The Legislative Branch, Day 2 - Class Recap

As part of the Legislative simulation today in class, I played the role of the President of the United States. Here I am in front of the White House, where the President lives in Washington, D.C. in 2010 (when I had a beard!).

Dear class,

I had fun today and I hope you did, too! I really enjoyed the simulation of how a bill becomes a law, because it was quite similar to how it actually goes. We also started up with looking at the Oregon congressional delegation. Here's the recap for today:

Learning Targets Addressed:
Knowledge LT 1: I can demonstrate an understanding of the interplay between citizens and their governments.
Knowledge LT 5: I can demonstrate an understanding of the principles, structures, and functions of different levels of U.S. government.

Soundtrack: “Represent" by Weezer. Because we talked in class about representatives in Congress. Get it? Haha. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/22/14:
News Brief – Mathew
Congress Simulation
Oregon Representatives
Computer Lab S213

Homework: Read the blog. Keep working on the Oregon representatives handout (we will finish it next class). Next news brief: Abby G.

News Brief: Mathew forgot his news brief again today, so I moved on and randomly selected Abby G. to do the next one. We also talked about how the U.S. government is responding to the Ebola virus, as well.

Congress Simulation: Again, I really liked this. I split up the class into the House of Representatives and Senate (which had less students in it, because that's how it really works), then again into different committees. I then passed out all the ideas for bills that students gave me at the end of last class, to debate. The committees debated the ideas for bills, then chose what they thought was the best one to propose to their chamber of Congress, by answering these questions:

What are you proposing?
Who will it impact?
When will it begin or end?
Where (which states) will be impacted?
Why should this bill pass?
How much will it cost?

After the full House and full Senate debated the two bills that were put forward by the committees, they chose one bill each to vote on and send over to the other part of Congress. This ended up being a bill on raising the minimum wage and one lowering the amount of time that someone with a new driver's license cannot have a friend in the car.

Both sections of Congress debated the bills, changed them, then voted on them, sending them back to the other side (this would now be the conference committee). Eventually, only one bill, gradually raising the minimum wage an hour in a tiered system: $7.50 in 2014, $8.00 in 2015, $8.50 in 2016, $9.00 in 2017, and $9.50 in 2018.

Acting as President of the simulation, I signed the bill into law, even though I personally felt that the wage increases were not fast enough - at least it was a start! :-)

Oregon Representatives: Next, it was time to learn more about who serves Oregon as representatives in Congress at the federal level. Here is the handout that I passed out in class:

Google Drive - Oregon Representatives on Congress Handout

The main point here is to know who our representatives are and what they believe.

Computer Lab S213: For the rest of the class, we were in the computer lab, working on the handout. Next class (on Friday), we will go again and finish it.

Thanks for your work on this! See you next class!