There appears to be a measurable erosion of civics knowledge, a proficiency in how government and politics works, in America. This is nothing new. To be sure, the decline in civic understanding may have preceded the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001 that pushed public schools, especially in lower SES communities, to jettison many non-testing subjects in favor of doubling up on math, language arts/literacy courses. For decades education researchers and advocates have been pointing out that the cutting of extra-curricular subjects in schools, but instead offering increased time on testing subjects, leaves students without the creative and expansive subjects that contributes to fuller human development. Largely, those arguments fell on deaf ears as schools and districts facing takeover or closure continued to focus on the myopic goal of “proving” learning through students’ test scores. Certainly, many would agree that limiting students’ exposure to music, foreign languages, the humanities, and other electives like yearbook and cooking doesn’t serve students’ propensity for curiosity and imagination — both essential to learning — very well at all. And yet, schools’ curricular offerings continued to shrink.
In the void of reduced exposure to knowledge outside of English and Math, new information sources emerged. Since the early 2000s, YouTube exploded, Twitter-usage surged, (now-defunct)Vines were created, Instagram and TikTok became central modes of communication for folks under 35, and the social media space is awash in podcasts covering everything from sports, to relationships, to the environment, to politics — which brings me to the topic at hand. Where there has been a decades-long fragmenting of subjects like social studies and civics, with the democratized social media space we have now, information-hungry people who want answers and explanations for matters pertaining to government are going to search for them, and find some semblance of both; whether the information is accurate or not matters little as accessibility and one’s ability to discern fact, from nonsense is increasingly a coin-toss. And because many are ignorant (not knowing) to what is accurate and what is not, many are simply left to be influenced by the most attention-grabbing and charismatic presence.
In efforts to cut through the noise, and there certainly is a lot out there, this is my attempt at offering a CliffsNotes Civics Lesson to help connect questions folks may have, with information that can be useful when considering information and making decisions. These civics posts will be broken into pieces which hopefully can help consumers make sense of what is happening, politically, around them ahead of election season so that we can be more knowledgeable, and thus, make better decisions grounded in information, not noise.That said, let’s get to it!
Here, we’re getting into Levels of Government… we’re starting here because, in my view, understanding this is fundamental toward understanding electoral government.
While our folks, much like the rest of America, tend to pay far more attention to elections during presidential election cycles, it is important that I communicate that consequential elections happen far more often than the one election that takes place every four years. And, it can also be argued that the elections that are most impactful to our daily lives, happen at our local and state levels yet receive far less publicity than presidential elections.
Local Elections: City/Town council (legislative body for municipalities that both drafts ordinances for cities and provides oversight within municipal politics; also councilmembers lobby on behalf their specific section of the city
Mayors: The highest ranking executive of a city or municipality; has a lot of power within city government but does not have universal power in deciding courses of action as most actions must be approved by city council. Mayors have influence over the day to day, more mundane functions of city government and their disparate impact on residents’ routines, but barring an earth-shaking occurrence, life for city residents tends to look the same regardless of who’s elected. That said, mayors can establish norms and guidelines for what they want to see out of their municipal departments that can, to an extent, reflect their own governing values — which can be exhibited through mayoral appointments and municipal priorities.
What this means functionally: Though municipal priorities of the city may be set forth by the mayor, the chief executive of the city, very little of that agenda can come to fruition without approval from city council and the needed funding through local taxes (municipal revenue), and state and federal aid. But, in some cases, mayors can unilaterally establish departmental policy. Take for instance, Stop and Frisk, in NYC that was an operational initiative under then-mayor Michael Bloomberg. After research proved the policy to be racist in its targeting of innocent Black and Latino New Yorkers, Bill deBlasio, as mayor, severely curtailed the practice. Unfortunately, current mayor and former police officer, Eric Adams, resurrected Stop-and-Frisk to continue the unconstitutional trespasses by NYPD upon persons of color. Great work mayor.
What this may look like in practice: A mayoral candidate may have run for office, as part of their platform, on “defunding the police”, and won. And thus, the public expectation would be, based on the candidate’s campaign “promise” that the newly elected mayor would divert funding from their police department and said funds in other areas like crime prevention, mental health, etc. But, it is certainly worth nothing, none of that can happen without approval from city council. And so, if city council does not approve of that shifting of funds away from the police, the mayor’s vision of defunding the police will not, and can not, occur. Who is to blame there?
State Elections: The State Assembly/Senate performs much of the same functions as city council but on the state level. And rather than representing specific portions of a city, state legislators represent specific regions of the state, in addition to crafting state laws, providing oversight of the governor, and crafting budgets.
Governors: Performs much of the same functions as a mayor but on the state level. Governors are any state’s highest ranking executive with the ability to put forth a governing agenda, as well as veto or accept budgets proposed by the state assembly. Additionally, some governors have the availability to appoint cabinet members who usually head state departments like education, corrections, labor, environmental protection, consumer affairs, etc. Gubernatorial appointments commonly reflect the vision and values of the Governor. Governors have ENORMOUS influence in what takes place in the lives of everyone in their state!
What this looks like functionally: Think about the catastrophe that is taking place regarding water in Jackson, MS., book bannings in over two dozen states, Stand Your Ground laws that directly lead to increased deaths of Black people at the hands of “scared” white people without any accountability, the rolling back of child labor laws, states’ extremely low minimum wage, states withholding needed social aid for to the poor — those are matters of state government. Such matters are drafted, legislated by state legislators, and executed with the signature of governors — not mayors and not the President.
NONE of these horrific occurrences are under the purview of city or federal legislators or executives.
Federal Elections (the US Congress):
Members of the House of Representatives (elected every two years) and US Senators (elected every six years) perform similar duties but exactly the same. US Representatives represent a specific number of people with a given district within their home state. In all, there are 435 US Representatives in the House of Representatives. They perform an oversight function, and very generally control the nation’s multi-trillion dollar budget. The Senate, rather than representing people within a specific area, represents the state as a whole. Every state has two senators, no matter the number of people within the state. A state like Wyoming, with less than 1M people has two senators, just like California with a population north of 40M. Senators also provide oversight functions, but are responsible for confirming federal judges, and presidential appointments to cabinet-level positions like Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, etc.
The President is the one election most have some knowledge about. This election takes place every four years. The president’s role is representing the nation on the world’s stage, making judicial appointments at the federal level, including the US Supreme Court; and making federal agency appointments. The President also has some latitude to enact their agenda through executive orders that last as long as they’re in office, and can be swiftly undone through legal challenges or once a succeeding president takes office. Presidents have enormous influence over the federal priorities within agencies and through their appointments, as well as influencing foreign policy and domestic priorities through, primarily, their status as President. Presidents however, cannot simply “do whatever they want” because the Congress (Senators and US Representatives) make laws.
What this looks like functionally: Presidents appointing US Supreme Court justices had the power to both sustain the Voting Rights Act or dismantle it — the Republican dominated court chose to dismantle it. The Supreme court had the power to sustain or dismantle a woman’s nationwide right to abortion services, the Supreme Court chose to dismantle it, leaving it up to governors to decide how or whether abortion services are offered (or not) within their state. President Biden campaigned on providing financial aid relief for recent college grads, the measure was promptly pushed back on by Republicans and thus, the matter is being heard by the Supreme Court and subject to the Court’s determination.
The aim here was to provide a general focus for folks on who, and what body, is responsible for what, and where. Knowing this information is foundational toward recognizing where folks should direct our concerns. Not knowing this information can lead folks to blame political actors that really have little to do with the issues we’re concerned about — like President Biden (and I am no fanatic for Biden). For instance, if folks have an issue with trash collection and dumping in the city of Philadelphia or Detroit, the blame lies at the feet of city council, the mayor, and city agencies — not President Biden. If folks in, say, Alabama do not like that their state’s minimum wage is $7.25/hr, a rate that’s been in place since 2009, the people who bear sole responsibility for that are the state’s lawmakers and the governor — not President Biden. If folks don’t like that their names were removed from voter rolls right before elections, or that gerrymandered maps have diluted the power of the black vote (we’ll get to that later in the series), the people to blame are the secretaries of state and governors that appointed them — again, not President Biden.
While it is true political candidates campaign on a set of aspirations, the reality is no candidate has unilateral power to enact anything they campaign on. As such their campaign should be understood as a general framework for what they’d implement if they had the power to operationalize policies on their own; they do not and yet, many believe they do.
This brief overview — not meant to be exhaustive — was simply to provide some basic information to keep in mind as we seek to better understand the political landscape, namely why things happen as they do, where they do.
In the next segment, we’ll get into campaigning and legislating, and how (some) laws are formed and enacted (and why others aren’t). These segments are not intended to make excuses for any party in particular, but to cut through a lot of the trash masked as information that can mislead our community. I have a firm belief that we all need to be better stewards of people’s attention if we have it, and are obligated to be responsible with it. And so, this is my attempt to try to do just that.
