question

A U.S. Senator has a _____-year term.

answer

6

question

Which of the following does NOT typically affect an individual's decision to run for elected office?

answer

The individual's ability to meet the extensive list of educational requirements defined by local, state, and federal laws

question

Which of the following is the best definition of a constituent?

answer

It is a person who lives in the district represented by a member of the legislature

question

Congress is a _____ legislature with ____ members

answer

bicameral; 535

question

A bicameral legislature is one that has ______.

answer

Two chambers or houses

question

According to _______ representation, a legislator should be viewed as a person who is hired to represent the interests of his or her constituents.

answer

Agency

question

A senator or representative running for re-election is called the ______.

answer

Incumbent

question

The process of allocating congressional seats among the fifty states is called _____.

answer

Apportionment

question

The larger, more heterogeneous constituencies and longer terms of senators means that they are more

answer

likely to consider new ideas and are better able to act as the agents for groups and interests organized on a statewide or national basis

question

Which of the following statements concerning the representation of women and minorities in the U.S. Congress is true?

answer

Representation of women and minorities has increased over the past two decades, but is not comparable to their proportions in the general population

question

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

answer

On many issues, constituents do not have very strong views and representatives are free to act as they think best without fear of electoral reprisals

question

Who is the Speaker of the House?

answer

The elected leader of the majority party in the House is the Speaker

question

Who has the most real power in the Senate?

answer

The majority and minority leaders

question

Who decides which committee assignments members of the House of Representatives receive?

answer

Each party's own steering and policy committee

question

The jurisdiction of standing committees

answer

is defined by the subject matter of legislation, which often parallels the major cabinet departments or agencies

question

The House Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over ________.

answer

taxes, trade, and entitlement programs

question

Congressional leaders form ____ committees when they want to take up an issue that falls between the jurisdiction of existing committees, to highlight an issue, or to investigate a particular problem.

answer

Select

question

Which of the following is the best definition of a congressional caucus?

answer

Unofficial groups of representatives or senators sharing similar interests or opinions

question

A proposed piece of legislation is called a _____.

answer

bill

question

______ percent of all proposed bills die in the committee phase.

answer

Ninety-five

question

A closed or an open rule refers to congressional provisions regarding

answer

floor debate on a bill

question

Cloture is

answer

the process by which three-fifths of the Senate can end a filibuster

question

A filibuster allows members of the Senate to

answer

prevent a vote on a bill by speaking continuously on the floor

question

Conference committees are

answer

temporary, involve members from both houses of Congress, and are charged with reaching a compromise on legislation once it has been passed by both the House and the Senate

question

A _____ veto occurs when Congress adjourns during a ten-day period after presenting the president with a bill and he or she takes no action.

answer

pocket

question

A bill's supporters in the House of Representatives generally prefer _____ while opponents generally prefer _____.

answer

a closed rule, and open rule

question

Why does the House have greater party unity than the Senate?

answer

House leaders have more organizational control over the actions of representatives than Senate leaders.

question

Which of the following attributes did the framers intend for the office of the president to possess?

answer

energy

question

_______ powers are specifically established by the language of the Constitution.

answer

expressed

question

The president's delegated powers come from ______.

answer

congress

question

The president's expressed powers include all of the following categories EXCEPT ______.

answer

partisan

question

In order to get around the need for Senate approval of treaties, many contemporary presidents have made use of _____ in foreign affairs.

answer

executive agreements

question

Richard Nixon claimed ______ when he refused to turn over secret White House tapes to congressional investigators.

answer

executive privilege

question

The State of the Union address is

answer

mandated by the Constitution

question

An executive order is

answer

a rule or regulation issued unilaterally by the president that has the status of a law

question

Which of the following statements about Congress and the executive branch is most accurate?

answer

Starting around the time of the New Deal, Congress has tended to give executive agencies broad mandates and to draft legislation that offers few clear guidelines from implementation by the executive

question

The ______ asserted that the president could send american troops into action abroad only in the event of a declaration of war or other statutory authorization by Congress, or if American troops were attacked or directly endangered.

answer

War Powers Resolution of 1973

question

Which of the following statements is most accurate?

answer

Recent presidents have refrained from asking Congress to declare war and have instead frequently deployed the military without congressional authorization.

question

An informal group of advisors to the president is often called the _____.

answer

kitchen cabinet

question

The _____ is the informal designation for the heads of the major federal government departments.

answer

cabinet

question

The president has the power to appoint which of the following positions?

answer

cabinet secretaries

question

After the president and vice president, which office is next in line of succession?

answer

Speaker of the House

question

Presidential spouses are an important resource for the president in order to carry out the duty of ____.

answer

head of state

question

Which of the following presidents is considered "weak" by presidential historians?

answer

James Buchanan

question

As a means of managing the gigantic executive branch, presidents have increasingly come to rely upon the ______.

answer

White House staff

question

The technique of popular mobilization dates back to the ______ presidency.

answer

Theodore Roosevelt's

question

A signing statement is a(n)

answer

announcement the president makes about his or her interpretation of a congressional enactment he or she is signing into law

question

President ___ began the era of greater presidential control over the budgetary process.

answer

Franklin Roosevelt

question

According to political scientist Terry Moe, why does Congress suffer from a collective action problem in the face of presidential power?

answer

Individual members of Congress are more concerned with the substantive impact of presidential action on their constituents rather than the general implications of presidential powers.

question

Prior cases whose principles are used by judges to decide current cases are called ______.

answer

precedents

question

In what type of law is the government always the plaintiff?

answer

criminal law

question

The phrase stare decisis means

answer

"let the decision stand"

question

In most circumstances, a supreme court is best described as a(n) _____ court.

answer

appellate

question

The jurisdictions of each federal court is derived from ______.

answer

The Constitution and federal law

question

______ is designed to protect federal judges from political pressure by granting them life tenure.

answer

Article III of the U.S. Constitution

question

A writ of habeas corpus declares that

answer

the government must show a legal cause for holding someone in detention

question

The right of due process is best described as the right of

answer

every person not to be treated arbitrarily by a government official or agency

question

All of the following are part of the official jurisdiction of the federal courts EXCEPT

answer

cases involving citizens of more than one state where less than $75,000 is at stake

question

About _____ percent of all cases in the United States are heard in federal courts.

answer

1

question

Each year, the Supreme Court receives about ______ appeals and hears about _____ of them in full court.

answer

8,500;80

question

Which of the following statements about federal courts is most accurate?

answer

Although the federal courts hear only a small fraction of all of the civil and criminal cases decided each year in the United States, their decisions are extremely important because they interpret the Constitution and the federal laws that govern all Americans.

question

How many justices currently serve on the Supreme Court?

answer

9

question

Senatorial courtesy describes the practice of

answer

senators from a president's party approving of a judicial nominee from their home state

question

In recent years, federal court appointments have

answer

been characterized by intense partisan and ideological efforts to support or defeat the candidate

question

About _____ percent of all lower court case are reviewed by federal appeals courts.

answer

20

question

Which of the following statements about the U.S. Court of Appeals is INCORRECT?

answer

The appeals courts are able to hear all cases involving federal law, but not constitutional law.

question

Which of the following is part of the Miranda rule?

answer

Arrested people have the right to remain silent.

question

The requirement of standing means that parties in a case must

answer

have a concret injury or interest at stake

question

A certiorari pool describes the

answer

practice by which Supreme Court law clerks work together to evaluate each petition

question

A person, agency, or interest group not directly a party to a case but with an interest in its outcome may file a(n) _____ brief.

answer

amicus curiae

question

The Supreme Court's power to review acts of Congress has not been seriously questioned because

answer

the Court has been reluctant to strike down congressional laws and has overturned only a small number over the last 200 years

question

The assignment of the opinion in a Supreme Court case is

answer

important because differences in wording and emphasis can have important implications for how the decision is interpreted in future litigation

question

If someone is an advocate of the philosophy of judicial restraint, he or she believes

answer

in looking only at the words of the Constitution in order to understand its meaning

question

Activist judges believe that federal judges should

answer

go beyond the words of a constitution or statute to consider the broader societal implications of their decisions

question

Each Supreme Court justice is assigned _____ law clerks.

answer

4

question

A single lawsuit involving thousands of smokers suing a tobacco company would be a good example of ______.

answer

a class-action suit

question

The fifteenth amendment to the constitution guarantees

answer

african american men the right to vote

question

During the late nineteenth century, the equal protection clause was

answer

severely limited in scope by the Supreme Court

question

Legally enforced segregation in public schools is a form of ____ discrimination

answer

de jure

question

____ began the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1956

answer

Rosa Parks

question

In ______, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I have a Dream" speech

answer

1963

question

In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress vastly expanded the role of the executive branch and the credibility of court orders by

answer

requiring that federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments for education be withheld from any school system practicing racial segregation

question

_____ was the setting for a major racial confrontation concerning school busing in the 1970s

answer

Boston

question

____ occurs when electoral districts are drawn so that one group or party is unfairly advantaged

answer

Gerrymandering

question

Redlining refers to

answer

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

question

In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the justices determined that

answer

Both b & c (slaves were not citizens of the US, African Americans had no due process rights under the U.S. Constitution)

question

Which of the following best summarizes the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. board of education (1954)?

answer

racially segregated schools can never be equal

question

Which of the following is true of Brown v. Board of Education (1954)?

answer

The justices outlawed de jure segregation

question

Which of the following statements best describes the number of peaceful civil rights demonstrations during the 1950s and 1960s?

answer

The number of demonstrations grew in the early 1960s and peaked in 1965

question

Which of the following best describes the federal courts' trend toward school desegregation in the 1990s?

answer

The courts decreased the federal supervision of local school desegregation

question

Which of the following statements best describes the impact of the Voting Rights Act os 1965 on voter registration in southern states?

answer

The gap between the percentage of whites registering to vote and the percentage of African American registering to vote declined since the passage of the Voting Rights Act

question

Which of the following was NOT used as a way to limit the electoral influence of African Americans?

answer

restrictive covenants

question

Strict scrutiny is the level of judicial review that federal judges give to all cases that involve ____ classifications.

answer

racial

question

Which of the following is FALSE about the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

answer

It was a fairly weak law compared to earlier legislation on civil rights

question

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

answer

intermediate scrutiny

question

Which group was excluded form immigrating to the United States from the late nineteenth century until the 1940s?

answer

Chinese

question

Which of the following statements about gender equality is FALSE?

answer

The percentage of female representatives in state legislatures has declined over the last 20 years

question

Which of the following is true about the Bill of Rights?

answer

it includes the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution

question

_____ are area of personal freedom with which governments are constrained from interfering

answer

civil liberties

question

____ is a court order demanding that an individual in custody be brought into court and shown the cause of detention

answer

Habeas Corpus

question

____ was largely responsible for getting a series of constitutional amendment proposals passed in the U.S. House of Representatives that would ultimately become known as the Bill of Rights

answer

James Madison

question

During the Founding era, ____ were the strongest supporters of adding a bill of rights to the Constitution

answer

Antifederalists

question

_____ is a law that declares a person guilty of a crime without a trial

answer

A bill of attainder

question

Which of the following is NOT a liberty protected by the Bill of Rights?

answer

Equal protection of the laws

question

Which of the following rights is NOT found in the original, unamended Constitution?

answer

prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment

question

In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), the Supreme Court justices ruled that government action toward religion is

answer

permissible only if it is secular in purpose, neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and does not lead to excessive entanglement with religion

question

The _____ of the First Amendment protect(s) an individual's right to believe and practice whatever he or she chooses

answer

free exercise clause

question

In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the Supreme Court justices announced that

answer

children cannot be required to salute the flag if it violates their religious faith

question

Conflicts over whether public schools should be allowed to assign reading from the Bible and lead nondenominational prayers are examples of disagreements about the

answer

meaning of the establishment clause

question

Justice Potter Stewart was talking about _____ when he declared "I know it when I see it"

answer

pornography

question

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court justices articulated the principle that

answer

spending by or on behalf of a candidate for office is protected speech

question

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

answer

political speech that stops short of inciting violence

question

Which of the following statements about freedom of speech is true?

answer

Free speech can be regulated by government officials

question

____ occurs when government officials block the publication of material they do not want released

answer

prior restraint

question

Which of the following would not be an example of speech plus?

answer

assassinating a political leader

question

_____ prevents people from being tried twice for the same crime

answer

double jeopardy

question

The ____ rule forbid the introduction in trial of any piece of evidence obtained illegally

answer

exclusionary

question

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) established the right

answer

to counsel in felony cases

question

"Due process of law" in the US is generally defined by the ____ amendments

answer

fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth

question

A women's constitutional right to an abortion was established in _____.

answer

Roe v. Wade (1973)

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