AP Government Unit 2 Review Notes

The Three Branches of Government and the Bureaucracy

Unit 2 of AP Government covers the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) and their interactions, as well as the bureaucracy.

The Legislative Branch (Congress)

  • Congress is the law-making body of the government.
  • It's a bicameral structure which means it is made up of two houses:
    • The House of Representatives
      • Representatives are apportioned by the population of each state.
      • More populous states have more representatives.
      • There are 435 representatives.
      • They serve two-year terms.
      • House members are closely tied to the people they represent because:
        • They serve short terms so they must be responsive to their constituents.
        • They represent smaller constituencies.
    • The Senate
      • Each state gets two senators, for a total of 100.
      • Senators serve six-year terms.
      • Senators have more constitutional responsibilities than House members.
      • Senators represent an entire state, making them less connected to the intimate details of their constituency compared to House members.
  • Both houses of Congress must agree on identical versions of bills to pass legislation, which then goes to the President.
  • Coalitions are formed to make the legislative process more efficient in both houses.
    • 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 one, Section eight of the Constitution.
    • Include:
      • Federal funding:
        • Raising revenue through taxation.
        • Coining money for a uniform currency.
        • Passing a federal budget.
      • Foreign policy and military legislation:
        • Declaring war.
        • Raising armies.
        • Passing draft laws.
        • Directing funding to the armed forces.
  • Implied Powers:
    • Powers not explicitly listed but are necessary to execute enumerated powers.
    • Justification:
      • Necessary and Proper Clause (Elastic Clause) in Article one, Section eight.
      • Allows Congress to pass a wide range of legislation on economic, environmental, and social issues.
    • Example:
      • Alexander Hamilton's argument for establishing a national bank.
      • The power to raise funds through taxation (enumerated) implies the need for a bank (implied).

Leadership Structures in Congress

  • House Leadership:
    • Speaker of the House:
      • Chosen by the House members and is always a member of the majority party.
      • Has significant power, including recognizing who can speak, assigning representatives to committees.
    • Majority and Minority Leaders:
      • Direct debates and guide their members in policymaking issues.
    • Whips:
      • Enforce party discipline and ensure party members align with party goals.
  • Senate Leadership:
    • President of the Senate:
      • The Vice President of the United States.
      • A non-voting member unless there's a tie, then they can vote.
    • President Pro Tempore:
      • The most senior member of the majority party.
      • Acts as president of the Senate when the vice president is not present.
    • Senate Majority Leader:
      • Sets the legislative agenda by determining which bills reach the floor for debate.
    • Whips:
      • Function the same way in the Senate as they do in the House.

Congressional Committees

  • Committees:
    • Small groups of representatives who debate and draft legislation.
    • A practical necessity for efficient work in Congress.
  • Four Types of Committees:
    • Standing Committees:
      • Permanent committees that endure for a long time.
      • Examples: Senate Committee on the Budget, House Judiciary Committee.
      • New legislation begins here; most bills never make it past this stage.
    • Joint Committees:
      • Include members from both the House and the Senate.
      • Example: Joint Committee on the Library of Congress.
    • Select Committees:
      • Temporary and created for a specific purpose.
      • Example: A select committee formed to investigate President Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal.
    • Conference Committees:
      • Formed when the House and Senate pass different versions of a bill.
      • Work out a compromise version that both houses can agree on.
  • Committees serve the goals of the majority party.
    • They hold a majority of seats on each committee.
    • The committee chair is always from the majority party.

Unique Rules in Each House

  • House Rules:
    • Limited Debate:
      • Members are limited to one hour for debate due to the large number of representatives.
    • House Rules Committee:
      • Decides which bills make it to the floor for debate.
      • If this committee doesn't allow a bill through, it effectively dies.
    • Committee of the Whole:
      • Theoretically includes all 435 representatives, but only a quorum of 100 is required.
      • Relaxes some of the rules for debate, allowing amendments to be considered more quickly.
    • Discharge Petition:
      • If a bill gets stuck in a committee, a majority vote can bring it out for consideration.
  • Senate Rules:
    • Relaxed Debate Rules:
      • Senators have unlimited time to debate bills.
    • Filibuster:
      • Senators can stall or kill a bill by talking for a very long time.
    • Cloture Rule:
      • Requires a two-thirds vote (60 senators) to shut down a filibuster and bring the bill to a vote.
    • Unanimous Consent:
      • The acting Senate president asks if all Senators agree to limit debate.
    • Hold:
      • Even one Senator can object, stalling the bill under consideration.

How a Bill Becomes a Law

  1. Introduction:
    • A member from either house can introduce a bill.
  2. Committee Assignment:
    • The bill is assigned to a committee, where it undergoes changes.
    • Riders:
      • Non-relevant additions to benefit a representative's own agenda.
    • Pork Barrel Spending:
      • Funds earmarked for special projects in a representative's district.
  3. Markup and Amendment:
    • The bill is marked up and amended.
  4. Voting:
    • The whole group votes on the bill.
    • Log Rolling:
      • Representatives agree to vote for each other's bills.
  5. Presidential Action:
    • If the bill passes, it heads to the president's desk for signing.

Federal Budget

  • Most of the federal government's income is gathered from income taxes.
  • Two categories of spending:
    • Mandatory Spending:
      • Spending required by law, especially with respect to entitlement spending.
      • Examples: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest payments on debt.
    • Discretionary Spending:
      • Spending that committees debate how to use.
      • The biggest recipient is paying federal employees.
  • As mandatory spending increases, discretionary spending must decrease, assuming a balanced budget.
  • Ways to increase discretionary spending:
    • Raise taxes (unpopular).
    • Approve an increase in deficit spending, borrowing money to cover the gap between the budget and available funds.

Factors Affecting Congressional Efficiency

  • Ideological Divisions:
    • Political Polarization: Republicans have become more conservative, and Democrats have become more liberal.
    • Makes negotiation and compromise difficult, leading to gridlock.
  • Divided Government:
    • When the president is from one party and both houses of Congress are from another.
    • Slows down the legislative process.
    • Unified government speeds things up.
  • Differing Conceptions of Representative Role:
    • Trustee Model:
      • Representatives vote according to their best judgment.
    • Delegate Model:
      • Representatives vote with the will of the people.
    • Politico Model:
      • A blend of the other two; how they vote depends on the situation.
  • Redistricting and Gerrymandering:
    • Every ten years, a census is taken and the number of representatives for each state is apportioned.
    • Congressional districts are redrawn to reflect those new seats (redistricting).
    • Reapportionment: doling out of representative seats
    • Baker v. Carr (1962):
      • Districts must be drawn to evenly distribute voting power (one person, one vote principle).
      • Apportionment issues are justiciable (the court can rule on such questions because it is a constitutional issue not a political issue).
    • Shaw v. Reno (1993):
      • Dealt with the constitutionality of drawing districts based on race alone.
      • Gerrymandering: Drawing districts to favor one group over another.
      • Racial Gerrymandering: districts are drawn so that certain races constitute the majority in those districts, even if it helps historically discriminated people, was a dangerous practice and thus unconstitutional.

The Executive Branch (Presidency)

  • How a President can implement his or her policy agenda:
    • Formal powers
    • Informal powers

Formal Powers of the President

  • Laid out in Article two of the Constitution.
    • Veto:
      • The president can veto a bill, which means the bill will not become a law, if it is not in line with their policy agenda.
      • Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote, which is very difficult to do.
    • Informal Veto Powers:
      • President threatens to veto, incentivizing Congress to negotiate.
      • Pocket veto: If there are less than ten days left in the congressional session, the president can do nothing with it, let the session expire, and the bill is effectively vetoed.
    • Foreign Policy:
      • The president is the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces but can’t declare war.
      • Executive agreements: The president can enter into executive agreements with other heads of state (more like a contract between a president and another president or monarch).

Informal Powers of the President

  • Bargaining and persuasion: The president can use their access and attention to persuade the people based on 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.
    • Executive orders direct the actions of the federal bureaucracy and the military.
  • Signing statement: When signing a bill into law, the president can also issue a signing statement which informs the nation how the executive branch interprets that law.

Conflicts and Appointments

  • The President's policy agenda can conflict with the agendas of other branches of government, especially with Congress, and even more specifically with the Senate.
    • The president appoints a team of advisors, which is known as the cabinet (the heads of all the different executive agencies), but those appointments have to be confirmed by the senate.
    • Federal court nominations, more specifically the Supreme Court nomination is where things get highly contentious.
      • Judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court hold that job for the rest of their lives.

Expansion of Presidential Power

  • The expansion of power in the executive branch is what the anti federalists were worried about.
    • Federalist 70: Hamilton argues a single executive was necessary because one person is able to act swiftly and decisively on matters that require firm leadership and tactical decision making.
      • Argued that the executive branch can be checked with the power of the other two branches, so a presidential monarch would be an impossibility.
  • Significant shifts in presidential power:
    • Andrew Jackson: believed that the president was the representative of the people and not congress
    • Abraham Lincoln: Assumed way more power than any president before him, and he's generally forgiven for it because he had the civil war to fight.
    • Franklin Roosevelt: Expanded federal power, pushed New Deal programs through Congress in order to address the devastating effects of the Great Depression

Presidential Communication

  • The advantage to the President is that they have the eyes and ears of the nation.
  • Teddy Roosevelt said that the presidency was a bully pulpit.
  • One of the chief ways the president does this is through the annual State of the Union address to Congress.
  • The effectiveness of the presidential bully pulpit has changed as technology has advanced.
    • Franklin Roosevelt created fireside chats through the radio
    • John F. Kennedy was the first president to use the new medium of television to deliver live press conferences.
    • With the advent of social media, the bully pulpit took on yet another form.

The Judicial Branch (Courts)

Structure of the Federal Court System

  • Three levels:
    • US District Courts:
      • 94 across the nation.
      • Original jurisdiction: the right to hear a case for the first time.
    • US Circuit Court of Appeals:
      • 12 of these.
      • Appellate jurisdiction: Hears appeals from the lower courts.
    • Supreme Court:
      • Both original and appellate jurisdiction.
      • The only one of these courts that is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution (Article III).
    • All the other courts I mentioned are created by Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789.
  • Federalist 78: Hamilton argued that the independence of the judicial branch acted as a protection for its power.
    • From the lifetime appointment of its judges, it makes them independent.
    • The Court has the right of judicial review (it's the Court's job to declare laws constitutional or unconstitutional, and it's through this power that the Supreme Court has the power to check the other branches of government).
  • Marbury v. Madison in 1803: Cemented the power of judicial review in the Supreme Court's purview.

How the Court Works

  • The role of precedence is of extreme importance.
  • Creates a precedent, which means that unless there are some very extreme circumstances, this decision will act as a binding template for future decisions.
  • Stare decisis: Let the decision stand (precedents are very hard to overturn because of this principle).
  • Judicial activism is the idea that the court acts to establish policy and considers more than just the constitutionality of a decision, it also considers the decision's broader effects on society.
  • Judicial restraint is the idea here that judges believe they aren't appointed to make policy.
  • The ideology of the judges also plays a role in how the court makes its decisions as well.

Checks on the Court

  • Exercising the power of judicial review has often led certain groups of Americans to question the legitimacy of the Court's power.
  • The president can appoint new judges as the opportunity arises.
  • The President can mitigate court decisions by a lack of enforcement.
  • Congress can check the power of the branch and they do this through legislation.

The Federal Bureaucracy

  • The bureaucracy falls under the authority of the executive branch which is made up of millions of people who are employed to carry out the responsibilities of the federal government.

Structure of the Bureaucracy

  • Cabinet secretaries: The leaders of the 15 executive departments
  • Departments are further subdivided into agencies which all work together to accomplish the goals of the department.
  • Commissions: Regulatory groups who operate somewhat independently of the authority of the president but still fall under the executive authority.
  • Government corporations: Kind of like a hybrid between a business and a government agency (when they want to offer a public good, but the free market is the best way to offer that service).

Work of the Bureaucracy

  • Write and enforce regulations
    • Delegated discretionary authority: The authority given to the bureaucracy by Congress that gives them the discretion on how to make the rules and carry out the laws.
    • Compliance monitoring: Bureaucratic agencies that establish rules for certain industries and then have to do the work of making sure those industries are complying with those rules.
  • Issue fines when laws are violated.
  • Agencies will often testify before Congress: Either to be held accountable for their actions or to give an update on the work of their agency.

Iron Triangle

  • Bureaucratic agencies, congressional committees, and interest groups.
  • These groups often work together and rely on one another to create policy.
  • Bureaucrats offer expertise to congressional committees.
  • Committee members want to pay attention to interest groups.
  • Interest groups can provide funding for congressional races.

Key Bureaucratic Departments (Examples)

  1. Department of Homeland Security: Protects The US from terrorism and maintains and controls the nation's borders.
  2. Department of Transportation: Manages all kinds of transportation like highway and air travel.
  3. Department of Veterans Affairs: Manages veterans hospitals and the general welfare of America's Veterans.
  4. Department of Education: Oversees states in their implementation of federal educational standards.
  5. Environmental Protection Agency: Works to protect the environment and human health through industrial regulations.
  6. Federal Elections Commission: Administers and enforces campaign finance laws.
  7. Securities and Exchange Commission: Regulates the stock market and prevents fraud.

Checks on the Bureaucracy

  • All the leadership in these entities are folks whom the President appoints.
  • The President can fire them and appoint new leaders in cabinet and agency positions, although the President cannot fire regulatory commission heads.
  • Congress is responsible for making sure that laws are upheld along the lines in which they were passed.
    • Congress has many committees that correspond to the bureaucracy’s agencies and will call directors of those agencies to testify and give reports of their progress.
    • Congress is the entity who's holding all the hooch in its pockets through the power of the purse.
  • President can check the bureaucracy.
  • Judicial branch checks in when citizens believe that the bureaucratic decisions are unconstitutional, they can challenge them in court.
  • The bureaucracy has been challenged over time specifically regarding its independence.

Evolution of Bureaucratic Appointments

  • Back in the first hundred years or so of our history, people were given bureaucracy jobs based on the patronage system, which means that these jobs were a way for the president to award those who supported his campaign.
  • Pendleton Civil Service Act in 1883: Created a merit system for bureaucratic appointments.