Government In America: People, Politics, and Policy (13th Edition) Vocabulary
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hunnybunny183 on May 13, 2012
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207 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 New Jersey Plan | The proposal at the Constitutional Convention that called for equal representation of each state in Congress regardless of the state's population |
| New York Times v. Sullivan | Decided in 1964, this case established the guidelines for determining whether public officials and public figures could win damage suits for libel. To do so, said the Court, such individuals must prove that the defamatory statements made about them were made with "actual malice" and reckless disregard for the truth. |
| News Leak | A carefully placed bit of inside information given to a friendly reporter. Leaks can benefit both the leaker and the leakee. |
| Newspaper Chains | Newspapers published by massive media conglomerates that account for almost three-quarters of the nation's daily circulation. Often these chains control broadcast media as well. |
| Nineteenth Amendment | The constitutional amendment adopted in 1920 that guarantees women the right to vote. |
| Nomination | The official endorsement of a candidate for office by a political party. Generally, success in the nomination game requires momentum, money, and media attention. |
| Nonrenewable Resources | Minerals and other resources that nature does not replace when they are consumed. Many commonly used energy resources, such as oil and coal, are nonrenewable. |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | Created in 1949, an organization whose members include the United States, Canada, most Western European nations, and Turkey, all of whom agreed to combine military forces and to treat a war against one as a war against all. |
| Office of Management And Budget (OMB) | An office that grew out of the Bureau of Budget, created in 1921, consisting of a handful of appointees and hundreds of skilled professionals. The ______ performs both managerial and budgetary functions, and although the president is its boss, the director and staff have considerable independence in the budgetary process. |
| Office of Personnel Management (OPM) | The office in charge of hiring for most agencies of the federal government, using elaborate rules in the process. |
| Olson's Law of Large Groups | Advanced by Mancur Olson, a principle stating that "the larger the group, the further it will fall short of providing an optimal amount of a collective good." |
| Open Primaries | Elections to select party nominees in which voters can decide on Election Day whether they want to participate in the Democratic or Republican contests. |
| Opinion | A statement of legal reasoning behind a judicial decision. The content of an _________ may be as important as the decision itself. |
| Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) | An economic organization, consisting of primarily of Arab nations, that controls the price of oil and and the amount of oil its members produce and sell to other nations. The Arab members of _______ caused the oil boycott in the winter of 1973-1974. |
| Original Intent | A view that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the original intent of the framers. Many conservatives support this view. |
| Original Jurisdiction | The jurisdiction of courts that hear a case first, usually in a trial. These are the courts that determine the facts about a case. |
| Oversight | The process of monitoring the bureaucracy and its administration of policy, mainly through congressional hearings. |
| Parliamentary Governments | Governments, like the one in Great Britain, that typically select the political leader from membership in the ___________ (the legislature). |
| Party Competition | The battle of the parties for control of public offices. Ups and downs of the two major parties are one of the most important elements in American politics. |
| Party Dealignment | The gradual disengagement of people and politicians from the parties, as seen in part by shrinking party identification. |
| Party Eras | Historical periods in which a majority of voters cling to the party in power, which tends to win a majority of the elections. |
| Party Identification | A citizen's self-proclaimed preference for one party or the other. |
| Party Image | The voter's perception of what the Republicans of Democrats stand for, such as conservatism or liberalism. |
| Party Machines | A type or political party organization that relies heavily on material inducements, such as patronage, to win votes and to govern. |
| Party Platform | A political party's statement of its goals and policies for the next four years. The platform is drafted prior to the party convention by a committee whose members are chosen in rough proportion to each candidate's strength. It is the best formal statement of what a party believes in. |
| Party Realignment | The displacement of the majority party by the minority party, usually during a critical election period. |
| Patients' Bill of Rights | A controversial proposal before Congress that would give patients certain rights against medical providers, particularly HMOs, including the right to vote. |
| Patronage | One of the key inducements used by political machines. A _________ job, promotion, or contract is one that is given for political reasons rather than for merit or competence alone. |
| Pendleton Civil Service Act | Passed in 1883,, an act that created a federal civil service, so that hiring and promotion would be based on merit rather than patronage. |
| Per Curiam Decision | A court decision without explanation - in other words, without an opinion. |
| Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) | The official name of the welfare reform law of 1996. |
| Planned Parenthood v. Casey | A 1992 case in which the Supreme Court loosened its standard for evaluating restrictions on abortion from one of "strict scrutiny" of any restrains on "fundamental right" to one of "undue burden" that permits considerable more regulation. |
| Plea Bargaining | A bargain struck between the defendant's lawyer and the prosecutor to the effect that the defendant will plead guilty to a lesser crime (or fewer crimes) in exchange for the state's promise not to prosecute the defendant for a more serious (or additional) crime. |
| Plessy v. Ferguson | An 1896 Supreme Court decision that provided a constitutional justification for segregation by ruling that a Louisiana law requiring "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" was not unconstitutional. |
| Pluralist Theory | A theory of government and politics emphasizing that politics is mainly a competition among groups, each one pressing for its own preferred policies. |
| Pocket Veto | A veto taking place when Congress adjourns within ten days of having submitted a bill to the president, who simply lets it die by neither signing it nor vetoing it. |
| Policy Agenda | The issues that attract the serious attention of public officials and other people actually involved in politics at any given point of time. |
| Policy Differences | The perception of a clear choice between the parties. Those who see such choices are more likely to vote. |
| Policy Entrepreneurs | People who invest their political "capital" in an issue. According to John Kingdon, a ______________ could be in or out of government, in elected or appointed positions, in interest groups or research organizations. |
| Policy Gridlock | A condition that occurs when no coalition is strong enough to form a majority and establish policy. The result is that nothing may get done. |
| Policy Impacts | The effects a policy has on people and problems. __________ are analyzed to see how well a policy has met its goal and at what cost. |
| Policymaking Institutions | The branches of government charged with taking action on political issues. The US Constitution established three _____________ - the Congress, the presidency, and the courts. Today, the power of the bureaucracy is so great that most political scientists consider it a fourth ____________. |
| Policymaking System | The process by which political problems are communicated by the voters and acted upon by government policymakers. The ____________ begins with people's needs and expectation for governmental action. When people confront government officials with problems that they want solved, they are trying to influence the government's policy agenda. |
| Policy Voting | Electoral choices that are made on the basis of the voters' policy preferences and on the basis of where the candidates stand on policy issues. |
| Political Action Committees (PACs) | Funding vehicles created by the 1974 campaign finance reforms. A corporation, union, or some other interest group can create a _______ and register it with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which will meticulously monitor the ________'s expenditures. |
| Political Culture | An overall set of values widely shared within a society. |
| Political Efficacy | The belief that one's political participation really matters - that one's vote can actually make a difference. |
| Political Ideology | A coherent set of beliefs about politics, public policy, and public purpose. It helps give meaning to political events, personalities, and policies. |
| Political Issue | An issue that arises when people disagree about a problem and a public policy choice. |
| Political Participation | All the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue. The most common, but not the only, means of ____________ in a democracy is voting. Other means include pretest and civil disobedience. |
| Political Party | According to Anthony Downs, a "team of men [and women] seeking to control the governing apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituted election. |
| Political Questions | A doctrine developed by the federal courts and used as a means to avoid deciding some cases, principal those involving conflicts between the president and Congress. |
| Political Socialization | According to Richard Dawson, "the process through which an individual acquires his [or her] particular political orientations - his [or her] knowledge, feelings, and evaluations regarding his [or her] political world." |
| Political System | A set of institutions and activities that link together people, politics, and policy. |
| Politics | The process by which we select our governmental leaders and what policies these leaders pursue. __________ produces authoritative decisions about public issues. |
| Poll Taxes | Small taxes, levied on the right to vote, that often fell due at a time of year when poor African American sharecroppers has the least cash on hand. This method was used by most Southern states to exclude African Americans from voting registers. Poll taxes were declared void by the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964. |
| Pork Barrel | The mighty list of federal projects, grants, and contracts available to cities, businesses, colleges, and institutions available in a congressional district. |
| Position Taking | According to David Mayhew, one of three primary activities undertaken by members of Congress to increase the probability of their reelection. It involves taking a stand on issues and responding to constituents about these positions. |
| Potential Group | All the people who might be interest group members because they share some common interest. A ___________ is almost always larger than an actual group. |
| Poverty Line | A method used to count the number of poor people, it considers what a family would need to spend for an "austere" standard of living. |
| Power | The capacity to get people to do something they would not otherwise do. The quest for _________ is a strong motivation to political activity. |
| Presidential Approval | An evaluation of the president based on many factors, but especially on the predisposition of many people to support the president. One measure is provided by the Gallup Poll. |
| Presidential Coattails | The situation occurring when voters cast their ballots for congressional candidates of the president's partly because they support the president. Recent studies show that few races are won this way. |
| Presidential Debate | A debate between presidential candidates. The first televised debate was between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy during the 1960 campaign. |
| Presidential Election Campaign Fund | Money from the $3 federal income tax check-off goes into this fund, which is then distributed to qualified candidates to subsidize their presidential campaigns. |
| Presidential Primaries | Elections in which voters in a state vote for a candidate (or delegates pledged to him or her). Most delegates to the national party conventions are chose this way. |
| Press Conferences | Meetings of public officials with reporters. |
| Press Secretaries | The person on the White House staff who most often deals directly with the press, serving as a conduit of information. Press secretaries conduct daily press briefings. |
| Primaries | Elections that select candidates. In addition to presidential _________, there are direct ___________ for selecting party nominees for congressional and state offices and propoals for regional _________. |
| Print Media | Newspapers and magazines, as compared with broadcast media. |
| Prior Restraint | A government's preventing material from being published. This is a common method o limiting the press in some nations, but it is usually unconstitutional in the US, according to the First Amendment and as confirmed in the 1931 Supreme Court case of Near v. Minnesota. |
| Privileges and Immunities Clause | A clause in Article IV, section 2, of the Constitution according citizens of each state most of the privileges of citizens of other states. |
| Probable Clause | The situation occurring when the police have reason to believe that a person should be arrested. In making the arrest, police are allowed legally to search for an seize incriminating evidence. |
| Progressive Tax | A tax by which the government takes a greater share of the income f the rich than of the poor - for example, when a rich family pays 50 percent of its income in taxes and a poor family pays 5 percent. |
| Project Grants | Federal grants given for specific purposes and awarded on the basis of the merits of applications. A type of the categorical grants available to states and localities. |
| Proportional Representation | An electoral system used throughout most of Europe that awards legislative seats to political parties in proportion to the number of votes won in an election. |
| Proportional Tax | A tax by which the government takes the same share of income from everyone, rich and poor alike 0 for example, when a rich family pays 20 percent and a poor family pays 20 percent. |
| Protectionism | Economic policy of shielding an economy from imports. |
| Protest | A form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics. |
| Public Goods | Goods, such as clean air and clean water, that everyone must share. |
| Public Interest | The idea that there are some interest superior to the private interest of groups and individuals, interests we all have in common. |
| Public Interest Lobbies | According to Jeffrey Berry, organizations that seek "a collective good, the achievement of which will not selectively and materially benefit the membership or activities of the organization." |
| Public Opinion | The distribution of the population's beliefs about politics and policy issues. |
| Public Policy | A choice that government makes in response to a political issue. A policy is a course of action taken with regard to some problem. |
| Random Digit Dialing | A technique used by pollsters to place telephone calls randomly to both listed and unlisted numbers when conducting a survey. |
| Random Sampling | The key technique employed by sophisticated survey researchers, which operates on the principle that everyone should have an equal probability of being selected for the sample. |
| Rational-Choice Theory | A popular theory in political science to explain the actions of voters as well as politicians. It assumes that individuals act in their own best interest, carefully weighing the costs and benefits of possible alternatives. |
| Reapportionment | The process of allocating seats in the House of Representatives every 10 years on the basis of results of the census. |
| Recall | A procedure that allows voters to call a special election for a specific official in an attempt to throw him or her out of office before the end of his or her term. _________ are only permitted in 17 states, are seldom used because of their cost and descriptiveness, and are rarely successful. |
| Reconciliation | A congressional process through which program authorizations are revised to achieve required savings. It usually also includes tax or other revenue adjustments. |
| Red Lion Broadcasting Company v. FCC | A 1969 case in which the Supreme Court upheld restrictions on radio and television broadcasting, such as giving adequate coverage to public issues and covering opposing views. These restrictions on broadcast media are much tighter than those n the print media because there are only a limited number of broadcasting frequencies available. |
| Reed v. Reed | The landmark case in 1971 in which the Supreme Court for the first time upheld a claim of gender discrimination. |
| Referendum | A state-level method of direct legislation that gives voters a chance to approve or disapprove legislation or a constitutional amendment proposed b the state legislature. |
| Regents of the University OF California v. Bakke | A 1978 Supreme Court decision holding that a state university could not admit less qualified individuals solely because of their race. The court did not,, however, rule that such affirmative action policies and the use of race as a criterion for admission were unconstitutional, only that they had to be formulated differently. |
| Regional Primaries | A proposal by critics of the caucuses and presidential primaries to replace these electoral methods with a series of primaries held in each geographic region. |
| Regressive Tax | A tax in which the burden falls relatively more heavily on low-income groups than on wealthy taxpayers. The opposite of a progressive tax, in which tax increase as income increases. |
| Regulation | The use of governmental authority to control or change some practice in the private sector. __________ pervade the daily lives of people and institutions. |
| Reinforcement | One of three key consequences of electoral campaigns for voters, in which the voter's candidate preference is reinforced. |
| Relative Deprivation | A perception by a group that it is doing less well than is appropriate in relation to a reference group. The desire of a group to correct what it views as the unfair distribution of resources, such as income or government benefits, is a frequent motivator for political activism. |
| Representation | A basic principle of traditional democratic theory that describes the relationship between the few leaders and the many followers. |
| Republic | A form of government that derives its power, directly or indirectly, from the people. Those chosen to govern are accountable to those whom they govern. In contrast to a direct democracy, in which people themselves make laws, in a ______ the people select representatives who make the laws. |
| Responsible Party Model | A view favored by some political scientists about how parties should work. According to the model, parties should offer clear choices to the voters, who can then use those choices as cues to their own preferences of candidates. Once in office, parties would carry out their campaign promises. |
| Retrospective Voting | A theory of voting in which voters essentially ask this simple question: "What have you done for me lately?" |
| Revenues | The financial resources of the federal government. The individual income tax and Social Security tax are two major sources of _________. |
| Right to Privacy | The right to a private personal life free from the intrusion of government. The _______________ is implicitly protected by the Bill or Rights. |
| Right-to-Work Laws | A state law forbidding requirements that workers must join a union to hold their jobs. State _______________ were specifically permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. |
| Roe v. Wade | The 1973 Supreme Court decision holding that a state ban on all abortions was unconstitutional. The decision forbade state control over abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy, permitted states to limit abortions to protects the mother's health in the second trimester, and permitted states to protect the fetus during the third trimester. |
| Roth v. United States | A 1957 Supreme Court decision ruling that "obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. |
| Sample | A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey as as to be representative of the whole. |
| Sampling Error | The level of confidence in the findings of a public opinion poll. The more people interviewed, the more confident one can be of the results. |
| Schenck v. United States | A 1919 decision upholding the conviction of a socialist who had urged young men to resist the draft during World War I. Justice Holmes declared that government can limit speech if the speech provokes a "clear and present danger" of substantive evils. |
| School District of Ablington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp | A 1963 Supreme Court decision holding that a Pennsylvania law requiring Bible reading in schools violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. |
| School Districts | Units of local government that are normally independent of any other local government and are primarily responsible for operating public schools. |
| Scott v. Sandford | The 1857 Supreme Court decision ruling that a slave who had escaped to a free state enjoyed no rights as a citizen and that Congress had no authority to ban slavery in the territories. |
| Search Warrant | A written authorization from a court specifying the area to be searched and what the police are searching for. |
| Secretary of Defense | The head of the Department of Defense and the president's key adviser on military policy; a key foreign policy actor. |
| Secretary of State | The head of the Department of State and traditionally a key adviser to the president on foreign policy. |
| Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) | The federal agency created during the New Deal that regulates stock fraud. |
| Select Committees | Congressional committees appointed for a specific purpose, such as the Watergate investigation. |
| Selective Benefits | Goods (such as information publications, travel discounts, and group insurance rates) that a group can restrict to those who pay their yearly dues. |
| Selective Perception | The phenomenon that people often pay the most attention to things they already agree with and interpret them according to their own predispositions. |
| Self-Incrimination | The situation occurring when an individual accused of a crime is compelled to be a witness against himself or herself in court. |
| Senate Finance Committee | The Senate committee that, along with the House Ways and Means Committee, writes the tax codes, subject to the approval of Congress as a whole. |
| Senatorial Courtesy | An unwritten tradition whereby nominations for state-level federal judicial posts are not confirmed if they are opposed by the senator from the state in which the nominee will serve. The tradition also applies to courts of appeals when there is opposition from the nominee's state senator, if the senator belongs to the president's party. |
| Senior Executive Service (SES) | An elite cadre of about 11,000 federal government managers, established by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, who are mostly career officials but include some political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. |
| Seniority System | A simple rule for picking committee chairs, in effect until the 1970s. The member who had served on the committee the longest and whose party controlled Congress become chair, regardless of party loyalty, mental state, or competence. |
| Separation of Powers | An important part of the Madisonian model that requires each of the three branches of government - executive, legislative, and judicial - to be relatively independent of the others so that one cannot control the others. Power is shared among these three institutions. |
| Shays' Rebellion | A series of attacks on courthouses by a small band of farmers led by revolutionary war Captain Daniel Shays to block foreclosure proceedings. |
| Single-Issue Groups | Groups that have narrow interest, tend to dislike compromise, and often draw membership from people new to politics. These features distinguish them from traditional interest groups. |
| Sixteenth Amendment | The constitutional amendment adopted in 1913 that explicitly permitted Congress to levy an income tax. |
| Sixth Amendment | The constitutional amendment designed to protect individuals of crime. It includes right to counsel, the right to confront witnesses, and the right to a speedy and public trial. |
| Social Policies | Policies that manipulate opportunities through public choice. They include policies related to income and policies related to opportunity. |
| Social Security Act | A 1935 law passed during the Great Depression that was intended to provide a minimal level of sustenance to older Americans and thus save them from poverty. |
| Social Welfare Policies | Policies that provide benefits to individuals, particularly to those in need. |
| Socialized Medicine | A system in which the full cost of medical care is borne by the national government. Great Britain and the former Soviet Union are examples of countries that have ________________. |
| Soft Money | Political contributions earmarked for party-building expenses at the grass-roots level (or for generic party advertising). Unlike money that goes to the campaign of a particular candidate, such party donations are not subject to contribution limits. |
| Solicitor General | A presidential appointee and the third-ranking office in the Department of Justice. The _____________ is in charge of the appellate court litigation of the federal government. |
| Sound Bites | Short video clips of approximately 15 seconds, which are typically all that is shown from a politician's speech or activities on television news. |
| Speaker of the House | An office mandated by the Constitution. The speaker is chose in practice by the majority party, has both formal and informal powers, and is second in line to succeed to the presidency should that office become vacant. |
| Special Districts | Limited-purpose local governments called districts or public authorities that are created to run a specific type of service, such as water distribution, airports, public transportation, libraries, and natural resource areas. |
| Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) | Better known as ____, these procedures are used by bureaucrats to bring uniformity to complex organizations. Uniformity improves fairness and makes personnel interchangeable. |
| Standing committees | Separate subject-matter committees in each house of Congress that handle bills in different policy areas. |
| Standing to Sue | The requirement that plaintiffs have a serious interest in a case, which depends on whether they have sustained or are likely to sustain a direct and substantial injury from a party or an action of government. |
| Stare Decisis | A Latin phrase meaning "let the decision stand." Most cases reaching appellate courts are settled on this principle. |
| Statutory Construction | The judicial interpretation of an act of Congress. In some cases where __________ is an issue, Congress passes new legislative to clarify existing laws. |
| Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) | Renamed "Star Wars" by critics, a plan for defense against the Soviet Union unveiled by President Reagan in 1983. ___ would create a global umbrella in space, using computers to scan the skies and high-tech devices to destroy invading missiles. |
| Street-Level Bureaucrats | A phrase coined by Micheal Lipsky, referring to those bureaucrats who are in constant contract with the public and have considerable administrative discretion. |
| Subgovernments | A network of groups within the American political system which exercise a great deal of control over specific policy area. Also known as iron triangles, subgovernments are composed of interest group leaders interested in a particular policy, the government agency in charge of administering that policy, and the members of congressional committees and subcommittees handling that policy. |
| Subnational Governments | Another way of referring to state and local governments. Through a process of reform, modernization, and changing intergovernmental relations since the 1960s, subnational governments have assumed new responsibilities and importance. |
| Suffrage | The legal right to vote, extended to African Americans by Fifteenth Amendment, to women by the Nineteenth Amendment, and to people over the age of 18 by the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. |
| Super Tuesday | Created by a dozen or so Southern states when they held their presidential primaries in early March 1988. These states hope to promote a regional advantage as well as a more conservative candidate. |
| Superdelegates | National party leaders who automatically get a delegate slot at the Democratic national party convention. |
| Superfund | A fund created by Congress in the late 1970s and renewed in the 1980s to clean up hazardous waste sites. Money for the fund comes from taxing chemical products. |
| Supply-Side Economics | An economic theory, advocated by President Reagan, holding that too much income goes to taxes and too little money is available for purchasing and that the solution is to cut taxes and return purchasing power to consumers. |
| Supremacy Clause | Article VI of the Constitution, which makes the Constitution, national laws, and treaties supreme over state laws when the national government is acting within its constitutional limits. |
| Supreme Court | The pinnacle of the American judicial system. The Court ensures uniformity in interpreting national laws, resolves conflicts among states, and maintains nation supremacy in law. It has both original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction, but unlike other federal courts, it controls its own agenda. |
| Symbolic Speech | Nonverbal communication, such as burning a flag or wearing an armband. The Supreme Court has accorded some symbolic speech protection under the First Amendment. |
| Taft-Hartley Act | A 1947 law giving the president power to halt major strikes by seeking a court injunction and permitting states to forbid requirements in labor contracts forcing workers to join a union. |
| Talking Head | A shot of a person's face talking directly to the camera. Because this is visually unappealing, the major commercial networks rarely show a politician talking one-on-one for very long. |
| Tariff | A special tax added to imported goods to raise the price, thereby protecting American businesses and workers from foreign competition. |
| Tax Expenditures | Defined by the 1974 Budget Act as "revenue losses attributable to provisions of the federal tax laws which allow a special exemption, exclusion, or deduction." ______ represent the difference between what the government actually collects in taxes and what it would have collected without special exemptions. |
| Tax Incidence | The proportion of its income a particular group pays in taxes. |
| Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) | Once called "Aid to Families with Dependent Children," the new name for public assistance to needy families. |
| Tenth Amendment | The constitutional amendment stating that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. |
| Term Limits | Laws to restrict legislators from serving more than a fixed number of years or terms in office. |
| Texas v Johnson | A 1989 in which the Supreme Court struck down a law banning the burning of the American flag on the grounds that such action was symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment. |
| Third Parties | Electoral contenders other than the two mjor parties. American third parties are not unusual, but they rarely win elections. |
| Thirteenth Amendment | The constitutional amendment passed after the Civil War that forbade slavery and involuntary servitude. |
| Ticket Splitting | Voting with one party for one office an with another party for other offices. It has become the norm in American voting behavior. |
| Town Meeting | A special form of direct democracy under which all voting-age adults in a community gather once a year to make public policy. Now only used in a few villages in upper New England, originally many municipalities in the United States were run by ______. The growth of most cities has made them too large for this style of governance. |
| Township | A political subdivision of local government that is found in 20 states and often serves to provide local government services in rural areas. It is particularly strong form of local government - comparable to a municipality - in the Northeast. |
| Traditional Democratic Theory | A theory about how a democratic government makes its decisions. According to Robert Dahl, its cornerstones are equality in voting, effective participation, enlightened understanding, final control over the agenda, and inclusion. |
| Transfer Payments | Benefits given by the government directly to individuals. ________ may be either cash transfers, such as Social Security payments and retirement payments to former government employees, or in-kind transfers, such as food stamps and low-interest loans for college education. |
| Transnational Corporations | Businesses with vast holdings in many countries - such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and McDonald's - many of which have annual budgets exceeding that of many foreign governments. |
| Trial Balloons | An intentional news leak for the purpose of assessing the political reaction. |
| Trial Courts | The lowest tier in the trial court system, in which the facts of a case are considered. These courts hear bother civil and criminal matters. |
| Trustee | A legislator who uses his or her best judgement to make policy in the interests of the people. This concept was favored by Edmund Burke. |
| Twenty-Fifth Amendment | Passed in 1967, this amendment permits the vice president to become acting president if both the vice president and the president's cabinet determine that the president is disabled. The amendment also outlines how a recuperated president can reclaim his job. |
| Twenty-Fourth Amendment | The constitutional amendment passed in 1964 that declared poll taxes void. |
| Twenty-Second Amendment | Passed in 1951, the amendment that limits presidents to two terms of office. |
| Uncontrollable Expenditures | Expenditures that are determined not by a fixed amount of money appropriated by Congress but by how many eligible beneficiaries there are for some particular program or by previous obligations of the government. Three-fourths of the federal budget is uncontrollable. Congress can change _________ only by changing a law or existing benefit levels. |
| Unemployment Rate | As measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the proportion of the labor force actively seeking work buy unable to find jobs. |
| Unfunded Mandates | When the federal government requires state and local action but does not provide the funds to pay for the action. |
| Union Shop | A provision found in some collective bargaining agreements requiring all employees of a business to join the union within a short period, usually 30 days, and to remain members as a condition of employment. |
| Unitary Government | A way of organizing a nation so that all power resides in the central government. Most national governments today, including those of Great Britain and Japan, are________. |
| United Nations (UN) | Created in 1945, an organization whose members agree to renounce war and to respect certain human and economic freedoms. The seat of real power in the UN is the Security Council. |
| United States v. Nixon | The 1974 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that the doctrine of executive privilege was implicit in the Constitution but could not be extended to protect documents relevant to criminal prosecutions. |
| Unreasonable Searches and Seizures | Obtaining evidence in a haphazard or random manner, a practice prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. Both the probable cause and a search warrant are required for a legal and proper search for and seizure of incriminating evidence. |
| Unwritten Constitution | The body of tradition, practice, and procedure that is as important as the written constitution. Changes in the _________ can change the spirit of the Constitution. Political parties and national party conventions are a part of the unwritten constitution in the United States. |
| Urban Underclass | The poorest of the poor in America. These are the Americans whose economic opportunities are severely limited in almost every way. They constitute a large percentage of the Americans afflicted by homelessness, crime, drugs, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies, and other endemic social problems. |
| US Constitution | The document written in 1787 and ratified in 1788 that sets forth the institutional structure of US government and the tasks these institutions perform. It replaced the Articles of Confederation. |
| Veto | The constitutional power of the president to send a bill back to Congress with reasons for rejecting it. A two-thirds vote tin each house can override a ____. |
| Virginia Plan | The proposal at the Constitutional Convention that called for representation of each state in Congress in proportion to that state's share of the US population. |
| Voter Registration | A system adopted by the states that requires voters to register well in advance of Election Day. A few states permit Election Day registration. |
| Voting Rights Act of 1965 | A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African American suffrage.Under the law, federal registrars were sent to Southern states and counties that had long histories of discrimination; as a result, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically. |
| War Powers Resolution | A law passed in 1973 in reaction to American fighting in Vietnam and Cambodia that requires presidents to consult with Congress whenever possible prior to using military force and to withdraw forces after 60 days unless Congress declares war or grants an extension. Presidents view this resolution as unconstitutional. |
| Watergate | The events and scandal surrounding a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 and the subsequent cover-up of White House involvement, leading to the eventual resignation of President Nixon under the threat of impeachment. |
| Wealth | The amount of funds already owned. ___ includes stocks, bonds, bank deposits, cars, houses, and so forth. Throughout most of the last generation, ___ has been much less evenly divided than income. |
| Whips | Party leaders who work with the majority leader or minority leader to count votes beforehand and lean on waverers whose votes are crucial to a bill favored by the party. |
| White Primary | One of the means used to discourage African American voting that permitted political parties in the heavily Democratic South to exclude African Americans from primary elections, thus depriving them of a voice in the real contests. The Supreme Court declared _____ unconstitutional in 1944. |
| Winner-Take-All System | An electoral system in which legislative seats are awarded only to the candidates who come in first in the constituencies. In American presidential elections, the system in which the winner of the popular vote in a state receives all the electoral votes of that state. |
| World Trade Organization (WTO) | International organization that regulates international trade. |
| Writ of Certiorari | A formal document issued from the Supreme Court to a lower federal or state court that calls up a case. |
| Writ of Habeas Corpus | A court order requiring jailers to explain to a judge why they are holding a prisoner in custody. |
| Writ of Mandamus | A court order forcing action. In the dispute leading to Marbury v. Madison, Marbury and his associates asked the Supreme Court to issue a writ ordering Madison to give them their commissions. |
| Zelman v. Simmons-Harris | The 2002 Supreme Court decision that upheld a state providing families with vouchers that could be used to pay tuition at religious schools. |
| Zurcher v. Standford Daily | A 1978 Supreme Court decision holding that a proper search warrant could be applied to a newspaper as well as to anyone else without necessarily violating the First Amendment rights to freedom of the press. |
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