American Government Exam 2 Study Guide

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering Chapters 12 through 15 (Legislative Branch, Presidency, Bureaucracy, and Judicial Branch) for Exam 2 in American Government.

What article of the U.S. Constitution discusses the legislative branch, and what is the most obvious thing Congress does?

Article I discusses the legislative branch. The most obvious function Congress performs is lawmaking (writing and passing statutory laws).

What does the term "bicameral" mean?

A legislature that is divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses (specifically, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate).

What is the difference between the trustee and delegate models of representation?

A trustee votes according to their own judgment, conscience, and assessment of the broader public interest, whereas a delegate votes strictly according to the explicit desires and instructions of their constituents back home.

What is congressional oversight?

The power and process by which Congress monitors, reviews, and investigates the executive branch, its agencies, programs, and policy implementation.

How many Congressmen does each chamber have, and how is representation determined in each?

The House of Representatives has $435$ voting members, with representation apportioned based on state population. The Senate has $100$ members, with equal representation consisting of $2$ senators per state.

What are the term lengths in each chamber of Congress, and are there term limits?

Members of the House serve $2\text{-year}$ terms; Senators serve $6\text{-year}$ terms. There are no term limits for either chamber.

What constitutional qualifications are required to serve in the House versus the Senate?

A House member must be at least $25$ years old, a U.S. citizen for at least $7$ years, and an inhabitant of the state they represent. A Senator must be at least $30$ years old, a U.S. citizen for at least $9$ years, and an inhabitant of the state they represent.

What House district is Springfield, Missouri in, who represents it in Congress, and who are Missouri's Senators?

Springfield is in Missouri's 7th Congressional District, represented by Eric Burlison. Missouri's two U.S. Senators are Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt.

What is the "incumbency rate" in Congress, and what advantages do incumbents have over challengers?

The incumbency rate is the percentage of current officeholders who run for and win re-election (frequently exceeding $90\%$ in the House). Incumbents possess structural advantages such as name recognition, franking privileges (free official mail), established donor networks, constituent casework, and pork-barrel funding.

What is pork barreling?

Government spending targeted at localized projects or programs designed primarily to bring jobs, money, and political goodwill to a specific representative's home district.

What is the difference between redistricting and gerrymandering?

Redistricting is the periodic redrawing of electoral district boundaries following a decennial census to account for population shifts. Gerrymandering is the deliberate manipulation of those district boundary lines to grant an unfair political advantage to a specific party or group.

What are the three ways a bill can become a law once it reaches the President's desk?

1) The President signs the bill; 2) The President takes no action for $10\text{ days}$ (excluding Sundays) while Congress is in session, allowing it to become law automatically; 3) The President vetoes the bill, but Congress overrides the veto with a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.

What is a filibuster, which chamber does it occur in, why does it exist, and how is it beaten?

A filibuster is an extended debate or procedural tactic used exclusively in the Senate to prevent or delay a vote on a bill. It exists to protect minority party rights and ensure extended deliberation. It is beaten by a cloture vote, requiring a three-fifths supermajority ($60\text{ votes}$) of the full Senate.

What are the different types of congressional committees?

1) Standing committees (permanent legislative panels); 2) Select or special committees (temporary panels created for specific investigations or problems); 3) Joint committees (panels containing members from both chambers); 4) Conference committees (temporary joint panels created to reconcile conflicting versions of House and Senate bills).

Who is the most powerful person in the House of Representatives, who is most powerful in the Senate, and who presides over the Senate?

The Speaker of the House is the most powerful leader in the House. The Senate Majority Leader is the most powerful leader in the Senate. The Vice President of the United States serves as constitutional President of the Senate (voting only to break ties), and the President Pro Tempore presides in the Vice President's absence.

Compared to average Americans, is the average Congressman older or younger, how are minorities represented, and how wealthy are they?

The average member of Congress is older, substantially wealthier, and less diverse (racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented relative to their proportion of the general U.S. population) than the average American.

Which branch is the President in, what does that branch do, and what article of the Constitution discusses it?

The President is in the Executive Branch, which is responsible for executing, enforcing, and administering the laws. It is discussed in Article II of the U.S. Constitution.

What are the qualifications to be President, how long is a presidential term, and what is the term limit?

The President must be a natural-born citizen, at least $35$ years old, and a resident within the U.S. for at least $14\text{ years}$. Terms are $4\text{ years}$, and under the 22nd Amendment, a President is limited to two terms (or a maximum of $10\text{ years}$).

What are the seven traditional duties (roles) of the President?

1) Chief of State (ceremonial head of the nation); 2) Chief Executive (head of the executive branch); 3) Chief Administrator (director of the federal government); 4) Chief Diplomat (architect of foreign policy); 5) Commander in Chief (head of the armed forces); 6) Chief Legislator (main architect of public policies); 7) Chief of Party (leader of their political party).

Which presidential duties require approval from other parts of government, what approval is needed, and why?

Treaty negotiation requires approval by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, and appointments of federal judges, ambassadors, and cabinet officers require Senate approval by a simple majority vote. This advice and consent check exists under the system of checks and balances to prevent unilateral executive tyranny.

What is the difference between a presidential pardon and a commutation?

A pardon grants complete legal forgiveness for a federal crime and restores full civil rights, whereas a commutation reduces the length or severity of a criminal sentence without removing the underlying criminal conviction.

What role does the President have when it comes to legislation?

The President initiates and shapes policy proposals (such as through the State of the Union address and annual budget submissions), lobbies members of Congress, signs bills into law, or blocks them using the veto power.

What are three unilateral executive powers held only by the President?

1) Executive orders (legally binding directives issued to manage executive agencies without congressional passage); 2) Executive agreements (international pacts made with foreign heads of state that bypass formal Senate treaty ratification); 3) Executive privilege (the power to withhold confidential communications from Congress and courts).

Who can remove the President from office, and how does the process work?

Congress can remove the President through the impeachment process. The House of Representatives impeaches (charges) by a simple majority vote, and the Senate conducts the trial, requiring a two-thirds supermajority vote to convict and remove.

How has the influence of presidential advisors shifted, and why has the Cabinet's influence gone down?

Influence has shifted toward the White House Staff and Executive Office of the President (EOP) while declining for the Cabinet. The Cabinet's influence has decreased because secretaries often develop divided loyalties toward their own departments, client groups, and congressional committees rather than the President's personal agenda.

What is the line-item veto, is it currently allowed for the President, and why not?

A line-item veto allows an executive to veto specific line items or spending measures in a bill while signing the rest into law. It is not currently allowed at the federal level because the Supreme Court ruled in Clinton v. City of New York ($1998$) that it violates the Presentment Clause of Article I of the Constitution.

What is the bureaucracy, which branch does it belong to, and who is its CEO?

The bureaucracy is the extensive administrative structure of non-elected officials, offices, and agencies that manages and executes government programs and policies. It belongs to the Executive Branch, and the President of the United States serves as its Chief Executive Officer.

What are the three main types of organizations in the federal bureaucracy?

1) Cabinet departments; 2) Independent agencies (including independent executive agencies and independent regulatory commissions); 3) Government corporations.

How are Cabinet departments defined, who runs them, and who appoints and confirms them?

Cabinet departments are the $15$ major executive administrative divisions responsible for broad policy sectors. Each is run by a Secretary (with the Department of Justice led by the Attorney General), appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

What are the two types of independent bureaucratic agencies?

1) Independent executive agencies (which carry out specialized administrative duties under presidential oversight outside cabinet departments, such as NASA); 2) Independent regulatory commissions/agencies (which regulate specific economic or public domains with bipartisan boards insulated from direct presidential removal, such as the FCC).

What is a government corporation, and what is its most obvious example?

A government agency established by Congress that functions like a commercial enterprise by delivering market services and generating revenue; the most prominent example is the United States Postal Service (USPS).

What are regulations, who can rein in agencies exceeding their regulatory authority, and how?

Regulations are binding administrative rules established by agencies that have the force of statutory law. Congress can rein them in by rewriting statutes, reducing appropriations, or conducting hearings; the federal courts can overturn regulations via judicial review; and the President can issue executive orders or replace agency leadership.

What are two common complaints about the bureaucracy, and why can it be bloated and inefficient?

Common complaints are excessive red tape (cumbersome procedures) and waste/inefficiency. It becomes bloated and inefficient due to conflicting congressional mandates, bureaucratic turf wars and imperialism, a lack of competitive market incentives, and job protections that make firing civil servants difficult.

What are five methods of bureaucratic reform?

1) Privatization (contracting public services to private firms); 2) Deregulation (scaling back burdensome rules); 3) Sunshine laws (mandating public agency proceedings and records); 4) Sunset provisions (setting statutory expiration dates on programs and agencies); 5) Whistleblower protections (shielding employees who report internal waste, fraud, and abuse).

What is agency capture?

A form of government failure occurring when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial, political, or special concerns of the specific industry or sector it was charged with regulating.

What is the difference between the spoils system and the merit system?

The spoils system awards public offices and government jobs based on political connections, party loyalty, and patronage. The merit system selects and promotes civil service employees based on objective qualifications, competitive exams, and demonstrated competence.

What is an iron triangle?

A stable, mutually advantageous three-way policy-making relationship among a bureaucratic agency, a congressional committee or subcommittee, and an organized interest group.

Define the legal terms "jurisdiction," "federal question," and "justiciable controversy."

Jurisdiction is the legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case; a federal question is an issue arising directly under the U.S. Constitution, federal statutory law, or a U.S. treaty; a justiciable controversy is a real, non-hypothetical legal dispute involving an actual injury that is capable of settlement by a court.

Define the terms "class action" and "amicus curiae."

A class action is a lawsuit filed by an individual or small group on behalf of all individuals with similar legal claims. An amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief is a legal argument submitted by an outside third party that is not a direct litigant in the suit to influence the court's reasoning.

What is the primary job of the judicial branch, what article of the Constitution discusses it, and what is judicial review?

The judicial branch interprets the law and resolves legal disputes; it is discussed in Article III of the Constitution. Judicial review (established in Marbury v. Madison) is the authority of the courts to examine and declare acts of the legislative or executive branch unconstitutional.

How long is a federal judge's term, and what are the three tiers of the federal court system?

Federal judges serve lifetime terms during "good behaviour." The three tiers are: 1) U.S. District Courts (federal trial courts with original jurisdiction); 2) U.S. Courts of Appeals (circuit courts with appellate jurisdiction); 3) The Supreme Court of the United States (the highest appellate body).

How many justices serve on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), and what is the "Rule of Four"?

There are $9$ justices on the Supreme Court ($1$ Chief Justice and $8$ Associate Justices). The Rule of Four specifies that at least four justices must agree to grant a writ of certiorari in order for the Court to take up and hear a case.

What is the difference between a majority opinion, a concurring opinion, and a dissenting opinion?

The majority opinion presents the official ruling and constitutional reasoning joined by a majority of the justices; a concurring opinion agrees with the ruling of the majority but offers different or additional legal rationale; a dissenting opinion is written by one or more justices in the minority expressing their disagreement with the decision.

What does an appellate court do when it affirms, reverses, or remands a case?

Affirming upholds the lower court's decision as valid; reversing overturns the lower court's ruling; remanding sends the case back down to the lower court for retrial or further action in accordance with the appellate ruling.

What are precedent and stare decisis, and how does one become a federal judge?

Precedent is a prior court ruling that establishes a legal rule for resolving subsequent cases with similar facts; stare decisis is the Latin legal doctrine of adhering to precedent. A person becomes a federal judge by being nominated by the President and confirmed by a simple majority vote of the Senate.