Final Exam Review Week of May 4—May 10, 2026

Final Exam ReviewWeek of May 4—May 10, 2026

POLS 1300 U.S. National Government

Final Exam Format

• 35 Multiple Choice Questions (2 pts each) …..... 70 pts
• 10 True/False Questions (2 pts each) ….............. 20 pts
• 1 short essay (10 pts) ............................................ 10 pts
• 1 Extra Credit (up to 4 points)

                  Possible 104 pts Chapters 10, 11, 12, & 13 (Congress, The Presidency, The Bureaucracy, The Federal Courts)

Chapter 10: Congress(Constitutional Foundations)

• Founders saw Congress as greatest potential danger to civil liberties, why?
• Article I, Section 8
• Enumerated/Expressed Powers
• Power to make laws
• Longest list of responsibilities and powers
• Implied Powers
• Elastic Clause
• Powers necessary & proper to carry out enumerated powers
• Constraints on Congressional Power (veto, judicial review, bicameralism, federalism)

Chapter 10: Congress (Bicameral Legislature)

• Bicameral legislature
• 2 Senators, House reapportioned based on population (435 members)
• House has:
• Impeachment responsibilities
• Rules committee
• Senate has:
• Trial responsibilities
• Filibuster
• Conflict between branches is by design
• As political polarization has increased, bipartisanship in Congress has decreased

Chapter 10: Congress(Elections & Representation)

The House

• All 435 seats are up for election every two years, keeping representatives closely accountable to voters
• Reapportionment follows each decennial census, redistributing seats among states based on population shifts
• Gerrymandering: the manipulation of district boundaries.
• Political gerrymandering: draws districts to favor one party
• Racial gerrymandering: manipulates boundaries based on race, which the Supreme Court has ruled can violate the Voting Rights Act

The Senate

• Senators serve six-year terms, with elections staggered so roughly one-third of the Senate is up for election every two years
• providing institutional stability and insulating the chamber from short-term political swings

Elections and Money

• Incumbents win at extraordinarily high rates, in large part because they vastly out-raise challengers through established donor networks and the implicit promise of access to power

Descriptive Representation

• Congress remains disproportionately white and male relative to the population it governs
• Representation of women and minorities has increased steadily but remains well short of reflecting the actual demographic composition of the United States

Sources: House.gov, Senate.gov, Statista research, Forbes.com

Chapter 11: The Presidency

• The Founders designed a limited executive, deeply wary of monarchical power after their experience with the British Crown
• Article II grants the president three core functions:
• Commander in Chief of the armed forces
• Head of the executive branch
• Duty to faithfully enforce laws passed by Congress
• The deliberately vague and flexible language of Article II allowed presidential power to expand well beyond its original boundaries
• Every major national crisis expanded the office further, most dramatically under FDR, whose New Deal response built the modern federal bureaucracy and permanently enlarged the scope of executive power

What the President Can’t Do

• Make Laws
• Executive orders vs. Laws
• Tell States What to Do
• Governors make laws for individual states (10th Amendment)

• Serve More Than Two Terms
• 22nd Amendment (1951)
• FDR (1933-1945)

The Executive Order Controversy

• Executive order: a directive by the U.S. President that has the effect of law.
• The implied power comes from Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which vests executive power in the President and outlines the ability of “executive actions.”
• The issue is that EOs are treated as laws but do not go through Congress;
• EOs can further exert a president's influence over the executive branch
• Often issued when Congress is slow to create change or gridlocked
• Is this power necessary or an abuse? Is our president too powerful?

Chapter 12: The Bureaucracy

• Characteristics
• Hierarchal authority, chain of command
• Formal rules,
• Unelected, Administrative body
• Advantages
• Ability to organize large tasks
• Order and coordination
• Concentration of specialists
• Advancement based on merit
• Disadvantages
• Red tape
• Lack of accountability
• Inefficiency and waste
• Resistance to change

Chapter 12: The Bureaucracy(The Civil Service System)

• Spoils system of 1800s
• Critics believed it led to corruption and inexperience
• 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act
• Based hiring and promotions on merit NOT party affiliation or campaign donations

The Federal Bureaucracy Today

• Cabinet-Level Departments
• Dept of Justice, Dept of Defense
• Independent regulatory commissions
• FCC, SEC, NLRB
• Independent executive agencies
• NSF, NASA
• Government Corporations
• USPS, AMTRAK
• ~3 million people employed

The Growth in Federal Agency Rules and Regulations

SOURCE: Office of the Federal Register, Tutorials, History, and Statistics, Federal Register Pages Published, 1936–2017 and Ballotpedia, “Historical additions to the Federal Register, 1936–2018.”

Chapter 13: The Courts

• 95%-98% of cases tried in state courts
• District Courts – aka Trial Courts
• They have original jurisdiction
• Use judges, juries, and witnesses
• Courts of Appeals – aka Circuit Courts
• Intermediate appellate courts
• Do not hold trials; review legal arguments from lower courts
• Focus on errors of law or procedure
• Supreme Court – highest court
• Limited original jurisdiction (cases between states/state and fed)
• Decisions final
• Very rare to have a case heard (only 1% of cases filed are selected for hearing/aka achieve "cert")

Chapter 13: The Courts

• Constitutional Design
• Says judges will serve for life (‘good behavior’)
• Grants Congress power to create additional inferior courts
• Judicial review established: Marbury v. Madison (1803)
• Questions of democracy?
• Appointed by president and not elected
• Judicial Philosophy & Judicial Activism
• Originalism/Strict Constructionism
• Living Constitutionalism

Supreme Court Ideology, 1938–2018

SOURCE: Andrew D. Martin and Kevin M. Quinn, “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999,” Political Analysis 10 (2002), pp. 134–153. [Scores updated through 2018: http://mqscores.lsa.umich.edu/measures.php]; and Adam Liptak and Alicia Parlapiano, “Conservatives in Charge, the Supreme Court Moved Right,” New York Times, June 28, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/28/us/politics/supremecourt-2017-term-moved-right.html. Note that Kavanaugh replaced swing Justice Kennedy, so the median score for the Court probably will be higher after 2018.

Chapter 13: The Courts

• Presidential Influence
• Appointments
• Enforces orders
• Legislative Influence
• Senate Confirmation
• Creation of lower courts
• Impeachment & removal
• Public influence
• Amicus Briefs
• Lobbying

Final ExamMonday, December 8th On Blackboard, 8:00am—9:55am

• 35 Multiple Choice Questions (2 pts each) …..... 70 pts
• 10 True/False Questions (2 pts each) …................ 20 pts
• 1 short essay (10 pts) ....................................................... 10 pts

                        100 pts Chapters 10-13 (Congress, The Presidency, The Bureaucracy, The Federal Courts)