republicans

Republicans:
 * 1) Samuel Brownback -- senator from Kansas
 * 2) Jim Gilmore -- former governor of Virginia
 * 3) Rudolph Giuliani -- former mayor of New York City
 * 4) Mike Huckabee -- former governor of Arkansas
 * 5) Duncan Hunter -- representative from California
 * 6) John McCain -- senator from Arizona
 * 7) Mitt Romney -- former governor of Massachusetts
 * 8) Tom Tancredo -- representative from Colorado
 * 9) Tommy Thompson -- former governor of Wisconsin and former Secretary of Health and Human Services

The **Republican Party** is one of the two major political parties in the United States of America, along with the Democratic Party. It is often referred to as the **Grand Old Party** or the **GOP**. It is the younger of the two major parties, and the second oldest active political party in the United States.

Today, the Republican Party supports a pro-business platform, with further foundations in economic libertarianism and a brand of social conservatism considered by some to be increasingly based on the viewpoints of the Religious Right.

The Republican Party believes that making law is the province of the legislature and that judges, especially the Supreme Court, should not "legislate from the bench." Most Republicans point to Roe v. Wade as a case of judicial activism, where the court overturned most laws restricting abortion on the basis of a right to privacy inferred from the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Some Republicans have actively sought to block judges who they see as being activist judges and they have sought the appointment of judges who will practice judicial restraint. Other Republicans, though, argue that it is the right of judges to extend the interpretation of the constitution and judge actions by the legislative or executive branches as legal or unconstitutional on previously unarticulated grounds. The Republican party has supported various bills within the last decade to strip some or all federal courts of the ability to hear certain types of cases, in an attempt to limit judicial review. These jurisdiction stripping laws have included removing federal review of the recognition of same-sex marriage with the Marriage Protection Act, the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance with the Pledge Protection Act, and the rights of detainees in Guantanamo Bay in the Detainee Treatment Act. These limitations were overruled by the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Compared with Democrats, many Republicans believe in a more robust version of federalism with greater limitations placed upon federal power and a larger role reserved for the States. Following this view on federalism, Republicans often take a less expansive reading of congressional power under the commerce clause, such as in the opinion of William Rehnquist in //United States v. Lopez//. Many Republicans on the more libertarian wing wish for a more dramatic narrowing of commerce clause power by revisiting, among other cases, //Wickard v. Filburn//, a case which held that growing wheat on a farm for consumption on the same farm fell under congressional power to "regulate commerce ... among the several States...".

===**The Republicans symbol is the elephant.** In the early 20th century, the usual symbol of the Republican Party in Midwestern states were the eagle, as opposed to the Democratic rooster. This symbol still appears on the Indiana ballots. After the 2000 election, the color red became associated with the GOP although it has not been officially adopted by the party.===

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