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. Facts of the Union
4. Congressional Power Index
5. OpenCongress
6. EdNews.org – An Interview with Frank Mackaman
7. The American President Virtual Field Trip & Trivia
8. Postscript Information
1. PEOPLE WHO SERVED IN CONGRESS
Sketches of famous and not-so-famous Senators and Representatives
Richard J. Durbin. Senator Dick Durbin was elected by his fellow
Democratic senators in December 2006 to the post of Assistant
Majority Leader, also known as Majority Whip. It is the Senate's
second highest ranking position. In 2004, Durbin was elected
as Minority Whip. Durbin's election to leadership marked only
the fifth time in history that an Illinois senator has served
as a Senate leader.
Durbin, a Democrat from Springfield, is the 47th U.S. Senator
from the State of Illinois and the first Illinois senator to
serve on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee in more than
a quarter of a century. He is the state’s senior senator
and convenor of the bipartisan Illinois delegation.
Elected to the U.S. Senate on November 5, 1996 and re-elected
in 2002, Durbin fills the seat left vacant by the retirement
of his long-time friend and mentor, U.S. Senator Paul Simon.
In 2001, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) appointed
Durbin to the Senate’s leadership team, Assistant Democratic
Floor Leader. In 2000, Durbin served as Co-Chairman of the Democratic
Platform Committee and also was Co-Chairman of the Atlantic Conference
sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He is
a founding member of the Senate Global AIDS Caucus.
Senator Durbin is married to Loretta Schaefer Durbin. They have
three children and one grandchild.
His Senate site is http://durbin.senate.gov/.
The URL for the Democratic Leader’s site is http://democrats.senate.gov/.
Project Vote Smart’s entry for Durbin is located at http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=26847.
2. CONGRESS DEFINED
Words and phrases that describe congressional processes
Pro Forma Session. A brief meeting of a chamber held to satisfy
the constitutional requirement that each house must obtain the
consent of the other if it adjourns for more than three days.
Little or not business is conducted because most members are
absent. The unofficial record for the shortest session of a house
is two seconds, set by the Senate in 1963.
Source: Congressional Quarterly’s American Congressional
Dictionary, 3rd edition, ed. Walter Kravitz (Washington DC: CQ
Press, 2001):192.
3. FACTS OF THE UNION
This CongressLink related lesson plan offers students
the opportunity to review statements made by President Bush in
his 2007 State of the Union Address.
The president made several claims about achievements of his
administration and called for action on matters he felt should
be addressed. Facts of the Union provides students with
a good starting point for examining some crucial issues the president
laid out for the year. Students will research details of these
issues, analyze the president's statements and claims, and draw
conclusions about how straightforward he was with the American
people. Once students have gained a solid understanding of these
issues, they can continue to examine progress made on them by
the president and Congress over the course of the year.
Find Facts of the Union at: http://www.congresslink.org/print_teaching_relatedlessons.htm.
4. CONGRESSIONAL POWER INDEX
CongressLink's Congressional Power Index helps
determine what makes someone influential in Congress and invites
students to measure their Congress members against those factors
and to develop more factors.
How to use this table: To get a rough approximation of a Congress
member's influence, use the table to compile a rating. The higher
the number, the more influential the member. You may not be able
to determine the measurement factor in all cases, but the index
can be useful even if only partially completed.
After using this table, you are welcome to suggest other factors
than the ones we included. An expanded list could include, for
example, the capability of the member's staff, his or her physical
stamina, and so on. Attempting to identify all possible explanations
would prove impossible, so we encourage you to think about other
factors in the Extra Credit portion of the assignment –– WebQuest:
How Influential is Your Member of Congress?
Remember, not all factors are measurable. For example, we are
unaware of any method to determine how one Congress member is
viewed by all of his or her colleagues. Certainly one held in
high esteem would probably be more influential than one no one
liked, but there are no data to arrive at such a measurement.
Likewise, there are no measures of staff effectiveness, certainly
a factor in a member's ability to exercise power.
Take some time to try out the lesson plan –– WebQuest:
How Influential is Your Member of Congress? –– and
the attached Congressional Power Index -- http://www.congresslink.org/print_teaching_webquests_influential.htm.
While we want you to learn from us, we want to learn from you
as well. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please send
any feedback or ideas to Frank
Mackaman.
5. OPENCONGRESS.ORG
Small groups of political insiders and lobbyists know what is
really going on in Congress and now you can be an insider, too! OpenCongress.org is
a resource that joins official government information with news
and blog coverage to provide the real story behind events in
Congress.
This site is a free, open–source, non–profit, and
non–partisan Web resource with a mission to help make Congress
more transparent and to encourage civic engagement.
OpenCongress.org brings together, for the first time
in one place, all the best data on what's really happening in
Congress:
- Official information from Thomas, the Website of the Library
of Congress, made available by GovTrack.us –– all
the bills, Members of Congress, votes, committee reports, issue
areas, and more.
- News articles about Congress from Google News.
- Blog posts about Congress from Technorati and Google Blog
Search.
- Campaign contribution information from OpenSecrets.org, the
Website of the non–profit, non–partisan Center
for Responsive Politics.
OpenCongress.org makes it easy for anyone to track a
bill, Member of Congress, or issue area, and to follow the latest
developments by subscribing to an RSS feed for each. The Congress
Gossip Blog highlights useful news and blog reporting every day
from around the Web, and solicits tips and link suggestions from
political bloggers, citizen journalists, and the public.
OpenCongress.org harnesses the valuable social wisdom
available on the Web, combined with features to track what is
hot in the news and what is most buzzed about on blogs, to give
visitors a comprehensive snapshot of every bill and Member of
Congress.
Find OpenCongress.org at: http://www.aboutgovernment.org/print_news.htm.
6. EDNEWS.ORG – AN INTERVIEW WITH
FRANK MACKAMAN
EdNews.org - An Interview With Frank Mackaman
On March 8, 2007, Michael F. Shaughnessy, Senior Columnist of
EdNews.org, Eastern New Mexico University, published An
Interview with Frank Mackaman: About The Dirksen Center.
To read this article, visit: http://www.ednews.org/articles/8733/1/An-Interview-with-Frank-Mackaman-About-The-Dirksen-Center/Page1.html.
7. THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP & TRIVIA
* The American President Virtual Field Trip *
The American President Virtual Field Trip, created by
one of The Dirksen Center's good friends, Michael Hutchison,
helps students learn about the American President. See samples
of the presidents' handwriting and hear clips of presidents'
voices.
Find The American President Virtual Field Trip at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/executivebranch/2_execbranch.htm.
Trivia:
Two agencies of the U.S. government are legally responsible
for regulating cell phones. One of those agencies is the Federal
Communications Commission. What is the other?
A. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
B. Consumer Products Safety Commission
C. Food and Drug Administration
D. Environmental Protection Agency
*Find the answer in next month's issue.
Answer to May's Fun, Facts, and Trivia: http://www.webcommunicator.org/classroom%20resources/funfactstrivia_ans0507.htm
8. NOTICE REGARDING E-MAIL ADDRESSES
Communicator's mailing list has over 25,000 names and is still growing. Please
follow the instructions below to help us with list editing:
SUBSCRIBE: To join the Communicator mailing list,
send an e- mail
to enews@webcommunicator.org with
the phrase - Subscribe Communicator -- in the subject
line of the message.
UNSUBSCRIBE: To be removed from the Communicator mailing
list, send an e-mail to enews@webcommunicator.org with
the phrase - Remove Communicator -- in the subject line
of the message.
UPDATE E-MAIL ADDRESS: To change your e-mail address,
send an e-mail to enews@webcommunicator.org with the phrase - E–mail
Change -- in the body of the message and list your old e-mail
address and new e-mail address.
FORWARD E-MAIL: We encourage you to forward The Dirksen Congressional
Center's Communicator to a friend!
If you experience any problems, send an e-mail to Cindy
Koeppel. |
