Texas Politics on prisons and intrest groups

Make a substantial reply to at least FOUR of your classmates’ discussion forum posts.

DISCUSSION 1

Texas ranks at the top for the charts for the amount of prisoners we carry in housing. Recent studies show that Texas is standing at 152,000 over California 134,000 housed inmates. Texas does have the larges population playing a factor of the amount of inmates but we have dropped down to fourth in the number of people we imprison over the years. Having made new “diversion programs that lawmakers have invested in five years ago using halfway houses for specialty courts involving mentally ill people and drunk drivers.” said Jason Clark a spokesmen for the Texas department of criminal justices. Leading to Texas being the number one state to use the death penalty sens it opened in 1976. with a large number of 515 death penalties out of 1376 across the nation in 2014. from there the executions have dropped down. with the changes in the system over the years the number of imprisonments and executions have reduced. now they made different programs and court seeings.looking at the decrease in the executions and prison time shows that the system is working on reducing the intake of people.

DISCUSSION 2

On the second tuesday in January of odd-numbered years a regular session convenes, members of the legislature come together to discuss issues and factors that affect Texas legislation. These scheduled sessions can run up to 140 calendar days, but no more. Voters have also rejected amendments that would create annual sessions, for fear that governmental power and spending would increase. In a special session, which the governor can call at any time, and as many as he or she wants, members discuss issues that cannot wait until the next scheduled meeting. The governor is the only one that can set the agenda for a special session, other legislative members can add items to the agenda. When it comes to the tools the governor uses to influence the legislative process, there are quite a few, veto, message power, and session power. With veto, if the governor doesn’t sign during 10 days in the session or 20 day after the session is over,then the bill becomes a law. That is the governor’s most powerful tool. There are message power, which attracts the media, they express policy preferences. Session power are called to speak on issues regarding the State, the governor can call these meetings at any time. Texas is ranked one of the highest States to hold prisoners, from 1982 to 1992 the State reached its all time high in robberies, murder and rape. To keep the prison population low,judges began accepting plea bargains, for a guilty plea, criminals can have their sentence reduced. Criminals are being put back into the streets quickly, which gives the citizens an uneasy feeling.

DISCUSSION 3

There are many different types of interest group that range from the most common one which are the economics group, which are labor unions or manufacture associations, to ethnic groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens. The purpose of these interest groups is to promote their specific interest so that those interest can become laws or policies. An example would be how the National Rifle Association uses the second amendment and the media to keep the government from banning specific types of guns. Some of the functions of these interest group are to get the candidate with the interest group’s same interests elected. They do this by getting the citizens to look at their views which would cause them to support and vote for the candidate. Another way is to provide the candidate with money need for their campaign expenses. They also give officeholders information about the groups interests. They get their members and other citizen involved in politics and they give citizens information about their groups interest, so that those citizens could help support the group or even join them. Interest groups also resolve conflict that happen with the group, which helps them stay together and well organize. Many of them meet with officeholders in order to inform the person on the groups interest, so that the officeholder could help get laws or polices passed. People participate in these groups because they believe in the group’s goals or to get the benefits that the interest groups offer to them.

DISCUSSION 4

Although public policy theories are divided between pluralism and majoritarianism, both theories recognize interest groups as ?a mechanism for people with shared goals to protect or advance their own interests? (Dautrich and Yalof 300). The idea behind interest groups, is that people in numbers are more capable to create movements than individuals alone. People need people to support ideas since the government attempts to represent all the people, not just individuals. Interest groups provide a way for people with shared interests to conglomerate and refine and share their ideas before encouraging the government to support their activity. Ultimately, ideas must become widespread if they are to reach a state or national level capable of enforcing these ideas. By forming a body, these groups are able to fund an organization capable of financing these large undertakings that require considerable spending to create political movements. People also often times feel a sense of belonging whenever they are able to participate in interest groups and feel morally obligated to support causes they perceive as good and just. Although reasons behind why people participate in interest groups vary widely, the underlying belief that strength are in numbers very likely accompanies all of these motivations. The ability and effectiveness of these groups becomes quite apparent whenever we consider lobbying efforts in Washington D.C. that are often times driven by interest groups rather than individuals alone. Many of these groups are invested into development and research efforts with the ultimate purpose of supporting the cause of their interest group. Although people are divided on whether or not these groups support the idea of democracy, their effectiveness cannot be denied.