Welcome to The Dirksen Congressional Center's Communicator - a web-based e-newsletter providing educators with news and ideas to improve the understanding of Congress -- http://www.webcommunicator.org.

1. People Who Served in Congress
2. Congress Defined
3. Last Week to Apply!: Congress in the Classroom® 2007
4. Newsletters: Congressional Front, 1933–46
5. Principled Leadership
6. Ongoing Project: The Editorial Cartoon Project
7. Constitution: Amendments
8. Notice Regarding E-mail Addresses


1. PEOPLE WHO SERVED IN CONGRESS
Sketches of famous and not-so-famous Senators and Representatives

Mitch McConnell. On November 15, 2006, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell was unanimously elected Republican Leader in the 110th Congress by his Republican colleagues. McConnell is the 15th Republican leader and the first party leader from Kentucky in over half a century. The last leader from Kentucky, Senator Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.

McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984. That year, he was the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat a Democrat incumbent, and the first Republican to win a statewide race in Kentucky since 1968.

Born on February 20, 1942, and raised in south Louisville, McConnell graduated in 1964 from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. In 1967, he graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law. McConnell gained experience on Capitol Hill working as an intern for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and deputy assistant attorney general under President Gerald R. Ford. Before his election to the U.S. Senate, McConnell served as County Judge-Executive in Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he was sworn in to the Senate on January 3, 1985.

McConnell currently serves as a senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees.
Senator McConnell is married to United States Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao, a former president of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps. He is the father of three daughters.

His Senate site is http://mcconnell.senate.gov/.

The URL for the Republican Leader’s site is http://republican.senate.gov/public/?CFID=15927084&CFTOKEN=81364918.

Project Vote Smart’s entry for McConnell is located at http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=S0341103.

2. CONGRESS DEFINED
Words and phrases that describe congressional processes

Committee Calendar. A publication listing all measures referred to a particular committee during a Congress, its action on them, and chamber action on those measures the committee has reported. The committee calendar usually includes the committee’s rules and, often, other miscellaneous information.

Source: Congressional Quarterly’s American Congressional Dictionary, 3rd edition, ed. Walter Kravitz (Washington DC: CQ Press, 2001):48.


3. LAST WEEK TO APPLY!: CONGRESS IN THE CLASSROOM® 2007

** Call For Participation: Congress in the Classroom® 2007**

DEADLINE EXTENDED: April 15, 2007

Congress in the Classroom® is a national, award-winning education program now in its 15th year. Developed and sponsored by The Dirksen Congressional Center, the workshop is dedicated to the exchange of ideas and information on teaching about Congress. This year, for the first time, The Center will join with the new Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service in conducting the workshop.

Congress in the Classroom® is designed for high school or middle school teachers who teach U.S. history, government, civics, political science, or social studies. Forty teachers will be selected in 2007 to take part in the program.

The 2007 program will feature a broad overview of Congress with special attention to the new 110th Congress with the Democrats in charge for the first time in more than a decade.

The workshop will be held Monday, July 30 - Thursday, August 2, at the Hotel Pere Marquette, Peoria, Illinois, with workshop sessions to take place in the Peoria Civic Center's new addition.

Participants are responsible for (1) a non-refundable $135 registration fee (required to confirm acceptance after notice of selection) and (2) transportation to and from Peoria, Illinois. Many school districts will pay all or a portion of these costs. The Center pays for three nights lodging at the headquarters hotel (providing a single room for each participant), workshop materials, local transportation, all but three meals, and presenter honoraria and expenses.

Tentative session titles are listed below. (NOTE: Additional sessions will be listed as presenters are confirmed. More information about the content of each session will be posted as it becomes available.)

• Opening Remarks: A View from Capitol Hill -- The Honorable Ray LaHood, (R-IL, 18th District, U.S. House of Representatives)
• Congressional Insight: An Interactive Simulation of a Member's First Term in the House of Representatives -- Bethany Dame, National Association of Manufacturers
• Legislative Life and the Meaning of Public Service -- Grant Reeher, Associate Professor of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
• Rules, Rules, Rules: Congress Relies on Them -- Don Wolfensberger, Director of the Congress Project, Woodrow Wilson Center
• Electoral College Strategy 2008 -- Thomas F. Schaller, Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• A Former Staff Member’s Perspective on Congress -- Brian D. Posler, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Southern Indiana
• What Every New Senator Should Know about the U.S. Senate -- Richard A. Baker, Historian, U.S. Senate Historical Office
• How to Get Your Point Across to Congress Members -- Stephanie Vance, AdVanced Communications, Washington DC
• Reporting from Congress -- Seth Stern, Congressional Quarterly
• How Women in Congress have Transformed It -- Debra L. Dodson, Former Visiting Research Scholar, Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University
• Congress Members’ Playbook –– Steve Frantzich, U.S. Naval Academy
• Teaching with Editorial Cartoons -- Workshop teachers
• The Dirksen Center Web Suite as a Resource for Teachers -- Cindy Koeppel, The Dirksen Congressional Center

Other Program Highlights

In addition to the hour-long sessions described above, we will offer what we call "Sound Bites," or 15-minute sessions, on topics related to the workshop themes.

Take a look at The Dirksen Center Web site - http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_programs_CongressClassroom.htm -- to see what participants say about the program and to learn more about the scheduled sessions and presenters.

Registration

If you are interested in registering for the Congress in the Classroom® 2007 workshop, you can complete an online registration form found at: http://www.dirksencenter.org/programs_CiCapplication.htm.

4. NEWSLETTERS: CONGRESSIONAL FRONT, 1933-46

From his first week in office in the House of Representatives through 1946, Congressman Everett Dirksen personally composed and typed weekly newsletters (while Congress was in session) to his constituents in central Illinois. Congressional Front, as it was called, covered the personalities, politics, and policies of Congress and the federal government.

By the end of the run, Dirksen had written 474 of these newsy reports. Find the Congressional Front newsletters, 1933–46 at: http://www.dirksencenter.org/guides_emd/Dirksen_Newsletters/index.htm.
The contents of the individual issues beginning with the March 18, 1933, edition are described in the finding aid to the Remarks and Releases series of the Dirksen Papers posted at
http://www.dirksencenter.org/guides_emd/RemarksReleases1930-69/intro.htm.


5. PRINCIPLED LEADERSHIP

The Dirksen Congressional Center and Bradley University have joined forces to launch the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service. The Institute's mission is to educate ethical, collaborative, and bipartisan leaders for successful careers in public service. Fortunately, we have a legacy of principled leadership from the heart of Illinois that serves as a great foundation for the Institute.

On Friday, April 27, the Institute will hold its kick–off banquet celebrating the outstanding congressional leaders that have served the Peoria, IL area. Both former Congressman Bob Michel and Congressman Ray LaHood will participate, in addition to many other elected officials and community leaders.

Brad McMillan is the executive director of the Institute. If you have any questions about the Institute, please e–mail Brad at bmcmillan@bradley.edu.

6. ONGOING PROJECT: THE EDITORIAL CARTOON PROJECT

The Dirksen Center received $5,000 from the Caterpillar Foundation, Peoria, IL, and $1,000 from CEFCU (Citizens Equity Federal Credit Union), Peoria, IL, to digitize the approximately 300 political cartoons in the Everett Dirksen collection. This process began in December and was completed in March. Eventually, the digital collection will be posted on our Web suite and used to develop lesson plans for social studies teachers.

Visual literacy can be an important component in any social studies classroom. We hope the lesson plans developed from our digital collection will help students to sharpen their skills in "reading" visual images. We want our lessons to serve as background builders for further exploration of political cartoons as they pertain to different periods in history. We want our Dirksen cartoon collection and future developed lesson plans to help students learn to identify and interpret icons that appear in political cartoons and be able to identify, understand, and interpret the elements of political cartoons.

We will keep you updated with further development of this project.

7. CONSTITUTION: AMENDMENTS

Since 1787, over 9,000 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed, but only 27 have been approved. Listed in this activity are Amendments 11 through 27. Below this list are brief descriptions of what those Amendments are about, in scrambled order. Read a copy of the Amendment section of the Constitution. Print this scrambler and match the Amendment number with its definition. Find Constitution: Amendments at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/amendments/1_scramble.htm.

Trivia: There are two ways to amend the Constitution. By the year 2002, which one had NOT been used?

A. The Executive Branch and Judicial Branch propose it.
B. Two thirds of both Houses of Congress vote on it.
C. In a Constitutional Convention.
D. A majority of states vote on it.

*Find the answer in next month's issue.

Answer to March's Fun, Facts, and Trivia: http://www.webcommunicator.org/classroom%20resources/funfactstrivia_ans0307.htm.


8. NOTICE REGARDING E-MAIL ADDRESSES

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If you experience any problems, send an e-mail to Cindy Koeppel.