Presidential Qualifications and Elections
Article II Presidential Responsibilities
Checks, Balances and Interbranch Relations
Amendments That Reshaped the Presidency
Impeachment and Removal
Executive Authority in Practice
100

Article II establishes this minimum age for a person seeking the presidency.

What is 35 years old?

100

As the nation’s chief executive, the president must ensure that federal laws are carried out under this Article II obligation.

What is the Take Care Clause?

100

Congress checks presidential lawmaking influence through this power to enact a bill despite the president’s rejection, requiring a two-thirds vote in each chamber.

What is a veto override?

100

This amendment requires electors to cast distinct votes for president and vice president.

What is the Twelfth Amendment?

100

This chamber has the sole constitutional power to impeach a president by approving articles of impeachment.

What is the House of Representatives?

100

This directive from the president manages operations of the executive branch and must remain consistent with the Constitution and federal law.

What is an executive order?

200

A presidential candidate must have lived in the United States for at least this many years.

What is 14 years?

200

The president fulfills this annual constitutional duty by reporting to Congress on the condition of the nation and recommending measures.

What is delivering the State of the Union address?

200

Before a president’s nominee for a Cabinet post or federal judgeship can usually take office, this Senate role must be satisfied.

What is advice and consent?

200

This amendment moved Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20, shortening the “lame-duck” period for presidents.

What is the Twentieth Amendment?

200

This body conducts the impeachment trial and decides whether to convict an impeached president.

What is the Senate?

200

This group of department heads and other senior advisers assists the president in administering the executive branch.

What is the Cabinet?

300

This constitutional requirement excludes naturalized citizens, while allowing a person who was a citizen at the time the Constitution was adopted to serve as president.

What is being a natural-born citizen?

300

When the president welcomes an ambassador or foreign head of state, the president is acting in this diplomatic role.

What is chief diplomat?

300

The Supreme Court may invalidate a presidential action that conflicts with the Constitution through this authority.

What is judicial review?

300

This amendment generally limits a president to being elected to no more than two terms.

What is the Twenty-Second Amendment?

300

In a presidential impeachment trial, this official presides over the Senate proceedings.

What is the chief justice of the United States?

300

A president’s refusal to disclose certain communications with advisers, subject to legal limits and judicial review, is known as this.

What is executive privilege?

400

In the modern election process, these state-by-state contests allow voters to help determine each party’s presidential nominee.

What are primaries and caucuses?

400

Article II identifies the president as the civilian leader of the armed forces through this title.

What is commander in chief?

400

A president may negotiate an agreement with another nation, but it generally requires approval by two-thirds of the Senate under this constitutional process.

What is treaty ratification?

400

This amendment provides the procedure for filling a vice-presidential vacancy and for responding to presidential inability.

What is the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?

400

This supermajority of senators present is required to convict and remove a president from office.

What is two-thirds?

400

This type of international agreement may be made by the president without the two-thirds Senate approval required for a treaty, although it cannot override federal law or the Constitution.

What is an executive agreement?

500

This institution formally elects the president by allocating electors to states based generally on their congressional representation.

What is the Electoral College?

500

This presidential power postpones punishment for a federal offense but does not erase the conviction itself.

What is a reprieve?

500

When Congress creates an agency, appropriates its funding, and investigates its conduct, it is exercising this broad check on the executive branch.

What is congressional oversight?

500

Under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, a vice president who becomes president after a vacancy may be elected only once if the successor served more than this amount of the predecessor’s term.

What is more than two years?

500

The Constitution identifies this standard—not simple policy disagreement—as the basis for impeachment of civil officers.

What are treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors?

500

The president’s ability to reject a bill passed by Congress is this legislative check, which Congress may attempt to override.

What is the veto power?