Key Topics



Key Topics(

1. Checks and Balances

• The purpose of checks and balances is to provide the means for each branch to block some of the power of the other two branches, making it even more difficult for any branch to abuse its power:

• Examples:

i. Congress has the power to make laws, but the President can veto acts of Congress;

ii. Congress can override presidential vetoes by two-thirds vote in each house.

iii. The Supreme Court, through judicial review, can declare acts of government unconstitutional (null and void).

iv. The President has the power of appointment to key federal positions, including judges and justices, but the Senate has the power to approve or reject them.

v. The President has the power to make treaties, but the Senate must ratify them.

vi. Congress can check the Supreme Court by changing the number of judges or justices and by changing the jurisdiction of lower courts.

vii. Congress can impeach (House by majority vote) judges and federal officials, including the president, and by a two-thirds vote of the Senate can remove them.

2. The Incumbency Advantage

• Incumbency is the single most important factor in determining the outcome of congressional elections.

• Incumbent members of the House of Representatives are more likely to be reelected than are incumbent senators.

• Incumbents are able to use “pork barrel politics” (“logrolling”) to get money for projects that benefit their districts, making them more popular with their constituents.

• Incumbents can take advantage of the franking privilege, enabling them to send mail to constituents at the government’s expense.

3. Non-legislative Powers of Congress

• Congress can:

i. Propose constitutional amendments by a two-thirds vote in each house.

ii. Select the president if no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes; in that case, each state would have one vote, choosing from among the three highest contenders in the electoral college balloting.

iii. Approve by majority vote in each house the replacement for a vacancy in the vice presidency.

iv. Investigate any matter that falls within the scope of its legislative powers, including providing oversight over executive agencies.

v. Participate in the impeachment process: the House, by a majority vote, impeaches (files formal charges); the Senate tries the case and, by a two-thirds vote, can remove the accused from office.

• The Senate must approve by majority vote the major appointments made by he president, and by two-thirds vote must approve treaties.

4. Federalism

• Federalism is a system of government in which a written constitution divides power between a central or national government and regional governments.

• When the powers of the federal government and the powers of the states governments conflict, the federal government prevails (Supremacy Clause, Article VI).

• The national government’s power over the national government over the states has increased because of the Supreme Court’s interpretation and use of the necessary and proper clause, commerce clause, categorical grants, and federal mandates.

• Federalism decentralizes political conflict, provides interest groups with multiple points of access, and creates opportunities for experimentation and diversity of public policy.

5. Two-Party System

• Two-party systems are rare.

• We have a two-party system because during the constitutional ratification process, there were two major philosophical (ideological) divisions, Federalists and Anti-federalists. In addition, we have single-member districts, there are legal barriers to third parties, and the winner-take-all format of the Electoral College may make third-party victories possible in individual states, but not throughout the nation.

6. European Enlightenment Philosophers

• John Locke:

i. Argued that people are born with “natural rights” that include “life, liberty, and property”;

ii. People form governments to protect their natural rights, and this government is therefore based on the consent of the governed;

iii. Government is a contract in which rulers promise to protect the people’s natural rights;

iv. If government can’t protect rights, the people have a right to replace it.

• Montesquieu:

i. All governments have three functions—legislative, executive and judicial—which must be kept separate.

ii. This division of powers protects the rights of individuals by preventing one branch of government from gaining unrestricted control over the entire society.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

i. Rousseau argued that the sovereign power in a state does not reside in a ruler, but in the general will of the community as a whole;

ii. Rulers are the servants of the community, and they should be removed if they fail to carry out the people’s will.

7. Limitations on Majority Rule:

• The Framers created a representative government rather than a direct democracy because they believed

i. Most people lacked the time, information, energy, interest and expertise to decide on public policy;

ii. Citizens were highly susceptible to popular demagogues since most citizens weren’t well educated.

• Further, government would be insulated from popular passions because of the long staggered terms of Senators, the independent judiciary serving “during good behavior,” and a president selected only indirectly by the people.

• The extended republic suggested in Federalist #51 would promote bargaining and compromise more readily than in a directly elected small group of representatives.

• The Bill of Rights and other constitutional limitations on power would protect basic liberties and provide a shield against a tyrannical majority.

8. The Electoral College

• The president and vice president are not elected by a direct vote of the people, but the winning ticket must receive a majority of the votes in the Electoral College.

• The Electoral College is a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins a plurality of the votes in a state wins all of that state’s electoral votes.

• The Electoral College system encourages presidential candidates to focus on campaigning in the most populous states.

• If none of the presidential candidates receives a majority of the electoral votes, the selection process moves to the House, where each state has one vote.

• Changing the Electoral College would mean amending the constitution. Because the Electoral College benefits smaller states, however, getting the necessary two-thirds vote necessary to propose an amendment is unlikely.

9. Informal Ways to Amend the Constitution:

• Congressional legislation has done much to define what is meant in the Constitution by exercising its commerce powers extensively.

• Executive action and decisions, including making war without declarations of war and using executive agreements to conduct foreign policy, have contributed to the growth of the Constitution.

• Supreme Court decisions interpret and apply the Constitution in most cases the Court decides; we only know what the Constitution really means by its decisions.

• Unwritten customs—including the creation of the Cabinet, senatorial courtesy, and the no third-term tradition—are often as strong as written law.

10. Voter Turnout

• Voter turnout in the U.S. is lower than that of most Western democracies, though we have more elections for more offices in the U.S.

• The majority of the U.S. electorate does not vote in nonpresidential (mid-term) elections.

• People with more education are more likely to vote than people with less education.

• People with more income are more likely to vote than people with less income.

• Older people are more likely to vote than younger people.

• People with a greater sense of political efficacy are more likely to vote.

11. The Veto Power

• The system of checks and balances gives the president the power to veto a bill and Congress the power to override a presidential veto.

• A pocket veto occurs when Congress adjourns within ten days of submitting a bill to the president and the president neither signs nor vetoes it; the bill then dies.

• Presidents often use the threat of a veto to persuade Congress to modify a bill.

• Congress is rarely able to override a presidential veto.

• Many state governors can exercise a line-item veto, though the president cannot. Congress passed the Line-Item Veto Act (1996) giving the president the power to veto individual items in major appropriations bills, but the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in the case of Clinton v. City of New York (1998).

12. Government Powers

• Expressed powers (also called enumerated powers) are specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution.

• Expressed powers are included in

i. Article I, Section 8 granting powers of Congress.

ii. Article II, Section 2 assigning powers to the president.

iii. Article III granting “the judicial power of the United States” to the Supreme Court.

iv. Various amendments also contain expressed powers.

• Implied powers are not specifically stated in the Constitution, but are derived from Article I, Section 8, Clause 18, the “necessary and proper” (elastic clause), giving Congress the broad power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the forgoing Powers and all other Powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United Sates, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” The “necessary and proper” clause enables the national government to meet problems the Framers could not anticipate, insuring the growth of national power by enabling the federal government to extend its powers beyond those enumerated in the Constitution. See especially McCulloch v. Maryland (1824).

• Inherent powers are powers that all countries have simply because they are sovereign nations, such as the right to make treaties, wage war and acquire territories.

• Reserved powers are granted to the states by the 10th Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. [Emphasis added]” States, therefore, have more powers, though less power, than the federal government.

• Concurrent powers are those powers held by both federal and state governments at the same time, including the power to tax, borrow, establish courts, and create laws.

• Prohibited powers are denied to the national and/or state governments—e.g., the federal government cannot tax exports, and the states cannot make treaties with foreign countries.

13. The President and the Cabinet

• Cabinet (executive department) officers are not mentioned in the Constitution, though they are suggested in Article II, Section 2: “He [the president] may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments….”

• The President appoints cabinet secretaries subject to Senate approval, though the President can fire a cabinet head without Senate approval.

• Cabinet members have divided allegiance, since their loyalty to the president can be compromised by their loyalty to the institutional goals of their own department.

• There is an “inner” and “outer” cabinet. The former usually includes the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury (and sometimes the Attorney General).

14. Expansion of Congressional Power through the Commerce Clause

• In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Supreme Court defined interstate commerce broadly, thus expanding Congress power to legislate.

• Because of Congress’s broad commerce powers, the national government now regulates a wide variety of commercial activities, from industrial pollution to financial transactions.

• The Supreme Court upheld the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbidding discrimination in places of public accommodation such as restaurants and hotels on the basis of its power to regulate interstate commerce—see Heart of Atlanta v. U.S. (1964).

• In U.S. v. Lopez (1995), the Court found the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act unconstitutional because it exceeded the power of Congress to legislate under the Commerce Clause.

15. Expansion of Voting Rights

• In 1789, property and tax qualifications restricted the electorate generally to white male property owners.

• By 1850, almost all white adult males had the right to vote.

• Federal laws and constitutional amendments have eliminated restrictions on the right to vote:

i. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited voting restrictions based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Even so, a combination of literary tests, poll taxes, white primaries and the grandfather clause systematically disenfranchised African Americans in the South.

ii. The Nineteenth Amendment removed voting restrictions based on gender.

iii. The Twenty-Third Amendment permitted residents of the District of Columbia to vote in presidential elections.

iv. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment outlawed the poll tax.

v. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished the use of literacy tests.

vi. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment provided the minimum age for voting in any election cannot be less than 18 years.

16. Presidential Primaries

• Presidential primaries have replaced caucuses as a method of selecting presidential candidates, making the process more “democratic” and weakening party control over the nominating process.

• In a closed primary, voters are required to identify a party preference.

• The Democratic Party now uses a proportional system that generally awards delegates based on the percentage of votes a candidate receives. Republicans use a more eclectic system, with some states awarding delegates based on a winner-take-all result.

• Primary voters tend to be party activists who are older and more affluent than the general electorate.

• Frontloading is the recent pattern of states holding primaries early in the process, in February and March, to capitalize on media attention and to maximize their influence in the nominating process.

17. How Interest Groups Affect Policy

• The goal of interest groups is to influence policy by:

i. Lobbying Congress: providing members of Congress with specific information regarding legislation or policy, testifying before congressional committees, meeting informally with members and/or congressional aides to implement an insider strategy, and launching an “outsider strategy” to mobilize public support for their cause.

ii. Lobbying the executive branch by communicating with White House aides and other government officials and using iron triangles or issue networks to petition agencies.

iii. Lobbying the courts by either taking their cases to court—e.g., even though the NAACP was thwarted by Congress, it was able to respond by sponsoring the Brown v. Board case—or by filing amicus curiae briefs (friend of the court), written arguments by parties not involved directly in a case, but having an interest in the outcome.

• Contributing money to candidates:

i. Political Action Committees (PACs), the financial arm of interest groups, raise money and make contributions to the campaigns of political candidates they support.

ii. The amount of money PACs can contribute directly to an individual is limited by law, though recent Court decisions (Citizens United v. FEC [2010]) now allow unlimited “independent expenditures,” so long as the interest group does not coordinate its contribution with a particular candidate.

iii. PACs play a particularly significant role in supporting incumbent members of the House of Representatives, though their significance may be dwarfed by Super PACs, made legal by the Citizens United decision.

18. The Federalist Papers

• In Federalist #10, Madison argued that factions were undesirable but inevitable, that the excesses of factionalism could be limited by the system of republican government, and that the large extended republic would fragment political power and curb the threat posed by both majority and minority factions.

• In Federalist #51, Madison argued that best security against a gradual concentration of power in any one branch was to provide constitutional safeguards that would make such concentration difficult. (“The will of the people, he said, is undoubtedly the best control, but experience teaches that other controls are necessary.”) He also argued for checks and balances particularly to prevent the legislative branch, the most powerful branch, from legislative tyranny. ("The constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on each other.")

• In Federalist #78, Hamilton argued for judicial independence—by giving federal judges their office for life, subject to “good behavior”— assigning judicial review to protect individual liberties, and having them appointed, rather than elected. No one should fear such an independent judiciary, Hamilton concluded, since it would be “the least dangerous branch.”

19. The Fourteenth Amendment and Selective Incorporation

• The Fourteenth Amendment made African Americans citizens, thus voiding the Dred Scott decision.

• The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause forbids a state from acting in an unfair or arbitrary way. Its Equal Protection Clause forbids a state from discriminating against or drawing unreasonable distinctions between persons.

• The doctrine of selective incorporation uses the Fourteenth Amendment to extend most of the requirements of the Bill of Rights to the states.

• The first case that began the process of incorporating the Bill of Right into the states via the 14th Amendment was Gitlow v. New York (1925).

20. Elite Theories of Government

• Marxist analysis suggests government reflects underlying economic forces, primarily the pattern of the ownership of the means of production, controlled by the dominant social class.

• In The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills argues that there is a group of key corporate leaders, military leaders, and political leaders—the power elite—that controls and is served by government.

• The Bureaucratic model, popularized by Max Weber, suggests that bureaucrats actually run government agencies, having the expertise and specialized competence to dominate political decision making.

• The pluralist model contends that no single elite has a monopoly on power and that competing elites form and reform depending on the issue, bargaining and compromising to meet their specific needs, while being responsive to their followers.

21. The Selection of Supreme Court Cases

• Supreme Court Justices and their clerks, primarily the latter, pour through the approximately 6,000 cases that are appealed annually to the Court, looking for cases that present answers to Constitutional questions or resolve disagreements between lower federal courts. The Court only hears about 75-100 cases per year on appeal.

• If at least four of the nine justices agree to hear a case (the “rule of four”), the Court issues a writ of certiorari and the case is brought before the Court.

• Only a handful of cases are derived from the Court’s original jurisdiction.

22. Key Differences between House and Senate

• Size: the House has 435 members while the Senate has 100.

• Constituency: House members represent districts, while Senators represent entire states.

• Term: House members serve two-year terms, while Senators serve six-year terms.

• Legislation: All revenue bills must begin in the House, though the Senate can add amendments.

• Advice and Consent: Senators approve key presidential appointments, including agency heads and federal judges (and Supreme Court Justices) and ratify treaties.

• Impeachment: House members vote (by simple majority) articles of impeachment, while the Senate conducts the subsequent trial and by two-thirds majority can convict.

• Incumbency: A greater percentage of House members who seek reelection win (90%), though a significant percentage of Senate incumbents also win (>75%).

• Debate: Floor debate in the House is limited by rules issued by the Rules Committee, while Senate rules allow Senators to speak on the floor as long as they wish; in addition, Senators can filibuster—a way of delaying or preventing action on a bill by using long speeches and unlimited debate.

23. Congressional Committees

• Most of the work crafting (and killing) bills occurs in committees and subcommittees, and most bills die in committee.

• Committee chairs, often the most senior committee member, are elected by the majority party.

• With a few exceptions, the House and Senate have parallel committee processes. Within committees, bills are examined (hearings conducted), marked up (language changed and/or amendments added), pigeonholed (killed) and voted on (either “up” or “down”).

• Discharge petitions, signed by a majority of House members, can blast a pigeonholed bill from a committee.

• Types of committees:

i. Standing Committees: permanently established legislative committees that consider and are responsible for legislation within a certain subject area and that oversee the federal bureaucracy.

ii. Select Committees: Congressional committees that are appointed for a limited time and purpose.

iii. Joint Committees: Committees on which both representatives and senators serve. Conference committees are joint committees.

iv. Conference Committees: Joint committees made up of Representatives and Senators appointed to resolve differences in the Senate and House versions of the same piece of legislation before final passage.

v. House Rules Committee gives a bill a rule, placing it on the legislative calendar, allowing a specified time for debate, and determining if any amendments will be allowed.

vi. House Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction on all taxation, tariffs and other revenue-raising measures, deriving “a large share of its jurisdiction from Article I, Section VII of the U.S. Constitution which declares, ‘All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.’” 

24. The Articles of Confederation

• They established a decentralized system of government, a “league of friendship,” with a weak central government that had limited powers over the states.

• The Articles created a unicameral Congress that lacked the power to levy taxes, lacked executive and judicial authority, could not compel state action, and did not have the power to regulate or promote commerce among the states.

25. The Reasons that Party Majorities Matter in Congress

• The majority party chooses the floor leadership in each chamber: Speaker of the House, Senate and House majority leaders, and President Pro Temp of the Senate.

• The majority party selects all committee and subcommittee chairs and has a majority membership on all committees and subcommittees, including conference committees.

• The majority party in the Senate, however, requires at least sixty members to be “filibuster-proof.”

26. Structure of the Executive Branch

• White House Office: Created in the 1930s, the White House Office includes the president’s closest assistants, many of whom work in the West Wing and most of whom do not have to be confirmed by the Senate.

• Executive Office of the President: The EOP is comprised of agencies that report directly to the president and perform staff services for him, yet are not located in the White House itself:

i. The Office of Management and budget (OMB): Assembles and analyzes figures that go into the national budget, studies the organization and operations of the executive branch and reviews proposals that cabinet departments want included in the president’s legislative program.

ii. National Security Council (NSC): the NSC is composed of the president’s principal foreign and military advisers. It includes the vice president, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, national security advisor and others as necessary; it is chaired by the president.

iii. Council of Economic Advisors (CEA): the CEA is a group of three leading economists who advise the president on economic policy.

• Cabinet (Executive Departments): The cabinet includes the heads of the fourteen major executive departments—such as departments of State, Defense, and Treasury—and the Attorney General.

i. Executive Departments employ nearly two-thirds of the federal government’s civilian employees.

ii. Cabinet members often have divided allegiance: their loyalty to the president can be undermined by loyalty to the institutional goals of their own departments.

• Executive Agencies and Regulatory Commissions: These agencies either assist the president in implementing laws, such as the CIA and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), or regulate important portions of the economy, such as the Federal Reserve Board, Securities and Exchange Commission and National Labor Relations Board.

i. “Independent establishments are created by Congress to address concerns that go beyond the scope of ordinary legislation. These agencies are responsible for keeping the government and economy running smoothly.”

ii. Executive agencies heads can be removed at any time by the president, while the heads of independent commissions serve fixed terms and can only be dismissed for cause.”

iii. Executive agencies also include government corporations, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, AMTRAK, and the U.S. Postal Service.

27. Federal Judicial Jurisdictions

• Original jurisdiction: Courts that hear particular cases first: U.S. District Courts have only original jurisdiction.

• Appellate jurisdiction: Courts that hear cases brought to them on appeal from lower courts: the U.S. Courts of Appeal have only appellate jurisdiction.

• Exclusive jurisdiction: Cases that can be heard only in certain courts: the U.S. Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction over cases “affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers…” and other areas specified in Article III, Section 2.

• The U.S. Supreme Court has both original and appellate jurisdiction, though most of the cases it hears each year arise through its appellate jurisdiction.

28. Limits on Free Speech

• None of the liberties mentioned in the Bill of Rights is absolute: one cannot break the law and then hope successfully to cite the First Amendment in one’s defense.

• Libel and Slander: Libel is written defamation that falsely attacks a person’s name and reputation, and slander is spoken defamation….

• Obscenity: “Obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press.” The most recent definition of obscenity is found in Miller v. California (1973)—see p. 506 in the text.

• Symbolic Speech: Symbolic speech is an act that conveys a political message, such as burning a draft card to protest the draft, carrying signs or wearing armbands.

i. In Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Court ruled that flag burning is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment.

ii. In 1965, high school students, protesting the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands containing a peace symbol, were sent home when they refused to remove their armbands for violating a school board policy banning armbands. In Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the Court ruled that the school board’s action violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of free expression: students and teachers do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the school house gate,” said the Court.

iii. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment does not protect symbolic speech intended to incite illegal actions.

29. The Right to Privacy

• While not included specifically in the Bill of Rights, the right to privacy is implied by:

i. The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.

ii. The Third Amendment’s prohibition against the government forcing citizens to quarter soldiers in their homes.

iii. The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

iv. The Fifth Amendment’s rule that private property cannot be seized without “due process of law.”

• Griswold v. Connecticut (1965): The Supreme Court ruled that a Connecticut law criminalizing the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy and stated that the right to privacy was found in the unstated liberties implied by the explicitly stated rights in the Bill of Rights.

• Roe v. Wade (1973: Citing the right to privacy established in Griswold, the Court ruled that within the first trimester, a woman’s decision to obtain an abortion should be protected—e.g., states cannot prohibit a woman’s right to choose.

• Challenges to Roe:

i. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Court upheld a Missouri law prohibiting abortions (except those preserving the mother’s life) in any publicly operated hospital or clinic in Missouri.

ii. In Planned Parenthood… v. Casey (1992), the Court ruled that a state may place reasonable limits that do not place an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to have an abortion—e.g., a 24-hour waiting period.

( Partially adapted from AP U.S. Government and Politics, an AP test prep book that I recommend purchasing; the school Library may have some copies available.)

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