ADOPT-A-RETIRED
CONGRESSPERSON ASSIGNMENT #2
(paper
assignment #3, counting the redistricting assignment)
Posted
Due no later than
Answer ANY TWO of the
following questions (1, 2, 3).
1.) Legislative Career
Select two years out of your
congressperson’s career (NOTE: THOMAS
sponsorship data does not go back farther than the 93rd Congress
< 1973-74>).
a.)
For each of the two years, tell me: of how many bills was your member of Congress
the principal sponsor? Of how many bills was your member of Congress
a cosponsor? How do the numbers
achieved by your Congressperson compare to those of the handful of
congresspersons appearing above and below your congressperson on the list? Based on this (unscientific) comparison,
would you consider your congressperson an especially active or an especially
inactive congressperson legislatively?
b.)
Discuss the
topic areas covered by the bills sponsored by your congressperson. How well do these topics relate to the
Congressperson’s personal background, the information on his or her district
that you reported in the first paper, and/or his or her committee
assignments? Do you think your member
was a legislative specialist or a generalist, based on what you see?
c.)
Did any of your congressperson’s bills (in your two
selected years) pass the House, or even become law? If so, take one of the bills that passed and
outline the legislative process the bill went through, using the knowledge we
have gained in this class. If not, what
is the farthest point in the legislative process reached by any of your
congressperson’s bills? For that bill
that reached the farthest, discuss the legislative process up to the point
where the bill ceased to progress further, using the knowledge we have gained
in this class.
d.)
Examine the list of bills that your congressperson
cosponsored for each of the two selected years.
Briefly skim the lists of cosponsored bills. Do you see any general patterns or trends in
the kinds of bills cosponsored by your congressperson?
2.) Speeches or Media Coverage, and Essay
If your congressperson served in the 101st Congress or later:
a.) Search the Congressional
Record online for at least three sets of remarks that your member gave on the
floor of the House. (you
may have to look at more than one Congress to get three substantial sets of
remarks). Briefly summarize what your
congressperson said, and the purpose of the speech. Briefly comment on the style with which the
words were delivered.
b.) Suppose you are a staffer whose job it is to
write up a brief article for the congressperson’s newsletter about one of the “speeches”
identified in part a. Write up an
imaginary newsletter article about the speech, trying to relate it to what you
know about the congressperson’s “strengths” as a politician and what people in
the district are interested in.
If your
congressperson’s service ended before the 101st Congress, do ONE of
the following:
c.) Do
“a” and “b” above, only using the hardbound copies of the Congressional Record
and the Congressional Record Index in Gorgas Library
instead of the online version of the Congressional Record. You may need the librarians’ help with this.
d.) Using
the hardbound copies of Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, the New York Times index (and
the New York Times on microfilm), OR the
3.) The Congressperson’s Voting Record
There are many people keeping track of congresspersons’
voting records, and there are many different “voting scores” indicating how
often in the course of a year a given member supports a particular interest
group, a particular ideology, (liberal or conservative, saving money vs.
spending money), and/or a particular individual or set of individuals (for
example, the president, or fellow members of his or her party; Congressional Quarterly regularly computes “presidential
support scores” and “party unity scores” for each member).
For your congressperson, find three different voting scores
for a single year of his or her Congressional service. Any year will do. Tell
me as much as you can about what the voting scores “measure”: who is the person or group whose interests
the congressperson is supporting (or not supporting), or what ideology the
congressperson is supporting or not supporting.
For example, if you find out that John Anderson had an
Then, I’d like you to do ONE of the following comparisons
a.)
Compare your Congressperson to himself or herself over
time. That is, collect data on how the
congressperson did----on all three scores---in previous years and/or subsequent
years. Is there a trend in your
Congressperson’s behavior over time? Did
he or she become more supportive or less supportive of the group in question,
or did he or she just bounce around aimlessly?
Can you think of any reasons (personal, historical, etc) why the
congressperson changed the way that he or she did?
b.)
Compare your Congressperson to other congresspersons in
the state, especially (if there are many fellow congresspersons)
congresspersons of the same party with similar districts. Do so for all three of the voting scores you
identify.
The following books are good sources of
information about congressperson’s voting scores (and, in some cases) about the
organizations that rate the congresspersons.
J. Michael Sharp, Directory of Congressional Voting Scores
and Interest Group Ratings. This is in
the Gorgas Library Reference Room, call number JK1051.S555
There are three different editions of this book: 1988, 1997, and 2000.
Politics in
Almanac of American Politics. Also in Gorgas
Reference Room (again, some are in retired stacks which only special librarians
can access). JK1012.A44
Vital Statistics on Congress. Several editions of this are available in the
Gorgas Reference Room. JK 1041.V58
If your Congressperson served as recently as 1999 or later,
he or she may have many voting scores available on Project Vote Smart’s website.
Even if your Congressperson isn’t that recent, this website
has links to the websites of many of the organizations that do the ratings.