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AP GOV > unit 2 > Flashcards

unit 2 Flashcards

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U.S. Government Basics flashcards AP® U.S. Government flashcards
1
Q

House of Representatives

A
  • apportioned by population of state
  • only serve 2 year terms
  • more populous states have more representatives
  • house members represent fewer people, able to know their constituents better
  • 435 members
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2
Q

Senate

A
  • each state gets two
  • serve six year terms
  • have more constitutional responsibilities than members of the house
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3
Q

Coalitions

A

the durability of the working relationships are affected by term length differences

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4
Q

enumerated powers

A
  • explicitly listed in Article 1 section 8 of the constitution
  • federal funding
  • foreign policy
  • military legislation
  • raise revenue through taxation
  • coin money for a uniform currency
  • pass a federal budget
  • declare war
  • raise armies
  • pass draft laws
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5
Q

implied powers

A

congress can pass any law that is required by the enumerated powers
- justification comes at the end of the of Article 1 section 8
- necessary and proper clause (aka elastic clause)

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6
Q

House leadership - speaker of the house

A
  • speaker of the house: house members choose this leader, speaker will always be a member of the majority party
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7
Q

Majority and minority leaders

A
  • direct debates
  • guide their party members in policy making issues
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8
Q

Whips

A
  • render party discipline
  • make sure party members walk in line with party goals
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9
Q

President of the Senate

A
  • vice president of the united states
  • non-voting member
  • votes to break a tie
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10
Q

President Pro Tempore

A
  • most senior member of the majority party
  • has the authority to act as president of the senate if vice president is not present
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11
Q

Senate majority leader

A
  • sets legislative agenda
  • determines which bills reach the floor for debate and which do not
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12
Q

Committees

A
  • small groups of representatives
  • debate and draft precise legislation
  • usually serve the goals of the majority party
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13
Q

Standing Committees

A
  • committees that endure for a long time
  • standing committee on the budget
  • house judiciary committee
  • always needs to be done from session to session
  • where legislation begins, most bills never make it past
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14
Q

Joint committees

A
  • members from both the house and the senate
  • joint committee on the library of congress
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15
Q

Select Committees

A
  • temporary and created for a specific purpose
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16
Q

Conference Committees

A
  • formed to reconcile differences in legislation
  • for a bill to become a law, it must be passed by both houses in identical form
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17
Q

House Rules Committee

A
  • decides which bills make it to the floor for debate
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18
Q

Discharge petition

A
  • used to force a bill out of committee for debate and voting
  • need majority vote to bring bill out
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19
Q

Senate - Filibuster

A
  • an attempt to stall or kill a bill by talking for a very long time
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20
Q

Cloture

A
  • a three-fifths vote which ends a filibuster
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21
Q

Unanimous consent

A
  • acting senate president asks if they will agree to limit debate
  • a way of avoiding possibility of filibuster
  • requires unanimous agreement, even one senator can object which is called a hold
22
Q

Riders

A
  • non-relevant additions which will usually benefit a representative’s own agenda or something added to help get the bill passed
23
Q

Pork Barrel Spending

A
  • funds earmarked for special projects in a representative’s district
24
Q

Logrolling

A
  • representatives say if you vote for my bill, I’ll vote for yours
25
Q

Federal budget

A
  • most of federal government’s income is gathered from income taxes
  • congress has to allocate funds to mandatory spending and discretionary spending
26
Q

Mandatory spending

A
  • payments required by law
  • entitlement spending
  • medicare
  • medicaid
  • interest payments on debt
27
Q

Discretionary spending

A
  • all funds remaining after mandatory spending
  • paying federal employees
28
Q

Deficit

A

the gap between the projected budget and the actual funds available

29
Q

Divided government

A
  • the president is of one party and congress is of another
30
Q

Lame duck

A
  • very little power to do anything since president is on their way out of office
31
Q

Trustee model

A

they have been entrusted with the people’s faith to vote according to the representative’s best judgment

32
Q

Delegate model

A

he or she must vote with the will of the people even if it goes against their better judgment

33
Q

Politico model

A
  • how they vote depends on the situation
34
Q

redistricting/gerrymandering

A
  • every 10 years a census must be taken to find out how many people live in the U.S and where
  • Reapportionment: the doling out of representative seats
  • Redistricting: the re-drawing of boundaries that those seats represent
  • gerrymandering is a way of drawing districts that is a little sleazy because districts can be drawn to favor one group over another
  • usually drawn in weird shapes to ensure that a certain party has the advantage in that district (partisan gerrymandering)
35
Q

Racial gerrymandering

A
  • districts are drawn so that certain races constitute the majority in those districts
36
Q

Policy agenda

A
  • every president comes into office with policies they want to see enacted
  • but congress has the constitutional authority to pass laws
  • president get’s policy agenda enacted through formal and informal powers
37
Q

Formal powers

A
  • laid out in Article 2 of the constitution
  • veto power (bill dies, bill is sent back to congress to revise and starts process over, or congress can override veto with a 2/3rds vote)
  • commander in chief of the U.S armed forces (can’t declare war)
  • executive agreements (like a contract between a president and another leader)
38
Q

Pocket veto

A
  • president has 10 days to sign the bill into law
  • president can do nothing with bill, let the session expire, the bill is effectively vetoed
  • if there are more than 10 days left in veto session, and the president does nothing, the bill becomes law
39
Q

Informal powers

A
  • bargaining and persuasion
  • executive order
  • signing statement (which informs the nation how the executive branch interprets the law and how the president intends to execute it)
40
Q

Cabinet

A

presidential team of advisors who lead each of the executive agencies

41
Q

Bully Pulpit

A
  • speaking directly to the people in hope that they’d put pressure on their representatives
  • public platform to advocate
42
Q

State of the union

A
  • annual to congress
  • for a long time state of the unions were filtered through newspapers
  • FDR used fireside chats through radio
  • JFK was the first to use television for state of the union
43
Q

Federal court system

A
  • 3 levels
  • U.S district courts (have the right to hear a case for the first time, original jurisdiction)
  • U.S circuit court of appeals (hear appeals from the lower courts, appellate jurisdiction)
  • Supreme court (has both original and appellate jurisdiction, depending on the case)
44
Q

Judicial activism

A
  • the court acts to establish policy and considers more than just the constitutionality of a decision, it considers the decisions broader effects on society
45
Q

Judicial restraint

A
  • believe that a law should only be struck down if it violates the actual written word of the constitution
46
Q

Bureaucracy

A
  • falls under the authority of the executive branch
  • millions of people employed to carry out the responsibilities of federal government
  • not creating laws, only making a set of more refined rules that help facilitate the execution of laws
47
Q

Cabinet Secretaries

A
  • highest level of authority in bureaucracy
  • leaders of the 15 executive departments
  • department of energy, department of homeland security, department of defense, etc.
48
Q

Agencies

A
  • work together to accomplish the goals of the department
  • internal revenue service (IRS)
49
Q

Commissions

A
  • regulatory groups who operate somewhat independently of the authority of the president, but still fall under the executive authority
  • run by a board of individuals and are usually created for a specific purpose
  • Federal communications commission (FCC)
50
Q

Government corporations

A
  • hybrid of business and a government agency
  • government acquires businesses when they want to offer a public good, but the free market is the best way to offer that service
  • PBS (public broadcasting service)
51
Q

Delegated Discretionary Authority

A
  • the authority given to bureaucracy by congress that gives them discretion on how to make the rules and how to carry out the laws

AP GOV (5 decks)

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