Candidates can give as much money toward their own campaigns as they wish.
Logrolling, or vote trading, was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
following the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The United States has a dual system of justice.
As described by Table 2.1, How Do the Articles of Confederation and the U.S.
Constitution Compare to One Another?, the Articles of Confederation did not include
an executive.
Both Congress and the president are involved in appointing individuals to key positions
in the federal bureaucracy.
ARPANET, developed by the Department of Homeland Security, was a precursor to the
Internet.
Most national campaigns prefer not to use social media to interact with prospective
voters.
If Congress does not like the way the president is executing foreign policy, Congress
can refuse to appropriate money for the president’s policies.
When a federal agency adjudicates, or issues quasi-judicial decisions about legal
disputes, the agency’s decisions can be appealed in a federal court.
Presidents must be able to persuade executive branch officials and personnel.
The Environmental Protection Agency is subject to less congressional and presidential
oversight than the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is a constitutional court.
Congress has the primary responsibility for setting interest rates in the United States.
Federalism encourages the states to create local solutions to national problems.
Litigants have an automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court.
Regulations are usually created by Congress.
Most presidential vetoes are overridden.
Proponents of states’ rights believe that the Constitution strictly limited the national
government and established broad autonomy for the states.
The free exercise clause guarantees that the government will not interfere with the
practice of religion.
Congressional incumbents tend to have a low chance of reelection.
Many of the most famous network news anchors got their start covering the Pentagon.
The Fourteenth Amendment suggests that the protections in the Bill of Rights could be
interpreted as applying to the states.
One explanation for low voter turnout is that the burden of voter registration falls on the
state and not the individual citizen.
The devolution revolution was particularly strong during the 1990s.
The competitive two-party system has always featured prominently in the United
States.
Especially since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress has ceded to the
president a major role in the legislative process.
The Twelfth Amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen.
The selection of federal judges is a highly political process.
In a unitary system of government, the state and local governments derive their powers
from a centralized national government.
Justice Elana Kagan did not have any judicial experience prior to her appointment to
the Supreme Court.
Marbury v.Madison significantly expanded the power of the federal judiciary.
The nomination campaign may begin years before the actual election.
Reconstruction was the era of racial healing that followed the civil rights movement.
As part of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, interest groups are now
barred from sponsoring and paying judges to attend “informational conferences.”
The primary responsibility of the National Security Council is to advise Congress about
national and defense policy.
The Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare, involved a federal
takeover of the insurance industry.
Over time, our notions of what governments should do have expanded along with the
size of government.
In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court overturned the separate-but-equal doctrine
that the Court had established in Brown v. Board of Education.
A conference committee is comprised of members from the House and Senate
committees that originally considered the bill.
The House currently has 435 members, but this number increases every ten years with
the taking of the census, as mandated by the Constitution.
Which of the following best explains the rationale for the selective incorporation of
freedom of assembly?
a. It is included in the Bill of Rights.
b. The framers intended for the state and federal governments to respect this right.
c. It is a fundamental freedom essential to order, liberty, and justice.
d. The text of the First Amendment specifically references the states.
e. It is one of the implicit rights reserved to the people by the Ninth Amendment.
__________ is a good example of Congressional casework.
a. Analysis of an incumbent’s policy positions prior to a debate
b. Analysis of police force effectiveness
c. Analysis of water quality within a district
d. Assistance to a constituent in obtaining a Social Security check
e. Assistance to a federal agency operating within a member’s district
After the Paris Peace Agreement, when U.S. forces withdrew from the Vietnam War,
South Vietnam was __________.
a. independent and isolated
b. fully democratic
c. reunified with the North
d. a new American territory
e. permanently separated from the North
Rosa Parks was arrested for challenging which of the following?
a. poll taxes
b. grandfather clauses
c. Jim Crow laws
d. slavery
e. integration
Which amendment, identified in Figure 3.2 How is Governmental Power Distributed in
the Federal System?, gave Congress the power to levy and collect taxes on incomes
without apportioning them among the states?
a. Seventeenth
b. Sixteenth
c. Fourteenth
d. Tenth
e. Fifth
How does the White House staff differ from the president’s Cabinet?
a. The White House staff has greater access to and more influence on the president than
the Cabinet.
b. The Cabinet has more access to the president than the White House staff.
c. The president can fire the White House staff but only Congress can dismiss a member
of the Cabinet.
d. The Cabinet is less democratic and less accountable than the White House staff.
e. The White House staff has less specialized policy knowledge than the Cabinet.
Nightly panels of experts and pundits on television network news __________.
a. do not have much effect on viewers’ opinions
b. have as much impact on public opinion as reports from the field
c. have led to public taste for credible expert analysis
d. are blamed for the partisanship in the media
e. have helped eliminate bias in news reporting
What is the single greatest influence in establishing a person’s first party identification?
a. economic status
b. geography
c. hot-button social issues
d. parents
e. religion
As of 2012, how many African Americans have served on the U.S. Supreme Court?
a. three
b. five
c. one
d. zero
e. two
In one recent election, researchers found that individual donors accounted for what
percent of contributions to presidential candidates?
a. 35
b. 50
c. 70
d. 85
e. 90
Why is it difficult to coordinate the work of the various intelligence agencies that
comprise the U.S. intelligence community?
a. The head of the intelligence community is the head of the CIA, which operates
completely independently of the other agencies in the intelligence community.
b. Although all agencies share a budget, there is little communication among them.
c. Each agency controls its own budget and does not always share its intelligence with
the other agencies in the intelligence community.
d. The Department of Homeland Security gathers intelligence, but then assigns the
responsibility for acting on that information to various other agencies.
e. The FBI and CIA work together only during times of national crisis.
What advantage does a subcommittee offer the legislative process?
a. expedited approval of joint committee floor submissions
b. expedited approval of standing committee floor submissions
c. greater division of labor
d. oversight of joint committees
e. oversight of standing committees
Which of the following is currently a major concern about the federal workforce?
a. the decentralization of government offices
b. the large number of workers who will soon be eligible to retire
c. the low turnover rate in many important positions
d. the movement to revive the patronage system
e. the underrepresentation of men in the workforce
What is implementation?
a. the process by which a law or policy is put into practice
b. the development of rules governing the operation of a government program
c. a set of procedures executive branch agencies must follow when issuing rules
d. the process by which government agencies settle legal disputes
e. a set of rules enforcing government agreements with private contractors
If a government wanted to use monetary policy to increase economic growth, which of
the following steps should be taken?
a. Decrease interest rates to increase the amount of money in supply.
b. Increase the amount of foreign currency kept on reserve in U.S. banks.
c. Increase the amount of public revenue for investment by raising taxes.
d. Increase the government spending on public works projects.
e. Print a larger amount of money to increase the money supply.
Which of the following is an example of a reserved power of the states?
a. establishing a post office
b. coining money
c. imposing the death penalty
d. conducting foreign relations
e. declaring war
Civil liberties are __________ that the government cannot take away.
a. property rights
b. personal freedoms
c. business rights
d. recognitions of equality
e. religious freedoms
Who is considered the founder of modern-day polling?
a. George Gallup
b. William E. Harris
c. Alfred M. Landon
d. Walter Lippmann
e. John Zogby
Of the following people, who could serve in the military under the “Don”t Ask, Don”t
Tell” policy?
a. all gays and lesbians
b. gays but not lesbians
c. lesbians but not gays
d. only those who were straight
e. closeted gays and lesbians
Why do reputable polling firms eschew push poll tactics?
a. The intent of push polls is to give respondents some positive information about the
candidate paying for the poll.
b. The intent of push polls is to give respondents some negative or even untruthful
information about a candidate’s opponent.
c. The intent of push polls is to word questions about highly emotional issues, such as
abortion, same-sex marriage, and affirmative action, neutrally.
d. The intent of push polls is to yield information that helps campaigns judge the
strengths and weaknesses of their opponents.
e. The intent of push polls is to weigh survey results based on demographic
characteristics of the national population.
If the president wants a live press engagement, but doesn”t want to appear him or
herself, the best option would be a __________.
a. policy briefing
b. policy conference
c. press conference
d. press briefing
e. press release
Which of the following was most likely to support proposed provisions that
strengthened national power?
a. James Madison
b. Patrick Henry
c. George Mason
d. Samuel Adams
e. James Winthrop
Which of the following is a criticism of early voting?
a. It allows for more special interest influence.
b. It decreases the importance of campaigns.
c. It increases the potential for voter fraud.
d. It leads to front-loading.
e. It requires more volunteers to staff polling places.
Which statement about incumbency is most accurate?
a. Incumbents have a huge advantage in reelection.
b. Incumbents have a small advantage in reelection.
c. Incumbents have no advantage in reelection.
d. Incumbents only leave office when pressured by party leadership.
e. Incumbents only leave office when they choose.
Which of the following is an example of the free rider (or collective action) problem?
a. an elected official accepting bribes from an interest group
b. an elected official relying on information from lobbyists
c. an environmental group struggling to raise funds for a “clean air” campaign
d. an environmental group disagreeing on what policy goals to pursue
e. a political action committee contributing to candidates from both major political
parties
Which is a group of presidential advisers? This group is too large and too diverse to
serve as a collective board.
a. the White House staff
b. the Executive Office of the President
c. the office of the vice president
d. the Cabinet
e. the Supreme Court
Charged with the responsibility to __________, the __________ is almost certainly the
most powerful committee in either chamber of Congress.
a. grant and set procedural rules, House Committee on Rules
b. investigate the performance of government, House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee
c. make decisions about money for authorized programs, the Senate Appropriations
Committee
d. set targets for spending and taxes, the House Budget Committee
e. oversee nominations and the Department of Justice, Senate Judiciary Committee
The New Deal best exemplifies which type of federalism?
a. dual
b. combined
c. competitive
d. cooperative
e. progressive
Which first lady acted as a surrogate for her partially paralyzed husband?
a. Abigail Adams
b. Edith Bolling Galt Wilson
c. Eleanor Roosevelt
d. Martha Washington
e. Nancy Davis Reagan
Which is one of the reasons that power and responsibility of the presidency has grown?
a. Congress has grown weaker.
b. The United States became a simple free market economy.
c. The President’s role increased, so the role of government could decrease.
d. Modern presidents have to exercise powers as commander in chief, while earlier
presidents did not.
e. The United States became a world power.
Which of the following generally opposed the idea of a strong national government
because it would take power away from the states and would tax heavily?
a. Anti-Federalists
b. Federalists
c. Tories
d. Whigs
e. Republicans
Mercantilism is an economic theory designed to increase wealth through the
development of which of the following?
a. schools
b. the government
c. industry
d. religion
e. foreign relationships
Which best describes the president’s constitutional duty to Congress?
a. The president must give Congress an occasional update on the state of the union.
b. The president must have at least one Cabinet member of the opposing party.
c. The president must inform Congress of actions potentially leading to war.
d. The president must inform Congress of the reasoning behind a veto.
e. The president must maintain party support in Congress.
The role of campaign consultants has become so important in today’s campaigns
because __________.
a. candidates are increasingly insecure about their electability
b. candidates need specialists to help them make the most of fund-raising, media
relations, and Internet outreach
c. campaign managers are usually too busy to perform all the chores required in today’s
complex campaigns
d. volunteers do not have the necessary experience to handle media relations
e. finance chairs need to spend all their time on money issues
The best way of assessing voting behavior over time continues to be by determining
__________ rather than concern for one person or policy.
__________ are organizations that seek to influence public policy.
Which political era in U.S. history saw the longest period of Republican domination?
What were the major issues in the origin and demise of Republican Party domination
during this period?
Should federal bureaucrats be granted discretion in the implementation of public
policies?
__________ rights include the right to remain silent.
Distinguish between the president’s role as chief executive and the president’s role as
chief legislator.
__________ upheld the right of private individualsbut not governmentto discriminate in
the provision of public accommodations.
Imagine the economy is slipping into a recession. What would a Keynesian advocate
and why? Compare this approach to using interest rates to affect the money supply.
The __________ established the congressional budgetary process we use today.
Judicial __________ encourages deference to the policy judgments of elected branches
of government.
Explain how Gideon v.Wainwright changed how the courts interpreted the Sixth
Amendment.
If a Cabinet department is not implementing a policy supported by the president, what
tools can the President use to influence the department?