The Budget Crisis May Yield Sea Change in Election Politics
Published in The New York Times on Saturday, February 21, 2009
By: Jennifer Steinhauer
The aricle is entirely about one change proposed in addition to approving the California state budget. Steinhauer claims California is doing what it always does well, re-vamping the way America does things. The highlight issue in the article was the approval of adding a proposed contitutional amednment. Cutting down to the chase, California lawmakers might be suggesting that we throw out political parties during election time. It is being called the "open-primary idea" and most California lawmakers are backing it up. Primary elections decide who a political party nominates as a candidate for the following general election. In a closed primary, people may vote in a party's primary only if they are registered members of that party and Independents cannot participate. With the proposed open primary, a registered voter may vote in any party primary regardless of his own party affiliation. Does this mean that voters will start to cross over into different parties during the primary? Well, I think so. I think that many people will begin to disragard their parties because we are allowed to do what is known as "decline to state".
I wonder, could this change the process of our elections? Also, why would California lawmakers add this onto the state's budget agreement?
The article and photograph are both courtesy of the New York Times and was retrived from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/us/21calif.html?_r=1&sq=californiabudgetcrisi&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all
It is sad to think that such a serious issue as the California budget would come down to bickering over which party would be able to get more representatives in political power. Your article effectively displays opinions from both sides of the debate over what compromises had to be made when trying to agree on the California budget. It does appear to use a very positive tone to describe all of the outcomes, as well as an authoritative tone as it quoted many of the senators who were involved with the proceedings (Not to mention the prestige of The New York Times).
ReplyDeleteThe issue presented here seems to be one sided. It does not include the negative aspects that could lurk behind the fronted politics. It seems to be a authoritative source, due to the NY times being a popular news media. It seems to have legitimate information from politicians.
ReplyDeleteThe argument could be taken or stretched out more by including, what could be told by the summary, both sides of the story or more or less the pros/cons. With that it could become an informative article without holding any type of bias.
After reading the article you presented from the New York times it is an authoritative source. One, being a widely popular newspaper and two, a long history of good reporting. The article explains the proposed amendment and does explain the effects of the open primaries being that California holds more than 10 percent of the house. The article appears not to be one sided, rather simple informative.
ReplyDeleteThe argument can be taken into more detail by talking more about the proposed amendment and how the open/closed primaries ended up on the bill. Yes, the article talks about some consequences of each but it also includes quotes from each party and their point of views which can sway the article to be called biased. The article would be more informative if it simply included the facts, black and white and pros and cons.
-Nick Fisher