AP Government Unit 5

Universal Suffrage

extension of right to vote to all adult citizens, with no qualifications based on race, sex, or property ownership

Jim Crow Laws

any of the laws enforcing racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconctruction in 1877 and the civil rights movement in the mid 1900s

Political efficacy

citizens faith and trust in governmentand their belif they can understand and influence politics through voting and other forms of political participation (low political efficacy is barrier to voting and leads to low voter turnout)

Open Primaries

primaries in which oters are allowed to vote for candidates from any party (varies from state to state)

Closed Primaries

primaries in which voters must be registered with a politcal party in order to vote for one of its candidates (varies from state to state)

Voter identification laws

requiring a person to show official identification before benign allowed to register to vote or actually vote on election day (controversial befcuase this may disproportionately disenfranchises poor who are more unlikely not to have identification)

Moter-voter law

law enabling people to register to vote when they apply for a drivers license, through the mail, and at some state offices

Linkage Institutions

structure or channel within a scoiety connecting epople to the national, state, and local levels of government

Examples of linkage institution

Elections, media, political parties, interest groups

Party Convention

political party meeting held to select candidates to represent the party, set priorities, and develop the party’s political platform to address issues for that moment in time

Critical Election

an election that signals a party realignment

Party Coalition

occurs when different political parties cooperate on a common political agenda

Electioneering

direct involvement in the electoral process especially communicating or endorsing support for a candidate running for political office

Iron triangle

close three-way relationship among congressional committees, interest groups, and executive branch agency

Caucus

private run meeting run by a political party in which members of the party vote for candidates, dividing themselves into groups according to the candidate they support

Electoral college

group of state electors who indirectly elect the president and vice president based on the popular vote in each state

Political Action Committee (PAC)

organization set up by an interest group to raise money to contribute to campaigns or to spend on advertising in support of conidates. The amount a PACC can receive from each of its donors and the amount it can spend on federal electioneering are regulated by the FEC

Federal Election Campaign Act

1971 law regulating the reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures and outlines contribution rules for corporationgs and organizations to follow

Federal Election Commission (FEC)

an independent regulatory agency that adminnisters and enforces election laws and campaign finance rules for national elections

Bipartisa Campaign Reform Act of 2002

banned soft money untill was overruled by SOCTUS Citizens Unitied v FEc in 2010

Soft Money

politcal contributions that are not limited by federal campaign laws. Currently, soft money can be spend in support of a candidate but cannot be given directly to a candidate

Hard Money

political contributions that are limited an regulated by federal campaign laws, hard money can be directly given to a party or candidate

Citizen United v FEC (2010_

SCOTUS case that decided corporations, non-profits, and labor unions have the same political speech rights as individuals under the first amendment and can therefore donate unlimited amounts of campaign money to exercise this speech

Horse-race journalism

practice in which journalists and media providers almost exclusively focus on which candidate is winning or losing in the polls and on candidate personalities and differences rather that the policy issues

Dual Federalism (Layered cake)

clear speration/ distinction between Federal and State power, resulting in celarly seperate policy- making

Cooperative federalism (marbled cake federalism))

blending of federal and state power, resulting from a liberal interpretaiton of the Constitutions commerce and Elastic clause

Devolution

call for a return to dual federalism (conservative ideology)

pork- barrel spending

refeers to adding spending projects (road, bridge, subsidies) to benefit constituents of a poltician who needs an extra incentive to vote to pass the larger spending bill; resulting in politician gaining favorable support for re-election in their home district; usually considered to lead to excessive spending

logrolling

the practice of exchanging favors, especially in politics by reciprocal voting for each other’s proposed legislation