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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Monthly Feature -- New CongressLink Feature
2. Monthly Theme -- How a Bill Becomes a Law
3. Featured Grant-funded Project
4. News and Views from The Center
5. Trivia - Bill Will
6. Postscript Information

1. New CongressLink Feature

How a Bill Becomes a Law [ http://www.congresslink.org/Frantzich/index.htm ]

2. How a Bill Becomes a Law

The legislative process is a fascinating, important, and complex set of actions whose excitement and variability are not fully captured in the standard "a bill becomes a law" chart. While the formal stages in the legislative process are a good place to start, it is important to recognize alternative routes. Legislation passes or fails both on the quality of its content and the strategies of its opponents and proponents.

The Center has posted a new feature on CongressLink that explores, in a more robust and engaging form than textbooks do, how legislation works its way through Congress.

How a Bill Becomes a Law [ http://www.congresslink.org/Frantzich/index.htm ]

This beta version is made available to you for testing purposes prior to the official release of the new CongressLink feature. We want to give you a sneak peak and let us know what you think. If you have any ideas or comments about this new feature, please contact Cindy Koeppel.

Stephen Frantzich, Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Cindy Koeppel, web developer for The Center, have created fourteen units using text, graphics, and video to explain to students how the often untidy legislative process works.

Unit 1. Introduction
Unit 2. From Problems to Solutions
Unit 3. Origin of Bills
Unit 4. Bill Drafting and Floor Introduction
Unit 5. Referral to Committee
Unit 6. Subcommittee Review
Unit 7. Mark Up and Subcommittee Voting
Unit 8. Committee Action
Unit 9. Scheduling Floor Consideration
Unit 10. Floor Debate
Unit 11. Floor Votes
Unit 12. Ironing Out Differences
Unit 13. Presidential Action and Congressional Reaction
Unit 14. The Legislative Process

For each part of the process, the developers outline the "textbook" stages and then provide you with examples of exceptions for that stage. Where possible, video examples are provided. Each stage involves different political strategies-they are outlined in the "Strategies and Power Plays" section. Like any profession, legislating has its own jargon. Bolded glossary terms are defined in the "Legislative Lingo" section. Further information is available in the "Stats, Quirks, and Examples" and "Legislative Junkie" sections.

What will students likely learn from the unit? We hope students who explore How a Bill Becomes a Law will:

• Gain a greater appreciation for the complexity and resiliency of the legislative process.
• Understand why it takes time for a bill to become a law.
• Learn that persistence, strategy, timing, compromise, and pure chance are all important elements in the legislative process.
• Not all legislation results in the expected consequences. Unintended consequences often take the form of a new problem, which serves as the basis for a new legislative initiative.
• There is a temptation to see congressional action as something done at a far distant place. Democracy, though, requires active citizens who help select representatives through elections, who make suggestions about possible policy problems, and who monitor their legislators' actions. Knowing more about how a bill becomes a law will empower you in these tasks.

This project was made possible with grants provided by The Dirksen Congressional Center and the Naval Academy Research Office.

You might also be interested in another related lesson plans posted on CongressLink -- How a Bill Becomes a Law: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- http://www.congresslink.org/print_lp_civilrights.htm. This unit will demonstrate to students the step-by-step procedure of a bill becoming a law using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a case study.

Teachers with students in grades fourth through high school, introduce your students to the Congress for Kids -- http://www.congressforkids.net -- activities included in The Legislative Branch: Making Laws sub-section -- http://www.congressforkids.net/Legislativebranch_makinglaws.htm. After reading the content, click on Show What You Know and advance to the printable trivia quiz. If you are looking for more fun, click on Play More and advance to a portal page of sites related to this topic.

3. FEATURED GRANT-FUNDED PROJECT

During our 13th annual Congress in the Classroom® summer workshop, Stephanie Larson, Professor and Chair of Political Science at Dickinson College presented a session on the media's coverage of Congress. She agreed to post a summary of her remarks on our CongressLink website. Find this online resource -- Reporting on Congress: The Role of the Media at: http://www.congresslink.org/print_expert_media.htm.

Professor Larson teaches about American politics with emphasis on the mass media and political behavior. Her research focuses on the content and impact of media coverage of political actors and institutions and, as a second specialty, the representation of women in popular culture. In addition to this work, she is a consultant for the Advanced Placement Division of the Middle States Regional Office of the College Board. In this position, she runs workshops to assist high school AP government teachers.

4. NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE CENTER

** Congress in the Classroom® 2005 -- A Success! **

The key element to The Dirksen Center's national, award-winning education program, Congress in the Classroom® is the participation and collaboration among the teachers who attend the program.

Congress in the Classroom® is dedicated to the exchange of ideas and information on teaching about Congress. The 2005 program theme was Our New Congress: the 109th.

Read what our participants had to say about the 2005 program: http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_programs_CongressClassroom.htm#what.

Hope you can join us next year!

** Historical Collection Digitization **

As we mentioned in our May Communicator, we began in earnest to build a digital database of, first, some of the printed guides to The Center's archival holdings and, second, selected historical documents. This month we are going to share some more of our work with you.

We have posted the complete digitized guide to Dirksen's Notebooks, 1932-69. This series includes more than 12,500 pages of outlines and texts, references materials, and other documents collected by Dirksen and kept in a set of personal notebooks.

The guide to this series includes an index linking each document individually to 47 different searchable Adobe PDF files. Find this index at: http://www.dirksencenter.org/guides_emd/Notebooks1932-69/intro.htm.

More to come next month!

** A Call for Papers **

Sixth Annual Conference on State Politics and Policy
PATHS OF INFLUENCE: INSTITUTIONS AND PROCESSES FOSTERING REPRESENTATION IN AMERICAN STATES

When?: May 19-20, 2006
Where?: Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas

The theme of the 2006 State Politics and Policy conference is Paths of Influence: Institutions and Processes Fostering Representation in American States. The theme is intentionally broad so as to be receptive to the full range of research exploring connections between the public and their polities. Papers exploring legislative, judicial, or executive institutions, political or policy processes, or mass-elite linkages formed by interest groups, political parties, public preferences, or political culture are invited. Proposals emphasizing cross-state or within state elements are welcome as are those incorporating sub-state governments or intergovernmental relations.

Paper proposals due December 15, 2005. More information can be found at: http://www.fsu.edu/~statepol/conferences/2006/2006call.htm.

5. BILL WILL

1. Legislation that has passed in different forms by each chamber is reconciled into a single bill by…

A) Standing committees
B) Select committees
C) Special committees
D) Conference committees
E) Secret committees

2. All presidential appointments must be approved through the advice and consent of…

A) The Senate
B) The House of Representatives
C) The Supreme Court
D) The Office of Management and Budget
E) The Vice President

3. True or False: It takes only 41 Senators to stop a bill from passing their chamber.

4. Can you name and explain the different types of legislation?

Answers to May's issue of Fun, Facts, and Trivia: http://www.webcommunicator.org/funfactstrivia0505ans.htm.

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