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Traditionally, the use of capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has been one of many polarizing social issues in the United States. Proponents of the death penalty argue that it deters crime and provides victims’ families closure, while opponents say it constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” and thereby violates the Eighth Amendment. Currently, thirty-two American states still have the death penalty, but public support for the death penalty is falling and the rate of executions is slowing. Oklahoma’s recently “botched” execution of Clayton D. Lockett by lethal injection has the potential to reignite the American death penalty debate and extempers should be prepared to discuss the constitutionality and future of the American death penalty at upcoming tournaments.
This topic brief will provide some important background information on the death penalty in the United States, highlight the arguments used by supporters and opponents of capital punishment, and summarize the current debate over the constitutionality of lethal injection, the preferred method of execution by all states that have the death penalty.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
When entering the White House in 2009, President Barack Obama sought to “reset” relations with Russia. The Bush administration had tense relations with Russia, cancelling the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty during its first term, waging the war in Iraq over Russian objections, and establishing missile defense stations in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama administration decided to scrap the missile defense stations in Eastern Europe, signed a controversial nuclear reduction accord, and helped Russia become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, despite increasing America’s engagement with Russia, the Obama administration has recently been frustrated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reassumed power in 2012. Russia has supported the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, has hedged its bets on Iran’s nuclear program, and violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity by seizing Crimea. Putin’s recent actions have given credence to domestic conservatives claims that the Obama administration is weak on national security and they make Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s claims about Russia being America’s “number one geopolitical foe” prescient.
In February, General Motors (GM) began a recall that has grown to include 2.6 million vehicles due to the installation of a defective ignition switch The switches caused the ignition key to move from a running position to an accessory or off position while the car when moving and the sudden loss of power steering, as well as the disabling of power brakes and airbags caused at least thirteen people to lose their lives. GM has come under fire for the recall since the company was first made aware of the problem in 2001 and decided that it did not warrant taking action. There is also evidence that federal regulators were aware of the faulty ignition switches but failed to do due diligence in investigating GM. Additionally, since the company is not legally liable for accidents that occurred with its products before 2009 due to the bankruptcy filing, there are questions about whether GM was forthcoming to federal officials about the switches when it was bailed out. The incident has been dubbed “Switchgate” by some of the media and the company’s new CEO (as well as first female CEO) Mary Barra is now tasked with defending the company to Congress and restoring faith in a company that has seen its share of the American market decline over the last forty years.
In modern times, American policymakers have loved to declare war against a social or medical problem. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty. In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared simultaneous wars against cancer and illicit drugs. And President George W. Bush declared a war on terrorism after the September 11th attacks. Fighting an idea or a long-term problem usually opens policymakers up to criticisms that such wars are unwinnable and unfairly raise public expectations. The war on drugs is a case in point, as the United States has committed billions of dollars over the last forty years to halt the use and smuggling of illicit drugs. In fact, prior to September 11th there were concerns that American forces would become involved in the Colombia civil war between its government and the FARC, a group of communist rebels that use the drug trade to bolster their coffers. The war on drugs has been criticized for punishing low-level offenders, which has had a disproportionate impact on minority males, and largely failing to solve America’s drug problem. Recently, heroin use in the United States has become a significant problem as the federal government has cracked down on prescription drug abuse and two weeks ago, on March 10th, Attorney General Eric Holder stated that the United States facing an “urgent public health crisis” concerning heroin. The death of Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman last month due to an overdose of heroin and other drugs has also contributed to raising national awareness about this issue.
Since the 1980s, when a deregulatory climate emerged in Washington D.C., American media companies have launched consolidation efforts to buy up smaller competitors to expand market share, taken control of national and local television stations, and merged with telecommunications companies to acquire a share of the nation’s Internet market. The proposed $45.2 billion merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, which would combine the nation’s top two cable companies, both of which also provide Internet access, has alarmed consumer advocates that worry it will harm consumers through higher prices and selective access to content. The principle of net neutrality, whereby all Internet content is treated equally by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), was established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2010 to ensure that large media conglomerates could not prejudice certain forms of Internet content over others. However, in January a federal appeals court ruled that the FCC had no statutory (lawful) authority to enact those net neutrality rules based on the way that it has classified ISPs. A recent deal that Netflix, a streaming and DVD-based movie distribution service, made with Comcast is seen by consumer watchdog groups as the beginning of a “pay-to-play” Internet where content distributors will be forced to pay ISPs to access their networks or acquire satisfactory Internet speed so that they do not lose existing customers.
For the last three decades, U.S. policymakers have grappled with the problem of illegal immigration, whereby immigrants from all parts of the world (not just Mexico) come to the United States and live and work without securing legal documents that allow them to do so. In 1986, the United States thought it could solve the problem with an amnesty package, but the number of illegal immigrants has increased since that time and it is estimated today that there are 11-12 million illegal (also called “undocumented” by immigration groups and their allies) immigrants in the U.S. today. In fact, studies have shown that since the 1990s, illegal immigration in the United States has largely outpaced legal immigration. Deporting all of these people would be taxing for the federal government and be a public relations nightmare. As a result, the federal government is caught in a tough position of how to deal with these 11-12 million people while ensuring that future waves of unlawful immigration do not happen again. In 2012, President Barack Obama promised action on immigration reform to address this issue and although the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill last June, the Republican dominated House has yet to do the same and has refused to take up the Senate bill. Due to the growing Latino population in the United States (although again, I would caution extempers that illegal immigration is not exclusively a Latino issue), immigration reform is likely to be a hot button political and social issue for quite some time and extempers need to have a firm grasp on the legislative history and possibilities of reform to answer questions about this subject.
Since November 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that gay couples in Massachusetts had a right to marry, gay marriage has been a hot political topic. Some could also argue that the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 made gay marriage a political issue, but the 2003 Massachusetts ruling in conjunction with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordering his city to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in 2004 made the gay marriage debate a more prominent national issue. President George W. Bush was able to use state-level constitutional amendments that prohibited gay marriage to provide momentum to his re-election campaign in 2004 and push for a national constitutional amendment to ban the practice. Since 2004 the proponents of gay marriage have experienced significant judicial victories, with the Supreme Court invalidating an element of DOMA last year and four states legalizing gay marriage after the decision: New Jersey, Hawaii, Illinois, and New Mexico. Currently, seventeen states, along with the District of Columbia, recognize gay marriage and lawsuits are pending in federal courts to invalidate state constitutional amendments that prohibit gay marriage. Due to the growing number of lawsuits on the state level against gay marriage prohibitions, it only seems like a matter of time before the Supreme Court will have to weigh in about gay marriage again and extempers could confront questions about the constitutionality of gay marriage in the near future.
Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has been $7.25. The last time that Congress voted for a minimum wage increase was 2007, which occurred in the aftermath of the Democrats winning control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1995. During last year’s State of the Union, President Barack Obama called for increasing the federal minimum wage and reiterated his support for this on December 5th. President Obama has supported a phased-in minimum wage hike to $10.10, which would go into effect in 2015. Congressional Democrats have supported the President’s plan and argue that a new minimum wage hike should also be indexed to inflation to ensure that minimum wage gains are not eventually diluted by depreciation. With twenty-one states having higher minimum wage levels than the federal government and recurring strikes taking place in the fast food industry, a topic that Extemp Central broke down a few months ago, the debate on a new minimum wage hike could impact the 2014 midterm elections by putting economic inequality back into the national spotlight.
The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 to topple the country’s Taliban-led government, capture Osama bin Laden, and destroy al-Qaeda. The war has been America’s longest conflict and more than 2,000 American troops have been killed and more than 19,000 have been wounded. Since the Iraq invasion of 2003, Afghanistan has played second fiddle to the global war on terrorism and the war has largely been ignored by the national media since President Obama assumed office in 2009. Although President Obama committed more American forces to Afghanistan, which emulated the “surge” strategy used in Iraq in 2007, America’s presence in the country is beginning to wind down. 2014 marks the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) combat mission and the United States is trying to negotiate a bilateral security agreement (BSA) with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that would allow American forces to remain in the country to train Afghan soldiers and continue counterterrorism operations. However, while Afghan elders have approved of the BSA, President Karzai has said that he will not sign the agreement until after Afghanistan holds presidential elections in April. He has also issued new conditions that the United States must agree to in order to get him to sign the BSA. The United States argues that Karzai cannot wait that long to sign the agreement and that if he fails to do so soon they will withdraw all combat forces from the country by the end of the 2014.
Last week Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sparked a firestorm over the controversial Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which are aimed at raising education standards nationwide to meet college and career ready targets. Addressing criticism of the standards, Duncan argued that white, suburban mothers were angry because their children and schools were not as good as they felt they were. Forces that oppose Common Core standards immediately called for his resignation and he apologized for his comments several days later. The firestorm over Common Core standards is one of the most interesting domestic issues because it is one issue where far-left and far-right forces find areas of agreement.
Last Thursday, President Barack Obama signed an agreement to end the first government shutdown in nearly twenty years. The shutdown, which lasted sixteen days, coincided with another debt ceiling crisis since the Treasury Department’s borrowing authority needed to be raised by October 17th. The threat of not raising the debt ceiling is what compelled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to craft a compromise piece of legislation that passed the Senate and House last week. However, their compromise creates the possibility of another government shutdown in January and another debt ceiling crisis in February.