Final

Question 1

tyranny v efficiency

Answer 1

Abuse of power, or reduced responsiveness to voters, risks of tyranny increase as term length increases

Inefficiency: inability to develop the expertise and relationships necessary to govern, since there isn’t enough time to grow their experience

Question 2

term length

Answer 2

House → 2 years
Senate → 6 year

Question 3

chamber size

Answer 3

Chamber Size: Risk on inefficiency increases as the size increases, risk of tyranny decreases at the size increases

Question 4

reapportionment

Answer 4

Reapportionment: How many seats your state gets (between 50-30,000)

The number of representative shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative

Question 5

redistricting

Answer 5

Redistricting: drawing maps within a state, the house can control the districting when they have majority

US Constitution and Voting Rights Act require of a district map:
Equal population
Contiguity
No racial gerrymandering

Question 6

Legislative branch function

Answer 6

Legislative: Congress (House of Reps + Senate) → Legislative Branch: Makes the law, appropriates funds

Question 7

Executive Branch function

Answer 7

Executive: (President and Bureaucracy) Signs or vetoes law, appoints judges and heads of bureaucratic agencies

Question 8

Judicial branch function

Answer 8

Judicial: Supreme Court → Final court of appeal, interprets laws and Constitution

Question 9

Term Length: House? Senate?

Answer 9

Term Length: House → 2 years, Senate → 6 year

Question 10

Bicameralism

Answer 10

Bicameralism: Congress consists of two chambers → US House of Representatives and the US Senate

Question 11

checks and balances

Answer 11

checks and balances: encourages that the two chambers promote compromise and reduce legislative error

Question 12

federalism

Answer 12

federalism: promoted by the Great Compromise, population based House and state-based Senate

Question 13

Single-member district

Answer 13

Single-member district: a series of geographically-defined areas within a state, each of which elects one of the state’s members in the US House

Question 14

Incumbent vs. Challenger

Answer 14

Incumbent: a current member of Congress seeking reelection

Challenger: a candidate seeking to unseat an incumbent

Question 15

Open seat

Answer 15

Open seat: a race with no incumbent

Question 16

Gerrymander

Answer 16

Gerrymander: a district drawn in a partisan manner, seeking to create districts that favored one side (state)

Question 17

Plurality

&

First-past-the-post

Answer 17

Plurality: the candidate with the most votes win the seat

First-past-the-post: alludes to horse racing, where the first horse past the finish line wins the race

Question 18

Runoff election

Answer 18

Runoff election: if no candidate wins 50% in the first stage, then the top two candidates face off

Question 19

Closed-list proportional representation

Answer 19

Closed-list proportional representation: each political party submits a rank-ordered list of the candidates that would like to be seated in the legislature, on election day voters choose a party, not a person. Proportionally, those seats are assigned according to the choice of the party.

Question 20

Agenda control

Answer 20

Agenda control: the authority to decide whose turn it is to speak, which proposal to consider and so on

Question 21

Majority party

&

Leaders of these parties

&

Whips

Answer 21

Majority party: the party with a majority of seats in the House as opposed to the minority party

Leaders of these parties → coordinate their parties’ legislative priorities and strategies

Whips: assistant leaders who serve as a liaison between party leadership and party members in the House

Question 22

Speaker of the House

Answer 22

Speaker of the House: presides in the chamber, choosing which members to call on during floor debates and exercising other important leadership functions

Question 23

Vice president

Answer 23

Vice president: automatically the Senate president, usually the Senate avoids adopting rules that give meaningful authority to the vice president

Question 24

President pro tempore

Answer 24

President pro tempore: authorizes a placeholder in the event of the vice president’s absence, but if there is any real authority given the vice president would come to exercise that authority

Question 25

Senate Majority Leader (SML)

Answer 25

Senate Majority Leader (SML): given concentrated authority rather than the vice president by giving them the…

Question 26

Right of first recognition

Answer 26

Right of first recognition: when more than one senator wishes to speak at once, Senate rules require the presiding officer to first call on the SML.

Question 27

Standing committee

Answer 27

Standing committee: develop expertise in specific policy area, typically updated every two years after elections, to help Congress with the specifics of a technical policy area to understand bills

Question 28

Regular order

Answer 28

Regular order: the standard procedure by which a bill becomes a law

Question 29

Conference committee

Answer 29

Conference committee: If a bill is changed, the committee meets together to negotiate a compromise, which would then return to each chamber for a final vote

Question 30

Multiple referral

Answer 30

Multiple referral: a bill might be referred to multiple committees at once rather than to just one, pitting committees against each other so that leadership has a better chance of getting the bill to look the way it wants

Question 31

Unorthodox lawmaking

Answer 31

Unorthodox lawmaking: Alternatives to regular order of creating a law

Question 32

Party government

Answer 32

Party government: Power lies with leadership since the majority party controls the most important leadership positions

Question 33

Strategic entry

Answer 33

Strategic entry: when to enter a race is to look at who is in place and when they are running in economic conditions

Question 34

Amateur vs professional candidate

Answer 34

Amateur vs professional candidate: amateur, never has held a place of office and professional has held office.

Question 35

Wave election

Answer 35

Wave election: national conditions correlate with (but don’t cause) swings. Fundamentals! voters don’t decide! National conditions improve or worsen → candidates take notice → one party recruits a stronger field of candidates than the other Created by strategic entry by professional candidates

Question 36

Incumbency advantage

Answer 36

Incumbency advantage: being the prior representative increases your points by 10% just by being in the seat Existing support networks Formal and informal resources of office Deter strong challengers Rising polarization has reduced the incumbency advantage

Question 37

Constituency

Answer 37

Geographic: everybody mapped into the district Reelection: those who vote and vote for them Primary: votes foremost constituents, the ones who will donate money and remember your name, town hall Personal: people around you

Question 38

Issue representation

Answer 38

high policy content Delegate: speaks with the people, understands their opinion and votes as the people would want focused on district Trustee: acts, learns and representative uses his own judgments, not focused on district

Question 39

Other forms of representation

Answer 39

low policy content Service representation: low policy content focused on district, casework – individual Budget representation: low policy content focused on district (budgets,projects) - tap water Descriptive representation: low policy content, not focused on district - not stereotypical member, demography

Question 40

Reelection Incentive

Answer 40

Advertising: the attempt by members to congress to keep their names and faces favorably in the minds of constituents through efforts that typically deal very little with issues Credit claiming: the attempt to appear personally responsible for the favorable actions of a government agency (service representation) or for federal spending that benefits the district (budget representation) Position taking: a public issue stance on any subject, whether it is currently before Congress or not, and whether the member plans to take action or not, that appeals to constituents. Often general and vague to remain inoffensive. A big step down from the real issue representation

Question 41

legislative professionalism

Answer 41

the capacity of the state legislature to perform its role in the policymaking process with an expertise, seriousness and effort comparable to that of other actors

Question 42

Legislative Session length

Answer 42

professional legislatures may meet as often as needed; others might be limited such as the Utah’s constitution’s requirement that the work must be complete in a seven-week session each winter

Question 43

Legislative Salary

Answer 43

Pay enough that members may focus on legislative work, others pay so little that members must balance the work with outside employment