Public Process Midterm Quiz Questions:

How does a member become Speaker of the House?

The majority party’s caucus or conference normally selects its nominee for Speaker, who must then win election by the full House.

How many votes are required to invoke cloture and end debate in the Senate (i.e., block a filibuster)?

60

Which of the following is an example of a committee’s after-the-fact authority?

Holding oversight hearings on how an agency is implementing a law

A committee’s “gatekeeping authority” refers to its power to:

decide whether a proposed change in policy will be considered at all

What does the chapter conclude about the claim that campaign contributions buy legislators’ floor votes?

It has little empirical support; group influence is more likely to show up in committee, where it is harder to observe.

The jurisdictions of congressional standing committees generally parallel:

the organization of the departments and agencies of the executive branch

A bill’s supporters in the House generally prefer a closed rule because it:

limits floor debate and prohibits amendments that might weaken the bill

According to the chapter, the basic building blocks of congressional organization are political parties, the committee system, congressional staff, the caucuses, and:

the parliamentary rules of the House and Senate

In Aldrich and Rohde’s theory of “conditional party government,” what is the condition that determines how much power party leaders have?

How homogeneous the party’s members are in their policy goals

A conference committee is created in order to:

work out a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the same bill

What is the primary means by which members of Congress oversee activities within the executive branch?

Hearings in which bureaucrats testify about their agency’s performance and plans

The “cycle of decreasing influence” refers to the pattern that presidents’ support in Congress is typically highest

during their first year in office.

According to the chapter, research on divided government finds that when the president and congressional majorities come from different parties,

fewer landmark bills are enacted into law.

Under current Senate rules, ending a filibuster by invoking cloture requires

three-fifths of the entire Senate (sixty senators).

The “two-presidencies thesis” holds that presidents exert significantly more influence over

foreign policy than domestic policy.

The chapter describes the view that successful presidents act as “facilitators.” What does this mean?

Presidents cannot create support where none exists, but they can recognize and exploit the opportunities they inherit.

The “ally principle” holds that members of Congress are more likely to delegate authority to the president when

the president’s policy goals are the same as or similar to their own.

According to the chapter, how can a veto threat shape legislation even if the president never actually issues a veto?

Congress may revise the bill to win the president’s signature rather than risk a veto it cannot override.

Howell (the author) is skeptical of the view, held by some scholars, that presidential power is, at its core, the power to

persuade.

To win over a senator who opposed the Civil Rights Act on states’ rights grounds, the Johnson administration offered to support a major water project in the senator’s home state. This illustrates which form of presidential persuasion?

Promising support for a legislator’s pet project

Which of the following is one of Skocpol’s objections to the view that the American public was to blame for the failure of reform?

The public sets the agenda but never chooses among detailed policy options, and its views are shaped by arguments among leaders.

In his September 1993 address, President Clinton pitched Health Security mainly to which audience?

Hardworking middle-class Americans worried about losing their coverage

Why, in Skocpol’s view, did the Health Security plan “boomerang” politically?

It relied on an intricate set of cost-cutting regulations, which allowed opponents to paint it as “big government.”

How does Skocpol treat the explanation that reform failed because of the arrogance and personality flaws of the plan’s designers?

She says it misses the forest for the trees: most mistakes reflected hard choices forced by economic conditions, budget constraints, and the way US politics works.

Skocpol describes a “central paradox” of health reform in 1992–93. What was it?

Most Americans wanted health care reform, but had little trust in the federal government’s policymaking ability

How was the Health Security plan received when it was first launched in the fall of 1993?

It had strong public support, including by some moderate Republicans.

The name “Health Security” was chosen to echo which earlier federal program?

Social Security

How does Skocpol characterize the substance of the Clinton plan?

A compromise between market-oriented and government-centered ideas, built around “managed competition within a budget”

What happened in the November 1994 midterm elections, shortly after health reform died?

Republicans won control of the House and Senate