CH.11 Quiz AP GoPo

In today's Congress, the mere threat of a Senate filibuster is extremely common, which means that a bill often needs the support of

60 Senators

The age at which the full benefits of social security can be paid to an individual born in 1960 or later is

67

Gerrymandering contributes to the

A and D are true

Which of the following is the correct sequential order for the policymaking process?

Agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, policy evaluation

The "trustee" role of congressional voting is commonly associated with the political philosopher

Edmund Burke

The Supreme Court has made all but which of the following rulings concerning race and redistricting?

Excessive racial gerrymandering violates the First Amendment's right of political association.

Social welfare policy in the United States today has been significantly shaped by the

Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Great Society

The power to declare war resides with the

House and Senate together.

In the congressional setting, casework refers to

Members helping constituents with problems

Which of these developments in Congress would not reflect a trend toward greater majoritarianism?

Members of Congress become more concerned about winning reelection.

Social Security is social insurance that provides economic assistance to people faced with

Options A, B, and C are true

The advantage of incumbency may be less in the Senate than in the House because

Senate seats attract better-known challengers than do House seats.

Which voting behavior by a representative indicates delegate behavior?

Voting according to the results of a telephone survey regarding the preference of district constituents

The term __________ refers to the process in which problems are defined as political issues.

agenda setting

Every two years, how many of the 435 House seats are up for reelection at the same time?

all

President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) enacted in 2010

all of the above

The national DREAM Act would

allow illegal immigrants brought to the united states as children to become eligible for legalized status

Congressionally approved spending for a specific purpose, sometimes referred to as "congressional pork," is also known as

an earmark

Since 1950, __________ of all House incumbents running for office have been reelected.

approximately 90 percent

The rules that govern floor debate in the House of Representatives

are a tool the majority party uses to help it control the legislative process

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.

The House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee are __________ committees that review portions of the budget that pertain to their area of responsibility.

authorization

If the president neither signs nor vetoes a bill within 10 days while Congress is in session, the bill

becomes law

The vice president

can break tie votes in the Senate.

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 role of appropriations committees is to

decide which programs will be funded

In 2011 congressional parties formally banned ________, which are pork-barrel projects that benefit specific districts or states

earmarks

Social Security and veterans' pensions, which provide benefits to which individuals have a legal right and which cannot be reduced without changing the law, are also referred to as

entitlements

Each of the 435 congressional districts in the House of Representatives must be

equal in population

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

gerrymandering

Efforts to draw boundaries to promote the election of minorities

have been more effective for blacks than for Hispanics.

A letter requesting that a bill held from Senate floor debate is also known as a(n)

hold

A key difference between the House and the Senate concerning bill procedures is the

house rules committee

A president can be impeached by the _________ and tried and removed from office by the __________.

house;senate

When making contributions to candidates for Congress, PACs tend to show a preference for

incumbents

Congressional oversight is often stereotyped as an opportunity for lawmakers to lash out at executive branch officials because of some scandal or mistake, but many lawmakers are advocates of the programs they oversee given these programs benefit their constituents back home. Thus, most oversight

is aimed at trying to find ways to improve programs.

You are a Washington lawyer who specializes in municipal finance, and you interact regularly with members of Congress, congressional committee staff, the bureaucracy, and others who make policy in this area. You are a member of a(n)

issue network

When the Senate votes to invoke cloture, it

limits the amount of time that may be spent debating a bill

In the wake of President Johnson's Great Society programs, critics of social welfare spending argued that antipoverty policies

made poverty more attractive by removing incentives to work.

The most powerful person in the Senate is the

majority leader

Congress can overturn a presidential veto with a

majority vote in the House and 60 votes in the Senate

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

markup

An underlying assumption of the concept of descriptive representation is that

minorities can be effectively represented only by people of their own kind.

Representatives elected from new districts after reapportionment tend to exhibit __________ than representatives from older districts.

more polarized voting patterns

Every two years, _________ of the Senate must stand for reelection.

one-third

It is often difficult for congressional party leaders to control rank-and-file members of Congress because

options A and B are true

The total amount of money in the federal budget scheduled to be spent in a given fiscal year is the budget

outlay

The national parties continue to be strong forces in the legislative process because

party leaders can help rank-and-file members get on preferred committees and climb the leadership ladder

The key feature of the Great Compromise was its provision for

population-based representation for states in the House and equal representation for states in the Senate.

The redistribution of seats among the states every ten years after a census is known as

reapportionment

When government intersperses itself as a referee, setting rules as to what kinds of companies can participate in what kinds of market activities, it is engaged in

regulation

A __________ is a temporary committee established to deal with issues that either overlap or fall outside the areas of expertise of standing committees.

select committee

All U.S. Senators were no longer chosen by state legislatures after the passage of the

seventeenth amendment

The federal government's single largest social welfare program is

social security

Government programs designed to provide the basic living conditions necessary for all citizens are called

social welfare programs

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

sometimes what constituents really want is not clear.

The most powerful office in the House of Representatives is the _________ and in the Senate it is the __________.

speaker of the house;majority leader

The House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are examples of

standing committees

__________ committees are responsible for raising the revenue to run the government.

tax

An incumbent advantage that permits members of Congress to keep in touch with constituents by sending mailings at the taxpayer's expense is known as

the franking privilege

The majority party gives the minority a percentage of seats on standing committees based on

the minority party's percentage of seats held in each house.

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 placed the responsibility for preparing the federal budget in the hands of

the president

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

A dispute over floor debate procedure in the House would be settled by

the rules committee

Which of the following powers is the exclusive power of the Senate?

to approve treaties

Social Security is referred to as a pay-as-you-go system, meaning that

today's workers support today's program beneficiaries

Each state has __________ Senators.

two

In the Senate, the starting time, length, and conditions of debate on legislation are set by

unanimous consent agreement

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