Unit 1
This case regards itself with the regulation of the commerce clause and placed a check on Congress's power.
Hint: It is NOT a Second Amendment case
What is US vs. Lopez?
Those in the House of Representatives serve __ year terms and those in the Senate serve __ year terms.
What are 2 and 6?
It was this landmark Supreme Court case that dismantled the notion of "separate but equal" under the reasoning that having separate facilities violates the 14th Amendment.
What is Brown v. Board of Education?
These are the two major political parties in the United States right now.
What are Republicans and Democrats?
This term describes the phenomenon wherein a voter or group of voters will slowly move away from a political party.
What is dealignment?
This domestic uprising from 1786-1787 was instrumental in pushing framers to hold a Constitutional Convention to address the Articles' poorly outlined taxation system, among other shortcomings.
What is Shay's Rebellion?
(Stemming from opposition to high taxes and a debt crisis following the Revolution and the military's inability to coordinate in the name of protecting public safety).
All budget/revenue bills have to be introduced (not proposed) by which body?
What is the House of Representatives?
This Civil Rights leader penned his famous "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" after an arrest stemming from his participation in a nonviolent demonstrations against segregation. In this letter, he proclaimed "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Who is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
This 2010 Supreme Court case held under the First Amendment corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited, dismantling the prior restrictions on "electioneering communications."
What is Citizens United v FEC?
(Side note: this case still upheld the ban on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions)
This term was coined to refer to the use of government funds/ government action for projects designed to please voters or legislators and win votes.
What is pork barrel?
This 1819 Supreme Court case upheld that a National Bank was indeed constitutional, and that the state in question could not tax instruments of the national government employed in the execution of constitutional powers under the "Necessary and Proper Clause."
What is McCulloch V. Maryland?
This informal power of the president, coined by Teddy Roosevelt, affords them a platform to speak out and be listened to, allowing them to utilize their platform to push an agenda and even apply political pressure onto other politicians.
What is the bully pulpit?
These are the First Amendment clauses cited in Engel v. Vitale (prayer in schools) and Wisconsin v. Yoder (question if the state can force Amish citizens to remain in school past the 8th grade contrary to their religion).
What are the establishment clause and the free-exercise clause?
This is the most important medium of political socialization, aka the process in which people develop their political values, beliefs, attitudes and ideology.
What is family?
This Supreme Court case held that racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional because it violated this constitutional clause.
(Two part answer)
What is Shaw v Reno and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?
In Federalist 10, James Madison argues that a large republic can help combat the influence of ___ because ___.
What are "factions" because it is less probable that "a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens."
It was this Supreme Court case that deemed the issue of redistricting as judiciable when Tennessee voting districts had not been redrawn in 60 years, a matter that the plaintiffs claimed violated the 14th amendment.
What is Baker v Carr?
These two Supreme Court cases deal with the matter of selective incorporation.
What is McDonald v. Chicago and Gideon v. Wainwright?
This kind of voting is based on what is in the citizen's own best interest.
(Bonus 200 points if you can name and describe the other 3 kinds of voting)
What is rational-choice voting?
(For Bonus points: What are retrospective voting, prospective voting, and party-line voting)
In this Supreme Court case pertaining to college admissions, the court held that racial quotas are unconstitutional.
What is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)?
These are the Constitutional clauses that Brutus 1 outlines opposition to.
What are the "Necessary and Proper Clause" and the "Supremacy Clause?"
(Because the former could in theory give Congress unlimited powers, and because the latter essentially nullifies the laws and constitutions of individual states if they go against the Constitution).
Name the ways in which:
1) the judicial branch can check the legislative branch
2) the legislative branch can check the judicial branch
3) the executive branch can check the legislative branch.
What are:
1) Via judicial review - declaring a law unconstitutional
2) Via impeaching judges for misconduct
3) Via vetoes - overriding a bill
When the Pentagon Papers were leaked and the topic of this Supreme Court case, this was the mechanism that the United States government cited to suppress the information before it was released.
(Two part answer)
What is New York Times Co v United States (1971) and what is prior restraint?
Name all of the amendments related to citizens' voting rights and what they do.
What are:
15th Amendment (1870) - right to vote regardless of things like race or ethnicity
17th Amendment (1913) - direct election of senators
19th Amendment (1919) -extended right to vote to women
24th Amendment (1964) - abolished poll taxes
26th Amendment (1971) - lowered voting age to 18
Name all of the Bill of Rights amendments and what they do.
What is:
1) First Amendment - freedom of speech, religion, press, petition, & assembly
2) Second Amendment - right to bear arms
3) Third Amendment - Protection against having to quarter soldiers
4) Fourth Amendment - protection against unreasonable search and seizures
5) Fifth Amendment - protection against double jeopardy and self incrimination, and right to a grand jury in criminal cases
6) Sixth Amendment - right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury
7) Seventh Amendment - ensures that citizens' civil cases can be heard and decided upon by a jury of their peers
8) Eighth Amendment - protection against cruel and unusual punishment
9) Ninth Amendment - guarantee of rights not expressly mentioned in the Constitution (such as privacy)
10) Tenth Amendment - powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.