Congress And The Bureaucracy Test Bank Answers Chapter 11 - Complete Test Bank | Congress and Its Members 17e by Roger H. Davidson. DOCX document preview.
Chapter 11: Congress and the Bureaucracy
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. The CIA is an example of a(n) ______.
A. independent agency
B. cabinet department
C. government corporation
D. independent regulatory commission
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Congress Organizes the Executive Branch
Difficulty Level: Easy
2. What did the Supreme Court rule in NLRB v. Noel Canning (2014)?
A. Congress cannot block executive nominees for more than 90 days.
B. The president cannot make a recess appointment during a pro forma session in the Senate.
C. Executive branch officials cannot engage in campaign activities while on the government payroll.
D. Executive orders must follow a strict protocol or will be considered unconstitutional.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Bypassing Advice and Consent
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. What is the Government Accountability Office?
A. a think-tank focused on government accountability
B. an office within the executive branch that investigates fraud
C. the office that helps Congress write a budget each year
D. Congress’s chief investigative agency
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy
Difficulty Level: Easy
4. What does the Hatch Act do?
A. set the salaries of government employees
B. limited the number of political appointees in each agency
C. restricted the partisan activities of federal employees
D. ended the spoils system and replaced it with the merit system
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Pay and Other Legal Standards
Difficulty Level: Easy
5. All of the following are ways that the size of the federal government is typically measured EXCEPT ______.
A. share of GDP devoted to federal expenditures
B. magnitude of federal budget
C. number of federal employees
D. number of complaints about the federal government
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Size of Government
Difficulty Level: Medium
6. Which of the following agency-related tasks does Congress perform?
A. specifies the details of policy making
B. creates a budget
C. appoints agency heads
D. defines the legal mandate of agencies
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: The Rulemaking Process
Difficulty Level: Medium
7. All of the following are steps in the rulemaking process EXCEPT ______.
A. notice in the Federal Register
B. majority approval in the House
C. public comment period
D. cost–benefit analysis
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: The Rulemaking Process
Difficulty Level: Medium
8. Which of the following is a form of congressional oversight?
A. hearings
B. line-item vetoes
C. conference reports
D. signing statements
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
9. Which of the following is the most common method of congressional oversight?
A. formal hearings
B. nonstatutory controls
C. impeachment
D. appointment of inspectors general
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Nonstatutory Controls
Difficulty Level: Medium
10. Which of the following situations encourages vigorous congressional oversight?
A. conditional party government
B. growing use of the filibuster
C. unified government
D. divided government
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
11. Which of the following is an example of police patrol oversight?
A. requiring regular reports from agencies and reading them carefully to discover violations
B. using casework as a form of oversight
C. responding to an investigative report in the New York Times with congressional hearings
D. using a complaint from the National Rifle Association to springboard an investigation into a federal agency
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
12. Which of the following is an example of fire alarm oversight?
A. responding to a high volume of constituent complaints with an investigation into an agency
B. appointing inspectors general to perform regular inquiries into executive branch activities
C. the Agriculture Committee scheduling periodic hearings to audit the expenditures of the Department of Agriculture
D. requiring regular reports from agencies and reading them carefully to discover violations
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
13. Who is considered to be the government’s first line of defense against fraud?
A. the president
B. inspectors general
C. Supreme Court
D. attorney general
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Inspectors General
Difficulty Level: Easy
True/False
1. Impeachment is the most common form of congressional oversight.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Nonstatutory Controls
Difficulty Level: Easy
2. Each year, executive agencies enact more “laws” through the rulemaking process than does Congress.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: The Rulemaking Process
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. Despite being ruled unconstitutional, Congress continues to use the legislative veto as a tool of oversight.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Congressional Vetoes
Difficulty Level: Easy
4. In the modern era, the size of the national government tends to grow under Democratic presidents and fall under Republican presidents.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Size of Government
Difficulty Level: Easy
5. Contrary to what many people believe, the federal workforce has remained relatively constant in size.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Size of Government
Difficulty Level: Easy
6. Because the bureaucracy is part of the executive branch, Congress has no control over it.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: The Personnel System
Difficulty Level: Easy
7. Individual senators regularly threaten filibusters or place holds on nominations.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Senate Confirmation of Presidential Appointees
Difficulty Level: Easy
8. Many members of Congress and high-ranking executive officials take lobbying jobs after leaving office.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: The Personnel System
Difficulty Level: Easy
9. The procedures of congressional oversight are clearly laid out in the Constitution.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy
Difficulty Level: Easy
10. An executive branch official has never been both impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Impeachment
Difficulty Level: Easy
11. Inspectors general are an example of police patrol oversight.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: Inspectors General
Difficulty Level: Easy
Essay
1. What are some of the barriers to successful congressional oversight?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. Why is Congress willing to invest in oversight?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
3. What is the difference between fire alarm and police patrol oversight?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
4. How has the emerging idea of the “public as watchdog” impacted congressional oversight?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Hard
5. Why does Congress choose to delegate rulemaking power to executive bureaucracies?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: The Rulemaking Process
Difficulty Level: Medium
6. What are the main duties of an Inspector General?
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: Inspectors General
Difficulty Level: Easy
7. What are the three most important purposes of oversight?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
8. Why can it be politically difficult for Congress and/or the president to shrink the size of government?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: The Personnel System
Difficulty Level: Hard
9. What was the patronage system and what is its modern equivalent? How do the older and more modern systems compare?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: The Personnel System
Difficulty Level: Hard
10. What are the costs and benefits of privatizing government functions through outside contracts?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: The Personnel System
Difficulty Level: Medium
11. What is “advice and consent” and how can the president bypass it?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Senate Confirmation of Presidential Appointees
Difficulty Level: Medium
12. In what ways can Congress influence the structure and composition of the federal bureaucracy?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Various
Difficulty Level: Medium
13. What are the limitations on political activity by government employees in the bureaucracy?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: Pay and Other Legal Standards
Difficulty Level: Medium
14. What are some of the costs and benefits of the current nomination and confirmation process for top-level executive appointments? Do you believe this system should be changed, and if so, how?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Senate Confirmation of Presidential Appointees
Difficulty Level: Hard
15. What are some of the major means Congress has to oversee the executive branch? Which of these seem to be most and least effective in the modern Congress? Overall, is the oversight process effective?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy
Difficulty Level: Hard
16. Identify a recent example of congressional oversight of an executive agency. (Note: depending on the level of students, professor may wish to provide a list of topics.) What tools did members of Congress use in conducting the oversight? Were they successful in changing the behavior of the agency? How did the proceedings reflect the concept of “two Congresses”?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: Oversight: an Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Hard
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Complete Test Bank | Congress and Its Members 17e
By Roger H. Davidson