O'Connor to Lead National Civics Lesson (ABA civics poll)

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Many adults struggle to identify the branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — and explain the concept of separation of powers, according to a new American Bar Association poll.

Michael Greco, a Boston lawyer who takes over as ABA president this week, asked O'Connor and former presidential candidate and Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., to help educate people on the subject. They will be honorary co-chairs of a civic education commission.

The ABA poll, being released Monday, shows that just over half of adults can correctly identify the branches.

One in five incorrectly said that the three branches were Republican, Democrat and independent, and 16 percent thought the three were local, state and federal.

While eight in 10 people said that separation of powers is important, less than half, when given four choices, correctly picked that "Congress, the president and the federal courts each have different responsibilities." Nearly a third said it meant different federal departments have different powers.

link

[SteppingRazor]

1. Oh, heavy sigh...

I know it's illegally because it was formerly used to deny blacks the vote, but can't we have a basic literacy test in order to vote? You know, just maybe name who the current president and VP are, plus some basic civics lessons?

[Rose Siding]

2. I'd rather it be based on some other govt interaction

Like driving licenses? Or high school diplomas!

[SteppingRazor]

3. the problem with high school diplomas...

There's plenty of people who never graduated high school, but who are absolutely brilliant and certainly should have the vote. Peter Jennings and Hunter Thompson were both high school drop outs, to name a couple examples.

[Rose Siding]

5. Maybe the DL would be better

In fact, my daughter has her driving course this summer and she said the whole class marveled at how quiet and attentive everyone was. The teacher told them it was always like that.

They asked him why. He said "Because I have something you want"

[heidler1]

9. Just because many people do not know the details of their own political

system has very little to do with whether they know which political party is trying to screw them over. If you only let the more informed and or intelligent vote the results would favor the greedy.

[SteppingRazor]

10. Would they?

You're saying the stupid and ill-informed tend to vote Democrat? Is that what you're saying?
Wow. What exactly are you doing here?
Moreover, when you consider the stereotypical "NASCAR Dad," as demonstrated in real life by that fellow with the "Get a Brain, Morans" sign, how can you say the dumb and ignorant don't vote for the greedheads?

[heidler1]

11. You can't decide a issue like this based on a few examples.

Andrew Jackson a Dem. gave voting rights to those who owned no land.

The Democrats have been instrumental in expanding voting rights to the under educated which is good. Sure sometimes they get sucked into BS, but so do the so called elite. Over the long haul the poor/poorly educated come back to the Dem. party.

[SteppingRazor]

12. The poor, absolutely will vote Demo...

Assuming the Dems make it worth their while and the anti-poverty planks of such a Democratic platform are properly reported -- thus educating the voter.
The poorly educated, however, will vote for whomever they are told to vote for, the way they always have.

[Rose Siding]

4. Believe it or not, this appears to be an improvement.

I can't find the poll results on line yet, but results from earlier polls look even worse! :(

snip>
A 1991 poll by the American Bar Association found that only 33% of Americans surveyed knew what the Bill of Rights was.

A 1979 Gallup poll found that 70% of respondents did not know what the First Amendment was or what it dealt with.

In 1996 a Harvard survey found that "only 26% knew the 6-year term of office of a U.S. senator" and less than half the public knows that a member of the House of Representative is elected to a 2 year term.

A 1987 survey found that 45% of adult respondents believed that Karl
Marx's communist principle "from each according to his abilities, to
each according to his needs" was part of the U.S. Constitution.
...
.....74 percent did not know the name and party of even one local congressional candidate.

http://www.e-thepeople.org/article/25097/

Compared to this past performance, I'm *shocked* that over half can ID the 3 branches in the new poll.

[Gloria]

6. Is she going to teach the part about "one person, one vote"??

eom

[TankLV]

7. Or maybe she can then explain the SCOTUS "this applies to this one time

only" and "this decision can't be harmful to the repuke candidate" decrees!

[JDPriestly]

8. It's worse than anyone could imagine.

My youngest daughter graduated with honors from one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Nevertheless, at a family dinner she turned to me and asked whether the "Senate" was the right name for the upper house of Congress. She wasn't sure. She's brilliant and would have guessed right in the survey, but she has no real understanding of the structure of our government. As I recall, neither did Bush when he first became president.