American Government final

writ of habeas corpus

A court order directing public officials who are holding a person in custody to bring the prisoner into court and explain the reasons for confinement is known as a(n):

filibuster

A delaying tactic by a senator or group of senators, using the Senate's unlimited debate rule to prevent a vote on a bill is the

order

A formal regulation governing executive branch operations issued by the president is called an executive

original intent

A judicial philosophy under which judges attempt to apply the values of the founders as expressed in the text of the Constitution to current conditions is called

covert action

A secret intelligence activity outside U.S. borders, undertaken with specific authorization by the president, is a

writ of certiorari

A writ issued by the Supreme Court, at its discretion, to order a lower court to prepare the record of a case and send it to the Supreme Court for review is called a(n)

Republican Vice President Dick Cheney could cast the tie-breaking vote if it were needed.

Although there was a 50-50 split of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate following the 2000 elections, the Republicans retained the upper hand because

solicitor general

An attorney in the Department of Justice who represents the U.S. government before the Supreme Court and any other courts is a(n)

whistle-blower

An employee of the federal government, or of a firm supplying the government, who reports waste, mismanagement, and/or fraud is called a

affirmative action

Any program whose goal is to overcome the results of past unequal treatment of minorities by giving them preferential treatment in admissions, hiring, promotions, or other aspects of life, is called _____________.

are tried in state and local courts.

Because civil disputes and most crimes are normally state offenses rather than federal crimes, they

the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

Beginning in the 1920s, the Supreme Court handed down a long series of decisions that gradually incorporated almost all of the protections of the Bill of Rights into the "liberty" guaranteed against state actions by

discretionary

Budgeted funds not earmarked for specific purposes, but available to be spent in accordance with the best judgment of a bureaucrat, are called __________ funds.

spend all appropriated funds

By passing the Budget and Impoundment Act, Congress requires the president to do which of the following?

every state shall have two senators

Changing population statistics do not affect Senate seats since the U.S. Constitution stipulates that, regardless of population

writing new legislation

Congress and the states can reverse a Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution by which of the following actions

state legislature in each state

Congressional district boundaries are drawn by

preside over the Senate and to vote in case of a tie in that body

Constitutionally, the only role given the vice president is to do which of the following?

adjudication

Decision making by federal bureaucrats as to whether a person or firm is failing to comply with laws or regulations is called

also made by the bureaucracy

Despite the popular impression that policy is decided by the president and Congress and merely implemented by the federal bureaucracy, in fact, policy is

affirmative racial gerrymandering

Drawing congressional district boundary lines to maximize minority representation is called

the "free world"

During the Cold War, the president of the United States was seen as the leader of

111th

Each congress is elected in even-numbered years and remains in session for two yrs. Congresses are #ed by session. currently, the ___ is in session.

confirmed by the Senate

Each of the fifteen cabinet departments is headed by a secretary who is appointed by the president and who must be

"person held to Service or Labour"

Embarrassed by the contradiction of slavery and their professed belief in "equality," the Founders avoided the term "slave" in the Constitution, instead using the euphemism

maintaining a healthy economy

Even though the president has little control over market conditions, the public holds the president responsible for

declare war

Even though the president is "Commander in Chief" of the armed forces, only Congress can

have the effect of law.

Formal regulations that appear in the Federal Register

Abraham Lincoln

In 1860, internal party divisions over the slavery issue led to a four-way race for the presidency and the election of:

NAACP

In 1905, W.E.B. Du Bois and a few other intellectuals met in Niagara Falls, Canada and formed the idea for which of the following nationwide organizations?

cruel and unusual punishment and due process of law

In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment, as then imposed, violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments' prohibitions against:

Brown vs. Board of education

In __________, the Supreme Court struck down a special admission program for minorities at a state medical school on the grounds that it excluded a white applicant because of his race and violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause.

Civil Service Commission

In order to establish a system for selecting government personnel based on merit, Congress passed the Pendleton Act in 1883, which created the

Speaker of the House

In the House of Representatives, the key leadership figure is the _________.

pass identical laws

No law can be passed and no money can be spent unless both the House and the Senate:

capital punishment.

Perhaps the most heated debate in criminal justice policy today concerns which of the following?

Trail of Tears

President Andrew Jackson's forced relocation of Cherokee Indians from Georgia to Oklahoma in 1838 is known as the _________.

Abraham Lincoln

President ___________ is at the top of nearly every expert's list as the greatest president in our nation's history

the defendant's race or ethnicity.

Pretrial release on bail can be denied on the basis of all the following reasons except

sunset

Proposed laws that require bureaucrats to justify their programs every five to seven years, or else the programs go out of existence, are called ____________laws

de facto segregation

Racial imbalances not directly caused by official actions but rather by residential patterns fall under the category of ____________.

nine

Since 1869, the membership of the Supreme Court has remained at ______ justices?

the vice president of the United States

The Constitution declares the presiding officer of the Senate to be which of the following individuals?

Congress

The Constitution does not govern the activities of private individuals; only __________ at the national level can outlaw discrimination in the private sector

"by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate."

The Constitution gives the president the power to make treaties with foreign nations

by and with the advice and consent of the Senate

The Constitution grants the president authority to appoint principal officers of the government

started the modern civil rights movement

The Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka stimulated black hopes and expectation, and did which of the following?

unanimous consent agreement

The Senate has no Rules Committee, as does the House, but relies instead on ___to govern considerations of a bill.

two-thirds

The Senate, following a trial that it conducts, can remove a federal official from office by ____ vote

wall of separation doctrine.

The Supreme Court's interpretation of the No Establishment Clause, that laws may not have as their purpose aid to one religion or aid to all religions, is called which of the following?

restricted the president to two elected terms

The Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, officially did which of the following?

makes no mention of victims' rights.

The U.S. Constitution includes fifteen specific guarantees of the rights of the accused, but:

"bound" by the Constitution and federal laws

The U.S. Constitution specifically obligates state judges to be

appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate

The U.S. Constitution specifies that all federal judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, shall be

Federal Reserve System

The ___________ is the most independent of all federal government agencies.

apportionment

The allocation of U.S. House of Representative seats to the states based on their population after each ten-year census is called

glass ceiling

The barriers to women's advancement to top positions in the corporate and financial worlds are often very subtle, giving rise to the phrase ___________.

Congressional Budget Office

The congressional support agency that supplies the House and Senate budget committees with its own budgetary analyses and economic forecasts is the

U.S. Supreme Court

The court that is the final interpreter of all matters involving the Constitution and federal laws and treaties is the

3 million

The federal bureaucracy consists of approximately how many civilian employees?

October 1

The federal government's fiscal year begins on which of the following dates?

judges should shape constitutional meaning to fit the needs of contemporary society

The idea behind judicial activism is that the Constitution is a living document whose strength lies in its flexibility and that

sovereign immunity

The legal doctrine stating that individuals can sue the government only with the government's consent is known as which of the following?

precedent

The legal principle that previous decisions should determine the outcome of current cases is called

deregulation

The lifting of government rules and bureaucratic supervision from business and professional activity is known as which of the following?

Homeland Security

The most recently formed department in the federal bureaucracy is the Department of

most powerful branch of government

The nation's Founders envisioned Congress as the first and

Homeland Security

The newest cabinet department, created in 2002 by the Bush administration, is called the Department of

original jurisdiction.

The power of a particular court to serve as the place where a given case is initially argued and decided is known as

review

The power of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, to declare laws of Congress, laws of the states, and actions of the president unconstitutional and invalid is called judicial

House of Representatives; Senate

The power to bring charges of impeachment is given to the ___________; the power to try all impeachments is given to the ___________.

plea bargaining

The practice of allowing defendants to plead guilty to lesser crimes than those with which they were originally charged in return for reduced sentences is known as what?

grant pardons to anyone convicted of a federal crime for any reason

The presidential pardon power is absolute; the president may

passed by Congress but not ratified by three-fourths of the states.

The proposed Equal Rights Amendment of 1972, which constitutionally would have guaranteed equality for women, was:

place personal liberty beyond the reach of government

The purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to limit governmental power over the individual, that is, to

allowing the decision of the lower court to stand

The refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a case creates law by doing which of the following?

executive priviledge

The right of a president to withhold confidential communications within the executive branch from other branches of government is called ____________.

the separate-but-equal doctrine.

The ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which held that segregated facilities were legal as long as the facilities were equal, is known as which of the following?

spoils system.

The selection of employees for government agencies on the basis of party loyalty, electoral support, and political influence is known as which of the following

clear and present danger doctrine

The standard used by the courts to determine if speech creates a serious and immediate danger to society and thus may be restricted is known as

trustee

The theory of representation in which representatives feel obligated to use their own best judgment about what is good for the nation as a whole in known as the ____ theory

fiscal

The yearly government accounting period, not necessarily the same as the calendar year, is called the __________year.

segregation itself was inherently unequal whether or not facilities were equal in all tangible respects.

Thurgood Marshall's goal in regard to segregated public schools was to prove that:

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Which of the following government agencies is responsible for eliminating discrimination in hiring, pay, and promotions, and for investigating charges of sexual harassment

National Reconnaissance Office

Which of the following intelligence community organizations is responsible for aircraft and satellite intelligence gathering?

Presidents must personally conduct on-the-scene investigations of situations before sending troops into action

Which of the following is not a provision of the 1973 War Powers Resolution?

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Which of the following organizations was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to monitor affirmative action programs in private employment?

economic recessions tend not to affect popularity

Which of the following statements is not true about presidential popularity?

The exclusionary rule

_________ is a rule of law that evidence found in an illegal search or resulting from an illegally obtained confession may not be admitted at trial.

Roe v. Wade

___________, the abortion issue case, became one of the most controversial cases in the Supreme Court's history.

bicameral

composed of two seperate chambers or houses