Final Exam for PSCI

The ____ was a governing document that filed because it did not provided an effective means of the government to raise money it did not include an independent leader to direct the government, and it did not give the government the power to regulate commerce

Article of Confederation

The constitutional amendment process requires

Extraordinary majorities

_____ is described as a situation in which government is incapable of acting on important issues.

Gridlock

_______power of the presidency stems from authority that is not clearly specified in the Constitution and results in actions that exceed commonly held notions of the president's authority.

Inherent

A confederation can best be described as

Loose association of independent states.

The case of Marbury v. Madison was based on which of these questions?

Should Congress or the Constitution prevail?

After the Constitution was amended to permit the federal government to levy a progressive income tax, government could more effectively further the goal of

Social equality

Which document proclaimed, "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence , and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not expressly delegated to the United States"?

The Article of Confederation

The latitude that Congress gives agencies to make policy in the spirit of their legislative mandate is called​

administrative discretion

When a senator refers to constituents, he or she is talking about

the people who live and vote in their district.

The content of a proposed bill in Congress can be changed

at any stage of the legislative process in either the House or the Senate.

A large, complex organization in which employees have specific job responsibilities and work within a hierarchy of authority is a(n)

bureaucracy

An employee of a government unit, who is quite knowledgeable within their narrow area, and works on specific responsibilities and within a hierarchy of authority is known as a

bureaucrat

A ________ is a committee composed of legislators from both houses that works out legislative differences between the Senate and House and develops a compromise version.

conference committee

The delegation of powers is the process by which _____ gives the executive branch the additional authority needed to address new problems.

congress

The Constitution does not give the president power to

declare war

One significant difficulty with assessing the effectiveness of government agencies is that government often allows them to set their own standards for what constitutes acceptable outcomes. One way in which this can be fixed to:

ensure evaluations are objective through evidence-based policymaking.

To enter the federal court system, litigants in state cases must

first have had their case decided by the highest court in the state.

Government corporations are best described as

government agencies that provide services that could be provided by the private sector

.Which of the following is a key factor in the increased size of the Cabinet over the years?

growth in the responsibilities of government

All of the following are constitutional requirements for the presidency EXCEPT that the president must

have a college degree

A president's obsessive concern with public opinion can be labeled as a way to advance ____ democracy.

majoritarian

The Speaker of the House is also the

majority party's leader

Meetings in which legislation is debated and amended are called _____ sessions.

markup

The phrase "divided government" refers to

one party controlling the presidency and another controlling Congress

One way that limits Supreme Court justices from the direct influence of the president and Congress is:

Their lifetime tenure

The purpose of the Pendleton Act of 1883 was to

reduce patronage by creating a civil service.

Committee members tend to remain with the same committee in order to gain years of consecutive service. This is known as:

seniority

The _______ represents the federal government before the Supreme Court

solicitor general

In the governments of modern societies, bureaucracies

still play a central role.

State judges are obligated to follow the U.S. Constitution whether state law conflicts with it under the Constitution's

supremacy clause

To appeal means to

take a case to a higher court

According to the text, a primary reason for low morale among federal employees is

that fewer than half believe that doing their job well will lead to reward or promotion.

Each state has ______ senators

Two

To date, all constitutional amendments have been proposed by

Two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate

Which of the following is NOT identified in the text as an important "external source of influence" on Congress?

the court system

A circuit is

the geographical area over which a court of appeals hears cases.

It takes a _________ vote of Congress to overturn a presidential veto

two-thirds

A congressional representative is following the trustee philosophy when he or she

votes according to his or her conscience, even if doing so means going against the wishes of the majority back home.

Criminal offenses such as arson, theft, and murder are almost always the sole responsibility of which entity?

the state

In both a recent Gallup survey of the American public, and in a recent C-SPAN survey of fifty-eight professional observes of the presidency, President _____ was ranked as the greatest.

Abraham Lincoln

Under separation of powers, the U.S. system keeps power among branches balanced by enabling one branch to counter the action of another by the use of

Check and balances

The Department of _________ is the largest government department in terms of number of employees

Defense

________ is not a reason cited by the text for the growth of government.

Election and appointment of "left-leaning Social Democratic" government officials

Supporters of the Constitution named themselves

Federalist

Shay's rebellion was ultimately defeated by

The Massachusetts militia

Which amendments were the only ones to limit the activities of individuals?

The Thirteenth and Eighteenth Amendments

Which of the following statements is NOT true of the Supreme Court?

The justices try to time their departures to give the president of the opposite party an opportunity to fill the replacement.

Most cases reach the U.S. Supreme Court through________ jurisdiction.

appellate