Your midterm will contain a mixture of multiple choice and short answer questions, requiring brief answers ranging from a few words to a paragraph. There will be one essay. To prepare for the midterm, you should be able to answer the following questions and define and explain the significance of the terms. ALL answers can be found in lecture notes and the textbook.[1]Remember, more detail=more points.
Presidential Elections
How do political parties nominate presidential candidates?
What are delegates? Who decides how delegates will be chosen? Who decides which candidate those delegates will vote for?
How do the delegate selection rules vary from one party to the other, and/or from one state to another?
Why do nomination events happen on different dates? Why is that important?
What effect does the invisible primary have on nomination contests, even in drawn out battles like 2008?
What role does intra-party ideological division play in nomination contests, according to Paulson?
How does the Electoral College work? (Detail expected!)
How do Electoral College rules affect candidates’ strategies?
Which states and which voters are advantaged by the Electoral College?
What are some problems with the Electoral College?
What are some problems with moving to a national popular vote to select the
president?
Terms: nominate, party convention, delegate, superdelegate, frontloading, invisible primary, endorsement, FECA, electors, winner-take-all
Federalism
What is federalism?
What Constitutional provisions are relevant to federalism?
What are some of the ways in which states differ from one to another?
Why is the commerce clause important to federalism?
What are some reasons why policy has become more nationalized over time?
Why were MADD’s efforts against drunk driving a good example of policy nationalization?
How did the Supreme Court interpret the 10th amendment in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority?
How can the federal government get states to do what it wants?
What are some current and important debates over federalism?
Terms: unitary government, confederation, shared federalism, full faith and credit clause, commerce clause, supremacy clause, McCulloch v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden,
US v. Lopez, preemption legislation, legislator, legislation, legislature, governor, federal government, unfunded mandates, crossover sanctions
Congress
What are fivepriorities a state could choose to use to guide its redistricting process? What effect would adopting each of those priorities have on the ways in which the winner of the district election would represent his or her constituents?
How do voters decide who to vote for in a congressional election?
Why do incumbents win re-election so often?
Why do House incumbents win re-election more often than their Senate counterparts?
How is the House of Representatives organized in the same way as the Senate?
How is the House of Representatives differently from the Senate?
Why are they organized differently?
How are political parties important to the organization of Congress?
How do the political parties organize themselves in the House and Senate?
Why are committees important to Congress’ organization?
How do members of Congress get assigned to committees?
What do congressional committees do?
How does a bill become a law?
Why do the rules about floor procedure matter?
What are the rules about floor procedure in the House? In the Senate?
Who has more effect on bill passage, the Speaker of the House or the Majority leader in the Senate?
Why has the Speaker’s power varied over time?
Describe the impact on lawmaking of each of these groups: the majority party in the House, the minority party in the House, the majority party in the Senate, or the minority party in the Senate?
Terms: incumbent, redistricting, reapportionment, necessary and proper clause, Rules committee, Ways and Means committee, Appropriations Committees, conference committee, open, closed and restricted rules, cloture rule, unanimous consent agreements, Speaker of the House,Conditional party government, entitlements, hearings, earmarks
Presidency
What are three differences between the nineteenth and twentieth century presidencies?
What is the president’s constitutional authority to be involved in the legislative process?
What factors make the president more likely to be successful as a legislative leader?
Why and under what circumstances do elevated public approval ratings translate into more presidential success with Congress?
What are the ways in which the president can affect policy formation through his leadership of the Executive Branch?
What are the limits to the ways he can affect policy through his leadership of the Executive Branch?
What are some examples of executive orders?
Terms: State of the Union clause, unified government, divided government, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Order, Going public, line item veto, regulatory review
Bureaucracy
How is the bureaucracy created?
Why has the bureaucracy grown over time?
Why does Congress create independent regulatory commissions?
How do bureaucrats make policy?
By what mechanisms can Congress control the bureaucracy?
By what mechanisms does the president control the bureaucracy?
What are some examples of red tape? Why do people hate it? Why do we have it?
Terms: 6 elements of bureaucracy, the cabinet, the spoils system, civil service, clientele agencies, bureaucratic culture, iron triangles vs. issue networks, red tape, regulations, legislative vetoes, bureaucratic culture, hearings and investigations
Judiciary
What are the differences between trial and appellate courts?
What types of cases is the Supreme Court more likely to take on?
Why is stare decisis important to the legal system?
What was Hamilton’s argument about the judiciary? What is one critique of it?
Terms: Stuart v. Laird, Marbury v. Madison, judicial review, trial court, appellate court, district and circuit courts, civil vs. criminal courts, standing, mootness, rule of four, writ of certiorari, stare decisis, court-packing plan,senatorial courtesy, Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha
Civil Liberties
What does the Bill of Rights do? Why was it added to the Constitution?
Why is the 14th amendment important to interpretation of the Bill of Rights?
Why are the rights of accused criminals so prominent in the Constitution?
What is the exclusionary rule? Why is it important? What are some exceptions to it?
What are some of the current debates over the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment?
What kinds of controversies arise under the Establishment clause, and how has the court tried to decide them?
What are the exceptions to the protection for freedom of speech?
What is the doctrine of no prior restraint?
Where in the Bill of Rights does the court find the right to privacy?
What does it mean to say that the “court has a 5-4 conservative majority”? What is an example of a decision that supports such a claim?
Terms:, selective incorporation, Schenck v. United States, Texas v. Johnson, Mapp v. Ohio, Miranda v. Arizona, Gideon v. Wainright, Near v. Minnesota, Katz vs. United States,US v. Jones,double jeopardy, clear and present danger,slander, libel, free exercise, establishment clause, prior restraint, Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, penumbra
Interest Groups
Are interest groups a modern phenomenon? Give examples in your answer.
Roughly how many registered lobbyists are there?
What are three reasons that interest groups have proliferated in recent years?
Make a list of all of the insider strategies an interest group might use.
Make a list of all of the outsider strategies an interest group might use.
What can groups do in order to lobby Congress specifically?
How might an interest group “go public?” Why would it do so?
Why are interest groups often blamed for policy gridlock?
Terms: Political Action Committee, lobbying
Political parties
Why do political parties develop naturally from democratic government?
What effects did Progressive reforms have on the parties?
What do Democrats and Republicans stand for?
How have the political parties’ organizational resources changed over time?
Why do we characterize today’s parties as “ideologically polarized”?
How does the president help coordinate his political party?
Terms: political party, office seekers, benefit seekers, split ticket voting, spoils system, Australian ballot
Other terms:
Budget deficit, national debt, discretionary spending, entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, social security
[1]Do NOT go to Wikipedia for answers. I’ll know, and I won’t reward it!