Citizen Participation

Political Models of Voting Behavior

• Rational choice: what is in the citizen’s individual interest

• Retrospective voting: whether or not a party/candidate should be reelected based on their performance

• Prospective voting: the potential performance of a party/candidate

• Party-line voting: voting for candidates from a single political party for all offices

Political Parties

• Organizations with similar ideologies that try to influence election outcomes and legislative problems

  • Play a formal role in both

• Not mentioned in the Constitution

• Parties formed to unite people who had the same political ideals to elect similar-minded representatives and have similar legislative goals

  • Endorse candidates and help them in elections

  • Parties expect candidates to remain loyal to party goals

• Two major political parties: Democrats and Republicans

  • Two-party or $<strong>bi-partisan system</strong>$reinforced by electoral system

    • Difficult for more than two major parties to get on the ballot

Party Characteristics

• Intermediaries between government and people

• Made of activist members, leadership, and grassroots members

• Raise money, get candidates elected, and have positions on policy

• Develop party platforms: list of goals that outlines party’s issues and priorities

• Major purpose is to get candidates elected

  • Since 1960 more states have required parties to choose candidates through primary elections

    • Reduced power of parties - the people must choose candidates

    • Candidates raise their own money and campaign by themselves

Functions of Modern Political Parties

• Three major subdivisions:

  • Party among the electorate: voters identify with and enroll in parties; vote for candidates from their party

  • Party in government: officials belong to parties, pursue goals together (sometimes there are ideological/regional differences)

  • Party organization: group of people, political professionals, who recruit voters and candidates, organize events, and raise money for the party

• Functions:

  • Recruit and nominate candidates: find candidates to run in primaries

  • Educate and mobilize voters: try to persuade voters to vote for party’s candidates; advertisements, rallies, and mailings; target regions with strong support, campaign to persuade voters to vote

  • Provide campaign funds and support: dedicated committees that raise funds for campaigns; state parties raise money for state and national candidates; help candidates (although they mostly rely on their personal campaign staff)

  • Organize government activity: House, Senate, and state legislatures organize leadership + committees along party lines

  • Provide balance through opposition of two parties: each party checks the other; minority party critiques majority party (loyal opposition)

  • Reduce conflict and tension in society: promotes negotiation/compromise: parties encouraged to accommodate voters and voters encouraged to accept policy compromises

• National and state and local party organizations have different functions, not hierarchical

• Party committees organized by geography

  • Local committees coordinate get-out-the-vote (GOTV) drives, canvassing door-to-door, and distribution of leaflets

    • Mostly made of volunteers

    • Work concentrated around election time

  • County committees coordinate local election efforts and committee efforts on the precinct level, send representatives to polling places to monitor voting

  • State committees raise money, provide volunteers, provide support to candidates for offices

    • Senatorial and congressional district committees are part of national party organization; involved in legislative elections when a seat may be lost or gained (incumbents often reelected easily)

  • National party plans national conventions every four years to nominate presidential candidate; sponsors polls

Are Parties in Decline?

• Some believe that parties aren’t as powerful/significant as they were before

  • Before 1968, one party controlled legislative and executive government branches

  • More Americans are voting split ticket than before

    • Consider positions and merits of a candidate than just party affiliation

      • No one party dominates government, officials with different agendas work together

  • Modern candidates control their own campaigns more, appeal directly to public through Internet and television

Party Coalitions

• Political parties of made of multiple groups made of multiple individuals

  • larger coalition = candidate is more likely to win

  • Candidates and positions on policy are made to attract more voters, creating a winning coalition

  • Tend to rely on certain groups as bases of support

Ideological Differences Between Parties

• Both try to be centrist

• Party bases

  • Liberals in Democratic Party

  • Conservatives in Republican Party

Party Realignment

• Occurs when coalitions making up parties split off

  • Ex. groups making up the majority party defect to minority party

  • Rare, occur usually as a result of a major negative event

  • Signaled by a critical election - new party dominates politics

  • Occur over period of time and show permanence

• Trend toward dealignment: results from party members becoming disaffected because of a policy position taken by the party, disaffected members join no party and vote for candidate instead of party

Third Parties

• Form to represent constituencies that feel disenfranchised by major parties

  • Known as splinter/bolter parties, usually united around the feeling that other parties do not respond to their demands

• Can form to represent ideology major parties consider too radical

  • Doctrinal parties

  • Ex. Socialist Party, Libertarian Party

• Single-issue parties formed to promote one principle

  • Ex. American Independent Party

• Can have major impact on elections

• Different from Independent candidates (run w/o party affiliation)

Why Third Parties Fail

• Result of electoral system designed to support two parties

• Campaigns require large amounts of money and large organizations

  • Third party/independent candidates do not have name recognition or support to win majority of votes

• Platform issues of third parties often incorporated into party platforms

• Most states have winner-take-all electoral vote systems

Interest Groups

• Organizations dedicated to particular political goal/goals whose members lobby for the issue, educate voters + office holders, write legislation, and mobilize members to work w/legislators and government agencies

• Often share a common bond: religious, racial, or professional

  • Can also share common interest

• Lobbying: trying to influence legislators

  • Lobbyists are professionals, many are former legislators

• Categories of interest groups:

  • Economic groups: promote and protect members’ economic interests, including business groups and labor groups

  • Public interest groups: nonprofit groups organized around a set of public policy issues, including consumer, environmental, religious, and single-issue groups

  • Government interest groups: localities like states and cities which have lobbying organizations in DC, including mayors, governors

How Interest Groups Influence Government

• Tactics:

  • Direct lobbying: meet privately with government officials to present arguments supporting suggested legislation, often give congress members a great deal of information

  • Testifying before Congress: provide witnesses at committee hearings

  • Socializing: hold social functions and members go to other functions to meet government officials

  • Political donations: donate to candidates and parties, corporations/trade groups/unions form political action committees (PACs) and super PACs

  • Endorsements: announce support for candidates

  • Court action: file lawsuits or class action suits for their interests, submit amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in lawsuits where they aren’t a party so judges can consider their advice

  • Rallying membership: engage in grassroots campaigning by contacting members and asking them to contact legislators in support of program/legislation

  • Propaganda: send out press releases and advertisements promoting their views

Limits on Lobbying

• Most are ineffective

• 1946 Federal Regulation of Lobbying intended to allow government to monitor lobbying activities by requiring lobbyist to register with government and disclose salaries, nature of activities, and expenses

• Laws prohibit certain lobbying activities by former government officials for limited amounts of time

  • Meant to stop influence peddling (using friendships and inside information to get political advantage)

  • Former House members must wait one year and senators must wait two years before directly lobbying Congress but may lobby executive branch immediately after office

  • Law prevents executive officials from lobbying for five years after office

  • Some groups complain of “revolving door” that puts former government employees into jobs as consultants and lobbyists

  • PACs help corporations, unions, and trade associations avoid federal laws prohibiting campaign contributions

Political Action Committees and Super PACs

• Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA - 1974): allowed political action committees (PACs) to be formed by corporations, unions, and trade associations to raise campaign funds

  • Set restrictions on contributions and contributors - must raise money from employees and members and not from treasuries

  • Other interest groups and legislators form PACs

  • Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold Act): regulated campaign finance + PAC donations

    • Prohibited soft money (unregulated donations) to national political parties

    • Limited corporate and union funding for ads about political issues within 60 days of general election and 30 days of primary

    • Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010): Supreme Court overturned BCRA limits on PAC funding for “corporate independent expenditures”

      • PACs that donate to certain candidates must have limits on their contributors and donations

      • PACs that do not donate to specific candidates have no fundraising limits as long as they do not coordinate with candidates

        • Unlimited PACs are known as super PACs - generally financed by the rich but can be difficult to locate donors

        • Vague on what coordination is

• Regular PACs: donations from single-candidate committees to individual candidates must be less than or equal to $2500, $5000 for multi-candidate PACs

  • Donations to national political committees must be $15000 or less from multi-candidate PACs and $30800 from single-candidate PACs

527 Groups

• Named after part of tax code

• Tax-exempt organization that promotes political agenda but cannot advocate for/against a specific candidate

• Not regulated by the FEC and not subject to contribution limits

  • Avoid regulations because they are political organizations but not registered as political committees

    • Issue advocacy vs candidate advocacy = disagreed

    • BCRA changed soft money rules to make establishing 527s more appealing than PACs and allowing outside groups to avoid hard money limits of BCRA

Elections

• Run federally every two years

  • New Representative each year

  • Every other allows voters to select president

  • Each Senate seat is elected every six years, state voters choose senator 2/3 of federal elections

• States usually hold their elections at the same time as federal elections to encourage voter turnout and save money

  • Voters choose federal officials, judges, state legislators, governors, and local officials

  • Also may be asked to vote on state bond issues or referenda

• Incumbent advantage

  • Representatives who run for reelection (incumbents) win ~90% of the time

  • House incumbents have a greater advantage than senators

    • House members run in home districts, usually of one party due to gerrymandering

    • Victory in primary election nearly guarantees victory in general election

The Election Cycle

• Two phases:

  • Nominations: when parties choose candidates for general election

    • 39 states use primary elections to select presidential nominees

      • Voters also choose delegates pledged to a presidential candidate

        • Winners go to party’s national convention

      • Some select delegates at state caucuses and conventions

        • Local meetings of party members select representatives to send to statewide party meetings

        • Fewer participants - more informed, more politically active

    • All states use a form of primary to select state + legislative nominees

      • Candidate who receives plurality (greatest number of votes) or majority (more than half) in each primary is the winner

      • Runoff primary held between top two if no candidate gets the required number of votes

        • Most often occurs when many candidates run for an open office

    • Democratic Party grants automatic delegate status to elected party leaders (superdelegates), who generally support the front-runner

    • McGovern-Fraser Commission created in 1968 to promote diversity in delegate pool - recommended that delegates are represented by proportion of population in each state

    • Held between February and late spring of election year (Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary first)

    • Each state has its own rules

    • Several types:

      • Closed primary: only registered members of a political party can vote

      • Open primary: voters can vote in one + any party primary which they choose

      • Blanket primary: voters can vote for one candidate per office of either party

  • General elections: when voters decide who will hold office

    • Held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November

    • Presidential elections: elections when the president is being selected

    • Midterm elections: elections between presidential elections

First Steps Toward Nomination

• Most officials receive the endorsement/nomination of a major party

  • Usually have backgrounds in government

  • Gubernatorial (governor) experience allows candidates to claim executive abilities and are able to run as outsiders

  • Candidates with little-no government experience can be pursued

    • Usually well-respected and popular

    • Ex. military figure

• Must begin up to two years before first primary

  • Most candidates campaign and prepare full-time

  • Presidents running for reelection and vice presidents running for presidency benefit from fame of offices

• Must seek support among party organizations

  • Donors to election/campaign

  • Early stages: meeting w/potential donors, creating PACs, campaigning for endorsements of political groups/leaders

    • “Testing the waters”

• Year before first primaries: attempt to increase public profile

  • Public appearances, media coverage by taking positions on issues and discussing goals of presidencies

  • Vulnerable to media - negative reports or media spin can damage a campaign

• Primary season: raise money, get votes in primaries

  • Those who can’t raise their own money and don’t get enough votes are forced out of the race

  • Begin to assemble campaign staff who will help manage campaign

• Wealthy candidates have tried to run for presidency without needing federal matching funds

Financing Campaigns

• Successful campaign needs large staff, transportation, and resources to hire advertising agencies, pollsters, and consultants

• Raising money is very important

• Presidential candidates who meet certain guidelines may be federally funded

  • Primary candidates who get >10% of votes can apply for federal matching funds

    • Double all campaign donations of $250 and less by matching them

    • Candidates must agree to obey federal spending limits

    • Candidates lose eligibility for receiving <10% of the vote in two primaries in a row until they win >10% of the vote in another primary

• Government funds general election campaigns of two major candidates if they agree not to accept and spend other donations

• Election spending has increased despite campaign finance reform

• No public financing for congressional campaigns, no spending limits

• Many believe that the current campaign finance system corrupts government

  • Hard to change the system

    • Buckley v. Valeo (1976): mandatory spending limits violates First Amendment rights to free expression

  • Benefits incumbents

  • Legislators do not want to make changes because changes could hurt chances at reelection

Primary System

• Candidates campaign widely during the election year

  • Debates, campaign in states by delivering “stump speeches”, plan media events to get positive media coverage of campaigns

  • Earliest primaries provide boost to winning campaign

    • More media exposure, easier to fundraise

    • Major donators usually abandon losers’ campaigns in early primaries

    • Grow more and more important

      • States have pushed forward primary election day to have more influence on which candidates win nominations - front-loading

        • Forces voters to choose early during the election process before they get enough information

      • Many hold primaries on the same day in early March (Super Tuesday)

National Conventions

• Held by both parties to confirm nominee

• Brokered conventions: held when no candidate has received the pledge of a majority of delegates and conventions must decide the nominee

  • Party systems designed to avoid brokered conventions - divides party, can cost election

• Unifies party

  • Primaries can damage/divide a party - candidates attack each other and expose problems within party membership

  • Shows party unity for political gain

    • Nationally televised, covered by news media

• Site of political negotiations

  • Different parts of the party try to win concessions in return for their support during the general election

  • Fights over the party platform (purpose + party goals)

  • Offer political drama - nominees wait until convention to announce running mates

• Greatest impact of conventions on general election results is negative

• Usually help candidates considerably

  • Polls after conventions show approval ratings rise (post-convention bump)

• Changed significantly in the last century

  • Conventions and convention delegates used to select and nominate candidate

The General Election and the Electoral College

• Campaigning for general election similar to campaigning in primaries

  • Rallies, debates, advertisements, positive media coverage

• Differences between general + primary elections

  • Running against members of other parties

    • Primaries - candidates run against own party members, focus on small differences between them

    • Emphasize general policy and philosophical differences between two parties

• Electoral College: created by the framers to insulate government from whims of less-educated public

  • Each state given number of electors = senators + representatives

  • Winner of state wins all of state’s electors (winner-take-all system)

  • Victory is more dependent on winning large states

    • Candidates often devote lots of time to swing states

Media Influence on Elections

• News media provides voters with daily campaign information

  • Report on positions but concentrate on polls

    • Prefer information that changes regularly and can be reported quickly (horse race aspect)

• Campaign advertisements provide more controlled look at candidates

  • Attempt to build a positive image w/public and belittle opponents through negative advertising (especially when public knows little about a candidate)

Election Day

• Voter turnout lower for midterm elections

  • American voter turnout rates are lowers among all Western democracies

• Patterns:

  • More educated, more likely to vote

  • Older Americans have higher turnout rates than younger ones

  • Voters are less likely to vote when they think they know who will win an election

  • Affected by legislation

    • National Voter Registration Act (1993) - made voting easier; allows voters to register at the same time they apply for a driver’s license

    • Photo ID laws decrease voter turnout by requiring voters to show a photo ID before voting

      • Controversial; may reduce voter fraud but IDs can be hard to get

• Media also report election results based on age, gender, race, income level, region, and other demographics to analyze the results

  • Mandate: a clear message sent by the voters — a clear winner

  • Split-ticket voting: voting for a presidential candidate of one party and legislators of another

    • Leads to divided government (when one party controls the Senate and/or House and the other controls the executive branch)

      • Creates gridlock: two branches work against each other or can result in the creation of moderate policy

      • Encourages party dealignment because voters do not clearly align with their parties

Policy Making Objectives

• Can have three purposes:

  • Solving a social problem (crime rates, unemployment, poverty)

  • Countering threats (terrorism, war)

  • Pursuing an objective (building highways, curing cancer, space exploration)

• Can be achieved by prohibiting behavior (banning something), protecting activities (ex. granting copyrights), promoting social activity (ex. tax deductions for donations), or providing direct benefits to citizens (ex. subsidies or building things)

• Depends on public opinion

  • Issue-attention cycle: requires policy makers to act quickly before the public gets bored and loses interest

• Involves trade-offs between competing goods

  • Ex. finding more energy resources endangers the environment

• Often has unpredictable results

  • Incrementalism: slow, step-by-step way of making policy

  • Inaction: taking no action to make policy (maintaining the status quo)

Policy Making Process

1. Defining the role of government: left sees a greater responsibility for the government than the right

2. Agenda-setting: identifying problems and changing them into political issues, ranking in order of importance

   1. Can try to address opposing sides’ concerns

   2. Momentous events may set the agenda

3. Policy formulation and adoption: legislative process, executive orders from the president, rules created by regulatory agencies, Supreme Court decisions

4. Policy implementation: enforcement through government agency; includes timetables, rules, and anticipated problems

5. Policy evaluation: is the policy effective? Have consequences created other problems?

Obstacles to Policy Making

• policy can be made at federal, state, and local levels

• Executive, judicial, and legislative branches can make policy, as well as bureaucracy

• Lobbyists try to lobby policy-making areas of the government

• Framers made it hard to make policy by having multiple policy-making centers

  • Causes policy fragmentation: many pieces of legislation deal with parts of policy problems but never address the whole problem

Economic Policy

• Economy is often the most important issue

  • President is held responsible for successes and failures of the economy

• Politicians want to make policies that better people’s standards of living because of the importance of the economy

• Many problems with economy: supply of money, inflation/deflation, interest rates, etc.

Economic Theory

• Mixed economies: made of capitalist free-market systems where government and private industry play a role

  • Private and public ownership of production and distribution of goods and services

    • Price is determined by free-market interplay of supply and demand

    • Profits after taxes are kept by owners

  • Periods of prosperity an economic contraction

    • How much should the government intervene?

      • Laissez-faire economists think that the government should never get involved in the economy

        • Pursuit of profit benefits society

        • Free markets are governed by the laws of nature

        • Readopted by US since the Cold War ended

      • Keynesian economics: the government can smooth out business cycles by influencing individuals’ income amounts and the amounts businesses can spend on goods and services

        • New Deal - 1930s

Fiscal Policy

• Government action of raising/lowering taxes, resulting in more/less consumer spending or enacting of government spending programs

• Keynesians think that government should spend money on projects during economic downturns to inject money into economy

  • Prosperous economy = larger tax base

• Deficit spending: funds raised by borrowing, not taxation

• Supply-side: believe that government should cut taxes and spending on programs to stimulate more production

  • Congress enacted tax cuts and reductions to welfare programs in 1980s, brought inflation under control but $<strong>budget deficits</strong>$caused large debt

Monetary Policy

• How the government controls the supply of money in circulation and credit through actions of the Federal Reserve Board

  • Can increase amount of money in circulation by lowering interest rates, which make borrowing money less expensive and inflate the economy (higher prices and wages)

  • Raising interest rates deflates the economy (more stable/lower prices or wages)

• Monetary policy can be implemented in three ways by the Federal Reserve Board:

  • Manipulating reserve requirement: raises/lowers the amount of money banks are required to keep on hand; raising shrinks the amount of money available for borrowing and raising interest rates

  • Manipulating the discount rate: raises/lowers interest banks pay to the Federal Reserve Board to borrow money; lowering lowers consumer loans’ interest rates and more customers will purchase

  • Manipulating open market operations: Federal Reserve buys/sells US government bonds; people withdraw money from banks to get bonds; as bank has less to loan, consumer interest rates rise, slowing consumer spending and economic growth

• Some believe that government should only intervene to manipulate money supply

  • Believe that money supply should be increased constantly to accommodate growth

The Tools of Economic Policy Making

• President receives advice about economy from:

  • Council of Economic Advisors

  • National Economic Council

  • Office of Management and Budget

  • Secretary of the Treasury

• President can influence monetary/fiscal policies through appointment power and policy initiatives

Fiscal Policy Making

• Director of OMB (Office of Management and Budget) initiates budget process, meets with president to discuss policy initiatives

• OMB writes president’s budget and submits it to Congress

  • Budget sent to House Ways and Means Committee (taxing aspects of budget), Authorization committees in both houses (decide which programs Congress wants to fund), $<strong>Appropriations committees</strong>$in both houses (decides how much money should be spent for those programs that have been authorized)

• Budget process is complicated and nearly impossible to conclude

  • President’s projected expenditures and revenues conflict with Congress’s

    • Neither trust the other’s numbers

  • Budget Reform Act of 1974: created Congressional Budget Office with budget committees in both houses (set revenue + spending levels); White House and Congress houses negotiate to get one acceptable budget

    • Failure to achieve a budget at the start of the fiscal year could result in government shutting down and employees getting sent home

      • Budget stop-gap bills are passed to temporarily appropriate money to keep the government running

  • Budget Enforcement Act of 1990: tried to streamline budget process and make it easier to compromise; categorizes government expenditures as discretionary or mandatory spending

    • Mandatory spending: required by law to fund programs such as entitlement programs, Medicare, Social Security, payment on national debt, and veterans’ pensions

    • Discretionary spending: not required by law, programs include research grants, education, defense, highways, and all government operations

Trade Policy

• Other countries depend on US as a market for their products

  • Balance of trade: ratio of imported products to exported products

  • Trade deficits: when imports are greater than exports

    • Cause wealth to flow from a nation

    • Nations often put restrictions on imported goods

    • Nation facing restrictions can put high import taxes or unfair regulations on products

    • Trade wars can result

  • Trade surpluses: when more money flows into a country than out

    • Ex. oil-producing nations

  • General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT): signed by the US to promote trade; evolved into World Trade Organization (WTO), which account for 97% of global trade, works to lower quotas and tariffs and reduce unfair trade practices

  • North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA - 1944): signed to promote trade between the US, Canada, and Mexico

    • Removed tariffs from one another’s products

    • Controversial

      • Opposed by US labor unions, feared that jobs would be lost to Mexican labor

      • Others feared that US industrial capacity would be damaged because factories would move to Mexico

      • Supporters claimed that it would improve US economy and create jobs in Mexico

    • Revised in 2018 and renamed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)

Domestic Policy

• Liberals believe that the government should provide social-welfare programs, conservatives believe they encroach on individual responsibilities and liberties

• Great Society programs (Johnson administration) expanded government welfare programs but were eliminated/reduced by the Reagan administration

• Types of social welfare programs:

  • Social insurance programs: national insurance programs to which employees and employers pay taxes; public believes that benefits have been earned because they pay into them

  • Public assistance programs: not paid for by recipients, result of condition and government responsibility to help the needy

Social Security

• Entitlement program mandated by law in which government pays benefits to all people who meet requirements

• Changing law would require congressional action

  • Little chance of major changes because the largest portion of the electorate is made of those around retirement age

  • Largest federal budget expense

  • Originally provided benefits to only retired people beginning at age 65

  • Expanded to four categories:

    • Retired workers who are 65+ years old receive payments from the Social Security trust fund monthly

      • Entitled to a COLA (cost of living adjustment) if inflation rate >3%

      • Necause society is aging and ratio of workers to retirees is declining, money now paid into system pays present recipients; workers will have higher taxes to maintain retirees’ incomes

    • Medicare provides assistance to people >65 for healthcare; can pay more doctor’s bills for retirees who pay additional tax on social security benefit

    • Medicaid provides medical/health-related services for low-income individuals; funded by states and federal government and managed/run by states

    • Temporary unemployment insurance provides a limited weekly benefit; administered by state governments but both federal and state governments pay into trust fund to provide benefit

  Social Welfare

  • First federal welfare programs established by Social Security Act in 1930s; largest and most controversial known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)

  • Designed to help targeted groups

    • Public assistance programs (welfare) help families whose total income is below federally determined minimum required to provide for basic needs of family

      • Opposing claim that welfare encourages families to have more children

    • Supplemental public assistance programs (SSI) help disabled and aged living at/near poverty level

    • SNAP benefits provides food stamps to improve diet and buying power of the poor

    • Welfare Reform Act (1996): attempted to reduce number of people living on public assistance; block grants from federal government are the greatest contribution, states also fund some and administer programs

      • Reduces welfare rolls and forces people to find work

        • Abolished AFDC, replacing it with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

        • Requires adults to find work in 2 years or be cut off

        • Places lifetime limit of 5 years for welfare eligibility

        • Prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving assistance

Health Care

• Americans spend more than 17% of gross domestic product (GDP) (total of goods/services produced per year) on health care

• Most expensive health care system in the world

• Most rely on various types of insurance programs to pay for health care costs instead of a national program run by the government

• Electorate divided on how to solve issues of universal health care and health care costs

  • Voters want increased coverage but probably don’t want to pay for it

  • Only taxes paid willingly are “sin taxes” (alcohol and tobacco products), do not generate enough revenue

  • Another issue is whether health benefits should be government or privately administered program

  • Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (2010) (aka Obamacare): signed by President Obama; most significant health-care legislation

    • Allowed federal government to fine people who do not have insurance (“individual mandate”)