Elections, Voting, & Campaigns
When and why legislative boundaries are redrawn
What is every 10 years after the Census?
4 layers of political parties
What are officials, party workers, party members, and voters?
The meaning of bicameral (as it relates to Congress)
What is having two chambers (the House & Senate)?
Powers specific to the President
What are veto bills, command armed forces, issue pardons, recommend measures to Congress, and receive ambassadors?
The purpose of the court system
What is to hear cases to interpret and apply law to both people and the government?
Elections promote _______ & ________
What is accountability & responsiveness?
3 reasons why America has a two-party system
What is the electoral system, the Electoral College, and public opinion?
The electoral pattern for the legislative branch
What is every 2 years for the House & every 6 years for the Senate, staggered?
Powers shared with the Senate
What are appointing ambassadors, SC justices, and other high-level officials and making treaties with foreign nations?
The number of Supreme Court justices
What is 9?
How the number of votes each state has in the Electoral College is determined
What is the total number of legislators the state has in Congress?
3 indicators of polarization
What is party line votes, opinion polls, and ideological/politicized media?
The purpose behind having two bodies in the legislative branch
What is stability, order, and incentives for legislators to think long term?
2 clauses of Article II describing executive power
What are the vesting clause & the take care clause?
2 branches of the legal system
What are criminal and civil?
5 ways can incumbents be defeated
What are redistricting, scandal, poor economy/unpopular president of same party, retirement, & death?
3 reasons interest groups are more common in America than Europe
What are more social cleavages, more points of access set up in the Constitution, and the weakness of political parties?
A fundamental difference between parliaments and Congress
What is the parliamentary emphasis on debate and campaigning vs. the Congressional emphasis on legislating?
3 presidents that changed the balance of power between the executive and the legislative
Who are Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR?
The 2 bases for court decisions
What are laws (and the interpretation of them) and precedent (stare decisis)?
The two ways that voters make their calculations & the two types of issues candidates campaign on
What is prospective voting (looking to the future) & retrospective voting (looking at past/current standing)? What are position issues (candidates have opposing views & voters are divided) & valence issues (everyone broadly agrees but has different solutions)?
6 activities of interest groups
5 functions of Congressional committees
What are gathering information, writing legislation, testing political winds, overseeing bureaucracy, and deliberating?
What is the idea that people have very high expectations for the president while they have limited ability to meet those expectations?
The principle that calls for the Supreme Court to be the ultimate arbiter of constitutionality
What is judicial review?