The Founding
America's first constitution: no executive, no power to tax, and no army or money to put down Shays's Rebellion.
Articles of Confederation
A presidential veto, a two-thirds override, and judicial review are all meant to ensure the political system has...
checks and balances
This media effect describes how the press helps determine what we think about.
agenda setting
Unlike political parties, these organizations don't run candidates under their own label; they instead pressure whoever wins.
interest groups
Out of 538 electoral votes, how many are needed to win the presidency?
270
Congress's two-chamber design is an example of
bicameralism
The term for power ultimately being held by the citizens
popular sovereignty
Nicknamed the "layer cake," this model of federalism divides federal and state authority into clearly separate spheres
dual federalism
A poll that is informed by the answers of a non-represenative portion of the population has this problem. For example, the 1936 Literary Digest poll got 2.4 million responses from phone books and club rosters and still badly missed. No sample size can fix this.
sampling bias
Under this electoral system, a party that wins 15% of the vote gets about 15% of the seats, so smaller parties can survive.
proportional representation
The strongest single predictor of how a person will vote.
party identification
Permanent committees with fixed policy jurisdictions, like Ways & Means. They can kill a bill just by never scheduling a hearing.
standing committees
This 1787 deal created a House based on population and a Senate where every state gets two senators.
the Great Compromise
This clause gives Congress the ability to do what it needs to in order to carry out its essential functions
Necessary and Proper Clause
A poll shows Candidate A at 48% and Candidate B at 45%, with a margin of error of ±3. How would you call the race.
a statistical tie? (A could be 45–51 and B 42–48; the ranges overlap.)
This term describes the emergence of new and durable coalitions and priorities which shape a political party
realignment
A representative votes against a policy 62% of her district wants, because she's convinced it will backfire. She's following this model.
trustee model
The Senate motion that ends a filibuster. It takes 60 votes.
cloture
For apportioning House seats, this deal counted each enslaved person as three-fifths of a person, which also boosted the South's Electoral College votes.
Three-Fifths Compromise
This clause gives Congress the power to regulate broad swath of activity that has economic implications
Commerce Clause
Agenda setting is what we think about and framing is how it's packaged; this effect changes the standards we use to judge leaders.
priming
This describes the dilemma that arises when it is in everyone's best interest to solve a problem but it also in their interest to free ride on someone's else's effort to solve the problem
collective action problem
Asking whether Congress "looks like" America in race, gender, and class is asking about this kind of representation.
descriptive representation
Two chambers, committees, the filibuster, and the veto are each a place to kill a bill, producing this built-in tilt toward keeping things things the way that they are. How do we describe this tilt towards what already exists?
status-quo bias
Their opponents took the name "Federalists." This side lost the fight over ratifying the Constitution but won the Bill of Rights
Anti-Federalists
Preemption limits the states; this doctrine limits Washington, which can't force state or local police to enforce federal law
anti-commandeering
this FCC policy required broadcasters to air contrasting views on controversial issues
fairness doctrine
This process describes voters lining up their party affiliation with their ideology,
sorting
This theory predicts candidates and policy will converge on the center
median voter theorem
What is the name for a bill that combines many bills into one larger bill
omnibus