POLS 207 Exam 2 - Jason Smith Exam 2 Review PDF

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Jason Smith
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POLS 207 Exam 2

1. How do most people participate in the political system? ➢ Voting ➢ Giving money ➢ Attending rallies ➢ Running for office ➢ Writing letters or emails ➢ Discussing issues with friends ➢ Participating in marches or demonstrations 2. What is a rational voter? ➢ One who votes only after deciding the personal benefits outweigh the costs ➢ A voter who maximizes personal benefits and minimizes cost ➢ Rational voters think the time and energy spent registering, getting informed, and voting is worth having the preferred candidate win 3. Know who votes and who does not ➢ Voters: old, white, high education, members of swing states, women, minorities ➢ Nonvoters: young, poor, unemployed, less educated, newcomer, independent ➢ High education, high income, 65 and over: yes, votes ➢ Poor, uneducated, 18-24: no, doesn’t vote ➢ Media predicting winners early explanation discourages later voters 4. Why do some states have higher voter turnout? ➢ Swing (“battleground”) states have higher turnout ○ Their vote “counts” more ➢ Depends on states’ political culture ➢ Depends on easiness of voter registration ○ Same day registration vs 15-30 days in advance ○ Online, mail, ID, location, race, political ideology ➢ Highest turnout during presidential elections ➢ Voter turnout is highest in northern states (moralistic) 5. How could voter turnout be increased? ➢ Secure larger venues ➢ Allowing online voting ➢ Making registering easier ➢ Change registration period ○ Easier it is to register, more likely you are to vote ○ Ex: motor voter laws (registering when getting DL) ➢ Secure convenient locations ➢ Shorter and better designed ballots

➢ More voting machines (lines will be shorter) ➢ Encouraging people to get interested in politics ➢ Hiring interested, engaged, and efficient poll workers

6. Who or what determines voter qualifications? ➢ States determine voter requirements ○ They decide who can vote (as long as it’s constitutional) ○ Generally includes voter eligibility, verification (ID’s), voting locations and ease of voting, online Internet registration, ballot requests & voting ○ National Voter Registration Act: states can make own laws, but federal government can overrule any of them 7. Know the amendments to the U.S. Constitution that concern voting ➢ 15th Amendment: banned racial discrimination in voting ➢ 17th Amendment: two senators from each state elected by the people- 6 years ➢ 19th Amendment: banned gender discrimination in voting- women’s suffrage ➢ 24th Amendment: banned poll taxes (originally prevented African Americans) ➢ 26th Amendment: voting age of 18 established 8. Know the responsible party model ➢ Party system in which each party offers clear policy alternatives and holds their elected officials responsible for enacting these policies (UK) ○ 1. Develop and clarify alternative policy positions for the voters ○ 2. Educate the people about the issues and simplify choices for them ○ 3. Recruit candidates for public office who agree w the parties’ positions ○ 4. Organize and direct their candidates’ campaigns to win office ○ 5. Hold their elected officials responsible for enacting their parties’ policy positions after they are elected ○ 6. Organize legislatures to ensure party control of policymaking ➢ Responsible parties clarify alternatives, simplify choices, recruit candidates, and hold officials responsible to try to control policy; strict adhere to party ➢ Problems with the model: ○ Parties generally do not offer voters clear policy alternatives ○ Voter decisions are not motivated primarily by policy considerations ○ American political parties have no way to bind their elected officials to party positions or even to their campaign pledges 9. Know the different types of primaries ➢ Open primary: voters are not required to officially affiliate themselves with a certain political party; allows voting in either, but not both parties ○ All you have to be is registered to vote- not with a specific party ○ Register to vote in general and cast ballot in either direction ➢ Closed primary: voters must declare their party affiliation in order to vote ○ Can only cast a ballot in that party’s primary

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Can’t vote for Democrat if you’re registered as Republican Texas primary elections are technically closed, but operates as an open primary because you declare a party only moments before voting Semi-closed primary: allows voters to change party registration on Election Day Runoff primary: a second election is held and the candidate with the highest score is the one that runs for an office in the first primary ○ Occurs if one candidate doesn’t get a majority, the top two candidates run again and there’s another vote; additional primary Blanket primary: open primary in which candidates from both parties appear on the same ballot; voters could vote for both parties (unconstitutional) Presidential primary: voters may vote in general election or a secret ballot ○ The Democrats in the US as a whole look different than those in Texas; Republicans in New York are more liberal than those in Texas Majority primary: a candidate must receive the majority (50% + 1 vote) of the votes to be elected

10. Know the different types of elections (i.e., general, primary, initiative, recall, etc.) ➢ Primary election: preliminary election used to determine which candidate will represent a political party during the general election ➢ General election: you don’t have to win the popular vote to win; nationwide ○ Winner takes all; plurality- more votes than the other candidate wins ○ Occurs in November, on first Tuesday following the first Monday ○ Used to determine the US president and other political officials ○ Elections in which “voters elect officeholders” ➢ Special election: elections in which voters decide on ballot initiatives ○ Vote on statewide constitutional changes or new constitutions ○ Elect a senator/representative to replace one who has died or resigned ➢ Recall election: procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended ➢ Initiative election: a process that enables citizens to bypass their state legislature by placing proposed statutes and, in some states, constitutional amendments on the ballot ➢ Referendum: a general vote by the electorate on a single political question that has been referred to them for a direct decision ○ Allows citizens to approve/disapprove proposals passed by state 11. What do the national party committees do? ➢ Help raise funds ➢ Run presidential election ➢ Assist state/local political organizations (calendar & campaign) ➢ Hold a national convention to formally select a party’s presidential candidate ➢ Spend money on political campaigns (endorsements, primaries, caucuses) 12. When is negative campaigning successful?

➢ Negative campaigning: soliciting voter support by attacking one’s opponent ➢ When negative ads focus on political issues rather than personal qualities ○ Less personal and more on the issue (no personal attacks) ➢ When voters have come to dislike one candidate due to TV ads/internet videos ➢ Political beginners are more influenced by negative ads than older counterparts ➢ When you can change the perception of a rival candidate & they jump on board ○ Weaknesses in opponents are defined and dramatized ➢ When used by challengers rather than incumbents ➢ When the attacker is less known or underspending ➢ When released through media, not TV

13. Know the following Supreme Court cases: a. Baker v. Carr ➢ Case involved the complaint of urban residents in Tennessee where the largest district in the lower house was 23x larger than smallest district ➢ Gives federal courts the authority to intervene in redistricting cases ○ Supreme Court decided that such inequalities in state apportionment denied voters “equal protection of the laws” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment; no mathematical standard ○ One man’s vote should be equal to another’s; one man one vote ➢ Stated that you had to take into account geographic proximity ➢ Districts had to be drawn in a meticulous (accurate) manner ➢ Districts were forced to have equal populations- roughly equal ➢ Districts (gerrymandering lines) have to be contiguous ➢ The power went from rural to urban districts b. Reynolds v Sims ➢ US Supreme Court case that ruled that in the election of any chamber of a state legislature, unlike in the election of the US Senate, the electoral district must be roughly equal in population; deals with representation ➢ Each district must have the same number of people per district ○ “one, person one vote” 14. Know the functions of legislatures ➢ Making (enacting) laws ○ Introduce bills, pass laws ○ Not implementing them-- judicial branch’s job ○ Collectively consider 101,000 per session ➢ Considering constitutional amendments ○ Pass about 19,000 considering constitutional amendments, gubernatorial appointments, and state courts ➢ Pass bills and resolutions ➢ Serving constituents ○ Requires great deal of legislators’ time ➢ Approving budgets

○ May be single and most important function ○ Appropriation: allocation of money to certain areas/policies ➢ Overseeing state agencies ○ Frequently need to challenge state administrators ○ Legislative oversight: the monitoring of activities of state agencies by the legislature and its committees ➢ Has directive and supervisory powers over the executive branch ○ Oversight function: ability to call members of the administration/executive to legislature in order to question the implementation of a policy or the wrongdoings of the executive branch ■ Frequently challenge state administrations to explain why they are doing what they do ■ Committee hearings and budget hearings provide opportunities for legislators to put administrators “through the wringer” about programs and expenditures

15. Why do incumbents win? ➢ Visibility: campaigning for re-election; name recognition ○ The people already know who they are voting for ➢ Resources of office: staffs, offices, expense accounts, travel budgets ○ In Texas, travel costs a lot (but not as much as advertising) ○ They can use expense accounts to advertise ➢ Money: a lot of interest group contributions go to incumbents ○ Attract more campaign contributors than challengers ○ Beto O’Rourke campaign breaking records ➢ Professionalism & careerism: professionalism in state leg encourage careerism ○ High pay makes them devote all their time to politics ○ Most states have professionalism, but Texas doesn’t ○ Average term right now is 3 terms in Texas ➢ Potential challengers are discouraged by the record of success ○ 90% win when seeking re-election ○ Have past political action to point at; credibility 16. What is apportionment? ➢ The process by which seats in a legislative body are divided among the individual districts based on population ➢ Determination of how many residents should live in a representative’s district; must be equal (“one person, one vote”) ➢ Dividing up seats in Congress for states on the basis of population 17. What is gerrymandering? ❖ Drawing of district lines for partisan/incumbent political advantage ❖ It gives candidates from certain parties, candidates, or groups advantages ❖ It is perfectly legal as long as the districts match up so that there is not an unfair

advantage; has a negative connotation but most states do it ➢ Really only a problem when there is malapportionment ➢ Harder to prove racial gerrymandering ❖ Grassroot gerrymandering: drawing of electoral district boundary lines to grant political power to a particular party, therefore increasing the number of winning candidates within that party ❖ Affirmative racial gerrymandering: drawing legislative lines in order to maximize opportunities for minority candidates to win

18. Know the different types of legislative sessions ❖ Legislative sessions: legislature (congress) is called together for lawmaking ❖ Annual: legislative sessions that take place every year (majority of states) ➢ Meets for 140 days, where they discuss and pass legislation ❖ Biennial: legislative sessions that take place every two years ➢ Texas meets on odd years ➢ 140 days every 2 years ❖ Special: after 140 days, governor can call for special session to pass legislation ➢ May be called by government/legislative leaders for important reasons ➢ Called to consider special topics (budget, lawsuit, reapportionment) 19. What do committees do? ➢ Listen to lobbyists ➢ Major bill analysis ➢ Hold public hearings ➢ Hold early hearings of a bill ➢ Oversee implementation of laws ➢ Send bill to the floor ➢ Recommend bill favorably, ignore it, or fail to schedule hearings ➢ Consider all bills in their particular area ➢ Re-write, draft, revise (committee markup) of bills given to specific committees ➢ Draft legislation ➢ Review bills ➢ Reduce legislative work by division of labor ➢ Most chambers have 20-30 standing committees ○ Standing committee: regular committees of a legislature that deal with bills within specified subject areas ○ Appropriations, highways, welfare, labor, local government 20. Who determines the membership of legislative committees? ❖ Speaker of the House and President of the Senate (possibly Vice President and/or leadership of the legislator) ➢ Choose who’s on the committees ➢ Representation of the larger body ❖ Typically based on…

➢ Occupation: groups with flexible work responsibility or retired positions; lawyers, business owners, physicians, etc. ➢ Education: most are college educated ➢ Age: average is 56 years old ➢ Personal wealth: recruited from affluent families ➢ Lawyers: trained to deal with public policy ➢ Amateurs: most state legislatures are part-time bodies ➢ State legislatures are typically selected from the upper-middle class ❖ Standing committees are elected by members of the House ❖ Select committees appointed by the Speaker of the House ❖ Joint committees whose members are chosen according to the statute or resolution that created that committee

21. What is pigeonholing? ❖ When a bill is introduced in a committee and nothing happens to it, it dies ➢ Bill is ignored ➢ Never reported outside committee ➢ It never makes it out of the committee ➢ It is put aside for further consideration ➢ Chairs are never able to schedule hearing of the bill ➢ Usually on the command of the leadership of the chamber 22. Know the requirements for election to the Texas State Legislature ❖ 21 years of age ❖ Citizen of Texas for 2 years prior to election ❖ Resident of the district they were elected to one year prior to the election ❖ They are elected for 2 year terms; run for re-election in even-numbered years 23. How is legislative leadership chosen? ❖ By the members of their party in the Senate at the beginning of each Congress ❖ Committee assignments in most assignments are made by the leadership ❖ Occupational background frequently determines a legislator’s initial committee assignment ❖ The lieutenant governor is elected statewide separately from the governor ➢ Presides over the Senate ❖ The Speaker of the House is elected from the body by its members 24. How long is the legislative session in Texas? ❖ Biennial session: 140 days every 2 years...