Today, nearly one-fourth of the people in the United States are immigrants.
President Barack Obama appears to support the concept of charter schools.
Since 1876, there have been 181 seats in the legislature31 seats in the Senate and 150
seats in the House of Representatives.
Article I of the Constitution creates the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to political scientist Paul E. Peterson, developmental programs are best left
to state governments.
The most important campaign consultants operate in the area of media services.
E-government is slowly on the decline in Texas.
There is evidence that the Obama administration disagrees with Arizona’s recent
immigration law.
If ratified, the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment will give women equal rights.
The most powerful predictor of vote choice remains a person’s race.
Texas legislators are among the highest paid in the nation.
The tobacco industry negotiated a multibillion dollar settlement with the state of Texas
to compensate for tax money spent on treating smoking-related illnesses in Texas.
A goal of the Progressive movement in the United States was to reduce the
environmental impacts of industrialization. China has recently imposed similar policies
to help with the massive environmental degradation caused by their economic
expansion.
In the Texas legislature, party caucuses and committees are formed to provide
information to party members on policy issues and to formulate the party’s position on
issues.
The original plan of the Electoral College was flawed and resulted in Aaron Burr being
named president.
The Democratic National Committee granted Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates a half
vote in the 2008 convention after a debate over how these unruly states should be
disciplined.
Your state has a constitution that delineates the basic laws and structure of the
government but allows the legislature to further flesh out the details and particulars
through statutory enactments. Your state has a liberal constitution.
For the first time in U.S. history, the New Deal embraced local governments as equal
partners in an intergovernmental system.
Federal judges cannot be removed from office for any reason because they have
lifetime appointments.
The Eleventh Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil Rights Cases.
Of the nearly 310 million people in the United States, only around 40 percent of them
are likely voters in a presidential contest.
The 1787 Convention in Philadelphia was called for the sole and express purpose of
revising the Articles of Confederation.
Anti-Federalists would most likely align themselves with today’s libertarians, who
decry the extent of the powers wielded by the national government.
A child’s peer group is most politically influential in
A) preschool.
B) early elementary school.
C) late elementary school.
D) middle and high school.
E) the early college years.
How many Americans benefit from Social Security (OASDI)?
A) Approximately 4 million
B) Between 5 and 10 million
C) Approximately 40 million
D) Between 50 and 55 million
E) Between 70 and 75 million
Congress passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program to speed recovery from the poor
economic conditions in the United States resulting from
A) the stock market crash of 1929.
B) the oil crisis of the 1970s.
C) the stock market crash of 1987.
D) the burst of the technology bubble in the 1990s.
E) the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the 2000s.
If a country wanted to formally monitor another country’s nuclear weapon program,
which of the following groups would be the best to use?
A) Central Intelligence Agency
B) International Atomic Energy Association
C) European Union
D) National Aeronautics and Space Administration
E) Nuclear Non-Proliferation Committee
“Ghost voting” refers to the practice in which
A) former members of the legislature are, on occasion, allowed to vote on measures
significant to the district they once represented.
B) legislation is passed without a recorded vote.
C) a member will vote on behalf of an absent colleague using the colleague’s unique
electronic voting device.
D) votes are falsified and entered into the record by legislative leaders who are
attempting to pass a particular measure by any means possible.
E) a vote of “present” is considered either a “yes” or “no” vote depending on what
outcome the presiding office desires.
All of the following are reasons an incumbent member of Congress may be defeated
EXCEPT
A) the opposing party controls the state legislature, which is in charge of redistricting.
B) a newspaper discovers he had an affair with his child’s nanny.
C) she has served for nearly thirty years.
D) a popular presidential candidate of the opposing political party is elected.
E) it is a midterm election, and the president in office is of the same political party as
the senator.
Elementary and secondary public education in Texas is funded by a combination of
state and local revenue, with the local source of revenue collected through
A) sales taxes.
B) property taxes.
C) usage fees.
D) corporate and business taxes.
E) sin taxes.
In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that a death penalty statute was constitutional because
new laws had been passed to ensure that sentencing was not arbitrary. This was the case
of
A) Gideon v.Wainwright.
B) Bowers v.Hardwick.
C) Mapp v. Ohio.
D) Furman v.Georgia.
E) Gregg v.Georgia.
Under the Constitution, both the national and state governments
A) are totally autonomous.
B) do not share any powers.
C) are accountable to the people.
D) can regulate interstate commerce.
E) are able to establish local governments.
Narrowcasting has resulted in
A) more people getting their news from the Internet.
B) polarization of public opinion.
C) a failure to target news programs to specific audiences.
D) rigorous enforcement of the equal time rule.
E) the death of newspapers.
The only officer of the House of Representatives specifically mentioned in the
Constitution is the
A) Speaker of the House.
B) president pro tempore.
C) vice president.
D) sergeant at arms.
E) majority leader.
Presidents have relied on their inherent powers to
A) circumvent the Constitution in times of war or crisis.
B) enter into treaties.
C) demonstrate their power to the electorate.
D) act as commander in chief.
E) declare war.
Members of which of the following group(s) have lower per capita incomes than Texas
Anglos?
A) Asian Americans in Texas
B) African Americans in Texas
C) Hispanics in Texas
D) Americans as a whole
E) All of the above
The vice president serves as president of the U.S. Senate, but this role is mostly
ceremonial. The de facto head of the U.S. Senate is the Senate majority leader. In Texas,
the __________ serves as the president of the Senate, and the __________ is the real
leader of the Texas Senate.
A) vice president of Texas; Senate majority leader
B) lieutenant governor; Senate majority leader
C) lieutenant governor; lieutenant governor
D) vice president of Texas; lieutenant governor
E) Senate majority leader; Speaker of the Texas House
Which of the following statements about the distribution of income Texas is accurate?
A) There are wide disparities in the distribution of income in Texas.
B) There are few significant disparities in the distribution of income in Texas.
C) The distribution of income in Texas is fairly flat, as would be expected by our
emphasis on egalitarianism.
D) Only about 5% of Texas households have annual incomes less than $25,000 or more
than $100,000.
E) Income is distributed more equally in Texas than in the country as a whole.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the notion of business necessity
A) meant that businesses could discriminate if necessary to satisfy their customers.
B) could be used to exclude pregnant women from most jobs.
C) made it easier for employers to justify discrimination against women and African
Americans.
D) could be used to justify discrimination only if it had a relationship to successful job
performance.
E) was unconstitutional, because the practice violated the due process clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
The office holders and candidates who run under the banner of a political party are
called the
A) organizational party.
B) campaign party.
C) governmental party.
D) party in the electorate.
E) party’s ideological base.
Which of the following was included in the 1984 landmark education legislation known
as House Bill 72 that was spearheaded by Ross Perot?
A) An overall tax reduction
B) Reduced teacher pay
C) Limited class sizes
D) A freeze on university tuition
E) A revocation of restrictions that had prevented some students from participating in
sports
The first president to ever be impeached was
A) Bill Clinton.
B) Richard M. Nixon.
C) Andrew Johnson.
D) James Buchanan.
E) Rutherford B. Hayes.
The judiciary was called the “least dangerous branch”by
A) Alexander Hamilton.
B) James Madison.
C) George Washington.
D) Thomas Jefferson.
E) John Adams.
________________ handles much of the day-to-day management of monetary policy.
A) Congress
B) The Federal Reserve System
C) The Internal Revenue Service
D) The Council of Economic Advisors
E) The White House
Why was indirect democracy a necessary alternative to direct democracy?
A) The people were deemed too ignorant to be involved directly with government.
B) It became increasingly difficult to bring all the colonists together in the
decision-making process.
C) The religious tendencies of the colonists caused them to rebel against the Greek
model of democracy.
D) The colonies sought to follow the teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
E) The wealthier and more educated citizens changed the system so they could wield
more power.
The governor’s authority to cancel someone’s conviction of a crime and all associated
punishments is known as
A) parole.
B) pardon.
C) extradition.
D) commuting.
E) forgiveness.
________ was at the top of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s legislative priorities.
A) Women’s rights
B) Reforming welfare
C) Civil rights
D) Economic policy
E) Voting rights
A boy who attends a boys-only public school seeks to enroll in a home economics
course that is only offered at the girls-only school. His family sues the school system so
he can attend the girls’ school. Imagine the case goes before the Supreme Court. What
standard of review would the Court MOST likely use to examine this purported
discrimination?
A) Minimum rationality standard
B) Intermediate standard
C) Strict scrutiny
D) Maximum standard
E) Rational basis review
Which of the following was the strongest factor leading to the increased restrictions
being placed on the power of the Texas governor in the 1876 Constitution?
A) A nationwide trust of government and governors in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries
B) A reaction to the weak state government established during Reconstruction
C) A reaction to the Reconstruction administration of Republican Governor E.J. Davis
D) Racial politics following the Civil War
E) A reaction to the administration of President Andrew Jackson
Which of the following is an accurate statement about poverty in Texas?
A) Poverty is less prevalent than in the U.S. as a whole.
B) Hispanics are about three times more likely to live in poverty than are Anglos.
C) Considerably more African Americans than Hispanics live in poverty.
D) About 8% of Texans live in poverty.
E) The poverty rates for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians are similar.
The existence of two schools on opposite sides of townone for Caucasian students and
the other for African American studentswould have been deemed constitutional after the
Supreme Court’s ruling in which of the following cases?
A) Plessy v. Ferguson
B) Brown v. Board of Education
C) Civil Rights Cases
D) Bradwell v. Illinois
E) Reed v. Reed
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his fireside chats, he was engaging in
which step of the policy-making process?
A) Policy adoption
B) Budgeting
C) Policy implementation
D) Policy evaluation
E) Agenda setting
In the past, the economy of Texas principally depended on
A) agriculture, mining, and high technology.
B) cotton, cattle, and petroleum.
C) tourism, high technology, and petroleum.
D) high technology, alcoholic beverages, and oil..
E) finance, telemarketing, and retail clothing stores.
The Honest Leadership in Government Act
I. involved a sweeping reexamination of the role of lobbyists.
II. bans gifts to congressional staffers.
III. requires that congressional spouses not work as lobbyists.
IV. covers all lobbyists.
A) I only
B) I and II
C) II and III
D) I, II, and IV
E) I, II, III, and IV
The joint committee responsible for drafting bills, conducting interim policy studies,
producing committee schedules, and managing the legislature’s computer systems is the
A) Legislative Council.
B) General Service Committee.
C) Research Council.
D) Bill Analysis Office.
E) Committee on Subsequent Measures.
Internet voting
A) has never been used in a state or national election.
B) has been tested in some primary elections but has not gained widespread popularity.
C) was used by military voters in the 2004 presidential election.
D) was implemented in several states during the 2008 presidential election.
E) has been recently ruled to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Statutory county judges are required to
A) be over 25 years of age.
B) have four years experience as a judge or practicing attorney.
C) be a licensed attorney.
D) All of the above
E) None of the above
Political socialization within the family can be traced to two factors:
A) communication and parenting skills.
B) receptivity and parents’ party identification.
C) size of family and religiosity.
D) communication and receptivity.
E) sibling relationships and parental intelligence.