AP Government 2.1-2.3 Vocabulary

Discretionary spending

Funding that congress must re-evaluate and approve annually through appropiation bills

ex: defense spending, education, transportation

Mandatory spending

Spending required by existing law that occurs automatically without annual congressional authorization

ex: social security, medicare, medicaid

Pork - barrel legislation

The use of government funds by politicians to pay for local projects that benefit their home districts, mainly to win votes and get reelected. [1, 2]

Partisan Voting

When members of congress vote based on their political party affiliation

Polarization

When political attitudes move toward ideological extremes

Gridlock

A situation in which no congressional action on legislation can be taken due to lack of consensus ( partisan voting and polarization can lead to this)

Partisan Gerrymandering

When a political party is allowed to intentionally redistrict legislative lines to give an electoral advantage to that party’s candidate. Blatant and legal attempts to rig election outcomes to create districts with a high concentration of democratic or Republican votes.

Racial Gerrymandering

Drawing electoral district boundaries to dilute, concentrate, or manipulate the voting power of specific racial minority groups, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 allowed racial gerrymandering so that ethnic minorities became the majority of the population. Increased chances of ethnics beings elected to represent non-white communities.

State legislatures

The elected lawmaking bodies of state governments are responsible for drawing legislative and congressional district lines in most states following a census

Census

An official count of the population is conducted every 10 years by the U.S. Census Bureau as mandated by the Constitution to determine population changes across states.

Apportionment/ Reapportionment

Distribution of the 435 House seats to the 50 states every 10 years based on census population count.

Political districts

Geographically defined electoral areas from which voters elect representatives to legislative bodies (like congress or state legislature)

Single member districts

An electoral system in which each political district elects only on representative to a legislative body

Redistricting

Drawing boundaries for congressional districts. State governments are in charge of doing for the seats in the U.S. house and in different state legislatures

Malapportionment/ Malapportioned districts

Drawing electoral districts with unequal population sizes, giving voters in smaller population districts more political weight than voters in larger population districts

Equal protection challenges

Legal arguments based on the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause claiming unfair redistricting practices (like gerrymandering or malapportionment) violate citizens constitutional rights to equal voting representation

One person-one vote doctrine

The constitutional principle (established in Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims) under the 14th amendment requiring legislation districts to be drawn so that each district contains roughly equal populations, ensuring every citizens vote carries equal weight.

Divided government

When at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by a party opposed to the president’s party. Can contribute to legislative gridlock