Legislative
What is included in the Legislative branch?
The House of Representatives and the Senate. These 2 make up the Congress.
Which of the following is a part of the Executive branch?
A) Supreme Court
B) House of Representatives
C) President
D) Senate Judiciary Committee
C
What article from the constitution is the Judicial branch related to?
Article 3
What is the bureaucracy?
A large and complex hierarchical organization made up of appointed officials who help carry out government functions.
What is the purpose of Checks and Balances?
To keep 1 branch from becoming too powerful
A member of Congress votes in favor of a bill as a result of receiving many letters of support for the bill from constituents. Which form of democratic representation best describes this voting decision?
A) Trustee
B) Delegate
C) Elite
D) Pluralist
B
What is the main job of the executive branch?
To enforce laws.
What was the constitutional concept in the court case Marbury v. Madison?
Judicial Review
What branches make up the bureaucracy?
Legislative and Executive
How can a veto be overridden?
By a two-thirds vote in the Senate AND in the House of Representatives.
Which of the following clauses serves as the constitutional basis for the federal Real ID Act of 2005, a law that established uniform standards for state-issued identification cards and provided regulation of a state function?
A) The due process clause
B) The establishment clause
C) The necessary and proper clause
D) The commerce clause
C
A president negotiates a climate agreement with multiple countries, then issues an executive order requiring federal agencies to reduce emissions.
Which of the following constitutional principles is mostly closely related to this action?
A) Separation of powers
B) Judicial review
C) Federal supremacy
D) Necessary and Proper clause
A
What is judicial review?
This the power that the courts have that allows them to check on the actions done by the Legislative and Executive branches. This is done to ensure that the Constitution is being followed.
What makes up iron triangles?
An agency, committee, and interest group.
Which of the following scenarios best demonstrates a president avoiding a check from the judicial branch?
A) The president signs a bill that reduces the budget of the Department of Justice in response to the department’s failure to prosecute white-collar criminals.
B) The president instructs the bureaucracy to delay implementing policy changes resulting from a Supreme Court decision.
C) The president vetoes legislation that would constrain the ability of the executive branch to conduct domestic surveillance as it relates to terrorism.
D) The president issues an executive order declaring lands formerly set aside for conservation protection are now open for mining and oil drilling.
B
To get an important bill passed in the House, a provision is added that allocates $500 million to study the impact of global climate change on manatees in Florida. This is an example of _____
Pork Barrell Legislation
In 2012, after negotiations on a bill in Congress failed, President Obama issued an executive order that protected from deportation individuals illegally brought to the United States as children by their parents. The president took this action because ______
disagreement between congressional leaders and the president on the issue meant that a compromise on a bill was not likely.
On September 29, 2020, after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Donald Trump, a Republican, nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Many Democrats in the Senate feared that the appointment of Barrett would swing the Court in a more ideologically conservative direction and attempted to block her nomination. After a heated Senate confirmation hearing, Barrett was eventually confirmed by a 52 to 48 vote in the Senate.
The scenario best highlights which of the following statements about court appointees?
Life tenure for appointed justices alongside the power of judicial review increases the stakes in the confirmation process for nominees to the Supreme Court.
Lobbyists from the Airlines for America, an advocacy group that represents commercial airlines, work with members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and officials from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to discuss a new policy that addresses issues of airline safety. This scenario best illustrates ______
An iron triangle
How is the court case Marbury v. Madison related to the concept of Checks and Balances?
It expanded the overall power of the Supreme Court.
The Web site healthcare.gov was launched on October 1, 2013, to help citizens purchase health insurance for themselves in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. Within two hours of launch the site crashed. Once it was restored, problems continued, leading to difficulty for users. The following year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was called to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to discuss the issue.
The committee held this hearing as part of which of the following functions?
Oversight
Which of the following is an example of the executive branch implementing a public policy passed by Congress?
A) The Department of Health and Human Services determines eligibility requirements for government assistance.
B) As chief diplomat, the president negotiates a treaty that is then ratified by the Senate.
C) A Federal Trade Commission official is asked to testify before Congress about the agency’s activities.
D) Congress passes a law reorganizing the structure of the federal bureaucracy.
A
In Federalist 78, what is this branch known as?
The “least dangerous branch”
Why are iron triangle's less common today?
There is an increased number of sub-committees.
In The Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton argued that the federal judiciary “is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power.” Which of the following statements represents a reason he gave for this argument?
A) It has the power of the sword and the power of judgment but lacks the power of the purse.
B) Each branch must be given the ability to defend its power and check the others.
C) The federal government is further from the people and thus less accountable.
D) It must depend on the executive for enforcement of its decisions.
D