| Question | Answer |
| What is an earmark? | It is an amount of money granted by a senator to any given location and hidden in a bill. It invites corruption. |
| What is 17th Amendment and why did it gain wide public support? | The 17th Amendment held that senators were to be elected by the voters in each state at the regular November elections. It's popular because ppl get to vote for their senators. |
| How do the different terms of office for the House and Senate allow each house of Congress to make a unique contribution to national decision-making? | The Senate is a continuous body, so there is no year in which being reelected affects their decision making to an extent. |
| Why do most senators receive more public attention than their colleagues in the House? | They are presidential candidates, they fin it easier to establish themselves as the champions of public policies that appeal to large segments of the American people, they are more likely to be covered by the media in their states, and they tend to have more clout in their Sate's politics than that enjoyed by members of the House of Reps. |
| How does a Senator's constituency differ from that of a typical member of the House? | Senators are supposed to be less concerned with the interests of some particular small locality and more focused on the "big picture" of national concerns. |
| What was the verdict of Wesberry v. Sanders and how did it change the makeup of the House? | The Supreme Court held that the Constitution demands that the States draw congressional districts of substantially equal populations. As a result, the nation's cities and suburbs now speak with a much louder voice in Congress than they did before that decision. |
| Why do politicians gerrymander districts? | To concentrate the opposition's voters in one or a few districts, thus leaving the other districts comfortably safe for the dominant party, or to spread the opposition as thinly as possible among several districts, limiting the opposition's ability to win anywhere in the region. |
| How do elections in a single-member district differ from elections in States that filled their seats at large? | In a single-member district voters elect representatives from each district, and in an at-large election voters elect members from each state as a whole. |
| What does it mean to apportion, and how is this done with the seats in the House of Reps? | The seats are distributed to each state every ten years, after each census based on population. |
| What qualifications must members of the House meet? | Each member must be at least 25 years old, have been a citizen of the U.S. for at least 7 years, be an inhabitant of the State from which he or she is elected, live in the district he or she represents, and have vote-getting abilities. |
| How are seats in the House distributed? | Members are elected in the off-year elections, in some states on a single-member district basis, and in others at large. |
| What is the difference btwn a term and a session of Congress? | A term of Congress lasts for two years, and each of those two-year terms is numbered consecutively, while a session is that period of time during which, each year, Congress assembles and conducts business. |
| What is a bicameral legislature, and what is the purpose of having it? | It is a legislature made up of two houses in order to separate the powers and check and balance one another. |
13 cards - created jul 22, 11:21am