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Government Exam 2
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is partisan polarization? | the degree to which Republicans have become more conservative and Democrats have become more liberal |
| What is political socialization? | the introduction of individuals into the political culture; learning the underlying beliefs and values on which the political system is based |
| What is a precinct? | the most basic level of political organization at the local level |
| What is a precinct chair? | the local party official, elected in the party's primary election, who heads the precinct convention and serves on the party's county executive committee |
| What is the county executive committee? | the party group, made up of a party's county chair and precinct chairs, that is responsible for running a county's primary elections and planning county conventions |
| What is the county chair? | the county party official who heads the county executive committee |
| What is the state executive committee? | the committee responsible for governing a party's activities throughout the state |
| What is the state chair and vice chair? | the top two state-level leaders in the party |
| What is the precinct convention? | a meeting held by a political party to select delegates for the county convention and to submit resolutions to the party's state platform |
| What is the county convention? | a meeting held by a political party following its precinct conventions, for the purpose of electing delegates to its state convention |
| What is a state convention? | a party meeting held every two years for the purpose of nominating candidates for statewide office, adopting a platform, electing the party's leadership |
| What are Dixiecrats? | conservative Democrats who abandoned the national Democratic Party in the1948 presidential election |
| What is La Raza Unida? | political party formed in Texas in order to bring attention to the concerns of Mexican Americans |
| What is "first past the post"? | an election rule that states that the winner is the candidate who receives a plurality of the votes |
| What is a single-member district? | an electorate that is allowed to elect only one representative for each district |
| What is Duverger's Law? | the observation that in a single-member district system of electing representatives, a two-party system will emerge |
| What is proportional representation? | a multimember district system that allows each political party representation in proportion to its percentage of the total vote |
| What was the Tea Party movement? | created after Barack Obama's election, a political movement that advocates lower government spending, lower taxes, and limited government |
| What was the Shivercrat movement? | a movement led by the Texas governor Allan Shivers during the 1950s in which conservative Democrats in Texas supported Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower for the presidency... |
| What is presidential Republicanism? | a voting pattern in which conservatives vote Democratic for state offices but Republican for presidential candidates |
| What are Blue Dog Democrats? | another name for conservative Democrats, mostly from the South |
| What are interest groups? | an organization established to influence the government's programs and policies |
| What is the free rider problem? | the incentive to benefit from others' work without making a contribution, which leads individuals in a collective action situation to refuse to work together |
| What is bundling? | the interest-group practice of combining campaign contributions from several sources into one larger contribution from the group, so as to increase the group's impact on the candidate |
| What is a lobbyist? | an individual employed by an interest group who tries to influence governmental decisions on behalf of that group |
| What is the political action committee (PAC)? | a private group that raises and distributes funds for use in election campaigns |
| What is issue advocacy? | independent spending by individuals or interest groups on a campaign issue but not directly tied to a particular candidate |
| What is dark money? | political money where the donors of the money do not have to be disclosed |
| What is the interest-group capture? | government agency that serves the objectives of the interests that the agency is supposed to regulate |
| What is a primary election? | a ballot vote in which citizens select a party's nominee for the general election |
| What is a runoff primary? | a second primary election held between the two candidates who received the most votes in the first primary election if no candidate in the first primary election had received a majority |
| What is a open primary? | a primary election in which any registered voter can participate in the contest, regardless of party affiliation |
| What is a closed primary? | a primary election in which only registered members of a particular political party can vote |
| What is a general election? | the election in which voters cast ballots to select public officials |
| What is a special election? | an election that is not held on a regularly scheduled basis |
| What is the nineteenth amendment? | ratified in 1919, amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote |
| What is suffrage? | the right to vote |
| What is a poll tax? | a state-imposed tax on voters as a prerequisite for voting |
| What is early registration? | the requirement that a voter register long before the general election; in effect in Texas until 1971 |
| What is a white primary? | primary election in which only white voters are eligible to participate |
| What was the Jaybird Party? | after the white primary was ruled unconstitutional, this offshoot Democratic party preselected candidates for the Democratic primary and prohibited African Americans from participating |
| What was the Voting Rights Act of 1965? | important legislation passed in order to ensure that African Americans would be guaranteed the right to vote. Renewed several times since 1965, the act also prevents the dilution of minority voting strength |
| What is the motor voter law? | a national act, passed in 1993, that requires states to allow people to register to vote when applying for a driver's license |
| What is early voting? | a procedure that allows voters to cast ballots during the two-week period before the regularly scheduled election date |
| What is reapportionment? | process that takes place every 10 years to determine how many congressional seats each state will receive, depending on population shifts |
| What is redistricting? | the process of redrawing election districts and redistributing legislative representatives in the Texas House, Texas Senate, and U.S. House |
| What is preclearance? | provision under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requiring any changes to election procedures or district lines to be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia |
| What is a political party? | an organization of people established to win elections and the people who identify with—and vote for—that party's candidates |
| What is a party platform? | a statement of principles and political philosophy that a political party promises to enact if elected to office |
| What does the party platform assists voters in? | It assists voters in making election decisions, especially in a state like Texas which has many elected offices. |
| What are other things that parties can engage in? | fund-raising, recruiting candidates for office, and get-out-the-vote drives |
| What does party polarization lead to? | less compromising and greater dominance for the party in power |
| How are Texans introduced to the political culture? | by learning the underlying beliefs and values on which the political system is based, a process called political socialization |
| Texas voters increasingly identify as independent; however... | most still lean toward Democratic or Republican affiliation. |
| What political party currently holds all major statewide offices in the executive and judicial branches and a firm majority in the legislative branch? | Texas Republicans |
| Because of the dominance of the Republican Party in Texas, there is major competition for statewide office between... | conservatives and moderates in the Republican primaries. |
| The Texas Democrats have been the minority in the state since the early 2000s, and is dominated by | African Americans, Latinos, and white liberals in urban areas. |
| While the Democrats do not have much influence representing Texas at the state or national levels, the party does have influence... | in many localities, including major urban centers such as Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. |
| The operations of the party organization are carried out by... | chairs and executive committees at the precinct, county, and state levels. |
| What party emerged as an alternative to the Dixiecrats and La Raza Unida Party, running on a platform of limited government? | the Libertarian Party |
| What party has had little influence in elections but are successful in encouraging the two major parties to adopt positions they promote? | the Libertarian Party |
| Texas Democrats dominated Texas politics for over a century after the defeat of.... | Edmund J. Davis in 1873. They formed an umbrella party that catered to both liberals and conservatives. |
| After a split between these two factions (liberals and conservatives) over New Deal economic policies and civil rights measures started in the mid-1940s, when did the split culminate? | The split culminated in the 1950s when Governor Allan Shivers led a charge of conservative Democrats to support Republican presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower. This was known as the Shivercrat movement. |
| What did Governor Shivers believe? | Governor Shivers believed the national Democratic Party had become too liberal. |
| By the time President Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980... | the Democratic Party was shrinking in Texas. |
| Voters identifying as Republican grew through... | the late twentieth century, and today, 37% of Texans identify as Democratic and 43% identify as Republican. |
| The trend in voting has been that all statewide offices have gone to Republicans since 1999 and Republicans have had the majority in the state legislature since what year? | 2002 |
| What type of democrats had all but disappeared as of 2012 through retirement, switching parties, or losing re-election? | The Blue Dog Democrats, conservative Democrats from the South. |
| Today's Republican Party faces a split between members of... | the religious right, who are concerned with social issues, and economic conservatives, who are concerned with reducing government spending. |
| The growth of suburban areas around major cities has changed... | the urban-rural divide between the political parties. |
| "White flight" out of major urban areas to suburban enclaves left many urban areas with... | smaller tax bases and poorer minority populations. As a result, cities have become more Democratic, rural areas remain conservative, and suburban areas are a hybrid with a Republican majority. |
| As with African Americans nationwide, the vast majority of African Americans in Texas cast their votes for... | Democrats |
| Making up about ____ of the Texas population, African Americans vote at a higher rate than other ethnic groups. | 12% |
| Who has the most influence in major cities and East Texas? | African Americans |
| Latinos in Texas have a significantly lower voter turnout rate than other ethnic groups at just... | 16.2% in 2014 and 28.0% in 2016. |
| While Latinos make up nearly 40% of Texas's population, nearly 2 million are not... | citizens and many more are not yet of voting age. |
| What are the resources and strategies of interest groups? | Interest groups have members who vote, the ability to raise money to support or oppose an issue, and information about their membership and the problems that concern their membership. |
| How do policy makers benefit from developing relationships with interest groups? | By gaining information about issues of concern to groups and voters, as well as campaign funds. |
| What do interest groups usually maintain to gain access to policy makers and communicate their objectives? | lobbyists |
| Lobbyists work for both... | public and private interest groups. |
| Many lobbyists are former legislators themselves, a practice known as the... | "revolving door." |
| Interest groups often make contributions to lawmakers through... | political action committees (PACs). |
| While the intent was for Texas voters to have popular control of government... | special interests and big money have gained considerable influence. |
| Newberry v. United States (1921)? | upheld the white primary as having "in no real sense part of the manner of holding the [general] election." This was subsequently struck down in 1927. |
| Nixon v. Condon (1932)? | The state legislature authorized, by law, state executive committees to determine qualifications for voting in their primaries. The Supreme Court struck this down, holding that state executive committees were in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. |
| Grovey v. Townsend (1935)? | The Texas Democratic Party convention passed a resolution confining party membership to white citizens. The Supreme Court upheld this on the grounds that the equal protection clause only covered "state action." |
| Smith v. Allwright(1944)? | The Supreme Court ruled the operation of primary elections involved state activity and that white primaries involved unconstitutional state action. |
| Terry v. Adams (1953)? | The Supreme Court struck down use of the Jaybird Party (an offshoot Democratic party), which preselected candidates for the Democratic primary in some counties, prohibiting African Americans from participating. |
| What two groups brought about litigation in federal courts to challenge laws that restricted or disenfranchised African Americans and Latinos in Texas? | The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) |
| What is Straight-Ticket Voting? | The practice of voters pressing one button in the voting booth to register their vote for all candidates in one political party. A new law signed by Governor Abbott eliminates straight-ticket voting starting with the 2020 elections. |
| What partisan legislation was passed in 2011? | a photo identification in order to vote |
| What are the qualifications to vote today? | -An individual must be 18 years of age, a U.S. citizen, and a resident of both Texas and the county for at least 30 days. -Can't if you're a felon who has not completed the full sentence. |
| What are the qualifications to vote today? *continued* | -The national motor voter law, passed in 1993, requires states to allow people to register to vote when applying for a driver's license. |
| What is straight-ticket voting? | -The practice of voters pressing one button in the voting booth to register their vote for all candidates in one political party. A new law signed by Governor Abbott eliminates straight-ticket voting starting with the 2020 elections. |
| How often does redistricting usually happen? | Every 10 years to reflect shifts in population or in response to legal challenges to existing districts. |
| Why does the Republican majority in the Texas legislature use redistricting? | to retain power by drawing districts friendly to the Republican Party. |
| Where does Texas rank in the nation in voter participation? | Texas ranks last in the nation in voter participation, despite efforts to increase voter registration and implementation of early voting. |
| Among Texans, low levels of education and high levels of poverty are strong predictors of what? | low voter participation |
| Anyone can run for office in Texas; however.. | political experience is helpful for higher offices, as is incumbency. |
| The cost of running a campaign is expensive. For this reason... | candidates continually raise money throughout the campaign process. |
| Candidates for federal office are limited by __________, while candidates for state office are subject to ________________. | strict federal campaign finance laws; the laws established in 1991 by the Texas Ethics Commission |
| State legislators and other statewide officials are subject to limited campaign regulations (limits are imposed only on judicial candidates),.... | which allows interest groups to have great influence in Texas politics. |
Created by:
JefferyCWilliams