American Governement

To balance the ability of the legislature to pass laws unilaterally, the president is given this right as part of the system of _______ and balances

The president's constitutional power of ____ allows him/her to reject acts of Congress

To balance the ability of the legislature to pass laws unilaterally, the president is given this right as part of the system of _______ and balances

Congress can override a veto with a ___ vote of each house.

Part of the system of checks and balances, this power ensures that, given enough votes, even the President cannot ______________ reject acts of congress.

A __________ can occur only in the Senate.

Because of its more flexible rules, a filibuster is possible only in the Senate. A filibuster is a tactic used to ______ legislation.

The presiding officer of the House of Representatives is the _______.

The Speaker is the House presiding officer. Because he is elected by the full House, he is normally a member of the _________ party

The House Rules Committee decides the _____ in which House bills come up for vote.

The House Rules Committee sets rules that may help or hinder a piece of legislation, including rules on when a vote should occur, the length of debate on a bill, and whether there can be ___________ to the bill

Caucuses are informed groups of Senators or Representatives who _____ opinions, interests, or backgrounds.

Caucuses are also known as Legislative Service Organizations. Caucuses are groups of Senators of Representatives who try to advance particular ________ through their association.

The president can veto a bill by employing a technique known as a ______ veto, where the president takes no action with regard to the bill when the Congress has adjourned during the 10-day period after a bill has been sent to the President to be signed.

A pocket veto enables the president to _______ to sign a bill into law without the political ramifications of an explicit veto. The pocket veto cannot be overridden by Congress since the bill effectively “expires” due to lack of Presidential action and Congressional presence

The House of Representatives consists of how many members total? ___

The House consists of 435 representatives. At one time, the number was based on population, but the number was fixed at 435 by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. Note that the number of representatives each state has is still determined by population, but the total number has been fixed at 435. As population shifts, those 435 seats are _______________ among the states. No matter how small the state, it gets a minimum of 1 seat; for example, Alaska and Delaware have 1 Representative each, as opposed to California, which had 52 as of the year 2000

The costs associated with social welfare programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (welfare), Social Security, and Medicare are known as ____________.

The costs associated with such welfare programs are known as entitlements. They make up more than ______ percent of the national budget.

If a president is impeached by the House, the charges against him are called the ________ of impeachment

In an impeachment, the Senate acts as a ______ and tries the president for the offenses he is accused of

Every ten years, after a national census, each state makes adjustments to the congressional districts to reflect the changes in population. This process is known as _______________.

This process is known as reapportionment. State legislatures draw the new _______________ district lines.

Two views of a president's role in policymaking are _______________ and congressionalist. One view implies that the president takes an active role in policymaking, while the other implies that the legislature should dominate policymaking

Democrats since FDR have traditionally taken the presidentialist view, while Republicans have take the __________________ view

A filibuster is a ________ tactic used in the Senate where a senator will spend hours giving a speech on a bill with the purpose of delaying or killing it.

This is known as a filibuster. A filibuster can be broken up by a ________, which requires the vote of sixty senators

The fact that American public policy is largely determined by __________ between competing groups reflects the pluralist theory of American politics.

Various political groups and parties strive to pass their own agendas into law. In that process, these groups must often reach compromises in order to pass legislation that, at least __________, achieves their goals.

The ________ of the legislative branch of the US government is an example of bicameralism.

Borne out of the argument between more-and less-populous states over legislative influence, this resulted in the bicameralism, or division into ____ houses, of the legislature.

Presidents sometimes try to avoid the Congressional “advise and consent” requirement with regard to treaties and trade agreements by entering into an ___________________ with foreign governments.

An executive agreement allows the president to make secret agreements ________ Senate approval.

While many presidents have generated notoriety by brokering treaties with foreign countries, the power to ______ foreign treaties lies with the Senate

___________ section 2 of the Constitution gives this power solely to the Senate.

Unfunded mandates are ____ passed by the federal government for the states to follow--i.e. environmental standards, but does not provide additional funding at the same time

These are known as unfunded mandates, and have caused a lot of controversy, because many of these mandates cost additional money for the _______ to follow, but the federal government does not provide this additional money.

In the US v. Nixon, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled against president Nixon, stating that ___________________ did not allow him to refuse to comply with a court order to produce material for a criminal trial.

Nixon sought to not turn over taped conversations that revealed White House knowledge of the Watergate break-in by invoking __________ privilege.

The __________ Act passed in 1973, limits a president's authority to send troops to hostile areas without Congressional approval.

Driven by the US's involvement in two bloody “police actions” in Korea and ________, the War Powers Act was largely designed to curtail such actions in the future

The ___________ theory of presidential power holds that the president has the power and duty to do whatever is necessary in the national interest, unless prohibited by the Constitution.

The stewardship theory is used by those who wish to _______ presidential power. FDR is a prime example of a president who subscribed to this view of the presidency.

The _______ theory of presidential power states that the president's power is limited to those powers specifically enumerated by the Constitution.

Most presidents ______ to FDR subscribed to this theory

The Executive Office of the President, established by FDR in 1939, helps the president oversee the federal ___________.

The ____ is made up of several advisers and offices that help the president oversee areas of the government. The Executive Office of the President consists of four agencies--the Office of Management and Budget prepares the federal budget and evaluates how federal funds are being spent by various federal agencies.

Jefferson invoked the concept of inherent powers to justify the _________ Purchase of 1803.

Inherent powers are powers that can be _________ from specific powers granted by the Constitution.

For over a century, presidents have sought the power of the line item veto, a significant change in the power of the _______ veto.

Many states grant their governors the line item veto to veto specific portions of a bill without vetoing the entire bill. While president Clinton exercised the line-item veto on a number of occasions, that power was found to be __________________ in 1998 and overturned.

______________ is one of the most important and powerful Congressional committees because of its budget oversight powers.

The Ways and Means committee is one of the most powerful of the Congressional committees. Not only does it have the power to allocate funding to projects, but its power extends to ______; tax bills originate in this committee in the House of Representatives.

In the case of a tie vote in the ______, the Vice President is afforded the tie-breaking vote.

__________ section 3 of the Constitution gives this power to the Vice President

The ______ has the power to try all impeachments including that of the president. In such trials, however, it is the Chief Justice that shall preside over the trial.

__________ section 3 states that when the president is tried by the Senate, the Chief Justice will preside.

All bills passed in relation to revenue must originate in the House of _______________.

While it must be passed by both houses and signed by the president, all revenue-raising bills must __________ in the House. Note that the tax related bills originate specifically in the Ways and Means committee of the House of Representatives.

While the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it is the domain of the Congress to declare ___.

Article 1 section __ grants the right to declare war to the Congress.

A law passed by Congress to outlaw an act and _____________ punish citizens for that act, even though it was legal at the time they engaged in it is referred to as ex post facto law.

Article 1 section __ forbids Congress from passing a law that would punish citizens for acts that were legal at the time they were involved in them.

The _________ has the power to appoint Supreme Court justices

Article 2 section 2 of the Constitution gives the president this power. Justices must be confirmed by the _______.

Each of a President's _______ members has both a loyalty to the President and to his/her own Department.

Cabinet members often experience divided loyalty between the President whom they serve under and the Cabinet Department they head. This division in loyalty can sometimes lead to Cabinet Members not performing their role as Presidential adviser as objectively as possible, which can undermine their _______________.

In the Senate, the ________ leader has the power to appoint members and chairs of committees.

The majority party structure of the Senate gives the majority leader this power. This ability enables the majority leader to control important committee assignments. Note that the leader does not typically pick just anyone for committee assignments; they are often determined by the tradition of __________, or the amount of time that the senator has served.

In the Senate, the majority leader nominates committee members, but must himself be elected by the majority party members of the Senate or ______.

The Senate majority leader is selected by a caucus of majority party members. He then has the authority to make __________ assignments.

_______ committees in Congress have the duty of processing proposals for legislation into official bills.

Standing committees are normally tasked with processing proposals under specific subject headings, like Finance or Foreign Relations, into ______ for consideration.

The president has the power to arrange an agreement between the U.S. and another country with the force of a treaty, but without the Senate's prior approval. This is known as an _________ agreement.

Per decisions made in the 1936 U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright and 1942 U.S. v. Pink cases, the Supreme Court ruled that the Congress had delegated broad discretionary powers to the president with regard to foreign policy and that an executive agreement is the legal equivalent of a _______.

One example of Senatorial courtesy might be when a President defers the selection of district court judges to that State's ________.

A President will often allow a State's senators to suggest persons for nomination. One reason for this courtesy is that a nominee is rarely _________ if that State's senators do not agree

While it is made up of _____ of all major government agencies, the cabinet is not a board of directors with any collective power

The cabinet, or major governmental department directors, are __________ by the president and approved by the Senate

The efforts by the Congress to control the activities of _________ agencies through hearings, investigations, and other processes are called Congressional oversight.

As the Congress allows the executive branch more leeway, the legislature attempts to balance that discretion with loose supervision of agencies via hearings and investigations whose results are __________.

The _______ of money that each agency of government is approved to spend by Congressional statutes are known as appropriations

Most government agencies are overseen in _________ every year to appropriate funds

To learn the voting intentions of party members on specific issues, the ____ system polls party members to assist majority and minority leaders

The whip system is largely a ________________ vehicle in each congressional house

To ensure that a justice's opinion is heard in a court decision where he/she is in the ________, that justice can choose to write a dissenting opinion

Dissenting opinions can be as powerful as a majority opinion, in that the dissension may well convince others to bring ________ cases with perhaps different perspectives on similar issues.