Category 1: Government Basics
This document defines the principles and structure of the United States government.
What is the Constitution?
This elected official leads a state’s executive branch.
Who is the governor?
This branch of government creates laws.
What is the legislative branch?
This court is the highest authority in the federal judicial branch.
What is the United States Supreme Court?
One elected presidential term lasts this many years.
What is four years?
This level of government makes decisions that affect the entire country.
What is the federal government?
Many cities and towns elect a leader with this title.
Who is the mayor?
These two houses make up the United States Congress.
What are the Senate and the House of Representatives?
This is the special title given to judges on the Supreme Court.
What are justices?
This president began his political career in Springfield and inspired the Illinois slogan “Land of Lincoln.”
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
These are the three branches of the federal government.
What are the executive, legislative, and judicial branches?
This group of elected local officials listens to citizens’ concerns and makes decisions for a municipality.
What is the city council?
Every state has this many United States senators.
What is two?
This many justices serve on the United States Supreme Court.
What is nine?
This future 18th president moved to Galena in 1860 and led Illinois regiments during the Civil War.
Who is Ulysses S. Grant?
In this type of democracy, people elect officials to represent them.
What is a representative democracy?
Elected in 1979, this woman became Chicago’s first female mayor.
Who is Jane Byrne?
This is the name of Illinois’s state legislative branch.
What is the General Assembly?
These two parts of the federal government nominate and approve Supreme Court justices, respectively.
What are the president and the Senate?
Born in Tampico, Illinois, this man became the 40th president in 1981.
Who is Ronald Reagan?
This principle means that people agree to be led by a government and support its power to make decisions.
What is consent of the governed?
This first governor of the state of Illinois signed bills to build toll roads and bridges to raise money and improve transportation.
Who is Shadrach Bond?
This Illinois senator was the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate and helped pass a law celebrating the states on quarters.
Who is Carol Moseley Braun?
Justice Arthur Goldberg referred to this amendment when arguing that people have rights beyond those specifically listed in the Constitution.
What is the Ninth Amendment?
Before becoming the 44th president, this man served in both the Illinois state senate and the United States Senate.
Who is Barack Obama?