Government Chapter 9: Political Parties, Government Chapter 10: Interest Groups and Lobbying, Government Chapter 11: Congress, Government - Chapter 12: The Presidency

17. Who issued the Emancipation Proclamation?

Lincoln also famously used a unilateral proclamation to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which cited the military necessity of declaring millions of slaves in Confederate-controlled territory to be free.

64. Has Congress become more or less effective?

Congress in particular have become less effective in recent years.

2. What was the Connecticut Compromise?

Connecticut Compromise, also called the Great Compromise, proposed a bicameral congress with members apportioned differently in each house. The upper house, the Senate, was to have two members from each state. This soothed the fears of the small states. In the lower house, the House of Representatives, membership would be proportional to the population in each state. This measure protected the interests of the large states.

39. What is constituent casework?

Constituents routinely reach out to their congressperson for powerful support to solve complex problems, such as applying for and tracking federal benefits or resolving immigration and citizenship challenges.21 Incumbent members of Congress have paid staff, influence, and access to specialized information that can help their constituents in ways other persons cannot. And congresspersons are hardly reticent about their efforts to support their constituents. Often, they will publicize their casework on their websites or, in some cases, create television advertisements that boast of their helpfulness. Election history has demonstrated that this form of publicity is very effective in garnering the support of voters.

61. What role does the majority leader have in the House?

majority leader also has considerable power. Historically, moreover, the majority leader tends to be in the best position to assume the speakership when the current Speaker steps down.

39. What is the party-in-the-electorate?

those members of the voting public who consider themselves to be part of a political party and/or who consistently prefer the candidates of one party over the other.

38. What are the three components of political parties?

three components identified by political scientist V. O. Key: the party in the electorate (the voters); the party organization (which helps to coordinate everything the party does in its quest for office); and the party in office (the office holders). To

11. What are majority-minority districts?

Attempts at African American disenfranchisement continued until the civil rights struggle of the 1960s finally brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act cleared several final hurdles to voter registration and voting for African Americans. Following its adoption, many Democrats led the charge to create congressional districts that would enhance the power of African American voters. The idea was to create majority-minority districts within states, districts in which African Americans became the majority and thus gained the electoral power to send representatives to Congress.

49. Is going public necessarily an effective strategy? Why or why not?

It remains an open question, however, whether choosing to go public actually enhances a president's political position in battles with Congress. Political scientist George C. Edwards goes so far as to argue that taking a president's position public serves to polarize political debate, increase public opposition to the president, and complicate the chances to get something done. It replaces deliberation and compromise with confrontation and campaigning. Edwards believes the best way for presidents to achieve change is to keep issues private and negotiate resolutions that preclude partisan combat. Going public may be more effective in rallying supporters than in gaining additional support or changing minds.36

58. How are party leaders in Congress selected?

Leaders are elected by the two-party conferences in each chamber. In the House of Representatives, these are the House Democratic Conference and the House Republican Conference. These conferences meet regularly and separately not only to elect their leaders but also to discuss important issues and strategies for moving policy forward. Based on the number of members in each conference, one conference becomes the majority conference and the other becomes the minority conference. Independents like Senator Bernie Sanders will typically join one or the other major party conference, as a matter of practicality and often based on ideological affinity.

63. What is the "hidden hand presidency?"

Political scientist Fred Greenstein, on the other hand, touted the advantages of a "hidden hand presidency," in which the chief executive did most of the work behind the scenes, wielding both the carrot and the stick.51 Greenstein singled out President Dwight Eisenhower as particularly skillful in such endeavors.

24. What was the purpose of the War Powers Act?

The War Powers Resolution was intended to strengthen congressional war powers but ended up clarifying presidential authority in the first sixty days of a military conflict.

64. What is the role of the majority leader in the Senate?

The duties and powers held by the Speaker in the House fall to the majority leader in the Senate. the majority leader is the chief spokesperson for the majority party, but unlike in the House he or she does not run the floor alone. Because of the traditions of unlimited debate and the filibuster, the majority and minority leaders often occupy the floor together in an attempt to keep things moving along.

21. Why has presidential power grown in recent decades?

The executive branch, because of its hierarchical organization with the president at the top, is naturally seen as a more smoothly run governmental machine than the cumbersome Congress. This gives the president advantages in the struggle for power and indeed gives Congress an incentive to delegate authority to the president on processes, such as trade agreements and national monument designations, that would be difficult for the legislature to carry out. The second reason has to do with the president's powers as commander-in-chief in the realm of foreign policy.

3. How does a bicameral Congress affect the legislative process?

The framers intended there to be a complex and difficult process for legislation to become law. This challenge serves a number of important and related functions. First, the difficulty of passing legislation through both houses makes it less likely, though hardly impossible, that the Congress will act on fleeting instincts or without the necessary deliberation. Second, the bicameral system ensures that large-scale dramatic reform is exceptionally difficult to pass and that the status quo is more likely to win the day.

41. What are iron triangles?

The iron triangle is a hypothetical arrangement among three elements (the corners of the triangle): an interest group, a congressional committee member or chair, and an agency within the bureaucracy.49 Each element has a symbiotic relationship with the other two, and it is difficult for those outside the triangle to break into it. The congressional committee members, including the chair, rely on the interest group for campaign contributions and policy information, while the interest group needs the committee to consider laws favorable to its view. The interest group and the committee need the agency to implement the law, while the agency needs the interest group for information and the committee for funding and autonomy in implementing the law.

64. What is the purpose of disclosure laws?

The logic here is that lawmakers will think twice about accepting money from controversial donors. The other advantage to disclosure requirements is that they promote transparency.

33. How have interest groups changed over the last three or four decades?

The most significant change is the tremendous increase in both the number and type of groups.

53. What is the president's pardon power? Is it limited?

The president also exercises the power of pardon without conditions.

56. If Congress is unpopular, why do most individual members of Congress win reelection?

The reason has to do with the remarkable ability of many in the United States to separate their distaste for Congress from their appreciation for their own representative.

28. Why are party conventions no longer the site of dramatic contests for the party nomination?

The rise of the primary has also displaced the convention itself as the place where party regulars choose their standard bearer. Once true contests in which party leaders fought it out to elect a candidate, by the 1970s, party conventions more often than not simply served to rubber-stamp the choice of the primaries.

56. What is divided government?

a condition in which one or more houses of the legislature is controlled by the party in opposition to the executive

44. What is the trustee model of representation?

a model of representation in which representatives feel at liberty to act in the way they believe is best for their constituents. contrast, a representative who understands their role to be that of a trustee believes he or she is entrusted by the constituents with the power to use good judgment to make decisions on the constituents' behalf.

78. What is cloture?

a parliamentary process to end a debate in the Senate, as a measure against the filibuster; invoked when three-fifths of senators vote for the motion.................This was difficult to do, but it generally did prevent anyone from hijacking the Senate floor, with the salient exception of Senator Strom Thurmond's record twenty-four-hour filibuster of the Civil Rights Act.

33. What is party realignment?

a shifting of party allegiances within the electorate

66. Why does Congress use a committee system?

With 535 members in Congress and a seemingly infinite number of domestic, international, economic, agricultural, regulatory, criminal, and military issues to deal with at any given moment, the two chambers must divide their work based on specialization. Congress does this through the committee system. Specialized committees (or subcommittees) in both the House and the Senate are where bills originate and most of the work that sets the congressional agenda takes place. There are well over two hundred committees, subcommittees, select committees, and joint committees in the Congress.

47. Which president is most closely associated with the fireside chat?

With the popularization of radio in the early twentieth century, it became possible to broadcast the president's voice into many of the nation's homes. Most famously, FDR used the radio to broadcast his thirty "fireside chats" to the nation between 1933 and 1944.

36. Do cabinet nominees require Senate confirmation?

Yes...the Senate confirms or rejects these nominations.

7. Who were the leaders of the Federalist Party?

alexander Hamilton led the movement during drafting of US constitution- John Adams the first elected leader

9. What is a legislative lobbyist?

government affairs person to represent its interests before the legislature.

61. What was the significance of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission?

opened the door for a substantially greater flow of money into elections. Citizens United overturned the soft money ban of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections. Essentially, the Supreme Court argued in a 5-4 decision that these entities had free speech rights, much like individuals, and that free speech included campaign spending. The McCutcheon decision further extended spending allowances based on the First Amendment by striking down aggregate contribution limits. These limits put caps on the total contributions allowed and some say have contributed to a subsequent increase in groups and lobbying activities

35. What is a critical election?

one that represents a sudden, clear, and long-term shift in voter allegiances.

55. What is a minority party?

the legislative party with less than half the seats in a legislative body

71. What is reapportionment?

the number of House seats given to each state is adjusted to account for population changes.

51. What is the party-in-government?

the party identifiers who have been elected or appointed to hold public office,

37. What does the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) do?

the president's own budget department. In addition to preparing the executive budget proposal and overseeing budgetary implementation during the federal fiscal year, the OMB oversees the actions of the executive bureaucracy.

2. How did Madison propose to control factions?

to let them flourish and compete against each other.

33. What is the difference between hard money and soft money?

"soft money," (had almost no regulations or limits before bipartisan campaign reform act) which is raised for purposes like party-building efforts, get-out-the-vote efforts, and issue-advocacy ads............"hard money" contributed directly to a candidate, which is heavily regulated and limited, soft money had almost no regulations or limits.

17. What issues are important to the NAACP and the AARP?

(NAACP) will keep track of proposed voter-identification bills in state legislatures that might have an effect on voting rights. AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) has approximately thirty-seven million members and advocates for individuals fifty and over on a variety of issues including health care, insurance, employment, financial security, and consumer protection

45. What are political action committees (PACs)?

(PACs), groups that collect funds from donors and distribute them to candidates who support their issues.

34. When did African Americans begin to change their allegiance from the Republican to the Democratic Party?

1932 presidential campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. create a new coalition based not on region or ethnicity, but on the suffering of those hurt the most during the Great Depression. This alignment sought to bring African American voters in as a means of shoring up support in major urban areas and the Midwest, where many southern Black people had migrated in the decades after the Civil War in search of jobs and better education for their children, as well as to avoid many of the legal restrictions placed on them in the South. Roosevelt accomplished this realignment by promising assistance to those hurt most by the Depression, including African Americans.

8. Which presidents have faced impeachment proceedings? Have any been impeached? Have any been removed?

4 presidents have faced impeachment proceedings in the House; none has been both impeached by the House and removed by the Senate.....Andrew Johnson- post civil war reconstruction decisions, Richard Nixon- Watergate- resigned before senate could remove him; Bill Clinton- lying about extramarital affairs, Trump- 2X

8. How many members serve in the U.S. House?

435

56. Do interest groups have a constitutional right to lobby government on behalf of their cause?

?? The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act defined who can and cannot lobby, and requires lobbyists and interest groups to register with the federal government.

25. What are the constitutional requirements to be a member of the House or Senate?

A House member must be a U.S. citizen of at least seven years' standing and at least twenty-five years old. Senators are required to have nine years' standing as citizens and be at least thirty years old when sworn in.

18. Who was the first Republican president?

Abraham Lincoln

50. What is the Congressional Black Caucus?

African American representatives also began to enter Congress in increasing numbers. In 1971, to better represent their interests, these representatives founded the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), an organization that grew out of a Democratic select committee formed in 1969. Founding members of the CBC include Ralph Metcalfe (D-IL), a former sprinter from Chicago who had medaled at both the Los Angeles (1932) and Berlin (1936) Olympic Games, and Shirley Chisholm, a founder of the NWPC and the first African American woman to be elected to the House of Representatives

4. What are examples of groups closely aligned with the Republican Party?

American Conservative Union, Citizens United, the National Rifle Association, and National Right to Life

5. What are examples of groups closely aligned with the Democratic Party?

Americans for Democratic Action, Moveon.org, and the Democratic Governors Association

13. What are enumerated powers? What are some examples?

An enumerated power is a power explicitly stated in the Constitution...........include the power to levy and collect taxes, declare war, raise an army and navy, coin money, borrow money, regulate commerce among the states and with foreign nations, establish federal courts and bankruptcy rules, establish rules for immigration and naturalization, and issue patents and copyrights. override a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote of both houses, sole power to introduce legislation, the Senate's final say on many presidential nominations and treaties signed by the president, and the House's ability to impeach or formally accuse the president or other federal officials of wrongdoing, grants Congress oversight

14. Which president first used the veto to block policy measures he opposed?

Andrew Jackson

17. Who was the first Democratic president?

Andrew Jackson

71. Who serves on more committees—individual House members of senators? Why?

Because the Senate is much smaller than the House, senators hold more committee assignments than House members. There are sixteen standing committees in the Senate, and each position must be filled. In contrast, in the House, with 435 members and only twenty standing committees, committee members have time to pursue a more in-depth review of a policy.

62. What is the Tea Party?

Born in part from an older third-party movement known as the Libertarian Party, the Tea Party is more hostile to government and views government intervention in all forms, and especially taxation and the regulation of business, as a threat to capitalism and democracy. It is less willing to tolerate interventions in the market place, even when they are designed to protect the markets themselves. Although an anti-tax faction within the Republican Party has existed for some time, some factions of the Tea Party movement are also active at the intersection of religious liberty and social issues, especially in opposing such initiatives as same-sex marriage and abortion rights.57 The Tea Party has argued that government, both directly and by neglect, is threatening the ability of evangelicals to observe their moral obligations, including practices some perceive as endorsing social exclusion.

29. What is the current role of party conventions?

By the 1980s, the convention drama was gone, replaced by a long, televised commercial designed to extol the party's greatness (

15. What were political machines?

organizations that secured votes for the party's candidates or supported the party in other ways.

16. What is the power of the purse? On what is it based? What branch of government has the power of the purse?

Congress controls the money.............The power to levy and collect taxes, along with the appropriations power, gives Congress what is typically referred to as "the power of the purse"

27. Which states traditionally hold their presidential primaries or caucuses first?

Currently, the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary occur first.

39. How do pluralist scholars assess the role of interest groups?

David Truman suggest that people naturally join groups and that there will be a great deal of competition for access to decision-makers.42 Scholars who subscribe to this pluralist view assume this competition among diverse interests is good for democracy. Political theorist Robert Dahl argued that "all active and legitimate groups had the potential to make themselves heard."43 In many ways, this is an optimistic assessment of representation in the United States.

13. What were the two major parties of the Second Party System?

Democratic Party, was the party of Jackson; it continued to advocate for the common people by championing westward expansion and opposing a national bank. The branch of the Democratic-Republicans that believed that the national government should encourage economic (primarily industrial) development was briefly known as the National Republicans and later became the Whig Party6.

23. Who controlled the selection of presidential nominees in the early decades of the nation?

Early on, the power to nominate presidents for office bubbled up from the party operatives in the various state legislatures and toward what was known as the king caucus or congressional caucus. The caucus or large-scale gathering was made up of legislators in the Congress who met informally to decide on nominees from their respective parties.

51. Which first lady was the first to take an active role championing the policies of her husband's administration?

Eleanor Roosevelt took an active role in championing civil rights, becoming in some ways a bridge between her husband and the civil rights movement. She coordinated meetings between FDR and members of the NAACP, championed antilynching legislation, openly defied segregation laws, and pushed the Army Nurse Corps to allow Black women in its ranks. She also wrote a newspaper column and had a weekly radio show.

17. What is the single largest source of federal revenue?

Federal income tax

6. What were the first two competing parties in American politics?

Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans,

50. What role does the first lady play in an administration?

First ladies increasingly exploited the opportunity to gain public support for an issue of deep interest to them.

7. Why is the large size of a House constituency a problem?

First, the average number of citizens in a congressional district now tops 700,000. This is arguably too many for House members to remain very close to the people.

9. What issue led to the collapse of the Federalist Party?

Growing regional tensions eroded the Federalist Party's ability to coordinate elites, and it eventually collapsed following its opposition to the War of 1812.

28. Which chamber's members would you expect to be more attuned to the demands of their constituents? Why?

House members of the same party in the same state will occasionally disagree on issues because of the different interests of their specific districts. Because its members serve short, two-year terms, they must regularly answer to the demands of their constituency when they run for election or reelection.

37. Are House members or senators more likely to win reelection?

House- but only slightly- In the Senate, there is only slightly more variation, given the statewide nature of the race, but it is still a very high majority of incumbents who win reelection

42. What are issue networks?

Hugh Heclo of George Mason University has sketched a more open pattern he calls an issue network that includes a number of different interests and political actors that work together in support of a single issue or policy.

21. With what concept is Mancur Olson most closely associated?

In his classic work, The Logic of Collective Action, economist Mancur Olson discussed the conditions under which collective actions problems would exist, and he noted that they were prevalent among organized interests.

68. What procedures do committees follow?

It will reach out to relevant agencies for comment on resolutions to the problem at hand, such as by holding hearings with experts to collect information. In the Senate, committee hearings are also held to confirm presidential appointments (Figure 11.17). After the information has been collected, the committee meets to discuss amendments and legislative language. Finally, the committee will send the bill to the full chamber along with a committee report. The report provides the majority opinion about why the bill should be passed, a minority view to the contrary, and estimates of the proposed law's cost and impact.

13. What is the Monroe Doctrine?

James Monroe used his annual message in 1823 to declare that the United States would consider it an intolerable act of aggression for European powers to intervene in the affairs of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Later dubbed the Monroe Doctrine, this declaration of principles laid the foundation for the growth of American power in the twentieth century.

15. Which president expanded presidential war powers by provoking a war with Mexico?

James Polk

16. What role did Lincoln play in expanding presidential powers?

Lincoln used presidential war powers and the concepts of military necessity and national security to undermine the Confederate effort to seek independence for the Southern states. In suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, Lincoln blurred the boundaries between acceptable dissent and unacceptable disloyalty.

55. How do groups lobby the judicial branch?

Lobbying the judiciary takes two forms, Interest groups may lobby the executive branch about judicial appointments the president makes and lobbying the Senate to confirm these appointments. The second form of lobbying consists of filing amicus briefs, which are also known as "friend of the court" briefs. These documents present legal arguments stating why a given court should take a case and/or why a court should rule a certain way.

1. Did James Madison believe factions were good or bad?

Madison believed limiting these factions was worse than facing the evils they might produce, because such limitations would violate individual freedoms.

73. What are safe seats?

Map designers, no longer certain how to protect individual party members, changed tactics to try and create safe seats so members of their party could be assured of winning by a comfortable margin. The basic rule of thumb was that designers sought to draw districts in which their preferred party had a 55 percent or better chance of winning a given district, regardless of which candidate the party nominated.

67. How are committees staffed and chaired?

Members of both parties compete for positions on various committees. These positions are typically filled by majority and minority members to roughly approximate the ratio of majority to minority members in the respective chambers, although committees are chaired by members of the majority party.

42. Among which generation's voters are Democrats the strongest?

Millennial

31. How do the political views of millennials compare with those of older generations?

Millennials—those aged 21-37—are more liberal than members of older generations.

23. How successful have third parties been in American politics?

None of these alternatives to the two major political parties had much success at the national level, and most are no longer viable parties. All faced the same fate. Formed by charismatic leaders, each championed a relatively narrow set of causes and failed to gain broad support among the electorate. Once their leaders had been defeated or discredited, the party structures that were built to contest elections collapsed. Achampioned. In the long run, however, many third parties have brought important issues to the attention of the major parties, which then incorporated these issues into their platforms.

39. Which presidential appointees do NOT require Senate confirmation?

Other presidential selections are not subject to Senate approval, including the president's personal staff (whose most important member is the White House chief of staff) and various advisers (most notably the national security adviser).

47. What is a Super PAC?

PACs through which corporations and unions can spend virtually unlimited amounts of money on behalf of political candidates

2. Whose proposal for a national executive came closest to the model eventually adopted by the constitutional convention?

Pennsylvania's James Wilson, who had triumphed on the issue of a single executive, at first proposed the direct election of the president. When delegates rejected that idea, he responded with the suggestion that electors, chosen throughout the nation, should select the executive. Over time, Wilson's idea gained ground with delegates who were uneasy at the idea of an election by the legislature, which presented the opportunity for intrigue and corruption.

29. Why is fundraising important for members of Congress?

Political campaigns are expensive

21. What are third parties?

Political parties that are formed as alternatives to the Republican and Democratic parties are

18. What are particularized benefits?

Private interests usually seek particularized benefits from government that favor either a single interest or a narrow set of interests.

68. Under which Republican president did southern social conservatives turn away from the Democrats toward the Republican Party?

Ronald Reagan

59. How does divided government affect the ability of government to function smoothly?

Shutdowns are even more likely when the president and at least one house of Congress are of opposite parties.

65. What is a government shutdown?

Shutdowns occur when Congress and the president are unable to authorize and appropriate funds before the current budget runs out. This is now an annual problem.

43. Among which generation's voters are Republicans the strongest?

Silent

29. What is a grassroots movement?

Some interest groups develop as grassroots movements, which often begin from the bottom up among a small number of people at the local level. Interest groups can amplify the voices of such individuals through proper organization and allow them to participate in ways that would be less effective or even impossible alone or in small numbers.

33. What are the arguments for and against the Electoral College?

Supporters of the current system defend it as a manifestation of federalism, arguing that it also guards against the chaos inherent in a multiparty environment by encouraging the current two-party system. They point out that under a system of direct election, candidates would focus their efforts on more populous regions and ignore others.20 Critics, on the other hand, charge that the current system negates the one-person, one-vote basis of U.S. elections, subverts majority rule, works against political participation in states deemed safe for one party, and might lead to chaos should an elector desert a candidate, thus thwarting the popular will.

73. Where must tax bills originate?

Technically, bills that raise revenue, like tax bills, must begin in the House. "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills."

82. What is an omnibus bill?

The benefit of attaching the reforms to the budget resolution was that Congress could force an up or down (yea or nay) vote on the whole package.Such a packaged bill is called an omnibus bill.36 Creating and voting for an omnibus bill allows Congress to quickly accomplish policy changes that would have taken many votes and the expending of great political capital over a long period of time.

25. What is a winner-take-all election?

The candidate who receives the greatest overall number of votes wins. Winner-take-all

12. Who oversaw the purchase of Louisiana from France?

Thomas Jefferson

1. How did the Congress created by the Constitution of 1787 compare with Congress under the Articles of Confederation?

Under the Articles, the national legislature had been made up of a single chamber composed of an equal number of delegates from each of the states. Constitution of 1787 created two houses- one house representation was based on population (House of Representatives) and the other House- Senate- each state represented equally- 2 each

49. What is Emily's List?

a PAC founded in 1985 to help elect pro-choice Democratic women to office, plays a major role in fundraising for female candidates.

35. What is the cabinet? What are the four most important positions?

a group of advisors to the president, consisting of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch who head the fifteen executive departments........The most important members—the heads of the Departments of Defense, Justice, State, and the Treasury (echoing Washington's original cabinet)—receive the most attention from the president, the Congress, and the media. These four departments have been referred to as the inner cabinet, while the others are called the outer cabinet.

45. What is the politico model of representation?

a model of representation in which members of Congress act as either trustee or delegate, based on rational political calculations about who is best served, the constituency or the nation. few if any representatives adhere strictly to one model or the other. Instead, most find themselves attempting to balance the important principles embedded in each.

30. What is an astroturf movement?

a political movement that resembles a grassroots movement but is often supported or facilitated by wealthy interests and/or elites (TEA Party is an example)

57. What is the line-item veto? Does the president have that power? Why or why not?

a type of veto that keeps the majority of a spending bill unaltered but nullifies certain lines of spending within it. While a number of states allow their governors the line-item veto (discussed in the chapter on state and local government), the president acquired this power only in 1996 after Congress passed a law permitting it. President Clinton used the tool sparingly. However, those entities that stood to receive the federal funding he lined out brought suit. Two such groups were the City of New York and the Snake River Potato Growers in Idaho.48 The Supreme Court heard their claims together and just sixteen months later declared unconstitutional the act that permitted the line-item veto.49 Since then, presidents have asked Congress to draft a line-item veto law that would be constitutional, although none have made it to the president's desk.

4. When is it adopted?

adopted at each party's presidential nominating convention every four years. If successful, a party can create a large enough electoral coalition to gain control of the government. Once in power, the party is then able to deliver, to its voters and elites, the policy preferences they choose by electing its partisans to the government.

20. What are executive agreements?

agreements to formalize international relations, so long as important matters still came through the Senate in the form of treaties.

22. What are examples of third parties in American political history?

a third party known as the Populist Party formed in reaction to what its constituents perceived as the domination of U.S. society by big business and a decline in the power of farmers and rural communities................Progressive Party, a new political party created in 1912. In 1912, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt attempted to form a third party, known as the Progressive Party, as an alternative to the more business-minded Republicans. The Progressives sought to correct the many problems that had arisen as the United States transformed itself from a rural, agricultural nation into an increasingly urbanized, industrialized country dominated by big business interests. In 1948, two new third parties appeared on the political scene. Henry A. Wallace, a vice president under Franklin Roosevelt, formed a new Progressive Party, which had little in common with the earlier Progressive Party. Wallace favored racial desegregation and believed that the United States should have closer ties to the Soviet Union. Wallace's campaign was a failure, largely because most people believed his policies, including national healthcare, were too much like those of communism, and this party also vanished. The other third party, the States' Rights Democrats, also known as the Dixiecrats, were White, southern Democrats who split from the Democratic Party when Harry Truman, who favored civil rights for African Americans, became the party's nominee for president. The Dixiecrats opposed all attempts by the federal government to end segregation, extend voting rights, prohibit discrimination in employment, or otherwise promote social equality among races.15 They remained a significant party that threatened Democratic unity throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Other examples of third parties in the United States include the American Independent Party, the Libertarian Party, United We Stand America, the Reform Party, and the Green Party.

32. What was the significance of the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City?

also raised awareness of the struggles faced by members of the gay and lesbian community.

32. What is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act?

also referred to as the McCain-Feingold Act. The purpose of this law was to limit the use of "soft money,"

15. What are inherent powers? What are some examples?

an inherent power, while not enumerated or implied, must be assumed to exist as a direct result of the country's existence........powers. Inherent powers are not only not mentioned in the Constitution, but they do not even have a convenient clause in the Constitution to provide for them. Instead, they are powers Congress has determined it must assume if the government is going to work at all. The general assumption is that these powers were deemed so essential to any functioning government that the framers saw no need to spell them out. Such powers include the power to control borders of the state, the power to expand the territory of the state, and the power to defend itself from internal revolution or coups.

37. Which are solidly Republican?

and the South and rural areas overwhelmingly voting Republican. The result today is a political system that provides Republicans with considerable advantages in rural areas and most parts of the Deep South.

5. What determines the role of the vice president?

apart from the suggestion that the vice president should be responsible for presiding over the Senate, the framers left the vice president's role undeveloped. As a result, the influence of the vice presidency has varied dramatically, depending on how much of a role the vice president is given by the president. Some vice presidents, such as Dan Quayle under President George H. W. Bush, serve a mostly ceremonial function, while others, like Dick Cheney under President George W. Bush, become a partner in governance and rival the White House chief of staff in terms of influence.

9. Does the District of Columbia have voting representation in Congress?

approximately 675,000 residents of the federal district of Washington (District of Columbia) do not have voting representation. Like those living in the U.S. territories, they merely have a non-voting delegate.1

32. How interested are young Latinos in voting compared with the older generations?

as young Latinos reach voting age, they seem more inclined to vote than do their parents, which may raise the traditionally low voting rates among this ethnic group.

40. Who are party identifiers?

being a member of the party-in-the-electorate simply means a voter is more likely to voice support for a party. These voters are often called party identifiers, since they usually represent themselves in public as being members of a party, and they may attend some party events or functions. Party identifiers are also more likely to provide financial support for the candidates of their party during election season.

60. Is bipartisanship more or less common?

bipartisanship, or cooperation through compromise is less common now

46. What is the concept of the bully pulpit? With which president is it associated?

bully pulpit, a platform from which to push his agenda to the public. Theodore Roosevelt

11. Who suffered because of it?

co

20. What are collective goods?

collective goods are benefits—tangible or intangible—that help most or all citizens. These goods are often produced collectively, and because they may not be profitable and everyone may not agree on what public goods are best for society, they are often underfunded and thus will be underproduced unless there is government involvement.

54. What is collective representation?

collective representation describes the relationship between Congress and the United States as a whole. That is, it considers whether the institution itself represents the American people, not just whether a particular member of Congress represents his or her district.

9. What are the constitutional powers of the presidency?

commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States, negotiate treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate, and receive representatives of foreign nations (Figure 12.4). Charged to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," the president was given broad power to pardon those convicted of federal offenses, except for officials removed through the impeachment process.7 The chief executive would present to Congress information about the state of the union; call Congress into session when needed; veto legislation if necessary, although a two-thirds supermajority in both houses of Congress could override that veto; and make recommendations for legislation and policy as well as call on the heads of various departments to make reports and offer opinions. Finally, the president's job included nominating federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, as well as other federal officials, and making appointments to fill military and diplomatic posts.

26. What is plurality voting?

commonly referred to as first-past-the-post, is based on the principle that the individual candidate with the most votes wins, whether or not he or she gains a majority (51 percent or greater) of the total votes cast.

46. What is the maximum amount of money a PAC can contribute to a candidate?

contribute no more than $5,000 per candidate per election

31. What is the Federal Election Campaign Act?

created the Federal Election Commission (FEC), required candidates to disclose where their money was coming from and where they were spending it, limited individual contributions, and provided for public financing of presidential campaigns.

35. What is interest group specialization?

different interests represent the more specialized needs of different specialties

52. What are the two categories of a president's powers?

direct actions the chief executive can take by employing the formal institutional powers of the office and informal powers of persuasion and negotiation essential to working with the legislative branch.

30. What is the single most important source of campaign funds for members of Congress?

direct campaign donations by individual donors?

53. How does the complexity of America's political system affect a party's organizational ability?

each level and unit of government has different constituencies that the office holder must satisfy. The person elected to the White House is more beholden to the national party organization than are members of the House or Senate, because members of Congress must be reelected by voters in very different states, each with its own state-level and county-level parties. First, legislators may serve a constituency that disagrees with the executive on key matters of policy. If the issue is important enough to voters, as in the case of gun control or abortion rights, an office holder may feel his or her job will be in jeopardy if he or she too closely follows the party line, even if that means disagreeing with the executive. each house of the legislature has its own leadership and committee structure, and those leaders may not be in total harmony with the president. Key benefits like committee appointments, leadership positions, and money for important projects in their home district may hinge on legislators following the lead of the party.

10. How were slaves counted for purposes of representation in the U.S. House?

each slave (who could not vote) to count as three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional representation.

53. What is an earmark?

earmarks—funds appropriated for specific projects—

35. Who is an incumbent?

elected officials who currently hold an office.

40. What is the elite critique of the pluralist approach?

elite critique suggests that certain interests, typically businesses and the wealthy, are advantaged and that policies more often reflect their wishes than anyone else's. Political scientist E. E. Schattschneider noted that "the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upperclass accent."44 A number of scholars have suggested that businesses and other wealthy interests are often overrepresented before government, and that poorer interests are at a comparative disadvantage. The ability to overcome collective action problems is not equally distributed across groups; as Mancur Olson noted, small groups and those with economic advantages were better off in this regard.46 Disadvantaged interests face many challenges including shortages of resources, time, and skills.

52. What role does the whip play?

ensures that members are present when a piece of legislation is to be voted on and directs them how to vote. The whip is the second-highest ranking member of the party in each chamber.

10. How have the powers of the presidency evolved?

establish cabinets, wage undeclared wars - presidential war powers, negotiate territorial gains, veto to block legislative initiatives, executive privilege, power to grow agencies like the Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Presidents also further developed the concept of executive privilege, the right to withhold information from Congress, the judiciary, or the public. executive orders, rules that bypass Congress but still have the force of law if the courts do not overturn them. More recently, presidents have offered their own interpretation of legislation as they sign it via signing statements (discussed later in this chapter) directed to the bureaucratic entity charged with implementation. In the realm of foreign policy, Congress permitted the widespread use of executive agreements to formalize international relations, so long as important matters still came through the Senate in the form of treaties.15 Recent presidents have continued to rely upon an ever more expansive definition of war powers to act unilaterally at home and abroad. Finally, presidents, often with Congress's blessing through the formal delegation of authority, have taken the lead in framing budgets, negotiating budget compromises, and at times impounding funds in an effort to prevail in matters of policy.

76. What does the House Rules Committee do?

establishes the rules of debate, such as time limits and limits on the number and type of amendments.

4. How are the House and Senate structured?

every state will have two senators who each serve a six-year term. Therefore, with fifty states in the Union, there are currently one hundred seats in the U.S. Senate. Senators were originally appointed by state legislatures, but in 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was approved, which allowed for senators to be elected by popular vote in each state. Seats in the House of Representatives are distributed among the states based on each state's population and each member of the House is elected by voters in a specific congressional district. Each state is guaranteed at least one seat in the House

54. What is the purpose of executive orders?

executive orders or proclamations to achieve policy goals. Usually, executive orders direct government agencies to pursue a certain course in the absence of congressional action.

28. What is disturbance theory?

explain why groups mobilize due to an event in the political, economic, or social environment. For example, in 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a book exposing the dangers posed by pesticides such as DDT.24 The book served as a catalyst for individuals worried about the environment and the potential dangers of pesticides. The result was an increase in both the number of environmental interest groups, such as Greenpeace and American Rivers, and the number of members within them.

52. What is pork-barrel politics?

federal spending intended to benefit a particular district or set of constituents. politics—federal spending on projects designed to benefit a particular district or set of constituents—has been around since the nineteenth century, when barrels of salt pork were both a sign of wealth and a system of reward.

16. What is personal politics?

focused on building direct relationships with voters rather than on promoting specific issues.

36. What is interest group fragmentation?

fragmentation can occur when a large interest like this has diverging needs. Example: While the American Medical Association may take a stand on stem cell research, the issue is not critical to the everyday activities of many of its members. On the other hand, stem cell research is highly salient to members of the American Neurological Association, an interest organization that represents academic neurologists and neuroscientists.

47. What was the significance of the Nineteenth Amendment?

gave women the right to vote and women now made up 5% of voters in either chamber politicians had to cater for women voters as constituents

11. What is a cabinet? Which president first established a cabinet?

group of advisors to help him administer his duties, consisting of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch. George Washington

10. What is an association?

groups of institutions that join with others, often within the same trade or industry (trade associations), and have similar concerns. The American Beverage Association10 includes Coca-Cola, Red Bull North America, ROCKSTAR, and Kraft Foods. Despite the fact that these companies are competitors, they have common interests related to the manufacturing, bottling, and distribution of beverages, as well as the regulation of their business activities.

1. What are political parties?

groups of people with similar interests who work together to create and implement policies. They do this by gaining control over the government by winning elections.

67. How did social issues undercut the old Democratic Party coalition?

in the late 1950s and early 1960s, social issues became increasingly prominent in national politics. Southern Democrats, who had supported giving the federal government authority for economic redistribution, began to resist calls for those powers to be used to restructure society. Many of these Democrats broke away from the party only to find a home among Republicans, who were willing to help promote smaller national government and greater states' rights. This shift was largely completed with the rise of the evangelical movement in politics, when it shepherded its supporters away from Jimmy Carter, an evangelical Christian,

8. What is the difference between in-house lobbyists and contract lobbyists?

in-house lobbyists: work for one interest group or firm and represent their organization in a lobbying capacity, ...................................................................................................................contract lobbyist: individuals who work for firms that represent a multitude of clients and are often hired because of their resources and their ability to contact and lobby lawmakers, to represent them before the legislature.

6. What is an interest group?

indicates any formal association of individuals or organizations that attempt to influence government decision-making and/or the making of public policy.

7. What is a membership organization?

individuals join voluntarily and to which they usually pay dues. Membership groups often consist of people who have common issues or concerns, or who want to be with others who share their views. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a membership group consisting of members who promote gun rights (

11. What is inside lobbying?

inside lobbying or direct lobbying, which takes the interest group's message directly to a government official such as a lawmaker.11

16. What functions do interest groups perform for the political system?

interest groups also monitor government activity, serve as a means of political participation for members, and provide information to the public and to lawmakers.

54. Why do interest groups lobby the executive branch after legislation is passed?

interest groups may target the executive branch of government, whose job is to implement the law. As a result, interest group members may be appointed to positions in which they can influence proposed regulation of the industry of which they are a part.

54. What is a majority party?

it controls more than half the seats in one of the two chambers.

20. When is the president most powerful?

it is during wartime that the chief executive is most powerful and Congress least powerful.

37. Why are wealthy people more influential than lower-income people?

lobbyists are expensive and not every interest group can afford high-priced contract lobbyists to represent it

64. What is the rally around the flag effect?

national emergencies and war offer presidents far more opportunity to act vigorously and at times independently. This phenomenon often produces the rally around the flag effect, in which presidential popularity spikes during international crises. A president must always be aware that politics, according to Otto von Bismarck, is the art of the possible, even as it is his or her duty to increase what might be possible by persuading both members of Congress and the general public of what needs to be done.

79. What is the purpose of a conference committee?

negotiates a reconciliation both chambers can accept without amendment. Only then can the bill progress to the president's desk for signature or veto.

43. What do neopluralist scholars believe about the influence of interest groups?

neopluralist scholars argue that certainly some interests are in a privileged position, but these interests do not always get what they want.53 Instead, their influence depends on a number of factors in the political environment such as public opinion, political culture, competition for access, and the relevance of the issue. Even wealthy interests do not always win if their position is at odds with the wish of an attentive public. And if the public cares about the issue, politicians may be reluctant to defy their constituents.

55. Is Congress popular?

no- high public disapproval ratings experienced by Congress. the national perception of Congress is near an all-time low.

13. What is outside lobbying?

outside lobbying or indirect lobbying tactics, whereby the interest attempts to get its message out to the public.

41. What proportion of the electorate are party identifiers?

over half of American adults have called themselves "Republican" or "Democrat" when asked how they identify themselves politically. Partisan support is so strong that, in a poll conducted from August 5 to August 9, 2015, about 88 percent of respondents said they either identified with or, if they were independents, at least leaned toward one of the major political parties.38

27. What is a proportional electoral system?

parties advertise who is on their candidate list and voters pick a party. Then, legislative seats are doled out to the parties based on the proportion of support each party receives.

61. What is party polarization?

parties have grown farther apart ideologically,

44. What is the relationship between party identification and party membership?

party identification is not quite the same thing as party membership. People may call themselves Republicans or Democrats without being registered as a member of the party, and the Republican and Democratic parties do not require individuals to join their formal organization in the same way that parties in some other countries do. Many states require voters to declare a party affiliation before participating in primaries, but primary participation is irregular and infrequent, and a voter may change his or her identity long before changing party registration. For most voters, party identification is informal at best and often matters only in the weeks before an election.

53. Who is Grover Norquist and what issue concerns him the most?

political activist Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), asked all Republican members of Congress to sign a "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" that they would fight efforts to raise taxes or to eliminate any deductions that were not accompanied by tax cuts.

44. What does a new president try to accomplish in an inaugural address?

president—the delivery of an inaugural address—can do much to set the tone for what is intended to follow. While such an address may be an exercise in rhetorical inspiration, it also allows the president to set forth priorities within the overarching vision of what he or she intends to do.

63. What are revolving door laws?

prevent lawmakers from lobbying government immediately after leaving public office.

31. What are the functions of interest groups for the political system?

provide a means of representing people and serve as a link between them and government.28 Interest groups also allow people to actively work on an issue in an effort to influence public policy. Another function of interest groups is to help educate the public. Interest groups also help frame issues, usually in a way that best benefits their cause. Interest groups also try to get issues on the government agenda and to monitor a variety of government programs.

30. What is the significance of the Twelfth Amendment?

provided for the separate election of president and vice president as well as setting out ways to choose a winner if no one received a majority of the electoral votes. Only once since the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, during the election of 1824, has the House selected the president under these rules, and only once, in 1836, has the Senate chosen the vice president.

19. What are public interest groups?

public interest groups attempt to promote public, or collective, goods.

27. What are purposive incentives?

purposive incentives focus on the issues or causes promoted by the group. Someone concerned about protecting individual rights might join a group like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because it supports the liberties guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, even the free expression of unpopular views.

42. What is representation?

refers to an elected leader's looking out for his or her constituents while carrying out the duties of the office.

6. What are the constitutional qualifications of the office of president?

requirements—the chief executive must be at least thirty-five years old and a "natural born" citizen of the United States (or a citizen at the time of the Constitution's adoption) who has been an inhabitant of the United States for at least fourteen years.6 While Article II also states that the term of office is four years and does not expressly limit the number of times a person might be elected president, after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times (from 1932 to 1944), the Twenty-Second Amendment was proposed and ratified, limiting the presidency to two four-year terms.

19. What are executive orders?

rules that bypass Congress but still have the force of law if the courts do not overturn them.

57. What was the purpose of the Federal Election Campaign Act?

setting limits on how much presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their families could donate to their own campaigns.65 The law also allowed corporations and unions to form PACs and required public disclosure of campaign contributions and their sources.

59. Since World War II, who or what has taken the lead in taking military action?

since World War II, it has been the president and not Congress who has taken the lead in engaging the United States in military action outside the nation's boundaries, most notably in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf

23. What is the free rider problem?

some individuals can receive benefits (get a free ride) without helping to bear the cost. Example: Why do some students elect to do little on a group project? The answer is that they likely prefer to do something else and realize they can receive the same grade as the rest of the group without contributing to the effort.

50. What is a voting cue?

sources—including fellow lawmakers, constituents, and interest groups—that lawmakers often use to help them decide how to vote, especially on unfamiliar issues

48. What role does the state party organization play?

state-level organizations are responsible for key party functions, such as statewide candidate recruitment and campaign mobilization. Most of their efforts focus on electing high-ranking officials such as the governor or occupants of other statewide offices (e.g., the state's treasurer or attorney general) as well as candidates to represent the state and its residents in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. usually accept greater fundraising responsibilities - coordinate giving across multiple races and to develop the staffing expertise that these candidates will draw upon at election time. responsible for creating a sense of unity among members of the state party.

58. What is a presidential signing statement?

statements issued by a president when agreeing to legislation that indicate how the chief executive will interpret and enforce the legislation in question. Signing statements are less powerful than vetoes, though congressional opponents have complained that they derail legislative intent. Signing statements have been used by presidents since at least James Monroe, but they became far more common in this century.

48. What is the maximum amount of money a Super PAC can contribute to a candidate?

super PACs cannot contribute money directly to individual candidates.

44. What actions do interest groups take to influence election outcomes?

support candidates who are sympathetic to their views in hopes of gaining access to them once they are in office. rate politicians based on their voting records on issues these organizations view as important. Incumbents have electoral advantages in terms of name recognition, experience, and fundraising abilities, and they often receive support because interest groups want access to the candidate who is likely to win. Some interest groups will offer support to the challenger, particularly if the challenger better aligns with the interest's views or the incumbent is vulnerable. Sometimes, interest groups even hedge their bets and give to both major party candidates for a particular office in the hopes of having access regardless of who wins.

14. What tactics do outside lobbyists use?

tactics include issuing press releases, placing stories and articles in the media, entering coalitions with other groups, and contacting interest group members, hoping that they will individually pressure lawmakers to support or oppose legislation.

25. What are material incentives?

tangible benefits of joining a group. AARP, for example, offers discounts on hotel accommodations and insurance rates for its members, while dues are very low, so they can actually save money by joining.

14. What was the first modern political party in the world?

the Democratic Party

20. In which region were the Democrats the strongest in the 1850s?

the South

46. What is descriptive representation?

the extent to which a body of representatives represents the descriptive characteristics of their constituencies, such as class, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, socio economic, and gender

59. What is the most important leadership position in the U.S. House?

the most important leadership position in the House is actually elected by the entire body of representatives. This position is called the Speaker of the House and is the only House officer mentioned in the Constitution.

58. What was the significance of Buckley v. Valeo?

upheld Congress's right to regulate elections by restricting contributions to campaigns and candidates. However, at the same time, it overturned restrictions on expenditures by candidates and their families, as well as total expenditures by campaigns.

57. What is unified government?

when the same party controls the executive and the legislature entirely.

26. What are solidary incentives?

which provide the benefit of joining with others who have the same concerns or are similar in other ways. Some scholars suggest that people are naturally drawn to others with similar concerns. The NAACP is a civil rights groups concerned with promoting equality and eliminating discrimination based on race, and members may join to associate with others who have dealt with issues of inequality.

36. Which regions and areas are solidly Democratic today?

with urban areas and the Northeast now solidly Democratic, Democrats dominate urban politics and those parts of the South, known as the Black Belt, where the majority of residents are African American.

6. What is a representative's constituency?

—the body of voters who elect him or her

65. How is the Senate president pro tempore selected and what is the importance of the position?

—usually the most senior senator of the majority party—who presides over the Senate. Despite the title, the job is largely a formal and powerless role.

63. What role do whips play in the House?

. A whip's job, as the name suggests, is to whip up votes and otherwise enforce party discipline. Whips make the rounds in Congress, telling members the position of the leadership and the collective voting strategy, and sometimes they wave various carrots and sticks in front of recalcitrant members to bring them in line.

14. What are implied powers? What are some examples?

An implied power is one not specifically detailed in the Constitution but inferred as necessary to achieve the objectives of the national government...............................The "necessary and proper clause" directs Congress "to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." Laws that regulate banks, establish a minimum wage, and allow for the construction and maintenance of interstate highways are all possible because of the implied powers granted by the necessary and proper clause. Today, the overwhelming portion of Congress's work is tied to the necessary and proper clause.

51. Is the membership of Congress representative of the population of the country in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and religion?

Congress as a whole is still a long way from where the country is and remains largely White, male, and wealthy. For example, although more than half the U.S. population is female, only 25 percent of Congress is. Congress is also overwhelmingly Christian (

32. Is it possible to win the popular vote and lose the election? Has it ever happened?

In several elections, such as in 1876 and 1888, a candidate who received less than a majority of the popular vote has claimed the presidency, including cases when the losing candidate secured a majority of the popular vote. A recent case was the 2000 election, in which Democratic nominee Al Gore won the popular vote, while Republican nominee George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote and hence the presidency. The 2016 election brought another such irregularity as Donald Trump comfortably won the Electoral College by narrowly winning the popular vote in several states, while Hillary Clinton collected nearly 2.9 million more votes nationwide.

34. Why has the number of interest groups increased?

In some cases, it simply reflects new interests in society. Forty years ago, stem cell research was not an issue on the government agenda, but as science and technology advanced, its techniques and possibilities became known to the media and the public, and a number of interests began lobbying for and against this type of research...................The devolution of power also explains some of the increase in the number and type of interests, at least at the state level. As power and responsibility shifted to state governments in the 1980s, the states began to handle responsibilities that had been under the jurisdiction of the federal government. ............................................We have also seen increased specialization by some interests and even fragmentation of existing interests. ......................................................The size of the economy has a bearing on the number of interests, but only up to a certain point, after which the number increases at a declining rate. ........................................................Over the last few decades, we have also witnessed an increase in professionalization in lobbying and in the sophistication of lobbying techniques. ....................................................there has been an increase in the number of contract lobbying firms.

36. What percentage of House incumbents seeking reelection are typically successful?

In the House, the percentage of incumbents winning reelection has hovered between 85 and 100 percent for the last half century. In

30. How do election laws affect the success of third parties?

In the United States, such rules have been written to make it easy for existing parties to secure a spot for their candidates in future elections. But some states create significant burdens for candidates who wish to run as independents or who choose to represent new parties. For example, one common practice is to require a candidate who does not have the support of a major party to ask registered voters to sign a petition. Sometimes, thousands of signatures are required before a candidate's name can be placed on the ballot ut a small third party that does have large numbers of supporters in some states may not be able to secure enough signatures for this to happen.

24. Today, what is the main means for selecting presidential nominees?

In the decades that followed, party organizations, party leaders, and workers met in national conventions to choose their nominees, sometimes after long struggles that took place over multiple ballots. In this way, the political parties kept a tight control on the selection of a candidate. In the early twentieth century, however, some states began to hold primaries, elections in which candidates vied for the support of state delegations to the party's nominating convention. Over the course of the century, the primaries gradually became a far more important part of the process, though the party leadership still controlled the route to nomination through the convention system.

19. In the early days of the nation, which branch of government was considered the most powerful?

In the early days of the republic, Congress's role was rarely if ever disputed.

41. Have midterm elections grown more or less nationalized?

Indeed, the 2014 midterm election was the most nationalized election in many decades.

12. What tactics do inside lobbyists use?

Inside lobbying tactics include testifying in legislative hearings and helping to draft legislation. nearly all report that they contact lawmakers, testify before the legislature, help draft legislation, and contact executive agencies.

51. Do interest groups target all members of Congress or just some?

Interest groups likely cannot target all 535 lawmakers in both the House and the Senate, nor would they wish to do so.

63. What is Occupy Wall Street?

Occupy Wall Street movement was born of the government's response to the Great Recession of 2008 and its assistance to endangered financial institutions, provided through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP (Figure 9.16). The Occupy Movement believed the recession was caused by a failure of the government to properly regulate the banking industry. The Occupiers further maintained that the government moved swiftly to protect the banking industry from the worst of the recession but largely failed to protect the average person, thereby worsening the growing economic inequality in the United States. the Occupy Movement's calls for more social spending and higher taxes on the wealthy remain a prominent part of the national debate. Their popularity, and the growing visibility of race issues in the United States, have helped sustain the left wing of the Democratic Party.

5. When did American political parties form?

Soon after the United States emerged from the Revolutionary War, however, a rift began to emerge between two groups that had very different views about the future direction of U.S. politics. Thus, from the very beginning of its history, the United States has had a system of government dominated by two different philosophies.

81. How did the Budget and Impoundment Control Act affect the legislative process?

The 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act gave Congress a mechanism for making large, all-encompassing, budget decisions. In the years that followed, the budget process gradually became the vehicle for creating comprehensive policy changes. One large step in this transformation occurred in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan's administration suggested using the budget to push through his economic reforms. The benefit of attaching the reforms to the budget resolution was that Congress could force an up or down (yea or nay) vote on the whole package.

27. Which chamber of Congress would you expect to have more structured rules? Why?

The House of Representatives has developed a stronger and more structured leadership than the Senate. Because its members serve short, two-year terms, they must regularly answer to the demands of their constituency when they run for election or reelection.

40. What is the Executive Office of the President?

The Executive Office of the President, created by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), contains a number of advisory bodies, including the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Security Council, the OMB, and the Office of the Vice President. Presidents also choose political advisers, speechwriters, and a press secretary to manage the politics and the message of the administration.

26. How have the structures of the House and Senate been affected by such matters as term length of individual members and the sizes of each chamber?

The House of Representatives has developed a stronger and more structured leadership than the Senate. Because its members serve short, two-year terms, they must regularly answer to the demands of their constituency when they run for election or reelection. .........In contrast, members of the Senate are furthest from the demands and scrutiny of their constituents. Because of their longer six-year terms, they will see every member of the House face his or her constituents multiple times before they themselves are forced to seek reelection........the Senate chamber's distance from the electorate was even greater. Also, unlike members of the House who can seek the narrower interests of their district, senators must maintain a broader appeal in order to earn a majority of the votes across their entire state. In addition, the rules of the Senate allow individual members to slow down or stop legislation they dislike........The heat of popular, sometimes fleeting, demands from constituents often glows red hot in the House. The Senate has the flexibility to allow these passions to cool.

60. What are the powers of the Speaker?

The Speaker is the presiding officer, the administrative head of the House, the partisan leader of the majority party in the House, and an elected representative of a single congressional district (Figure 11.16). As a testament to the importance of the Speaker, since 1947, the holder of this position has been second in line to succeed the president in an emergency, after the vice president. The Speaker is invested with quite a bit of power, such as the ability to assign bills to committees and decide when a bill will be presented to the floor for a vote. The Speaker also rules on House procedures, often delegating authority for certain duties to other members. He or she appoints members and chairs to committees, creates select committees to fulfill a specific purpose and then disband, and can even select a member to be speaker pro tempore, who acts as Speaker in the Speaker's absence. Finally, when the Senate joins the House in a joint session, the Speaker presides over these sessions, because they are usually held in the House of Representatives.

38. Why are incumbent House members usually reelected?

The amount of money they raise against their challengers demonstrates their advantage. incumbent advantage or the incumbency effect. The advantage in financing is a huge part of this effect, but it is not the only important part. Incumbents often have a much higher level of name recognition. All things being equal, voters are far more likely to select the name of the person they recall seeing on television and hearing on the radio for the last few years than the name of a person they hardly know. And donors are more likely to want to give to a proven winner. But more important is the way the party system itself privileges incumbents. A large percentage of congressional districts across the country are "safe seats" in uncompetitive districts, meaning candidates from a particular party are highly likely to consistently win the seat. This means the functional decision in these elections occurs during the primary, not in the general election. Political parties in general prefer to support incumbents in elections, because the general consensus is that incumbents are better candidates, and their record of success lends support to this conclusion. Another reason incumbents wield a great advantage over their challengers is the state power they have at their disposal.

48. What is the concept of "going public?"

The concept of going public involves the president delivering a major television address in the hope that Americans watching the address will be compelled to contact their House and Senate member and that such public pressure will result in the legislators supporting the president on a major piece of legislation.

24. Why does the United States have two major parties rather than several?

The two-party system came into being because the structure of U.S. elections, with one seat tied to a geographic district, tends to lead to dominance by two major political parties. Even when there are other options on the ballot, most voters understand that minor parties have no real chance of winning even a single office. Hence, they vote for candidates of the two major parties in order to support a potential winner. Most of the blame has been placed on the process used to select its representatives. First, most elections at the state and national levels are winner-take-all: voters do not like to waste votes, third parties must convince voters they have a real chance of winning races before voters will take them seriously. This is a tall order given the vast resources and mobilization tools available to the existing parties, especially if an incumbent is one of the competitors. In turn, the likelihood that third-party challengers will lose an election bid makes it more difficult to raise funds to support later attempts.

83. How is the budget process used to advance legislation?

This and successive similar uses of the budget process convinced many in Congress of the utility of this strategy. During the contentious and ideologically divided 1990s, the budget process became the common problem-solving mechanism in the legislature, thus laying the groundwork for the way legislation works today.

8. Who were the leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party?

Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr

60. What was the purpose of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act?

To close the soft money loophole, Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002 to ban parties from collecting and distributing unregulated money.

49. What is the significance of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission?

As a result of a 2010 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, there is no limit to how much money unions or corporations can donate to super PACs.

56. What is the significance of the Korematsu Case?

But at least one Japanese American refused to go along. His name was Fred Korematsu, and he decided to go into hiding in California rather than be taken to the internment camps with his family. He was soon discovered, turned over to the military, and sent to the internment camp in Utah that held his family. But his challenge to the internment system and the president's executive order continued. In 1944, Korematsu's case was heard by the Supreme Court. In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled against him, arguing that the administration had the constitutional power to sign the order because of the need to protect U.S. interests against the threat of espionage.46 Forty-four years after this decision, President Reagan issued an official apology for the internment and provided some compensation to the survivors. In 2011, the Justice Department went a step further by filing a notice officially recognizing that the solicitor general of the United States acted in error by arguing to uphold the executive order.

60. What are executive agreements?

Executive agreements are formal agreements negotiated between two countries but not ratified by a legislature as a treaty must be. some executive agreements do require some legislative approval, such as those that commit the United States to make payments and thus are restrained by the congressional power of the purse. But for the most part, executive agreements signed by the president require no congressional action and are considered enforceable as long as the provisions of the executive agreement do not conflict with current domestic law.

55. Are there limitations on the president's use of an executive order?

Executive orders are subject to court rulings or changes in policy enacted by Congress. These orders are also subject to reversal by presidents who come after, and recent presidents have wasted little time reversing the orders of their predecessors in cases of disagreement. Sustained executive orders, which are those not overturned in courts, typically have some prior authority from Congress that legitimizes them. When there is no prior authority, it is much more likely that an executive order will be overturned by a later president. For this reason, this tool has become less common in recent decades

12. What is gerrymandering? How has it affected Austin, Texas?

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of legislative district boundaries as a way of favoring a particular candidate. The term combines the word salamander, a reference to the strange shape of these districts, with the name of Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, who in 1812, signed a redistricting plan designed to benefit his party. .....................In Austin, TX Republican-controlled legislature has redrawn House districts to reduce the number of Democratic seats by combining voters in Austin with those in surrounding counties, sometimes even several hundred miles away. Today, Austin is represented by six different congressional representatives.

7. What is impeachment? What are the steps in the process?

Impeachment is the act of charging a government official with serious wrongdoing; the Constitution calls this wrongdoing high crimes and misdemeanors. The method the framers designed required two steps and both chambers of the Congress. First, the House of Representatives could impeach the president by a simple majority vote. In the second step, the Senate could remove him or her from office by a two-thirds majority, with the chief justice of the Supreme Court presiding over the trial. Upon conviction and removal of the president, if that occurred, the vice president would become president.

62. With which approach to presidential power is political scientist Richard Neustadt associated?

In 1960, political scientist Richard Neustadt put forward the thesis that presidential power is the power to persuade, a process that takes many forms and is expressed in various ways.50 Yet the successful employment of this technique can lead to significant and durable successes. Presidents who seek to prevail through persuasion, according to Neustadt, target Congress, members of their own party, the public, the bureaucracy, and, when appropriate, the international community and foreign leaders.

61. What is the power of persuasion?

It is left to the president to employ a strategy of negotiation, persuasion, and compromise in order to secure policy achievements in cooperation with Congress.

10. Why was the election of 1824 known as the "corrupt bargain?"

In the election of 1824, numerous candidates contended for the presidency, all members of the Democratic-Republican Party. Andrew Jackson won more popular votes and more votes in the Electoral College than any other candidate. However, because he did not win the majority (more than half) of the available electoral votes, the election was decided by the House of Representatives, as required by the Twelfth Amendment. The Twelfth Amendment limited the House's choice to the three candidates with the greatest number of electoral votes. Thus, Andrew Jackson, with 99 electoral votes, found himself in competition with only John Quincy Adams, the second place finisher with 84 electoral votes, and William H. Crawford, who had come in third with 41. The fourth-place finisher, Henry Clay, who was no longer in contention, had won 37 electoral votes. Clay strongly disliked Jackson, and his ideas on government support for tariffs and internal improvements were similar to those of Adams. Clay thus gave his support to Adams, who was chosen on the first ballot. Jackson considered the actions of Clay and Adams, the son of the Federalist president John Adams, to be an unjust triumph of supporters of the elite and referred to it as "the corrupt bargain."5

15. What issues are important to the NRA, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Sierra Club, and National Right to Life?

National Right to Life, an anti-abortion interest group, lobbies to encourage government to enact laws that restrict abortion access, while NARAL Pro-Choice America lobbies to promote the right of women to have safe choices about abortion. Environmental interests like the Sierra Club lobby for laws designed to protect natural resources and minimize the use of pollutants. NRA- encourage protecting the 2nd amendment - the right to purchase and carry guns

50. What is the role of the national party convention?

National party conventions culminate in the formal nomination of the party nominees for the offices of president and vice president, and they mark the official beginning of the presidential competition between the two parties. The national party platform is formally adopted at the convention, as are the key elements of the strategy for contesting the national campaign. And even though the media is paying less attention, key insiders and major donors often use the convention as a way of gauging the strength of the party and its ability to effectively organize and coordinate its members.

22. How has the process for selecting a president changed over time?

Over the last several decades, the manner by which parties have chosen candidates has trended away from congressional caucuses and conventions and towards a drawn-out series of state contests, called primaries and caucuses, which begin in the winter prior to the November general election.

3. What is a party platform?

Parties influence public policy by identifying and aligning sets of issues that are important to voters in the hopes of gaining support during elections; their positions on these critical issues are often presented in documents known as a party platform

22. What is the problem of collective action?

People tend not to act when the perceived benefit is insufficient to justify the costs associated with engaging in the action. Many citizens may have concerns about the appropriate level of taxation, gun control, or environmental protection, but these concerns are not necessarily strong enough for them to become politically active. In fact, most people take no action on most issues, either because they do not feel strongly enough or because their action will likely have little bearing on whether a given policy is adopted.

57. What factors influence the popularity of Congress as a whole?

President Bill Clinton's approval ratings and general satisfaction with the state of the country and the economy. In 2001, approval spiked after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Bush administration launched the "War on Terror," sending troops first to Afghanistan and later to Iraq. War has the power to bring majorities of voters to view their Congress and president in an overwhelmingly positive way. citizens tend to rate Congress more highly when things get done and more poorly when things do not get done.

22. Who was president during most of the Great Depression and World War II?

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (elected 4 times) His popularity and his ability to be elected four times allowed him to greatly overshadow Congress. As a result, Congress attempted to restrain the power of the presidency by proposing the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, which limited a president to only two full terms in office.8 Although this limitation is a significant one, it has not held back the tendency for the presidency to assume increased power.

62. How is lobbying regulated?

The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act defined who can and cannot lobby, and requires lobbyists and interest groups to register with the federal government. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 further increased restrictions on lobbying. For example, the act prohibited contact between members of Congress and lobbyists who were the spouses of other Congress members. Second, the federal and state governments prohibit certain activities like providing gifts to lawmakers and compensating lobbyists with commissions for successful lobbying. Third, governments require varying levels of disclosure about the amount of money spent on lobbying efforts. Finally, there are penalties for violating the law. Lobbyists and, in some cases, government officials can be fined, banned from lobbying, or even sentenced to prison.

19. On what issue was the party born?

The growing power of industrialists, who preferred greater national authority, combined with increasing tensions between the northern and southern states over slavery,

21. Why has presidential power grown?

The growth of presidential power is also attributable to the growth of the United States and the power of the national government. As the nation has grown and developed, so has the office.

46. Which part of a party's organization has the most responsibilities, especially at election time?

The county-level organization is in many ways the workhorse of the party system, especially around election time.

41. How has the role of the vice president changed?

The most visible, though arguably the least powerful, member of a president's cabinet is the vice president. Vice presidents were often sent on minor missions or used as mouthpieces for the administration, But in the 1970s, starting with Jimmy Carter, presidents made a far more conscious effort to make their vice presidents part of the governing team, placing them in charge of increasingly important issues. Sometimes, as in the case of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the partnership appeared to be smooth if not always harmonious. In the case of George W. Bush and his very experienced vice president Dick Cheney, observers speculated whether the vice president might have exercised too much influence. Barack Obama's choice for a running mate and subsequent two-term vice president, former Senator Joseph Biden, was picked for his experience, especially in foreign policy. President Obama relied on Vice President Biden for advice throughout his tenure. In any case, the vice presidency is no longer quite as weak as it once was, and a capable vice president can do much to augment the president's capacity to govern across issues if the president so desires.33

1. What is the background for the creation of the office of presidency at the constitutional convention?

The presidency was proposed early in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia by Virginia's Edmund Randolph, as part of James Madison's proposal for a federal government, which became known as the Virginia Plan. Madison offered a rather sketchy outline of the executive branch, leaving open whether what he termed the "national executive" would be an individual or a set of people. He proposed that Congress select the executive, whose powers and authority, and even length of term of service, were left largely undefined. He also proposed a "council of revision" consisting of the national executive and members of the national judiciary, which would review laws passed by the legislature and have the power of veto.2

26. What types of voters tend to dominate party primaries and caucuses?

The rise of the primary system during the Progressive Era came at the cost of party regulars' control of the process of candidate selection. Some party primaries even allow registered independents or members of the opposite party to vote. Even so, the process tends to attract the party faithful at the expense of independent voters, who often hold the key to victory in the fall contest. Thus, candidates who want to succeed in the primary contests seek to align themselves with committed partisans, who are often at the ideological extreme.

24. How do groups overcome the free rider problem?

They can sometimes maintain themselves by obtaining financial support from patrons outside the group. Groups with financial resources have an advantage in mobilizing in that they can offer incentives or hire a lobbyist. Smaller, well-organized groups also have an advantage. For one thing, opinions within smaller groups may be more similar, making it easier to reach consensus. It is also more difficult for members to free ride in a smaller group. ...................................................................Group leaders also play an important role in overcoming collective action problems. For instance, political scientist Robert Salisbury suggests that group leaders will offer incentives to induce activity among individuals.

70. Why are committee chairs powerful?

They control the committee's budget and choose when the committee will meet, when it will hold hearings, and even whether it will consider a bill (Figure 11.19). A chair can convene a meeting when members of the minority are absent or adjourn a meeting when things are not progressing as the majority leadership wishes. Chairs can hear a bill even when the rest of the committee objects.

4. What is the significance of the Twelfth Amendment?

While George Washington was elected president twice with this approach, the design resulted in controversy in both the 1796 and 1800 elections. In 1796, John Adams won the presidency, while his opponent and political rival Thomas Jefferson was elected vice president. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr finished tied in the Electoral College. Jefferson was elected president in the House of Representatives on the thirty-sixth ballot. These controversies led to the proposal and ratification of the Twelfth Amendment, which couples a particular presidential candidate with that candidate's running mate in a unified ticket.3

45. What means does a modern president have to reach the public?

With the advent of motion picture newsreels and voice recordings in the 1920s, presidents began to broadcast their message to the general public. Franklin Roosevelt, while not the first president to use the radio, adopted this technology to great effect. Over time, as radio gave way to newer and more powerful technologies like television, the Internet, and social media, other presidents have been able magnify their voices to an even-larger degree. Presidents now have far more tools at their disposal to shape public opinion and build support for policies.

66. What is sorting? How does it contribute to polarization?

a change in party allegiance in response to shifts in party position.65 According to the sorting thesis, before the 1950s, voters were mostly concerned with state-level party positions rather than national party concerns. Since parties are bottom-up institutions, this meant local issues dominated elections; it also meant national-level politicians typically paid more attention to local problems than to national party politics. voters have started identifying more with national-level party politics, and they began to demand their elected representatives become more attentive to national party positions. As a result, they have become more likely to pick parties that consistently represent national ideals, are more consistent in their candidate selection, and are more willing to elect office-holders likely to follow their party's national agenda. One example of the way social change led to party sorting revolves around race.

43. What is the delegate model of representation?

a model of representation in which representatives feel compelled to act on the specific stated wishes of their constituents. A representative who sees him- or herself as a delegate believes he or she is empowered merely to enact the wishes of constituents. Delegates must employ some means to identify the views of their constituents and then vote accordingly. They are not permitted the liberty of employing their own reason and judgment while acting as representatives in Congress.

77. What is a filibuster?

a parliamentary maneuver used in the Senate to extend debate on a piece of legislation as long as possible, typically with the intended purpose of obstructing or killing it.............The word "filibuster" comes from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means pirate. And the name is appropriate, since a senator who launches a filibuster virtually hijacks the floor of the chamber by speaking for long periods of time, thus preventing the Senate from closing debate and acting on a bill.

23. What effect did the Cold War have on the relative powers of Congress and the president?

a seemingly endless conflict with the Soviet Union without actual war, and therefore a period that allowed the presidency to assert more authority, especially in foreign affairs. In an exercise of this increased power, in the 1950s, President Harry Truman effectively went around an enumerated power of Congress by sending troops into battle in Korea without a congressional declaration of war (Figure 11.6). By the time of the Kennedy administration in the 1960s, the presidency had assumed nearly all responsibility for creating foreign policy, effectively shutting Congress out.

40. What is the surge-and-decline theory?

a theory proposing that the surge of stimulation occurring during presidential elections subsides during midterm elections, accounting for the differences we observe in turnouts and results. Political scientists have taken note of some voting patterns that appear to challenge this common assumption, the president's party has consistently lost seats in Congress during the midterm elections. He proposed that the reason was a surge in political stimulation during presidential elections, which contributes to greater turnout and brings in voters who are ordinarily less interested in politics. These voters, Campbell argued, tend to favor the party holding the presidency. In contrast, midterm elections witness the opposite effect. They are less stimulating and have lower turnout because less-interested voters stay home. This shift, in Campbell's theory, provides an advantage to the party not currently occupying the presidency.

72. What are the steps in the traditional legislative process?

classic legislative process. First, legislation must be drafted. Theoretically, anyone can do this. However, Congress is under no obligation to read or introduce this legislation, and only a bill introduced by a member of Congress can hope to become law. Even the president must rely on legislators to introduce his or her legislative agenda...........Once legislation has been proposed, however, the majority leadership consults with the parliamentarian about which committee to send it to. Once a committee has been selected, the committee chair is empowered to move the bill through the committee process as he or she sees fit. This occasionally means the chair will refer the bill to one of the committee's subcommittees......the next step is typically to hold a hearing on the bill. If the chair decides to not hold a hearing, this is tantamount to killing the bill in committee. ............Once hearings have been completed, the bill enters the markup stage. This is essentially an amending and voting process. In the end, with or without amendments, the committee or subcommittee will vote. If the committee decides not to advance the bill at that time, it is tabled. If the committee decides to advance the bill, however, it is printed and goes to the chamber, either the House or the Senate.....Before it reaches the House floor, it must first go through the House Committee on Rules. This committee establishes the rules of debate, such as time limits and limits on the number and type of amendments. After these rules have been established, the bill moves through the floor, where it is debated and amendments can be added. Once the limits of debate and amendments have been reached, the House holds a vote. If a simple majority, 50 percent plus 1, votes to advance the bill, it moves out of the House and into the Senate...........Once in the Senate, the bill is placed on the calendar so it can be debated. Or, more typically, the Senate will also consider the bill (or a companion version) in its own committees. Since the Senate is much smaller than the House, it can afford to be much more flexible in its rules for debate. Typically, senators allow each other to talk and debate as long as the speaker wants, though they can agree as a body to create time limits. But without these limits, debate continues until a motion to table has been offered and voted on.

3. What is the difference between an interest group and a political party?

interest groups do not function primarily to elect candidates under a certain party label or to directly control the operation of the government. have much more limited membership than do political parties...............................Political parties in the United States are generally much broader coalitions that represent a significant proportion of citizens. Parties spread relatively wide nets to try to encompass large segments of the population. In contrast, while interest groups may support or oppose political candidates, their goals are usually more issue-specific and narrowly focused on areas like taxes, the environment, and gun rights or gun control, or their membership is limited to specific professions.

2. How are parties different from interest groups?

interest groups often work indirectly to influence our leaders, political parties are organizations that try to directly influence public policy through its members who seek to win and hold public office.

38. Who is Merrick Garland?

longtime chief judge of the federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Garland is highly respected by senators from both parties and won confirmation to his DC circuit position by a 76-23 vote in the Senate. When Republican Donald Trump was elected president in the fall, this strategy appeared to pay off. The Republican Senate and Judiciary Committee confirmed Trump's nominee, Neil Gorsuch, in April 2017, exercising the so-called "nuclear option," which allowed Republicans to break the Democrats' filibuster of the nomination by a simple majority vote..................the 86th United States attorney general

49. Why is the national party organization more visible to the general public than state and local organizations?

many Americans, especially young people, are more interested in the topics discussed at the national level than at the state or local level. it usually coordinates the grandest spectacles in the life of a political party. But the national conventions, organized and sponsored by the national-level party, can dominate the national discussion for several weeks in late summer, a time when the major media outlets are often searching for news.

75. What is markup? Where does it occur?

markup - This is essentially an amending and voting process. In committee stage

42. Why is the concept of first hundred days important for a new president? Under which president was it first popularized?

measure of presidential effectiveness known as the first hundred days in office, a concept popularized during Franklin Roosevelt's first term in the 1930s.

62. What role does the minority leader have in the House?

minority leader has a visible if not always a powerful position. As the official leader of the opposition, he or she technically holds the rank closest to that of the Speaker, makes strategy decisions, and attempts to keep order within the minority.

59. What is soft money?

money that interests can spend on behalf of candidates without being restricted by federal law

58. Is divided government more or less common now than it once was?

more common- the past several decades have brought an increased prevalence of divided government.

43. What is the presidential honeymoon period?

most presidents do recognize that they must address their major initiatives during their first two years in office. This is the time when the president is most powerful and is given the benefit of the doubt by the public and the media (aptly called the honeymoon period), especially if he or she enters the White House with a politically aligned Congress, as Barack Obama did.

70. What is redistricting?

or redrawing of their electoral maps, only if they gained or lost seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. This can happen once every ten years

47. What role do county party organizations play?

organization frequently takes on many of the most basic responsibilities of a democratic system, including identifying and mobilizing potential voters and donors, identifying and training potential candidates for public office, and recruiting new members for the party. County organizations are also often responsible for finding rank and file members to serve as volunteers on Election Day, either as officials responsible for operating the polls or as monitors responsible for ensuring that elections are conducted honestly and fairly. They may also hold regular meetings to provide members the opportunity to meet potential candidates and coordinate strategy

69. What are standing committees, joint committees, ad hoc committees, and conference committees?

standing committees: The core/permanent committees-There are twenty standing committees in the House and sixteen in the Senate...........Joint committee members are appointed from both the House and the Senate, and are charged with exploring a few key issues, such as the economy and taxation. However, joint committees have no bill-referral authority whatsoever—they are informational only....................A conference committee is used to reconcile different bills passed in both the House and the Senate. The conference committees are appointed on an ad hoc basis as necessary when a bill passes the House and Senate in different forms. Conference committees are sometimes skipped in the interest of expedience, in which one of the chambers relents to the other chamber.

34. What are Super PACs? What is the difference between a Super PAC and a PAC?

super PACs aren't bound by regulations. While they cannot give money directly to a candidate or a candidate's party, they can raise and spend unlimited funds, and they can spend independently of a campaign or party. ..............................A traditional PAC is an organization designed to raise hard money to elect or defeat candidates. Such PACs tended to be run by businesses and other groups, like the Teamsters Union and the National Rifle Association, to support their special interests. They are highly regulated in regard to the amount of money they can take in and spend,

52. Which ones are interest groups more likely to target?

target lawmakers they think will consider introducing or sponsoring legislation. Second, they target members of relevant committees. Third, interest groups target lawmakers when legislation is on the floor of the House and/or Senate, but again, they rely on the fact that many members will defer to their colleagues who are more familiar with a given issue. Finally, since legislation must past both chambers in identical form, interest groups may target members of the conference committees whose job it is to iron out differences across the chambers. Interest groups also target the budgetary process in order to maximize benefits to their group.

3. How is the president chosen?

the Electoral College had emerged as the way to select a president for four years who was eligible for reelection. Today, the Electoral College consists of a body of 538 people called electors, each representing one of the fifty states or the District of Columbia, who formally cast votes for the election of the president and vice president (Figure 12.3). In forty-eight states and the District of Columbia, the candidate who wins the popular vote in November receives all the state's electoral votes. In two states, Nebraska and Maine, the electoral votes are divided: The candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets two electoral votes, but the winner of each congressional district also receives an electoral vote.

72. What was the significance of Reynolds v. Simms?

the Supreme Court argued that everyone's vote should count roughly the same regardless of where they lived.67 Districts had to be adjusted so they would have roughly equal populations. Several states therefore had to make dramatic changes to their electoral maps during the next two redistricting cycles

74. What actions take place in committee?

the committee chair is empowered to move the bill through the committee process as he or she sees fit. This occasionally means the chair will refer the bill to one of the committee's subcommittees. Whether at the full committee level or in one of the subcommittees, the next step is typically to hold a hearing on the bill. If the chair decides to not hold a hearing, this is tantamount to killing the bill in committee. The hearing provides an opportunity for the committee to hear and evaluate expert opinions on the bill or aspects of it. Experts typically include officials from the agency that would be responsible for executing the bill, the bill's sponsors from Congress, and industry lobbyists, interest groups, and academic experts from a variety of relevant fields. Typically, the committee will also accept written statements from the public concerning the bill in question. For many bills, the hearing process can be very routine and straightforward. Once hearings have been completed, the bill enters the markup stage. This is essentially an amending and voting process. In the end, with or without amendments, the committee or subcommittee will vote. If the committee decides not to advance the bill at that time, it is tabled. If the committee decides to advance the bill, however, it is printed and goes to the chamber, either the House or the Senate.

38. What is efficacy?

the conviction that you can make a difference or that government cares about you and your views. People with low levels of efficacy are less likely to participate in politics, including voting and joining interest groups. Therefore, they are often underrepresented in the political arena.

48. What is the significance of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972?

the first Asian American woman elected to Congress, was the coauthor of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, Title IX of which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

69. How did gerrymandering affect polarization?

the manipulation of legislative districts in an attempt to favor a particular candidate (Figure 9.17). According to the gerrymandering thesis, the more moderate or heterogeneous a voting district, the more moderate the politician's behavior once in office. Taking extreme or one-sided positions on a large number of issues would be hazardous for a member who needs to build a diverse electoral coalition. But if the district has been drawn to favor a particular group, it now is necessary for the elected official to serve only the portion of the constituency that dominates.

45. What is party organization?

the formal structure of the political party, and its active members are responsible for coordinating party behavior and supporting party candidates. It is a vital component of any successful party because it bears most of the responsibility for building and maintaining the party "brand." It also plays a key role in helping select, and elect, candidates for public office.

34. What is the transition?

the incoming and outgoing administrations work together to help facilitate the transfer of power. While the General Services Administration oversees the logistics of the process, such as office assignments, information technology, and the assignment of keys, prudent candidates typically prepare for a possible victory by appointing members of a transition team during the lead-up to the general election. The success of the team's actions becomes apparent on inauguration day, when the transition of power takes place in what is often a seamless fashion, with people evacuating their offices (and the White House) for their successors.

5. What is apportionment? How often does it happen and on what is it based?

the process by which seats in the House of Representatives are distributed among the fifty states. is achieved through the equal proportions method, which uses a mathematical formula to allocate seats based on U.S. Census Bureau population data, gathered every ten years as required by the Constitution. In 1929, an agreement was reached to permanently cap the number of seats in the House at 435.

80. What is the new, unorthodox legislative process?

the process described above was the standard method by which a bill became a law. Over the course of the last three and a half decades, however, changes in rules and procedure have created a number of alternate routes. Collectively, these different routes constitute what some political scientists have described as a new but unorthodox legislative process.

25. How do outsiders sometimes benefit from the current system?

the process of going straight to the people through primaries and caucuses has created some opportunities for party outsiders to rise. Neither Ronald Reagan nor Bill Clinton was especially popular with the party leadership of the Republicans or the Democrats (respectively) at the outset. The outsider phenomenon has been most clearly demonstrated, however, in the 2016 presidential nominating process, as those distrusted by the party establishment, such as Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who never before held political office, raced ahead of party favorites like Jeb Bush early in the primary process

18. What is oversight? What are some of its components?

the right to review and monitor other bodies such as the executive branch..........The Senate's exclusive power to give final approval for many of the president's nominees, including cabinet members and judicial appointments, compels the president to consider the needs and desires of Congress when selecting top government officials. Finally, removing a president from office who has been elected by the entire country should never be done lightly. Giving this responsibility to a large deliberative body of elected officials ensures it will occur only very rarely.

18. What is executive privilege?

the right to withhold information from Congress, the judiciary, or the public.

29. How does the Electoral College affect the success of third parties?

the winner is selected not directly by the popular vote but indirectly by a group of electors known collectively as the Electoral College. The winner-take-all system also applies in the Electoral College. the state's electoral votes go to the candidate who wins the plurality of the popular vote in that state. Even if a new, third party is able to win the support of a lot of voters, it must be able to do so in several states in order to win enough electoral votes to have a chance of winning the presidency.