These are your Congressman, all three of 'em. Okay, I don't know who yours are, but I do know who mine are. Warner-Kaine-Connolly. Just sayin'. Well, we take a quick divergence down the path of just who are these people... And we stop in a couple of places to really understand this concept. For starters, we need to figure out the deal with Congressional leadership. (And if at any point you are looking for more resources, try the Dirksen Center.) So, we march through the positions and the players. Again. I love making color pics of these dudes and dudettes, laminating them, and then posting them up on the board. 1. Speaker of the House: One of the only Constitutionally mandated offices in the house; the Speaker is only second today in authority to the President. He is elected by his fellow members; preserves order in the chamber, has unlimited power of recognition during debates (and can refuse to hear folks when he is feeling particularly nasty) , decides points of order, appoints Speakers pro temp when necessary, AND he also retains the right to SPEAK (though does it in the chambers when someone else is pro temp) and to VOTE. Because he is chosen by the majority to lead the chamber, the party, (and in most cases) all of Congress, he is able to rule with an iron fist. The whole of the Rules has been written (for the most part) to bestow ample power on him. At times, the Speaker has been MORE powerful, like Clay, Reed, Cannon, and Rayburn. At times, the rules were written so that the Speaker could be the Chair of the all powerful Rules Committee... and do radical things like call bills up as he saw fit, instead of following the lead of the various calendars. Many of these Speakers felt strongly that they were more powerful than the President himself... and indeed many of them were... particularly during 19th century, with exceptions like Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt(s), and Wilson... When Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's Vice President, first assumed the chain in 1913, he begged leave to make a few remarks to the Senate "before he enters upon a four years's silence." A little later, at the end of a two-week debate on the tariff, he said he had been "like a man in a cataleptic state; he cannot speak; he cannot move; he suffers no pain; and yet he is perfectly conscious of everything that is going on about him." Sounds like he's been sitting in on my class. 3. Party Leaders: There are two for each party in each chamber, of which the Rules are written to favor the Majority Leader in the Senate the most. This is primarily because he acts as the House Rules Committee in the Senate, deciding what bills will be considered when and under what conditions. He is the calendar, the traffic cop, of the Senate. The rest of the Majority Leaders (Senate Majority Leader included) tackle legislative strategy... they (help) decide what will happen in the committees, suggest hearings and people to call upon to testify, etc. 4. Whips: These folks work with the leaders on legislative strategy, but work primarily to count votes. Since the days of persuading peers in the House and the Senate via oration are gone, and most of the work is presently done behind the scenes and in committees, the party leaders HATE surprise votes. They call, persuade, pressure, and schmooze votes out of their caucus/conference... and may even be instrumental in helping rank and file in their re-election bids by getting them time on the floor, co-sponsoring legislation, getting appropriations for projects in home districts of key votes. Other than that, if you are rank and file... you are grinding it out. Freshman members beware; some of the old guard will work hard to keep you from getting time on the floor. During JFK's first year in the Senate he was anxious to make a good impression on his elders and on occasion outdid himself. One afternoon, in a burst of energy, he rushed to the Senate floor, offered a flurry of amendments, held a news conference, made some remarks on two or three bills, issued some press statements, and finally sank, exhausted, into a chair next to Carl Hayden, who had been in the Senate for more than forty years. "Well," said Kennedy, I guess you must have seen a lot of changes in the time you've been here." So after we get this straight, we move on to getting to know members themselves.
A peer gave me a great *homemade* resource... and that is a Fantasy Congress. There are a lot of lessons like this out there, but it is hard to keep up with these when ever there is a vacancy in either chamber... but with this resource, I had each student draw three members. (One Senator; three Congressman.) From here they were told to do the whole Fantasy Baseball thing... I gave categories for various actions, things like:
There is more than this... but you get the drift. I set the kids to THOMAS, to the Senate Cloture list, to Congress.gov, and other places... to go and check up on their members. Not only does this give the kids the opportunity to see what kinds of actions members are taking over a ten day span, but they also get familiar with these types of resources. They are about to embark on a ten page analytical paper in which they will be proposing a public issue that needs to addressed, research possible solutions, and propose the "best one." Research tends to be the biggest problem for these folks. It is also humorous to see the kids figure out who the big hitters are in this assignment. They get excited when they draw the big names... the Mike Lees, the John McCains, the Pete Sessions of the body. And to get them to buy in, I offer a full letter grade bump on the upcoming Congress test. <<Woot, woot>> And if this doesn't do it for you... try these resources. They're great! Kids in the House Congress.gov THOMAS Congressional Committees website Dirksen Center
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Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
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nerdcation
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nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
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nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
August 2018
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