1999 Scores
Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 1.0
Civil Liberties: 1
Political Rights: 1
Overview
After having been impeached by a vote of the House of Representatives in December 1998, President Bill Clinton managed to retain his office by a vote of the Senate in January. Clinton had been impeached on two counts brought against him because of his involvement in a sex scandal involving a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky: first, for lying before a grand jury about the affair and second, for obstruction of justice in subsequent attempts to investigate the matter.
Although the Clinton presidency survived, the President was clearly weakened by the year-long crisis triggered by the Lewinsky affair. In the absence of major legislative initiatives and elections of national significance, the year was dominated by preliminary skirmishing over the presidential nominations of the two major parties, Democrat and Republican for the presidential election in year 2000. The Democratic front-runner, Vice President Al Gore, faced a serious challenge from former Senator Bill Bradley. In the Republican Party, the early lead was assumed by George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and son of former president George Bush. Bush, however, was given a strong challenge by Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.
The U.S. federal government has three branches, executive, legislative, and judicial. In addition, the American federal system gives substantial powers to state and local governments and the citizenry.
The president and vice president are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The technical device for the election of a president is the electoral college. The voters in each state and Washington, D.C., cast their ballots for slates of electors who, in turn, cast ballots in the electoral college for the candidate who received the most votes in their particular state. In 1996, the ticket of incumbent President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore won 379 electoral votes to 159 for the Republican ticket of Bob Dole and his running mate Jack Kemp. In the popular vote, the Clinton ticket received 49 percent, with Dole at 42 percent.
The U.S. Congress is bicameral. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives as well as non-voting members from Washington, D.C., and several related territories. Each state is guaranteed at least one representative in the House. The rest are apportioned on the basis of population. In the 1998 mid term elections, Republicans continued their domination of the House by winning 223 seats to 211 for the Democrats, with 1 independent. This result represented a net gain of 5 seats for the Democrats. The 100-member Senate has two members from each state, regardless of population. Each senator serves a six-year term. In the mid term election, Republicans won 55 Senate seats; the Democrats won 45 seats.
Political Rights and Civil Liberties
Americans can change their government democratically. Voter turnout has been relatively low in recent years; in the 1998 midterm elections, voter turnout stood at just 36 percent of the voting-age population, the lowest level since 1942. Elections are competitive, but congressional incumbents win in a majority of cases. In recent years, the cost of political campaigns has risen substantially. Much of a candidate's time is consumed with fund-raising, and while Congress has periodically passed laws imposing limitations on political contributions, candidates have found ways to circumvent the spirit of the laws and court decisions have limited their effectiveness. Indeed, both Bill Bradley and John McCain made reform of the election finance system a priority in their early campaigning for the presidency. Some critics have argued that generous contributions by business, labor unions, and other "special interests" have made it practically impossible for candidates to dislodge incumbents. Recent elections, however, have tended to weaken the thrust of that argument. In the 1994 midterm election, Republican challengers ousted a substantial number of Democratic incumbents, and in the 1998 elections, Democratic challengers defeated a significant number of sitting Republicans.
The American political system is overwhelmingly dominated by the two major parties. Various insurgent parties of the Left and Right have issued periodic challenges through the years, with little success. The most recent effort was spearheaded by Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire who sought the presidency on the Citizens Party line in both 1992 and 1996. In 1998, Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler, was elected governor of Minnesota on the Reform Party line. In 2000, the Reform Party is expected to nominate a candidate for president, possibly Patrick Buchanan, a former Republican who advocates trade protectionism, immigration curbs, and opposition to American intervention in foreign conflicts. Nevertheless, at present, the party does not pose a significant challenge to the dominant position of the Republicans and Democrats.
The two major parties choose their presidential candidates through a lengthy and expensive process during the winter and spring of election years. Party members vote for their preferred candidates either in primary elections or in local meetings of party members, called caucuses. The nominating process has been criticized for its cost and length, and for the sometimes undue influence of unrepresentative minority factions. Defenders of the system claim that allowing rank-and-file party members to participate in the nominating process is more democratic than is the case in other countries where a small group of party leaders select the nominee.
A recent trend has been the increased use of initiative and referendum to determine issues of public policy. Some states, California most notably, permit public initiatives on almost any issue of public concern; in other states, strict limits are placed on the practice. In recent years, voters in various states have decided on such issues as whether to impose restrictions on illegal immigrants, the legality of assisted suicide, the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, affirmative action for women and minorities, and casino gambling.
The American media are free and competitive. Some observers have expressed concern over the trend towards the ownership of the largest and most influential newspapers, magazines, and television networks by large corporate conglomerates. Another worrying trend is the enhanced role of television, where news is covered in a superficial and sensationalistic way, at the expense of newspapers. On the other hand, some point to the explosion of new, specialized journals as well as the Internet and public affairs programming on cable television in arguing that Americans have suffered no loss of alternative viewpoints or in-depth coverage of public issues.
Public and private discussion are very open in the United States. In recent years, concern has been expressed over the adoption by many universities of restrictive codes designed to prohibit speech that is deemed insulting to women, racial minorities, and homosexuals. Several of these codes have ben struck down by the courts, but many remain in place, and are said to have a chilling effect on academic freedom.
The American court system has long been a subject of controversy. Some critics accuse judges of being overly "activist" by issuing rulings on issues which, critics contend, should be resolved through the legislative process. More recently, the courts have been at the center of controversial lawsuits which seek millions of dollars in damages from tobacco firms and handgun manufacturers. Some fear that such actions could establish a trend towards social regulation through lawsuit rather than by acts of Congress or state legislatures.
The past year has seen the continuation of a trend towards the decrease in crime throughout the country. Instances of violent crime are at their lowest level in years, especially in major cities like New York. The reason for the decrease is a source of debate, though some credit is given new strategies of zero-tolerance law enforcement adopted in a number of cities. These tactics, in turn, have elicited the criticism of civil liberties organizations, which claim that police abuse of civilians is on the increase. In February a major controversy was ignited by the shooting death at the hands of four New York city police officers of an unarmed African immigrant, Amadou Diallo. The incident provoked weeks of protest demonstrations in New York, and led to charges that the police in many cities were practicing "racial profiling" – that is, singling out black or Hispanic civilians for arrest or questioning. These charges led the federal government to intervene in the state of New Jersey to ensure that racial profiling practices were eliminated in the state police force.
While crime continues to decline, Americans were increasingly concerned about episodes of violence in the schools. The country was shocked when two students at Columbine High School in Colorado opened fire with semiautomatic weapons and killed 12 fellow students and a teacher. Such incidents have led many schools to adopt "zero tolerance" policies under which students are suspended from school for what many consider to be minor infractions.
The U.S. has freedom of association. Trade unions are free, but have been in decline for some years and today represent the lowest percentage of American workers in the postwar period.
The American economy enjoyed one of its strongest years of the past half-century in 1999, with an official unemployment rate under 4.5 percent and one of the world's lowest rates of inflation. More so than in most other countries, the U.S. economy is well integrated in the world economy. The Clinton administration has strongly supported free trade and the further integration of the American economy into the world trading system. The administration, however, suffered a setback when protests and riots disrupted the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle.
There is religious freedom in America. A persisting controversy involves the separation of church and state, in particular regarding whether federal money can be given to organizations or projects sponsored by religious groups. Although the courts have generally ruled in favor of strict separation of church and state, the Supreme Court in 1998 let stand a lower court decision which allowed students who attended church-sponsored schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to receive government tuition assistance.
Race relations remained one of America's most serious problems. African-Americans remain disproportionately poor, less likely to complete high school or college, more likely to have out-of-wedlock births, and more likely to suffer major health problems than other groups. Although a substantial degree of integration has been achieved in a number of American institutions, residential segregation is still high as is the tendency of blacks and Hispanics to predominate in the public schools of major cities. Blacks did, however, benefit from the high growth and low unemployment which characterized the economy in 1998.
Affirmative action programs remained a source of friction. In recent years, affirmative action plans which give advantages to minority groups or women have suffered reversals through referenda and court decisions. As an alternative to traditional affirmative action plans, two states, Florida and Texas, have adopted schemes to give a specified percentage of top high school graduates automatic admission to state universities. Some predict that such plans may be expanded in the future in an attempt to replace policies based solely on race and gender.
America continued to permit high levels of legal immigration. At the same time, the U.S. has beefed up its patrols at the border with Mexico in an attempt to stem the flood of illegal immigrants. One result has been an increased number of clashes between the border patrol and illegal immigrants. The U.S. has also adopted stricter criteria for the approval of political asylum, and has raised concerns over the incarceration of some asylum seekers in prisons with regular criminals.
American women have made significant gains in recent years, and have benefited from affirmative action laws, anti discrimination measures, and judicial decisions which have penalized corporations millions of dollars in discrimination cases.
American Indians continued to suffer disproportionately from poverty and social problems such as alcoholism. In recent years, some Indian reservations have experienced some economic progress through the development of gambling casinos on Indian property. But many have expressed doubts that casino gambling will lead to broad economic development for the majority of impoverished Indians.
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