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American Gov. 9th ed
Chapter 3 vocabulary; Wilson & DiIlulio, Jr. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston NY
| Definition | Term |
|---|---|
| Current effort to scale back the size and activities of the national government and to shift responsibility for a wide range of domestic programs form Washington to the states (in recent years, these areas included welfare, health care, and job training). | devolution |
| Grants of money from the federal government states for programs in certain general areas rather than for specific kinds of programs | block grants |
| A political system in which ultimate authority is shared between a central government and state or regional governments. | federalism |
| Supreme or ultimate political authority; a sovereign government is one that is legally and politically independent of any other government | sovereignty |
| System in which sovereignty is wholly in the hands of the national government so that subnational political units are dependent on its will | unitary system |
| Political sytem in which states or regional govts. retain ultimate authority except for those [pwers that they expressly delegate to a central government. The United States was a confederation from 1776-1787 under the Articles of Confederation | confederation or confederal system |
| System in which sovereignty is shares so that on some matters the national govt. is supreme and on others the state, regional, or provincial governments are supreme | federal system |
| Political system in which local units of government have a specially protected existence and can make final decisions over some governmental activities | federal regime |
| Final paragraph of Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to pass all laws "necessary and proper" to carry out the enumerated powers; also called "elastic clause" because of the flexibility that it provides to Congress | "necessary and proper" clause |
| Theory first advanced by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson that the states had the right to "nullify"(when declared null and void) a federal law that violate the Constitution in the state's opinion; revived by John C. Calhoun of S. Carolina | nullification |
| Constitutional theory that the national government & the state governments. each have defined areas of authority, especially over commerce | dual federalism |
| Municipal corporation or municipality that has been charters by a state to exercise certain defined powers and provide certain specific services | city |
| Legal term for a city; chartered by the state to exercise more powers & provide certain services | municipal corporation or municipality |
| Charter that denies the powers of a certain named city and lists what the city can and cannot do. | special-act charter |
| Charter applying to number of cities that fall w/in a certain classification, usually based on city pop.;some states all cities w/ pops. over 100k are govd. on basis of one charter; all cities w/ pops. between 50k and 99,999 are govd. by a different one | general-act charter |
| Legal principle that holds that the terms of city charters are to be interpreted narrowly;named after a lawyer who wrote a book on the subject (1911);municipal corp. exercise those powers necessarily essential to the accomplishment of, the stated powers. | Dillon's rule |
| Charter that allows the city government to do anything that is not prohibited by the charter or by the state law | home-rule charter |
| Laws passed and enforced by a city government | ordinances |
| largest territorial units between a city and a town | counties |
| Local or regional government with responsibility for some single function such as administering schools, handling sewage, or managing airports | special-district governments or authorities |
| Special-district government responsible for administering public schools | school districts |
| Power of the state to promote health, safety, and morals | police power |
| Procedure allowing voters to submit a proposed law to a popular vote by obtaining a required number of signatures | initiative |
| Practice of submitting a law to a popular vote at election time. The law may be proposed by a voter's initiative or by the legislature | referendum |
| A procedure, in effect in over twenty states, whereby the voters can vote to remove an elected official from office | recall |
| Federal funds provided to states and localities; typically provided for airports, highways, education, and major welfare services | grants-in-aid |
| Federal grants for specific purposes defined by federal law; usually require that the state or locality put up money to "match" some part of the federal grants, though the amount of matching funds can be quite small | categorical grants |
| Law providing for the distribution of a fixed amount/share of federal tax revenues to the states for spending on almost any govt. purpose; distribution was intended to send more money to poorer, heavily taxed states; ended in 1986 | revenue sharing |
| Federal rules attached to the grants that states receive. State must agree to abide by these rules in order to receive grants | conditions of aid |
| Rules imposed by the federal government on the states as conditions for obtaining federal grants or requirements that the states pay the costs of certain nationally defined programs | mandates |
| The flow of power and responsibility from states to local governments | second-order devolution |
| The use of nongovernmental organizations to implement public policy | third-order devolution |
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