The discount rate is the interest rate at which the Federal Reserve Board lends money to
member banks.
Only Texas and Oklahoma have two supreme courts.
The gender gap in party identification has nearly closed.
The Great Compromise counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for representation
purposes.
There were more Republican than Democratic candidates for president in 2008.
A single company may own up to 45 percent of media in a given market.
The powers of Congress have grown tremendously since its inception due in part to the
Framers’ intent to make its powers as wide-reaching as possible.
At-large elections may discriminate against minorities by keeping the effect of their
votes to a minimum.
The Framers of the U.S. Constitution divided powers between the national and state
governments to create a federal system.
Politics are unaffected by the evolving nature of the American citizenry.
Suppose the United States changes the House of Representatives elections to every six
years to match senatorial terms. Although it would take a constitutional amendment, it
has the potential to increase voter turnout.
Lobbyists are prohibited from contacting lawmakers directly.
Celebrities are rarely good lobbyists for interest group campaigns.
The right to privacy prevents states from criminalizing private sexual behavior between
consenting adults.
Franklin D. Roosevelt is the founder of the “modern” presidency.
Suppose President Obama is upset with a recent Supreme Court decision. Constitutional
provisions allow him to ask the Congress to lower judicial salaries, but only at the
beginning of the Court’s next term.
Political machines occurred as a result of immigrants from Europe settling in the United
States.
Like national officials, local politicians function at a direct, grassroots level.
Congress was given its authority to coin money by the Articles of Confederation.
In Federalist No. 10, Madison argued that the greatest threat to individual liberty comes
from factions within the government.
The high esteem Americans accord to former presidents is reflected in the fact that a
majority of them lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda before their burial.
Iron triangles refer to the relatively stable relationships among agencies, interest groups,
and congressional committees.
The Office of Management and Budget is a congressional agency with responsibility for
the president’s budget proposal.
Redrawing congressional districts to reflect increases or decreases in population is
called redistricting.
It is relatively easy for members of one party to sabotage the results of an open primary
for the other party.
Following the Civil War when Texas sought reentry into the union, presidential
Reconstruction required universal adult suffrage.
The first instance of campaign reform occurred when Congress stopped campaigns
from soliciting funds from federal workers.
Promoting the general welfare is a function of the national government.
About a quarter of Americans are very interested in politics.
As a rule, the American public is more interested in foreign affairs than in domestic
affairs.
It is not uncommon for state regulatory agencies, to become “captured.”
The official chair of the Senate is the _____.
A) majority leader
B) Speaker
C) caucus chair
D) vice president
E) president pro tempore
The continuing need for a Texas bureaucracy is evaluated through a process known as
A) redistricting.
B) senatorial courtesy.
C) sunset review.
D) administrative oversight.
E) statutory analysis.
The Supreme Court has ruled that
A) the Constitution bars any redistricting between censuses.
B) the Texas legislature’s actions were forbidden by the full faith and credit clause since
other states did not redistrict.
C) Representative Tom DeLay’s actions in ordering Democrats to attend the legislative
session voting on redistricting proposals were illegal.
D) it was unconstitutional for states to redistrict to purposefully dilute minority
strength.
E) the actions of the Democrats (leaving the state and therefore avoiding voting on
redistricting) were a federal offense.
Today, the most common and most effective types of economic interest groups are
A) labor unions and farmers.
B) business groups, labor unions, and women.
C) business groups and universities.
D) big business, and to a lesser extent, labor.
E) labor unions and universities.
Which of the following is NOT an argument for bilingual education in Texas?
A) Children who enter school but cannot understand English cannot be expected to
master the concepts or materials that is presented solely in English.
B) Children who cannot master basic material because of language deficiency
inevitably fall behind.
C) Bilingual education is expensive.
D) Bilingual children will grow up to play an important role in Texas’s economic
success.
E) Bilingual education helps Texas remain a leading center for international trade.
The Fourteenth Amendment can be considered a counter to which of the following
tenets of American political culture?
A) Political equality
B) Individualism
C) Religious freedom
D) Majority rule
E) Personal equality
How are most judges in Texas selected?
A) Non-partisan election
B) Partisan election
C) Appointment by governor
D) Appointment by legislature
E) Nomination by the Judicial Selection Committee of the State Bar of Texas and
confirmation by
the electorate
State agencies submit their biennial appropriations (or spending) requests to
A) the governor’s budget office.
B) the lieutenant governor’s budget office.
C) the House Appropriations Committee.
D) the Legislative Budget Board.
E) the Speaker of the Texas House.
In 1917, the Texas legislature passed a resolution calling for a constitutional
convention, but the effort failed when
A) Texas voters defeated the proposed constitutional convention by a three-to-one
margin.
B) the Citizens Committee on the Constitution issued an unfavorable report on the
effort.
C) Governor Beauford Jester refused to issue a proclamation calling for the election of
delegates.
D) Governor James Ferguson refused to issue a proclamation calling for the election of
delegates.
E) the publication of a newspaper editorial in the Dallas Morning News entitled “If It
Ain”t Broke, Why Fix It” was published and the legislature recalled the resolution as a
result.
The most serious disagreement in the debate between large and small states at the
Constitutional Convention was over the issue of
A) representation in Congress.
B) judicial power.
C) westward expansion.
D) taxation.
E) creating a Supreme Court.
If you are a Democratic member of Congress representing a very Democratic district
and have no challengers, much of your fundraising revenue will
A) be kept to a minimum.
B) go to charity.
C) be given to more vulnerable candidates in other districts.
D) go to the party’s presidential campaign, if there is an election that year.
E) build up a massive war chest for future campaigns.
Candidates’ efforts to meet as many voters as possible are
A) useless as media events.
B) only important in competitive elections.
C) to some degree symbolic.
D) very important in the Internet age.
E) are always a total waste of time.
What is the status of initiative and referendum in Texas?
A) Both were adopted in Texas during the Progressive era and are still in effect, giving
Texans a direct voice in government.
B) The initiative process was never adopted in Texas, but the referendum process was
adopted following the 1974 Texas Constitutional Convention.
C) Texas has neither the initiative nor referendum process.
D) The referendum process was never adopted in Texas, but the initiative process was
adopted following the 1974 Texas Constitutional Convention.
E) Initiative and referendum were proposed in the 1875 Constitutional Convention and
adopted in the 1876 Texas Constitution.
Which executive agency regulates the insurance industry?
A) Department of Insurance
B) Railroad Commission
C) Public Utilities Commission
D) Office of General Council
E) Department of Public Welfare
The doctrine of ________ opposes government involvement in the economy.
A) the business cycle
B) unitarism
C) laissez-faire
D) noblesse oblige
E) centralization
Every two years, since 1952, there have been regular surveys of the American electorate
known as the
A) General Social Survey.
B) Barometer of the American Electorate.
C) National Election Studies.
D) National Public Opinion Survey.
E) Harris Interactive Survey.
A list of all issues that the political community views as meriting public attention is
called the
A) policy agenda.
B) institutional agenda.
C) systemic agenda.
D) governmental agenda.
E) organizational agenda.
The authors of the textbook use the words of Thomas Dye to define public policy as
A) laws that are adopted by the government.
B) government decisions that are made behind closed doors.
C) whatever governments choose to do or not to do.
D) who gives what, when, and why.
E) whatever the public chooses to do or not to do.
After Baker v. Carr, state legislatures
A) became less professional.
B) became more representative.
C) met less frequently.
D) passed fewer laws.
E) became nonpartisan.
Texas governors always have been
A) constitutionally weaker than governors in most other states.
B) constitutionally stronger than governors in most other states.
C) more liberal than governors in most other states.
D) better paid than governors in most other states.
E) Democrats.
It is surprising that the Framers included freedom of the press in the First Amendment
because
A) at the time, newspapers were run by disreputable people.
B) they disliked the idea of the media covering their every move.
C) they could not have anticipated the advent of the Internet.
D) there were few newspapers at the time.
E) they advocated government censorship during the Revolutionary War.
Population ecology is a ____________ theory of interest group formation.
A) pluralist
B) transactionist
C) disturbance
D) neopluralist
E) federalist
Congress’s passage of the No Child Left Behind Actwhich affected public education, a
realm over which Congress does not have specific constitutional authorityis an example
of expanding its legislative powers through the ______ clause of the Constitution.
A) adaptive
B) necessary and proper
C) discretionary
D) flexibility
E) executing
Almost every constitution in Texas history provided for
A) the popular election of some judges.
B) a non-adversarial system of justice based on French canon law.
C) the appointment of judges at all levels by the governor.
D) the appointment of judges at all levels by the legislature.
E) lifetime appointments for most judges.
The Texas legislature’s first attempt to call a constitutional convention for a
comprehensive revision of the 1876 Texas Constitution was
A) shortly after the Constitution was adopted.
B) during World War II.
C) during the civil rights movement.
D) during the governorship of Ann Richards.
E) during the governorship of George Bush.
____________________ is a similar action to deficit spending.
A) Opening a checking account
B) Declaring bankruptcy
C) Using a credit card
D) Renting a car
E) Buying a car with cash
Unemployment insurance payments
A) are available to all unemployed persons seeking work.
B) vary based on unemployment rates.
C) vary dramatically by state.
D) are subject to mandated minimums set by the federal government.
E) are most generous in southern states.
Within the House of Representatives, Democratic members function as a group known
as a _____.
A) congregation.
B) conference.
C) caucus.
D) posse.
E) committee.
The U.S. economic system is a
A) pure capitalist system.
B) mixed free-enterprise system.
C) pure laissez-faire system.
D) mixed Marxist and socialist system.
E) pure centralized economic system.
Enlightenment thinkers argued that the world could be improved through
A) religious toleration and human reason.
B) human reason, science, and religious toleration.
C) faith, religion, and divine reason.
D) human reason, science, and religious homogeny.
E) science and religious toleration.