Is gerrymandering fair? Are there better ways to redistrict? Are there fairer ways to redistrict? Should there be fairer ways to redistrict?

Evergreen Valley College Executive Privilege Discussion Questions

You are required to post a 300 word referenced response to one of the following discussion questions

choose one

Is gerrymandering fair? Are there better ways to redistrict? Are there fairer ways to redistrict? Should there be fairer ways to redistrict? Could there realistically be a more objective method of choosing districts?

Should Congress be more descriptively representative? How could this be ensured? Would it threaten democracy if representatives of particular demographic groups were favored in elections in order to bring about more descriptive representation?

choose one

How much executive privilege should there be? The Bush administration pushed to shield certain information from the public. Their reasoning was that, to make effective policy, policymakers must be able to have candid conversations with advisers that are not shared with the public. How much should the president and the executive branch be able to use executive privilege? What are the downsides to not releasing information? What would our founders (who met in private but also did not trust any branch with too much power) say about this?

Remind students that Supreme Court justices are elected for “life” and that some states follow the same procedure. How should judges be selected? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the federal appointment process? What are the pros and cons of judges being elected by the people? What are the benefits of the mixture of both selection processes? Doesn’t the process of appointing judges rather than electing them allow judges to do what is right instead of what is popular? Would the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education have been different if the judges were up for election the next year?