The mid-term elections are less than two weeks away, so here is a social studies refresher, some mid-term election cliffs notes, and my two cents on the state of the union.
The Government…
So, the federal government is divided into three branches: legislative which makes laws (Congress), executive which carries out laws (president, vice president, cabinet, most federal agencies), and judicial which evaluates laws (Supreme court and other courts).
Each branch can change acts of the other branches i.e. Congress confirms or rejects the president’s nominees or Justices of the Supreme Court (who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate) can overturn unconstitutional laws.
So, a little more detail about the legislative branch, Congress has two parts or chambers. The upper chamber is the Senate and the lower chamber is the House of Representatives.
There are two elected senators per state, thus a total of a hundred senators. A Senate term is six years and there is no limit to the number of terms an individual can serve.
There are 435 elected representatives, which are divided among the 50 states in proportion to their total population. A representative serves a two-year term and there is no limit to the number of terms an individual can serve.
The Midterms…
The midterm elections are on Tuesday, November 6th.
The midterm elections are held midway between presidential elections and determine which political party, Democratic or Republican, will control each chamber of Congress for the next two years. Naturally, the party in control of either chamber is the party more likely to gets its proposed legislation passed in that chamber, which is why mid-terms are crucial. Fifty-one seats are needed for control of Senate and 218 are needed for control of the House.
Currently the Republicans have control of both chambers of Congress. All 435 seats of the House of Representatives are up for election in the mid-terms. If Democrats want to take control of the House they need to claim 23 Republican seats (according to the New York Times) while keeping the one hundred and ninety something seats they currently hold.
Only 35 of the 100 seats of the Senate are up for grabs. If Democrats want to conquer here, they need to win 28 of those 35 seats. They would have to keep all their current 26 seats, plus win two of the Republican seats. The Republicans only need to defend nine seats. So yes, this is way more intense than watching rivalry college football. Here is a list of all the senators who are up for re-election or plan to leave office.
If you need help with knowing what is on your state’s ballot you can visit a few sites. I’ve used vote411.org and ballotpedia.org. Both sites allow you to go through candidates as well as details the individual ballot measures (proposals) on your states ballot. You can also visit your state’s Secretary of State website.
Michigan is voting on three ballot measures or proposals: 1) legalizing recreational marijuana, 2) ending gerrymandering (gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. You can read about it more here), and 3) adding eight voting policies to the Michigan Constitution, including automatic voter registration, straight-party voting, and changing the absentee voter policy.
My Thoughts…
Here’s a very true story for you. Let’s go back to just last week, Wednesday morning. I’m just, you know, doing my Wednesday usual, in clinic, seeing patients. I’m sitting with this one patient, a white male in his late 50’s, early 60’s, not retired, still a practicing lawyer. Anyway, he asks me a question about what could be causing a change in his normal patterns of urination. I proceed to answer his question, “well, Mr. **** that can be multi-factorial…” He cuts me off and chuckles, “…Multi-factorial. Now that’s a big word for you. Where did they teach you that at?” This….this is the degrading state of the union, The Trump effect, the empowerment of small-mindedness.
So, on November 6th I will be voting. The dissension and degradation of these United States is…. well multi-factorial. But the thing that is currently before us is the chance to choose the people who sit in very important seats and make very important decisions. This is our chance to choose people who, prayerfully, will have a positive effect on the aura of our nation.
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. You will experience “politics” even in the middle of a typical Wednesday morning when you are just trying to do your job and take care of people. So, you can either vote by voting or vote by not voting. If you don’t vote someone else’s vote counts more! So, VOTE baby VOTE!
Photo credit: Gabriel Hackett/Getty Images
