1 - Introduction: Crash Course U.S. Government and Politics

Crash Course US GOV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrk4oY7UxpQ

1 - Introduction: Crash Course U.S. Government and Politics Why Study Government:

1. Government is a set of rules and institutions people set up so that they can function together as a unified ______.

2. We study government in order to become better ______.

3. Politics is a term we use to describe how ______is distributed in a government. And in the US, it basically describes the decisions about who holds office, and how individuals and groups make those decisions.

4. Government is really important. Everyone born in America is automatically a ______, and many people choose to become citizens every year so that they can have a say in the government.

5. The USA is a ______, which mean that we elect representatives to govern us, and a democracy, which means that citizens are allowed to participate.

6. List 5 ways you can participate in Government:

7. Probably the most important thing that you can do to participate in government and politics is both the easiest and most challenging - become more ______

8. In your own words (complete paragraph) tell me why you think it is important to study government? ______The Bicameral Congress: Crash Course Government and Politics #2

1. Constitution, which consists of seven articles and ______amendments, mentions Congress first. 2. Constitution sets up a _____ house legislature, with a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Latin word for this is bicameral 3. How old do you have to be to serve in the House? ____ 4. Representation is determined by ______No state has fewer than one, Vermont, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alaska each have one, and the most populous state, California, has 52. Right now, there are ______members of the House of Representatives. 5. The Senate has ______senators from each state for a total of 100. 6. Amendment _____ - states that senators are elected by the people, just like representatives. 7. Does impeaching mean kicked out of office? Yes or no 8. "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the ______." 9. One of the main reasons to divide the legislature and to give the two houses different powers is to make it so that the legislature doesn't have too much ______. How do we know that the Framers wanted this? Because one of them, James Madison, told us that in one of the ______Papers. 10. What year was the Constitution written? ______11. Senate is supposed to be the more deliberative body and the one that is more insulated from ______opinion, they are the ones given the power to confirm public ministers and to ratify treaties. 12. The main way that the Framers tried to ensure that Representatives could be more responsive to their ______, other than having them directly elected by the voters instead of state legislatures, was to give them 2 year terms. 13. List 3 things from this video that you learned or found interesting: Separation of Powers and ... Course Government and Politics #3

1. The national government is divided into three separate branches: the legislative branch, the ______branch, and the judicial branch 2. So the legislative branch comes first, because it's supposed to be the most important branch, and Article I is the longest and most detailed of the____Articles in the Constitution. 3. The main job of the legislature is to make ______. 4. The executive branch is in charge of ______the law, which basically means carrying them out. 5. The job of the judiciary, also sometimes called "the Courts," is to ______the law 6. Each of the branches has the power to limit, or check, the other two and this creates a ______between the three separate powers 7. The House of Representatives can______the President, then the Senate can remove the President from office, but only if ______of the Senators vote for impeachment. 8. Who has the power to reject judicial nominees? ______which is a check on judges before they even get there. 9. The executive branch can check the power of the legislature in the following ways: the president can ______Congress' laws so that they don't go into effect. The president can call Congress into a special session, but he can't make them pass new laws. The executive branch carries out the laws, and may do so in ways that are contrary to what Congress wanted. 10. The judiciary checks the legislature by declaring its laws ______.

11. So the Framers of the Constitution were terrified of a tyrannical central government that would destroy people's ______like they felt the British had. 12. Who wrote the Federalist Papers? ______13. In your own words explain “Checks and Balances” (one paragraph) ______

Federalism: Crash Course Government and Politics #4

1. Federalism is the idea that in the US, governmental power is divided between the government of the United States and the government of the ______states. 2. In the federal system, the ______government takes care of some things, like for example, ______with other countries and delivering the mail while the state government takes care of other things like ______license, hunting licenses, barber's licenses, dentist's licenses. 3. From 1788 until 1937, the US basically lived under a regime of dual federalism, which meant that government power was strictly ______between the state and ______governments. 4. The national government had jurisdiction over ______improvements like interstate roads and canals, subsidies to the states, and tariffs, which are taxes on imports and thus falls under the general heading of foreign policy. 5. The state government had control over ______laws, inheritance laws, commercial laws, banking laws, corporate laws, insurance, family law, which means marriage and divorce. 6. For most of the 19th century, the Supreme Court has decided that almost any attempt by any government, federal or state, to regulate state economic activity would violate the ______Clause. 7. Then the Great Depression happened, and Franklin Roosevelt and Congress enacted the ______, which changed the role of the federal government in a big way. 8. There are 2 types of categorical grants-in-aid: formula grants and ______grants. 9. Under regulated federalism, the national governments sets up regulations and rules that the______must follow. 10. Americans are basically living under a system of ______federalism with some areas of activity that are heavily regulated. 11. New federalism basically means giving more power to the ______12. Many Americans feel that the national government is too big and ______, and not what the framers wanted.

Constitutional Compromises: Crash Course ... and Politics #5

1. The first American government, which was in place during the Revolutionary War and for almost 10 years afterwards, was the ______.

2. In order to hammer out a Constitution, they had to do something you don't see very much of in government these days ______.

3. Most important, the Articles government had no power to levy ______, which meant that if it needed any money to do, well – it couldn’t.

4. Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which set up a system for eventual ______. But

5. The delegates from small New Jersey put forward a plan that would have a congress where each state would send an ______number of representatives

6. So The Great Compromise meant that we would have a two-house legislature, but this wasn't the only issue related to how the seats in Congress would be apportioned. The membership in the House would be based on the state's ______, but at the time there was an issue about how to count that population.

7. What it means is that in order to determine how many representatives a state has, you count the number of free people in the state, including indentured servants, and add to that number _____ of the number of non-free persons, otherwise known as slaves.

8. In 1787, public opinion about the Constitution was pretty evenly divided. Those who wanted the Constitution were called ______, largely because of the Federalist Papers, a series of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. 9. Anti-Federalists were right to be skeptical of a large government that would trample on our ______liberties.

10. So the Federalist position won out and the Constitution was ______. And that's the government that Americans have been living under ever since

11. It's very important to remember that compromise, the idea of balancing interests and giving a little to get a lot, is embedded in the Constitution. While today it seems like a political dirty word, ______is the basis of the American government itself.