REA CLEP American Government Study
The _________ Amendment says that no state can "deny to any person within its jurisdiction an equal protection of the laws."
Fourteenth
The most powerful Democratic president was ________ ___ ___________ - the only American president to be sent to the White House ______ times. Roosevelt's presidency and his ______ ______ programs that sought to address the Great Depression inspired a powerful coalition of groups that have remained loyal Democratic voters. Roosevelt argued for _________ government - a government that created work, employed people, and provided tax-funded benefits, such a ________ _________, a program that, after the Great Depression, sought to provide benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, death, and at that time, unemployment insurance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt four New Deal activist Social Security
The first president to use radio effectively was _______ _________, who addressed the nation in ___________ _____________, in which he explained his anti-Depression policies.
Franklin Roosevelt fireside chats
In an effort to get the problem of national debt under control, Congress passed the ____________-___________ Act, a law enacted in 1985 that required annual reductions in the annual deficit, with the final goal (which failed) being an elimination of the national debt by 1991.
Gramm-Rudman
The pro-Constitution vote in New York had been helped along primarily by the writings of ______ _______ and ________ _________, with some help from ________ _______.
Alexander Hamilton James Madison John Jay
___________ __________ was the only president not married.
James Buchanan
______________ ________________ wrote during debates about how to frame the Constitution that "factions" (his word for interest groups) could put their own causes ahead of the national good.
James Madison
_________ _________, who ran as a Greenback Labor candidate in 1880, ran as the candidate of the ____________ Party (also called the _______Party) in 1892.
James Weaver People's Populist
The last time Congress formally declared war was in December 1945, first against __________ and, soon after, against Hitler's ________.
Japan Germany
___________ _________ was the founder of the Federalist Party.
John Adams
___________ ____. ________ was the only non-Protestant president.
John F. Kennedy
The greatest single philosophical influence on the leaders who would advocate the break with England was the work of English philosopher _________ ________.
John Locke
The phrase "....it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security" in the Declaration of Independence represents the ideas of ________ _________.
John Locke
In the twelfth century, the Englishman ___________ of ___________ argued that law a gift from God and that if a monarch placed himself above the God-given law, then his subjects could revolt against him - even kill him.
John of Salisbury
_________ committees comprise members of both houses and are primarily responsible for fact finding and for raising awareness of particular problems and issues; they rarely report bills to the House or Senate.
Joint
The _______ _______ ____ ________ is a group of senior military leaders, including the chief military officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, who advise the president and certain members of the cabinet about military matters.
Joint Chiefs of Staff
_________ ___________ refers to the idea that the Supreme Court should actively check the power of the executive and legislative branches of government.
Judicial activism
The pro-Constitution vote in New York had been helped along primarily by the writings of __________ _____________ and ____________ _____________, with some help from __________ _________.
Alexander Hamilton James Madison John Jay
The presidential power to "receive __________ and other ministers" is also in Article ___________, Section ______, as is the statement that a president "shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
Ambassadors Two Three
The ____________ ________ ____ __________ is the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
American Bill of Rights
____________ are the least taxes people in the industrialized world.
Americans
The ______________ ____________ _________ is the model of the method by which people vote privately, first introduced in Australia in the late 1800s.
Australian secret ballot
______________ v. _____________ was a 2003 Supreme Court case in which the Court overturned its earlier decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, stating that consenting adult homosexuals did have a right to privacy.
Lawrence v. Texas
Place the following events in order from earliest to latest in history: 1. Boston Tea Party 2. Coercive Acts 3. Stamp Act 4. Sugar Act 5. Townshend Duties
1. Sugar Act 2. Stamp Act 3. Townshend Duties 4. Boston Tea Party 5. Coercive Acts
The _____________ _____________ _____________ was a 1773 act of political and economic protest against the authority of the British government to impose taxes upon American colonies, in which a mob of colonists cast British tea into Boston Harbor.
Boston Tea Party.
_______________ v. ________________ was a 1986 Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a person did not have a private right to engage in homosexual acts, which were illegal in Texas.
Bowers v. Hardwick
In the case _______________ v. _____________, the Court struck down the conviction of a Ku Klux Klansman who had made threatening statements. The Court denied that the threat posed by Brandenburg's words was credible.
Brandenburg v. Ohio
_________ v. ____________ ____ ___________ ___ ____________ was a 1954 case and an enduring symbol of the Supreme Court's power to override state laws that began the process of desegregation in the southern and some midwestern states.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
The 2002 the requirements of the _____________ __________ Act expired; since then, the United States has seen annual deficits and a ballooning national debt driven mainly by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan related to the country's global war on terrorism.
Budget Enforcement
Congress and the president tried again to eliminate the national debt in 1990, passing the _______________ _____________ Act, which defined two types of federal spending: _______________ spending and ________________ spending.
Budget Enforcement mandatory discretionary
The ______ __________ ___________ Act was a 1921 law requiring the president to prepare a national budget and seek congressional approval of it. The _________ _____ ________ ___________ was formed to assist the president with this process; in 1970, this bureau became the _________ ___ _____________ ___ ___________.
Budget and Accounting Bureau of the Budget Office of Management and Budget
In ________________ v. __________ ________, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Jehovah's Witness who had called a marshal a fascist. It was wartime, and the defendant's words seemed provocative.
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
Partly because the ___________ Party has seemed to pay more attention to minorities' interests and to the problems associated with low __________ __________ (that is, lower incomes and levels of educational attainment), Hispanics tend to vote in that party.
Democratic economic status
In opposition of the Federalist Party was the _____________ ____________ ____________, which favored strong state governments.
Democratic Republican Party
______________ spending is government spending that can change from year to year.
Discretionary
The Constitution empowers the Congress to govern the __________ _____ ________ and military facilities in the ________.
District of Columbia states
_________ ___________ refers to disagreement among Americans on an issue.
Divided opinion
A(n) _________ is another name for members of the States' Rights Democratic Party.
Dixiecrat
The second way to amend the Constitution, which was used to repeal the ____________ Amendment mandating prohibition, is for the states to call constitutional ___________ and then for _____________-___________ of them to vote in favor of the proposed amendment.
Eighteenth conventions three-fourths
Franklin Roosevelt's wife __________ publicly challenged her husband's policies. More controversial was First Lady ________ ____________ 1994 effort to reform the nation's health care system.
Eleanor Hillary Clinton's
The Constitution stated that actual votes for a president would be cast by a(n) __________ __________, the body in which each state's representation is the equivalent of the number of the state's Senate and House members that casts the actual votes for the president of the United States.
Electoral College
Under the Constitution, the actual votes for a president would be cast by a(n) ____________ ____________ - the body in which each state's representation is the equivalent of the number of the state's Senate and House members.
Electoral College
The ___________ __________ heavily favors the two-party system: the winning presidential candidate must gain a majority of electoral votes. (In other democracies, chief executives are required to gain a _________ of votes - that is, more than any other candidate.)
Electoral College plurality
___________ v. ________ was a 1962 Supreme Court case that struck down a brief prayer said in New York public schools.
Engel v. Vitale
The _____________ ________ _____ ____________ was a 1688 British document requiring that "freedom of speech" be allowed in parliamentary proceedings and that "excessive bail ought not to be required not excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted"; framework for the American Bill of Rights.
English Bill of Rights
The Bureau of __________ _________ _____________ produces the nation's paper currency.
Engraving and Printing
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in employment for any institution that received federal funds, and it established the _____________ ____________ _____________ Commission, a federal agency that sets policies to carry out civil rights laws and has the power to investigate whether the laws have been broken.
Equal Employment Opportunity
The ______ _______ Act was 1963 law requiring equal pay for women whose work is substantially the same as that of men. In 1963, women were paid about 59 cents for each dollar a man was paid. By 2007 women received about 75 cents for every dollar a man received from an employer.
Equal Pay
Another key feminist goal was an _______ ________ Amendment, first proposed in Congress in 1923. It passed by two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress in 1972, but by the deadline for ratification ten years later, only thirty-five state legislatures had approved it - three short of the thirty-eight needed to meet the constitutional requirement of a three-quarters majority. The first section of the proposed amendment reads: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
Equal Rights
________________ v. __________ _______ ____________ ___________ and ___________ ____________ v. ___________ were 1998 Supreme Court cases in which the Court ruled that employers are responsible for setting up safeguards against sexual harassment in the workplace.
Faragher v. City of Boca Raton Burlington Industries v. Ellerth
The primary government agency that regulates the media is the _____________ _____________ ____________. One of its goals is to prevent one corporation from gaining too much of the media market. Another is too maintain some level of decency on network TV. ___________ is not allowed on ABC, for example.
Federal Communications Commission Pornography
The ______________ _______________ ____________ is the government agency that oversees campaign financing. They ensure that federal contributions to candidates stay within legal limits.
Federal Election Commission
Each rule the bureaucracy devises goes into the _________ ____________.
Federal Register
Money is distributed into the economy by the _________ ___________ __________, which comprises twelve regional ________ ________ ___________.
Federal Reserve System Federal Reserve Banks
In the case ___________ v. ____________, the Supreme Court ruled that the state could not decline to give unemployment benefits on account of a Seventh-day Adventist's refusal to work on Saturday.
Sherbert v. Verner
The ___________ Amendment entrenched a federal government tax in the Constitution.
Sixteenth
Sometimes the interest of a free press can conflict with the constitutional right of an accused person to a fair trial, granted in the ______________ Amendment.
Sixth
The __________ Amendment guarantees "Assistance for Counsel" to an accused person.
Sixth
The ___________ ______________ tax is the old-age, survivors, and disability portion of the taxes assessed on earnings.
Social Security
__________-__________ federalism: This metaphor implies that the powers of the central and state governments are separate but overlapping, distinguishable but overlapping - realistically speaking, a little messy.
Layer-cake
An early attempt to control the influence of lobbyists was the __________ _____________ Act, also called the _____________ _________ ____ ________ Act, a 1946 law that required lobbyists to state clearly who their clients are and what their policy positions are.
Legislative Reorganization Federal Regulation of Lobbying
___________ v. _____________ was an important 1971 Supreme Court case that provided courts and interest groups with a certain test to determine whether their religious activities were constitutional. The Court disallowed a program that permitted a state to pay teachers at ________ schools who taught non-religious topics.
Lemon v. Kurtzman religious
Martin Luther King Jr. made power statements against racial segregation in his famous __________ ____________ ___ _______________ _____________ and his even more famous "____ ___________ ____ _______" speech, delivered in Washington, D.C., in 1963.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail "I Have a Dream"
___________ is the practice of attempting to influence government leaders to create legislation or act in the interests of a particular group.
Lobbying
Another attempt to control lobbyists came in 1995 with the __________ __________ Act, a law that attempted to control lobbyists by, among other things, defining a lobbyist as anyone who spends at least ______ percent of his or her time lobbying government officials, and requiring reports to be filed twice a year stating for what clients and on what legislative bills the lobbyists worked.
Lobbying Disclosure twenty
_____________ are formal representatives of interest groups. Early in twenty-first century, Jack Abramoff, a now notorious lobbyist who ended up in jail, illegally paid almost $7,000 for Speaker of the House Tom DeLay to play golf at Scotland and to stay in an expensive London hotel. It's difficult to believe Abramoff did not wish to sway DeLay politically.
Lobbyists
In the 2007 case ___________ v. ____________, the Court defended a public school official's confiscation of a student banner at a school-sponsored parade that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Since the banner seemed to promote drug use, the Court majority said it was contrary to a public school's purpose and not protected "school speech."
Morse v. Frederick
The _____________ __________________ were laws passed by the British government that sharply restricted American trade with the Dutch, French, and Spanish, with the goal of keeping as much wealth as possible in British hands.
Navigation Acts
_________ is the state of taking no position either favoring or opposing an issue.
Neutrality
In response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, partly on the grounds provided by the elastic clause and partly for practical reasons, the federal government devised ______ ____________ programs and oversaw their implementation.
New Deal
Direct democracy in the United States today can be seen in ___________ _____________ __________ ______________, where citizens of a town make decisions about local matters.
New England town meetings
The ______ ________ called for a unicameral Congress and equal representation for all the states; also called the small state plan.
New Jersey Plan
In _______ ________ ________ v. ___________, the Supreme Court decided that false statements made about officials were protected unless one could prove malice - that is the intention to do unwarranted harm. This also applies to celebrities and others who operate in the public sphere.
New York Times v. Sullivan
In _______ ________ _________ v. ___________ ____________, the Supreme Court said the government had not proven that the damage to national security outweighed the interest of the public in knowing what their government was up to.
New York Times v. United States
Article _______ is the longest and most detailed portion of the Constitution.
One
Article ________, Section _______________ of the Constitution calls on Congress to establish federal courts below the Supreme Court.
One Eight
Article _________, Section ____________ grants Congress the power to 1. require and collect taxes and import duties 2. borrow money for national purposes and to pay the nation's debt
One Eight
The ___________ _________ is the official workspace of the president in the White House.
Oval Office
_____________ ____________ ___________ accounts for only about 1 percent of the federal government's budget.
Pork barrel spending
The central job of the _________ _________ Administration, founded in 1935, has been to provide the elderly with income. A key job of the _______ ______ ___________ _______ __________ ________________ program was to provide the poor with income. The income the government has provided via these programs has been taken in by __________.
Social Security Aid to Families with Dependent Children taxation
____________ ___ ________ is also designed to prevent too much power from falling into the hands of one branch of government. For example, laws associated with taxes can only be formally introduced in the _________ ____ ____________. In this respect, the House possesses some political power that is separate from the power held by the the __________ and ___________.
Separation of powers House of Representatives Senate president
_____________ ________ was the 1786 rebellion in western Massachusetts of farmers who demanded fewer taxes, other economic reforms, and reforms to the Articles of Confederation
Shays' Rebellion
Some states use _________, in which local people select delegates to county meetings, the delegates support a certain candidate and then select delegates to represent them at a higher level, with the nominee with the most delegates winning, instead of primaries.
caucuses
The United States was born partly as a result of a tax revolt, so the framers of the Constitution placed the power of formally initiating tax legislation in the political body that is ________ to the people, the _______.
closest House
The power of the presidency has been enhanced by Congress' ___________ _______ ___________, the act of Congress granting the president broad authority to act in response to a crisis, to the president. If every measure had to go through the laborious legislative process, the government would not have been able to respond quickly to the crisis.
delegation of powers
A(n) ______________ is a form of government in which the people (defined broadly to include all adults or narrowly to exclude women and slaves, for example) are the ultimate political authority.
democracy
The United States is best described as a __________ ______________.
democratic republic
In 1969, in ___________ v. ____________ ____________ __________ __________ _____ ________, the Court sided with high school students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam conflict. The armbands were protected as a kind of ___________ _______, expression that is mixed with elements of behavior.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
Both the U.S. Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing are part of the Department of the ____________.
Treasury
The part of the Constitution that has the most to say about the vice president is the ______________-___________ Amendment, ratified in 1967, four years after the assassination of ______ ____ ____________. This amendment states that upon the president's death, removal, or resignation, the vice president moves into the presidency. This amendment also sets out what a vice president may do if a president is incapacitated but hasn't resigned or been impeached.
Twenty-fifth John F. Kennedy
Until 1951, the year the ___________-_________ Amendment limiting a president's time in office was ratified, it was possible to serve more than _____ full terms as president.
Twenty-second two
The __________-_________ Amendment to the Constitution gave residents of Washington, D.C. the right to vote for president.
Twenty-third
Article _________, Section ___________ is concerned with impeachment.
Two Four
To discuss impeachment, we need to cite Article ___________, Section __________ of the Constitution, which says, "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Two Four
Article ______, Section ________ of the Constitution says, "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the Term of four years...."
Two One
Article _______, Section ______ states that to be eligible for president, a person must be a "natural born citizen."
Two One
After the terrorist attacks in 2001, the Congress and the president signed the __________ __________ Act, which expanded the government's ability to put Americans under surveillance and to monitor Internet and telephone communications within the country. The law was approved, with minor changes, in 2006.
USA Patriot
_________ _____________ are instructions by the federal government to the states that do not include funding for compliance.
Unfunded Mandates
The __________ _____________ __________ Act obliges the Congressional Budget Office to determine when mandate will cost a state more than fifty million dollars to carry out.
Unfunded Mandates Reform
The _________ __________ __________ ______ ____________ Office is an agency that provides protection and encourages inventors to move forward with their ideas and ensures that patented inventions are not copied and placed in the market for a certain number of years.
United States Patent and Trademark
The clerk of the Court makes the written Court opinions available to the public and posts the decisions on the Internet; the decisions are published in the _______ _______ _______.
United States Report
___________ ___________ v. ______________ was a 1954 case that challenged the Legislative Reorganization Act on the grounds that it infringed on freedom of speech (among other things), a claim that the Supreme Court rejected. The Court did say that the law applied only to people who directly lobbied __________________; it did not apply to those who lobbied other branches of government or congressional staff assistants.
United States v. Harris congresspersons
In the early 1970s, Congress saw that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution handed too much power to the president and passes the _________ _______ Act, overriding President Nixon's veto, which limited a president's power in wartime.
War Powers
In the decades following World War 11, the ________ ____ _____ Committee in the House and the _________ Committee in the Senate considered the president's proposed budget's information on tariffs, taxes, and other sources of income.
Ways and Means Finance
In the 1980s, the Court struck down state laws that required women to get counseling that aimed to discourage abortion, but in ___________ v. ____________ __________ ____________, the Court upheld a Missouri law that prohibited abortions in publicly funded hospitals and clinics.
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
The best-known Populist candidate to run for president, ____________ __________ ___________, actually ran on the Democratic Party ticket in the elections of 1896 and 1900. In giving the nomination to the Populist, the Democratic party hoped to win more votes - and it did get many Populist votes. But Bryan scared many conservative Democrats who, like the _________ _________ of the 1980 and 1984 elections, voted for the the Republican candidate.
William Jennings Bryan Reagan Democrats
Both chambers of Congress have ____________ committees, committees concerned with the spending of federal money.
appropriations
Presidents, like many people and organizations that want public approval, pay close attention to _____________ ____________ - regular polls that show the extent to which the public approves of their performance.
approval ratings
The Budget Enforcement Act placed ____________, upper limits, on discretionary spending.
caps
By 1986 and across some four hundred different programs, the federal government gave to the states about $100 billion a year in __________ _________, federal grants to the states that fund specific projects.
categorical grants
The sale of _________, fixed-interest financial assets, helps the government manage its deficit.
bonds
Some jurisdictions use paper-free _________ _________. Instead of punching a chad or filling in a bubble on a piece of paper, voters may press a button or touch a choice on a computer screen.
electronic voting
According to the ___________ theory, elites run for office, pay for campaigns, scratch their friends' backs, and accumulate power - all while singing the praises of popular sovereignty.
elite
Because even after the American Revolution, most of the country's leaders argued that only men who owned a certain amount of property should have the vote, one can deduce that the Constitutional framers seemed to advocate a form of ____________ theory.
elite
Government has the right, through what is called ____________ ___________, to acquire someone's property in the public interest.
eminent domain
True or false: School teachers, communities, and peers are the most important principles in political socialization.
false
True or false: The Constitution requires members of the Senate to choose leadership for the House of Representatives.
false
True or false: The Constitution states that nine judges should serve on the Supreme Court.
false
True or false: To have many vetoes overridden makes a president look conservative and politically strong.
false
Political scientists have noted some political differences between men and women, sometimes referred to as the ____________ _________.
gender gap
A(n) _______ _________ is an election in which candidates are elected at most or all of the national, state, county, and local levels.
general election
U.S. district courts are said to have ___________ _______, meaning they will hear cases on a wide range of topics.
general jurisdiction
The ____________ _________ is the fact that certain events shape a particular generation's outlook.
generation effect
The Populists' key issue of the election of 1896 was taken up by William Jennings Bryan, who opposed the country's adherence to the ________ __________, while calling for the coinage of silver.
gold standard
The __________ _______ ___________ was a 1984 pronouncement of the Supreme Court that if a warrant to gather evidence was based on faulty evidence but given in good faith, the evidence could still be used in a trial in a court of law.
good faith exception
In the Mayflower Compact, we see the emergence of two important concepts: 1. ________________________ and 2. _______________________
government by consent a willingness to live under the rule of law
Politicians who want attention from the media, particularly the TV media, have to play along. They will need to devise sound bites, and they will want to create ________ _______ - events so big that the media will have to pay attention (and thus give the candidate some free advertising).
media events
In terms of gender, ___________ tend to posses more political knowledge than _______, though ___________ consistently vote in higher numbers than men.
men women women men
In 1934, the Supreme Court stated that citizens had the right to own guns associated with a citizen __________ and thus required machine guns and sawed-off shotguns to be taxed and registered.
militia
Americans who advocate restrictions on gun ownership tend to say that the Second Amendment applies to state ___________ which, in the eighteenth century (when the Constitution was written), would have been composed of armed citizens. Some of these observers say that the ____________ ____________ has taken the place of state militia and that the amendment is outdated.
militia National Guard
Some districts have been drawn to increase the number of ________ in Congress. The redistricting include African American or Hispanic neighborhoods. This was encouraged by Congress itself when it passes an updated __________ ___________ Act, a U.S. law enacted in 1982 that prevents states from enforcing discriminatory tactics intended to deny African Americans and other minorities fair opportunities to vote.
minorities Voting Rights
The minority party in the House of Representatives has its own _________ ___________, who should be prepared to step up into the Speaker's position should his or her party gain a majority in an election. The minority party also has a ______.
minority leader whip
As bureaucratic leaders make their way through their careers, they must tend to ___________ goals, goals of a bureaucratic department to perform duties for the good of the public, and _________ goals, goals of a bureaucratic department to make itself indispensable.
mission survival
The Constitution's framers feared "_________" - government by the mob.
mobocracy
The Constitution's framers feared "___________" - government by the mob.
mobocracy
The Federal Reserve, often simply called The Fed, is an independent government agency, and it plays a central role in the setting of the country's __________ ____________, the process by which a nation's monetary authority controls the supply of money.
monetary policy
In order to be president, you must be a ________-________ citizen who is at least __________ years old and you must have resided in the country for at least _________ years.
natural-born thirty-five fourteen
The Commerce Clause also empowers Congress to provide uniform rules regarding citizenship, or ____________.
naturalization
Whereas gerrymandering can be used to represent various __________, it cannot be used for ________.
race gender
Just as bureaucratic bodies resemble the Congress when they make rules, they also resemble courts when they employ _______ ___________, the settlement of an issue through a judicial process; also called ____________ ______________.
rule adjudication bureaucratic adjudicating
Though the makeup and tasks of various organizations within the federal bureaucracy differ, they share basic functions. First, they engage in ____________ ___________ - that is, they ensure that congressional legislation, presidential policies, and court decisions are adhered to.
rule administration
Civil _______________ are the privileges and powers granted to people as equals under the law.
rights
Because legislation, policies, and court decision are often broad, government organizations must also engage in ____________ _______________, bureaucracies' decisions about how to act, given the mandates they face.
rule making
Following the costly French and Indian War in America, the era of _____________ _______________ was over, in that Britain wanted the Americans to become more obedient to the mother country and better contributors to the empire.
salutary neglect
The Americans benefited from Britain's ____________ ____________ in that it taught them how to manage their own affairs in a self-governing manner.
salutary neglect
According to the theory of ___________, the traits of individuals within representative groups generally reflect the views of the larger group.
sampling
People purchase _______ bonds with the expectation that they will get back what they paid, plus interest.
savings
In addition to a president's formal advisors and assistants, presidents sometimes rely on their ___________ for advice.
spouses
A __________ distribution refers to opinion stability over time.
stable
Both congressional chambers have _________ committees devoted to the oversight of the District of Columbia.
standing
Most of Congress' work gets done in __________ committees.
standing
The most basic type of congressional committee is the ____________ committee, a permanent congressional committee.
standing
The District of Columbia is not a(n) _______ and is not under the __________ of any state.
state jurisdiction
The Constitution originally called for senators to be elected by _________ __________ and thus only indirectly chosen by the people. As a result of reforms associated with the _________ movement of the early twentieth century, this was changed by the ___________ Amendment and ratified in 1913, which provided for the _________ _________ ___ __________.
state legislators Progressive Seventeenth direct election of senators
Related to Congress' position of authority in wartime is its constitutional responsibility to provide for ________ _______ and to call up the "_______" for national purposes, such as to put down insurrections and to resist invasions.
state militias militia
One reason some states resent the growing power of the national government is that federal policies that call for national uniformity can infringe on the sentiments of majorities within certain ______________.
states
In the nineteenth century, most women were actually opposed to women's __________, or right to vote; a prevailing idea was that men's proper sphere was public, and women's proper sphere was private life.
suffrage
A(n) _________ is a government tax on imported or exported goods.
tariff
Well into the twentieth century, __________ were the major source of government income.
tariffs
The single greatest source of the federal government's income is __________.
taxation
The president also has the power to make _________ with other nations, though they must be approved by ________-________ of the _______. (The ________ has no direct role in treaty-making.)
treaties two-thirds Senate House
U.S. district courts are ________ courts, meaning they are concerned with matters related to the federal government or to federal law: evidence is shown and challenged; witnesses testify and are cross-examined; and so on.
trial
The poor and _________ __________ do not earn enough to be required to pay ________ tax.
working poor income
For a case to be heard by the Supreme Court, the Court must issue a _________ _____ _________, which calls for a lower court to send to the Supreme Court the records related to the case. At least _________ of the nine judges must agree to issue this writ. (This is referred to as the ______ ___ ______.)
writ of certiorari four rule of four
Partly in response to pressure from groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by _______ _______ ______ _____, and partly from a sense of disgust people felt as they saw the brutality often directed Southern blacks on TV, a general feeling grew that de jure segregation should end.
Martin Luther King Jr.
German sociologist ______ __________ suggest that bureaucracies share five characteristics: 1. Bureaucracies specialize and divide _____________. (i.e.: The U.S. Mint is within the Department of the Treasury.) 2. Bureaucracies follow a clear _________ _______ _________, a clear system of knowing who is in charge of whom. 3. Bureaucracies have clearly set out __________ _______ _________, procedures that are rigidly followed, for people within them to follow. 4. Bureaucracies maintain _________ ___________, detailed information, for instance, about how well procedures have been followed. 5. Bureaucracies are staffed by ____________, that is, by people who plan to make their careers in the bureaucracy. As one succeeds in a certain position, he or she may move up the chain of command.
Max Weber labor chain of command rules and guidelines written records professionals
The Puritans drew up their own governing document called the __________ _____________. In this document, the signers agreed to live under the colony's recognized authority and wait for a royal charter similar to Virginia's.
Mayflower Compact
The case ____________ v. _______________ made an argument on behalf of a strong central government.
McCulloch v. Maryland
____________ v. ___________ was an important 1819 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that Maryland's attempt to diminish the influence of the national bank that Congress had established by taxing the bank's operations was unconstitutional because state governments could not pass laws that were at cross-purposes with legitimate federal laws. Constitutionally, this power derived from the _______ ______ _______ clause. This case established the principle of _________ ________, the idea that state governments cannot pass laws that are at cross-purposes with legitimate federal laws.
McCulloch v. Maryland necessary and proper national supremacy
The ____________ tax is the portion of taxes that is assessed on earnings and used to provide medical benefits for certain individuals when they reach age _______.
Medicare sixty-five
In 1980, the House expelled _________ _____________ for corruption.
Michael Myers
Officers taking a man into custody tell him that 1. he has the right to remain silent 2. if he says anything, it could be used against him in a court of law 3. he has the right to an attorney of his choice before questioning 4. a lawyer will be provided if he cannot afford one. These are known as ________________ ___________. They stemmed from ____________ v. ________________.
Miranda warnings Miranda v. Arizona
If a plaintiff or defendant is displeased with a(n) _______ court's decision, an appeal can be made to the U.S. Supreme Court. This practice is based on the doctrine of _______ ______, which in Latin means "to stand on decided cases."
appellate stare decisis
The last state to ratify the Constitution to come into the Union was _______ ________.
Rhode Island
__________ ___________ is the only U.S. president to resign from office.
Richard Nixon
Once TV became wide-spread in the 1950s, it became a presence on the political scene. It is widely believed that ____________ ____________ lost the 1960 presidential election to ______________ ____________ because the former did not look good on camera when the two debated.
Richard Nixon John Kennedy
In 1974, President _________ ____________ resigned from office before articles of impeachment could be voted in the House. He had been involved in the cover-up of a politically motivated break-in of the Democratic Party's office at the _____________ office-apartment-hotel complex in Washington D.C.
Richard Nixon Watergate
Various concerned groups and the government itself encourage citizens to vote. A well-known example of this is MTV's __________ ____ _________ campaign, which was designed to get young people in the country's political life.
Rock the Vote
___________ v. ______________ nullified state laws that made first-trimester abortion illegal. The Court did allow states to make laws regulating second-trimester abortions and, if states wished to make third-trimester abortions illegal, they could do so.
Roe v. Wade
_____________ v. ___________ was a controversial 1973 Supreme Court case in which the Court nullified state laws that made first-trimester abortion illegal; this decision sparked a political war that has continued into the twenty-first century.
Roe v. Wade
A pure example of a presidential campaign stemming from personality comes from the election of 1992 when _______ ________ ran as an Independent, gaining more than 19 million votes. His appeal was his emphasis on ________-_________, a sentiment against elected officials currently in power and his charge that the government needed to deal with the federal budget deficit.
Ross Perot anti-incumbency
_________ _________ was a female justice of the Supreme Court who was appointed in 1993.
Ruth Ginsburg
Ideally, once a person has been nominated for a federal judgeship, the ________ _______ Committee will hold hearings on the suitability of the nominee.
Senate Judiciary
The president is also a(n) _________________. The president can seek to influence congresspersons with phone calls and meetings and public statements designed to spur public support.
lobbyist
Thanks to _______________, legal ways to reduce your tax bill, in the tax laws, not much is simple when it comes to taxation.
loopholes
"_________ __________" refers to the idea that the Constitution continues to have relevant meaning and the ability to change over time.
"Living Constitution"
"________ ____ ________" was a legal doctrine under the letter but not necessarily the spirit of the Constitution that justified a variety of forms of segregation.
"Separate but equal"
The media is sometimes collectively referred to as the "_________ ___________ _____ ___________."
"fourth branch of government"
In the media technique of "__________ ___ __________", the newscaster hooks the audience with the interesting headline and holds them through other parts of the program, all while promising to get to the juicy part of the show.
"hook and hold"
Some district designers engage in "__________" - a practice whereby U.S. district designers crowd as many members of the opposite party into as few districts as possible - and sometimes they opt for "__________" - a practice whereby U.S. district designers break opposition party voters into as many districts as possible.
"packing" "cracking"
The "__________ _________" is the practice by which former employees of a government agency become lobbyists to that government agency.
"revolving door"
Primaries place more power in the hands of the voters. In earlier times, party nominees were selected by party officials, sometimes in "__________-_________ _________" - a term that refers to the behind-the-scenes orchestrations of political powerbrokers. Every four years, at party conventions, presidential nominees were chosen and weren't always the candidates who had won the most vote in primaries.
"smoke-filled rooms"
After the election of 1860, the Republicans came to be associated primarily with the North, while the Democrats came to be associated largely with the "_________ ________."
"solid South"
To "________-_________" is to target (a politician or public figure) with a campaign of personal attacks. This term was made precedent after the 2004 campaigns of George W. Bush's using 527 committees to question the patriotism of Democratic candidate John Kerry.
"swift-boat"
It isn't surprising that the amount of money going from the federal government to the states increased substantially during the Great Depression and then again in the 1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson's "___________ _______ _______" and _________ _______ programs - for example, ____________ (medical assistance for the elderly), ____________ (medical assistance for the poor), and ___________ ________ ___________ (assistance to children from disadvantaged backgrounds) - went into effect.
"war on poverty" Great Society Medicare Medicaid Project Head Start
List the four main reasons citizens of the United States do not vote.
1. a lack of interest 2. work or family responsibilities do not allow them to get to the polls 3. the idea that their single vote does not matter 4. the costs of voting are greater than the perceived benefits of voting
In order to be successful, political parties need to be financed sufficiently. List the eight expenses of political parties.
1. full-time campaign advisors 2. the services of pollsters 3. radio, TV, and print advertisements 4. bumper stickers, yard signs, and e-mail and telephone outreach 5. travel expenses 6. campaign literature 7. office space in various campaign headquarters 8. staff salaries
The Constitution of the United States was written in the year ________________.
1787
Since the year of _________, when Democrats and Republicans first competed against one another, only ___________ __________'s second place finish as ___________ "_________ _________" Party candidate in the election of 1912 was a serious contender of the major parties.
1856 Theodore Roosevelt Progressive "Bull Moose"
In what year was African Americans granted suffrage?
1870
Women did not receive nationwide suffrage until _______.
1920
There are ________ seats in the House.
435
Because there are _______ members in the House of Representatives and _________ members of the U.S. Senate, plus ________ electoral votes for the District of Columbia, the number needed to get a majority of electoral votes is ______.
435 100 3 270
Another unforeseen consequence of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was the increased importance of ______ __________, a political organization that promotes certain issues, and as long as it is not formally affiliated with a political party and does not specifically endorse a candidate, its political advertisements are not taxed. Through these committees, candidates many promote certain issues, just not themselves essentially.
527 committees
______________ __________ parties focus on some aspect of the economy, whether the monetization of silver or the national budget.
Economic protest
The first Republican president was ____________ ___________.
Abraham Lincoln
__________ _________ is the interpretation of laws, policies, and court decisions that bureaucrats in leadership positions have. _______ passes legislation that provides government with agencies that have guidelines to follow. In following these guidelines, the _________ __________ set policy. For example, in 2008, the Department of Veterans Affairs received a mandate from Congress to provide certain military veterans with service dogs. Immediately, questions arose. What kind of dogs can be used? What kind of training should they have? What kind of certification should their trainers have? Obviously, Congress cannot get into this kind of detail, so it is left to the Department of Veteran Affairs to set up _______ consistent with the congressional mandate. Critics of such a system argue that congressional directives are too ______.
Administrative discretion Congress government bodies policy vague
___________ __________________ programs seek to compensate for past discrimination by giving special attention in hiring and college or university admissions to people from groups discriminated against.
Affirmative action
__________ v. ____________ was a Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the First Amendment to the Constitution requires only government neutrality toward religion, which allowed public school teachers to teach remedial, nonreligious classes at religious schools at taxpayers' expense.
Agostini v. Felton
As the United States began to settle the Midwest in earnest, the Department of ______________ was founded. When the country industrialized, large corporations began to take shape, and labor unions became increasingly influential, the government founded the Bureau of ______________ and the Department of ___________ __________ _________. An increased focus on social welfare programs in 1960s led to the creation of the Department of __________ _______ _________ _____________, and, in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s, the Department of ___________ was created. The unprecedented terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 led to the creation of the Department of ___________ ___________.
Agriculture Labor Commerce and Labor Housing and Urban Development Energy Homeland Security
__________ ______________ took over the presidency of Abraham Lincoln after his assassination. ____________ _______________ took over the presidency of John F. Kennedy after his assassination.
Andrew Johnson Lyndon Johnson
In 1868, President ________ _________ was impeached against the ________ __ ________ Act, which required the president to get Senate approval before getting rid of cabinet members. This act was later found to be unconstitutional, but his presidency was saved at the time by _________ vote(s) in the Senate.
Andrew Johnson Tenure in Office one
The ___________-___________ also wrote essays in defense of the Articles of Confederation. They feared a strong central government.
Anti-Federalists
The ____________-______________ wrote essays in defense of the Articles of Confederation. They feared a strong central government.
Anti-Federalists
______________ is the action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission.
Appropriation
By __________ ______ of every year, the date on which annual tax returns are due to the government, income earners know how much they have paid in ____________ taxes. But because they do not file for ____________ taxes, they are often unaware of how much the government has taken.
April 15 income payroll
Congress' first national constitution was the __________ ___ ___________, which was written before independence was formally declared. They were adopted by the Second National Congress in 1777 and ratified by all the states in 1781.
Articles of Confederation
The ______________, created by the First Continental Congress and an alliance of colonies, called for a complete boycott of British goods.
Association
The first direct democracy we know of was in the Greek city-state of _____________.
Athens
____________ _____________ __________ - people who pay close attention to political matters - can disperse what they learn through a _________-___________ __________ _____ ____________. This process can work the following way: a writer for the National Review writes a story that few will actually read, but among the readers is a national radio host, when then discusses the article on the air.
Attentive policy elites two-step flow of communication
_________ ____________ (Americans born between 1946 and 1964) tend to be cynical about government. This cynicism was partly shaped by the foreign disaster of the Vietnam War and the criminality of the Nixon administration at home.
Baby boomers
The __________ ___________ Act of 1997, signed by President __________ __________, led not only to a balanced budget but to a budget ___________ - more income than spending - for the first time since the end of the 1960s. _______________ argued that the surplus should have led to the tax reductions; _________ argued that the surplus should be used to fund social programs.
Balanced Budget Bill Clinton surplus Republicans Democrats
The Supreme Court case of ____________ v. __________ (1833) determined that the Bill of Rights applied to the federal government and did not bind the states governments. This case also confirmed ___________ ___________, which meant that Americans were citizens of both the United States and the states in which they resided. The ______ ______ of the 1860s changed things. The war pitted Southern states, whose legislatures believed that state governments should be preeminent, against the states that remained loyal to the federal government in Washington, D.C. The victory of the federal forces established the preeminence of the federal government over the states, though for some decades states continued to have much more power and latitude to act than they do today.
Barron v. Baltimore dual citizenship Civil War
____________ ___________ was the most prominent progressive in national politics in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and U.S. Senator for Vermont. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 after serving 16 years in the House of Representatives. He founded the House Progressive Caucus.
Bernie Sanders
The second president to be impeached was _________ _________. In 1998, the House impeached him on two accounts: 1. __________ to a grand jury about an affair he had with an intern 2. _______ of justice. In this case, the Senate vote did not come close to the two-thirds required by the Constitution.
Bill Clinton lying obstruction
The ______________ ______________ __________ Act was a law passed in 2002 that attempted to control the influence of money on political campaigns for federal office; better known as the McCain-Feingold Act. The giving limits of individuals put in place for 2005-2006 were as follows: - $2,100 to a candidate in a two-year perios - $10,000 in a year to a state party or political committee - $26,700 to a national party committee The law also required politicians to tell viewers of political messages that they "____________ _________ ________." Some challenged the law because they believed its limitations on gifts to ________ _________ ______________, or organizations that pool funds and donate them to parties and political candidates who support its causes, amounted to an abridgement of free speech as guaranteed by the _________ Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Bipartisan Campaign Reform "approve this message" political action committees First
_______ __________ (also called Jim Crow laws) entrenched segregationist practices in state laws; _____________, directed mostly at black men, was disturbingly common into the 1930s.
Black codes lynching
__________ _____________ are federal grants that have fewer strings attached to them than do categorical grants.
Block grants
While, generally speaking, Democrats favor government spending on social programs more than Republicans do, the ___________ _______ Democrats advocate fiscal restraint.
Blue Dog
After 1974, with the passage of the __________ ________ _________ __________ Act, congressional _______________ committees oversaw the political and complicated budgeting process. The _________ __________ Office, which assisted these committees, employed over two hundred people. And the national debt ________, particularly during the presidency of _________ _________, while wrangling between the president and Congress and among Congress members and interest groups continued.
Budget and Impoundment Control budget Congressional Budget grew Ronald Reagan
__________ _____________ is the politicization of bureaucrats when their responsibilities overlap and they compete for turf and protect the interests of their own agencies, and thus their own careers.
Bureaucratic imperialism
C-SPAN (the __________ ___________ __________ __________ ________) is a television network that broadcasts political events from all political parties (except for extreme fringe groups) without commentary.
Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network
____________ _____________, which according to U.S. law, to receive federal funds for elections, a political party must receive at least 5 percent of the popular vote nationally and must appear on at least ten state ballots, also favors the two-party system. This means that the first time around, a ______ party must fund itself.
Campaign finance third
___________ ______ is the place in Washington, D.C. where the U.S. Congress meets.
Capitol Hill
__________ _______ _______ are designed to prevent one element of government from acquiring too much power. For example, a president can ________, or reject, a law passed by Congress. This is an example of the president checking the power of the Congress. But, in turn, the Congress can check, or __________, a presidential veto a ____________-__________ majority vote in both chambers.
Checks and balance veto override two-thirds
The ___________ __________ Act of ____________ forbade discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, or national origin. This act put into place the right of equality in employment and made discrimination illegal in restaurants and hotels because their business affected interstate commerce.
Civil Rights 1964
The _______ _____ Act of _______ was a law that outlawed discrimination in most kinds of housing.
Civil Rights 1968
A basic and very important question that helped trigger the American ______ _______ is whether the states make the nation or whether the nation precedes the states.
Civil War
The _____________________/________________ ______________ were 1774 British laws, passed in response to the Boston Tea Party, that imposed greater British control of the government of Massachusetts, prevented British officials accused of crimes from being tried in Massachusetts, and provided for the housing of British soldiers in private homes.
Coercive/Intolerable Acts
In ____________ v. _____________, the Court defended a person's right to wear a vulgar anti-Vietnam War slogan on his shirt. "One man's vulgarity is another man's lyric," the Court determined.
Cohen v. California
The Department of ____________ concerns itself with economic affairs. Its mission is to promote "job creation, economic growth, sustainable (economic) development and improved standards of living for all Americans by working in partnership with businesses, universities, communities and our nation's workers."
Commerce
The ____________ Clause, Article _________, Section _________ of the Constitution, empowers Congress to regulate commerce between the states and between the United States and "Indian Tribes" and foreign nations.
Commerce One Eight
The ___________ ___ ________ was the resolution of the crisis between Southern, pro-slavery states and non-Southern states that occurred when Missouri entered the Union as a slave state, Maine entered the Union as a free state, and equality was maintained in the Senate; also called the Missouri Compromise.
Compromise of 1820
___________ ________________ was the first woman to be secretary of state.
Condoleezza Rice
____________ committees, like ________ committees, are temporary and are put together to work out differences between Senate and House versions of a bill.
Conference select
Presidents with strong approval ratings find it easier to push their agendas through ____________.
Congress
While details about trading with other nations are seen by the Department of Commerce, ____________ exercises oversight over this department.
Congress
The __________ ___ _____ ___________ was the successor of the Second Continental Congress, which included delegates appointed by the legislatures of the states.
Congress of the Confederation
Although Congress has maintained records of its proceedings from the beginning, publication of the ___________ _______________, a publication that records the proceedings of Congress, as required by the Constitution, began in 1873.
Congressional Record
________ ___________ refers to the favor of a large majority of Americans on an issue.
Consensus opinion
There's no question that the powers exercised by the president today go beyond the letter of the ________.
Constitution
___________ federalism: This view emphasizes the point that the responsibilities of the state governments and the federal governments often share responsibilities. The pastry metaphor to use here is ________________-___________ federalism - a system in which the powers of the governments are mixed and swirled.
Cooperative marble-cake
_____________ was the first state to ratify the Constitution.
Deleware
______________ was the first state to ratify the Constitution.
Deleware
In 2007, the _________ ________ _______ ___________ _________ Act passed in the House. This would have given Washington, D.C. a representative with full voting powers, and it would have given an additional House member to ________, which would have increased the number of seats in the House from _______ to _______. This bill was filibustered and defeated in the Senate.
D.C. Fair and Equal Housing Utah 435 437
The Congressional Record was preceded by __________ _______ ______________ _____ ____ _________ ____ ___ _______ _________, the record or proceedings of Congress from 1789 to 1824; the ___________ _____ ___________ _______ ____________, the record of proceedings of Congress from 1824 to 1837; and the ___________ __________, the record of proceedings of Congress from 1833 to 1873.
Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States Register of Debates in Congress Congressional Globe
Using John of Salisbury's ideas, the colonists suggested that the king of England had placed himself above the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," in the __________________ ___ _________________.
Declaration of Independence
A little more than a decade after the reforms of 1995, the ________________ won congressional elections promising "honest leadership and open government," and further restrictions were placed on lobbyists. Now, for example, lobbyists would have to report funds spent on parties and dinners at which attendees would make a contribution to a member of Congress.
Democrats
______________ might be in favor of increasing taxes on corporations in order to have more funds to spend on public schools. ___________, on the other hand, might be in favor of cutting taxes on corporations with the aim of encouraging job growth, as employers might create more jobs if they are able to keep more of their money.
Democrats Republicans
In 2005, after Senate __________ had regularly filibustered debate over President Bush's judicial nominees, ___________ in that chamber threatened to pass a rule (called the _________ _________) that would disallow filibustering of judicial nominations. A compromise was reached.
Democrats Republicans nuclear option
__________ (and other _______-leaning parties) tend to argue that the wealthy can afford to pay higher taxes and therefore should do so. ______________ and _____________ (along with other fiscally _____________ parties) argue that the wealthy use their resources to create jobs and that these jobs lead to greater income tax.
Democrats left Republicans Libertarians conservative
_______________, the lessening of government oversight and the allowance of greater freedom to private enterprise, has been put into effect in sectors of the economy. The idea is that if government regulates less and allows private enterprise greater freedom, government growth will slow, because there is less regulation to enforce.
Deregulation
In ________ __________ v. ____________, the Court ruled that the federal government could not prevent Americans from bringing property (that is, slaves) from one state to another.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
__________ federalism: This is the idea that the national and state governments are sovereign in their own distinct spheres - a view that seeks clear distinctions between the governments. The actual practice of evolving government seems to be more complicated.
Dual
In the case ________________ v. ____________, trial by jury in state court cases was set in constitutional stone.
Duncan v. Louisiana
_____________ have become a problem because constituents want them, and meeting these requests is essential to a politician's keeping his or her job.
Earmarks
The Socialist presidential candidate with the greatest drawing power was __________ _________, who ran in the elections of 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920.
Eugene Debs
The _________ __________ ______ ________ _____________ consists of the top agencies and advisors of the president, the president's aides, and their staff (and White House operations).
Executive Office of the President
__________ ________ is the authority of the president to supervise the many governmental bodies created by Congress.
Executive power
George W. Bush ushered in the Office of __________-_______________ _______ ____________ __________, which seeks to coordinate "efforts to empower the community and faith-based organizations working to confront poverty and social needs."
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
The Federalist Paper most cited is ____________ ____ ______, written by Madison, in which he discusses his concerns about factions, or groups that push their own interests to the detriment of the nation as a whole; is also notes that it was unlikely that one faction could impose its will on the United States as a whole because of its diversity and regional le interests. People would
Federalist No. 10
The Federalist Paper most cited is the ________ _____ ____, written by Madison, which discusses the concerns about factions, or groups that push their own interests to the detriment of the nation as a whole; it also notes that it was unlikely that one faction could impose its will on The United States as a whole because of its diversity and regional interests.
Federalist No. 10
___________ _____ _____ is the Federalist Paper written by Madison in which he argues that in a nation envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, competing interests would prevent groups from trampling on the rights of others.
Federalist No. 51
The __________ ___________ were the volume that includes the eighty-five pro-Constitution articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
Federalist Papers
The __________ Amendment says that the right of citizens to vote "shall not be denied ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Fifteenth
The _________ Amendment made it unconstitutional to prevent blacks from voting simply on account of their skin color. But state laws requiring, for example, ________ tests and _______ taxes continued to prevent blacks an poor whites from voting.
Fifteenth literacy poll
The Supreme Court has also interpreted the ___________ Amendment to guarantee that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" to mean that a person who has been arrested should be advised of his or her rights.
Fifth
Americans' freedom to practice religion is found in the ___________ Amendment, which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
First
The _______ Amendment grants the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
First
The ________ Amendment allows for freedom of expression: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
First
The ____________ Amendment says that Congress "shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press."
First
The __________ ___________ _______ was a 1774 convention in Philadelphia of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies (Georgia was the exception) in response the the Intolerable Acts
First Continental Congress
The Office of the __________ __________ is comprised of staff members who assist the president's wife with social ceremonies and events related to the White House, as well as with the promotion of worthy cause, such as childhood literacy.
First Lady
The _______ ________ _______ Act gave birth to the so-called __________ Court - a court that grants the federal government the power to place surveillance on suspected spies. The court's seven judges meet in secret and do not publish their opinions.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance FISA
_____________ - mistakes, careless statements, or remarks that are easy to take out of context - on the campaign trail can be very costly, especially in this age of media. Oftentimes, campaign assistants and candidates will have to engage in "_____" to win the battles of words - that is, they will have to shape the meaning of a candidate's words and try to make that meaning stick in voters' minds.
Gaffes "spin"
A(n) __________ _______ is a representative sample of public opinion or public awareness about a particular political issue.
Gallup poll
___________ are media editors and producers who decide what will be seen or read.
Gatekeepers
___________ _____ was the King of England from 1760 to 1820; his changes in English policies created many conflicts with American colonists, which eventually led to the American Revolutionary War.
George 111
In the case __________ v. ______________, the Supreme Court began to interpret the term "commerce" quite broadly.
Gibbons v. Ogden
In the case _____________ v. _________________, the Court required legal counsel to be made available to all defendants.
Gideon v. Wainright
The ___________ ____________ provided for a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate in which each state would be equal.
Great Compromise
A challenge the states' rights position has faced is that sometimes states seem to lack the ability to deal with vast problems. Take the ___________ _________ of the 1930s as an example: there is nothing in the Constitution that expressly grants the government the power to create jobs for people. Therefore, a strict reading of the ____________ Amendment would suggest that if a government is to create work for people, it should be done by the states governments. But the states lacked the capacity to deal with the magnitude of the economic depression, while the Constitution's preamble says that the purpose of the federal government is to "promote the general welfare" of the country.
Great Depression Tenth
The __________ Party is a third party that is far to the political ________ and focuses on environmental issues. They felt that, during the 2008 presidential election season, neither ___________ nor ____________ was filling to confront big business.
Green left McCain Obama
The ____________ _________ Party was a third party with support primarily in rural parts of the United States that ran presidential candidates in the elections of 1880 and 1884 on the platform that the government should print more money (dollars were called greenbacks), regulate railroads and corporations, undertake political reform that would end rampant corruption, and conserve the environment.
Greenback Labor
____________ v. __________________ was a 1965 Supreme Court case in which a barely enforced state law against contraception was declared unconstitutional.
Griswold v. Connecticut
During the _________ War of 1991, the government prevented the media from gaining too much news and, as part of the war against ____________, the government has withheld much information from the media.
Gulf terrorism
Rather than declare wars, since 1941, Congress has passed resolutions empowering the president to prosecute conflicts. The _________ ___ ________ Resolution, for instance, empowered President _______ ________ to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." This opened wide the door to the long and agonizing conflict in ______________.
Gulf of Tonkin Lyndon Johnson Vietnam
In the cases of ________v._________ (2004) and _________v. _________ (2006) and a third case in 2008, the Supreme Court determined that the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba was unconstitutional because these "enemy combatants" did not receive the right of ________ ________.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld Hamdan v. Rumsfeld habeas corpus
__________ ___________ is contributions given directly to candidates for political office.
Hard money
__________ ______________ is news about serious issues.
Hard news
In 1948, President ______ _______ ordered the desegregation of the military.
Harry Truman
The resolution of the Second Continental Congress was penned by ______ ______ of Virginia.
Henry Lee
In California in 2008, almost 15 percent of voters were ___________, and these were seen as __________ ________ - voters would could push the presidential election one way or another.
Independents swing voters
In the presidential party nominating campaigns of 2008, _____________ __________ was a very strong Democratic candidate, though she lost the nomination to Barack Obama, and _____________ _________ was tapped to be Republican John McCain's vice presidential running mate.
Hillary Clinton Sarah Palin
____________ are the fastest-growing minority in the United States.
Hispanics
__________ ________ is the intentionally crafted appeal of a politician, especially an incumbent, specifically to his or her district or state constituents. For example, a candidate will appeal very liberally to constituents in San Francisco.
Home style
A way a senator can end the life of a bill is to talk on the floor until the time allotted to debate the bill has expired. Whereas members of the _________ do not speak longer than an hour with unanimous consent from the chamber, ________ usually speak for as long as they like. When senators seek to talk a bill to death, they are employing a _____________, in which a senator speaks concerning a bill for however long they wish so as to kill a bill, or debate in into oblivion.
House senators filibuster
The _________ ________ Committee is a uniquely powerful standing committee in the House of Representatives that establishes rules, procedures, and dates for legislative matters, including the length of debate that will be allowed for a bill and the kind of amendments that many be offered. For example, this committee has the power to bring a certain bill immediately to the floor for debate rather than place the bill on a calendar.
House Rules
As the original Constitution envisioned it, only members of the ________ ____ __________ were directly elected by the people.
House of Representatives
As the original Constitution envisioned it, only members of the _________ _____ ___________ were directly elected by the people.
House of Representatives
According to the Constitution, if no candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the election goes to the __________ ______ _____________, where each state's delegation will count as _____ vote. No election has gone since _________.
House of Representatives one 1824
The _____________ __________ Act was a 1986 law designed to penalize employers who hired illegal immigrants and giving amnesty to most of the undocumented illegal immigrants in the country.
Immigration Reform
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the ________________ ______ ____________ Act, a law signed that dramatically increased the number of immigrants legally allowed into the United States each year, and led to a great shift in the origins of most immigrants, with many fewer coming from Western Europe and many more coming from Latin America and Asia.
Immigration and Nationality
The _______________ _______ ______________ ___________ was an agency established in 1933 that absorbed into the Department of Justice in 2003 that protected and enforced the laws of naturalization and handled issues related to illegal entry into the United States.
Immigration and Naturalization Services
A(n) __________ is a politician who is not affiliated with any political party.
Independent
__________ ____________ are not part of an executive department, though, of course, they still come under congressional and presidential oversight.
Independent agencies
The Bureau of _____________ ___________, which provides various services to Native Americans, was established in 1824 and is under the jurisdiction of the Department of _______ _________. The Bureau of ___________ ______________ is a federal agency that provides educational services to Native American students.
Indian Affairs the Interior Indian Education
___________ _________ rights are exclusive rights that people or businesses have to use their own plans, ideas, or other creations of their minds.
Intellectual property
_______ ___________, or _____________, want to influence public policy, which means that they must influence politicians, which means, in turn, that they must do things that make politicians feel good about them and thus their causes.
Interest groups lobbies
The government body designed to collect taxes is the ____________ ___________ __________, which follows the ___________ __________ _______ - a "document" that is thousands of pages long and that keeps thousands of tax lawyers employed.
Internal Revenue Service Internal Revenue Code
TV remains a basic news source, but in recent years, the ______________ has become increasingly important.
Internet
_________ ________ is currently being considered, though it would be difficult to ensure privacy and voter authenticity.
Internet voting
The ____________ ______________ ______________ was created in 1887. Its primary purpose was to regulate railroads that moved goods and services from one state to another.
Interstate Commerce Commission
In January 1991 and in October 2002, Congress authorized presidents to prosecute wars against _________. The first war saw the involvement of many nations who were unified against Iraq's neighbor _______. The second conflict was based on faulty intelligence. Members of Congress widely believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Congress empowered the president to use "all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force."
Iraq Kuwait
The _______________ ____________ _____ __________ was a law that provided that land in the Northwest Territory (which would later become the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) be sold and that the funds gained by the sale be used to help pay off the national debt; and that townships be organized in the territory, with a portion of each township set aside for a school.
Land Ordinance of 1785
As a general rule, Republicans oppose marriage rights to homosexuals, but the ______ ________ Republicans favor such rights; the Republican Party is generally _____-_______ (or anti-abortion), but the Republicans ________ ___________ are not.
Log Cabin pro-life for Choice
Cases the Court does hear tend to fall into the following categories: 1. __________ courts hearing the case have made conflicting decisions. 2. A lower court's decision is at odds, or potentially conflicts, with a previous __________ __________ decision. 3. The __________ _____________ - a presidential appointee within the Justice Department who argues on the government's behalf - urges the Court to take the case.
Lower Supreme Court solicitor general
In __________ v. ______________, the Court held that a Christmas manger display, along with a depiction of Santa, on public property was constitutional because 1. the display's primary purpose was to celebrate a national holiday 2. it did not actively promote religion 3. the display involved no excessive entanglement with religion.
Lynch v. Donnelly
The __________ ________ was a thirteenth-century British document that limited the English monarch's power
Magna Carta
Except for the states of _________ and __________, which award electoral votes based on which candidate wins a district, the electoral vote is _________-___________-_______. In other words, in forty-eight of the states, just over 50 percent of the vote leads to all of that state's electoral votes.
Maine Nebraska winner-take-all
There is the large Office of __________ _______ ___________, the mission of which is to "assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in Executive Branch agencies."
Management and Budget
______________ spending is required federal spending for entitlements such as Social Security.
Mandatory
____________-___________ ________ is a groups that argues for abortion on demand; formerly, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.
NARAL-Pro Choice
_______ __________ was the first woman to become Speaker of the House.
Nancy Pelosi
______________ ___________ was the first woman to be speaker of the House of Representatives.
Nancy Pelosi
The _________ ___________ ____ ____ ____________ ______ __________ __________, or the NAACP, challenged the American conscience, lobbied government officials, and made court challenges against segregation.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The militia that the Constitution's writers referred to has become formalized in the _________ ________.
National Guard
A key feminist organization, founded in 1966, was the ____________ _________ ___ ___________, which aimed to make women the equals of men in all aspects. They wanted ______ ____ _____ ______ ______ (women should receive the same wages as men for performing the same jobs); they wanted to break through the perceived _________ ______________ that prevented women from advancing in the workplace; they wanted protections against __________ ______________, a form of discrimination in which women, particularly, are exposed to unwanted verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, and domestic violence; and most of them advocated greater reproductive freedom - that is, legal access to contraceptives and abortions.
National Organization for Women equal pay for equal work glass ceiling sexual harassment
Not surprisingly, readers of serious news and opinion magazines, such as the ________ _____________ (right), __________ _____________ (conservative), ______________ _________ (liberal), and ____________ ________ (left) are better informed than most; however, the number of people who read such magazines are relatively small.
National Review Weekly Standard New Republic The Nation
In 1994, Speaker of the House __________ ____________ published a ___________ __________ ______________, in which he promised "a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print." This promise was predicated on the Republican-controlled Rules Committee moving bills quickly through the House.
Newt Gingrich Contract with America
The _____________ Amendment ensured that the vote for women could not be taken away by state legislatures and that they would have the vote in states where they had not had it before.
Nineteenth
The ________ __________ _________ ___________ Act of 2001 was a federal law that sought to improve schools whose students were not doing so well academically.
No Child Left Behind
Partly as a result of increasing free trade agreements, such as the ____________ _____________ _____________ ___________ _________, signed by Canada, the United States, and Mexico in 1993, tariff rates are falling or disappearing.
North American Free Trade Agreement
As of 2008, _________ _________ was the only state not to require registration.
North Dakota
The _________ __________ ___ _____ was a law that regulated the governance of the land in the Northwest Territory (which would later become the states of Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois) providing that if a portion of the territory had sixty thousand residents, it would be under the control of the central government; if it had more residents, it could be admitted as a state; and slavery was forbidden in the territory.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
___________ is the idea that the states possess the right to make void federal laws within their borders.
Nullification
The Supreme Court's formal work begins each year in early __________ and carriers into the __________.
October summer
Article ____________, Section ____________ states that each house of Congress "may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member." This statement is about organization. Congress is empowered to organize itself and to police itself.
One Five
Article _______, Section ______ of the Constitution says that it's up to the states to decide how to elect Senators and Representatives.
One Four
In Article __________, Section ________, the Constitution empowers the Congress to alter a state's voting practices.
One Four
Article _________, Section __________ of the Constitution has to do primarily with powers Congress does not have.
One Nine
Article ______, Sections _________-_________ of the Constitution states what powers Congress does and does not have.
One One Nine
Section _____ of Article ______ says that the Congress of the United States must be ________, that is composed of two bodies - a(n) ______ _____ __________ and a(n) ________. So, like the the British Parliament, with its __________ __________ __________ and __________ _________ ___________, the American Congress is composed of two bodies.
One One bicameral House of Representatives Senate House of Commons House of Lords
Section ________ of Article ________ states that "All legislative powers" reside in __________. Other branches of government, such as the president, can propose legislation to Congress; but legislative power resides only in that body.
One One Congress
Article _________, Section __________ of the Constitution states that all bills designed to raise revenue for the federal government must originate in the ____________. In other words, legislation concerning __________ must be formally initiated in that chamber.
One Seven House taxation
According to Article _________, Section __________, if a bill passes with a majority of votes in both houses of Congress, it goes to the ___________, and if approved, it becomes law. If not approved, the bill is returned to whatever house of Congress it originated with a statement of __________.
One Seven president objections
Article _________, Section _________ states that members of Congress cannot be appointed to civil offices during their service in Congress or if compensation for an old office has increased during service.
One Six
Article _________, Section ___________says that, except for "Treason, Felony and Breach of Peace," members of Congress cannot be arrested while Congress is in session.
One Six
Article ____________, Section ___________ of the Constitution requires that members of each congressional chamber are to be compensated for their labor from the U.S. __________.
One Six Treasury
As of 2008, _________ U.S. presidents had been impeached by the House, though neither was removed from office because the vote in favor of removal in the Senate fell short of the ___________-_______ vote called for in Article __________, Section _____________ of the Constitution.
One Three
Section ________ of Article _________ says that the "judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the __________ may from time to time ordain and establish."
One Three Congress
Article _______________, Section __________ states that to be eligible for service in the House of Representatives, candidates 1. must be at least ___________-______________ years old 2. must have been a U.S. citizens for at least _______ years by the time of their seating in the House 3. must reside in the state they wish to ___________.
One Two twenty-five seven represent
Article ____________, Section ____________ of the Constitution gives Congress the power to create currency, to create punishments for the counterfeiting of currency, and to establish post offices.
One Eight
Article __________, Section __________ focuses on congressional elections.
One Two
The _____________ Act was an 1883 law that was the first to make some government jobs off-limits to patronage.
Pendleton
The ________ ________ was a late-nineteenth century third party in the United States whose platform was the opposition to large institutions run by and for the wealthy that seemed increasingly to control the nation: banks, railroads, corporations, and corrupt political machines; also called the Populist Party.
People's Party
The ________________ ______________ ____ ______________ ____________ _____________ Act was a 1996 law for which Democratic President Bill Clinton devolved considerable power over welfare programs to the states.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
The Office of __________ _____________ and the __________ ___________ _________ Board serve to maintain the integrity of the civil service.
Personnel Management Merit Systems Protection
__________ v. ____________ was the 1896 Supreme Court decision, considered by many to be among the most damaging of the Court's decisions, involving passengers on railroads in Louisiana that put in place the doctrine "separate but equal."
Plessy v. Ferguson
The Puritans aboard the Mayflower intended to land in territory under the Virginia Company's jurisdiction but instead came ashore at _____________ in Massachusetts.
Plymouth
________ must pay special attention to public opinion.
Politicians
_________ ______ - taxes on voters - prevented many Southern blacks (and some poor whites) from voting.
Poll taxes
____________ do their work by randomly sampling residents of the country who represent different elements of the population - for example, Catholics, union members, Hispanics, and stay-at-home moms.
Pollsters
We can get a sense of the vastness of the executive branch of government if we look at the order of presidential succession according to the ________ __________ Act of 1947. The presidential succession: 1. the president 2. the _________ _________ 3. the ____________ ___ ____ __________ 4. the ___________ ________ ________ 5 - on include ____________ of federal departments, with the initial secretary of ________.
President Succession vice president speaker of the House president pro tempore secretaries state
________ _________ is an unconstitutional government prohibition of speech in advance of its publication, such as censorship.
Prior restraint
_____________ __________ states that the more one earns, the higher his or her tax rate is.
Progressive taxation
The _________ Party was a third party of the early twentieth century whose primary concern was the banning of the use of alcohol as a beverage. This concern found its expression in the ratification of the ______________ Amendment (repealed in 1933.
Prohibition Eighteenth
___________ _________ was a 1994 ballot initiative designed to deny illegal immigrants access to health care, public education, and other social services in California.
Proposition 187
___________ ___________ make their decisions based on what candidates say they will do in the future.
Prospective voters
Writing under the pen name ____________, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay comprised the ____________ __________, the volume that includes the eighty-five pro-Constitution articles.
Publius Federalist Papers
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote under the pen name ____________, and their eighty-five articles appeared in New York newspapers, primarily the ____________ ___________ and the _________ ____________ ____________.
Publius Independent Journal New York Packet
In the presidential election of 2000, the Green candidate, __________ __________, won 2.7 percent of the national vote. Many observers think that, had Nader not run, most of his votes would have been cast for the Democratic candidate, _______ _______, who lost the election by four ________ ________, or a vote cast in the Electoral College of the United States by each representative of edge state in a presidential election. Thus, the outcome of an election many have been shaped by a third party, whose leader the Democrats called a __________ because their chances for electoral victory were spoiled.
Ralph Nader Al Gore electoral votes spoiler
_________ __________ theory explains why uninformed people simply vote for candidates of their party.
Rational choice
One unfunded mandate that led to much dissension was the ________ _____ Act of 2005. This act called for uniformity in state identity documents. Critics said that the mandate amounted to a national identity card are heightened the possibility of identity theft and the invasion of citizens' privacy.
Real ID
____________ ______________ is the system whereby lower-wage earners pay most of the Social Security taxes because payroll taxes are not levied against high-wage earners or investment earnings, typically accrued by the wealthy.
Regressive taxation
____________, which informs a person's views about the moral order, is important in political opinion.
Religion
The ____________ ______________ _________ Act (1993) gave greater room to religious liberty. This law came in response to a feeling that the Supreme Court had gone too far in narrowing public religious liberty.
Religious Freedom Restoration
In decades following the Civil War, African Americans favored the _______________ Party because of its associations with anti-slavery and because it was the party of Abraham Lincoln. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the ___________ Party came to be more associated with civil rights and help for the poor, and black Americans generally shifted their allegiance to it.
Republican Democrat
As a general rule, _______________ favor privatization, deregulation, and devolution more that ___________ do.
Republicans Democrats
Although there are many well-educated _____________, it is generally true that higher education is generally associated with more _________ political views. One explanation is that education if often associated with questioning norms, learning about different viewpoints, and reflecting on the value of civil liberties. Theses kinds of activities lend themselves to a greater openness to change, and cultural and political change is most associated with the ___________ Party.
Republicans liberal Democratic
_________ taxes, which are imposed by states and localities, not the federal government, are levied when you purchase books, CDs, and cars. Because the wealthy tend to spend a smaller percentage of their incomes at the cash register, this tax is said to be __________.
Sales regressive
____________ ___________________ was the policy of the British, who were trying to manage a global empire, of not enforcing parliamentary laws in the American colonies before the French and Indian War.
Salutary neglect
__________ __________ was the first female justice of the Supreme Court who served from 1981 to 2006.
Sandra O'Connor
________ _________ was the Alaskan governor who had the highest gubernatorial approval rating in 2006.
Sarah Palin
In the case ______________ v. _______ ___________, the Court upheld the conviction of a defendant who had dispensed anti-conscription literature during wartime.
Schenck v. United States
The ___________ Amendment grants the right to bear arms and reads as follows: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Second
The ___________ ___________ ___________ was a group of delegates that convened in 1775 that adopted a resolution calling on the Congress to determine that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states" and, with some members wanting a document that would evoke inspiration, later resulted in the Declaration of Independence.
Second Continental Congress
In Locke's _________ __________ ____ _________ _________, he argued that everyone should be held accountable to just laws, including rulers; the purpose of laws was to promote "the good of the people"; the people's property and wealth should not be taken from them, chiefly through taxation, without their consent; the people possessed an inherent right to "life, liberty, and property"; and the people possessed the right to overthrow a government that held itself above the law, that passed unjust laws, or that confiscated people's property without their consent.
Second Treatise on Civil Government
Most cabinet nominations must be approved by the _________, and they usually are confirmed, though sometimes there is controversy. President Clinton was forced to withdraw his nomination of Zoë Baird for attorney general because it was discovered that she had hired an illegal worker and had not paid the worker's Social Security taxes.
Senate
Eligibility for a seat in the __________ is more restricted than the ______ - another indication that the ________ was designed to be a "__________" house - meaning, in this case, more difficult to get into.
Senate House Senate "higher"
As of 2008, every president had previously served in the ________, in the ______ _____ _________, or as a _______ __________.
Senate House of Representatives state governor
As far as the Constitution is concerned, the only explicit roles the vice president has are to act as president of the _____________ (and to break tie votes in that body) and to be prepared to take over the _____________ should that be necessary.
Senate presidency
Whereas members of the ____________ are elected every ________ years, members of the House are elected every __________ years.
Senate six two
The American ____________ Party was a U.S. third party founded in 1901 and disbanded in 1972.
Socialist
__________ _________ is contributions given to party committees to be used generally.
Soft money
______________ is the quality of having supreme, absolute authority over a nation or territory.
Sovereignty
The ___________ ____ ____ _________ is the leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives.
Speaker of the House
In the House of Representatives (the lower chamber), the leadership is made up of a _________ ___ ___ _____________, a ______ _________, and a _______.
Speaker of the House majority leader whip
The __________ _____________ was a 1765 British law that imposed taxes on the colonists for many paper goods, such as newspapers, marriage announcements, playing cards, and so on.
Stamp Act
The _____________ ____________ _________ Party was a faction of the U.S. Democratic Party that ran a presidential candidate, _________ _________, in 1948 and whose main platform was segregation of the races and states' rights.
States' Rights Democratic Strom Thurmond
What twentieth century political party's platform is expressed below? "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation ... We favor home-rule, local self-government and minimum interference with individual rights."
States' Rights Democratic Party
The Interstate Commerce Commission was abolished in 1995 and was replaced by the ____________ ____________ ____________, which has a regulatory interest in railroads, interstate trucking and moving vans, and pipelines.
Surface Transportation Board
Each party in Congress has a(n) _____________ Committee, the committee in each house that determines who sits on which committee. Usually, the member of the majority party with the longest service on a committee will be named that committee's __________. Generally, Congress relies on a ______________ system to determine who committee leader will be. The highest-ranking member of the minority party is called the __________ ____________ member.
Steering chairperson seniority ranking committee
In ___________ v. ____________, the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law (and with it, thirty other state laws) that made late-term abortions illegal. These are often called _______-______ abortions.
Stenberg v. Carhart partial-birth
The record-setting filibuster was offered by _________ _________ in 1957 when he opposed civil rights legislation for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes.
Strom Thurmond
The ___________ ______________ was a 1764 British law that imposed taxes on colonists for the importation of foreign sugar, wine, coffee, and other goods, and was designed to help pay the costs of the French and Indian War as well as to fund the British government's operations.
Sugar Act
In disputes between the state and federal governments, the decider has often been the _________ ________.
Supreme Court
_________, also called __________, are taxes on goods imported into the United States.
Tariffs duties
_________ played an important role in spurring acceptance of civil right.
Television
The ___________ Amendment states the following: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Tenth
People who take a states' rights position read the _______ Amendment and say that it means what it says. People who take the other position rely on the implied powers granted to Congress by the _______ clause, which grants Congress to do what is "necessary and proper" to carry out its work.
Tenth elastic
The first Democratic Republican president was ___________ ___________.
Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution's comments on the federal courts are in Article _______.
Three
Article __________ of the Constitution says that each state must have __________ members in the U.S. Senate, regardless of the state's population.
Three two
_______ __________ of the federal Congress' education legislation of 1972 stated that no "person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid." Critics of this title say that it damaged many male-dominated sports programs when colleges were unable to provide comparable programs to women.
Title IX
________ _____ of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination based on gender. In 1978, Congress expanded this law to prohibit discrimination on grounds of pregnancy or health problems related to giving birth. Thus it is illegal not to hire a woman because she is visibly pregnant.
Title VII
The Revolutionary War is deemed as a civil war because it pitted _____________, Loyalists living in America who did not see that revolution was justified, against others who wanted to achieve independence from Britain.
Tories
The __________________ ______________/________________ were 1767 British laws that imposed taxes on the colonists for goods directly imported from England, such as tea.
Townshend Acts/Duties
The national economy is a key preoccupation of the ___________ Department, whose mission is to "maintain a strong economy and create economic and job opportunities by promoting the conditions that enable economic growth and stability at home and abroad," as well as to protect the "integrity of the financial system, and manage the U.S. Government's finances and resources effectively."
Treasury
Article _________, Section _______ says that the president shall "from time to time give the Congress Information of the State of the Union." Hence the name of an annual address to Congress delivered by the president: the _______ _____ _____ _____ speech.
Two Three State of the Union
Article ________, Section _______ states that the president is the ___________-_____-_________ of all U.S. military forces.
Two Two commander-in-chief
Article _______, Section ______ of the Constitution says the ________ must appoint Supreme Court justices, with the ________'s consent.
Two Two president Senate
The census is administered by the _______ ___________ _________.
U.S. Census Bureau
In 2008, the _______ ________________ ____ ________________ __________ declared the following a basic, general requirements for citizenship for immigrants to the United States (people born in the United States are granted citizenship immediately): 1. a period of continuous _________ (this is, physical presence) in the United States; 2. the ability to read, write, and speak ______________; 3. a knowledge of ____________ history and government 4. commitment to the principles of the ______ ______________; 5. a "____________ __________" toward the U.S.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services residence English American U.S. Constitution "favorable disposition"
The _______ __________ Office, a government agency that protects "original works of authorship" from being copied without permission for lengthy periods, is associated with the _________ ____ __________, the national library of the United States.
U.S. Copyright Library of Congress
___________ __________ _________ __________ were paper currency first printed in 1963 with the national motto "In God We Trust."
U.S. Federal Reserve Notes
The _________ _________ creates coins and maintains the nation's gold and silver reserves.
U.S. Mint
The ______ __________ ___________ is an independent federal agency that provides mail processing and delivery services for individuals and businesses throughout the country.
U.S. Postal Service
The federal bureaucracy brings us our mail (_________ _________ _________), seeks to control profanity on the radio (____________ _____________ __________), promotes artistic expression (_____________ ______________ _________ ________ ___________, keeps tabs on who's eligible for military service (______________ ________ _________), preserves the nation's records (____________ ____________ ______ _____________ __________________), and many other services.
U.S. Postal Service Federal Communications Commission National Endowment for the Arts Selective Service System National Archives and Records Administration
If a plaintiff or defendant is dissatisfied with a district court's decision, and appeal can be made to a(n) ______ _____ ____ ________, one of the thirteen federal courts in the United States that review the decisions of lower courts; also called a(n) ______ court or ______ courts of appeals.
U.S. court of appeals appellate circuit
Beneath the Supreme Court are ________ ______ ______, trial courts that are concerned with matters related to the federal government or to federal law and that will hear cases on a wide range of topics, and special courts that have __________, authority over certain matters.
U.S. district courts jurisdiction
The ___________ _________ called for a bicameral legislature, with the number of representatives based on population: the more populous the state, the more representatives it would have; also called the large state plan.
Virginia Plan
The ___________ ________ Act of ______________ was a law that empowered the federal government to register citizens to vote if states or local jurisdictions failed to do so, and disallowed the tests used, primarily in Southern states, to prevent African Americans from voting.
Voting Rights 1965
In the early 1900s, some Republicans were angered by President _____________ ________'s backing away from a promise to reduce tariffs and his seeming lack of commitment to environmental conservation. The next year, the ______________ _____________ ___________ _____________, a U.S. political party organized by disaffected members of the ________ _____ _____, or the Republican party, who supported the presidential candidacy of the reform-minded former Republican President ___________ _______________, was formed. After the Republican Party's leaders refused to grant the presidential nomination of 1912 to Roosevelt, he and his followers formed the ____________ "_______________ __________" Party, classic example of a __________ party, a party that breaks off from a major party and splits the vote of that party, often resulting in its defeat. This party's formation resulted in the winning of the presidential election to Democrat ____________ ___________.
William Taft National Progressive Republican League Grand Old Party Theodore Roosevelt Progressive "Bull Moose" Party splinter Woodrow Wilson
Until the __________ ______ era, during which the direct election of senators began, senators were chosen by state legislators.
World War 1
_________ __________ ________ inevitably brought more women in the public square; they took up jobs that men who had gone off to war had left behind.
World War 1
Unlike the _______ ___________ ____ era, during which the direct election of senators began, senators would chosen by _________ _____________.
World War 1 state legislatures
Later in Ronald Reagan's presidency, George H.W. Bush was _________ ___________, assuming the powers of a incapacitated president, for about eight hours, Reagan underwent surgery.
acting president
The ____________ ______________, the freedom of government agencies to set policies according to guidelines provided by congressional legislation, that bureaucrats in leadership positions have helps make political biases possible, if not inevitable.
administrative discretion
In making decisions, bureaucracies make rules, and these rules have the force of _____________ ____________, rules and regulations formulated by government agencies.
administrative law
The Sugar Act established ____________ ________________, in which smugglers were tried without the benefit of a jury of their peers.
admiralty courts
Each secretary of the executive departments is appointed by the president and serves with the ________ _________ __________ of the Senate. The Senate may not approve a president's executive departmental appointment, but once the secretary is in place, the Senate cannot remove him or her.
advice and consent
In 2006, voters in Michigan voted on an initiative to eliminate ___________ _____________ programs in public universities and in state employment.
affirmative action
Some argue that because specific groups - usually racial minorities - have faced discrimination and therefore start the race of life at a disadvantage, the way to provide equal opportunity is to take ________ ____________, programs that seek to compensate for past discrimination by giving special attention in hiring, and in college or university admissions, to people from the groups discriminated against, to "level the playing field."
affirmative action
Sometimes a lower court's decision is ___________, meaning that the Supreme Court accepts a previous court's decision. Sometimes a lower court's decision is ____________, or is rejected by the Supreme Court. In other instances, a case is __________, meaning that the case is sent back to a lower court for retrial.
affirmed reversed remanded
An underlying theory about electronic media is that the __________ are public, and thus, theoretically, the _________ has the right to determine how they are used.
airwaves government
The president has the power to nominate ___________, _______ on the Supreme Court, and other "Officers of the United States", such as ________ members and the director of the ___________ ________ ____ ___________.
ambassadors judges cabinet Federal Bureau of Investigation
States' powers do come into play in the process of ___________ the Constitution. Although the Congress can propose an constitutional amendment (by ________-_________ in both chambers), a _________-________ of the states must consent if the amendment is to be ratified.
amending two-thirds super-majority
Interest groups often submit _________ ________ ______, "friend of the court" briefs submitted in a case to persuade the court that it should decide a case a certain way. They make legal arguments. They also discuss the case at hand in light of _________ - that is, earlier federal court, especially Supreme Court, decisions.
amicus curiae briefs precedent
Both chambers of Congress have ___________ __________ committees, _____________ committees, and _________ ___________ committees. Some of the two chambers' standing committees have similar names - for example, in the Congress of 2007-2009, the House had a Homeland Security Committee, whereas the Senate had a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
armed service judiciary veterans' affairs
No one has the right to openly discuss plans to _________ the president.
assassinate
As you linger in the voting booth, perhaps your decision will be shaped by the ________ ______ on TV, radio, and the Internet that are designed to create negative feelings about a candidate's opponent. The ________ _______ you saw, on the other hand, drew distinctions between opponents.
attack ads contrast ads
With the exception of the Justice Department, which is led by the U.S. ____________ ___________, the largest __________ ___________, federal bureaucratic organizations in the executive branch, are headed by ______________.
attorney general executive departments secretaries
Various ___________ committees authorize spending on different projects (such as for upgraded dams in the Midwest), but unless the funds are actually approved by proper _________ committees, the money is not spent.
authorization appropriations
Immigrants offset the numerical decline, as a result of __________ __________ aging and declining birthrates, of the native-born American population.
baby boomers
The _________ is the method by which a person casts a vote in an election.
ballot
While debating legislation, both houses of Congress placed restrictions on gifts that members of Congress could receive from lobbyists. The House ___________ gifts altogether; the Senate limited gifts to the value of $_________. Both chambers banned __________-__________-__________ outings.
banned $50 all-expenses-paid
On some issues, pollsters see __________ distribution, which points to an almost evenly divided public.
bimodal
With the advent of Web logs, or _____________, anyone can act as a journalist, and plenty of misinformation can quickly pass from website to website and from e-mail to e-mail.
blogs
Generally speaking, when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, liberals tend to favor a __________ ______________ approach, meaning an interpretation of the Constitution in light of its underpinning principles and in light of evolving moral and cultural standards.
broad construction
The budget the president sends to Congress includes information on 1. the amounts certain government agencies will be authorized to spend (_________ _________) 2. how much government agencies are actually expected to spend (_____________ __________) 3. how much the government expects to take in via taxes and other sources (______________).
budget authority budget outlays receipts
The primary purposes of agencies within the federal bureaucracy is to implement laws passed by Congress. Obviously, Congress is unable to closely supervise the implementation of the laws it passes, so this task falls to the _____________, which must determine how to put the laws into effect.
bureaucracy
The secretaries of the executive departments make up the majority of the president's ____________.
cabinet
Less serious than expulsion in Congress is ___________ - a formal congressional reprimand. One might have though that Representative Lovell Rousseau might have been expelled for beating up a fellow congressman in 1866, but he was only __________. In 1990, to cite one more example, Senator David Durenberger was __________ for unethical financial conduct.
censure censured censured
To determine how House seats should be proportioned, a ___________, an official and periodic governmental count and demographic analysis of the population, is taken every __________ years, as called for in Article _________, Section _________ of the Constitution.
census ten One Two
The suspicion of centralized power manifested itself in the Articles of Confederation, which made the _________ government weak.
central
The underlying hope of the nation's founders was that the separation of state and federal government power would provide for another system of political ___________ _____ ________.
checks and balances
The ________ ______ is the judge of the Supreme Court who manages the Court itself and presides over the federal court system, as well as the Judicial Conference.
chief justice
Among the president's key personnel are a ____________ _________ ____________, who, depending on the president, may or may not be empowered to closely manage White House operations; a __________ __________ advisor, who provides the president with regular briefings on military and intelligence matters; and a _________ ____ __________ __________, a panel of three economists who advise the president on economic matters.
chief of staff national security Council of Economic Advisors
Some citizens vote out of _______ ________, the responsibility to vote, whether or not they are personally interested in politics or in a particular election.
civic duty
The nation's slow-but-sure pursuit of _______ ________, the privileges and powers granted to people as equals under the law, has led to the federal government to take precedence over state governments in a number of ways.
civil rights
Into the late 1800s, most __________ _________ jobs, government employment for which people qualify based on merit rather than on political patronage, were political, meaning, for example, that a postmaster might lose his job if a president of a different political party was elected. Before reforms were set in place, a ___________ ____________ existed, meaning that with political victory went the "spoils" - the ability to give jobs to friends and supporters. The term for this kind of activity is ___________.
civil service spoils system patronage
The __________ ________ _________ ________ test is a standard for judging when freedom of speech can be suppressed.
clear and present danger
Another way a department can become involved in political action is to assist its _______________, patrons of a bureaucracy, such as lobbyists and interest groups, and the ____________ assist the department. When President Reagan attempted to abolish the Small Business Administration in the mid-1980s, he faced so much opposition from Congress members, interest groups, and the SBA itself that he gave up.
clientele clientele
Some states, such as Louisiana, Maine, and Nevada, have _________ __________, meaning that party members can vote only for candidates from their own party. Other states, like North Dakota, South Carolina, and Wisconsin have _________ __________, meaning that Republicans can vote for Democratic candidates, and vice versa.
closed primaries open primaries
Since the nineteenth century, the federal courts have relied on the _________ clause of Article One, Section Two of the Constitution to enhance the power of the national government. This clause says that Congress has the power to regulate commerce that takes place between the states.
commerce
Congressional _____________ special in certain expertise for the understanding of certain bills.
committees
Justices often write a __________ opinion, meaning that they agree with a decision but for reasons different from those stated in the majority opinion.
concurring
A(n) ____________ is a form of government in which the confederating parties retain their sovereignty in all matters not directly delegated to the national government.
confederation
As of 2008, talk radio is overwhelmingly _______________.
conservative
Congressional incumbents have great advantage over lesser-known aspirants to office due to an organized, paid staff that has engaged in ____________ __________, help and information that paid staff members of incumbent members of Congress provide to their constituents. For example, their staff members may have helped veteran constituents get help from the Bureau of Veterans Affairs or provided constituents with information about federal education-assistance programs.
constituent service
Members of Congress have to account to ___________ for how they spend their time.
constituents
The citizens represented by an elected official are called ______________.
constituents
In order to make bills more attractive to ______________, the citizens they represent, and fellow ____________, members of Congress attach amendments to them.
constituents politicians
What Americans live with today is often called ____________ federalism - that is, the states and the national government seek to work together to solve problems.
cooperative
The Constitution gives Congress the authority to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" - in other words, to regulate _________ and _______.
copyright patents
List the three important principles of the Magna Carta. 1. The king could not levy taxes without the consent of his _____________. 2. A person could be imprisoned only after being tried by a jury via the _________ ________ _______ ________. 3. The king himself was under the _______.
councilmen due process of law law
For the office of president, successful __________ ___________, a program that a president should have in place that immediately begins the machinery of arriving at a solution to a crisis, usually involves not acting impulsively or with undue haste. A president should look for opinions from people who may __________ with him; this way, unstated assumptions may be exposed and analyzed, and decisions may be made with a greater sense of clarity.
crisis management disagree
The election of 1860, in which Lincoln was voted president, is sometimes referred to as a ________ _________, or an election associated with a major political realignment in the United States that persists through subsequent elections, thus leading to what political scientists call _________/_________ realignment.
critical election electoral/political
Political campaigns cost money, and sometimes it seems that politicians expect that their position should bring them the good things of life. The persuasive feeling is that big money and politics are inextricable. This has led to a widespread feeling of ______________, distrust or skepticism about the motives of others; a belief that others are motivated by selfishness.
cynicism
Each volume of the Congressional Record is divided into four sections: 1. a ____ ____ 2. a __________ section 3. a __________ section 4. a section where Congress members' ____________ can be extended
daily digest House Senate remarks
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka began the work of dismantling ____ _____ segregation - that is, segregation as a matter of law. Another challenge integration faced was _____ _____ segregation - that is, segregation resulting from the fact that people of different colors lived in different area and therefore went to different schools. One proposed solution was __________ - the transportation of white students to schools attended by black students.
de jure de facto busing
It is true that the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been political _________ - that is more and more citizens have become disenchanted with the major parties and commitment to the two parties has steadily declined in recent years. This has led to an increasing desire for __________ - cooperation among politicians in the major parties.
dealignment bipartisanship
If in a certain year the government spends more money (on, for example, public services and the military) than it takes is, the government is said to have acquired a(n) ___________.
deficit
In 1985 the Supreme Court determined that gerrymandering was unlawful, but the ruling supplied no __________ of gerrymandering. In 2004 the Supreme Court declined to get involved in cases of alleged ____________. The phenomenon continues and has created some bizarrely shaped districts.
definition gerrymandering
In addition to providing population information for the purposes of congressional reapportionment, some people use information gained from the census about the racial and ethnic makeup of the United States to argue for ________ ______________ - the belief that Congress should resemble the nation in terms of gender and ethnicity.
descriptive representation
Some argue for political ______________, or the turning over of functions carried out by the federal government to the states. This happened in the 1990s, when welfare programs funded by the federal government were largely given to the states to administer.
devolution
Although observers have noted a gradual trend of ___________ of powers (a shifting of powers) from the federal government to the states since the 1980s, represented by an increase in numbers of block grants relative to categorical grants, federalism seems to have become less a partisan issue than in previous decades, thus the term political scientists sometimes use: the __________ __________.
devolution new federalism
The president is the nation's primary ____________. Especially since the beginning of the twentieth century, American presidents have had a key spot on the international scene.
diplomat
In some instances, Americans exercise _________________ democracy, meaning citizens vote directly on political issues, and the majority wins.
direct
Perot's candidacy showed that third parties can provide _________ voters, or voters who opposed the current government, with a political outlet, thus perhaps preventing violent confrontation.
dissident
Note that bureaucracies can get caught up in the complications of ____________ ___________. Suppose the White House is in the hands of a Democrat, but Congress (one or both houses) is in the hands of the Republicans. Government institutions must respond to both sides, if for no other reason than that both the president and the Congress have a say as to how much funding an agency will receive in the yearly budget.
divided government
The American people opts for ________ __________, in which a president of one party faces one or two congressional houses in the hands of the other party. The benefit of such a government is that it provides a ________ on one party's ambitions. The downside is occasional __________, the inability of government to accomplish things.
divided government check gridlock
Americans tend to favor _____________ _______________: one party in charge of the White House and the other party in charge of at least one of the congressional bodies. Voting this way, Americans seem to ensure _______________ - a government that can't get important work done because it is divided. Overall, however, ______________________ (that is, politicians of different parties working together) and compromise have helped government to function fairly well.
divided government gridlock bipartisanship
Critics of the relatively new phenomenon of __________ see it as a process that is inevitably corrupting: people with power and ability to fund elections want goodies from congressmen; Congress members oblige and get reelected.
earmarking
Some vote in response to __________ ________ - that is, issues that are easily stated and often linked to high emotions (such as abortion).
easy issues
The single greatest factor in terms of being informed is ________________.
education
List the three qualifications of suffrage for citizens of the United States. 1. at least _________ years of age 2. is not a felon serving time in prison 3. has not, by reason of ________, been placed under the supervision of another person
eighteen felon insanity
Though citizens who are at least __________ have the right to vote, many Americans do not do so. Roughly only about __________ to _________ percent of the ____________, eligible voters, turn out to vote.
eighteen forty fifty electorate
People like Alexander Hamilton, who advocated for a strong central government, read much into the ________ clause. Others, who advocated a weaker central government and stronger state governments, emphasized the _________ Amendment.
elastic Tenth
The Constitution never refers to a(n) __________ ________, though it does call on each state to "appoint ... a Number of Electors" equal to the number of a state's U.S. senators and House members for the purposes of selecting presidents.
electoral college
A(n) _______________ is a government program that guarantees and must provide benefits to a particular group.
entitlement
The pursuit of civil rights involves the ideal of _________ _______ - notion that all Americans should have an equal to succeed in life.
equal opportunity
The Court relied on the ________ _______ clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down segregationist state laws that had been built on the foundation of the doctrine "separate but equal."
equal protection
Americans who favor ________ ____ ________ support plans that target specific groups for assistance. It's not difficult to see why there's controversy: inequalities inevitably exist in life.
equality of outcome
Some institutions have actually aimed at _______ _________ _______ - an approach that strives to ensure that everybody (all races and economic classes, for example) enjoys equality.
equality of outcome
The ___________ _____________ is the statement in the Constitution that states, "Congress may not found an official religion."
establishment clause
The ____________ tax (sometimes called the ________ tax), the tax levied against property left by people who have died, is ____________.
estate death progressive
Short of censure, congressional ________ committees can write letters criticizing the conduct of members and offering warnings against the kinds of activities that lead to investigations and that put Congress in a bad light and increase the amount of ___________ people feel about government.
ethics cynicism
Unlike the district courts, the appellate courts do not usually consider _________; their primary purpose is to determine whether the district made a legal error or whether the lower court's judgment was unwarranted.
evidence
The Constitution prohibits Congress from passing _____ ______ ______ _______, laws that make an act illegal after it has been done. If a person does something in January that is deemed illegal in the next October, in other words, he cannot be held liable because the act was not illegal at the time it was done.
ex post facto laws
In the early 1960s, the Supreme Court set in place the ____________ __________, which says that evidence obtained illegally cannot be used against a defendant (___________ v. ___________). The Court drew this principle from the ________ Amendment, which says the following: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
exclusionary rule Mapp v. Ohio Fourth
Presidents also arrive at _________ ___________, an agreement made by the president of the United States with another government without senatorial approval, though such an agreement is not binding on future presidents and Congress may decline to provide monies to execute the agreement, with other nations.
executive agreements
One extension of presidential power sometimes linked to the concept of faithfully executing the laws is the ___________ _________, an act by the president that has the force of law and creates or shapes policies without congressional approval.
executive order
Although individual department secretaries have substantial power, the power of the cabinet itself is fairly limited. For one thing, different cabinet members have different kinds of _____________ - energy, agriculture, defense, and so on.
expertise
Of course, professionalization leads to __________, the adeptness of bureaucrats at navigating the world of the bureaucracy and learning more their areas of specialization.
expertise
Congress may not impose taxes or duties on goods ______ from any state, favor one state's _______ over another, or tax _______ shipped from one state to another.
exported ports goods
The most severe discipline in Congress (and the rarest) is the __________, the ousting of a member of Congress. It is rare, partly because most members _________ their seats before they can be ____________.
expulsion resign expelled
A(n) ____________ party is a party that breaks away from another party and often centers on an individual who has left a major party. In 2006, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut lost the Democratic _________ _______ in his state, so he ran as a(n) ________ ______ and was reelected to the Senate.
factional primary election Independent Democrat
When you vote for a presidential candidate, you're not exactly voting for that candidate. Rather, you're voting for an elector who is pledged to vote for that candidate. Vary rarely, a _________ _________ will vote for a person other than the one he or she is pledged to, and no election result has been changed as a result of this.
faithless elector
The latitude the states have to act has been increasingly open since the early twentieth century.
false
True of false: The Constitution explicitly grants the Supreme Court the position it has now as the possessor of the final word about what is and isn't constitutional.
false
True or false: All members of Congress are expected to display competence in all areas in which numerous bills compose.
false
True or false: Citizens in their late teens and twenties vote more regularly than middle-aged and elderly citizens.
false
True or false: Compared to their opinion of Congress, the people have a lower opinion of the president.
false
True or false: Congressional discipline of its own members occurs quite often.
false
True or false: Ethnicity does not necessarily affect how a person views politics.
false
True or false: Higher-income people tend to be pro-life.
false
True or false: Many Americans have strong ideological commitments.
false
True or false: Older voters tend to be more liberal.
false
True or false: Party loyalty goes as deep as loyalty to a family's religion.
false
True or false: Presidents have the power to lower taxes.
false
Another form of delegation of powers to the president came by way of ___________-_____________ ___________, which empowers the president to make trade deals that Congress can either approve or disapprove but not amend because the amendment process and a foreign country's response to the amendments significantly slows the process.
fast-track authority
The United States practices _______________ - a system of government that divides government responsibilities between state and federal governments.
federalism
In 1848, at Seneca Falls, New York, early ___________, women who advocated for the right to vote, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton issued a __________ _____ ___________, which drew on the language of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal."
feminists Declaration of Sentiments
Related to the "clear and present danger" are ___________ _________ - words that incite a breach of the peace.
fighting words
A(n) _____-_____-____-_______ election is an election in which a candidate can win with less 50 percent of the vote, such as in American congressional races.
first-past-the-post
The formulation of the budget is inevitably a very political process because it involves the making of _______ _______ - that is, the use of taxes and expenditures to shape the country's economy.
fiscal policy
At the start of each year, the president presents a budget for the next __________ ________, which runs from October 1 through September 30. The ________ ______ ________ _____ ______ personally writes the budget document.
fiscal year Office of Management and Budget
When the Supreme Court began its work in 1789, it included __________ justices. Since 1869, ____________ has been the number of justices sitting on the Supreme Court.
five nine
Franklin Roosevelt was elected to the presidency _______ times.
four
During the Civil War, ____________ senators and ___________ House member who supported the ________________ were expelled from the Congress at Washington, D.C.
fourteen three Confederacy
The ________ and ________ both are synonyms for the right to vote.
franchise suffrage
The ________ is a clear advantage for the incumbent, for people running for office must pay mailing costs themselves or with the help of donors and political parties.
frank
Incumbents also have the advantage of ____________ ___________, which refer to the freedom that members of Congress have to deliver mail at government expense.
franking privileges
A basic point of voter registration is to prevent _________. A system might work this way: when voters appear at a __________ _________., the place where qualified citizens are required to vote in elections, with their name son the list because they've registered to vote. Once their name is checked, they cannot vote again, and because they must vote at that polling place, they are ineligible to vote elsewhere.
fraud polling place
The _______-__________ _____________ is the statement in the Constitution that individuals have the freedom to engage in religious practices.
free-exercise clause
The scholarly consensus is that the Constitution's ________-__________ clauses have to do with the open discussion of public affairs.
free-expression
Since jurors can be influenced by news they read or hear, judges occasionally impose _______ _________, orders imposed by a judge that prevents news about a trial from being published or disseminated.
gag orders
The ___________ ___________ sells services and thus generates its own revenue. The U.S. Postal Service does this by selling stamps, the U.S. Mint by selling coins, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation by charging banks for the insurance it supplies to cover bank customers' savings accounts.
government corporation
The Lobbying Disclosure Act did not require lobbyists to disclose whom they had specifically lobbied, and it did not apply to ________________ lobbying efforts - that is, lobbying by nonprofessionals and concerned citizens - to to tax-exempt organizations, such as churches.
grassroots
In crisis management, the president should resist __________________ - a situation in which people close to the president come to the same conclusion but without thorough analysis.
groupthink
Proponents of _______ _________ point out that the Second Amendment is about an armed citizenry and, so long as the Constitution says what it says, the government cannot prevent the people from owning firearms.
gun rights
Into the middle of the nineteenth century, the writ of _______ _______ was considered applicable only to federal prisoners.
habeas corpus
One things Congress may not do is suspend ________ _________, the right of a prisoner to be brought before a judge and the hearing by him and he huge the explanation of reasons for the prisoner's confinement, except in cases of war or insurrection or when the "the public Safety may require it.
habeas corpus
As a result of the financial limits of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, many candidates and parties now seek for __________ money.
hard
Complicated _______ _______ - for example, how best to ensure that the United States has good relations with China ten years from now - do not play a large role in elections, though aspiring politicians' positions on such topics help to reveal their _____________ __________, personal qualities of politicians, such as whether they are knowledgeable, serious, and trustworthy.
hard issues candidate characteristics
The president is the leader of the nation and the ___________ _________ __________, the chief public representative of a nation and leader of a nation's government.
head of state
Sometimes taxes and fees that few people know about - called _________ taxes - pull more money from your pocket than you realize.
hidden
There are certain elections in the United States where a voter fatigue sets in. It is becoming more common for citizens to only vote in __________-___________ elections, elections for an influential office or on an important issue that gets substantial media coverage and features attractive candidates and stiff competition.
high-stimulus
Incumbents using _______ _______ usually point to accomplishments - bills or amendments proposed or passed - and they can trumpet the amount of pork for the local economy, and so on.
home style
Significant elections become the subject of __________ ________ ___________, news stories with a fixation on who's winning, who's losing, and the gamesmanship of campaigning. Sports analogies often come in handy. Candidates take "body blows" or try to deliver "knock-out punches" during debates; risky moves are likened to the "hail Mary passes" of a desperate football team; a well-delivered party convention speech is called a "home run." Most of the focus is on image, personality, perception, and the effectiveness of snappy phrases, called ___________ ___________, and easily digestible policy statements, called ____________ _______.
horse race journalism sound bites talking points
Before a bill can go to the president for his (or her) signature, both congressional chambers must pass ________ bills. A _______ committee will iron out differences between the chambers' bills. Given the power that these committees have, some have called them the "____________ ___________ _______ ______________."
identical conference "third house of Congress"
A(n) ____________ party is a party that expresses views that go beyond mainstream opinion. The 2008 platform of the __________ Party, for example, calls for the replacement of the "government-sponsored Social Security system with a private voluntary system. The proper source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals."
ideological Libertarian
The Constitution grants the power of ________________, the power to make a kind of political accusation that is roughly akin to an indictment in the criminal legal system: a person can be indicted for a crime but found not guilty, to the House of Representatives alone.
impeachment
Embedded within the necessary and proper clause are Congress' _________ powers, the perceived powers that are not explicitly stated in the Constitution that Congress has the responsibility to carry out, as opposed to its ____________ powers, the powers explicitly stated in the Constitution that Congress has to carry out its responsibilities. This perceived power that Congress has to carry out its responsibilities has sometimes conflicted with another part of the Constitution - the __________ Amendment, which reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
implied enumerated Tenth
A(n) _________ group is a group of people acting together in support of common concerns that often seek to influence politics.
interest
The __________ tax is levied on sources of financial income (i.e.: a paycheck).
income
Generally speaking, the higher a person's _________, the less favorable the person is to a government that interferes with the economy, either through taxation, regulation, or welfare programs. This favors the _______________ Party.
income Republican
Because they already hold office, ____________ more easily attract media attention. Their __________ ___________, prepared statements released through the media, are likely to gain more notice than statements of lesser-known aspirants to office.
incumbents press releases
Within the various executive departments are ____________ ______________ commissions (also called ___________ agencies) that write and enforce rules that regulate some element of industry.
independent regulatory regulatory
The Electoral College is one example of the way the United States functions like a(n) ___________ democracy.
indirect
When the economy experiences high rates of __________, an ongoing increase in the level of consumer prices or a president decline in the purchasing power of money, The Fed imposes higher _________ _________ to control the rapidly rising costs of goods and services.
inflation interest rates
Many of the president's power today rests in _________ powers - powers that are implied.
inherent
A(n) _______________ is the proposal by a specified number of voters of a statute, constitutional amendment, or ordinance to compel a popular vote on its adoption; also known as a proposition.
initiative
Other manifestations of direct democracy came in the form of ____________ , __________, and ___________.
initiatives referenda recall
Complete the missing steps of a bill becoming a law. 1. First, a(n) _______ ________ or interested person - for example, the U.S. president, a civic club, a newspaper editor, a business interest, or a church group - perceives a problem. Some advocated of legislation who don't hold formal political power can channel their energies through _________ ___________. 2. Once a legislator (or a group of legislators) has been made aware of an issue and has determined to try to do something about it, the legislature introduces a _______. In order to make their bill's survival more likely, the legislator might engage in what is called ______________, which means that they promise to vote for another member's bill if that legislator votes for the bill they are promoting. Members of the House formally introduce their bill by dropping their bill in a box, called the hopper, which is near the House Speaker's seat. Senators hand a bill to the Senate clerk or introduce the bill themselves on the Senate floor. 3. In both houses of Congress, bills go through defined steps. First, bills are referred to appropriate committees, which then often refer them to ________________________. Hearings on the subject of the bill may be held, and __________ ___________ will do research into the substance of the bill. Sometimes a bill is revised during this process. 4. If the subcommittee passes a bill, it then goes to the _________ ___________. 5. (IN THE HOUSE ONLY) Bills first pass through the ___________ ______________, which determines the length of debate that will be allowed on the bill and the kind of amendments that may be offered. Debate in the _________ is much less restricted, though congressmen usually limit debate on bills via ____________ ___________ ___________, an understanding among senators to limit the debate on a bill. 6. If passes the Rules Committee in the House/full committee in the Senate, the bill is sent to the _______ for consideration by the entire chamber. 7. If there is much debate on the bill by the two houses, a __________ _____________, a temporary congressional committee that is formed to work out differences between Senate and House versions of a bill, is called upon. The compromised bill is thus sent back to the Congress for voting. 8. If the bill passes both houses of Congress, it is up to the president to sign or __________, the president's exercise of authority not to sign a bill that has been passed by a majority in both houses of Congress but instead, to send it back to the house from which it originated with a statement of objections to the bill. The president's veto of a bill can be overridden by a _______-_________ majority in both houses of Congress. Also, if the president neither signs the bill nor returns it to Congress within ______ days, the bill becomes a law.
interest group formalized institutions bill logrolling subcommittees congressional staffers full committee Rules Committee Senate unanimous consent agreements floor conference committee veto two-thirds ten
A basic element of the country's monetary policy is to lower _______ _________ during slow economic times.
interest rates
Sometimes federal organizations, congressional committees, and interest groups will form what are called ___________ __________, the relationship in which political interest groups lobby members of Congress to pass laws that they want, and members in turn encourage the bureaucracy to implement the laws in ways favorable to the lobbyists. Congress members gain from this because the lobbyists help them get reelected, and the lobbyists do research and provide other services that are useful to the Congress member.
iron triangles
With the dramatic increase of interest groups in the country in the past couple of decades, _________ __________ have become less of a force. They have been largely displaced by ________ _________, in which groups with a particular interest in a particular issue will band together to advocate that issue.
iron triangles issue networks
A(n) ___________ party is a third party that tends to be small and short-lived. Perhaps the best example of an issue party is the _____________ Party.
issue Prohibition
Political leaders pay attention to ___________ ___________ - that is, the manner in which a topic is presented to the public.
issue framing
Partisans on both the political right and left worry about __________ ______________ - that is, judges acting as legislators and making policy as they see fit.
judicial activism
When it comes to ___________ ______________, how and whether court decisions are translated into actual policy, the president can ignore the Court, but this very rarely happens. The Congress can decline to make funding available to act on a Court's ruling, but again, this is rare.
judicial implementation
Opponents of judicial activism call for _______ _________, meaning that federal judges should decide narrow constitutional matters and not usurp the power of the other branches of government.
judicial restraint
A judge's ideological leanings matter because of _________ ________________ - the power to determine what is and what isn't constitutional. The case that set this was _________ v. ______________.
judicial review Marbury v. Madison
Of course, a Supreme Court nominee's background, experience, and ____________ _________ - the judge's fairness, even-handedness, and adherence to the Constitution - are very important.
judicial temperament
Once the Supreme Court issues a writ of certiorari, the Court's justices and the four ______ _________ to which each is entitled begin doing research into the issues surrounding the case.
law clerks
With the exception of Fox News, which had the highest of all news channels in 2008, TV news programs tend to lean to the political ___________.
left
The political "________" refers to political liberalism, the the "________" refers to political conservatism.
left right
The president's _________________ ___________ staff are his aides who discuss legislative topics with members of Congress and simultaneously keep the president informed on the status of bills. They work for the White House Office of _____________ ________________, which is responsible for advancing the president's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.
legislative liaison Legislative Affairs
A little less than one-quarter of voting jurisdictions rely on _________ __________ __________, a mechanical device by which voters indicate their choices by pulling a lever.
lever voting machine
Newspaper and magazines can be prosecuted for ________ - the defamation of a person in writing. If, for example, a newspaper alleged, without evidence, that your neighbor is a Nazi and a court found that statement to be erroneous, the publication could face legal punishment.
libel
One of the basic things we expect federal courts to do is protect our civil _________________, defined as the freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution.
liberties
All federal judges serve for _______ unless circumstances warrant their removal.
life
The _________ __________ is the tendency for people at different stages of life to take certain viewpoints.
lifestyle effect
Most of the time, state elections closely resemble each other, but there can be some variation. Since the late 1990s, for example, the state of Oregon has emphasized _________-_____ ________, the method by which registered voters fill out and mail ballots that have been mailed to them. This comes as an effort to raise the level of voter participation, and it seems to have succeeded. Potential problems, however, can come with the loss of the more controlled environment of the __________ _______, such as the selling of votes, the coercion of votes, or the marketing and returning of ballots without the knowledge of the voter.
mail-in voting polling place
Third parties serve as a platform for ideas not expressed in the _______ parties.
major
Observers who take the _____________ view tend to think that the public is fairly well informed and holds consistent views on public matters. Polls lend more support to the _________ position, which maintains that the public is not very will informed and can change its views on issues relatively quickly.
majoritarian pluralist
According to the theory of ________________________, the government should do what most people in the country want it to do.
majoritarianism
The __________ _________ is the second-most powerful member of the majority party in the House of Representatives, after the Speaker of the House, who generally works to advocate the goals of the majority party.
majority leader
The _______ __________ in a chamber of Congress determines how many seats the minority party gets on a committee.
majority party
Most of the time, elected presidents can say they enter office with a popular __________, a majority of the popular vote.
mandate
When political observers talk generally about the "media" or the __________ media, they are referring to radio, television, and the Internet (______________ media), as well as newspapers and magazines (________________ media).
mass broadcast print
Most Western democracies are _________ systems, or political systems that include two or more major political parties.
multiparty
Some people base their vote on the candidate's __________ ___________, the extent to which a candidate is familiar to the public, or the image of the candidate he or she has in mind.
name recognition
The existence of institutions such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is substantially founded in the Constitution's ___________ _______ _________ ______, also called the ________ ______. According to this flexible part of the Constitution, Congress has the power 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" in Article ________, Section _______.
necessary and proper clause elastic clause One Eight
A large majority of Americans sixty-five years and older - about 70 percent - follow the news daily. An equal percentage of young people (late teens through early twenties) can be called ____________ ____________ - they pick up a little news here and there.
new grazers
In the media, a story's _______________ often depends on whether it can grab a viewership's attention, for the advertisers who provide TV stations with money require an audience. A detailed analysis of immigration policy won't hold many viewers; a sensationalistic or heart-touching __________ ___________ ___________, a media story that presents people or a person in an emotional manner. But in the process of delivering such _________________, information-based media content that includes entertainment content so as to enhance popularity with audiences, serious reflection on a serious policy matter gets pushed to the side. This is an example of _____________-____________ __________, the presentation of stories that are intended to attract consumers by means of riveting details rather than to inform them of more serious matters.
newsworthiness human interest story infotainment market-driven journalism
For laws to be passed by the Congress of the Confederation, ________ of the thirteen states had to agree. In other words, a _________-_________, a support in voting exceeding a simple majority, or fifty percent, required to pass a law, was needed.
nine super-majority
Against the Stamp Act did the colonists raise the slogan "___ _____________ ___________ ____________________."
no taxation without representation
Congress may not give to anyone title of _________.
nobility
A __________ distribution, when graphed, shows a bell curve - the fewest numbers of people being at the extremes and the highest number of respondents being in the middle.
normal
When Americans are asked about their political views, a ___________ distribution is usually the result: a dew describe themselves as very liberal or very conservative, more define themselves as liberal or conservative, and the highest number call themselves moderate.
normal
The _________ ________, the propensity of most Democrats to vote for Democrats and most Republicans to vote for Republicans, allows political observers to reliably predict the number of voters who will vote for the major parties.
normal vote
The ________ __________ is a parliamentary procedure that allows the U.S. Senate to override a rule or precedent by majority vote.
nuclear option
The provides standards on how to know whether something is ____________: 1. The work appeals to prurient interests (that is, to the incitement of lust). 2. The work depicts sexual acts in an obviously offensive manner. 3. The work is void of any serious academic or artistic content.
obscene
The number of justices on the Supreme Court will always be _________ to prevent tied decisions.
odd
The Constitution requires Congress to assemble at least ___________ a year.
once
Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had only ______ vote.
one
The Court's decision is issued in writing. Included in the Court's written _____________ are its decision, the reasons for that decision, and a discussion of the legal matters involved.
opinion
One-quarter of jurisdictions use _________ _______ ___________: voters fill in bubbles next to candidates' names, and a computer reads and counts the votes.
optical scan ballots
Attorneys make their cases in what are called _________ __________. The cases heard by the Supreme Court are recorded, but no cameras are allowed in the Court.
oral arguments
A small number of jurisdictions rely on __________ _________, in which voters use a pen or pencil to make the candidate of their choice and drops the ballot into a box; later, these votes are hand counted.
paper ballots
The president has the power to grant ____________, a act that restores a person to the state of innocence that he or she had before being found guilty of a crime, and ___________, an act that reduces the severity of a convicted person's punishment, although the person's guilt remains and some punishment is still delivered "for Offenses against the United States," though he does not have the power to pardon people who have been ________.
pardons reprieves impeached
Candidates make promises that are in line with what their party would favor. This contributes to __________ ________, politicians' voting for their party's policies, to politicians voting the __________ _________, policies that are favored by a political party.
party unity party line
Political scientists have found that voting decisions are much more influenced by the _______ than by the _______.
past future
The Budget Enforcement Act called for _______________-________-___________-___________, meaning that any increase in entitlement spending had to be offset by tax increases or by cuts in discretionary spending. President George H.W. Bush agreed to an increase in taxes, thus breaking his famous promise of the 1988 presidential election: "________ ________ _________: ________ _________ _____________."
pay-as-you-go "Read my lips: no new taxes"
In addition to income taxes, people who earn paychecks face ____________ taxes, which is comprised of the Social Security tax and Medicare flat-rate tax paid by citizens who earn paychecks.
payroll
Unlike income taxes, ____________ taxes come at a ________ _______, meaning a charge that is the same in all cases, not varying in proportion with income.
payroll flat rate
Sometimes and opinion in unsigned, in which case it's an opinion ________ _____ (by the court).
per curiam
Presidents know that _____________ of them depend on how well they do in crisis management.
perceptions
As the highest Court in the land, many ____________, parties who initiate a lawsuit, and __________, parties who are sued or accused of a crime in a court of law, appeal to the Court for a hearing, and as long as the Supreme Court might hear one's case, hope is kept alive. But the Supreme Court decides on less than _________ percent of all cases decided each year in the United States.
plaintiffs defendants one
Many see the United States operating on the theory of political ______________, meaning that different interest groups argue for different things; they are then willing to make political compromises and accommodations, which is considered the art of politics.
pluralism
A(n) ________ __________ is the president's failure to sign a bill, with Congress adjourning within ten days of the president's receiving the bill.
pocket veto
The number of ___________ ___________ ___________ has expanded dramatically since 1975 because of campaign financing laws that prohibit individuals from donating large amounts of money to candidates.
political action committees
A low voter turnout seems to suggest a low sense of _______ __________ - that is, the sense that one's vote matters in political life of the town, county, state, and nation.
political efficacy
The major political parties provide voters with a _________ ______________, the tendency of people to adopt a certain political identity fairly young and stick with it through life. So, one who supports abortion rights will most likely vote for the Democratic candidate, even if they do not support the candidate personally.
political identification
A(n) __________ __________ is a party organization run by a boss or small, tightly knit group that garners enough votes to maintain political control of a city, country, or state.
political machine
The U.S. Constitution says nothing about ________ _________. In fact, the framers hoped the country they had helped create could avoid political parties.
political parties
Political scientists say that people pick up their views as a result of __________ __________.
political socialization
Although the amount of confidence, or __________ __________, Americans have in the country's political system and leadership changes from time to time, it seems safe to say that confidence in the nation's leaders has not been high in recent decades.
political trust
The news media has several purposes, among which are to 1. hold _____________ accountable 2. inform the _______________ about what government is up to 3. identify _____________ and present potential agenda items to the country
politicians people problems
Observers of American political life know that ____________, the continuous checking of opinions of a sample of people on an issue, has become something of a cultural obsession since its inception in the 1930s, particularly because computers have made it more sophisticated.
polling
A republic is a political system in which the people have political power - that is, they exercise __________ ______________.
popular sovereignty
Seats in the House are based on __________.
population
One perceived problem that comes with amending government appropriation is ____________ ___________ ___________, the appropriation of federal funds by members of Congress for projects that serve the interests of their home districts or states. This is also known as the securing of ____________, federal funding for projects that serve the interests of the constituents of certain members of Congress and that circumvent a direct allocation process by being attached to bill - and often buried in the language of the bills - that frequently have nothing whatsoever to do with those projects. Oftentimes, bills that are "earmarked" have nothing to do with the government allocation.
pork barrel spending earmarks
The president exercises his (or her) __________ ____ _________, the president's authority to select ________ members of who preside over the various federal government agencies or who offer advice on vital issues.
power of appointment cabinet
In the United States, the strong elective is the ___________.
president
The ___________ is the central figure of the executive branch of government.
president
The __________ alone has the power to negotiate treaties with other nations, but they must be approved by two-thirds of the ________. (Presidents may also make _________ ________ with other governments without senatorial approval, though such agreements are not binding on future presidents, and Congress may decline to provide monies to execute the agreements.)
president Senate executive agreements
The ____________ sets policies; policy enforcement is left to the __________.
president agencies
The chief of the National Guard Bureau is appointed by the ___________ and reports to the ________ _____ ______ and the military's ________ _____ ____.
president secretary of defense chiefs of staff
Because the ________ ______ _____ has plenty of work to do, Senate proceedings are most often presided over by ________ ________ selected for that purpose.
president pro tem junior senators
Since the president of the senate is usually only in the house to determine a tie, his or her place is taken by a _______________ __________ ________, the senator (usually the member of the majority party who has served the longest in the Senate) who takes the place of the vice president as president of the Senate for the times when the vice president is not present in the Senate.
president pro tempore
Whereas Republicans won the large majority of ___________ elections between 1860 and 1932, ______________ elections from the South were solidly Democratic. The South remained solidly Democratic until 1964, when five Southern states voted for the Republican candidate ____________ ___________.
presidential congressional Barry Goldwater
Sometimes in moments of serious crisis, Americans will "rally around the flag," and this will manifest itself in high _____________ _____________, for the American people want the president to respond well to crisis.
presidential ratings
Very frequently, the president's views are conveyed by the White House ____________ _____________, an aide to the president who conveys the president's views to media representatives and takes questions from them.
press secretary
Until Obama and McCain were formally nominated by their parties in the election of 2008, they were called __________ __________, the candidate a party who has won the most votes in the primaries but has not yet been formally nominated by the party as its presidential candidate.
presumptive nominees
In 1999, the Court allowed judges discretion to delve into the motivations behind redistricting, and two years later the Court determined that race could be one factor in redistricting but not the _________ factor.
primary
Students of political socialization refer to _________ principles (the idea that things learned earliest are learned best) and ____________ (the idea that early learning shapes later learning).
primary structuring
A(n) ___________ __________ is an election in which political party members or voters select or nominate a candidate for the next general election.
primary election
To be elected, candidates must often win __________ ____________, elections in which political party members or voters select or nominate a candidate for the next general election. Sometimes if no primary candidate wins a majority of the votes, a _________ __________ is held in order to have a clear candidate.
primary elections runoff primary
Sometimes efforts to scale government back take the form of ___________________ - that is, handing over to private enterprise work that was formerly done by government employees.
privatization
To ________-__________ Americans, Roe v. Wade looked like one of the greatest federal government power grabs in history.
pro-life
Avoiding the word "socialism", Sanders adopted the political label "_________" and founded the ________ ___________ ___________.
progressive House Progressive Caucus
Most Democratic primaries allot delegates _____________. In other words, if a candidate gets thirty-five percent of a state's vote in its primary, that nominee will receive _________-________ percent of the state's delegates to the convention. Most Republican primaries are _______-__________-________.
proportionally thirty-five winner-takes-all
As a result of laws passed in Congress and a Supreme Court decision in the 1960s, districts must include a roughly ___________ number of residents, and each district can be represented by only ________ House member (thus the term ____________-__________ __________).
proportionate one single-member districts
The nation's debt - its _________ _______ - is the sum of consecutive deficits.
public debt
When a literary work has reached the point where it can be copied at will, it is said to have entered the ________ ________.
public domain
One effort to control presidential campaign costs has come in the form of ______________ ____________, or government funding for the campaign of a presidential candidate who qualifies by raising $_________ in __________ different states in donations of less than $________. However, there is a limit placed on how much funding a candidate can receive, so successful candidates often decline financing so as not to tie themselves to its limits.
public financing $5,000 twenty $250
The term ________ ________ refers to the public's opinion about something.
public opinion
Ballots in the form of ___________ _________, a method of voting in which a voter's choices are punched in a pattern of holes on a thin piece of cardboard and later processed in sorting machines, were made famous by the 2000 presidential election in Florida. As votes were being counted in the very close election, some __________, a circle of the card that hangs onto it because the hole was not punched completely through the card, next to candidates' names weren't completely punched through - these were called _________ chads - and other chads were only dimpled. There was a debate over how these votes should be counted.
punch cards chads hanging
A(n) _____________ is a professional political commentator; also called a "talking head."
pundit
Affirmative action becomes more controversial when it moves beyond encouragement and toward __________, policies that set aside a certain number of positions for people belonging to certain racial groups, ethnicities, or genders, or ________, a term that means the same but is referred by supporters because it does not have the same negative connotations.
quotas goals
In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled, in case involving a district in Georgia, that _______ could not be a "predominant factor" in the drawing or districts.
race
The theory behind polling relies on three key factors. One is ____________ __________, meaning that the person who is selected had no better or worse chance of others being chosen. Next, the _________ of the sample population must be sufficiently large to represent the large and diverse population of the United States. The third factor to consider is ___________, the fact that people's views are complicated, and therefore pollsters do not present their work as being one hundred percent accurate.
random selection size variation
Some political scientists, drawing on ______ ________ theory, say that people decide not to vote because the costs of doing so - learning about the candidates, driving to the polls, standing in line, and so on - are greater than the perceived benefits of voting.
rational choice
As population shifts, such as when the population of the West grew dramatically after World War 11, seats are _____________, or the seats in the House of Representatives are redivided based on census data about each state's proportion of the national population.
reapportioned
A ____________ is the direct action of voters to remove a political figure from office.
recall
When Congress is not in session, the president may make a ___________ _________, an appointment of an ambassador, a judge on the Supreme Court , or another high-ranking official of the United States when Congress is not in session, though upon the reconvening of Congress, the appointee must undergo a formal confirmation process.
recess appointment
Another task of the federal bureaucracy - or parts of it - is income _______________. This has been especially true the _____________ _____________ of 1930s.
redistribution Great Depression
The process of creating new political districts is called ______________. ______________ is a practice in which redistricting for the purposes of making districts politically "safe," or rigging districts in favor of one party or another, is done intentionally.
redistricting Gerrymandering
A(n) ____________ is the submission of a piece of legislation (intended or actual) directly to voters for approval.
referendum
House rules require amendments to bills to be directly _________ to the purpose of the bill. In the Senate, however, amendments to bills can involve purposes far removed from the bill's __________ concerns.
relevant original
The following are comprised in the "Lemon test": 1. When considering funding of any kind of involvement, the state should ensure that the program in question has no __________ purpose. 2. The government involvement must not promote or inhibit ________. 3. The government action must not lead to its excessive entanglement with __________.
religious religion religion
For the most part, the United States is a(n) ____________ democracy, meaning that voters elect the people who represent them in governmental bodies.
representative
The Constitution's framers put in place a _____________ democracy because they worried that the "passions" of the people, which sometimes were driven by political fads, could derail good government.
representative
The English king empowered the settlers in the colony of tobacco-growing Virginia to establish a ______________ ____________ in Jamestown for the purpose of promoting the general good.
representative assembly
A(n) ___________ is a political system without a monarch.
republic
One reason federal government has increased so much is that the federal government simply has greater __________ to work with. Another reason is that federal agencies have been eager to provide -______ to the states to do work that the federal government can't do itself because the country is too large and complicated. A third reason is that with money comes __________.
resources money power
If a voter is well informed, he or she will probably do some ____________ _________ meaning that your decision about who should have political power in the future will be based on what you know about the candidates' acts in the past.
retrospective voting
A standing committee is permanent, whereas a ____________ committee is organized to deal with a temporary matter and is disbanded once its purpose has been served. In other contexts, these type of committees may be called a(n) _____________ ________ committee - Latin for "toward this thing.")
select ad hoc
Some people may not have strong political feelings and may know little about politics, but if they hear about a government policy (proposed or actual), they may have a feeling about it, based on how they think it will affect them. Political scientists refer to this phenomenon as the __________-_________ principle.
self-interest
A judiciary nominee's candidacy can be derailed if, as a result of _________ __________, a senator from the nominee's state vetoes the nomination.
senatorial courtesy
Residents of Washington, D.C. have no _________ representing them, and since 1971, they have had a(n) ________ ________ - that is, a member of the House of Representatives who can vote in committees but who may not vote for or against final passage of legislation.
senators congressional delegate
Since the ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Constitution has been amended only __________ times, resulting in a total number of ________-_______ amendments.
seventeen twenty-seven
Another way presidents can exercise their authority is by the use of _____________ __________, a statement by the president, usually after he has signed a piece of legislation into law, about how he intends to enforce the law.
signing statements
Senators are elected every _________ years. The Constitution writers' goal here was to distance senators from the "_____" of the people and from political _____________.
six "passions" fads
If at least ___________ senators want to check a filibuster, they can sign a petition initiating ____________, the method of ending a debate, especially a filibuster, in the Senate by means of a petition signed by at least __________ senators and voted for by at least __________ senators, _______ days after the petition is offered. After this, each senator is restricted to _________ hour of debate.
sixteen cloture sixteen sixty two one
On some matters, polls reveal a _____________ distribution, meaning that a large majority of Americans favor or oppose something.
skewed
Even though it is very difficult to prove "malice" on the part of the person who wrote something untrue or defamatory, few _______ - the defamation of a person in speech cases are successful.
slander
Before the ratification of the Constitution, another compromise involving slavery allowed the Congress to end the __________ ______________ - the buying and selling of slaves imported from Africa - beginning in 1808.
slave trade
One compromise before the ratification of the Constitution stated that, beginning in 1808, the _______ _____ -the buying and selling of slaves imported from Africa - would end.
slave trade
Americans have less _________ ___________ to work with because fewer people are involved in their communities and more involved in their own lives. With a decline of such, the theory, says, comes a decline in _______ __________.
social capital political interest
Largely because individualism is an important part of American intellectual history, ____________, which emphasizes government-directed equalization of wealth and government control of industry, never appealed to many Americans. Also, many Americans considered it indistinguishable with _____________.
socialism communism
Some citizens are __________ ___________, meaning that they vote based on general economic conditions rather than their own family's economic condition.
sociotropic voters
In the age of TV, the Internet, and short attention spans, image means a great deal, as do ___________ ____________ - the short and snappy phrases candidates use, hoping the phrases will get into the TV and radio news, even if the candidates know that it isn't possible to convey serious ideas with phrases supplied by political campaign professionals.
sound bites
A(n) _________ election is an election that is held to fill an unexpected vacancy in a political office until the next scheduled election, such as when the office holder dies, resigns, or is expelled from office.
special
If a seat in the House comes open when an election is not under way, the seat must be filled via a _____________ __________. A vacant seat in the Senate can filled (until the next election) via _____________.
special election appointment
In contrast to the federal government, ________ have a better understanding of their own particular problems. This is related to a fairly widespread feeling that the national government isn't the best equipped to solve every problem. In the early twenty-first century, this feeling was spurred by the national intelligence failures that made the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, possible and, soon after, by the failure of the ____________ _____________ ______________ ____________ (FEMA) in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast.
states Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Constitution grants _______ the power to determine who has the right to vote. Consequently, ________ _________, the official state qualification and recording of a person's right to vote, has been left to them.
states voter registration
Following the exhausting periods of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the federal government observed _________ __________, rights that are neither delegated to the federal government by the Constitution nor denied by it to the states.
states' rights
Through the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Court usually sided with ____________ ____________ positions. Since the mid-twentieth century, the Court has, on the whole, leaned in the other direction, though less so since the mid-1990s.
states' rights
Americans who believe that power should be closer to home advocate ___________ _______, and among their founding champions is ________ ________, primary author of the Declaration of Independence and third American president. Among the champions of those who argue for the preeminence of the federal government is ________ __________, coauthor of The Federalist and the nation's first secretary of the treasury.
states' rights Thomas Jefferson Alexander Hamilton
Judges who favor _________ _____________ advocate an approach that reads the Constitution literally.
strict construction
According to the Court's standard of _______ ________, a law that discriminates against a religious practice must serve a "compelling government interest" and must be as unrestricted as possible.
strict scrutiny
The Supreme Court's position has been that, for society to function well, one's religious beliefs cannot regularly go against societal norms (such as partaking of illegal drugs) or infringe on the general culture. In taking this position, the ________ _________ standard has been weakened.
strict scrutiny
Unlike the Articles of Confederation, a new national document called for a ____________ __________ - that is, a figure at the center of the government whose power would be great, though fairly easily checked by other entities in the government.
strong executive
Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution called for a _________ __________ - that is, a figure at the center of the government whose power would be great, though fairly easily checked by other entities in the government.
strong executive
Congressional committees themselves are usually organized into ______________.
subcommittees
Americans and politicians who are concerned about immigration rates further point out that illegal immigrants do pay ________ - at restaurants, at stores, and so on. On the other hand, Americans and politicians who want greater controls over immigration argue that illegal immigrants take more out of the economy than they put in; they rely on tax-payer-supported health care, education, and other benefits. These observers also argue that inexpensive immigrant labor lowers pay rates generally.
taxes
Most Americans now learn about government from ___________ and the ______________.
television Internet
The ______________ ____________ is the idea that TV makes a person feel informed when, in fact, that is not actually happening.
television hypothesis
In response to a general desire in the 1990s to place ________ ________, limits that seek to restrict how long a person can serve in a certain office, on how long politicians could hold power, the House Republicans determined that a person could be a committee chairperson for up to __________ years. (Conservatives are generally more suspicious of government than liberals are.)
term limits six
In term of gender, _________ tend to vote for the ____________ Party more than ___________ do.
women Democratic men
A(n) ________ ________ is, in a two-party political system such as the United States has, another party that has little political power but plays an important role in politics; also called a minor party.
third party
The _____________-___________ ____________ stated that for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives, the compromise between Northerners and Southerners that counted each slave as three-fifths of a person.
three-fifths compromise
The ______________-__________ _____________ counted each slave as three-fifths of a person in representation in Congress.
three-fifths compromise
One way to amend the Constitution is for __________-__________ of the state legislatures to vote in favor of an amendment proposed by Congress.
three-fourths
The Constitution requires that a record of congressional ________________ be kept.
transactions
Whereas challengers for office must pay for their own travel costs, congressional incumbents have substantial _____________ ___________, funds that allow each member of Congress to return from Washington D.C. to his or her state or district to meet with constituents, give speeches, and hear from lobbyists.
travel budget
Congress may not take money from the _________ unless expressly empowered to do so via legally passed appropriations.
treasury
Under the Articles of Confederation, list all the powers not given to the central government. ensure that states would abide by __________ with foreign powers draft _________ prevent states from setting up _________ tariffs raise ________ directly regulate __________
treaties soldiers interstate taxes currency
True or false: A court has no power to enforce its decisions.
true
True or false: After the nine judges on the Court have heard a case, they meet to discuss and vote on it.
true
True or false: Bloggers also challenge various kinds of bias that exist in the media.
true
True or false: Bonds sold today help to pay for bonds sold in the past.
true
True or false: Challengers for political office must be willing to take a risk to run for office. Most often, serious challengers have political experience and hold political office - say, a city council seat or a position as mayor - or a challenger might have served as a representative in a state legislator. The rigors of political campaigning or the campaign rules themselves may require these candidates to surrender their current positions.
true
True or false: Every president has declared some Christian affiliation.
true
True or false: Ideology plays an obvious role in shaping one's political outlook.
true
True or false: If both parents identify with one party, the child will also (usually) adopt that party's identity.
true
True or false: Lower courts can ignore Supreme Court decisions if they can argue that the higher Court's decision does not apply in a specific case. And the Supreme Court often overturns decisions from lower courts.
true
True or false: Lower-wage earners pay most of the Social Security taxes.
true
True or false: Members of Congress cannot be prosecuted outside Congress for words spoken during congressional speeches and debates.
true
True or false: Most people would prefer the approval and recognition of their close peers to the approval of people who are further removed from them or who do not share their interests.
true
True or false: One challenge pollsters have faced in recent years is the public's increasing unwillingness to answer the phone when pollsters call.
true
True or false: One common argument for women getting paid less than men is that women generally earn less than men because many of them take time away from work to give birth and raise children.
true
True or false: One reason incumbency is so powerful is that state legislators determine congressional districts, and districts can be drawn in such a way as to favor candidates from particular parties.
true
True or false: One thing all voting jurisdictions have in common is that voting is done privately: no one must know how anyone else votes.
true
True or false: People of similar backgrounds and subcultures tend to have similar views.
true
True or false: People who have a keen interest in politics are more likely to show up at the polls than others who have little or no interest.
true
True or false: Political rhetoric aside, both major parties now seem to favor a federal government that is much larger than what would have been acceptable one hundred years ago.
true
True or false: Rural people tend to be more conservative on moral questions that urban residents.
true
True or false: Some people vote because they are committed to a particular issue - say, abortion, - and they vote mainly with that in mind.
true
True or false: Sometimes opinions are shaped by perceptions of the leaders who offer them.
true
True or false: Sometimes people have strong feelings against a candidate and vote with the primary aim of preventing that candidate from winning.
true
True or false: The Constitution's framers put Congress' powers first because they saw that law making is a government's most important function.
true
True or false: The U.S. government ensures that patented inventions are not copied and placed in the market for a certain number of years.
true
True or false: The amount of time Congress spends in session is its own decision to make.
true
True or false: The first filibuster were seen in 1790, when a proposal to move the U.S. capital from New York to Philadelphia was debated into oblivion.
true
True or false: The general answer to the question about Congress' low standing in public approval polls is that members of Congress are perceived as pursuing their own interests at the expense of the public interest.
true
True or false: The more educated and wealthy a person is, the more likely it is that he or she will vote.
true
True or false: The region a person lives in can shape his or her political views.
true
True or false: Whatever party holds a majority in the House or Senate will make up the chamber's leadership.
true
True or false: When elections are close, people can be motivated to vote because they feel their vote may really count.
true
True or false: While many criticize the Electoral College, defenders say the Electoral College gives states with small populations an electoral voice.
true
In term of gender, _______ are more likely to believe that government should supply jobs to people than _______ are.
women men
The presidential election of 2008 was, in many ways, about __________. _________ ______________ told the American people that he could be trusted because he had experience and a long record of public service. ______________ ____________ inspired trust by presenting new ideas in eloquent terms, by effectively presenting himself as a steady personality, and by surrounding himself with accomplished advisors.
trust John McCain Barack Obama
In the Constitution's framers, frequent elections would provide for __________ - that is, a relatively quick change in House membership. The reality is that ___________ - politicians who run for reelection - don't often lose elections. Most surprising is that this seems especially true for members of the ____________.
turnover incumbents House
By the late _____________ century, the word "government" had come to be almost synonymous with the federal government. State and local governments now receive comparatively little notice in public affairs.
twentieth
In America, ____________ presidents have been impeached.
two
Members of the House of Representatives have to run for election every _________ years because the Constitution explicitly says so in Article ____, Section _____.
two One Two
Essentially, American political life operates within a _________-party system: the ____________ and _____________ parties.
two Republican Democratic
The framers of the Constitution intended the House of Representatives to be the federal government body that is closest to the people. The framers attempted to ensure this by requiring members of the House to stand for election every _______ years. Another way the framers did this was by making more people eligible for membership in the House. In contrast, U.S. senators must be at least _________ years old, and they must have been a citizen of the United States for at least __________ years.
two thirty nine
If a vice president takes the presidency with less than _______ years to go in the recent president's term, the new president is eligible to run for office in his (or her) own right ______ times.
two two
The Constitution was devised as to prevent the ____________ ____ ____ ________, a situation in which decisions made by a majority place that majority's interests so far above dissenting interests that the minority would be actively oppressed.
tyranny of the majority
A(n) _________ ______ - that is, a Supreme Court decision on which all justices agree - is fairly rare. More commonly, cases are concluded with a _________ opinion (which states why most of the judges came to their decision) and a __________ opinion (in which the justices who disagree with the majority stay why they disagree).
unanimous decision majority dissenting
Under the Articles of Confederation, the government's Congress was ____________, meaning that it had one house, unlike the later __________ Congress, which comprises two houses: a(n) __________ ___ ___________ and a(n) _______.
unicameral bicameral House of Representatives Senate
In the early 1990s, IRS officers were ranked according to how much ________ tax money they brought in. The led to bureaucratic __________, to a hearing before the _________ ____________ ______________ in 1997, and to an apology from the IRS commissioner.
unpaid aggressiveness Senate Finance Committee
Entities such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and the Department of Veterans Affairs are manifestations of what we might call the country's ____________ ___________ - they are certainly not called for in the Constitution, but they are not seen as being at odds with it either, at least by a majority of Americans.
unwritten constitution
Sometimes voters base their vote on ________ ___________, or issues that are universally disliked, such as corruption. If the electorate is angry about corruption, the party most associated with it will pay at the polls.
valence issues
If a president dies in office, the ___________ __________ moves into the role of president.
vice president
The _________ __________ of the United States is the __________ of the Senate but has a vote only in the case of a _________.
vice president president tie
To the slogan "no taxation without representation" did the British preach ____________ ________________, the notion that every member of Parliament had the whole British Empire's interests at mind.
virtual representation
After the ruling of Agostini v. Felton, the so-called _______ ________ ___________ _____________ _______ _____ ________ - a phrase borrowed from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Baptist ministers - seemed to be lowered a bit. This seemed especially so when, in 2002, the Court allowed parents to use publicly funded __________, government funding that parents can use to pay for education at private or public schools, to pay tuition at religious schools (__________ v. _____________-____________).
wall of separation between church and state vouchers Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
Congress also has the power to declare __________, to raise and regulate a(n) ______ and a(n) ________, and to finance ___________ _____________, though no single appropriation may finance them for longer than ________ years.
war army navy military operations
Under the Articles of Confederation, list all the powers given to the central government. declare ______ and arrive at ____ ________ form _______ and make treaties with other nations maintain a national _________ force regulate _______ regulate _______ affairs create a _________ system decide arguments between the _____
war peace treaties alliances military coinage Indian postal states
The Articles of Confederation crewed a ______ ________ model, a type of government that precisely limits the powers of the president or presiding officer.
weak executive
The __________ is the member of a political party in the House of Representatives who keeps a count of votes and drums up support for his or her party's agenda.
whip
Before 1870, only _______ ___________ had the right to vote.
white men
Another thing that contributes to the strength of the two parties is the ________-____________-__________ system, or a political system whereby a candidate is elected by plurality, that prevails in Congress. Members of Congress can be elected via a __________. In other words, if a Democratic candidate gets 47 percent of the vote, and the rest is divided between the two other parties, the Democrat wins the seat. Other countries provide for ____________ representation. In Israel, for instance, a party that gets 10 percent of the vote is entitled to 10 percent of the seats in the Knesset, giving minor parties an incentive.
winner-take-all plurality proportional
By the early twenty-first century, a majority of college students were _______.
women
