AP Gov 1

Bill of Attainder

A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of pains and penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without privilege of a judicial trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself.

Commander in Chief

A commander-in-chief is the person or body exercising supreme operational command and control of a nation's military forces or significant elements of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military competencies that reside in a nation-state's executive leadership; either a head of state, a head of government, a minister of defence, a national cabinet or some other collegial body.

Formula Grants

A formula grant is a United States federal grant specifying a precise formula in the legislation creating the program. Formula grants include quantifiable elements, such as population, amount of tax effort, proportion of population unemployed or below poverty level, density of housing, or rate of infant mortality.

Privileges and Immunities

Article IV provides that "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities in the several states." The purpose of the clause was to facilitate the unification of the independent states into one nation so that citizens traveling throughout the country would receive the same treatment as the citizens of the states through which they passed. The Privileges and Immunities Clause (U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, also known as the Comity Clause) prevents a state from treating citizens of other states in a discriminatory manner. Additionally, a right of interstate travel may plausibly be inferred from the clause. Article IV provides that "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." While the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," it is the Article IV provision which affects interstate relationships.

Supremacy Clause

Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution is commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause. It establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions

Federal Regime

As one in which local units of government have a specially protected existence and can make some final decisions over some governmental activities.

Categorical ( Project ) Grants

Categorical grants are grants, issued by the United States Congress, which may be spent only for narrowly defined purposes. Categorical grants are the main source of federal aid to state and local government, can be used only for specific purposes and for helping education or categories of state and local spending. Categorical grants are distributed either on a formula basis or a project basis. For project grants, states compete for funding; the federal government selects specific projects based on merit. Formula grants, on the other hand, are distributed based on a standardized formula set by Congress.

Devolution

Devolve into states the national governments functions to areas such as welfare, health care, and job training. Transfer of power to a lower level from central government.

Judicial Review

Judicial review is the idea, fundamental to the US system of government, that the actions of the executive and legislative branches of government are subject to review and possible invalidation by the judicial branch. Judicial review allows the Supreme Court to take an active role in ensuring that the other branches of government abide by the constitution. Judicial review was established in the classic case of Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803).

Marble Cake Federalisn

Marble Cake Federalism is a form of federalism where there is mixing of powers, resources, and programs between and among the national, state, and local governments. Federalism is a system of government in which power is divided between a central government and regional or sub-divisional governments. In marble cake federalism there will be an intermingling of all levels of government in policies and programming. This is also known as co-operative federalism.

McCullough V. Maryland

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland. Though the law, by its language, was generally applicable to all banks not chartered in Maryland, the Second Bank of the United States was the only out-of-state bank then existing in Maryland, and the law was recognized in the court's opinion as having specifically targeted the Bank of the U.S. The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, which allowed the Federal government to pass laws not expressly provided for in the Constitution's list of express powers, provided those laws are in useful furtherance of the express powers of Congress under the Constitution. This case established two important principles in constitutional law. First, the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. Second, state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.

Nullification

Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. The theory of nullification has never been legally upheld by federal courts.

Federal System

One in which sovereignty is shared, so that in some matters the national government is supreme and in other matters the states are supreme.

Unitary System

One in which sovereignty is wholly in the hands of the national government, so that the states and localities its are dependent on its will.

Confederation

One in which the states are sovereign and the national government is allowed to do only that which the states permit.

Full Faith and Credit

The Full Faith and Credit Clause—Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution—provides that the various states must recognize legislative acts, public records, and judicial decisions of the other states within the United States. It states that "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." The statute that implements the clause, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1738, further specifies that "a state's preclusion rules should control matters originally litigated in that state." The Full Faith and Credit Clause ensures that judicial decisions rendered by the courts in one state are recognized and honored in every other state. It also prevents parties from moving to another state to escape enforcement of a judgment or to relitigate a controversy already decided elsewhere, a practice known as forum shopping.

Mandates

The federal government tells states governments what it must do, period.

Separation of Powers

The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle,[1] is a model for the governance of a state (or who controls the state). The model was first developed in ancient Greece. Under this model, the state is divided into branches, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with the powers associated with the other branches. The typical division of branches is into a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in a parliamentary system where the executive and legislature (and sometimes parts of the judiciary) are unified.

Conditions of Aid

The traditional control on state governmental activities by federal government where states must do what the federal wants to get grant money.

Dual Federalism

Though the national goverent was supreme in its sphere, the states were equally supreme in theirs, and that these two spheres of action should and could be kept seperate. Dual federalism is a political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments in clearly defined terms, with state governments exercising those powers accorded to them without interference from the federal government. Dual federalism is defined in contrast to cooperative federalism, in which federal and state governments collaborate on policy. Dual and cooperative federalism are also known as 'layer cake' and 'marble cake' federalism, respectively, due to the distinct layers of layer cake and the more muddled appearance of marble cake.

Discretionary Grant

A grant (or cooperative agreement) for which the federal awarding agency generally may select the recipient from among all eligible recipients, may decide to make or not make an award based on the programmatic, technical, or scientific content of an application, and can decide the amount of funding to be awarded.

Necessary and Proper Clause

Also known as the "elastic clause," this clause is one of the most powerful in the Constitution. It allows the Government of the United States 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." This has been used for all types of federal actions including requiring integration in the states.

Cooperative Federalism

Cooperative federalism (1930s-1970s) is a concept of federalism in which national, state, and local governments interact cooperatively and collectively to solve common problems, rather than making policies separately but more or less equally (such as the dual federalism of the 19th century United States) or clashing over a policy in a system dominated by the national government.

Revenue Sharing

It provided for the distribution of around 6 billion a year in federal funds to states and localities, with no requirements as to matching funds and freedom to spend the money on almost any governmental purpose.

Block Grants

Money from the national government for programs in certain general areas that the states can use at their discretion within broad guidelines set band congress. A large sum of money granted by national government to regional government with only general provisions.

Federalism

Political system in which there are local (territorial, regional, provincial, state, or municipal) units of government as well as national government that can make final decisions wih respect to at least some governmental activities and whose existence is specially protected.

Republicanism

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a society or state as a republic (la. res publica), where the head of state is a representative of the people who hold popular sovereignty rather than the people being subjects of the head of state. The head of state is typically appointed by means other than heredity, often through elections.

Sovereignty

Supreme or ultimate political authority. A sovereign government is one that is legally and politically independent of any other government.

US v Lopez

United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995) was the first United States Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA) made it unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that he knew or had reasonable cause to believe was a school zone. Alfonso Lopez, Jr. (D), a 12th-grade student, carried a concealed and loaded handgun into his high school and was arrested and charged under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. The next day, the state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged Lopez with violating the Act. The District Court denied Lopez's motion to dismiss the indictment, concluding that the GFSZA was a constitutional exercise of Congress' power pursuant to the Commerce Clause of Article I. The Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the Act exceeded Congress' power under the Commerce Clause and was therefore unconstitutional. The Supreme Court granted cert.

Layer Cake Federalism

Views the Constitution as giving a limited list of powers—primarily foreign policy and national defense—to the national government, leaving the rest to the sovereign states. Each level of government is dominant within its own sphere. The Supreme Court serves as the umpire between the national government and the states in disputes over which level of government has responsibility for a particular activity.