PLS101LowreyFinalch11-14
In deciding a case, a majority of the justices must be in agreement; if there is a tie, the lower-court decision is left standing.
TRUE
In recent years, the number of federal civilian employees covered by the civil-service system has fallen from almost 90% to just over half.
TRUE
In the U.S., the executive-branch bureaucracy serves two masters - the president and Congress.
TRUE
Judicial activism on the Supreme Court has often coincided with periods of society-wide division, conflict, and discord.
TRUE
Judicial review is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the U.S. political system that makes ours different from most others.
TRUE
Judicial review is the federal courts' chief weapon in the system of checks and balances on which the U.S. government is based.
TRUE
If you are indigent - without funds - your criminal case can be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court at no cost to you.
TRUE
In a 1983 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 'legislative veto' was unconstitutional because it was not subject to a presidential veto like other legislation.
TRUE
From the early-1980s to the present, the U.S. Supreme Court has gained, rather than lost, support among the American public.
FALSE At first, the Court was not tarnished by the war in Vietnam or by Watergate. However, the Court's recent rulings striking down state and federal restrictions on election-campaign contributions have tarnished the Court's reputation.
The size of the U.S. Supreme Court is now fixed by the Constitution at 8 justices and 1 chief justice.
FALSE No, the size of the Court is not addressed by the original Constitution or any amendments. Congress quickly assumed the power to determine the size of the Court and altered the number of justices on six different occasions - the last in 1869 - either to prevent appointments by a president or to influence decisions pending before the Court. Since then, the public has resisted further efforts to tamper with the size of the Court.
The typical president can exercise a lot of control over the lower federal courts.
FALSE Furthermore nominations to the federal district courts are heavily influenced by the preferences of the senators of the president's party from the state in which the vacancy occurs. And, perhaps even more importantly, when the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee is a member of the opposition party, he or she can usually delay indefinitely consideration of presidential nominees to the federal bench. Explanation: This delay is possible because the president's party is in the minority and hence is unlikely to muster the majority vote required to force consideration by the committee. For example, Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) blocked almost 100 of Clinton's judicial nominations to fill vacancies on the federal bench. The number of vacancies grew so high that the normally reserved Chief Justice Rehnquist uncharacteristically publicly rebuked the Senate for holding up needed appointments. During the first two years of George W. Bush's presidency, the new Democratic Chair, Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D- VT), followed a similar path.
The U.S. Supreme Court hears appeals from state trial, appellate, and supreme courts.
FALSE No, an appeal from the state courts can be made to the U.S. Supreme Court only after all state-level appeals have been exhausted - usually that means at the state supreme court.
Members of the executive-branch bureaucracy that are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate can be fired by the president only with the Senate's consent.
FALSE No, except for members of independent regulatory agencies, the president has the right of removal of presidential appointees - even those whose original appointment required Senate approval.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently made it easier to bring class-action suits to that court.
FALSE No, just the opposite. The conservative majority on the Court ruled that the Court would no longer hear most class- action suits seeking monetary damages unless each and every ascertainable member of the class was individually notified of the case.
The conservative bloc on the Court consistently adopts the 'strict-constructionist' view that the Supreme Court should rarely exercise judicial review and should instead defer to the judgment of elected officials.
FALSE No, on this point Wilson is clearly wrong. The conservative bloc often adopts the 'activist' posture in striking down (and not deferring to the elected) federal and state officials' actions, when those actions contradict core conservative values. Three recent examples where the conservatives were in the majority in exercising judicial review: U.S. v. Morrison. The Court struck down the Violence Against Women Act on the grounds that Congress had overstated the scope of its Commerce-clause power in providing civil remedies to victims of spouse abuse. Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. The Court ruled that New Jersey's Supreme Court was in error in applying the state's public-accommodations law to prevent the BSA from denying membership and a scoutmaster position to an openly gay male. California Democratic Party v. California. The Court struck down the 'blanket' primary adopted by a large majority of California voters in a 1992 referendum holding such primaries to be a violation of a political party's right to freedom of association.
The common pathologies found in government bureaucracies are counteracted by the dispersion of power that defines our system of government.
FALSE No, quite the opposite. Our federal-presidential system of government makes bureaucratic pathologies worse than they would be in unitary-parliamentary systems. Mission conflict and duplication as well as bureaucratic imperialism all result because Congress, in setting up agencies and programs, is responding to conflicting interests in society by often asking the bureaucracy to achieve large numbers of different, partially inconsistent, goals. Certainly, the red tape and waste in the federal bureaucracy is exacerbated by the dispersion of power and representation in our federal and presidential system.
Since the 1930s, Congress has rarely used the 'legislative veto' to limit executive-branch discretionary authority.
FALSE No, since 1932, Congress has inserted a 'legislative veto' provision into several hundred congressional statutes. Such a statute authorizes the executive-branch department or agency to engage in some activity but makes that authorization contingent upon later disapproval by a prescribed vote majority in either a committee, chamber, or both houses of Congress that is not subject to presidential veto.
Spending from 'trust funds' is subject to the annual appropriations process.
FALSE No, such 'trust funds' are set up to pay for the benefits legally mandated in 'entitlement' programs (such as social- security and veterans' pensions). Therefore, these legally mandated payments cannot be reduced in the appropriations process. To be reduced, Congress would have to pass legislation repealing the legally mandated entitlement payments.
An adverse decision in a state-court criminal case in which the defendant is charged with violating only a state law appealed out of the state court system into the federal court system.
FALSE No, such an appeal can be made to the U.S. Supreme Court, but only after all state-level appeals have been exhausted, and only on the grounds that some right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, federal statute, or treaty has been violated. As we shall see, the U.S. Supreme Court exercises its discretion to grant review to relatively few such appeals. But, when the Court does hear such an appeal, it can review state court rulings even when the federal courts had no jurisdiction over the original dispute.
Being a taxpayer usually gives you standing to challenge the constitutionality of a government action.
FALSE No, that is not USUALLY good enough to demonstrate standing to bring suit. For example, a lot of taxpayers don't want their tax money spent in certain ways, but the appropriate remedy is to use political means, not the courts, to change that spending. However, if the case involves a claim that government has improperly denied or abridged a 1st-Amendment right, then taxpayer suits are sometimes allowed.
In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a sitting president could not be sued until after he had left office.
FALSE No, the ruling went the other way. Paula Jones was allowed to bring civil suit against President Clinton for sexual harassment. It was because Clinton lied under oath about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky in the Jones trial, that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr recommended to the House of Representatives that Clinton should be impeached for obstruction of justice.
Few executive-branch agencies have neither a presidential nor a congressional orientation and can act somewhat independently of both.
FALSE No, there are over 100 such 'independent' agencies. These tend to be the executive agencies that exist separate from the 15 cabinet departments. They fall into 3 categories: 1) independent regulatory agencies (EPA, CPSC, FCC, FTC, NLRB, NRC, SEC, Federal Reserve Board, etc.) that were established outside cabinet departments by the U.S. Congress to regulate some aspect of the U.S. economy; 2) independent administrative agencies (GSA, NASA) that were established outside cabinet departments by the U.S. Congress to provide a product or service to other federal government departments and agencies; and 3) public corporations (AMTRAK, FDIC, FSLIC, LSC, NSF, TVA, USPS) that were established outside cabinet departments by the U.S. Congress to provide a product or service to the public that the private sector was unwilling to provide (because of insufficient profit incentives).
Congressional delegation of authority to executive-branch departments and agencies did not become commonplace until the 1960s.
FALSE No, this delegation proliferated during FDR's New Deal of the 1930s after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its earlier ruling that such congressional delegations of authority were unconstitutional.
Strict-constructionist judges tend to be politically conservative; activist judges tend to be politically liberal.
FALSE No, this is a widely-stated but clearly incorrect view. Relatively few judges or justices have been consistent in their approaches to judicial review - most are sometimes strict-constructionist and at other times activist in their decisions. Which approach they follow in any particular case depends not on some inflexible commitment to one approach or the other, but instead on whether the action of government that they are asked to review threatens or defends their core political values.
The result of this ruling was that Madison had to deliver Marbury's commission.
FALSE No, to Madison's (and Jefferson's) great surprise, Marbury lost the case. Marshall had tricked them. Marshall had succeeded in setting the precedent for judicial review in a manner that President Jefferson and the Antifederalists could not block. They had mistakenly assumed that Marshall and the Court would rule in favor of Marbury and order Madison to deliver the commission. At that point, Jefferson was planning to refuse to comply and provoke a confrontation with the Court. Instead, by striking down a small (and otherwise unimportant) provision of an act of Congress that Marbury had used to bring his case to the Court, Marshall left Jefferson empty-handed, with no Court-ordered demand to contest.
Political appointments and patronage positions constitute a large percentage of all federal jobs.
FALSE Only a very small fraction (probably no more than 3%) of the federal government employees who are 'excepted' from the civil-service system are political appointments, i.e., individuals selected for policy-making and politically sensitive positions on the basis of partisan or ideological considerations.
For an issue to get on the nation's political agenda, it just needs to be a problem of significant proportion.
FALSE There must be a crisis or a change in the political mood -- or both.
In the U.S., not many federal bureaucracies (departments and agencies) share their functions with related departments and agencies in state and local governments.
FALSE This divided authority encourages federal bureaucrats to play one branch of government against the other and make heavy use of the media in doing so. In parliamentary democracies, there is much greater hierarchical control of the bureaucracy by the prime minister and cabinet ministers.
Under Chief Justice John Marshall (1801-1835), the Supreme Court greatly expanded its own powers and also the powers of the federal government over the states.
FALSE Usually, quite the opposite. Appointed by President Andrew Jackson because he was an advocate of states' rights, Taney led the Court to limit federal supremacy. There was one case where Taney did limit a territory's right -- the right of a free territory to not render a fugitive slave back to his slave-state owner. In the infamous and disastrous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision, Taney rejected Scott's claim that temporary residence in a territory in which slavery was banned by the Missouri Compromise had made him free. The opinion declared that Congress had no power to forbid slavery in any territory and thus struck down the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional. This decision inflamed the divided nation and made the Civil War all but inevitable.
'Senatorial courtesy' is the tradition that the Senate will not confirm presidential nominees for federal offices in a particular state (e.g., a U.S. Marshal, customs official, or a federal district court judges) unless they have the endorsement of the senators of the president's party from that state.
TRUE
A 'class-action' suit is a case brought into court by a person on behalf of not only him- or herself but also all other people in similar circumstances.
TRUE
A U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring some action to be unconstitutional can be changed only by amending the Constitution, by a change in the views or membership of the Court, or by a lack of enforcement by the executive branch.
TRUE
A bureaucracy is a large, complex, and hierarchical organization composed of appointed officials.
TRUE
A political coalition is an alliance among different interest groups (factions) or political parties to achieve some political goal. An example is the coalition sometimes formed between Democrats and moderate Republicans.
TRUE
Although presidents can fire appointed executive-branch bureaucrats (except for independent regulatory agency members), Congress has a great deal of influence over those bureaucrats' behavior.
TRUE
Although presidents do sometimes manage to tilt the Supreme Court in a liberal or conservative direction by the nominations they make, it is sometimes difficult for a president to predict how a justice will behave once seated on the Court.
TRUE
An 'amicus curiae' is an interested party not directly involved in the case, who presents to the Court a 'friend of the court' oral argument or written brief.
TRUE
An 'iron triangle' is a durable and symbiotic relationship among an executive-branch bureaucracy, an interest group, and a congressional committee or subcommittee.
TRUE
An 'issue network' is larger and more complex than an 'iron triangle.'
TRUE
An important non-financial barrier to getting a case heard in federal court is presented by the difficulties in demonstrating 'standing' to sue.
TRUE
An informal rule of judicial decision making is 'stare decision,' meaning let the decision stand.
TRUE
Bureaucratic malfunctioning is not exclusive to government.
TRUE
By tradition, the Court usually includes an 'Opinion of the Court' explaining its judgment. Sometimes the opinion is brief and unsigned - that is called a 'per curium' opinion.
TRUE
Chief Justice John Marshall, speaking for the unanimous Court, announced that Madison was wrong to withhold the commission that Marbury sought and that the federal courts had the power to issue writs to compel public officials, like Madison, to do their prescribed duty.
TRUE
Class-action suits are common because lawyers often find it more profitable to themselves to bring a suit on behalf of thousands of people rather than on behalf of just one person.
TRUE
Compared to Europe, the U.S. has far less government ownership of economic enterprises but far more government regulation of privately owned businesses.
TRUE
Compared to earlier times, modern presidents have devoted a great deal more staff time and energy to screening and recruiting qualified candidates for the federal bench - but still almost always from within their own party.
TRUE
Congress - not the president - creates executive branch departments and agencies.
TRUE
Congress has also created lower federal courts that have specialized jurisdictions that are called federal 'legislative' courts - whose judges have fixed terms of office, can be more easily removed, and can have their salaries reduced.
TRUE
Congress has created lower federal courts beneath the Supreme Court that are called federal 'constitutional' courts - whose judges can only be removed by conviction of impeachment charges, nor may their salaries be reduced while they are in office.
TRUE
Congress has given the U.S. Supreme Court the power to control its workload by selecting, in most instances, which petitions for review that it wishes to grant.
TRUE
Congress influences - and sometimes determines precisely - the behavior of executive-branch departments and agencies by the statutes it enacts.
TRUE
Congressional committees sometimes request 'committee clearance,' i.e., that an executive-branch department or agency consult with the committee chairperson before taking certain actions.
TRUE
Employees hired outside the competitive-examination civil-service system are part of the 'excepted service.' They now make up almost half of all civilian employees of the federal government.
TRUE
Even when bureaucrats come from roughly the same social backgrounds, their policy views seem to reflect those of Explanation: the department or agency that they work for.
TRUE
Even when bureaucrats come from roughly the same social backgrounds, their policy views seem to reflect those of the department or agency that they work for.
TRUE
Fiscal policy is intended to control the balance between government revenues (primarily taxes) and government spending
TRUE
If the government is going to address a problem, that problem must first get onto the political agenda.
TRUE
Judicial review' is a power not limited to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lower-level federal and state courts also exercise this power to review actions of government and to declare them constitutional or unconstitutional.
TRUE
Justice Owen J. Roberts in 1937 yielded to public opinion in a way that Chief Justice Taney had not in 1857.
TRUE
Legal external constraints imposed on executive-branch agencies and departments that significantly limit their discretionary authority include: civil-service regulations, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
TRUE
Marshall's opinion held that, while the lower federal courts did have the constitutional authority to redress Marbury's grievance with Madison, the Supreme Court did NOT have such power.
TRUE
Monetary policy is intended to expand or contract the nation's money supply.
TRUE
Most cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court come to it by means of a petition for a 'writ of certiorari.'
TRUE
Most government departments and agencies are dominated by people who have grown up in that department or agency, have not served in any other, and have been in government service most of their lives.
TRUE
Neither the president nor the entire federal government can guarantee a strong economy.
TRUE
No money can be spent by the federal bureaucracy unless it has first been authorized and appropriated by Congress.
TRUE
Political external constraints on executive-branch departments and agencies are imposed by the president, Congress, interest groups, and the news media.
TRUE
Simple policy disagreements are generally not considered adequate grounds for trying to impeach a federal judge. Hence the impeachment process is not an effective tool for Congress to influence the federal courts.
TRUE
Since 1792, congressional investigations of the bureaucracy have been a regular feature of U.S. politics.
TRUE
Since many federal agencies and departments were created explicitly to promote some sector of society - agriculture, business, labor, the environment, minorities - it is not surprising that interest groups representing these sectors have substantial influence over the departments and agencies designed to serve them.
TRUE
Some matters are exclusively under the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
TRUE
Sovereign immunity' is the doctrine that individuals cannot sue the government without its consent.
TRUE
The 'activist' approach to judicial review holds that judges should use judicial review more frequently.
TRUE
The 'strict-construction' approach to judicial review holds that judges should use judicial review sparingly.
TRUE
The Civil War and following industrial revolution sparked a significant expansion in the size of the federal bureaucracy.
TRUE
The Senate's power to reject presidential appointments is a more significant source of congressional influence over the federal judiciary.
TRUE
The Supreme Court sometimes overrules itself, i.e., rejects as unconstitutional a principle laid down in an earlier decision.
TRUE
The U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over all cases involving two or more states and over all cases involving the U.S. and one or more states.
TRUE
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deeply divided with different majorities forming in different cases.
TRUE
The U.S. courts of appeals have no original jurisdiction and hear only appeals from lower federal courts.
TRUE
The common malfunctions found in government (and non-governmental) bureaucracies are caused or made worse by the self-interest and shortsightedness universal to human nature.
TRUE
The current membership of the Court has no clear ideological bloc that consistently is in the majority on most cases. The current Court has three blocs (Wilson's analysis is out of date):
TRUE
The dominant issue facing the courts from the end of the Civil War through the Great Depression of the 1930s was the debate over when the economy could be regulated by state and national governments.
TRUE
The fact that the U.S. has more lawyers in proportion to our population than practically every other nation is more of a symptom rather than a cause of our high volume of litigation.
TRUE
The federal civil-service system was designed to recruit qualified individuals for government civilian employment on the basis of merit, not party patronage, and to retain and promote them on the basis of performance, not political favoritism.
TRUE
The federal government's top trial lawyer is the solicitor general of the United States.
TRUE
The federal income tax was not a significant source of revenue until WWII.
TRUE
The national political mood can change when interest groups, the mass media, or government institutions take an interest in an issue.
TRUE
The number of blacks, Hispanics, and women serving on federal courts has increased significantly in both Republican and Democratic administrations since the mid-1970s.
TRUE
The number of civilians working for the federal government is less today than it was during WWII.
TRUE
The suit by Marbury requested that the U.S. Supreme Court issue a writ of mandamus ordering Madison to deliver the paperwork necessary to complete Marbury's appointment as a federal judge.
TRUE
The vast majority of all cases heard by the federal courts begin in the district courts.
TRUE
The volume of regulations issued and the amount of money spent by the federal bureaucracy have increased much faster than the number of bureaucrats who write the regulations and spend the money.
TRUE
There is an inverse relationship between reducing 'red tape' and solving any of the other major forms of bureaucratic pathology.
TRUE
Under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (1836-1864), states' rights were weakened by the Court.
TRUE
Unlike most of Europe, each party to a civil lawsuit in this country must pay its own way to bring the case to trial.
TRUE
Up until the mid-1930s, the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court tended to be political conservatives who vigorously exercised judicial review to strike down various attempts by the federal and state governments to regulate business.
TRUE
When the Court reaches a unanimous or majority decision, it then announces the 'Judgment of the Court.'
TRUE
Wilson says that the U.S. has a largely free-market, capitalist economy rather than a government-run economy.
TRUE
