AP Gov Unit 2

AP gov vocab unit 2, textbook definitions

Apportionment

The periodic reapportionment and redistribution of U.S. congressional seats according to changes in the census figures. The congressional seats allocated for each state changes every 10 years corresponding to population changes in the census figures.

Speaker of the House

The only official congressional leaders named in the Constitution are the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, and the president pro tempore of the Senate. The document states that the House and Senate, “shall choose their other officers.”

Leader of the House of Representatives

Their job is to manage the debates of the House.

House Majority Leader

Leader who represents the majority party on the House floor.

Minority Leader

They direct debate among their party members and guide the discussion from their side of the aisle. They are the first members recognized in debate. Party leaders have also become spokespersons for the party. They offer their party messages through news conferences and in interviews. The top member of the smaller political party in a legislature has lots of power over regulating discussion in their party, and represents their party through talking to the public.

Majority Whip

Third-highest ranking individual in the majority party.

Minority Whip

Third-highest ranking individual in the minority party.

President pro tempore

A temporary president that will conduct the Senate in the absence of the vice president.

Senate Majority Leader

The Senate Majority Leader is the chief legislature, the first person the chair recognizes in debate, and the leader who sets the legislative calendar, and determines which bills reach the floor for debate, and which ones do not.

Filibuster

Senators also have strategic ways to use their debate time. For example, they may try to stall or even kill a bill by speaking for an extremely long time, a tactic known as the filibuster, to block a nomination or to let the time run out on a deadline for voting on a bill.

Hold

An informal practice by which a senator informs Senate leadership that he or she doesn't wish a particular measure or nomination to reach the floor for consideration.

Cloture

A special session created Rule 22, or the cloture rule, which enabled and required a two-thirds supermajority to stop debate on a bill, thus, stopping a filibuster and allowing for a vote. In 1975, the Senate lowered the standard to three-fifths, or 60 of 100 senators.

Pork Barrel Spending

Pork-Barrel Spending One product of the legislative add-ons is pork barrel spending-funds earmarked for specific purposes in a legislator’s district.
The allocation of government funds for district-level projects, often in pursuit of the peoples’ political support.

Logrolling

Trading votes to gain support for a bill.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

In the 1970s, Congress created the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and established the budgeting process with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (1974).Largest office in the executive branch. Oversees how the president’s visions are implemented across the branch.

Mandatory Spending

Mandatory spending is payment required by law, or mandated, for certain programs. These include social security, medicare, medicaid, and unemployment insurance

Budget Deficit

When the federal government spends more money than what they receive.

Discretionary Spending

Funding that congressional committees debate and decide how to divide up. The largest discretionary spending is defense.

National Debt

National debt is the amount of money that the federal government owes to the money lender.

Gridlock

Intensifying partisanship has caused gridlock—the “congestion” of opposing forces that prevents ideas from moving forward—within each house and between the Congress and the president.

Delegate Model

Those members trying to reflect the will of their constituency,
especially in the House, follow the delegate model.
Representatives who are trying to reflect what their constituency wants (HOUSE).

Trustee Model

Some members, especially in the Senate, vote according to the trustee model. Representatives believe they are entrusted by their constituency to use their best judgment, regardless of how constituents may view an issue. This approach sidesteps any concern over an uninformed constituency reaction from emotion rather than reason and knowledge. Representatives who believe that they were trusted to use their best judgment, regardless of how the constituency views a problem.

Politico Model

Attempts to blend the delegate and trustee models. That is, lawmakers consider a variety of factors and decide their action or vote for whatever political calculations make the most sense to them at the time. Representatives acting as delegates, and trustees, depending on the issue. A hybrid of the Trustee Model and the Delegate Model.

Redistricting

The reshaping of congressional districts based on shifts in population.

Majority-minority districts

An electoral district which has a population containing a majority of a minority race, such as black, hispanic, asian, etc.

Malapportionment

The making of electoral districts with divergent ratios of voters to representatives.

Incumbency

The holding of an office or the period during which one is held.

Political Action Committee (PAC)

They also already have a donor network established. Political action committees (PACs), formal groups formed around a similar interest, donate heavily to incumbents.

Gerrymandering (Partisan & Racial)

Illogical district lines drawn to give the advantage to one party.

Partisan

Dividing an area into irregular shapes to give one political party more strength than the other by weakening the other party - NOT ILLEGAL.

Racial

Drawing district lines to stop racial minorities from electing the candidate they want - ILLEGAL.

Executive Branch

The branch of government that is responsible for enforcing laws and managing government operations. It’s led by the president and supported by his vice president and his cabinet.

Formal (or enumerated) Powers

The framers assigned Congress a limited number of specific powers, or enumerated powers. Expressly listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, they are sometimes referred to as “expressed powers.” These powers allow for the creation of public policy-the laws that govern the United States. Powers granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution.

Informal Powers

Informal powers, those political powers interpreted to be inherent in the office, to achieve policy goals.

Veto

The power/right to reject decisions made by a law-making body.

Pocket Veto

If the president receives the bill at the end of the legislative session, however, refusal to sign is known as a pocket veto and kills the bill. When a bill fails to become a law because the president doesn’t sign it within the ten day period, and can’t be returned to congress.

Treaty

The Senate must approve by a two-thirds vote any treaty the president enters with a foreign nation before it becomes official. A formal agreement between countries.

Executive Agreement

An executive agreement resembles a treaty yet does not require the Senate’s two-thirds vote. It is a simple contract between two heads of state: the president and a prime minister, king, or president of another nation.

Executive Order

An executive order empowers the president to carry out the law or to administer the government. Unlike a criminal law or monetary appropriation, which requires Congress to act, a presidential directive falls within executive authority. For example, the president can define how the military and other departments operate.

Signing Statement

Though the president cannot change the wording of a bill, several presidents have offered signing statements when signing a bill into law. These statements explain their interpretation of a bill, their understanding of what is expected of them to carry it out, or just a commentary on the law. A signing statement allows a president to say, in effect, “Here’s how I understand what I’m signing and here’s how I plan to enforce it.”

Executive Privilege

The right to withhold information or their decision making process from another branch, especially Congress.

Executive Office of the President

The executive Office of the President (EOP) operates within walking distance of the White House. It coordinates several independent agencies that carry out presidential duties and handle the budget, the economy, and staffing across the bureaucracy.

Impeachment

The process where the president, vice president, and other civil officers of the United States would be accused of wrongdoing by the House of Representatives, which held the sole responsibility for such an action. The House does this by passing articles of impeachment. If impeached, the official is then tried by the Senate, with the Senate having the power to convict and remove said individual from office with a two-thirds vote.

Executive Office of the President

The executive Office of the President (EOP) operates within walking distance of the White House. It coordinates several independent agencies that carry out presidential duties and handle the budget, the economy, and staffing across the bureaucracy.

Bargaining and Persuasion

The president uses a number of skills to win support for a policy agenda. The president will use bargaining and persuasion in an attempt to get Congress to agree with and pass the legislative agenda.

Bully Pulpit

He referred to the presidency as a bully pulpit, a prominent stage from where he could pitch ideas to the American people. With “bully,” he meant “excellent,” not aggressive or violent, persuasion. He could speak to the people using his powers of persuasion, and the people would in turn persuade Congress.

Going Public

Presidents often use the media to speak to the American people directly in order to generate public support for their policies.

Original Jurisdiction

The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, the authority to hear a case for the first time, in cases affecting ambassadors and public ministers and those in which a state is a party.

Appellate Jurisdiction

The Supreme Court acts as an appeals court, meaning they have appellate jurisdiction because they have the power to reverse the decisions of the lower court.

Federalist No. 78

Hamilton affirmed that the independent judicial branch has the power of judicial review to examine acts of legislatures to see if they comport with the proposed Constitution.

Federal (US) District Courts

The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district.

Federal (US) Courts of Appeals

Above the district courts are the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals… Appeals courts don’t determine facts; instead, they shape the law.

Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court is the nation’s highest tribunal, which, through judicial review and its rulings, shapes the law and how it is carried out. They handle crimes against the United States, high-dollar lawsuits involving citizens of different states, and constitutional questions. The highest judicial court in a country or state.

Federal Judiciary

All the federal courts. They decide if laws are in line with the Constitution.

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

A Supreme Court case that allowed for judicial review, it allows the court to declare laws as unconstitutional.

Judicial Review

The independent judicial branch has the power of judicial review to examine acts of legislatures to see if they comport with the proposed Constitution.

Precedent

Court rulings often establish a precedent, a ruling that firmly establishes a legal principle.

Stare Decisis

The concept of “stare decisis,” or “let the decision stand,” governs common law. The legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent. A doctrine that they tend to believe in, but isn’t in the constitution. The sc relies on things that happened in the past.

Litigation

the process of taking legal action

Majority Opinion

Typically, those justices who write the majority opinion, reflecting the Court’s ruling, have expertise on the topic, or are obviously passionate about the issue.

Concurring Opinion

Justices who differ from the majority can draft and issue differing opinions. Some may agree with the majority and join that vote, but have reservations about the majority’s legal reasoning. They might write a concurring opinion.

Dissenting Opinion

Those who vote against the majority often write a dissenting opinion. A dissenting opinion has no force of law, and no immediate legal bearing, but allows a justice to explain his or her disagreements to send a message to the legal community, or to influence later cases.

Judicial Restraint

The Court should not, say these critics, decide a dispute in that manner unless there is a concrete injury to be relieved by the decision.

Judicial Activism

When judges strike down laws or reverse public policy, they are exercising judicial activism. (To remember this concept, think: judges acting to create the law.)

Civil Law

A system of law concerned with the interactions of members of a community.

Federal Bureaucracy

The federal bureaucracy is the vast, hierarchical organization of executive branch employees—close to 3 million people ranging from members of the president’s Cabinet to accountants at the Internal Revenue Service—that take care of the federal government’s business.

Administrative Adjudication

Like a court, the regulatory agencies, commission, and boards within the bureaucracy can impose fines or other punishments. This administrative adjudication targets industries or companies, not individual citizens.

Bureaucrat

The executive hierarchy is a vast structure of governing bodies headed by professional bureaucrats. They include departments, agencies, commissions, and a handful of private-public organizations known as government corporations.

Iron Triangle

The relationship among these three entities—an agency, a congressional committee, and an interest group—is called an iron triangle because the three-way interdependent relationships are so strong. The three points of the triangle join forces to create policy.Interest group, congress, bureaucracy

Issue Network

Issue networks include committee staffers (often the experts and real authors of legislation), academics, advocates, leaders of think tanks, interest groups, and/or the media. These experts and stakeholders—sometimes at odds with one
another on matters unrelated to the issue they are addressing—collaborate to create specific policy on one issue.

Regulation

A rule that is created and maintained by an authority figure.

Congressional Oversight

Congress has a responsibility to assure that the agencies and departments charged with carrying out the law are in fact doing so and doing so fairly. Congressional oversight is essentially a check and balance on the agencies themselves and competes with the president for influence over them. With some regularity, House and Senate committees hold oversight hearings to address agency action, inaction, or their relationship with the agency.A check to make sure that agencies/departments are carrying out the laws they are supposed to, and doing it fairly.