PS1010 Columbia Southern Federal Bureaucracy and Judicial System Paper Unit VII – Study Guide is attached to complete essay assignment requested below. I
PS1010 Columbia Southern Federal Bureaucracy and Judicial System Paper Unit VII – Study Guide is attached to complete essay assignment requested below.
Instructions
For the following assignment, you are asked to write about the concepts you have learned in Unit VII. At the beginning of the unit, you examined the federal bureaucracy, its structure, and how it works. Following that, you studied information about the judiciary, its structure, and how it works. In addition, you studied the power that the judiciary can wield within the federal bureaucracy. After you have fully reviewed the aforementioned concepts, compose a paper which discusses the following topics:
In one of your reading assignments, you read that some people think that the bureaucracy is more than just a system executing the wishes of government officials. According to some people, the bureaucracy is the real government. Do you agree with this statement? Why, or why not?
Outline the structure, functions, and nature of the federal bureaucracy and the judicial system.
Discuss how the judiciary can serve to curb some of the power of the bureaucracy as well as other branches of the government.
Explain the concept of the “iron triangle,” and offer an example of how it can influence policymaking.
Identify how the knowledge you gained in this unit has affected the way you view the inner workings of government.
Your paper must be at least three pages in length, be double-spaced, and typed in 12-point Times New Roman font.
Use the CSU Online Library to find academic references for the development of your paper. Make sure that all sources are cited and referenced using APA style. UNIT VII STUDY GUIDE
Governing Institutions: The Federal
Bureaucracy and Judiciary
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VII
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
3. Describe the three branches of government.
3.1 Explain the structure of the federal bureaucracy.
3.2 Describe the structure of the judicial system.
4. Explain how the U.S. government functions at the federal, state, and local levels.
4.1 Describe the judiciarys roles and controls in the government.
4.2 Explain the concept of the iron triangle.
Course/Unit Learning
Outcomes
Learning Activity
3.1
Unit VII Lesson
Reading: 8. The Bureaucracy: The Real Government
Reading: 8b. The Organization of the Bureaucracy
Reading: 8c. Who Are the Bureaucrats?
Reading: 8d. Reforming the Bureaucracy
Unit VII Reflection Paper
3.2
Unit VII Lesson
Reading: The Judicial Branch
Reading: Federal Courts & the Public
Reading: 9b. The Structure of the Federal Courts
Unit VII Reflection Paper
4.1
Unit VII Lesson
Reading: The Judicial Branch
Reading: Federal Courts & the Public
Unit VII Reflection Paper
4.2
Unit VII Lesson
Reading: 8. The Bureaucracy: The Real Government
Unit VII Reflection Paper
Reading Assignment
To access the following resources, click the links below.
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. (2016). Federal courts & the public. Retrieved from
http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/federal-courts-public
Independence Hall Association. (n.d.). 8. The bureaucracy: The real government. Retrieved from
http://www.ushistory.org/gov/8.asp
Independence Hall Association. (n.d.). 8b. The organization of the bureaucracy. Retrieved from
http://www.ushistory.org/gov/8b.asp
Independence Hall Association. (n.d.). 8c. Who are the bureaucrats? Retrieved from
http://www.ushistory.org/gov/8c.asp
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Independence Hall Association. (n.d.). 8d. Reforming the bureaucracy. Retrieved
from
UNIT
x STUDY GUIDE
http://www.ushistory.org/gov/8d.asp
Title
Independence Hall Association. (n.d.). 9b. The structure of the federal courts. Retrieved from
http://www.ushistory.org/gov/9b.asp
The White House. (2016). The judicial branch. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/judicialbranch
Unit Lesson
The term bureaucracy refers to the hierarchical system of government and its administration. Most of us
associate a bureaucracy with inefficiency, inaction, and piles of paperwork, often referred to as red tape.
Interestingly, the term red tape was derived from the actual red tape used in Great Britain and the colonies to
bundle legal and official documents. Today, the proverbial red tape represents to most Americans the
challenges associated with navigating governmental procedures and processes.
In the United States, the bureaucracy is comprised of three major administrative agencies, the Executive
Office of the President, the 15 Cabinet departments, and the independent agencies. As discussed previously,
the executive office and Cabinet bear the brunt of the
responsibility for governing the country. Indeed, the main
purpose of the federal bureaucracy is to execute the
policy decisions of the president and Congress. The
independent agencies operate beyond the powers and
scope of the Cabinet and include regulatory commissions
such as the Federal Communications Commission and
the Securities and Exchange Commission and
government corporations such as the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, and independent executive
agencies (Farshtey, n.d.-b). Among the more noteworthy
of the independent agencies are the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA).
Most of us do all we can to avoid any interaction or
encounters with the federal government. Ironically, most
(CIA, n. d.)
government agencies prefer to remain off the publics
radar and only gain attention when something goes horribly wrong. One example was the situation involving
Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2005.
Memorial wall in the lobby of the CIA Original
Headquarters Building, Langley, Virginia
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the devastation along the Gulf
Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana led to an extreme example of
the type of media coverage federal agencies wish to avoid.
FEMA should have stepped in to guide the federal response and
provide assistance to those areas affected by the storm because
of the declared state of emergency. FEMA, however, failed to do
so for several days, leaving thousands of people stranded with
no resources.
Kathleen Blanco, governor of Louisiana at the time, said that an
effective emergency response was blocked by government
bureaucracy and too much red tape (Shoup, 2005). A review of
FEMA is an independent agency.
the response, or the lack thereof, revealed that FEMA had
(Winer, 2005)
possibly placed too much emphasis on training and response to
terrorism, and that caused a breakdown in communication and lack of leadership (Shoup, 2005). Ultimately,
the head of FEMA resigned only weeks after Katrina (FEMA Director Brown Resigns, 2005).
The red tape of a bureaucracy may serve as the focal point for criticism, but a country as large as the United
States needs a bureaucracy to effectively manage its issues even if the bureaucracy itself creates problems.
PS 1010, American Government
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In the beginning, the federal government was small and in touch with the needs
of the
people GUIDE
because those
UNIT
x STUDY
involved with the government split time between taking care of home and taking
care of government. By the
Title
end of the 1800s, politicians began to spend more and more time away from home, taking care of the
business of the government, and the federal bureaucracy began to grow. The first agency created was the
Department of Agriculture in 1889 that focused on research and commodity production and prices
(Department of Agriculture, 2003). From there, agencies grew slowly until the 1930s and Franklin
Roosevelts New Deal programs. The government saw another growth in the 1960s with Lyndon Johnsons
Great Society (Independence Hall Association, n.d.-a).
All agencies live or die by their budgets. Without money, no agency program can exist, and only Congress
has the mandate to tax and spend. As a result, the budget process is a long, arduous task involving multiple
departments, agencies, and entities. The entire process takes one and a half years. The budget process both
begins and ends in February when the president submits a detailed budget request for the fiscal year
beginning October 1 (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2016). The image below depicts the process
involved in creating the annual budget.
Fiscal budget flowchart
(Wyant, 2014)
Though the budget is submitted in January or February for Congress to begin deliberations, discussions
actually begin the prior spring when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the president consult
on agency needs. Each agency is given a spending ceiling that it cannot exceed (Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, 2016). Agencies work through the summer and submit their budget requests to the OMB for
review and finalizing in September. The president submits the budget proposal to Congress in January, and it
gets divided and sent to committee. By April 15, Congress should have adopted a budget resolution and by
September should have completed work on appropriations bills in time for the president to sign or veto it for
the fiscal year beginning October. If all does not go well, and a budget is not passed, as has been the case in
recent years, Congress must pass temporary funding measures in order to maintain government operations
(Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2016).
While bureaucracy is constrained by the budget, it gains power from the broad discretion it is afforded in
decisions regarding the implementation of policy. Members gain power for their agencies and, in turn, play
politics to protect their programs and power. Clientele groups, groups who benefit directly from an agencys
programs, are more than willing to lobby on behalf of the agency during program or funding reviews. The
budget process is far from simple and by its very nature demands oversight. The president, Congress, and
the court system assume most accountability for bureaucratic agencies.
The judiciary, or the federal court system, wields considerable power within the bureaucracy of the federal
government with a primary role of ruling on the laws passed by Congress. Judicial reviewthe ability of the
court to review acts of other branches of government and the statesis considered to be one of the
judiciarys greatest powers. In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court first declared that a court can state
PS 1010, American Government
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that an act of Congress is unconstitutional (A&E Television Networks, 2009). This
UNITlandmark
x STUDYdecision
GUIDE
established that the Supreme Court has the ability to ensure that other branches
of the government adhere to
Title
the Constitution of the United States (Legal Information Institute, n.d.).
The federal judicial system consists of constitutional and
legislative courts. The constitutional courts are the federal courts
created by Congress under Article III of the Constitution
(Farshtey, n.d.-a). When issuing rulings, the judiciary has
considerable discretion and is a political as well as legal
institution. While the Constitution provides for the Supreme Court,
it gives Congress the power to create all lower federal courts. The
president nominates and appoints all federal judges, but they
must be confirmed by the Senate. There are no formal
qualifications, and they serve during good behavior. This
essentially means that the justices serve until death or until they
voluntarily retire (Farshtey, n.d.-a). In extreme cases, they can be
removed through impeachment.
Federal court structure
(Independence Hall Association, n.d.-b)
The court system structure consists of the Supreme Court with 94
subordinate district courts and 13 courts of appeals. Each state
decides the structure of its own courts and how judges will be
selected; 95% of all legal cases are decided in state and local
courts (Justice at Stake, 2017).
The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Congress sets the number of justices on the
court at one chief justice and eight associate justices. The chief justices vote on a case carries the same
legal weight as the vote of each associate judge. The Supreme Court can hear a case through original
jurisdiction, that is, it is able to be the first court to hear a case, or appellate jurisdiction, which means that it
reviews cases that have been tried in lower courts. In the judicial system, there are two guiding philosophies,
judicial activism and judicial restraint.
Judicial activism, also known as judicial intervention, holds that the court should interpret the text of the
Constitution and assume the role of national policymaker. Judicial restraint holds that the court should limit its
power by not striking down laws unless they are obviously unconstitutional (Farshtey, n.d.-a).
The Supreme Court only accepts about 100 cases a year and is in session from the first Monday in October
until June or July. It uses its cases to set precedent for all lower courts to follow. Four of the justices must
agree to hear a case before a writ of certiorari, a demand to the lower court to deliver its records on the case,
is requested. During the hearing, both sides present oral arguments lasting no more than 30 minutes each,
and each side submits a written brief containing the full argument. Once this is completed, the justices gather
to discuss the case and vote. Once a case is decided, an opinion is written. The vote on the case is not
considered final until the opinion explaining the legal basis for the decision is written.
The three main sources of law are the Constitution, legislative statutes, and legal precedents. The court
system cannot issue a decision except in response to a case presented to it, and it must stay within the facts
of the case. While the courts are powerful in their ability to knock down laws passed by legislation, they, too,
are bound by the law and must rule within it.
With all of these moving parts, it is easy to see how bureaucracy and red tape have become synonymous. Do
these entities work independently? Are they impartial? Compounding these concerns is the concept of the
iron triangle. The iron triangle refers to the theory that three primary entities influence and dictate what
happens in government: interest groups, members of Congressional subcommittees, and agency
bureaucrats. These groups rely on one another to provide the others needs. This mutual dependency results
from one or more of the others within the triangle providing instrumental services, information, or policy that is
necessary to the others. Ultimately, this speculation reinforces the fact that there are multiple factors at play
with multiple players doing all they can to try and ensure their programs or issues wind their ways
successfully though the system.
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References
A&E Television Networks. (2009). Marbury v. Madison. Retrieved from
http://www.history.com/topics/marbury-v-madison
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (2015). Policy basics: Introduction to the federal budget process.
Retrieved from http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-introduction-to-the-federal-budget-process
Central Intelligence Agency. (n.d.). CIA OHB lobby memorial wall [Image]. Retrieved from
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CIA_OHB_Lobby_Memorial_Wall.jpg
Department of Agriculture. (2013). In Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved from http://www.encyclopedia.com/socialsciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/us-government/united-states-department
Farshtey, K. (n.d.-a). The bureaucracy and the judiciary. Retrieved from
http://mrfarshtey.net/apgov_review/bureaucracy-judiciary.pdf
Farshtey, K. (n.d.-b). Chapter 15: The bureaucracy; Section 1: The federal bureaucracy. Retrieved from
http://mrfarshtey.net/gov_outlines/Mag_Chp15_Outline.pdf
FEMA director Brown resigns. (2005, September). Retrieved from
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/12/brown.resigns/
Independence Hall Association. (n.d.-a). 56e. Lyndon Johnsons Great Society. Retrieved from
http://www.ushistory.org/us/56e.asp
Independence Hall Association. (n.d.-b). The federal court structure [Image]. Retrieved from
http://www.ushistory.org/gov/9b.asp
Justice at Stake. (2017). Americas courts: A primer. Retrieved from
http://www.justiceatstake.org/resources/americas-courts-a-primer/
Legal Information Institute. (n.d.). Judicial review. Retrieved from
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/judicial_review
Shoup, A. (2005). FEMA faces intense scrutiny. Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/government_programs-july-dec05-fema_09-09/
Winer, D. (2005). FEMA help desk [Image]. Retrieved from
Wyant, J. (2014, September). Federal budget part 1 z001 [Image]. Retrieved from
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Budget_Part_1_z001.jpg
Suggested Reading
To access the following resources, click the links below.
To learn more details about how the bureaucracy functions and how it can be influenced by outside sources,
please view the resource below.
Farshtey, K. (n.d.). The bureaucracy and the judiciary. Retrieved from
http://mrfarshtey.net/apgov_review/bureaucracy-judiciary.pdf
PS 1010, American Government
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Read Chapter 4: Judicial Appointments and the Prospective Accountability ofUNIT
Judicial
Nominees
to the U.S.
x STUDY
GUIDE
Senate on pp. 209222 in the eBook listed below to gain insight on the judicial
nomination process.
Title
Geyh, C. G., & OConnor, S. D. (2009). When courts and Congress collide: The struggle for control of
America’s judicial system [ebrary]. Retrieved from
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/columbiasu/detail.action?docID=10362203&p00=geyh
View the link below to get an inside look at the federal debt.
National Debt Awareness Center. (n.d.). The U.S. national debt is $19.8 trillion! Retrieved from
http://www.federalbudget.com/
The link below provides insight into the function and organization of the Office of Management and Budget.
The White House. (n. d.). Office of Management and Budget. Retrieved from
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb
Learning Activities (Nongraded)
Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit
them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information. Please click the link
below to view flashcards that cover information from this unit.
Quizlet. (2017). The federal bureaucracy and the judicial branch [Flashcards]. Retrieved from
https://quizlet.com/70630132/the-federal-bureaucracy-and-the-judicial-branch-flash-cards/
PS 1010, American Government
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