Government Final
Terms
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- Factors that affect Participation and Voting
- Education! (Easily the most important), Geographical Region, Gender, Race and Ethnicity, Age, Socioeconomics and Income (more you make the more likely you are to vote - tied to education and efficacy - lower income citizens feel alienated from politics), Religion, Marriage
- Overt Discrimination
- Forms of discrimination that is applied to individuals who pay equal taxes, but are denied certain opportunities that are allowed to other individuals, based solely on social prejudices, which are not related to color and race, but are connected directly to physical disabilities and sexual preferences and these people are excluded from active employment in the local governments
- Ideological Parties
- organized around coherent sets of ideas
- Single Issue Parties
- barely distinguishable from advocacy groups; involves political campaigning or political support based on one essential policy area or idea
- Prospective Voting
- voters look carefully at both candidates and evaluate how their future will be if they vote for each person by looking at the issues and promises made by each candidate
- Direct Primary
- an election where the candidates are directly elected by the people; the people vote for their party's candidates
- Party Platform
- a party's statement of its positions on the issues of the day
- Democrats
- o Democratic National Committee sets the rules for all states; Nationally organized; every state uses a proportional system
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- banned segregation in places of public accommodations such as hotels and restaurants
- Intermediate Scrutiny
- a legal test falling between ordinary and strict scrutiny relevant to issues of gender; under this test, the Supreme Court will allow gender classifications in laws if they are substantially related to an important government objective
- Bill of Attainder
- a governmental decree that a person is guilty of a crime that carries the death penalty, rendered without benefit of a trial
- Political Parties
- an organization that tries to win control of government by electing people to office who carry the party label; Party exists as different things : part of the electorate, as an organization, in government
- Free Exercise Clause
- that portion of the 1st amendment that prohibits Congress from impeding religious observance or impinging upon religious beliefs
- Elections on Certain Day, Separate from Each Other, Fixed Terms
- they're all held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November; they all have fixed terms, every four years on the same Tuesday; UNIQUE TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY; Neither Presidents nor Governors can time elections to their political advantage; Tuesday elections may cut down on participation
- National Conventions
- a gathering of delegates who nominate a party's presidential candidate
- Lemon Test
- to establish religion every law must meet conditions: • Law must have a secular purpose. That secular purpose need not be the only or primary purpose behind the law. The Court requires merely some plausible and nonreligious reason for the law; • The primary effect of the law must be neither to advance nor to retard religion. The court will asses the probable effect of a governmental action for religious neutrality; • Government must never foster excessive entanglements between the state and religion
- Exclusionary Rule
- a standard promulgated by the Supreme Court that prevents police and prosecutors from using evidence against a defendant that was obtained in an illegal search
- Bill of Rights
- first 10 amendments to the Constitution; basic Liberties
- Median Voter
- refers to the voter at the exact middle of the political spectrum
- Grandfather Clause
- a device that allowed whites who had failed the literacy test to vote anyway by extending the franchise to anyone whose ancestors had voted prior to 1867
- Drugs (Civil Liberties)
- Police cannot use high technology thermal devices to search through the walls of a house to check for the presence of high intensity lights used for growing marijuana. Police cannot search every driver or car for traffic accident and search w/o warrant for marijuana
- De Facto Segregation
- racial separation that occurs by housing patterns or school enrollment; "matter of fact"
- Coat-Tail Effect
- the tendency for a popular political party leader such as the president to attract votes for other candidates of the same party in an election
- Plurality
- more votes than any other candidate but less than a majority of all votes cast
- Role of Political Parties
- • Keep officials Responsive (Competitive Elections), Mobilizing Support and Gathering Power, Force for Stability and Moderation, Linkage and Accountability, Recruitment into the System, Party as a Voting Cue, Policy Formulation (National Party Platform)
- Strict Scrutiny
- the assumption that actions by elected bodies or officials violate constitutional rights
- Civil Rights
- guarantees of equal treatment by government officials regarding political rights, the judicial system, and public programs
- Fighting Words
- words that express incite hatred or violence, danger or harm
- Superdelegates/Unpledged Delegates
- informal term commonly used for some of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention; superdelegates are not selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, in which voters choose among candidates for the party's presidential nomination. Instead, most of the superdelegates are seated automatically, based solely on their status as current or former party leaders and elected officials
- Prospective Voting Model
- a theory of democratic elections in which voters decide what government will do in the near future by choosing one or another responsible party
- Third Parties
- any minor party in any two-party system
- Obscenity
- as defined by the Supreme Court, the representation of sexually explicit material in a manner that violates community standards and is without redeeming social importance or value
- Winner Take All
- each electoral district in the U.S. (urban ward, county, congressional district, or state) elects only one person to a given office and does so on the basis of whoever wins the most votes (not necessarily a majority)
- Closed Primary
- voters can only vote for the party they are registered for; serves to encourage party unity and prevent members of other parties from infiltrating and voting to nominate weak candidates
- Literacy Test
- a device used by southern states to prevent African Americans from voting; Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned its use; usually involved interpretation of a section of a state's constitution
- Slander
- spoken word, usually trying to harm someone's reputation
- Miranda Warnings
- use of information obtained if some immediate threat to public safety had justified immediate questioning and postponing warnings
- Civil Liberties
- freedoms found primarily in the Bill of Rights that are protected from government interference
- Current Religion in School
- cannot have forced prayers - only moments of silence for optional prayer
- Partisan
- a committed supporter of a political party; seeing issues from the point of view of a single party
- Mandate Theory
- Idea that the winning candidate has a mandate from the people to carry out his or her platforms and politics
- Republican Party Organization
- state by state
- De Jure Segregation
- racial separation forced by specific laws
- Proportional Representation
- the awarding of legislative seats to political parties to reflect the proportion of the popular vote each party receives
- Primary Election
- statewide elections in which voters choose delegates to the national party conventions; virtually all delegates are pledge to a specific candidate for the party's nomination
- Same Day Registration
- same day registration only exists in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Idaho...can lead to higher turnout
- Low Turnout (Why?)
- barriers to voting, too much complexity, alienation, lack of voter mobiles
- Patriot Act
- • Information Sharing with CIA info to FBI, Roving Wiretaps - allows for wiretaps on all phone lines; Electronic Communication and Financial Data, Sneak and Peek Searches; Tangible Items - lowered standards for FBI to get court orders warrants etc. Bookstores not allowed to tell you you're under investigation; Foreign Student Database; Alien Registration and Interrogation
- Electoral Competition Model
- a form of election where as elections progress, parties seeking votes move toward the median voter or the center of the political spectrum
- Realignment
- the process by which one party supplants another as the dominant party in a political system
- Affirmative Action
- Programs of private and public institutions favoring minorities and women in hiring and in admission to colleges and universities in an attempt to compensate for past discrimination
- Clear and Present Danger
- no U.S. government may regulate or interfere with the content of speech without a compelling reason - for a reason to be compelling, a government must show that the speech poses a "clear and present danger"(the standard formulated in Schenck v. United States) that it has a duty to prevent• The danger must be very substantial, and the relationship between the speech and the danger must be direct, such as falsely yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater.
- Motor Voter
- National Voter Registration Act of 1993, required state governments to make the voter registration process easier by providing uniform registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration. Mandate making it easier to vote
- Participation
- political activity, including voting, campaign activity, contacting officials, and demonstrating
- Electoral Reward and Punishment Theory
- the tendency to vote for the incumbents when times are good and against them when times are bad
- Pledge of Allegiance currently
- Under god hasn't always been like that, was written in 1892 & orig didn't have any religious words; until 1952 we put god to separate us form the God-less communists & differentiate the US from the Soviets. ; Yes, "under God" violates the establishment clause
- Divided Government
- control of the executive and legislative branches by different political parties
- First Party System
- loosely organized Federalist party and Democratic-Republican party; 1796 & 1800 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams ran for president 1800 election: often called Revolution of 1800
- Systematic discrimination
- different service/treatment due to race; schools receive less funding that have more minority populations than others
- White Primary
- primary elections only open to whites
- Idiot
- Greek word that originally described someone who did not participate in politics
- Jim Crow
- popular term for the system of legal racial segregation that existed in the American South until the middle of the twentieth century
- Elections (Levels of Participation)
- • Spectator Activity - putting a bumper sticker on your car, wearing a button or t-shirt; Voting (often considered a spectator form because you're not doing anything besides putting out your vote; The Rest - attempting to get someone to vote a certain way, participation (calling talk show, giving money, becoming a candidate, achieving office - highest level)
- Revolution of 1800
- 1796 & 1800 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams ran for president 1800 election
- Splinter Parties
- form when a faction in one of the two major parties bolts to run its own candidates or candidate; a number of members of an organization, who split from the main body and form an independent group of their own
- Nationalizing
- the process by which provisions of the Bill of Rights became incorporated; Incorporation: the process by which the Supreme Court has made most of the provisions of the Bill or Rights binding on the states
- Conventional Participation
- political activity related to elections (voting, persuading, and campaigning) or to contacting public officials
- Ordinary Scrutiny
- the assumption that the actions of elected bodies and officials are legal under the Constitution
- Turnout
- the proportion of eligible voters who actually vote in a given election
- Poll Tax
- a tax to be paid as a condition of voting; used in the South to keep African Americans away from the polls
- Democratic Party Organization
- Proportional
- Republican Organization
- o State parties have more control than their Democrat counterparts; this means they have more freedom to organize their primaries and caucuses
- Unified Government
- control of the executive and legislative branches by the same political party
- Equal Protection
- part of 14th amendment; that "no state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiciton the equal protection of the laws, equal protection clause
- Probable Cause
- legal doctrine that refers to a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed
- Establishment Clause
- the part of the 1st amendment that prohibits Congress from establishing an official religion; the basis of the doctrine and separation of church and state
- Hyde Amendment
- banned use of Medicaid for abortions; states won't fund abortion
- Equal Rights Amendment (National Level and Texas)
- proposed amendment to the Constitution stating that equality of rights shall not be abridged or denied on account of a person's gender; Intermediate Scrutiny; Texas does have additional protections beyond the US Constitution (not all states do); Texas also has an ERA covering gender
- Blanket Primary
- system used for selecting political party candidates; does not matter which party one is registered with, they can vote for a republican government and a democratic senator to go to the general election - don't have to vote along party lines - less restrictive to voters than an open primary
- Pledge Delegates
- Elected or chosen on the state or local level with the understanding that they will support a particular candidate at the convention. However, pledged delegates are not actually bound to vote for the candidate. Consequently, candidates are allowed on a state-by-state basis to review the lists of delegates who have pledged their support and can delete anyone whose support they consider unreliable
- Open Primary
- election in which voters do not need to be a member of a particular political party in order to vote
- Dealignment
- a gradual reduction in the dominance of one political party without another party supplanting it
- Electoral College
- representatives of the states who formally elect the president; the number of electors in each state is equal to the total number of its senators and congressional representatives; Indirect Election, To win you need a majority 270, not a plurality
- Coalition Government
- a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament. A coalition government might also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis, for example during wartime, to give a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy it desires whilst also playing a role in diminishing internal political strife
- Unconventional Participation
- political activity in the form of demonstrations or protests
- Protest Parties
- sometimes arise as part of a social movement
- Pornography
- explicit depiction of sexual subject matter
- Due Process Clause
- the section of the 14th amendment that prohibits states from depriving anyone of life, liberty, of property "without due process of law," a guarantee against arbitrary or unfair government action
- Libel
- false written statements, usually trying to harm someone's reputation
- Open fields Doctrine
- legal doctrine created for purposes of evaluation claims of unreasonable search by government ; If you own field & put no trespassing, the police can still come search for marijuana b/c you can't expect privacy on a field. b/c marijuana grows 7 feet tall cant see ppl in there
- Single Member Districts
- one person represents a single district, like the House of Representatives, there is no incentive to leave a major party because you have to get a plurality of votes in order to be the single representative of that district - you pick up more people with the major parties who just default to one of the two major parties
- Direct Incitement Test
- Test articulated by the Supreme Court that holds the advocacy of illegal action is protected by the 1st amendment unless "imminent lawless action is intended and likely to occur" - established in Brandenburg v. Ohio
- Swing States
- state in which no candidate has overwhelming support, any candidate has a reasonable chance of winning it
- Privileges and Immunities Clause
- the portion of the Constitution that states that citizens from out of state have the same legal rights as local citizens in any state
- Retrospective Voting
- a form of election in which voters look back at the performance of a party in power and cast ballots on the basis of how well it did in office
- Selective Incorporation
- the gradual and piecemeal incorporation of the protections of the Bill of Rights by the U.S. Supreme Court
- Remonstrance
- The act of expressing strong or reasoned opposition; Specific to Texas, no national equivalent
- Suspect Classification
- the invidious, arbitrary, or irrational designation of a group for special treatment by government
- New Deal Coalition
- the informal electoral alliance of working-class ethnic groups, Catholics, Jews, urban dwellers, racial minorities, and the South that was the basis of the Democratic party dominance of American politics from the New Deal to the early 1970s