Government Test 1

Which of the following is the best example of a substantive civil liberty?

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion."

Women were guaranteed the right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which was ratified in

1920

How many amendments are there to the U.S. Constitution?

27

In dealing with the issue of gays in the military, President Bill Clinton established a

A don't ask, don't tell policy

Compared with the Articles of Confederation, federalism under the Constitution has led to

Greater centralized power

What is the standard for determining guilt in criminal cases?

Guilt must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt."

The first prerequisite to increasing political efficacy is

Increasing political knowledge

At what level of scrutiny do courts review cases involving gender discrimination?

Intermediate

What was a major reason that the slogan "states' rights" became tarnished in the 1950s and 1960s?

It had been used by southern opponents of the civil rights movement to support racial segregation.

How does the United States Constitution create a system that underrepresents urban areas?

It provides each state with two senators regardless of population.

The term laissez-faire means

Leave alone

The American experience with civil rights suggests which of the following things about political change in the United States?

Legislatures need constitutional authority to act from the courts, and the courts need legislative assistance to implement court orders and focus political support.

The Constitution says which of the following things about relationships between states?

No state shall enter into a contract or agreement with another state without the approval of Congress.

The struggle of competing interest groups for governmental influence is called

Pluralism

"One person, one vote" reflects the principle of

Political Equality

The belief that you can influence how your government acts is called

Political efficacy

About what did Justice Potter Stewart confess, "I know it when I see it"?

Pornography

The principle of ______ gives the federal government the power to override any state or local law in one particular area of policy.

Preemption

Which of the following statements about property restrictions on the right to vote in the United States is true?

Property restrictions on the right to vote were in effect early in the country's history but were eliminated by 1828.

"Strict scrutiny" is the level of judicial review the federal courts give to all cases that involve

Racial classification

Economic policies that attempt to benefit the poor by taxing and spending are referred to as

Redistributive Programs

Why were attempts by Congress to regulate child labor and factory conditions in local workplaces struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in the late nineteenth century?

Regulating local workplaces was beyond the scope of the understanding of interstate commerce at the time and was, therefore, seen to be an unconstitutional exercise of police power by the federal government.

What did the New Jersey Plan propose for Congress?

Representation would be equal for each state.

Which rights do not fall under constitutional arguments in favor of the right to privacy?

Right to use pornography

If a person believes that the Constitution should not be amended by judges and that judges should adhere closely to the document's text when deciding cases, this person believes in

Strict construction

Which constitutional amendment has been used to restrict the scope of authority by the federal government over the states?

Tenth

Which of the following statements about the House and the Senate is false?

The House has the power to overturn a president's veto while the Senate does not.

Which of the following possesses the sole power to create revenue bills?

The House of Representatives

Which of the following was a way the framers tried to make the Senate a check against excessive democracy?

The Senate has staggered terms in office

The essential dilemma of a limited government raised by the ratification debates is

a government too weak to do harm also cannot do good.

What is a grand jury?

a jury that determines whether there is enough evidence to justify a trial

The supremacy clause

announces that the Constitution and all laws made under it are superior to any state laws.

Successful amendments to the Constitution

are most commonly concerned with the structure or composition of the government.

The Antifederalists argued that the powers of government should be limited by

both confining the powers of the federal government to certain narrowly defined areas and adding a bill of rights to the Constitution.

Shays's Rebellion was significant because it

convinced many observers that the government of the Confederation had become dangerously inefficient and indecisive.

The Federalists believed that the powers of government could be limited by

creating an internal system of checks and controls within government.

What is the name for school segregation that results from racially divided neighborhoods rather than state laws?

de facto

Legally enforced segregation in public schools is a form of ______ discrimination.

de jure

olitical apathy among Americans hurts which core political value the most?

democracy

The Three-fifths Compromise

determined that three out of every five slaves would be counted for purposes of representation and taxation.

The right against ______ prevents persons from being tried twice for the same crime.

double jeopardy

In general, Americans' trust in their government has ______ since the 1960s.

fallen sharply

Freedom of speech and of the press have a special place in American democracy because

free and open debate is an essential mechanism for determining the quality and validity of competing ideas.

To draw voting districts so that one group or party is unfairly advantaged is called

gerrymandering

The words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance

in the midst of the Cold War, as a response to the "godless communism" of the Soviet Union.

The term marble cake federalism is meant to refer to what development?

intergovernmental cooperation blurring the lines between different layers of government

One reason for the Constitution's longevity is that

it did not confer permanent advantage on any one set of economic or social forces.

Suffragists called the Statue of Liberty "the greatest hypocrisy of the nineteenth century" because

it was supposed to represent "liberty," yet women could not vote in the United States.

Survey data shows that the level of Americans' political knowledge is

low and spotty

The controversy over suspicionless drug tests at school and in the workplace pits the government's war on drugs against the right

o privacy from unwarranted searches.

The most common method of passing an amendment to the Constitution is Correct Answer

passage in both houses of Congress by a two-thirds vote, followed by a majority vote in three-fourths of the state legislature.

Which of the following types of speech receives the greatest level of First Amendment protection?

political speech that stops short of inciting violence

The Constitution's Preamble, beginning with the words "We the People," is an illustration of what principle?

popular sovereignty

Shays's Rebellion was an attempt to

prevent the state of Massachusetts from foreclosing on the lands of debt-ridden farmers.

When the government blocks the publication of material it does not want released, this is known as

prior restraint.

The Founders

provided protections for political protest in the Constitution because they believed elections were not enough to protect political freedom.

The substantive constraints found in the Bill of Rights

put limits on what government shall and shall not have the power to do.

The Great Compromise led to the

recreation of a bicameral congress

n the University of Michigan affirmative action cases, the Supreme Court

rejected mechanical point systems for university admissions but upheld highly individualized affirmative action policies that were designed to promote diversity.

The full faith and credit clause of the Constitution

requires states to normally honor each other's public acts and legal decisions.

Desegregating schools in northern states proved to be difficult because

segregation in the North was generally de facto, the product of both segregated housing and acts of private discrimination that were hard to prove.

According to the text, what were the essential documents of the American Founding?

the 1960s, when the right of African Americans to vote was enforced by federal laws.

Which clause of the Constitution has been critical in allowing the growth of national power?

the commerce clause

Judicial review is the power of

the courts to decide on the constitutionality of actions taken by the other branches of government.

The wall of separation between church and state is best found in what clause of the Constitution?

the establishment clause

The Bill of Rights is the

the first ten amendments of the Constitution

The idea of a "living constitution" means

the judiciary can shape the interpretation of the Constitution in line with contemporary problems and values.

Members of Congress have frequently proposed a constitutional amendment to make flag burning a crime because

the only way to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling that flag burning is protected speech is through a constitutional amendment.

The term eminent domain describes

the power of the government to take private property for public use.

What does the term redlining refer to?

the practice of banks refusing to make loans to people living in certain neighborhoods

To amend the Constitution requires a ______ vote by Congress, and approval by ______ of the states. `

two thirds; three fourths

Since 1973, the right to an abortion has been

upheld, but narrow in its scope

The takings clause states that government may not take private property

without just compensation

Which level of government writes the majority of criminal laws?

The state government

Which of the following statements about America's prison population is false?

There are no drug offenders in prison

Why did the delegates at the Philadelphia Convention turn down the idea of including a list of citizens' rights in the Constitution?

They believed that since the federal government was already limited to its expressed powers, further protection of citizens was not needed.

At the Constitutional Convention, the plan to create a Congress where representation was distributed according to population was called the

Virginia Plan

The Supreme Court formally articulated the right to privacy in a case involving

Access to birth control

Affirmative action is very controversial because

Americans argue about whether it promotes or restrains equality.

The fact that the tax code in the United States is more advantageous to wealthy citizens than that of almost any other Western nation supports the claim that

Americans generally tolerate economic inequality

In American political culture, economic freedom means

Capitalism

In 1870, Congress passed a law forbidding which of the following immigrant groups from becoming U.S. citizens?

Chinese

Low voter turnout and political apathy endanger

Democracy

What observation did philosopher Immanuel Kant make in his 1795 essay "Toward Perpetual Peace"?

Democratic regimes seldom make war on each other.

In the 1990s, the Supreme Court's "federalism revolution" was

Designed to return more power to the states

______ describes the strategy of delegating a policy program to a lower level of government.

Devolution

One argument for a strong federal government is its role in ensuring ______ across states.

Equality

The Lemon test involves what part of the Constitution?

Establishment

The ______ rule forbids the introduction in trial of any piece of evidence obtained illegally.

Ex Post Facto

During the Philadelphia Convention, in order to win concessions from large states, representatives from smaller states like Delaware threatened to

Form alliances with foreign nations

Which president presided over the New Deal?

Franklin Roosevelt

Which of the following statements is true?

The United States has a greater gap in income between the poorest and richest than any other developed nation.

The first and most famous test for determining when the government could intervene to suppress political speech was called the

The clear and present danger test

Why did President Dwight Eisenhower deploy federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957?

The governor of Arkansas mobilized the Arkansas National Guard to block the enforcement of a federal court order to integrate Little Rock Central High School.

Throughout American history, the concept of liberty has been linked to the

The idea of limited government

What was one effect of dual federalism during the early Republic?

The national government was unable to raise sufficient amounts of money through taxes and tariffs.

Which of the following statements about gender equality is false?

The percentage of female representatives in state legislatures has declined over the last twenty years.

The Federalists believed that the most apparent source of tyranny was

The popular majority

What is the most important check on majority rule in the United States?

The rights enumerated by the Bill of Rights