AP Government Unit 2 Notes

The Three Branches of Government and the Bureaucracy

Legislative Branch (Congress)

• Congress is the law-making branch of the government.
• It is a bicameral legislature, consisting of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

House of Representatives

• Representatives are apportioned based on the population of each state.
• More populous states have more representatives.
• Representatives serve two-year terms.
• There are 435 representatives.
• Members are closely tied to the people they represent due to shorter terms and smaller constituencies.

Senate

• Each state has two senators, totaling 100 senators.
• Senators serve six-year terms.
• Senators have more constitutional responsibilities than House members.
• Senators represent an entire state and are generally less connected to the details of their constituency compared to House members.

Legislative Process

• Both houses must agree on identical versions of a bill for it to pass and go to the president.
• Coalitions are formed to make the legislative process more efficient.
• Senate coalitions tend to be longer-lasting due to longer terms.
• House coalitions can change more often.

Powers of Congress

• Enumerated Powers: Powers explicitly listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
  • Federal Funding: Power to raise revenue through taxation, coin money, and pass a federal budget.
  • Foreign Policy and Military Legislation: Power to declare war, raise armies, pass draft laws, and direct funding to the armed forces.
• Implied Powers: Powers not explicitly listed but necessary to execute enumerated powers, justified by the Necessary and Proper Clause (Elastic Clause) at the end of Article 1, Section 8.
  • Example: Alexander Hamilton argued for the establishment of a national bank using the Necessary and Proper Clause.

Leadership Structure in the House

• Speaker of the House: Chosen by the House members, always a member of the majority party.
  • Significant power to recognize who can speak, assign representatives to committees, etc.
• Majority and Minority Leaders: Direct debates and guide their party members on policy-making issues.
• Whips: Enforce party discipline and ensure party members align with party goals.

Leadership Structure in the Senate

• President of the Senate: The Vice President of the United States.
  • Non-voting member except in the case of a tie.
• President Pro Tempore: The most senior member of the majority party, acts as President of the Senate when the Vice President is absent.
• Senate Majority Leader: Sets the legislative agenda by determining which bills reach the floor for debate.
• Whips: Function the same way as in the House.

Committees in Congress

• Most legislative work is done in committees.
• Standing Committees: Enduring committees that handle ongoing issues.
  • Example: Senate Standing Committee on the Budget, House Judiciary Committee.
• Joint Committees: Include members from both the House and the Senate.
  • Example: Joint Committee on the Library of Congress.
• Select Committees: Temporary committees created for a specific purpose.
  • Example: Select committee formed to investigate the Watergate scandal.
• Conference Committees: Resolve differences between House and Senate versions of a bill.

House Rules

• Limited debate time (one hour per member).
• House Rules Committee: Decides which bills make it to the floor for debate.
• Committee of the Whole: Relaxes some of the rules for debate to consider amendments more quickly; requires a quorum of 100 members.
• Discharge Petition: A majority vote can bring a bill out of committee and into the House for consideration.

Senate Rules

• More relaxed rules for debate.
• Filibuster: An attempt to stall or kill a bill by talking for a long time.
• Cloture Rule: Requires a two-thirds vote (60 senators) to end a filibuster and bring a bill to a vote.
• Unanimous Consent: Used to speed up legislation by limiting debate, avoiding filibusters; even one senator can object (hold) and stall the bill.

How a Bill Becomes a Law

1. Introduction: A member from either house introduces the bill.
2. Committee Assignment: The bill is assigned to a committee.
   • Riders: Non-relevant additions that benefit a representative's agenda.
   • Pork Barrel Spending: Funds earmarked for special projects in a representative's district.
     • Example: "Bridge to Nowhere."
3. Markup and Amendments: The committee marks up and amends the bill adding, removing, and changing the bill.
4. Voting: The whole group votes on the bill.
   • Log rolling: Representatives agree to vote for each other's bills.
5. Presidential Action: If passed, the bill goes to the president for signing.

Federal Budget

• Most income is from income taxes, with other taxes and tariffs contributing.
• Mandatory Spending: Payments required by law, especially entitlement spending.
  • Examples: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest payments on debt.
• Discretionary Spending: Funds allocated after mandatory spending is accounted for.
  • Largest recipient: Paying federal employees.
• As mandatory spending increases, discretionary spending decreases (assuming a balanced budget).
• To increase discretionary spending, Congress can raise taxes or approve an increase in deficit spending.
  • Deficit: The gap between the budget and available funds; covered by borrowing.

Factors affecting Congressional Efficiency

• Ideological Divisions: Increased political polarization makes negotiation and compromise difficult.
• Divided Government: When the president is from one party and both houses of Congress are from another, it can slow down or speed up the legislative process.
  • Example: Confirmation of Supreme Court justices during Obama and Trump presidencies.
• Representative Roles:
  • Trustee Model: Representatives vote according to their best judgment.
  • Delegate Model: Representatives vote according to the will of the people.
  • Politico Model: Representatives blend both models depending on the situation.
• Redistricting and Gerrymandering:
  • Every 10 years, a census is taken, and the number of representatives for each state is reapportioned, causing congressional districts to be redrawn (redistricting).
  • Reapportionment: Doling out of representative seats
    • Required Supreme Court Cases:
      • Baker v. Carr (1962):
        • Ruled that districts must be drawn to evenly distribute voting power (one person, one vote principle), because such a situation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
        • Apportionment issues are justiciable (the court can rule on them).
      • Shaw v. Reno (1993):
        • Dealt with the constitutionality of drawing districts based on race alone.
        • Gerrymandering: Drawing districts to favor one group over another.
        • Partisan Gerrymandering: Used to ensure that a certain party has the advantage in that district
        • Racial Gerrymandering: Districts are drawn so that certain races constitute the majority in those districts, even if helps historically discriminated people, was a dangerous practice and thus unconstitutional.

Executive Branch (Presidency)

Presidential Policy Agenda Implementation

• Presidents implement their policy agendas through formal and informal powers.

Formal Powers

• Laid out in Article II of the Constitution.
  • Veto: The president can veto a bill, preventing it from becoming law.
    • Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds vote, which is very difficult to do.
    • President can communicate that they will veto, so that Congress needs to revisit the bill to make it more palatable to the president.
  • Pocket Veto: If there are less than 10 days left in the congressional session, the president can do nothing with the bill, and the session expires, and the bill is effectively vetoed.
  • Foreign Policy:
    • Commander-in-Chief: The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
      • Cannot declare war; that power belongs to Congress.
      • Executive Agreements: The president can enter into executive agreements with other heads of state, which is more like a contract between a president and another president or monarch.

Informal Powers

• Bargaining and Persuasion: The president can use the nation's attention to persuade the people according to the executive policy agenda.
• Executive Order: A directive from the president that has the force of federal law, but it's not actually a law that directs the actions of the federal bureaucracy and the military.
  • Example: Donald Trump moved money to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border after Congress wouldn't approve funding.
• Signing Statement: Informs the nation how the executive branch interprets a law and how the president intends to execute it.

Presidential Appointments and Senate Confirmation

• Presidential policy agenda can conflict with other branches.
• The president makes federal appointments that have to be confirmed by the Senate, which can lead to tension.
  • Cabinet: The president appoints a team of advisors known as the cabinet, the heads of all the different executive agencies, on which more in a moment.
    • Senate usually just lets the appointment cruise by, but it can get scrappy.
    • Example: Donald Trump nominated Besty DeVos as the education secretary. The vote ended in a tie, and the Vice President Mike Pence had to break it.
  • Ambassadors to other countries usually get confirmed. Senate confirms them without much drama.
  • White House Staff are similarly appointed by the precedent but do not require Senate confirmation.
  • Federal Court Nominations: Supreme Court nomination is where things are highly contentious.
    • Important judges hold that job for the rest of their lives.

Expansion of Presidential Power

• Scope of presidential power has expanded significantly over U.S. history.
• Anti-Federalists worried that the presidency was the fetus of monarchy.
• Federalist 70: Hamilton argued that a single executive was necessary for quick and decisive action.
  • Executive branch can be checked by the other two branches.
  • Corruption is more easily detectable in a single individual.
• George Washington yielded to Congress's agenda and stepped down after two terms.
• Andrew Jackson: Expanded the power of the executive office, thought that the president was the representative of the people and not Congress.
• Abraham Lincoln: Assumed way more power than any president before in the Civil war, suspending the constitutional right of habeas corpus.
• Franklin Roosevelt: expanded executive power further, pushing his New Deal programs through Congress, and served four stinking terms. FDR gave is Big Daddy Government.

Presidential Communication

• The president has the eyes and ears of the nation.
• Bully Pulpit: The presidency is a bully pulpit (excellent platform) to speak directly to the people and influence their representatives.
• State of the Union address: One of the chief ways the president does this.
  • Technology has advanced effectiveness.
    • Radio: Franklin Roosevelt discovered that he could talk directly to the people without any intermediary, and he did so in his famous fireside chats, where he explained in simple terms his policy proposals through the radio.
    • Television: John F Kennedy was the first president to use the new medium to deliver lived press conferences, and that is when you saw the creation of a presidential communication office, which worked to refine and to shape the president's talking points so that the president's policy agenda would succeed in the hearts and minds of the people.
    • Social Media: Barack Obama appointed social media as the key to winning his first campaign by creating a stream of communication directly to his supporters through social sites.Donald Trump built on this innovation when he used Twitter as his bully pulpit. He got the nickname