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Chapter 12: Congress

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Flash Cards

Practice Quiz

Critical Thinking and Learning Exercises

  1. 1. Redistricting. Visit the following site: http://www.census.gov/mycd/. Find your state and the district in which you reside. What is the average age compared to the rest of the country? What is the average level of education? What is the average age in the district? How do all of these variables impact congressional representation? Thinking about these questions, how does your district differ from the United States as a whole?
  2. Using the census data from your district as a reference, using the following website, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php, to look up your congressperson and review the bills that he or she introduced. Does your congressperson represent the trustee or delegate model? Research the concepts of descriptive and substantive representation by Hanna Pitkin (1967). How do these concepts apply here?
  3. Redistricting Game. Use the following link, http://www.redistrictinggame.org/index.php?pg=game, to understand the politics of redistricting. Complete each game (i.e., 1–5) and provide comments about the objective of each of the categories.
  4. Look at the data from the following link: http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/levels_of_office/Congress-CurrentFacts.php. How many women representatives are there in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives? Based on this number, how many women of color are there? What is the percentage of women and women of color in the U.S. House and Senate? Describe why you think these numbers are disproportionate to the U.S. population.
  5. Research cumulative and limited voting. Based on the following link, http://www.fairvote.org/assets/Fair-Representation-Voting.jpg, how do these two electoral structures prevent gerrymandering? What is the difference between plurality systems and semiproportional representation systems?

Links to further Resources

The House of Representatives

www.house.gov

The official website of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Senate

www.senate.gov

The official website of the U.S. Senate.

Library of Congress THOMAS website

http://www.thomas.gov/

The Library of Congress provides a comprehensive legislative search engine for the U.S. Congress, which allows you to search through a wide range of legislative data such as bill sponsorships, committee actions, and roll call votes.

Roll Call

http://www.rollcall.com/

Since 1955, Roll Call has been the premier newspaper for Capitol Hill, covering all aspects of legislative politics and lawmaking.

C-SPAN Congressional Chronicle

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/congress/

C-SPAN’s Congressional Chronicle is a video archive of the proceedings of the U.S. Congress. Use the “Browse” or “Search” functions to find recordings of your representative and senators and learn what they have been saying and doing to represent your interests in Congress.

Ideology Ratings for Members of Congress

ADA Congressional Ideology Ratings:

http://www.adaction.org/pages/publications/voting-records.php

The Americans for Democratic Action provides a liberalism score for each member's voting record.

ACU Congressional Ideology Ratings:

http://www.acuratings.org/

The American Conservative Union rates the conservatism of each member's voting record (you will notice that the ACU ratings tend to be roughly the inverse of the ADA ratings, since more liberal members will be the least conservative, and vice versa).

Constitution USA with Peter Sagal: Is Gridlock Built into the Constitution?

http://www.pbs.org/tpt/constitution-usa-peter-sagal/we-the-people/political-gridlock-constitution/

Peter Sagal explores the possibility that the gridlock that we complain about in Congress may be by design. Why would the framers of the Constitution want to set up a legislative process that is intentionally slow and conflictual? Do you think the current level of gridlock in Congress is what the framers intended, or does it go beyond what they envisioned?

Dealing with the Filibuster: A One-Track Senate

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/opinion/10martin.html

Many contemporary critics of Congress believe that the overuse of the filibuster poses a serious threat to the legislative process. This article from the New York Times editorial page suggests a method for ending the overuse of the filibuster in the Senate.

How It Happens: Calling It Quits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaYt7Xmjzis&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=19

Political cartoonist David Gillette explores the causes and consequences of legislative retirements. Why do so few members of the legislature retire? While term limits remain a fairly popular idea with the general public, are there some potentially negative consequences that this illustrated essay on retirement brings to light?