Pol S 202, American Politics

Question 1

Collective Action Principle

Answer 1

Collective action is the pooling of resources and the coordination of effort and activity by a group of people to achieve common goals. A
Significance: It is used to resolve collective dilemmas. All political action is collective action.

.. etc: It describes the paradoxes encounter , the obstacles to be overcome, and the incentives necessary when individuals attempt to coordinate their energies, accomplish collective purposes, and secure the dividend of cooperation.

Question 2

Policy Principle

Answer 2

Political outcomes are the produces of individual preferences, institutional procedures, and collective actions.
Significance: Shapes the collective devisions that emerge from the political process
EX. Precincts set in cases like poesy v Ferguson became an important insutitonl principals used to argue further cases

Question 3

Shays’s Rebellion

Answer 3

Daniel Shay led a mob of farmers in a rebellion against the government in Massachusetts in 1787
Significance: Showed that congress could not act decisively in a time of crisis and ultimately prompted collection action by proving the Article of Confederation were insufficient. Led to the constitutional convention

Question 4

Anti- Federalism

Answer 4

Did not support the constitution and proposed a strong decentralized federal government. Composed of small farmers, shopkeepers. Believed that government should be close to the people and the concentration of power in the hands of the elites is dangerous/. They also wanted representation to be more so int he form of delegates: a true representation of the people.
Fear of aristocratic tyranny

Question 5

Articles of Confederation

Answer 5

After the colonies gained their independence, the articles of confederation was established. The articles are the United States’ first written constitution and it ws adopted by the continental congress in 1777. It was the formal basis for Americas national government until the constitution superseded it.
Significance: Established a central government of defined and strictly limited power, with most governmental authority being left int he hands of the actual states.

Examples: much like the United Nations and its member states.

Question 6

Virginia Plan

Answer 6

Shifted the focus of deliberation from patching up the confederation to considering what was required to create a national union. It focused on a bicameral legislation with a more democratic house and more elitist senate.///

A proposal that provided a system of representation in the natinional legislature based on the population of eacch state , the proportions of each states contributions to overall national revenue.

Question 7

Bicameralism

Answer 7

Division of congress into two chambers.. a house of reps and a senate
Menat to protect from excessive democracy

Question 8

Commerce Clause

Answer 8

Found I Article 1 section 8. It delegates congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states and with the Indian tribes.
Led to interstate commerce

Question 9

Necessary and Proper Clause

Answer 9

Grants congress the power to make all laws that are necessary and proper to exercise their powers listed in Article 1 section 8.
Signifies that the expressed powers are meant o be a source of strength tot he national government, not a limitation.
Example: it allowed the federal oevnrment to require Americans to purchase health insurance and was the reason why.
Or the federal government can make laws sending people to jail by using that as ane force of their right to collect taxes/.

Question 10

Article V

Answer 10

Sets forth the procedures for amending the constitution. There are four methods.There have only been 17 ammendments because it is so difficult.
Significance: If institutional change is too easy to accomplish, the stability of the political system becomes threaten/.

Question 11

McCulloch v. Maryland

Answer 11

Case of whether congress could charter a bank, the bank of the United States/ 1819.It was said that the power could be implied from the commerce clause by applying the necessary and proper clause.
Ruling: If the constitution permitted congress to exercise a certain power, it docent prohibit the means to do so.
Signficiance: increased the potential scope of the national government’s power by allowing congress to acsercice implied powers

Question 12

Categorical Grants

Answer 12

The federal government subsidizes strategic state and local actives through grants in aid. A grant in ad is an incentive where congress appropriates money for state and local governments with the condition that it be spent for a particular purpose.
Congress set national goals in specific policy categories like public housing and assistance to the unemployed and provided grants in aid that would help local governments meet them.

Official Defitnion: Funds given to state and local governments by congress that are earmarked by law for a specific policy category like education or crime prevention
Significance: Helps states perform there traditional function like education and pricing and also helps the federal government push they proposes like helping the poor

Grants are nor the single largest source of state revenue.

Question 13

Civil Liberties

Answer 13

Protections of citizens from unwarranted government action
Rights v liberties:
Civil liberties concern those things that governments cannot do to the citizens, civil rights involve appealing to the government to protect them from other citizens, social actors, or some aspect of the government itself

Question 14

Civil Rights

Answer 14

Legal or moral claims for protection that citizens are entitled to make upon the government. governments responsibility to protect citizens.

Question 15

14th Amendment

Answer 15

“All persons born or naturalized int he United States and subject tot eh jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the untied states and of the state wherein the reside.
Rejects the concept of dual citizenship, and overruled died Scott claiming that even free black people were not American citizens.

ALSO national rights were extended to persons in all states enforceable against state governments

Includes a due process clause that is the basis for selective incorporation of the bill of rights and and equal protection clause the became the basis for the supreme court decisions striking down state discrimination

Significance: reduces state power and expands national power.

Question 16

Selective incorporation

Answer 16

on a case by case basis, the supreme court began recognizing a role for the national government in protecting citizens from state government.
Significance: First wave of incorporation occurred in 1920s where they applied key elements of the first amendment to the states.
eXAMPLE: Palko vs connecticu. Supreme Court refused to incorporate double jeapodry

Question 17

Bill Of Rights

Answer 17

First 10 amendments to US constitution ensuring certain rights and liberties to people. gave each of the three branches clear and restricted boundaries. Exampl: first amendment restricts congress to enact laws regulatign speech, the press, religion/

Question 18

Right to privacy

Answer 18

Argument that the 3rd, 4th, and 5th amendments allow citizens to create a zone of privacy that the government may not force him to surrender.
EX. Supreme Court rules that states could not ban abortionprior to fetal viability

Question 19

Plessy v Ferguson

Answer 19

Significance: The supreme court upheld the racial segregation system of Jim crow,a arguing that separate by equal train cars and other facilities did not violate the fourteenth amendment s equal protection clause

Question 20

Brown V Board

Answer 20

Overturned Plessy V Ferguson.
“In the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place”.
Racial classification became subject to scrutiny and were looked at at unconstitutional.
Significance: The massive political backlash it produced was critical to securing northern support for strong civil rights legislation and it speaked a greater resolve for the civil rights movement.

Question 21

Civil Rights Act

Answer 21

Passed in 1964, it extended the national governments role in rights protection.
Role: Protected voting rights, protected access to public accommodations, provided incentives to desegregate public schools, outlawed discriminate in employment on the basis of race, religion, and gender.

Question 22

Supremacy Clause

Answer 22

Article 6 of the constitution stating that all laws and treaties approved by the national government are the supreme laws of the United States superior to states laws.
Significance: Keeps the states from dealing separately with foreign nations or businesses and binds the officials of each government to support the constitution.

Question 23

Instituions

Answer 23

Routinized, structured relations for pursuing goals and addressing recurring problems.
Significance: Institutions are the rules and procedures that provide incentives political behavior, shaping politics.

Institutions dod the publics business while relieving communities of the need to reinvent collective action each time it is required.

….extra: Institution’s provide politician s with the necessary authority to pursue public policies through: jurisdiction, agenda and veto power, decisiveness, and delegation. y

Question 24

Public Good

Answer 24

A benefit that others can not be denied from enjoying once it has been provided.

Question 25

Path Dependacy

Answer 25

Explains that history matters and institutions come to constrain poitlics. What occurs in the past persists because of resistance to change.
Example: The amendment process and original constitution provide durability but also constraint he prospects for change

Question 26

Great Compromise

Answer 26

The committee that the convention appointed to come up with a solution to the stalemnt. Each side got one of the two legislative chambers fashioned to its liking.
The Senate would be composed of two delegates sent from each states legstialture. While Madison’s elective legislature became the house of reps.

Summary: large states got more weight in the house of reps and everyone got equal representation in senate. it has affection policy outcomes in history by giving lessmpopulous states dispraportiante influence
Significance: restore the unity of the Northern merchants and southern planters so a new government could be created.

Question 27

No knock raid

Question 28

First Amendment

Answer 28

Congress shall not enact laws regulating speech ,religion, right to assmebly, the press. Gives congress limitations as well as clear boundaries

Question 29

three fifths clause

Answer 29

An agreement reached at the constitutional convention where three fifths of enslaved persons would be counted towards a states population.
This was used for the purpose of distributing congressional seats on the basis of state populations.
Over 90% of enslaved persons resided in the south so they wanted to count them sea a part of their population but the north didn’t agree because they are looked at as property/

Question 30

Civil Rights vs Civil Liberties

Answer 30

Civil rights concern the basic right to be free from unequal treatment based on certain protected characteristics (race, gender, disability, etc.) in settings such as employment, education, housing, and access to public facilities. A civil rights violation occurs in designated situations where an individual is discriminated against on the basis of a protected characteristic. Most civil rights laws are established through the federal government via federal legislation or case law.

Civil liberties concern basic rights and freedoms that are guaranteed – either explicitly identified in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, or interpreted or inferred through the years by legislatures or the courts.

Civil liberties include:

The right to free speech
The right to privacy
The right to remain silent in a police interrogation
The right to be free from unreasonable searches of your home
The right to a fair court trial
The right to marry
The right to vote

Question 31

Civil rights vs liberties

Answer 31

What is the difference between a liberty and a right? Both words appear in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The distinction between the two has always been blurred, and today the concepts are often used interchangeably. However, they do refer to different kinds of guaranteed protections.

Civil liberties are protections against government actions. For example, the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees citizens the right to practice whatever religion they please. Government, then, cannot interfere in an individual’s freedom of worship. Amendment I gives the individual “liberty” from the actions of the government.

Civil rights, in contrast, refer to positive actions of government should take to create equal conditions for all Americans. The term “civil rights” is often associated with the protection of minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The government counterbalances the “majority rule” tendency in a democracy that often finds minorities outvoted.
Most Americans think of civil rights and liberties as principles that protect freedoms all the time. However, the truth is that rights listed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are usually competing rights. Most civil liberties and rights court cases involve the plaintiff’s right vs. another right that the defendant claims has been violated.

For example, in 1971, the New York Times published the “Pentagon Papers” that revealed some negative actions of the government during the Vietnam War. The government sued the newspaper, claiming that the reports endangered national security. The New York Times countered with the argument that the public had the right to know and that its freedom of the press should be upheld. So, the situation was national security v. freedom of the press. A tough call, but the Court chose to uphold the rights of the press.

The Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment

The overwhelming majority of court decisions that define American civil liberties are based on the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments added to the Constitution in 1791. Civil liberties protected in the Bill of Rights may be divided into two broad areas: freedoms and rights guaranteed in the First Amendment (religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition) and liberties and rights associated with crime and due process. Civil rights are also protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects violation of rights and liberties by the state governments.

Question 32

Virginia vs New Jersey plan

Answer 32

It started with James Madison, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, introducing the Virginia Plan, which proposed a much more powerful national government with three branches: a legislature, executive and judiciary.

“A key part of the Virginia Plan was a legislature with two different chambers, a lower house and upper house where the number of representatives each state had would be determined by its population or wealth — the larger the population, the greater the representation it would have,” says Phillips.

The key components of the Virginia Plan:

Two houses of Congress (a bicameral legislature)
Representation based on population
National government with three branches: legislative, executive and judiciary
Stronger national government; Congress has power to tax and provide for the national defense…….

Of course, states with smaller populations were not keen on the idea of a legislature where representation in both houses would be based on population, as it would threaten their independence and power. In response to the Virginia Plan, the small states proposed the New Jersey Plan. The New Jersey Plan, written primarily by William Paterson, voted to keep the single-house legislature with equal state representation from the Articles of Confederation, while adding a national executive and a judiciary, and expanding the power of the national government.

The key components of the New Jersey Plan:

One house of Congress (a unicameral legislature)
Each state has equal representation, regardless of population
National government with three branches: legislative, executive and judiciary
Congress has power to tax and regulate interstate commerce

Question 33

Ways constitution can be amended

Answer 33

Method Step 1 Step 2
1. A two-thirds vote in both houses of the U.S. Congress Ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures
2. A two-thirds vote in both houses of U.S. Congress Ratified by ratification conventions in three-fourths of the states
3. A national constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures Ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures
4. A national convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures Ratified by ratification conventions in three-fourths of the states

There are two avenues for amending the Constitution: the congressional proposal method and the convention method. In the congressional proposal method, two-thirds of both chambers of Congress must propose an amendment. The proposed amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of state conventions or state legislatures, as chosen by Congress.

First, every amendment must receive support from three-fourths of state conventions or state legislatures. It’s incredibly difficult to get that many states to agree on a permanent change to the Constitution.
Take, for example, the Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA. The ERA was introduced in 1923. It finally passed Congress in 1972 and was sent to the states for ratification. The ERA was designed to guarantee equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex. It fell three states short of ratification and so was not added to the Constitution.
Second, for an amendment to be passed through the congressional proposal method, two-thirds of Congress must propose the amendment. To introduce a new amendment the two parties must cooperate, as no one party has controlled two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. With each party supporting different ideological goals, getting two-thirds of Congress to agree on a change to the Constitution is nearly impossible without some level of cooperation.