Exam 1 (Ch 1-5)
This document, the nations first constitution, was adopted by the second continental congress in 1781 during the revolution. It was limited because states held most of the power and congress lacked the power to tax, regulate trade, or control currency.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
Case heard by the Supreme Court where the state of Maryland imposed a tax against a federal bank operating in Maryland. The law was recognized by the court as having specifically targeted the Bank of the United States. The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, which allowed the Federal government to pass laws not expressly provided for in the Constitution's list of express powers, provided those laws are in useful furtherance of the express powers of Congress under the Constitution.
This case established two important principles in constitutional law. First, the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. Second, state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.
When the benefits of acquiring political information aren’t worth the costs of doing so.
What is "rational political ignorance"?
A type of organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaign for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation.
This amendment prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old. The drive to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 grew across the country during the 1960s, driven in large part by the broader student activism movement protesting the Vietnam War.
1. Amendment to the Constitution that was written to emphasize the limited nature of the powers delegated to the federal government - was intended to confirm the understanding of the people at the time the Constitution was adopted, that powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people.
2. This Amendment in 1870 granted African American men the right to vote (although ratified then, the promise would not be fully realized for almost another century).
1. What is the Tenth Amendment?
2. What is the 15th amendment?
In the process of making laws, navigating committee is the crucial roadblock. 1. This is a tactic used in the Senate for delaying or obstructing legislation by making long speeches and 2. This is the rule for ending that debate and forcing a vote (needs 2/3 or 60 senate votes). (2 "answers" needed).
What is a 1. filibuster and what is 2. a cloture rule?
The power of an executive authority to nullify or cancel specific provisions of a bill, usually a budget appropriations bill, without vetoing the entire legislative package.
Congress passed legislation to allow this in the Clinton presidency and it was intended to control "pork barrel spending". It was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a 1998. The court affirmed that this was equivalent to the unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes and therefore violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution.
What is a line-item veto?
The Supreme Court-initiated doctrine that separate but equivalent facilities for African Americans and whites were constitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
What is the "Separate-but-equal" Doctrine?
The era between 1865-1877, after the south lost the Civil War when the former Confederacy was supposed to be reconstructed and made fit to rejoin the union.
What is Reconstruction?
A landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on US labor law and constitutional law. It held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves", whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.
Dred Scott, an enslaved man of "the negro African race" who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom.
1. A body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.
2. A team of men seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election.
2. What is Down's definition of political parties?
This is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President (EOP). The most prominent function of this office is to produce the President's Budget, but it also measures the quality of agency programs, policies, and procedures to see if they comply with the president's policies and it coordinates inter-agency policy initiatives.
This Amendment granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women’s suffrage, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest.
In 1848 the movement for women’s rights launched on a national level with the Seneca Falls Convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Following the convention, the demand for the vote became a centerpiece of the women’s rights movement.
The 1803 court decision that expanded the power of the Supreme Court in general and established the principle of judicial review (i.e. the power to declare a law unconstitutional).
What is Marbury v. Madison?
Mutually dependent relationships between bureaucratic agencies, interest groups, and congressional committees. They dominate some areas of domestic policymaking (agriculture, water, public works).
What are Iron Triangles?
This Law holds that plurality-rule elections (such as first past the post) structured within single-member districts (like the US) tend to favor a two-party system, whereas the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to favor multipartism.
1. This is a means by which the President can reject a proposed bill that has received a majority vote in both houses of the legislative branch of the government, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. 2. This is the ability of the Legislature to override a presidential veto that requires a 2/3 vote in BOTH the House and the Senate.
2. What is a veto override?
In judicial procedural doctrine which governs how the lower courts should do their work, this is the notion that precedent matters and should be followed.
What is Stare Decisis?
There was a tension between these two groups during the drafting of the new constitution in 1787 - one group wanted a strong federal government while the other wanted stronger states rights. The solution to this produced the U.S. Congress. (who are the 2 groups and what was the solution called?)
Who are the Federalists and Antifederalists? and What was The Great Compromise?
1. This is the term used to describe the power of the President and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of information relating to the executive.
2. These are formal directives issued by the President and have the force of law. While there is no specific provision in the Constitution that permits them, there is a "grant of executive power" given in Article II of the Constitution. To reverse/overrule these, they can be found unconstitutional by the judicial branch, the next president can reverse them, or Congress can pass a law that supersedes them.
1. What is Executive Privilege?
2. What are Executive Orders?
Essay written by Madison that addresses the question of how to reconcile citizens with interests contrary to the rights of others or harmful to the interests of the community as a whole. Madison saw factions as inevitable due to the nature of man and he questions how to guard against their dangers. To Madison, there are only two ways to control a faction: to remove its causes and to control its effects. The first is impossible. There are only two ways to remove the causes of a faction: destroy liberty or give every citizen the same opinions, passions, and interests. Destroying liberty is a "cure worse then the disease itself," and the second is impracticable. The causes of factions are thus part of the nature of man and we must deal with their effects and accept their existence. The government created by the Constitution controls the damage caused by such factions.
The framers established a representative form of government, a government in which the many elect the few who govern. Pure or direct democracies (countries in which all the citizens participate directly in making the laws) cannot possibly control factious conflicts. This is because the strongest and largest faction dominates, and there is no way to protect weak factions against the actions of an obnoxious individual or a strong majority.
What is Madison's Federalist 10?
A Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.
As the Civil Rights Movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South that had traditionally supported the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. It also helped push the Republican Party much more to the right.
This essay by Madison addresses the means by which appropriate checks and balances can be created in government and also advocates a separation of powers within the national government. One of its most important ideas is the often quoted phrase, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition" and its "if men were angels" argument is famous.