors are allowed to contribute. The Justices ruled 5-4, and decided that all American's can give the amount that they want too without fear of breaking any government laws. Billions of dollars can now be donated to a candidate without a cap and this case will either be good or bad in the next elections.

I can understand the pro's and con's of The Supreme Court's ruling. I understand why some people would not want it enacted, and why other people would want it enacted. Either way money is a huge topic in elections, and to not put a cap on it seems to be against what our founding fathers wanted when they originally drafted The Constitution. Money makes things muddy, and it can be difficult to see how not capping the amount allowed to be given can cause an election to be run by PAC money instead of an election "By The People." 

References:

Lavender, Paige. "McCutcheon v. FEC: Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Limits On Campaign Contributions." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

McCutcheon V. Federal Election Commission. (2014, April 2). Supremecourt.gov.Retrieved April 22, 2014, from, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf

Wolf, Richard, and Fredreka Schouten. "Supreme Court Lifts Ban on Aggregate Campaign Donations." USA Today. Gannett, 02 Apr. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.

Unit 7 Eneix

Utilizing your discussion as a start, continue on the perspective you chose on the City of Columbus.  Post a link to your blog of the particular area of the City of Columbus you have explored and expand on this with a discussion of demographic and other information pertinent to the City of Columbus, Ohio. 

I arrived by taking a plane to the Port Columbus International Airport, and got in a taxi to visit a small area called Upper Arlington. The small town feel intrigued me, and as I searched around the area I found out that its demographic was one 93.6% white and 6.4% other. The population has not grown but decreased after the year 1970, and currently there are less than 34,000 people living in the town. Its median income is over $71,000 and the majority of homes owned are single units. The second type of homes lived in are 2-4 room units. Upper Arlington isn't too far away from the city and therefore has around a 25 minute commute. There are multiple daycares, assistant living facilities and schools in Upper Arlington. They are known for their Labor Day Arts Festival, and their Lifelong Learning & Leisure Program. This community was settled in 1918 and therefore has beautiful architectural neighborhoods that are wonderful representations of its history. 

http://www.liveworkplaycolumbus.com/upperarlington.php

Unit 6 Comp. Assignment

In this comprehensive assignment,  you should take a media article of an action taken by a county government (county council or township council) and develop an opinion piece on the action taken.  Provide a link to the media article describing the action taken and then your own opinion piece.  It should be three paragraphs in length. 


Jefferson county, which includes the city of Birmingham, is drowning under $4 billion in debt, the legacy of a big sewer project and corrupt financial dealings that have sent seventeen people to prison (NY Times). Jefferson county here in Alabama is known for its bankruptcy and corruption of government individuals that put the county in this place (Blog.Al). The sewer debt along was $3.14 billion before Alabama paid out $35 million to lawyers to reduce the sewer debt to $1.8 billion. The people that all live in Jefferson County pay twice the regular amount for their water and sewer than they would normally pay if the county wasn't buried in so much debt (NY Times). 
The settlements that were mentioned above were finally added after 18 months of court battles between various companies and Jefferson County.  

It's hard to believe that billions of dollars are tied up in the the Jefferson County debt crisis, but the people of Alabama get to pay for those dollars every day, even though the bankruptcy was not their fault.  For awhile now negotiations have been aimed at gaining 'forgiveness' for a certain amount of debt so that sewer rates (Bloomberg).  (The sewer rates have increased over 600% since the filed bankruptcy).

Eventually, Jefferson county voted to file for protection under the U. S. bankruptcy law, and the filing represented the largest bankruptcy by a municipal government in United States history (Blog.Al). The bankruptcy emerged in late 2007 as interest rates for Jefferson county's enormous sewer construction debts shot upwards during a national crisis in the mortgage lending market (Bloomberg). Jefferson county then negotiated a provisional settlement with creditors in September 2011, and they agreed to refinance just over $2 billion in bond debt, out of a total of $3.2 billion which had been borrowed (Blog.Al).

Living in Jefferson county has been a stretch for my husband and I financially because of the double amount we pay for water and sewer. Thankfully, we are moving to Shelby county in two months which will reduce our bill in half and at least cause us to pay the average for our water and sewer. It is interesting to see the testament of Birmingham's bankruptcy as a show of their struggle with corrupt government officials in the State. Residents and non-residents are paying for the mistakes of greedy politicians, and it is very sad. 

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2014/01/these_five_firms_were_paid_nea.html#incart_river

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-30/jefferson-county-files-to-end-bankruptcy-adjust-debt.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/business/jefferson-county-ala-falls-off-the-bankruptcy-cliff.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

South Carolina and Alabama

South Carolina has three distinct Courts that all require the election of judges. The South Carolina Supreme Court, the court of appeals, and the South Carolina circuit courts. South Carolina used to depend on their legislature for the hiring of their judges, but this method came under fire after too many judges elected seemed to only be there because of who they knew. It was not an unbiased method, and therefore it was changed to having each judge in each court elected by the majority of the public. A fair unbiased method that would not raise any eyebrows.

http://www.judicial.state.sc.us/judges/howjudgeselected.cfm

http://www.scstatehouse.gov/judicialmeritpage/HowJudgesAreElectedInSC011110.pdf

http://www.judicialselection.com/judicial_selection/index.cfm?state=SC

Alabama is different than South Carolina in that it requires all judges to be licensed in law from the state of Alabama. The state also requires that all judges in the Supreme Court, Circuit Court, and District Courts to have 12 months of previous experience in either the Circuit or District Courts. Judges are elected by partisan elections and as long as they are full time are appointed as judges for four years. To be a part time judge means you are only employed for two years. There is a lot of controversy among the partisan elections in Alabama because there is not a limit on how much can be donated to a potential judge for candidacy.  

http://judicial.alabama.gov/appl_qual_elect_appt.cfm

http://judgepedia.org/Judicial_selection_in_Alabama

http://www.eji.org/files/judicialselection.pdf

Debt Limits

The Debt Limit was created to curb the amount of government spending that is allowed within a certain time frame. The government is only allowed to borrow and spend an amount that has to be approved by the president and our congress. Our forefathers created this system to provide safeguards for unlimited spending. Our current debt limit has been raised consistently over the last 12 years, and there has been no curbing of debt, only an increased limit on how much our government can spend. Unless our debt starts being paid off, our children and our children's children will be dealing with a financial atrocity that won't be able to be paid off.

Some links that have helped me understand more our governments finances have been these.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE&noredirect=1

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/02/blank-check-what-it-means-to-suspend-the-debt-limit



Debt limit. (2014) U.S. Department of the Treasury. Retrieved from http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/pages/debtlimit.aspx

Week 3

Good governance needs to be implemented on the federal, state, and local level in any governing system. Federal and state governing is not able to be as personal as local governing, but all three have their strengths and weaknesses. When I think about the strength of good governance, my first thought is local governments. Counties are very dependant on their local governments in regards to their relationship with the police, relationship with their voted in candidate, and general community atmosphere. Council meetings, or town hall meetings can exist in the community that point the area towards a certain direction, and they can perform essentially like a larger scale homeowners association for the community.

Taxes and efficient use of funds are all important factors in any type of good governance, and it was very interesting to have a distinction made between good governance and just governance. I think that out of all eight concepts listed in the reading that the most lacking in federal and local governments are their lack accountability and transparency. Open budgets, accountability from people that will help encourage anyone needing advice or help in a situation seem to not really be present in our federal government, but more present in our local government. This was a good article to read about this topic, but I think that the whole article can be summed up in a this paragraph in the article.

"Good governance means that processes and institutions produce results that meet the needs of society while making the best use of resources at their disposal. The concept of efficiency in the context of good governance also covers the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of the

environment. "

I think that if all federal and local governments governed themselves by this paragraph they would be able to keep everything where they should be. 

UN ESCAP. (2009, July 10). What is Good Governance? Retrieved March 19, 2014, from           http://www.unescap.org/resources/what-good-governance

Week 2 Post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16R_wbQHBm0&noredirect=1

The video I watched is of the Governors Press Conference of Alabama in 2011. This video is about the joining of Alabama with our relationships with FEMA after the tornadoes in Northern Alabama. After the tornadoes there were fatalities and a difficult recovery process for Alabama because Northern Alabama had not ever dealt with this type of disaster in a long time.

Highlights:

-The main primary was debris removal and the governor specifically targeted the cleaning of the Lakes in Northern Alabama.  The Governors talked about his communication with FEMA in regards to cleaning out the debris.

-Communication between the Sheriff offices all around the state. If any people had received letters from FEMA that have denied their request the governor wanted a second letter delivered to them the reason why they were denied. The letters need to be sensitive to those in the state and the wording on them needed to be changed to more sensitive wording. Many people had received insensitive letters, and it was depressing.

-The amount of people that registered for individual assistance, and how their needs were being meant by local and federal governments (In Alabama, 42 counties declared for assistance).

Week 1 Assignment

Our reading on the development of rural area in South Carolina was really interesting to read. I think that the methods that are suggested for use in this reading are applicable to any other rural area in the United States. I think that areas that are struggling for unemployment should definitely think about what ways that can develop their area in order to bring more jobs in for men and women in the counties. Bottom up strategies are really nice when talking about community involvement. Law enforcement agencies usually use a top down approach, and it is interesting to see how each group flourishes under different types of leadership strategies. I think that addressing the lack of child care, teen pregnancy rates, poor education and unemployment are key problems with underdeveloped areas that need additional income. I also think that factories or large companies can come into these areas and provide jobs and insurance for many residents that wouldn't have that opportunity otherwise. It was a good article, well written, and very explanatory. I enjoyed reading it.