AP US Government: Foundations and Institutions (High School)

What is a pocket veto?

Answer: If Congress adjourns within ten days of sending a bill and the president doesn't sign it, the bill dies.

What is the role of the Senate in presidential appointments?

Answer: Advice and consent: a majority vote confirms cabinet members, ambassadors, and federal judges.

What did the War Powers Resolution (1973) require?

Answer: The president must notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying troops and withdraw them within 60 days without congressional approval.

What are formal and informal powers of the president?

Answer: Formal: veto, commander in chief, appointments, pardons, treaties. Informal: executive orders, executive agreements, bargaining, bully pulpit.

What did Citizens United v. FEC (2010) decide?

Answer: Corporations and unions may spend unlimited money on independent political expenditures as protected speech.

How does the Electoral College work?

Answer: Each state gets electors equal to its senators plus representatives; 270 of 538 are needed to win. Most states are winner-take-all.

What is the difference between an open and closed primary?

Answer: Open: any voter can participate in a party's primary. Closed: only registered party members.

What did Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decide?

Answer: Racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause; 'separate but equal' is inherently unequal.

What is selective incorporation?

Answer: Applying Bill of Rights protections to the states case by case through the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

What did Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) decide?

Answer: Students do not lose free speech rights at school; symbolic speech (armbands) is protected unless it substantially disrupts.

What is the difference between the establishment and free exercise clauses?

Answer: Establishment prohibits government from establishing religion; free exercise protects individuals' religious practice.

What is a writ of certiorari?

Answer: An order from the Supreme Court to a lower court to send up a case for review; granted when four justices agree (rule of four).

Judicial activism vs judicial restraint?

Answer: Activism: judges willing to overturn precedent or laws to advance principles. Restraint: deferring to the elected branches and precedent.

What is judicial review and where does it come from?

Answer: The power of courts to strike down laws that conflict with the Constitution; established in Marbury v. Madison (1803).

What is the difference between patronage and the merit system?

Answer: Patronage awards jobs for political loyalty; the merit system (Pendleton Act, 1883) hires based on qualifications.

How does Congress oversee the bureaucracy?

Answer: Through hearings, the power of the purse (appropriations), and legislation that sets agency authority.

What is the iron triangle?

Answer: The mutually beneficial relationship among a congressional committee, a bureaucratic agency, and an interest group.

What are the five principles of the Constitution?

Answer: Popular sovereignty, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.

What is the Necessary and Proper (Elastic) Clause?

Answer: Article I, Section 8 clause letting Congress make laws needed to carry out its enumerated powers.

What was Brutus No. 1 concerned about?

Answer: That a large national government with a powerful Congress would overwhelm the states and threaten individual liberty.

What did Federalist No. 51 argue?

Answer: Separation of powers and checks and balances let ambition counteract ambition, protecting liberty.

What did Federalist No. 10 argue?

Answer: A large republic controls the dangers of factions better than a small democracy because many competing interests prevent any one from dominating.

What is pork-barrel spending and logrolling?

Answer: Pork: spending targeted at a member's district. Logrolling: members trading votes to support each other's bills.

Trustee vs delegate models of representation?

Answer: A trustee votes by personal judgment; a delegate votes according to constituents' wishes.

What is gerrymandering?

Answer: Drawing district boundaries to favor a party or group.

What is a filibuster and how is it ended?

Answer: Extended Senate debate to delay or block a vote; ended by cloture, which requires 60 votes.

How are the House and Senate different?

Answer: House: 435 members, two-year terms, population-based, Rules Committee controls debate. Senate: 100 members, six-year terms, two per state, filibuster and unlimited debate.

What does the Tenth Amendment say?

Answer: Powers not delegated to the federal government nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or the people.

What did United States v. Lopez (1995) decide?

Answer: Congress exceeded its Commerce Clause power with the Gun-Free School Zones Act.

What did McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) decide?

Answer: Congress has implied powers (to create a national bank), and states cannot tax federal institutions.

Categorical vs block grants?

Answer: Categorical grants come with specific conditions on use; block grants give broad discretion within a general area.

What is the difference between dual and cooperative federalism?

Answer: Dual: clear separate spheres for national and state governments ('layer cake'). Cooperative: shared, overlapping responsibilities ('marble cake').