US Constitution

Question 1

How many amendments to the constitution are there? Explain significance

Answer 1

27 - shows a difficulty to change, but also that they have come from issues

Question 2

What is Article 1 of the constitution?

Answer 2

Legislature (Congress) - divided into Senate (upper, 100) and HoR (lower, 435)

Question 3

What is Article 2 of the constitution?

Answer 3

Executive (President and VP) - elected every 4 years by electoral constitution

Question 4

What is Article 3 of the constitution?

Answer 4

Judiciary (SCOTUS) - 9 Justices, can strike down law

Question 5

What is Article 4 of the constitution?

Answer 5

States reserved powers

Question 6

What is significant about Article 4 and Amendment 10?

Answer 6

Establishes the principle of federalism together

Question 7

What is federalism?

Answer 7

Powers that are shared and enshrined in the constitution

Question 8

What do enumerated powers mean?

Answer 8

Powers that come explicitly from the constitution - relates to article 1,2,3

Question 9

What is a difference between Congress and the Commons?

Answer 9

Senate and HoR must live in the state they represent, unlike Commons with a weaker constituency link

Question 10

What is the nature of the US constitution?

Answer 10

Codified, entrenched, vague and specific

Question 11

What are the principles of the US constitution?

Answer 11

Federalism, separation of the powers, checks and balances, bipartisanship, limited gov

Question 12

How are amendments of the constitution passed?

Answer 12

Two super majorities (2/3) in both houses, then ratification (3/4) by the 50 states

Question 13

How many amendments have there been to the constitution in the last 200 years?

Answer 13

15, but over 11,000 have been introduced

Question 14

what are the advantages of the amendment process?

Answer 14

-preserves federalism
-requres bipartisanship
-prevents tyranny from a single-party
-gives proper time for debate
-requres a consensus
-helps uphold some principles of democracy that needs protection

Question 15

what are the disadvantages of the amendment process?

Answer 15

-difficult to remove outdated laws
-voices of small population states are over-represented
-difficult to incorporate new ideas eg equality
-SC have excessive power to create interpretive amendments

Question 16

What are the Implied powers?

Answer 16

powers the federal government has that are not written down but are implied from the wording

Question 17

Article 1, Section 8

Answer 17

Necessary and proper clause (elastic clause)

Question 18

Vagueness of constitution- Name the cases

Answer 18

Gibbons v Ogden(national bank proper and nessiciary) and McCulloch v Maryland(commerce clause)

Question 19

What is the supremacy clause?

Answer 19

Found in article 4 - national law is supreme and supersedes any state law.

Question 20

What are concurrent powers?

Answer 20

They are powers shared by the federal and state eg taxation

Question 21

What are the two types of SC judges?

Answer 21

loose constructionist - Wider than just the text to fit with the modern era
Strict constructionist - literal wording must be explicitly stated (they use originalism)

Question 22

What is originalism?

Answer 22

The approach to interpreting the constitution with its official meaning

Question 23

What are advantages of the Vaugeness of the constitution?

Answer 23

• Allows the constitution to be updated without going through the rigid formal amendment prosess
• The vagueness allowed the US Constitution to withstand test of time

Question 24

What are the disadvantages of the vagueness of the constitution?

Answer 24

• The Constitution could fail to regulate political practice
• SC could become too powerful
• There could be significant conflict with either side claiming there view is right

Question 25

What are the enumerated powers?

Answer 25

powers that are clearly listed in the US constitution