American Government CLEP Exam Questions With 100% Correct Answers

American Government CLEP Exam Questions With 100% Correct Answers The president's constitutional power of ____ allows him/her to reject acts of Congress. - answerVeto. To balance the ability of the legislature to pass laws unilaterally, the president is given this right as part of the system of checks and balances. Congress can ________ a veto with a 2/3 vote of each house. - answerOverride. Part of the system of checks and balances, this power ensures that, given enough votes, even the President cannot unilaterally reject acts of congress. A filibuster can occur only in the ______. - answerSenate. Because of its more flexible rules, a filibuster is possible only in the Senate. A filibuster is a tactic used to delay legislation. The presiding officer of the House of Representatives is the _______. - answerSpeaker. The Speaker is the House presiding officer. Because he is elected by the full House, he is normally a member of the majority party. The House Rules Committee decides the _____ in which House bills come up for vote. - answerOrder. The House Rules Committee sets rules that may help or hinder a piece of legislation, including rules on when a vote should occur, the length of debate on a bill, and whether there can be amendments to the bill. Caucuses are informed groups of Senators or Representatives who _____ opinions, interests, or backgrounds. - answerShare. Caucuses are also known as Legislative Service Organizations. Caucuses are groups of Senators of Representatives who try to advance particular agendas through their association. The president can veto a bill by employing a technique known as a pocket veto, where the president takes __ action with regard to the bill when the Congress has adjourned during the 10-day period after a bill has been sent to the President to be signed. - answerNo. A pocket veto enables the president to refuse to sign a bill into law without the political ramifications of an explicit veto. The pocket veto cannot be overridden by Congress since the bill effectively "expires" due to lack of Presidential action and Congressional presence. The House of Representatives consists of how many members total? ___ - answer435. The House consists of 435 representatives. At one time, the number was based on population, but the number was fixed at 435 by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. Note that the number of representatives each state has is still determined by population, but the total number has been fixed at 435. As population shifts, those 435 seats are redistributed among the states. No matter how small the state, it gets a minimum of 1 seat; for example, Alaska and Delaware have 1 Representative each, as opposed to California, which had 52 as of the year 2000. The costs associated with social _______ programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (welfare), Social Security, and Medicare are known as entitlements. - answerWelfare. The costs associated with such welfare programs are known as entitlements. They make up more than fifty percent of the national budget. If a president is impeached by the House, the charges against him are called the ________ of impeachment. - answerArticles. In an impeachment, the Senate acts as a court and tries the president for the offenses he is accused of. Every ten years, after a national ______, each state makes adjustments to the congressional districts to reflect the changes in population. This process is known as reapportionment. - answerCensus. This process is known as reapportionment. State legislatures draw the new congressional district lines. Two views of a president's role in policymaking are _______________ and congressionalist. One view implies that the president takes an active role in policymaking, while the other implies that the legislature should dominate policymaking. - answerPresidentialist. Democrats since FDR have traditionally taken the presidentialist view, while Republicans have take the congressionalist view. A filibuster is a ________ tactic used in the Senate where a senator will spend hours giving a speech on a bill with the purpose of delaying or killing it. - answerDelaying. This is known as a filibuster. A filibuster can be broken up by a cloture, which requires the vote of sixty senators. The fact that American public policy is largely determined by __________ between competing groups reflects the pluralist theory of American politics. - answerCompromise. Various political groups and parties strive to pass their own agendas into law. In that process, these groups must often reach compromises in order to pass legislation that, at least partially, achieves their goals. The ________ of the legislative branch of the US government is an example of bicameralism. - answerDivision. Borne out of the argument between more-and less-populous states over legislative influence, this resulted in the bicameralism, or division into two houses, of the legislature. Presidents sometimes try to avoid the Congressional "advise and consent" requirement with regard to treaties and trade agreements by entering into an executive agreement with _______ governments. - answerForeign. An executive agreement allows the president to make secret agreements without Senate approval. While many presidents have generated notoriety by brokering treaties with foreign countries, the power to ratify foreign treaties lies with the ______. - answerSenate. Article II section 2 of the Constitution gives this power solely to the Senate. Unfunded mandates are ____ passed by the federal government for the states to follow--i.e. environmental standards, but does not provide additional funding at the same time. - answerLaws. These are known as unfunded mandates, and have caused a lot of controversy, because many of these mandates cost additional money for the states to follow, but the federal government does not provide this additional money. In the US v. Nixon, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled against president Nixon, stating that executive privilege did not allow him to refuse to comply with a _____ order to produce material for a criminal trial. - answerCourt. Nixon sought to not turn over taped conversations that revealed White House knowledge of the Watergate break-in by invoking executive privilege. The __________ Act passed in 1973, limits a president's authority to send troops to hostile areas without Congressional approval. - answerWar Powers. Driven by the US's involvement in two bloody "police actions" in Korea and Vietnam, the War Powers Act was largely designed to curtail such actions in the future. The stewardship theory of presidential power holds that the president has the power and duty to do whatever is necessary in the national interest, unless prohibited by the ____________. - answerConstitution. The stewardship theory is used by those who wish to expand presidential power. FDR is a prime example of a president who subscribed to this view of the presidency. The _______ theory of presidential power states that the president's power is limited to those powers specifically enumerated by the Constitution. - answerTaftian. Most presidents prior to FDR subscribed to this theory. The ________________ of the President, established by FDR in 1939, helps the president oversee the federal bureaucracy. - answerExecutive Office. The EOP is made up of several advisers and offices that help the president oversee areas of the government. The Executive Office of the President consists of four agencies--the Office of Management and Budget prepares the federal budget and evaluates how federal funds are being spent by various federal agencies. Jefferson invoked the concept of ________ powers to justify the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. - answerInherent. Inherent powers are powers that can be inferred from specific powers granted by the Constitution. For over a century, presidents have sought the power of the line item veto, a significant change in the power of the _______ veto. - answerGeneral. Many states grant their governors the