Joseph Scott’s Blog

A few weeks ago I came across an interesting show on one of the local PBS stations. A little bit of searching online afterwards revealed that it was part of series, The Constitution: That Delicate Balance. These were made in the 1980s and had various political, legal and media figures that were given a hypothetical situation and discuss the various issues. Some of them include former President Gerald Ford.

There are 13 one hour episodes that are available online. Unfortunately you have to create an account in order to have access to them and be able to stream Windows Media files. It’s a hassle, but worth it.

What really struck me about these was how contemporary the issues were, despite being nearly 25 years old. Issues like what war powers the President has, state versus federal powers and executive privilege.

I grew up and spent most of my life in one area of California. As a result it was pretty easy for me to have at least a general idea of how local and state government worked. This was something I hadn’t really thought about until we moved to Utah and I realized that I really didn’t know much about how the city, county and state governments worked and how they might differ from what I was used to in California.

So my first, admittedly small, step in learning about the government in my new home was to add links and names for my representatives at various levels to my about page. Over time I hope to familiarize myself more with how things work here. I wonder if there are any good books on the topic.