Ch 12 Government

In what 4 legislative branch agencies do many of 15,000 people work?

What Democratic representative from Ohio had his first day in the House in 1993?

What term means chairs?

Who presides at the beginning of the first day's session in the House?

Who administers the oath of office for the Speaker of the House?

What party takes their seats to the right of the center aisle in the House?

What party takes their seat to the left of the center aisle in the House?

What Democrat from Michigan is the current Dean of the House?  He became a member on December 13, 1955.

What position of the House is a nonmember officer of the House and is picked by the majority party?  They usually keep their post until that party loses control of the chamber.

After electing a Speaker, what positions are elected next in the House?

Within a few weeks of Congress' assembly, the President delivers what annual message to a joint session of Congress?

What position is by far the more important and more powerful within the halls of Congress?

What Republican from Illinois is the current Speaker of the House?

What Federalist from Pennsylvania was the first Speaker of the House?

What Democrat from Texas held the Speaker of the House position for a record 17 years, 62 days in the period from 1940 to 1961?

The current Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, succeeded what Republican from Georgia?

What are the Speaker's two duties?

Who follows the Vice President in the line of succession to the presidency?

What is the Senate's presiding officer called?  He is not a member of the body over which he presides.

Who are 8 recent Vice Presidents who have come to that office from the Senate?

What presiding officer in the Senate serves in the Vice President's absence?

What Democrat from West Virginia currently holds the post of president pro tempore?

What is a closed meeting of the members of each party in each house called?

What is the term for a group composed of the party's top leadership that acts as an executive committee for the caucus?

What Republican from Texas is the current Majority Floor Leader in the House?

What Democrat from Missouri is the current Minority Floor Leader in the House?

What Republican from Texas is the current Majority Whip in the House?

What Democrat from California is the current Minority Whip in the House?

Who is the current President of the Senate in the Senate?

What Democrat from South Dakota is the current Majority Floor Leader in the Senate?

What Republican from Mississippi is the current Minority Floor Leader in the Senate?

What Democrat from Nevada is the current Majority Whip in the Senate?

What Republican from Oklahoma is the current Minority Whip in the Senate?

Next to the Speaker, the majority and minority ___________ in the House and Senate are the most important officers in Congress.  They do not hold official positions in either chamber.

What position assists the floor leaders and are, in effect, assistant floor leaders?

What term means two-way link?

What are those members who head the standing committees in each chamber called?

The term "whip" was borrowed from British politics.  There, it came from the __________ in a fox-hunt, the rider who is supposed to keep the hound bunched in a pack.

What Republican woman from Connecticut chaired the House Ethics Committee? (1995 to 1997)

What Republican from Kansas is the only woman ever to chair a Senate committee, who headed the Senate's Labor and Human Resources Committee? (1995 to 1997)

What unwritten rule provides that the most important posts, in both the formal and the party organization, will be held by those party members with the longest records of service in Congress?

What caucus group now pick several GOP members of House committees by secret ballot?

What Democrat from Michigan is the second-most senior member of the House and the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee? 

What Democrat woman from Colorado retired from public office in 1996, after 12 terms in Congress?  In her memoir, 24 Years of House Work... and the Place is Still a Mess, she relates her experiences in the House of Representatives.

In 1973, what member from Arkansas headed the committee that assigned freshmen to different committees?

To what committee did Pat Schroeder expect to be assigned?  (bad because of her landlocked Denver district)

What committee did Pat Schroeder want to be on?

What 72 year old Louisiana Democrat was the Armed Services chairman and was dead set against Pat Schroeder's appointment into his committee?

F. Edward Hebert didn't want what African American to be appointed to his Armed Services committee?

What phrase means dividing the work to be done, assigning the several parts of the overall task to various members of the group?

What Democrat from California once described Congress as "a collection of committees that comes together periodically to approve one another's actions"?

What term means permanent panels?

How many standing committees are there in the House?

How many standing committees are there in the Senate?

What are the leading committees in the House? (7)

What are the leading committees in the Senate? (6)

What House committee considers bills that affect finance, including the proposal that led to the golden dollar coin?

What are the three standing committees that do not operate as subject-matter bodies?  (2 in the House and 1 in the Senate)

To what committee do all tax measures in the House go?

To what committee do all tax measures in the Senate go?

To what committee does a bill dealing with enlisting in the armed forces go?

What House committee is often called the House Ethics Committee?

What is the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct often called?

What committee in the Senate plays a similar role as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct?

What are the six subcommittees of the Senate's Committee on Armed Services?

What is the House Committee on Rules sometimes called in the lower house?

What committee must clear the bills before they can reach the floor of the House?

What term means been scheduled for floor consideration?

What are panels set up for some specific purpose and, most often, for a limited time called?

What are select committees sometimes called?

What special committee in the Senate conducts an ongoing study of the elderly?

What Democrat from North Carolina chaired the Senate's Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities? (Senate Watergate Committee)

What two committees probed the Reagan administration's conduct of two highly secret projects abroad: the covert sale of arms to Iran and clandestine efforts to give military aid to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua?

What were the twin committees: Senate's Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition; House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran often called?

What House committee looks at the spruce bugworm problem, an infestation affecting trees in the Pacific Northwest?

What kind of committee is one composed of members of both houses?

What kind of committee is a temporary, joint body?

What is a proposed law presented to the House or Senate for consideration called?

A bill introduced in the House must be placed in what?

What is the term for a box hanging on the edge of the clerk's desk?

What is the term for bills and resolutions?

What kind of bills are measures applying to the nation as a whole?

What kind of bills are measures that apply to certain persons or places rather than to the entire nation?

What are similar to bills, and when passed have the force of law?  They most often deal with unusual or temporary matters.

What is a statement of position on an issue, adopted by the House and Senate acting jointly?  They do not have the force of law and do not require the President's signature.

What is a measure dealing with some matter in one house that does not have the force of law and does not require the President's signature?

What is a provision not likely to pass on its own merit that is attached to an important measure certain to pass called?

What contains the minutes, the official record, of the daily proceedings in the House or Senate?

What is the term for the official record?

What is a voluminous account of the daily proceedings (speeches, debates, other comments, votes, motions, etc.) in each house called?  It is not a word-for-word account.

What actor appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss Parkinson's disease, a progressive disease with which he has been diagnosed?

Whose place is so pivotal that they are sometimes called "little legislatures"?

What are standing committees sometimes called, because their place is so pivotal?

What is the term that means that a bill dies in committee?

What are slots into which papers were put and often forgotten called?

What enables members to force a bill that has remained in committee 30 days (7 in the Rules Committee) onto the floor for consideration?

What are divisions of existing committees formed to address specific issues called?

What term means relieved?

What term means a trip?

What is a schedule of the order in which bills will be taken up on the floor called?

What Democrat from Ohio visited Iraq to study the effects of economic sanctions that were imposed to discourage that country from developing weapons?

What calendar in the House, commonly called the Union Calendar, is for all bills having to do with revenues, appropriations, or government property?

What is The Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union commonly called?

What calendar in the House is for all other public bills?

What calendar in the House, commonly called the Private Calendar, is for all private bills?

What is The Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House often called?

What calendar in the House is for all bills from the Union or House Calendar taken out of order by unanimous consent of the House of Representatives?  These are most often minor bills to which there is no opposition.

What calendar in the House is for petitions to discharge bills from committee?

On what day may the various committee chairmen each call up one bill from the House or Union calendars that has cleared their committees?

What kind of rule sets conditions under which the members of the House will consider the measure?

What is an old parliamentary device for speeding business on the floor called?

What is the term for the majority of the full membership (218) of the House?

What kind of rule allows each speaker only 5 minutes to make their cases?

What Democrat from Michigan was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1994?  She arrived in Washington, D.C., wanting to work for "everyday people with everyday problems."

What term means to lay a bill aside?

What kind of vote is when the Speaker calls for the "ayes" and then the "noes" and then announces the result?  It is the most common method of taking floor votes.

What kind of vote happens if any member thinks the Speaker has erred in judging a voice vote?  The supporters and opponents are counted by the clerk.

What is a standing vote also called?

What kind of vote is when two tellers, one from each party, count the supporters and opponents of their members?  One fifth of a quorum can demand this kind of vote.

What kind of vote, also known as a record vote, may be demanded by one fifth of the members present?

What is the roll-call vote also called?

What is a check to make sure that a quorum of the members is in fact present called?

What term means that a bill is printed in its final form?

What is a term for a legislative aide?

In 1850, what South Carolina Senator favored nullification, which gave Southern States the right to refuse to carry out federal laws that they opposed?  He did this to preserve the Union.

In 1861, what Mississippi Senator advocated seccession, withdrawal from the Union?

What term means withdrawal from the Union?

What nonlegislative calendar in the Senate is for treaties and appointments made by the President and awaiting Senate approval or, rarely, rejection?

What rule in the Senate says that no senator may speak more than twice on a given question on the same legislative day?

What term means temporarily interrupting?

What is an attempt to "talk a bill to death" called?

What Democrat from Louisiana filibusted a bill in 1935 by talking for more than 15 hours about the Washington telephone directory and recipes?

What Democrat from Idaho filibusted a bill in 1947 by speaking for 8 hours about his children, Wall Street, baptism, and fishing?

What Republican from South Carolina set the current filibuster record (24 hours and 18 minutes) while speaking against the Civil Rights Act of 1957?

What is the Senate's real check on the filibuster and was adopted in 1917 after one of the most notable of all filibusters in Senate history?  That filibuster lasted for three weeks, and took place less than two months before the United States entered WWI on April 6, 1917.

What is the term for limiting debate?

What is the term for managers?

During President Bush's tax cut proposal ceremony in the Rose Garden on February 8, 2001, what three Hispanic businesspersons stood with him?

What is the term for refusing to sign a bill?

What are the President's objections to a bill called?

What is it called if Congress adjourns its session within 10 days of submitting a bill to the President, and the President does not act, and the measure dies?

What 1996 law gave the President the power to reject individual items in appropriations bills?

In what 1998 case did the Supreme Court hold the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 unconstitutional?  This law gave the President the power to reject individual items in appropriations bills.

What group investigated possible communist activities and influence in various areas of American life during the 1950s?

What leader in the labor movement was called to testify before a subcommittee of HUAC?

In what 1957 case did the Supreme Court investigate the guilt of John Watkins as he refused to answer questions about people he believed had withdrawn from party membership?