Leg Reg

Question 1

What are the 3 major perspectives in lawmaking, and what are the actors?

Answer 1

Courts (judges), legislature (legislators), agencies (administrators)

Question 2

What is the judge’s role in the lawmaking process?

Answer 2

Interpret the laws in a reactive way to ensure predictability in the law

Question 3

What is a legislator’s role in the lawmaking process?

Answer 3

Create laws by considering proactive factors to solve problems for the electorate

Question 4

What is an administrator’s role in the lawmaking process?

Answer 4

Implement rules and regulations to carry out a statute’s goals by considering proactive factors affecting citizens

Question 5

What is the process where each house of Congress tries to agree on a final text?

Answer 5

Reconciliation

Question 6

Vetogate?

Answer 6

Any hurdle in the lawmaking process that a bill must surpass to move forward

Question 7

What are major vetogates?

Answer 7

Committee referral and consideration; Rules Committee (House); germaneness rules; unanimous consent agreements (Senate); filibuster (Senate); Presidential veto; bicameralism

Question 8

What does the House Rules Committee do?

Answer 8

Sets the agenda/rules on how the House will debate the bill

Question 9

What is a filibuster and how can Senators overcome one?

Answer 9

Filibuster is the process of stalling a vote in the Senate by talking a bill to death; can be overcome by 60 votes of cloture

Question 10

What is bicameralism?

Answer 10

The principle that Congress is divided into two houses and each must approve of congressional actions through a bill to enact laws

Question 11

What are the 4 structural limits on Congressional authority?

Answer 11

Authority from the Constitution, bicameralism, Presentment Clause, representation

Question 12

What is the Presentment Clause?

Answer 12

The principle that Congress must present a single approved bill to the President for signature before taking affect

Question 13

What are the Vesting clauses?

Answer 13

Clauses that introduce each branch of government and list their respective powers

Question 14

What is the Incompatability clause?

Answer 14

Prevents members of Congress from sitting in the Executive branch (separation of powers)

Question 15

What is the difference between formalists and functionalists?

Answer 15

Formalists: strict adherence to separation of powers with little overlapping between the branches
Functionalists: concurrent branch power acceptable as long as intervention is reasonably necessary

Question 16

What is the non-delegation doctrine?

Answer 16

Congress cannot transfer its legislative powers to another branch without an intelligible principle, “some guidance and reasoning for why the power is being delegated”

Question 17

What are some legislative mechanisms to control agencies?

Answer 17

Pass detailed legislation with clear instructions, legislative oversight, control over appointment of administrators, power of the purse appropriations, design of the agency, legislative veto

Question 18

What is a legislative veto?

Answer 18

Any mechanism rendering agency decisions or action subject to some further form of legislative review/control

Question 19

What decision did Chadha make on legislative vetoes?

Answer 19

Congress cannot circumvent the entire legislative process when dealing with legislative manners

Question 20

What is an agency?

Answer 20

A regulatory body established by the legislature to set standards in a specific field

Question 21

What are the President’s “Take Care” duties?

Answer 21

He has the duty to take care that Congress’s laws are faithfully executed by not breaching any law or creating new laws

Question 22

What is an executive order?

Answer 22

Written directives through which the President can shape policy

Question 23

What is a limitation on an executive order?

Answer 23

Executive orders must stem through power from a statute or power from the Constitution

Question 24

What is the general rule for Presedential removal power?

Answer 24

Congress cannot limit the President’s removal authority over purely executive officers (Myers), but Congress can limit quasi-judicial and legislative officers (Humphrey’s) and inferior officer removal, as long as all power remains in the executive head of the officer (Morrison) , and Congress cannot impose two levels of removal protection against the President (Free Enterprise)

Question 25

What is the Supremacy Clause?

Answer 25

The Constitution and federal statutes are the supreme law of the land that judges and states are bound by

Question 26

What is justiciability?

Answer 26

The types of matters that courts can adjudicate

Question 27

What is required for injury in fact?

Answer 27

Whether plaintiff has suffered a legally cognizable injury distinct to that plaintiff, whether the injury is result of the defendant’s conduct, whether plaintiff’s injury can be redressed by the judicial relief requested, whether the injury is imminent

Question 28

What are the general principles of justiciability?

Answer 28

Case or controversy, standing, injury in fact, cannot be advisory opinion, cannot be political question, cannot be ripe or moot

Question 29

What is the hallmark case for stare decisis/precedent?

Answer 29

Flood v. Kuhn

Question 30

What are the 2 main approaches to statutory interpretation?

Answer 30

Textualism and purposivism