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, trades, and entitlment 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

95%

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; an 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

The office of the presidency was established by Article ________ of the Constitution.

answer

ii

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

partisian

question

Executive agreements differ from formal treaties in that they

answer

do not have to be approved by senate

question

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

answer

executive privilage

question

an executive order is

answer

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

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

Congress's tendency in recent years to give executive agencies fewer clear guidelines for implementing laws is the result of

answer

the greater scope and complexity of the tasks that American government has undertaken.

question

Which of the following statements is true?

answer

both a and c

question

The power to receive ambassadors is an example of ________.

answer

an expressed power

question

Which of the following statments 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 advisers to the president is often called the ________.

answer

kitchen cabinet

question

The formal group of presidential foreign policy advisers, established in 1947, is called the ________.

answer

national security counsil

question

After the president and vice president, which office is next in the 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 statement about the Cabinet is INCORRECT?

answer

The Cabinet does not meet as a group, except during the State of the Union address.

question

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

answer

white house staff

question

________ occurs when the president directs administrative agencies to promulgate specific rules and regulations.

answer

regulatory review

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

The last time Congress exercised its constitutional power to declare war was during ________.

answer

World war II

question

Bureaucracy literally means ________.

answer

rule office by desks

question

Which of the following is an independent agency?

answer

the environmental protection agency

question

Which of the following is a government corporation?

answer

U.S. postal service

question

A bureau charged with putting restrictions and obligations on individuals or corporations in the private sector is called a ________ agency.

answer

regulatory

question

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

answer

presidents

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 jurisdiction 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 constitution

question

The writ of habeus 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 staments 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 cases are reviewed by federal appeals courts.

answer

20

question

Which of the following statements about the U.S. Courts 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 concrete injury or interst as stake

question

a certiorian 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

________ occurs when the price level of goods and services increases over several months.

answer

inflation

question

________ are given to states and local governments on the condition that all expenditures are limited to the problem or group specified by law.

answer

categorical grants

question

Which of the following is the best example of a public good

answer

the interstate highway system

question

During the New Deal, ________ theory that a government could boost employment by stimulating demand became quite influential.

answer

John Maynard Keynes's

question

Which of the following is NOT a method used by government officials to promote business development?

answer

regulations

question

Which of the following has NOT been a fundamental goal of the government's involvement in the economy?

answer

promoting equality for all citizens

question

Which of the following are the three basic prerequisites for economic growth?

answer

public investment, innovation, and a productive workforce

question

The Securities and Exchange Commission was established

answer

after the stock market crash of 1929

question

Adam Smith's theory of ________ maintains that many individual economic transactions come together to create a greater good for all.

answer

the invisible hand

question

The idea that the government can stimulate a slow economy by increasing public spending or cutting taxes is called ________.

answer

keynesianism

question

Supply-side economics is the idea that

answer

reducing the marginal rate of taxation will create a productive economy by promoting levels of work and investment that would otherwise be discouraged by higher taxes.

question

The minimum wage was first enacted in ________.

answer

1938

question

Classic laissez-faire theory is based on all of the following EXCEPT that

answer

a truly efficient government allows private enterprise to provide all government services

question

A ________ is an incentive in the tax code for individuals and corporations to invest their money in ways that government officials desire in exchange for a reduction in tax liabilities.

answer

loophole

question

The ________ insures bank deposits up to $250,000.

answer

Federal deposit insurance corporation

question

open market operations describe the

answer

method by which the Federal Reserve buys and sells government securities to increase or decrease the supply of money in the economy.

question

Congress was granted the power to tax personal income in ________.

answer

1913

question

________ taxation occurs when people in lower income brackets pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes.

answer

regressive

question

The ________ is determined by the amount by which government spending exceeds government revenue in a fiscal year.

answer

budget deficit

question

Approximately ________ percent of the federal budget is in the mandatory spending category.

answer

65

question

Sales taxes are ________, and most income taxes are ________.

answer

Regressive; Progressive

question

The Budget Control Act of 2011 purported to

answer

reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years.

question

Which of the following is NOT a benefit to government provided by contracting?

answer

Government officials almost always use contracting to award businesses and corporations that donated substantial amounts of money to their political campaigns.

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 for implementation by the executive.

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

fairly 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 and c

question

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

answer

racial 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 segreation

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 of 1965 on voter registration in southern states?

answer

The gap between the percentage of whites registering to vote and the percentage of African Americans registering to vote declined significantly after 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 covennents

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 from immigrating to the United States from the late nineteenth century until the 1940s?

answer

chineese

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 areas 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 for detention.

answer

habeus 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

antifederalist

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

prhibition against cruel and unsual 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 religion 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 establisment clause

question

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

answer

pronography

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 violence

question

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

answer

free speech can be regulated by government officals

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

assasination a political leader

question

________ prevents people from being tried twice for the same crime.

answer

double jepordy

question

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

answer

exclusionary

question

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) established the right

answer

to cousil in felony cases

question

"Due process of law" in the United States is generally defined by the ________ amendments.

answer

Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth

question

A woman's constitutional right to an abortion was established in ________.

answer

Roe v. Wade

question

Social Security is a good example of ________

answer

a contributory program

question

Social Security was established in ________.

answer

1935

question

Which of the following statements about Social Security is FALSE?

answer

Contributors receive benefits in strict proportion to their contributions.

question

A(n) ________ benefit is one where potential recipients must document their genuine need.

answer

means tested

question

Which of the following is a program of forced savings?

answer

medicare

question

Medicare is a ________ program; Medicaid is a ________ program.

answer

CONTRIBUTORY; NONCONTRIBUTORY

question

Which of the following statements about noncontributory programs, such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and Medicaid, is most accurate?

answer

The federal government provides only some of the funding for these programs, and, as a result, citizens receive very different levels of benefits in different states.

question

A cost-of-living adjustment is based on the

answer

rate of inflation

question

Which of the following statements about noncontributory programs is FALSE?

answer

the existence of these programs dates back to the civil war

question

About ________ percent of the current federal budget is spent on entitlement programs.

answer

64

question

The "individual mandate" of the Affordable Care Act refers to

answer

the requirment that uninsured citizens buy healthcare

question

________ is the single largest medical insurance program in the United States.

answer

medicade

question

Which of the following groups receives the least benefits from government's social policies?

answer

children

question

About ________ percent of America's children live in poverty.

answer

22

question

Which of the following groups are more than twice as likely as other Americans to be below the poverty line?

answer

single mothers

question

________ are programs where the government provides a tax deduction for spending on health insurance and other benefits by both employers and employees.

answer

tax expenditures

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