50 Fun Facts About US Government

Which presidential retreat did Dwight Eisenhower rename in honor of his five-year-old grandson?

Camp David was called Shangri-La until 1953, after the Himalayan paradise in the novel Lost Horizon. It was first built as a getaway for federal workers and their families.

Which weekday did Congress pick for presidential elections so farmers could travel after Sunday church?

Tuesday let voters attend church on Sunday, travel to the county seat on Monday and be home before Wednesday, when farmers usually sold their produce at market.

Which British monarch gave US presidents the Resolute desk, built from an Arctic exploration ship's timbers?

Queen Victoria sent the desk to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. An American whaler had found the abandoned HMS Resolute in 1855, and the United States repaired the ship and returned it to Britain as a goodwill gesture.

Which nickname is used for the nuclear-strike briefcase that a military aide carries near the US president?

The football is officially the Presidential Emergency Satchel. To prove who is giving the order, the president reads a code from a plastic card nicknamed the biscuit.

Which name is given to the Cabinet member who skips the State of the Union address in case of catastrophe?

Designated survivor duty began in the 1950s, amid Cold War fears of a nuclear attack on Washington. The chosen official waits at an undisclosed secure location until the event is over.

Which institution bought Thomas Jefferson's 6,487 books after British troops burned Washington in 1814?

The Library of Congress lost most of its original collection in the fire. Jefferson's books cost $23,950, and the library has since grown into one of the largest in the world.

Which former House minority leader became US president without ever being elected president or vice president?

Gerald Ford was appointed vice president in 1973 after Spiro Agnew resigned, then became president eight months later when Richard Nixon quit over Watergate.

Which call sign was created after President Eisenhower's plane shared a flight number with a nearby airliner?

Air Force One is a call sign rather than one particular plane: it applies to any Air Force aircraft with the president aboard. The mix-up that prompted it happened over Richmond, Virginia.

The Twenty-seventh Amendment, ratified over 202 years after Congress proposed it, limits changes to what?

Lawmakers' salaries cannot change until after the next House election. The long-forgotten amendment was revived in 1982 by a Texas student whose term paper on it earned a C.

In which city did delegates nail the windows shut during the closed-door 1787 Constitutional Convention?

Philadelphia's Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall, hosted the delegates through a sweltering summer. Rhode Island was the only state that refused to send anyone.

Which first constitution of the United States provided no president, no national courts and no tax base?

The Articles of Confederation needed all thirteen states to approve any change, so reform kept failing. Delegates sent to revise them in 1787 wrote a whole new constitution instead.

Which future fourth president, architect of the Virginia Plan, is hailed as the Father of the Constitution?

James Madison also kept the fullest record of the 1787 debates. Because the delegates had pledged secrecy, his notes were not published until after his death in 1836.

Which Founding Father, the first Treasury secretary, was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr?

Alexander Hamilton persuaded Congress to charter a national bank, arguing that the Constitution implied powers it did not spell out. He also founded the country's first political party.

Which 1787 deal, authored by Roger Sherman, gave states equal Senate seats but House seats by population?

The Great Compromise passed by a single vote, five states to four, after six weeks of deadlock between large and small states. It is also named for Sherman's home state, Connecticut.

Which name is given to the first ten amendments, ratified in 1791 to win over the Constitution's critics?

The Bill of Rights began as twelve amendments sent to the states in 1789. Only ten were ratified by 1791, and one of the leftovers finally joined the Constitution two centuries later.

Which principle, backed by the Tenth Amendment, divides power between Washington and the states?

Federalism lets each state serve as what Justice Louis Brandeis called a laboratory, trying out new laws without risk to the rest of the country.

Which doctrine, drawn from the French thinker Montesquieu, splits government into three independent branches?

Separation of powers comes from Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws. One survey of the era's writing found the American founders cited him more than any source except the Bible.

Which part of Article VI makes the Constitution, federal laws and treaties override conflicting state laws?

The Supremacy Clause puts even state constitutions beneath federal law. In 1859 the Supreme Court relied on it to overturn Wisconsin judges who had defied a federal court.

Which amendment, passed after the Civil War, defined US citizenship and promised equal protection of the laws?

The Fourteenth Amendment overruled the Dred Scott decision, which had held that Black Americans could not be citizens. It is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution.

Which Senate delaying tactic can usually be ended only by a cloture vote of 60 of the 100 senators?

A filibuster by Strom Thurmond ran for 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957, as he read out state laws to stall a civil rights measure. It passed anyway.

Which leader in Congress comes next after the vice president in the presidential line of succession?

The Speaker of the House has stood second in line since the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. The original 1792 law put a Senate officer first instead.

Which Senate office, by custom held by the majority's most senior member, is third in line for the presidency?

The president pro tempore rarely presides in practice. That chore rotates among junior senators of the majority party, so that they learn the chamber's procedures.

Which party officer in Congress, charged with rounding up votes, has a title taken from hunting with hounds?

Whip comes from the whipper-in, the huntsman's assistant who keeps hounds from straying. Unlike a parliamentary one, a whip in Congress cannot tempt a waverer with a job in government.

Which House committee, dating from the first Congress in 1789, is the chamber's chief tax-writing panel?

Ways and Means gets first look at every tax bill, because the Constitution makes tax measures start in the House. Three of its past chairs, James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore and William McKinley, went on to become president.

Which temporary joint panel of House and Senate members irons out differences between two versions of a bill?

A conference committee is usually drawn from senior members of the panels that first handled the bill. The device has faded: the Congress of 2021 to 2023 produced no conference reports at all.

Which nonpartisan agency, created in 1974, tells Congress what a bill would cost without recommending policy?

The Congressional Budget Office was modelled on California's Legislative Analyst's Office. Richard Nixon signed the law creating it in July 1974, less than a month before he resigned.

Before the Seventeenth Amendment took effect in 1913, who chose the members of the US Senate?

State legislatures deadlocked so often that seats sat empty: one of Delaware's went unfilled from 1899 to 1903. Bribery scandals added to the pressure for direct election.

Which count, first taken under Thomas Jefferson in 1790, decides how many House seats each state gets?

The census keeps each person's answers sealed for 72 years, even though its totals reshuffle seats in Congress every decade.

Which Senate fast-track process, first used in 1980, lets certain tax and spending bills pass with 51 votes?

Reconciliation is fenced in by a rule named for Senator Robert Byrd, which strips out anything unrelated to taxes and spending and blocks bills that deepen deficits beyond ten years.

Which power, first used by George Washington in 1792, takes two-thirds of each chamber of Congress to override?

A veto was first cast against a plan for dividing House seats among the states. A president who simply sits on a bill for ten days while Congress is in session lets it become law unsigned.

Which authority did Jimmy Carter use on his first full day as president to clear Vietnam War draft evaders?

The pardon power covers only federal crimes and cannot undo an impeachment. Offenses against state law are left to governors or state boards.

Which president's plan to add up to six Supreme Court justices was branded court packing and buried by the Senate?

Franklin Roosevelt wanted an extra justice for every sitting one over 70, after the court struck down New Deal laws. In 1937 senators voted 70 to 20 to send his bill back to committee.

Which body of 538 members formally elects the US president, although it never meets together in one place?

The Electoral College casts its votes in fifty-one separate meetings, held in the state capitals and Washington each December. A candidate needs 270 of those votes to win.

Which White House crisis center did John F. Kennedy order built after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion?

The Situation Room dates from 1961, when the Bay of Pigs failure was blamed on a lack of current information. Despite the name, it is a whole intelligence complex in the West Wing.

Which Cabinet department, created in response to the September 11 attacks, merged 22 federal agencies into one?

Homeland Security pulled the Coast Guard, airport screeners and the disaster agency FEMA under one roof in 2003, the biggest federal shake-up since the Defense Department was created.

Which doctrine did Richard Nixon invoke in his failed bid to keep the Watergate tapes from prosecutors?

Executive privilege is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Dwight Eisenhower invoked it to keep his staff's conversations away from the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.

On which scientific institution's grounds, 2.5 miles from the White House, does the vice president officially live?

The Naval Observatory house was built in 1893 for the observatory's superintendent. Congress handed it to vice presidents in 1974, judging one official home cheaper to guard than private ones.

Which 1973 law requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of sending US troops into combat?

The War Powers Resolution was enacted over Richard Nixon's objection as the Vietnam War wound down. It also sets a 60-day limit on deployments that Congress has not approved.

Which amendment, prompted by one president's four election wins, limits presidents to being elected twice?

The Twenty-second Amendment still allows up to ten years in office: a vice president who inherits two years or less of a predecessor's term may then be elected twice.

Which Virginian led the Supreme Court for over 34 years and established its power of judicial review?

John Marshall also ended the custom of every justice writing a separate opinion in each case, so that the court began to speak with a single voice.

Who presides over the Senate when a US president is on trial after being impeached by the House?

The chief justice took the chair for Bill Clinton's trial in 1999 and for Donald Trump's first in 2020. Conviction requires two-thirds of the senators present.

Which Arizona judge did Ronald Reagan nominate in 1981 as the first woman on the US Supreme Court?

Sandra Day O'Connor struggled to find legal work after law school. She landed a post as a deputy county attorney only after offering to work for no salary and without an office.

Which kind of Supreme Court writings did Ruth Bader Ginsburg announce while wearing a black-and-gold collar?

Dissents had their own neckwear: Ginsburg said in 2014 that she kept one jabot for disagreeing with the court and a yellow and cream one, a gift from her clerks, for speaking for the majority.

Which US state scrapped its Senate and House in the 1930s to create America's only one-chamber state assembly?

Nebraska made the switch after Senator George Norris toured Australia and argued that two chambers doing the same work wasted money. Its members are also elected without party labels.

Which 2010 Supreme Court case over a film attacking Hillary Clinton let corporations spend freely on political ads?

Citizens United v. FEC was decided by five votes to four. A conservative nonprofit had wanted to air and advertise its documentary during the 2008 primaries, which campaign finance law forbade.

Which official, nicknamed the tenth justice, argues the federal government's cases before the Supreme Court?

The solicitor general keeps an office inside the Supreme Court Building and, by tradition, appears before the justices in a formal morning coat.

Which Latin doctrine commits US courts to follow their own earlier rulings?

Stare decisis, meaning to stand by things decided, is not absolute: in 1954 the Supreme Court rejected its own 1896 doctrine of separate but equal when it outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

Which part of Article I did the Supreme Court stretch in 1942 to cover wheat a farmer grew for his own animals?

The Commerce Clause reached Roscoe Filburn's Ohio farm because wheat he grew for himself was wheat he did not buy, and the court held that this affected the national market.

Which state lost an 1819 Supreme Court case after it tried to tax the Second Bank of the United States?

Maryland's tax applied to every bank chartered outside the state, but the Second Bank was the only one operating there. The justices ruled that a state has no power to interfere with a federal institution.

Which state's recount did the Supreme Court halt in Bush v. Gore, deciding the 2000 presidential election?

Florida's first count put George W. Bush ahead by 1,784 votes, and an automatic machine recount cut his lead to 327 within two days.