Edexcel Politics 7. US Politics: Constitution and Congress - Statistics

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This quiz has been taken 61 times
The average score is 8 of 20

Answer Stats

Question or Term	Answer	% Correct
The number of members in the Senate, courtesy of there being two per state	100	100%
The percentage of bills that become law on average in each two-year session of Congress	2-4%	100%
The number of times the party of the incumbent President has gained seats in a mid-term election	3	100%
The number of voting members of the House of Representatives	435	100%
That which George W. Bush's increased spending on defence and homeland security was a response to	9/11 and the War on Terror	100%
The President whose Medicaid expansion proposal tried to demand that states participate in it or lose all federal funding for Medicaid, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court	Barack Obama	100%
A system of government that gives each branch the means to partially control the power exercised by the other two	Checks and Balances	100%
That which the Constitution of the US is, which the constitution of the UK is not	Codified	100%
Powers possessed by both federal and state governments such as tax collection or road building	Concurrent Powers	100%
That body in which 'gridlock' can be a benefit, as it ensures legislation in considered thoroughly while also keeping the government in check	Congress	100%
The area represented by a member of the House of Representatives	Congressional District	100%
That which may be too inflexible as it is difficult to amend, causing outdated provisions - such as some argue of the Second Amendment - to remain in force	Constitution	100%
Those which there have been very few of as; they are difficult to get passed, the Constitution is venerated while also being vague and thus flexible, and the Supreme Court can reinterpret the Constitution without the need to go through the formal process	Constitutional Amendment	100%
A 1776 document justifying American sovereignty apart of the Kingdom of Great Britain, on the basis of natural rights, &c.	Declaration of Independence	100%
That party which the majority of female and/or African-American senators and congressmen/women are members of	Democrats	100%
That party which has slightly more often controlled the House of Representatives	Democrats	100%
A device in which one or more senators can delay action on a bill or any other matter by excessively long debating, speaking, or other obstructive actions	Filibuster	100%
That president under whom large increases in funding were seen in; education, medicare, homeland security, and the response to the Great Recession	George W. Bush	100%
That chamber of Congress in which voting is undertaken electronically	House of Representatives	100%
The three key function of Congress alphabetically	Legislative, Oversight, and Representative	100%
The number of times two thirds of states have called a national constitutional convention	None	100%
The number of times three quarters of state conventions have ratified an amendment as opposed to three quarters of state legislatures	Once	100%
That function of Congress which may have been misused for partisan purposes by Republicans seeking to undermine likely presidential rival Hillary Clinton in regards to events at the US embassy in Benghazi	Oversight	100%
That the powers of which relative to the other branches of government are; to veto legislation, and to nominate Supreme Court judges	Presidency	100%
That individual, the larger whose majority, the more difficult it becomes for Congress to perform its oversight function	President	100%
The President's constitutional power to return a bill to Congress unsigned with the reasons for objection	Presidential Veto	100%
That body which has the exclusive power of; trying impeachment cases, confirming executive appointments, ratifying presidential treaties, and appointing the Vice-President if there is a tie in the Electoral College	Senate	100%
The 1913 amendment that made the Senate a directly elected rather than appointed body	Seventeenth Amendment	100%
The number of years in a senatorial term	Six	100%
The 1913 amendment that allowed for the federal government to impose income tax	Sixteenth Amendment	100%
That individual who, in a period of divided government, can be considered 'leader of the official opposition' to the President	Speaker of the House of Representatives	100%
That which is superseded by legitimate federal law if the two conflict, per the Supremacy Clause	State Law	100%
An annual presidential speech to both chambers of Congress, the Justice of the Supreme Court, &c. setting out his/her legislative agenda	State of the Union Address	100%
The number of congressional days between a President leaving a bill on his/her desk and it automatically becoming law	Ten	100%
The 1951 amendment that established within the Constitution the two-term limit for the President as had been set by precedent beforehand (except by Franklin D. Roosevelt)	Twenty-Second Amendment	100%
The number of years between which a third of seats in the Senate come up for election	Two	100%
The time between elections to the House of Representatives	Two Years	100%
A set of ten 1791 amendments to the Constitution which guaranteed; that all undelegated powers were reserved to the states or the people, freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and the press, the right to bear arms, the rights of the accused, and the right to trial	Bill of Rights	67%
A 1965 federal scheme providing over 65's with basic health insurance, expanded by George W. Bush in 2003 to include prescription drug benefits	Medicare	67%
Rights to which all people are entitled by virtue of being human	Natural Rights	67%
That body which has proved the most significant obstacle to the success of constitutional amendments	Congress	50%
That body the power of which has grown due to increased partisanship and divided government	Congress	50%
Broadly, those groupings of party members in each chamber of Congress, though there are a number of additional cross-party ones based on common interests that help inform members and encourage wider congressional support	Congressional Caucuses	50%
That function of Congress which was weakened in the wake of 9/11 against a backdrop of popular support for President George W. Bush	Congressional Oversight	50%
That, two recent marginally defeated examples of which are to mandate a balanced budget, and to outlaw flag desecration	Constitutional Amendment	50%
The vague final clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution which empowers Congress to make all laws necessary and proper to carry out the federal government's duties	Elastic Clause	50%
That area in which congressional power had diminished in favour of the executive	Foreign and Military Policy	50%
That which checks and balances in the US often result in, as opposed to the UK where there is much less opportunity for obstruction of legislation	Gridlock	50%
The power of the House of Representatives to charge an executive or judicial official by a simple majority, thereby referring them to a Senate trial requiring a two-thirds super-majority to find guilty and thereby remove from office	Impeachment	50%
The individual who usually wins in any given state or congressional district election	Incumbent	50%
That which is composed of a bicameral Congress consisting of a population-based House of Representatives and a State-based Senate	Legislature	50%
Rules by the House Rules Committee that limit the number of amendments that can be made to a bill, as well as what can be amended and who can propose amendments	Modified/Restrictive Rules	50%
A 2002 George W. Bush era act that; mandated annual testing in schools, increased federal funding for the poorest schools, and increased federal funding for scientifically based reading programmes	No Child Left Behind Act	50%
The President's ability to excuse individuals the legal penalties for their actions	Presidential Pardon	50%
That majority in excess of the normal standard of 50% (ie. 67%, 75%, &c.) that is required for an action to be successful, as in regards constitutional amendment, overturning a presidential veto, &c.	Supermajority	50%
Close cooperation between the two major parties to achieve political goals, often crucial for success in the US and to prevent gridlock	Bipartisanship	33%
The way in which bills run in Congress in relation to the interaction between both chambers, which can result in two very different versions of the same bill being produced	Concurrently	33%
An approach to comparative politics that focuses on the political, religious, social, economic, &c. ideas within each nation	Cultural Approach	33%
That which the head of government in the US is, which the head of government in the UK is not	Elected	33%
Those two branches of government which an individual can simultaneously be a member of in the UK, alphabetically	Executive and Legislature	33%
That individual who may influence the other branches of government through patronage and secretive political power	President	33%
An approach to comparative politics that focuses on individuals under the premise that they act logically and out of self interest	Rational Approach	33%
That, the location of which is the principle difference between federalism and devolution	Sovereignty	33%
A 1789 document of originally seven articles that replaced the Articles of Confederation with a bicameral system protecting national interest, States' rights, and individual liberties	US Constitution	33%
The number of successful constitutional amendments since 1787, excluding the Bill of Rights, and including the two amendments regarding prohibition	17	25%
The second stage of the legislative process in which a standing committee undertakes a hearing with witnesses, and amends a bill, finally voting on whether to send it to the main chamber for the next stage	Committee Stage	25%
Where members of one party regularly group together to oppose members of another party, characterised by strong party discipline and little cooperation between parties, now very prevalent in the US	Partisanship	25%
That, the economic consequences of which are that taxation becomes much more complex, with taxes varying between cities and taxes like income tax being levied by both federal and state governments	Federalism	20%
The French philosopher who originally proposed the idea of 'separation of powers', most notably in his 1748 book 'De L'Esprit des Loix'	Montesquieu	20%
The approximate number of bills introduced in every two-year session of Congress	10,000	0%
The percentage of the US population that is Hispanic-American	16.3%	0%
The percentage of members of the House of Representatives and Senate respecitvely that were women in 2016?	19% and 21%	0%
The age requirements for membership of the House of Representatives and Senate respectively	25 and 30	0%
The number of years one must have been a US citizen to qualify for membership of the House of Representatives and Senate respectively	7 and 9	0%
The percentage of members of the House of Representatives and Senate respectively that were Hispanic-American in 2016	8% and 4%	0%
The percentage of the time in which regular presidential vetoes are successful	92%	0%
That the advantages of the process of which are that it; prevents the tyranny of a small majority, ensures support by both federal and state governments, makes changes on temporary concerns unlikely, and prevents a federal veto	Amendment	0%
That the disadvantages of the process of which are that it; can perpetuate outdated practices, can allow unrepresentative minorities or small states to thwart the will of the majority, and that poor examples can still be enacted as with prohibition	Amendment	0%
Those two historical events that caused the federal government to assume greater powers, alphabetically	American Civil War, and the New Deal	0%
A loose 1781 compact between the 13 states that formed a new nation, replaced by the US Constitution in 1789	Articles of Confederation	0%
That, which American observers sometimes criticise the UK constitution for potentially allowing due to weaker checks and balances	Autocratic Government	0%
Those four occupational groups which predominate in Congress, alphabetically	Bankers, Business People, Lawyers, and Politicians	0%
That president under whom the ratio of state to federal employees increased, with the former receiving significantly more federal assistance, mostly for health and education	Barack Obama	0%
That position in government the principle disadvantage of which is that there may be less scrutiny	Bipartisanship	0%
That position in government the principle benefit of which is that partisan concerns may be less prevalent and thus less conducive to obstruction	Bipartisanship	0%
Money given to the states by the federal government to be used at the former's discretion within broad policy areas, popular from the 1970's to 1990's	Block Grants	0%
Those three religious groups which are slightly under-represented in Congress alphabetically	Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims	0%
Schemes by the federal government in which the said government can stipulate how the states use federal tax dollars, popular from the 1930's to 1960's	Categorical Grants	0%
Those four religious groups which are over-represented in Congress, alphabetically	Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and Protestants	0%
That 'ideological' group which has mostly disappeared from Congress due to increased partisanship	Centrists	0%
The three key principles of the US Constitution in alphabetical order	Checks and Balances, Federalism, and Separation of Powers	0%
Increasingly used rules by the House Rules Committee which forbid any amendments to a bill	Closed Rules	0%
A procedure by which 16 senators can petition to stop a filibuster, which three fifths of senators must approve (a simple majority if the debate concerns an appointment rather than a bill)	Closure	0%
A clause in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution empowering Congress to regulate trade with foreign countries and between states	Commerce Clause	0%
They whose role it is to; determine who sits on a committee, draw up agendas, control and influence sub-committees, determine management and timing of the committee, and to decide who administers the committee	Committee Chairperson	0%
Those bodies within the House of Representatives which recommend matters for debate and provide oversight of various government agencies and programmes	Committees	0%
A loose collection of independent states with only a weak and relatively insignificant central government	Confederacy	0%
That body formed for the optional and decreasingly used fifth stage of the legislative process in which said ad hoc committees with members from both chambers that reconciles differences between their two versions of the same bill	Conference Committee	0%
That body which can check the President in eight main ways, namely by; amending or blocking their legislation, overriding their veto, declaring war, ratifying or rejecting treaties, confirming or rejecting appointments, investigating the executive, initiating and trying impeachment cases, and holding the power of the purse	Congress	0%
That the powers of which relative to the other branches of government are; to control the budget, vet presidential nominees, reject presidential vetoes and treaties, and to initiate and try impeachment cases	Congress	0%
That body in which members' voting is most determined by the views and advice of; constituents, personal staff, and colleagues, their own personal beliefs, pressure groups, sustained influence and persuasion from the executive, and the position of the party	Congress	0%
That body which holds legislative power, and power over overturning a presidential veto, amending the Constitution, and declaring war	Congress	0%
That which, when under divided government, is criticed for often being done for political or partisan motivations rather than int he public or national interest	Congressional Oversight	0%
The key role and implied power of Congress to review and investigate the other branches of government, particularly the executive, as well as of confirmation of appointments, and ratification of treaties	Congressional Oversight	0%
That the main features of which are that it is; codified, entrenched, and a mix of both specificity and vagueness	Constitution	0%
That which may be too flexible as it has not prevented governments undermining civil liberties such as in the wake of 9/11 through bodies such as the NSA, or historically regards minorities such as African-Americans and Native Americans	Constitution	0%
That, in which are absent the important matters of; primary elections, the President's Cabinet, judicial review, the Executive Office of the President, &c.	Constitution	0%
That which some argue is balanced in its flexibility in that it allows the government to respond to crises, after which curtailed civil liberties are restored as with internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War	Constitution	0%
That which Congress can - alongside impeachment - propose to check the Supreme Court	Constitutional Amendment	0%
That which - under Article V of the Constitution - must be proposed with the support of two-thirds of both chambers of Congress, or by a national convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures	Constitutional Amendment	0%
Fundamental rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution	Constitutional Rights	0%
That which is often considered the salient influence on the difference between the US and UK constitutions	Culture	0%
That, the five principles of which were; government by consent, separation of powers, federalism, private property, and individual civil liberties	Declaration of Independence	0%
The model of representation that is more common in the House of Representatives as members face election every two years and must reside in (and generally grew-up in) their congressional district	Delegate Model	0%
Those two key concepts that have been more central to US democracy than to that in the UK, alphabetically	Direct democracy and popular sovereignty	0%
That position in government the principle benefit of which is that there may be more scrutiny	Divided Government	0%
That position in government the principle disadvantage of which is that partisan concerns may be put before national ones, potentially resulting in obstruction	Divided Government	0%
The increasingly predominant situation in which the presidency is controlled by a different party to one or both chambers of Congress	Divided Government	0%
That position in government which has become the norm since 1969, with only 13 years without it	Divided Government	0%
Powers assigned to the federal government under the Constitution, generally as contained in its first three articles	Enumerated/Delegated Powers	0%
That the power of which has been increased by; westward expansion, population growth, industrialisation (requiring regulation), The Great Depression, improved communications (creating a national identity), the increased scope of foreign policy (solely the purview of the federal government), Supreme Court decisions, and Constitutional Amendments	Federal Government	0%
Those two bodies, the composition of which may have the greatest affect on the interpretation of the Constitution, alphabetically	Federal Government and Supreme Court	0%
That, the principle legal consequence of which is that laws vary widely between states	Federalism	0%
That, the principle policy consequence of which is that the States can act as places where new solutions to old problems can be tested	Federalism	0%
That, the affect on political parties of which is that they become decentralised, fragmented, loose, to an extent uncoordinated, and vary widely in different areas such as Republicans from Texas and from California	Federalism	0%
The electoral system used in the US	First Past the Post	0%
The fourth stage of the legislative process in which both chambers separately debate and vote on the returned bill, possibly delayed by filibustering in the Senate	Floor Debate and Vote on Passage	0%
The 1868 amendment that guaranteed equal protection and due process for all US citizens (anyone born in or naturalised in the US)	Fourteenth Amendment	0%
The time between elections for the Presidency	Four Years	0%
Redrawing of electoral boundaries to achieve a desired - often partisan - result, as done by the Democrats in California until state legislators lost their power to do so to an independent commission in 2011	Gerrymandering	0%
That event to which George W. Bush's most significant response was to take the two government-sponsored mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under federal management, and to bail out Wall Street with $700 billion	Great Recession	0%
Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's economic, social, and welfare reforms, begun in 1964, that saw a huge increase in federal government spending	Great Society	0%
That body which has the exclusive power of; impeachment, electing the President if there is a tie in the Electoral College, and beginning consideration of money bills	House of Representatives	0%
The lower and upper chambers of Congress respectively	House of Representatives and Senate	0%
A standing committee of the House of Representatives that is not party proportional, which timetables bills in the chamber and rules of whether and what type of amendments can be made	House Rules Committee	0%
The three 'i's' regarding approaches to comparative politics in alphabetical order	Ideas, Individuals, and Institutions	0%
Powers not specified in the Constitution but nonetheless possessed by the federal government by inference from its enumerated powers	Implied Powers	0%
Any formal organisation the members of which interact on the basis of the specific roles they perform	Institution	0%
A re-evaluation of the meaning of a part of the Constitution by the Supreme Court	Interpretative Amendment	0%
The first stage of the legislative process in which a bill is separately presented to the House of Representatives and Senate	Introduction	0%
That power held by the federal courts allowing them to check Congress	Judicial Review	0%
The most significant facet or by-product of federalism	Limited Government	0%
The party elected leader of the party in each chamber in which that party has a majority	Majority Leader	0%
Congressional districts the federal courts have allowed to be drawn to group minority voters such as to increase their representation	Majority Minority Districts	0%
Congressional elections that fall in the middle of the President's four year term, often serving as a 'referendum' on the President's performance	Mid-term Elections	0%
The party elected leader of the party in each chamber in which that party has a minority	Minority Leader	0%
A return of certain powers and responsibilities from the federal government to the States, characteristic of the 1970's to 1990's	New Federalism	0%
That which the US' pluralistic system of government is sometimes criticised for causing, instead of the envisaged checks and balances	Obstruction	0%
That from the President, Supreme Court, and from within Congress itself, which makes legislation difficult, alongside low party loyalty	Obstruction	0%
Decreasingly used rules by the House Rules Committee which allow unlimited relevant amendments to bills to be made	Open Rules	0%
The number of constitutional amendments proposed since 1787, excluding the Bill of Rights	Over 11,000	0%
That UK body the representative functions of the US Congress are very similar to	Parliament	0%
Those bodies which find it difficult to control their members in Congress as the latter cannot be deselected due to the nature of primary elections, and cannot be offered executive posts due to the 'separation of institutions'	Parties	0%
That, the membership of which of members of Congress and the President in relation to one another, is the salient issue affecting the effectiveness of congressional oversight	Party	0%
An increasingly common type of vote in either chamber in which the majority of one party votes against the majority of the other party	Party Unity Vote/Party Vote	0%
Where the President does not act on a bill at the end of a session at which point it is lost to the legislative process and must begin the process again next session	Pocket Veto	0%
That which determines representation in the House of Representatives	Population	0%
The sixth and final stage of the legislative process in which the President; signs a bill into law, leaves it on his desk if a veto would be overturned, uses a regular veto, or uses a pocket veto	Presidential Action	0%
A situation of distinct cultures, beliefs, religious convictions, &c. across one country as can be seen amongst the US States	Regionalism	0%
That party which has slightly more often controlled the Senate	Republicans	0%
Powers not delegated to the federal government but instead held by the states or the people per the Tenth Amendment	Reserved Powers	0%
The two contrasting ways in which the US and UK Constitutions came about respectively	Revolution and Evolution	0%
Usually ad hoc committees with members from one or both chambers of Congress which investigate a particular issue where it falls outside the purview of existing standing committees or is too time consuming for them	Select Committees	0%
A rule that the chair of a standing committee is the member of the majority party with the largest continuous service on said committee, unless they have served the three-term (six year) limit	Seniority Rule	0%
That which separation of powers in the US is often instead said to be	Sharing of Powers/Separation of Personnel/Institutions	0%
The organisational figure in the House of Representatives with powers over committees and House business who - due to being elected by the whole house - is always a member of the majority party	Speaker of the House of Representatives	0%
Permanent, policy specialist committees of either chamber of Congress with proportional party representation that conduct the committee stage of the legislative process, scrutinise the executive, and in the case of the Senate, begin the confirmation process for presidential appointments	Standing Committees	0%
Those two bodies in one or the other of which, three quarters of members must ratify an amendment for it to be successful, in alphabetical order	State Conventions or State Legislatures	0%
Those political entities which decide upon the framework within which elections are undertaken in their area, as opposed to the federal government	States	0%
The predominate approach to comparative politics that focuses on the institutions and processes within a political system	Structural Approach	0%
A sub-division of a standard or select committee that considers specific matters of a wider issue, producing a report for the full committee	Sub-Committee	0%
The portion of Article VI of the Constitution that makes the Constitution, treaties, and federal laws, the 'supreme law of the land'	Supremacy Clause	0%
That the powers of which relative to the other branches of government are; to declare laws or actions unconstitutional via judicial review	Supreme Court	0%
A grassroots conservative movement formed to oppose greater federal spending and intervention in the wake of the Great Recession	Tea Party Movement	0%
The 1865 amendment that prohibited the institution of slavery	Thirteenth Amendment	0%
The third stage of the legislative process in which the order in which bills will be debated is decided (by the House Rules Committee in the House of Representatives, and by a unanimous consent agreement in the Senate)	Timetabling	0%
The model of representation that is better reflected in the Senate	Trustee Model	0%
An agreement in either chamber, made without objection, to waive the chamber's normal rules	Unanimous Consent Agreement	0%
A federal law requiring states to perform functions for which the federal government provided no funding, prevalent from the 1980's to 1990's	Unfunded Mandate	0%
That which - in practice - is declared by Congress authorising the President to do so instead of doing so itself	War	0%
That city, the distance between a senators or representatives State or congressional district and which, can make engagement with constituents very difficult	Washington DC	0%

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