There is a clear distinction between federal and state officeholders in the united states. quizlet

a guaranteed legislative majority

There are both advantages and disadvantages to a two-party system (see Table 1). One advantage is that a choice between only two party platforms makes the political process simpler for voters, who often look for shortcuts when it comes to making electoral decisions. At the same time, in a multiparty system in which voters have more options, they are more likely to find a party that closely reflects their views.

A second advantage to a two-party system is that it promotes stability in democratic politics. As the two parties compete for ideologically moderate voters, they adjust their platforms to reflect the median of public opinion. However, some argue that this characteristic of a two-party system reduces the difference between the parties. When both sides craft platforms to appeal to the middle of the ideological spectrum, voters can find it difficult to draw distinctions between candidates.

An additional advantage of two-party systems is that they guarantee a clear winner and a definite legislative majority. Voters can more easily identify who is responsible in government and can use electoral politics to hold candidates accountable and check political power. The disadvantage of such a system is that politics can become increasingly polarized and adversarial as opposing politicians battle each other to win elections. In a multiparty system, parties must build coalitions to secure control of government. This has the benefit of requiring officeholders to work together to achieve policy goals, though it tends to dilute accountability for policy outcomes, spreading responsibility across a number of political parties with diverse ideological positions.

Through national, state, and local efforts, the Progressive Party brought about significant reforms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the area of electoral politics, the Progressives secured the direct election of senators, through ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, and women's suffrage, through ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. They also introduced electoral reforms such as the Australian (or secret) ballot and the direct primary. And at the state and local levels, they introduced avenues for increased popular participation in government through the initiative, referendum, and recall.

Sets found in the same folder

education, age, where you live, race & ethnicity, community ties, strong partisan views, wealth, gender

Education: easily most important, education and income are collinear (education most important, not income even though they're related)

Age: tends to increase as age increases, and then dips again around 75, voting tics up when you have your first child or purchase first home, also starts to flatten around age 60: retirement age
Elderly lose ability to vote: can't drive, voter ID laws- require photo ID in order to vote, older individuals do not update their drivers license bc they don't drive

One of biggest reasons people don't vote is because they're busy, and people under 30 are very busy- not that individuals under 30 don't care (they do)

Age 18-29: lowest voter turnout percentage, 60 and up is the highest
Other factors:
Geographic region: Non-Partisan voting: do not put party identification- more in the south

Race and ethnicity: different racial groups vote at different rates, black individuals will not vote at high rates unless it matters to them, a politician they identify with (ex- Barack Obama), that population does not feel represented -> will not vote

Community ties: church goers higher tendency to vote, Evangelicals and Trump
Strong partisan views
Wealth

Gender: Women slightly more likely on average to vote (1-2%) because we live slightly longer (not because we care more or are smarter)

Why low voter turnout?
- Self registration
- Too busy
- Absentee voting
- Number of elections
- Voter attitudes

Organized Labor

Modernization began slowly in Texas, starting in the 1870s when railroads and industry grew steadily. In response to these changing conditions, unions appeared in the state for the first time to fight for limited working hours, child labor laws, safer working conditions, and fair pay. The demands of labor groups would continue to build pressure against the small-government principles of the Democratic Party, and in response the party's conservatives often derided unions as communist or socialist.
Tenant Farmers

The biggest challenge to the post-Reconstruction Democratic Party did not come from Republicans, whose influence was limited to areas with large numbers of black voters or groups of old Unionists who, at most, could expect to get only one-third of the statewide vote.7 Rather, the only significant opposition to the Democrats was mounted by the Farmers' Alliance, a political organization that grew out of a group of farmer and rancher cooperatives who, like groups of industry and manufacturing workers, hungered for reform.

The agricultural system that replaced the pre-Civil War plantation system based on slave labor was farm tenancy. By the 1880s, many Texas farmers were "in debt and farming someone else's land," with their pleas for aid ignored by conservative Democrats.8 As farming and supply grew, cotton prices fell. This, in conjunction with ever-smaller land plots, meant that farmers increasingly lacked the space to grow both the subsistence crops they needed to survive and the cotton they were usually contractually required to produce to pay rent.

The Alliance gained traction in Texas politics and soon spread its influence across the United States, with a national membership of one to three million by 1887. Its political platform in 1890 prominently included railroad regulation, indicative of the way a small but growing body of Democrats in Texas and nationally supported an expanded role for government. In 1891, the Farmers' Alliance joined with other reform groups to become the People's Party, or Populists, and went on to win elective offices in Texas and other states in 1892. Democratic voters and activists were attracted to Populist candidates on reform issues, so the People's Party's successes exacerbated divisions within the reigning Democratic Party.

The Democrats eventually adopted part of the Populist platform in 1896 to reunify their party, draining crucial support from the Populists. But its platform sparked a reform movement that outlasted the People's Party and foreshadowed tensions that would eventually divide the Democrats in Texas and the nation.

Railroad Reform

Railroad regulation was important to farmers because railroads were the primary means of getting their crops to market. In response to growing calls for reform, the Texas Legislature worked with Governor James Stephen Hogg to create the Texas Railroad Commission as a regulatory body in 1891. Ironically, the governor saw the commission as a weapon to hold railroad rates low enough to keep non-Texas railroads out of the state but not, as those calling for reform had intended, to ensure fair competition among railroads within the state. Such competition would likely have meant much lower fares for farmers and some alleviation of their economic hardships.

Hogg thus embodied another division at the core of the Democratic Party that would drive repeated conflicts and eventually cause the party to come apart in the short term: business interests opposed cutthroat business practices if used against the state by outsiders, but were not against using those same practices themselves as a means of gaining a key economic or political advantage.

Minority Rights

Another effect of the Populist uprising was the revelation that neither Populists nor Democrats were wholly loyal to African Americans, whom both parties often courted in one speech and railed against in the next. Political leaders adopted a range of methods during the post-Reconstruction era (roughly 1890 to 1908) to prevent voting by African Americans. Known collectively as Jim Crow laws, these included whites-only primaries, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and poll taxes. The beneficiaries of these measures were Texas Democrats who had reasserted authority after Reconstruction. Efforts to undo them lasted well into the 20th century.

Another factor related to the impact of minority groups on politics that would set the stage for later party shifts was the migration of Mexicans into Texas, many of them fleeing violence in their home country. These immigrants were added to the substantial population of multigenerational Texans of Mexican decent who had lived in Texas prior to independence. Between 1900 and 1920, immigrants of Mexican descent grew to make up 10 percent of the Texas population. Many of the methods used to suppress African American turnout were also used on Mexican American voters, particularly new immigrants, during the same period. Yet the emergence of a new national Democratic coalition that included these groups would eventually cause a fundamental shift in Texas party allegiances as well.