In this article, Schwartz dicusses the fight over gay rights and which part of the government takes action on proposing and implementing new policies. Activists believe that the gay rights cases should be handled through the state courts rather then the federal judiciary. Professor Pinollo explains that “The most strategic approach was to look at state action, not federal action, because a United States Supreme Court and federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees did not provide a very favorable risk analysis for litigation"
This connects to class because we have talked about the offical actors and their part of polcies, in this case gay rights. These cases are specifically on the agenda because it grabbing the attention of the public and news media.
Elizabeth Sziler
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/us/22legal.html?sq=recent policy issues&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=3&adxnnlx=1285430729-W1o4GclxdeDb3jN+X1UZ/A
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Your post reinforces how much unofficial actors affect official actors. For this particular topic, how much the media, citizens, and interest groups have an effect on the federal government. This is a great example of how agendas are created, because it was a condition that was transformed into a conflict, which is now on the public agenda. It will be interesting to wait and see how it will all end up playing out, and how each spectrum of actors feeds off of the other, and also how the unofficial actors will continue to relate and debate; like a teeter-totter, the citizens affect the media, and the media affect the citizens, and back and forth, back and forth...
ReplyDeleteElise Leppert