Framers & Bill of rights-Some framers believed that adding a bill of rights would be dangerous. Believed rights in the main text of the constitution were sufficient. Bill of rights written to restrict national gov't.
Under God and Separation of Powers- separation of powers is not true to the original intent of the founding fathers. It means that people of other religions than Christianity should not be forced by the state to pay for faith based organizations. They can believe whatever they want but the founding fathers believed that our nations laws had to be based on “the laws of nature and of natures gods”
Evidence from illegal searches- Exclusionary rule- evidence, no matter how incriminating cant be introduced into trial if it was not constitutionally obtained. In 70s & 80s supreme court became more conservative & many exemptions were made to the exclusionary rule.
2nd amend & private militias- Right to bear arms DOES NOTt include private militias
Roe vs Wade & right to privacy- (Privacy)- no explicit constitutional right to privacy, but rather the right to privacy is interpretation by supreme court. (Roe vs Wade)- court held that gov't could not totally prohibit abortions because it violates a woman's rights to privacy.
Women's rights & abolitionist movements- women's rights movement linked to abolitionist movement in 19th cent. In 1890 the national american women suffrage association was created. 19th amendment gave women the right to vote.
14th amendment- protects all us citizens from state actions that violates equal protection of the laws.
Voting Rights Act- 1965, federal law designed to protect voting rights of African Americans. It was expanded in 1975 to help minorities. Literary tests became illegal & bilingual ballots were made.
Sexual harassment & discrimination- leal standard for gender discrimination is intermediate scrutiny. Sex harassment is also a form of sexual discrimination.
Agents of political socialization- important institutions where people are politically socialized by family, school, peers, peer group, & mass media. These impart political orientations on people.FAMILY- persons party preference is primarily acquired through family influence. COLLEGE- people who attend college are more likely to participate in politics compared to those who don't attend.
Random digit dialing & sampling errors- polling method in which random people selected from a list of 10 digit numbers, with every effort to avoid bias. SAMPLING ERROR- polling error that arises based on the small size of a sample. This type of polling reduces sampling errors.
Interest group & public opinion- public opinion- standard by which the gov;t conduct is measured. INTEREST GROUPS- natural outgrowth of the communities of interest.
Survey size(measuring public opinion)- telephone polling is the easiest and cheapest polling. Internet polling, push polls, tracking polls, exit polls. Public opinion is the distribution of opinions & attitudes held by the public. Pollers cant ask every single person questions instead they ask a small group of individuals a set of questions and then generalize from their findings about that group to the larger population.
Bill of Rights- creates two types of constraints on gov't. 1. substantive constraints which put limits on what the gov't can & cant do. 2. procedural restraints which define how the gov't is supposed to act.
Nationalization of the Bill of Rights- Bill of rights protected the people from the national gov't but didn't protect the people from state gov'ts. 4th Amendment passed in 1868, granted citizenship protections to slaves & provided the constitutions basis for the nationalization of the Bill of Rights.
Selective incorporation- the supreme court incorporated rights one at a time.
Separation of church and state- establishment clause. Basis for “wall of separation” between church and state. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.
Free exercise
