AP Gov: LAST QUIZ OF THE YEAR

15th Amendment

prohibits states from discriminating in voting based on race

19th Amendment

prohibits states from discriminating in voting based on gender

26th Amendment

lowered the voting age to 18

17th Amendment

changed the selection of senators to popular vote

24th Amendment

made poll taxes illegal

Socioeconomic Status

wealthier people are more likely to vote

Educational Attainment

people who are more educated are more likely to vote

Political Efficacy

-believing that your vote matters and is powerful

-people with higher belief in this idea are more likely to vote

Age

older people are more likely to vote

Racial and Ethnic Identities

-gaps between white and black voter turnout are closing

-Hispanic voter turnout is still low

Gender

-women 18-44 are more likely to vote than men in the same age group

-white men 75 and up are more likely to vote than women in the same age group

Candidate Characteristics

some people vote based on physical characteristics: attractiveness, race, etc.

Partisan Attachment

people who align with a political party are more likely to vote

Registration Requirements

-12 states automatically register all citizens as voters

-16 states allow same-day registration

-most states require voters to register ahead of time (many 30 days before)

-registration may require identification and/or proof of residency in their state

Photo ID Laws

-18 states require photo ID to be shown when casting a vote

-could disenfranchise some voters, especially college students

Absentee Ballots

many states allow early voting or absentee ballots for those not able to vote on election day

National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (Motor Voter Law)

-asks if you would like to register to vote while receiving your driver's license

-makes registration easier (like online voter registration in 38 states)

Rational Choice Voting

voting based on what a citizen believes is in his or her self-interest

Retrospective Voting

voting based on assessment of an incumbent's past performance

Prospective Voting

casting a ballot for a candidate who promises to enact policies favored by the voter in the future

Party-Line Voting

voting for candidates who belong only to one political party for all of the offices on the ballot

Step 1: Before the Official Campaign

-begin raising money and courting party officials years before

-form exploratory commission to investigate whether candidacy is a possibility

Step 2: The Nomination Process

-must compete with others from your party for nomination = appeal to the party

-most states hold primaries; other states hold caucuses

-the National Convention officially nominates a candidate

Step 3: The General Election

-nominees from both parties compete

-must appeal to voters, including moderates = must center campaign without losing committed members of the party

Step 4: The Electoral College

-need 270 electoral votes to win

-each state is allocated electoral votes based on the number of representatives and senators it has

-all but 2 states award winner-take-all

-possibility of faithless electors

-possibility of winner of electoral vote losing the popular vote

-importance of swing states

-many criticisms

Faithless Electors

-someone who has pledged to vote for someone but actually votes for someone else

-never really changes the outcome of an election

If no one gets 270 votes...

the election goes to the House of Representatives, where every state gets one vote

What Money Buys

-media time: TV, radio, print, social media outlets

-professional consultants to figure out campaign strategy

-staff: helps manage their message, arranges public appearances, conducts public opinion polls

-mobilizing voters

Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) (1971)

-created after the Watergate Scandal, in which it was discovered that one family have over $1 million to Nixon

-adopted to regulate the raising and spending of money in U.S. federal elections

Buckley v Valero

equated money with free speech

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) (2002)

-first major amendment of FECA

-purpose: to eliminate the increased use of "soft money" to fund advertising by political parties on behalf of their candidates

-raised the amounts of permitted, lawful "hard money" contributions by individuals from $1,000 per candidate per election

Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010)

-Citizens United make a critical movie about Hillary Clinton

-Supreme Court says the movie is free speech to justify a corporation making political commentary

-allowed for superPACs

-only rule: superPACs can't coordinate WITH candidates (does anyone actually follow this?)

Linkage Institutions

-describes political parties

-connect citizens to the government

-other examples: interest groups, the media, elections

Three Major Roles of Political Parties

1. as organizations

2. in the electorate

3. in government

Parties as an Organization

-unite people with shared social, economic, and ideological goals

-find and supports candidates to run for office at the local, state, and federal level

-educate and mobilizes voters

-raise money and develops media strategy

-help keep candidates in office after they're elected

-develop the party platform

-struggling right now = PACs and superPACs with unlimited financial resources are taking over

Party Platform

party policy on different issues

Parties in the Electorate

-provide labels that the voters can use to help connect them to the party and its ideals

-influence voter choices: Republican or Democrat next to politician's name on ballot helps tell something about the candidate

-influence people to vote straight ticket instead of split

Straight Ticket

-voting for all the candidates from one party

-independents are less likely to vote this way

-unlike split ticket voting, where you don't vote by partisan lines

Parties in Government

-actual people who are making/enacting policy

-taking party platform and trying to enact agreements and policies that they put forth (decided by the party as an organization at the national convention)

Party Coalition

-what parties seek to build

-groups of voters who will support the party's policies and vote for the party's candidates

-sometimes shifts: example would be African Americans shifting from Republican to Democrat during the Great Depression because of FDR's New Deal

Realignment

-when control of government shifts back and forth between parties

-new coalitions replace old ones

Critical Elections

-major, national election that shifts the balance of power between the two parties and signals a change

-may usher in periods of realignment

Party Eras

periods when one party wins most national elections

Era of Divided Government

-when one party controls one or both houses of Congress, and the other party controls the executive (presidential office)

-from 1969 to present day

The Nomination Process

-seeking support of party delegates

-chosen through primaries (closed or open) or caucuses

Open Primaries

you do NOT have to declare ahead of time whether you're a democrat or republican

Closed Primaries

requires you to declare your party affiliation to participate

Primaries

-financed by state governments, which can be costly

-political parties have to abide by state laws

-votes are secret

-states try to frontload their primaries

Front-Loading

because more attention is given to early primaries, states try to have their primaries as early as possible

Caucuses

-lengthier than primaries

-votes are public

-political parties have more flexibility and power when it comes to the nomination process

National Convention

-delegates select party's nominees

-committees of delegates write the party's platform

-campaigns have become candidate-centered

-party elites are losing influence over the nomination process

-national party organizations are not as powerful as they used to be

Super Delegates

-members of the party (elected officials or party activists) who can support whomever they want

-count for 15% of votes

-specific to the Democratic National Convention

-how democrats give special representation at the convention

Single Member Plurality System

-what we have

-candidates run in districts and have to get a majority to win

-makes it very hard for third parties to win a majority

-winner-take-all system of the electoral college

Third Parties

-may influence elections

-sometimes built around a candidates; other times built around an ideology or a single issue

-might develop when there is an issue that the main two parties aren't addressing

Madison and Factions

-believed that factions could be dangerous

-can't stop them, but you can make sure that one doesn't become too powerful

-thought there would be many factions in a republic as large as ours = correct

Pluralist Theory

-theory of interest group formation

-distribution of political power is made to compete in groups

-groups are able to be successful because even though they might lack a resource, they make up for it with a large number of members

Elite Theory

-theory of interest group formation

-says that maybe groups have influence, but those who control things are the wealthy elite

Free Riders

-one of the challenges facing interest groups

-people who benefit from the existence of interest groups without joining them

Selective Benefits

-combats the free rider problem

-benefits only available to people who join the interest groups

-Ex: AARP

Economic Interest Groups

-advocate on behalf of the financial interests of their members

-largest category of interest groups

-largest donors to political campaigns

-includes business groups, trade unions, farm groups

Business Groups

-part of economic interest groups

-advocate for the policies best for their firms or corporate interests

Labor/Trade Groups

-part of economic interest groups

-act on behalf of the workers and advocate for workers' rights

Farmer Groups

-part of economic interest groups

-have a long tradition in American politics of advocating for subsidies and trade policies to benefit farmers

Public Interest Groups

-act on behalf of a broad group of individuals and not just their members

-civil rights, civil liberties, social welfare, education, and environment

Single-Issue Groups

-often form around a moral issue

-Ex: prohibition groups in the 1920s

Government Interest Groups

-act on behalf of state/local/foreign governments

-often concerned with laws/policies that concern their area

-work to get grants from the federal government

1st Amendment

gives interest groups the right to petition the government with their grievances

Interest Group Tactics

lobbying, influencing the judiciary, iron triangles, money and campaigns, political protests

Lobbying

-interacting with government officials in order to advance a group's public policy goals

-how interest groups shape policy across all branches of government

-done by lobbyists

Lobbyists

-paid professionals who work for an interest group to promote the group's message

-must be very knowledgeable and have access to the government

-can testify about their issue at a hearing

-talks to Congress about funding

Revolving Door

-because there is so much power that you have as a member of Congress, lots of people leave Congress to become paid lobbyists

-more money, already established relationships

-negatives: lobbyists who are former congress-people have more access = disadvantage to other interest groups

Amicus Curiae Brief

-can be filed by anyone who has an interest in the court's ruling

-not as expensive

-can influence a Supreme Court decision

-part of influencing the judiciary, along with lawsuits

Iron Triangle

shows how interest groups and the government interact/connect

PACs

-political action committees

-able to give up to $5000 directly to a candidate

-have to be established by an interest group

SuperPACs

-legal since Citizens United v FEC in 2010

-can spend an unlimited amount of money on behalf of the candidate

-cannot give money directly to the candidate

-are not supposed to coordinate with a campaign

Social Movements

-arise because of particular circumstances

-usually short-lived

-tend to have much broader and diffuse goals than interest groups

-tend to use protests and civil disobedience because they feel like the system has lost legitimacy = pessimistic

Protest

-public demonstration

-inexpensive way to call attention to an issue

-brings up a need for change

-informs the public

-spreads message quickly

-can reach millions of people with the help of social media

Civil Disobedience

-intentionally breaking the law to draw attention to an injustice

-can be risky for individuals and the movement = potentially alienating the people from the issue at hand

Occupy Wall Street Movement

-failed social movement

-after the mortgage collapse in 2007, government bailed out the banks

-regular people couldn't afford their homes because of the risky actions of these banks

-struggled to convey their message, lost media coverage

Me Too Movement

-brought attention to how women are and should be treated in the workplace

-much more successful

-had a clear message

-achieved lasting change

Media

-important source of information for political issues

-news media

-social media

News Media

broad term that includes newspapers, magazines, radio, television, internet, blogs, and social media

Social Media

much of the news transmitted this way is generated in traditional ways and shared via electronic means

Current Trend in the Media

-we live in a world where we get information from lots of different sources

-decrease in traditional media = newspaper and traditional tv

-increase in talk show viewership with very divided language

Agenda-Setting Role of the Media

-surveys and reports on political events and outcomes

-interprets those events and outcomes to the public

-educates citizens

Print Media

-at the time of the Constitution

-daily newspapers

-statement of purpose: let you know what the paper would be arguing

Freedom of the Press

-nation's newspapers published Federalist Papers and anti-Federalist responses

-protected in the First Amendment

Mass Media

-reaches a wide audience

-originally, included just newspapers

-in 1830s, drop in printing prices made it very cheap to produce and buy newspapers = penny press (1 cent paper) and increase in newspaper readers

Investigative Journalism

-started with muckrakers, who looked at the problems of city life and exposed problems in society

-creation of wire service

Wire Service

-an electronic delivery of news gathered by the news service's correspondents and sent to all member news media organizations

-Ex: Associated Press

-this way, each channel doesn't need a reporter at the scene

Radio

became a powerful force in the 1920s and 1930s (think FDR's fire-side chats)

Nixon/Kennedy Debate

-example of the influence of television

-first televised debate

-people who watched the debate on tv thought Kennedy won, while people who listened to the debate on the radio thought it was a draw

Narrow-Casting

-as opposed to broadcasting

-emerges in the 1980s

-people access tv through cable and CHOOSE what they want to watch = more polarization

New Media

-refers to all of the various digital platforms through which individuals receive, share, and produce content

-revolutionized the speed at which we deliver news

Public Policy Regulating Content and Ownership

-when tv and radio became popular, both the federal government and citizens wanted regulations on broadcast media

-Radio Act

-Communications Act of 1934

Radio Act (1927)

created the Federal Radio Commission

Communications Act of 1934

-expanded the government's role in regulating the nation's broadcast media

-created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) = still has a lot of power over everything today

Media Deregulation

-resulted from the concerns about freedom of speech

-in the 1980s

-led to the increasing concentration and consolidation of news firms = fewer and fewer people own the sources of media that we watch

-media is all being filtered through someone trying to make money

Perils of the New Media

-journalistic standards are hard to maintain

-credibility is hard to check with unknown people making their own stories

-people have their cell phones everywhere now, anything inappropriate or awkward can spread everywhere

-pressure on candidates to act perfect all the time

"Selling the News"

-news outlets need "infotainment" to attract viewers

-mixture of celebrity news with politics to make things more interesting