AP GOV legislative branch

Bicameral Legislature

A legislature divided into two separate chambers or houses, specifically the Senate and the House of Representatives.

War Powers

Only Congress can declare war

Raise and support an army

Maintain a navy

Create laws to govern land and naval forces

Judicial powers

Create lower federal courts

Define structure of judiciary

Define federal crimes and punishments for violators

Naturalization

Congress controls the process an immigrant takes to become a citizen

War Powers Resolution (1973)

Congress can restrict the use of American forces in areas where a state of war does not exist

Mandatory spending

Spending required by existing laws (automatic spending)

Discretionary spending

Money that Congress and the President approves each year (needs renewal)

Bills of attainder

Bills that punish a person or group outside the law (violating due process and separation of legislative and judicial branches)

Ex post facto laws

Laws that retroactively punish someone for a crime they committed before the crime was a crime

Writ of habeas corpus

A court order summoning the custodian of a detained person to justify their detention.

Congress cannot suspend it unless we’re at war.

Term of Congress

A two-year period during which the U.S. Congress meets (currently the 119th congress)

Session of Congress

The annual period during which Congress assembles and legislates; each two-year term contains two sessions.

Casework

Direct assistance provided by members of Congress to constituents as individuals, often by cutting through bureaucratic red tape to help them obtain services or benefits

Pork Barrel

Federal projects, grants, and contracts secured by legislators for cities, businesses, colleges, and institutions within their home state or congressional district.

Incumbency Advantage

The electoral edge enjoyed by sitting officeholders over challengers due to tools like advertising, credit claiming, casework, and high reelection success rates.

Midterm Election

A national election held near the midpoint of a president's four-year term in which all $435$ House seats and approximately $\frac{1}{3}$ of Senate seats are contested.

Apportionment

The distribution of the $435$ seats in the House of Representatives among the 50 states according to their populations as measured by the census.

Redistricting

The process of redrawing congressional and state legislative district boundaries following the census to adjust for changes in population.

Gerrymandering

The redrawing of electoral district lines in a deliberate manner to favor one political party or demographic group over another.

Cracking

A gerrymandering strategy of spreading voters of the opposing party across multiple districts to dilute their voting strength, leaving them as a permanent minority in each.

Packing

A gerrymandering tactic that concentrates as many opposing-party voters as possible into a single district, reducing their influence across surrounding districts.

Baker v. Carr (1962)

• Background: Tennessee had not redrawn its legislative districts since 1901 despite major demographic shifts, causing urban votes to be substantially diluted relative to rural votes.
• Important Question: Do federal courts have jurisdiction to review the constitutionality of state legislative redistricting under the Fourteenth Amendment, or is apportionment an untouchable "political question"?
• Ruling and Reasoning: The Supreme Court ruled that redistricting challenges are justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court established that federal courts have the authority to intervene to protect voters from political inequality, establishing the precedent that led to the "one person, one vote" doctrine.

Partisan

Blind adherence to a party

Shaw v. Reno (1993)

• Background: North Carolina created two majority-minority congressional districts to ensure Black representation, including District 12, an unusually narrow 160-mile-long district snaking along Interstate 85.
• Important Question: Does a state redistricting plan designed primarily to group voters based on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
• Ruling and Reasoning: The Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts drawn predominantly on the basis of race must be evaluated under "strict scrutiny" (must serve a compelling state interest, be narrowly tailored, and be the least restrictive means). The bizarre shape showed that race was the overriding factor, violating the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantee.

Expressed Powers

Powers specifically enumerated and written directly in the text of the U.S. Constitution and granted to the federal government (such as Article I, Section 8 powers).

Implied Powers

Constituents

The people who are voting for you