Congress - Answers Specific duties of the house and senate
Duties of house and senate - Answers Declare war, deal with money, commerce, federal courts,
immigrants, make laws.
Duties of house - Answers right to originate revenue bills. Right to impeachment.
Duties of Senate - Answers court to try impeachments. Needs 2/3 majority vote for conjunction.
Article 1 - Answers Gives congress powers and limits.
Reapportionment - Answers Redistribution of representatives among the states, based on population
change. Congressional seats are reapportioned after each census.
Why incumbents tend to be reelected - Answers voters tend to support their own representatives while
being contemptuous of the rest of the membership.
Gerrymandering - Answers Redrawing a congressional district to intentionally benefit one political party.
Process of how bills become laws - Answers The problem must find its way onto the congressional
agenda. Senators give to senate clerks or introduce to floor.
Veto - Answers The president's rejection of a bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress.
Congress can override a veto with a 2/3 vote in each house.
Pocket veto - Answers A means of killing a bill that has been passed by both houses of Congress, in
which the president neither signs the bill nor returns it to Congress and Congress adjourns within ten
days of the bill's passage.
Standing Committee - Answers A permanent congressional committee that specializes in a particular
legislative area.
Joint committee - Answers A committee made up of members of both the House and Senate.
Select committee - Answers A congressional committee created for a specific purpose and, usually, for a
limited time.
Conference committee - Answers A temporary committee created to work out differences between the
House and Senate versions of a specific piece of legislation.
Filibuster - Answers A delaying tactic, used in the Senate, that often involves speech making to prevent
action on a piece of legislation.
Article 2 - Answers Presidential duties (powers)
Powers of the President - Answers Serve as commander in chief of the armed forces.
, Commission officers of the armed forces.
Grant reprieves and pardons for federal offenses (except impeachment).
Convene Congress in special sessions.
Receive ambassadors.
Take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
Wield the "executive power".
Appoint officials to lesser offices.
Inherent powers - Answers /authority claimed by the president that is not clearly specified in the
Constitution. Typically these powers are inferred from the Constitution.
Delegated Powers - Answers The process by which Congress gives the executive branch the additional
authority needed to address new problems.
Power to persuade - Answers Persuasion and bargaining are the means that presidents use to influence
policy.
Executive office of the President - Answers The president's executive aides and their staffs; the extended
White House executive establishment.
Duty of Vice president - Answers Take over the presidency in the event of presidential death, disability,
impeachment, or resignation.
Cabinet - Answers A group of presidential advisers; the heads of the executive department and other
key officials.
Presidential mandate - Answers Authority granted by a constituency to act as its representative.
Executive order - Answers presidential directives issued by United States Presidents and are generally
directed towards officers and agencies of the U.S. federal government.
Administrative law - Answers The body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of
government.
Marbury V. Madison (1803) - Answers Senate decided that the constitution comes before the law.
Judicial review - Answers The power to declare congressional and presidential acts invalid because they
violate the Constitution.
Article 3 - Answers Creates the judicial branch in the United States. The Judicial branch is the system of
courts that look at the law and applies it to different cases.