Americans are less likely to vote for minor-party candidates, and more concerned in close elections with wasting their votes, than voters in many other democratic countries because ______________.

In Marbury v. Madison, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall ruled that he could not force Secretary of State James Madison to carry out a previous president’s appointment to a lower judge. In so doing, he established the legal power of the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review. This was the case because:

Prior judicial decisions that are applied to a given case, whether in a federal or state court, are known as:


The Fourteenth Amendment reversed 


The popular term for the system of legal racial segregation that existed in the American South until the middle of the twentieth century is 


August Lumière had her beloved Italian convertible, a vintage early 1960s model that her father had carefully restored, stolen from a local mall a few months ago. Thankfully, her insurance company paid for a replacement. Even so, the company thinks the mall’s owner was to blame for its client’s misfortune, given poor lighting and lack of security around the parking lot. The insurance company filed suit against the mall owner on Lumière’s behalf, asking for $60,000 in reimbursement costs, along with $100,000 in punitive damages. This is an example of a typical sort of _________ case.

The ________ Amendment outlawed slavery. 


The original Constitution (without formal amendments) 


A judicial philosophy that believes court opinions should remain as close as possible to the actual wording of the Constitution and other laws and to the original intent of lawmakers is indicative of judicial:

Some members of the majority may agree with both the outcome and the rationale of a Supreme Court decision but wish to draft a __________ to emphasize or highlight a particular point.