The president of the Senate is the
A) President pro tempore.
B) Speaker.
C) Majority Leader.
D) Minority Leader.
E) Lieutenant Governor.
Removal of the president from office requires
A) a two-thirds vote in the House.
B) a simple majority in the House.
C) a two-thirds vote in the Senate.
D) a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress.
E) a three-fourths vote in the Senate.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were
A) designed to curb immigration.
B) passed to prevent public criticism of the Supreme Court.
C) intended to prohibit the publication of any false or scandalous writings against the
United States.
D) ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court because they violated the First
Amendment.
E) laws prohibiting armed, civil rebellions against the federal government.
The pen names Brutus and Cato are a specific reflection of the Anti-Federalists’
A) fear of a too powerful national government.
B) attempts to establish Roman law.
C) desire for a uniform tax code.
D) argument against a Bill of Rights in the proposed Constitution.
E) desire to create a happy combination of state and national government.
An enrolled bill is a bill that has been
A) rejected by the governor.
B) approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
C) rejected by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
D) approved by the House of Representatives, but rejected by the Senate.
E) approved by the Senate, but rejected by the House of Representatives
The first official meeting of the thirteen colonies was the
A) Continental Congress.
B) Sons and Daughters of Liberty.
C) Committees of Correspondence.
D) Stamp Act Congress.
E) Constitutional Convention.
How many special sessions may the governor call the legislature into during an interim?
A) one
B) four
C) 21
D) 24
E) Unlimited
As of 2010, the Supreme Court has had ________ female members in its history.
A) two
B) three
C) four
D) seven
E) eight
In 1971, the voting age was lowered to eighteen by the ________ Amendment.
A) Twenty-Seventh
B) Twenty-Fifth
C) Eighteenth
D) Seventeenth
E) Twenty-Sixth
Among the amendments that have been approved by Congress and unsuccessfully sent
to the states for their approval are
I. an amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women.
II. an amendment guaranteeing efforts to prohibit child labor.
III. an amendment denying voting rights to the District of Columbia.
IV. an amendment banning flag burning.
A) I and III
B) I, III, and IV
C) II and III
D) I and II
E) II
One of the Articles of Confederation’s greatest weaknesses was that it
A) had no strong central government.
B) had a strong president.
C) had the ability to coin money.
D) had a legislature that refused to meet.
E) created a tyrannical central government.
The Preamble to the Constitution begins
A) “We the People . . .”
B) “Four score and seven years ago . . .”
C) “When in the course of human events . . .”
D) “In order to form a more perfect Union . . .”
E) “These are the times that try men’s souls . . .”
Rick Perry’s record number of vetoes following the 2001 legislative session was
extensively criticized and became known as
A) Perry’s Terminator Day.
B) the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
C) the Father’s Day Massacre.
D) the Insult.
E) The Assault.
The two closest votes in the Senate for successful U.S. Supreme Court nominees were
those of
A) Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas
B) Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
C) John G. Roberts Jr. and Stephen Breyer
D) Sandra Day O”Connor and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
E) Sonia Sotomayor and Antonin Scalia
On a regular basis in 2010, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs addressed the
media on just a few topics at a time, providing limited opportunity for questions. This
normal occurrence was known as a
A) press release.
B) press briefing.
C) press conference.
D) penny press.
E) press backgrounder.
The jurisdiction of the federal courts is controlled by
A) the vice president.
B) the president in consultation with the Department of Justice.
C) the Constitution and statutes passed by Congress under its Article III authority.
D) the Constitution alone.
E) the House of Representatives exclusively.
Gideon v. Wainwright involved the issue of
A) self-incrimination.
B) double jeopardy.
C) search and seizure.
D) trial by jury.
E) right to counsel.
Which of the following would MOST likely be in support of strict limits on the use of
fossil fuels in the United States?
A) Communist Party
B) Republican Party
C) Green Party
D) Populist Party
E) Democratic Party
One particularly party-oriented president was
A) Dwight D. Eisenhower.
B) Richard M. Nixon.
C) Jimmy Carter.
D) Ronald Reagan.
E) Lyndon B. Johnson.
The Supreme Court ruled that the government could not prevent publication of the
Pentagon Papers by the New York Times in a case known as
A) New York Times v. U.S.
B) U.S. v. Nixon.
C) New York Times v. Department of Justice.
D) U.S. v. New York Times.
E) New York Times v. Sullivan.
Key MALDEF victories in the courts include
A) the constitutionality of English-only government services.
B) stopping President George W. Bush from building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico
border.
C) a judicial decision declaring that multimember electoral districts were
unconstitutional.
D) the requirement that school financing must be equal across state school districts.
E) ending gerrymandering for congressional district lines.
During the early years of the New Deal, the Supreme Court
A) ruled certain New Deal programs unconstitutional.
B) consistently enforced the supremacy clause.
C) fully cooperated with the administration to combat the Depression.
D) worked in favor of programs designed to combat the Depression.
E) consistently returned cases involving New Deal legislation to state courts for
consideration.
The fastest growing segment of the U.S. population is
A) Asians.
B) African Americans.
C) Muslims.
D) Caucasians.
E) Hispanics.
The right and authority of a local government to govern itself, rather than have the state
govern it, is known as
A) free rein.
B) free range.
C) home rule.
D) self rule.
E) self determination.
What was the focus of President Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech?
A) Economic equality
B) Environmental policy
C) “Just” war
D) Race relations
E) Isolationism
PACs became legal following the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act of
A) 1962.
B) 1966.
C) 1970.
D) 1974.
E) 1978.
How many constitutional county courts exist in Texas?
A) 14
B) 18
C) 231
D) 254
E) 822
Included among the countries that use a proportional representation system is
I. Japan.
II. Germany.
III. Great Britain.
IV. France.
A) I and III
B) I and II
C) III and IV
D) II, III, and IV
E) I, II, and IV
If an attorney general is appointed by the governor, reports to the governor, and serves
at the discretion of the governor, the attorney general likely serves in
A) a Cabinet-style executive.
B) a plural executive.
C) a parliamentary democracy.
D) a dual executive.
E) Texas.
Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”
A) began a debate about the decrease in interest group activity.
B) began a debate about the increase in interest group activity.
C) accurately evaluated the forms interest group activity can take.
D) has been uniformly discredited.
E) suggests most interest group activity now takes place on the Internet.
The Great Depression began in
A) 1887.
B) 1909.
C) 1917.
D) 1929.
E) 1943.