The Revolutionary Era
Considered the most-sacred American document, it practically plagiarized John Locke's 2nd Treatise on Government.
What is the Declaration of Independence?
Aristocratic U.S. politician from the Caribbean misleadingly portrayed as being especially anti-slavery.
Who was Alexander Hamilton?
The observation that we hate Congress but love our member of Congress.
What is Fenno's Paradox?
Popular term for drawing legislative maps to help a party or an ethnic group.
What is gerrymandering?
Names for the series of essays written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay in support of ratifying the U.S. Constitution.
What are The Federalist Papers?
Term for the number of members who must be in attendance for a legislature to conduct official business.
What is a quorum?
Its exclusion from the U.S. Constitution almost prevented the ratification of the document.
What is the Bill of Rights?
Generally considered the most-powerful committee in the U.S. Congress.
What is the House Rules Committee?
Doctrine developed by the Supreme Court in a series of Sixties cases that forced the redrawing of many districts.
What is One Person, One Vote?
Although many constitutional provisions encouraged expansion of federal power, this part of the Bill of Rights reserved most governmental powers to the states.
What is the 10th Amendment?
The name for constituency service that focused on helping citizens with the problems they have with the government.
What is casework?
Event that takes place every ten years, causes the reelection rate in the U.S. House to drop temporarily.
What is reapportionment (or what is the U.S. Census)?
Congress polices the bureaucracy and its implementation of laws by using this power.
What is (congressional) oversight?
Term for people who buy property not to use it, but to wait until the value goes up so they can sell it again.
What is a land speculator?
The sort of committee sometimes formed to reconcile House & Senate versions of legislation.
What is a conference committee?
A hard-to-enforce requirement that states draw tidy legislative districts.
What is the compactness requirement?
Model or metaphor for federal relations that portrays policy issues as a swirl of competing governmental authority.
What is marble-cake federalism?
An armed uprising in Western Massachusetts that helped spur the Constitutional Convention.
What was Shays Rebellion?
Also known as the Elastic Clause because of how it stretches to let Congress do things not explicitly authorized in Constitution.
What is the Necessary and Proper Clause?
Expectation that members of Congress will defer to each other on bills in their specialization.
What is the Reciprocity Norm?
Rhyming terms for either stuffing together or pulling apart a party's supporters to weaken their influence.
What is packing and cracking?
Term for the difficulty that arises when people ought to work together to produce a public good.
What is the collective-action (or free-rider) problem?