CLEP American Government cheat sheet

House: 435 members (capped by the Reapportionment Act of 1929), two-year terms, apportioned by population; Senate: 100 members, six-year staggered terms, with one-third elected every two years.

A bill becomes law with majority votes in both chambers plus presidential signature; a veto is overridden by two-thirds of each chamber.

Senate cloture requires 60 votes (Rule XXII); House floor debate is governed by the Rules Committee, Senate debate by unanimous consent agreements.

Presidential powers: commander in chief, veto, pardon, treaties with two-thirds Senate consent, and appointments with Senate majority confirmation.

The Twenty-second Amendment limits a president to two elected terms; impeachment requires a House majority and conviction by two-thirds of the Senate.

Federal courts rest on Article III, with lifetime tenure during good behavior; Marbury v. Madison (1803) established judicial review of legislative and executive acts.

The bureaucracy includes 15 cabinet departments plus independent agencies and regulatory commissions; rulemaking typically follows the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment process.

Congressional oversight tools include committee hearings and investigations, GAO and CBO reports, the appropriations power, and Senate confirmation of nominees.

Barron v. Baltimore (1833) held the Bill of Rights binding only on the federal government; most protections now apply to states through selective incorporation under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

Establishment Clause standard (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971): secular purpose, a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and no excessive entanglement.

Free exercise: burdens on religious practice require a compelling interest (Sherbert, Yoder), but neutral laws of general applicability are upheld under Employment Division v. Smith.

Speech: content-based restrictions receive strict scrutiny; unprotected categories include obscenity, incitement to imminent lawless action (Brandenburg), true threats, fighting words, and libel.

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969): student symbolic speech is protected absent material and substantial disruption.

Fourth Amendment: searches need probable cause and usually a warrant; the exclusionary rule was applied to the states in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).

Sixth Amendment guarantees counsel in felony cases (Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963); Miranda v. Arizona requires warnings before custodial interrogation.

Fourteenth Amendment equal protection tiers: strict scrutiny for race and fundamental rights, intermediate scrutiny for sex (Craig v. Boren), rational basis for ordinary economic classifications.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) overturned Plessy's separate-but-equal doctrine; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 supplied enforcement tools.

Duverger's law: single-member plurality districts push toward a two-party system, while proportional representation tends to produce multiparty systems.

Party functions: recruiting candidates, mobilizing voters, aggregating interests, organizing government, and supplying a low-cost voting cue through party identification.

Realigning elections: 1860 (Republican dominance), 1932 (New Deal Democratic coalition), and the mid-1960s realignment that moved the South toward the Republicans.

Olson's logic: large groups face free-rider problems, so leaders offer selective incentives-material, solidary, or purposive-to recruit and hold members.

Lobbying tactics include direct lobbying, grassroots mobilization, litigation and amicus briefs, electioneering, and issue advertising.

PACs may give $5,000 per candidate per election; Super PACs may spend unlimited sums on independent expenditures after Citizens United (2010) but may not coordinate with candidates.

Iron triangles link an interest group, a congressional subcommittee, and a bureaucratic agency; issue networks are looser, broader, and more fluid.

Pluralist theory sees group competition as protecting liberty, elite theory holds that a few powerful organizations dominate, and hyperpluralism argues that too many competing groups produce gridlock.

Political socialization: the family is the strongest early influence on party identification, with schools, peers, media, and religion reinforcing or modifying it over time.

Ideology: liberals favor government action for economic equality and social tolerance; conservatives favor markets, order, and tradition; libertarians and populists occupy different combinations of these dimensions.

Poll accuracy depends on random sampling; roughly 1,000 respondents yield a margin of error near plus or minus three points, and larger samples reduce error only slowly.

Turnout runs about 55–60 percent of the voting-age population in presidential years and near 40 percent in midterms; it rises with age, income, and education.

The Motor Voter Act of 1993 requires states to offer voter registration at driver's license and public assistance offices.

Vote choice: party identification is the strongest single predictor; retrospective voting judges incumbents on past outcomes; prospective voting weighs future promises and candidate image.

The gender gap describes women's greater Democratic lean and higher turnout relative to men in recent presidential elections.

Internal efficacy concerns one's own ability to understand politics; external efficacy concerns government's responsiveness; low efficacy correlates with lower participation.

The Articles of Confederation lacked power to tax or regulate interstate commerce, had no separate executive or judiciary, and required unanimous state consent for amendments.

The Virginia Plan proposed representation by population, the New Jersey Plan proposed equal state representation, and the Connecticut (Great) Compromise produced a bicameral Congress combining both.

The Three-Fifths Compromise counted three-fifths of enslaved people for apportionment and direct taxation.

Enumerated powers appear in Article I, Section 8; implied powers flow from the necessary and proper clause; reserved powers are retained by the states under the Tenth Amendment.

Federalist No. 10 addresses faction control in a large republic; No. 51 defends separation of powers and checks and balances; Anti-Federalist essays such as Brutus warned of centralized power.

Amendment requires proposal by two-thirds of both chambers or a national convention, then ratification by three-fourths of the states; there are 27 amendments.

Article VII required ratification by nine state conventions, not unanimous state legislatures.

Federalism stages: dual federalism (layer cake), cooperative federalism (marble cake), fiscal federalism through categorical and block grants, and devolution since the 1990s.