Govt 2305 Exam 1

Black citizens in Birmingham, Alabama achieved desegregation of the municipal transit system through...

A bus boycott

The main positive result of the Annapolis Convention was...

A call for a larger meeting of the states, with a broader mission

The most common background experience among recent Supreme Court nominees is judicial experience, and this can be explained by the fact that...

A judge's previous opinions serve as good predictors of his or her future opinions on the High Court

In the New York Times v. Sullivan case, the Supreme Court declared that freedom of the press takes precedence when the defamed individual is...

A public official

A purchasing or contracting provision that reserves a certain percentage of funds for minority-owned contractors is best defined as...

A set-aside

A 2013 Senate rule change allows debate on judges other than Supreme Court justices to be cut off by...

A simple majority

The Great Compromise provided for...

A two-chamber legislature with equal representation for all states in one chamber and population-based representation in the other

The White House is willing to work with interest groups because they are...

Able to mobilize their constituents to contact members of Congress

The phrase "the executive Power shall be vested in a President" and "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" are the constitutional foundations for the president's...

Administrative power

After the presidential election is over, the winning candidate wants to claim that he has been given ________ by the voters to carry out the policy platform on which he campaigned.

An electoral mandate

Real ID, a federally mandated program that imposes security standards for states to issue driver's licenses, is an example of...

An unfunded mandate

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 considered policies ______ in Michigan that were based on racial preference...

At a law school and undergraduate school

Over time, political parties in Congress have __________.

Become more ideologically cohesive

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

Bureaucracy

Powers and privileges guaranteed to the individual and protected against arbitrary removal at the hands of the government or other individuals are best defined as...

Civil Rights

The basic standard of substantive democracy is that government must guarantee...

Civil rights and liberties

_________ value both equality and order more than freedom, and its members support both affirmative action and laws that restrict pornography.

Communitarians

___________ is the idea that employers should be required to pay equal wages to men and women in the same or similar jobs.

Comparable worth

Agreement with a judgement for different reasons from those set forth in the majority opinion is known as...

Concurrence

The framers of the Constitution intended _________ to be the strongest branch(es) of government.

Congress

In a challenge to the Civil Rights Act before the Supreme Court, the Court based its decisions upholding the act on which constitutional principle?

Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce

The use of highway construction funds has been an effective means to promote...

Cooperative federalism

The controversial 1993 Brady bill...

Created a national system to check the background of gun buyers

The __________ Amendment protects against excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

Eighth

In 2013, in response to minority filibusters, Senate Democrats _______________.

Eliminated filibusters for conformation of presidential nominees other than Supreme Court justices

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided for all of the following except...

Elimination of the poll tax as a requirement for voting

Suppose that top government jobs for both political parties are filled only from an inner circle of top corporate leaders. This would be evidence for...

Elite theory

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 established the right to nondiscrimination in public accommodations and _____________.

Employment opportunity

In the text, one suggested response to the charge of being the "least productive Congress ever" is to...

End the ban on earmarks

President Ronald Reagan used the term freedom rhetorically to refer to...

Ensuring a minimal level of government involvement in day-to-day life

A central question in the McCulloch case was whether or not Congress had the power to...

Establish a national bank

In Sweatt v. Painter, the Supreme Court...

Failed to revisit the Plessy-era separate-but-equal doctrine

Since 1995 the Supreme Court has frequently...

Favored states' rights

The principle of responsiveness requires that legislators...

Follow the general contours of public opinion

The practice of altering district lines for partisan advantage after the census is also known as....

Gerrymandering

As measured by comparing U.S. government expenditures as a proportion of all economic activity, the United States...

Has one of the smallest governments among Western democracies

A president can be impeached by the _______ and tried and removed from office by the _______

House; Senate

When citizens circulate petitions to gather signatures to put a policy question on the ballot, it is called a(n)....

Initiative

Although they are instruments of majoritarian democracy, initiatives are often sponsored by...

Interest groups

Discrimination against persons or groups that is harmful and is based on animus is ________ discrimination.

Invidious

The claiming of a presidential mandate after an election...

Is consistent with a majoritarian theory of democracy

Whether a political system is "democratic" is chiefly defined by...

It cannot be simply defined by any of the above

Which of the following is not accurate with respect to the ideal, rational decision-making process described by Charles Lindblom?

It represents the typical behavior of government decision-makers

In 2014, voters in Switzerland approved an initiative to...

Limit immigration

For some years our congressional parties have been increasingly polarized, working less together to fashion compromise legislation. This is consistent with the _____________ of democracy.

Majoritarian model

"Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate" is part of the broad Supreme Court interpretation of the elastic clause in the case of...

McCulloch v. Maryland

Which of the following amendments is not concerned with how the government must behave in criminal proceedings.

Ninth

What rules govern the use of referenda at the federal level?

No provisions exist for the use of referenda at the federal level

The text of the Constitution deals with slavery by...

Not mentioning it directly

Which of the following is not on of the political principles relied on by the founders?

One person, one vote

In the years after the Civil War, the Supreme Court ruled that government could prohibit...

Only governmental acts that discriminated on the basis of race

In general, liberalism...

Opposes all government action except that which protects life and property

In response to the constant cry for reduction in the size of the bureaucracy, the government typically...

Options a and d are true

According to Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, the proper objective of government is to ensure...

Order

In 2011, the state of Ohio approved an initiative to...

Overturn a law that had weakened unions

Based on polls testing how closely Americans follow news about politics, the text implies that policymakers should...

Place less credence in polls measuring public opinion on policy questions

According to John Marshall's decision in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the elastic clause might be interpreted to mean that Congress can take a particular action not specified in the Constitution if that action is...

Plainly adapted to achieving a legitimate constitutional end

The Greek word kratos, one of the roots of the word democracy, means...

Power

The power of Congress to enact laws by which the national government assumes complete or partial responsibility for a state government function is known as...

Preemption

Most governments at least claim to _________ while they maintain order.

Preserve individual freedom

An American citizen's ability to drive a car only with the possession of a valid license may be best described as a...

Privilege

The establishment clause of the First Amendment...

Prohibits government from sponsoring or supporting religious activity

The value of using political concepts in understanding government is that they...

Provide for a broader view than looking at specific events

Services that benefit all citizens and are not likely to be produced by the voluntary acts of individuals are known as...

Public goods

The civil service system was created to...

Reduce the amount of politics in awarding government jobs

Rules that guide the operation of government programs are termed...

Regulations

The Printz v. United States decision was help to violate the constitutional principle of ______________ by transferring the president's executive authority to local sheriffs

Separation of powers

Western Europe's experience with democratic socialism demonstrates that...

Socialism can be practiced along with personal freedoms and democratic participation

One reason there may be no delegate position for members of Congress to take is that...

Sometimes what constituents really want is not clear

What is the major rational for affirmative action?

Special consideration for racial minorities is necessary to overcome the effects of centuries of racial discrimination

One significant difficulty with the initial No Child Left Behind law was that...

States were allowed to set their own standards for what constituted acceptable student performance

Bible readings in public schools would violate a __________ principle, freedom of religion.

Substantive

The Bill of Rights is at the core of our...

Substantive theories of democracy

What women's rights activist first persuaded a U.S. California senator to introduced a constitutional amendment calling for the right of women to vote?

Susan B. Anthony

To "appeal" means to...

Take a case to a higher court

According to the text, an important contributor to gridlock these days is...

That constant vitroil on cable TV, talk to radio and in the blogosphere has poisoned the atmosphere to the point that members of Congress are unwilling to work with the White House

In the Lemon v. Kurtzman decision, the Supreme Court proposed a test for determining the constitutionality of government programs and laws; this test included...

That the government must have a secular purpose for the law or program, that the primary effect of the law or program must not be to advance or inhibit religion, and that the law or program must not entangle the government excessively with religion

The main argument against the need for a bill of rights was that...

The Constitution established a government of limited powers; because the government was not given the power to regulate individual liberties, no bill of rights was necessary

Shay's Rebellion was ultimately defeated by...

The Massachusetts militia

Which of the following was fought without a formal congressional declaration of war?

The Vietnam War

The plan presented at the Constitutional Convention generally favored by large states was...

The Virginia Plan

Of the following, which influences a president the most?

The White House staff

Demands for women's rights were born in large part from...

The abolitionist movement

One result of the Second Continental Congress was....

The adoption of the Declaration of Independence

Congress has a tendency to grant _______ discretion to those agencies involved in domestic and global security.

The broadest range of

A newspaper publishes a factually incorrect and highly negative story about a presidential candidate. That candidate sues the paper for libel. The courts are likely to rule which of the following?

The candidate will win damages (money) only if he can prove the paper knew the story was a lie when it printed it, but did so anyway

Abigail Fisher brought her lawsuit against the University of Texas arguing that the inclusion of race in university admissions violates....

The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

A popular election is the primary mechanism for democratic government in which model?

The majoritarian model

The text suggests that _________ may be one important reason personal persuasion is frequently not effective in advancing the president's agenda.

The opposition party may be focused on making the president look bad, rather than working to accomplish legislative goals

A vote on a bill in the Senate results in a tie. What would likely be the official outcome of the vote on the bill?

The president's party would prevail

Which of the following statements best described the legal status of Native Americans before they became U.S. citizens?

They were considered members of tribal nations whose relations with the United States were based on treaties

The ________ Amendment provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Thirteenth

Students demonstrating against the war in Iraq by wearing black armbands as a symbolic protest would probably be protected under which case ruling?

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Co. School District

One controversial action by President Bush following the September 11, 2001 attacks was...

To secretly authorize the National Security Agency (NSA) to wiretap telephones calls into and out of the United States

Which of the following is not cited in the text as a reason Americans are unhappy with Congress?

Too much cooperation with the president

Presidential appointees in the executive branch fill the top policymaking positions in government, and some 1000 of them require...

U.S. Senate confirmation

According to the text, the Obama administration's bailout of the financial services industry was...

Unprecedented

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

The _______ was intended to force Congress to decide whether committing troops to war zone is permissible.

War Powers Act

Allan Bakke's application to the University of California Medical School at Davis was rejected at least in part because he.....

Was white