American Legal Terms

That's right. The local officials represent the citizens of the district in which they were elected, not any political party. "Everyone"may know that Joe Blow is a Republican and Jane Doe is a Democrat, but Joe and Jane cannot officially represent their parties, nor can the party openly support them--including money for campaign expenses. The League of Women Voters (a nonpartisan political organization) puts it this way

Q. What is a nonpartisan office?
It is an office for which candidates' names appear on the ballot without party designation. No party may nominate a candidate for nonpartisan office.

Q. Which offices are nonpartisan?
Local offices such as most city council members, county supervisors, all judgeships, including the statewide office of member of the California Supreme Court, and all school boards, including the statewide offices of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Insurance Commissioner, are nonpartisan.

Q. Are there nonpartisan primaries?
Yes. Some local nonpartisan primaries such as those for judges are usually held at the same time as the statewide regular primary. A candidate for a nonpartisan office who is on the primary ballot is selected if he or she wins more than 50% of the vote. If not, there is a runoff election in November between the top two candidates.

Q. Do all nonpartisan offices use primaries?
No, some nonpartisan offices, such as most city councils and school boards, do not use primaries. Candidates run as independents and the person with the most votes wins even if it is not a majority.

thank you again!!

#17 -- The leaders weren't just harassed, they were sent to prison.

Congress couldn't ban the party, so they passed the Smith Act which came pretty close to doing just that.

According to the book, seems they were also exiled mostly.. into communist Russia. Many "escaped" there.
Are the unions still as strong in USA as they were in the 20's?

#23 -- I think maybe you're thinking of the first Red scare, after the First World War. Many of the communists were foreign-born and had not become citizens (or in at least one case, that of the anarchist Emma Goldman, it was just denied that she had become a citizen as she in fact had, by marriage, under the laws of the time) and so could be deported.

By the time of the second red scare after WWII, most of the Communist leaders were American born and so couldn't be deported.

A lot of Trotskyists were locked up during the Second World War, which they opposed. The Stalinoid Communists were happy to testify against them.

Yu arecorrect as usual Vinny. I was confused with the first war days.
Thank you again.

#22.

But why couldn't Congress ban the party? Could an Executive Order by the President have banned the party? Does a referendum of the American people have any relevance in all of this? The Constitution?

Is the Communist Party unbannable in the US?

#36 --
>But why couldn't Congress ban the party?

Congress can only do what the Constitution allows it to do.

Could an Executive Order by the President have banned the party?

The President can only do what Congress, under the Constitution, allows him to do.

Does a referendum of the American people have any relevance in all of this?

There's no such thing as a referendum of the American people in the constitution. Some states do have provision for referenda.

Is the Communist Party unbannable in the US?

I think it is, yes.

I'm simplifying to a degree. Roosevelt by Executive Order had all the Japanese and Japanese-Americans, i.e. American citizens of Japanese ancestry, on the west coast rounded up and placed in prison camps away from the coast.

Congress hadn't authorized that. Still, the Supreme Court decided that that it was constitutional. Judges really don't like second-guessing decisions that the president makes in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces.

I doubt it that the equivalent would be found to be constitutional today. I doubt that the equivalent would be tried today. The closest recent thing was the roundup of thousands of Muslims after 9/11, but that didn't involve American citizens.

The way the US Constitution works, the duties of Congress and the president are spelled out. Otherwise, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Things That Are Not In the U.S. Constitution

Political parties are such a basic part of our political system today, that many people might assume the Constitution must at least mention parties in one way or another... but there is absolutely no mention of political parties anywhere in the Constitution. In fact, in the times of the Articles of Confederation, there weren't even any parties; factions, perhaps; regional blocs, yes; but no parties. Not until the Jackson and Van Buren administrations {early 19th C.] did organized parties really take hold in the American political system.

Executive Orders have two main functions: to modify how an executive branch department or agency does its job (rule change) or to modify existing law, if such authority has been granted to the President by Congress. Executive orders are not mentioned by the Constitution, but they have been around a long, long time. George Washington issued several Presidential Proclamations, which are similar to EO's (Proclamations are still issued today). EO's and Proclamations are not law, but they have the effect of statutes. A typical modern Proclamation might declare a day to be in someone's honor. Historically, they have had broader effect, such as the Emancipation Proclamation. A typical EO might instruct the government to do no business with a country we are at war with. Executive orders are subject to judicial review, and can be declared unconstitutional. Today, EO's and Proclamations are sequentially numbered. The average president issues 58 EO's a year. As of March 13, 1936, all EO's must be published in the Federal Register [that's the place formal regulations are made public]. The first to have been so published was #7316, by President Roosevelt.