Florida Senate/ State Lines

URL: https://shar.es/1c0FxJ


The Florida Senate rejected a map to create new districts for itself and adjourned Thursday, leaving the Legislature with its second failed session this year. The chamber of congress voted 23-16 against the map that the House had approved, Tuesday. Senators said the maps were flawed and would divide communities. They also criticized a constitutional amendment that they said forces them to put the shape of a district. The vote means lawmakers will leave the state capital with absolutely no agreement and that the courts will make the final decision on how the Senate's 40 districts will be drawn. Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 requiring smaller districts that aren't drawn to benefit parties or incumbents. This is the third time that legislators have been forced to redraw state Senate districts in the past three years.

I feel that states should have the right to create their own city lines due to voting and districting. If the maps were drawn incorrectly then there would have been a reason for the maps to be rejected. I'm not as optimistic that those people will be significantly more important than these people.The amendments to our constitution pulled the soul out of map drawing, pulled the soul out of districts. Now we fall into the hands of a court. Nobody wins under that scenario. By blaming the amendments, rather than themselves, they are simply preserving the extinction of their opposition to the gain of the people and engaging in the very conduct that Florida voters clearly wanted to eliminate from our state.

This has to do with what we are learning in class because we learned about gerrymandering and drawing state lines.

Battle in Social Media

URL: http://graphics.wsj.com/elections/2016/facebook-gop/

This week in a Republican presidential fight filled with crazy moments, the contest on Facebook looked like a two-man race between businessman Donald Trump and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson. But data from the social media platform suggested that Tuesdays Republican date offered a bigger opportunity for other candidates to build momentum, particularly Senator Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.The Wall Street Journal partnered with Facebook to analyze campaign-related interactions on the social media platform from March 1 to Oct. 31. You could see within the social media conversations there was a measure of interest in each of the candidates that holds more than a passing resemblance to the national polling picture.

After reviewing the data that Wall Street and Facebook collected you can really see the difference in popularity between the 5 candidates that were being reviewed. Ever since he joined the race in June, Mr. Trump has been the driving force of the campaign discussion on social media. I don't really see how he can be so popular amongst people in my opinion, but he does create a lot of controversy and that can make people popular in the media. Another that seemed interesting to me was Ben Carson  whose biggest Facebook moment came with his September comments on being against a Muslim in the White House, which were followed by a five-point header for him in national polls. To me this is more of a Republican/Conservative view, unlike Donald Trump who sometimes seems to go against his own views.

This article shows how important primary elections are, and that today social media has a great influence on candidates more than in any other past years presidential debates. This also gives people a way to express their own opinions, and track political opinion.

NRA/ Interest Group

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/opinion/who-the-nra-really-speaks-for.html?ref=topics&_r=0

Last Thursday the President was angered and made a public speech about the slaughter in Roseburg, Oregon. He made a very slight reference to the National Rifle association (an interest group), asking if the association properly represented their own views. People have to realize how big of a role the NRA plays in representing the 2nd amendment. The NRA contains over 4.5 million members and counting which include all gun owners -- hunters, sportsman, collectors and any ordinary American who keeps a gin for self defense. There was a recent poll saying that ninety - two percent of gun owners wanted a back round check for all people who would be purchasing guns. Then in April 2013 the Senate wanted to create a bill just to support this, but the NRA was in full swing just to prevent this bill from passing. So does the NRA really represent the people that the group contains?? 

I think that the NRA doesn't really support the people that are part of the group. If there was a poll taken that ninety- two percent of the population in the group suggested that there be a back round check on gun owners then the NRA should be in full support and they better not be against a bill that supports Brady checks. Then again there is the opposing side considering the federal law requiring licensed gun dealers to notify the beaurea of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives when a single purchaser buys two or more handguns within five days. The A.T.F. knows that multiple purchases are an indicator of trafficking, and that traffickers can evade the law by making a single purchase from five, 10 or 20 different gun stores. So this is saying that the process of a back round check is unnecessary when we have something so similar already in place. My theory is that there are those odd mass murders that could be possible if there weren't simple back-round check on people.

This is relevant to what we are learning because we are learning about interest groups and the NRA. The NRA is an economic interest group.