11/13/08 Pd. 7

November 13, 2008
Period 7
* Well, today all we did was Mr. G took questions right before the quiz. Then, we took the quiz on ch. 9-11. He graded the quizes and at the end of the period we got to see what our scores were.

Most members of Congress are more highly educated than the typical American. There are few minority or women members.
1. There are 2 schools of thought on this.
a. legislators should resemble demographics of constituents. Legislation as a whole will resemble the demographic characteristics of the population
b. ethnicity/gender of representatives doesn’t matter, voters should be colorblind and simply elect the best candidate regardless of ethnicity or gender
2. Racial gerrymandering promotes election of ethnic candidates. Used to make Congress more representatively descriptive. Supreme Court decisions have declared it a violation of Voting Rights Act.
a. Shane v. Reno (1993)
b. Miller v. Johnson (1995)
c. Bush v. Vera (1996)

How issues get on Congress’s agenda
1. Event (disaster) or technology (stem cell research) draws attention to a problem.
2. Presidential support can also move an issue quickly.
3. Congressional party leaders and committee chairs have best chance of influencing agenda.

Dance of Legislation
1. After introduction, bills go to a committee and then to a subcommittee. It then goes to full members of both houses and there is a vote.
a. Bills passed by the House and senate must go to a conference committee, where differences between the versions will be sorted out.
b. If both versions are passed the bill goes to the president.
2. President may sign or veto the bill
a. If the president vetoes the bill Congress can override it with a 2/3 majority vote in each house.
b. Pocket veto- When Congress adjourns within 10 days of sending the bill to the president and the president doesn’t sign it.

Committees- Workhorses of Congress
1. Congress has committees for the same reason any large organization is divided into specialized groups to develop and use expertise in specific areas.
2. Different types of committees
a. Standing committees- Most important. Permanent, specialize in specific area of public policy.
b. Select committees- Temporary. Used in investigations
c. Joint committees- Made up of both houses. Similar to select committees.
d. Conference committees- work out differences between House and Senate versions of legislation on the same subject.
3. Influence on committees grows formally with seniority and informally with increased expertise. Getting on the right committee is very important to most members of Congress. Most want to serve on committees that are important to their constituents. Our Congressman/woman works hard to get assigned to the Armed Services Committee because our district has Quantico, AP Hill, and Tidewater.
4. Senior member of majority party usually becomes the committee chair.
5. Public policy decision-making takes place in committees and sub-committees.
a. collect information on issue
b. hold hearing to gather more information. Most bills are pigeonholed and never make it out of committee.
c. mark-up session and returned to full committee where it can be further altered.
d. chair strongly influences the way work is handled.
6. Oversight- following through
a. Process of reviewing agency operations to determine whether an agency is carrying out policies as Congress intended
b. Congressional review.
c. Oversight difficult now. (Result of previous presidents)
d. Congressional Budget Office, Office of Technological Assessment
e. Legislative veto- procedure one or both houses can disallow an act of the president by a majority vote. It was declared unconstitutional in 1983 because it violated separation of powers.

Novemeber 5, 2008

Today was field trip day!
We went to the Newseum up in D.C. and learned about the press and its role in shaping not only the United States but the entire world.

First off, everyone went to the 4-D theatre where we watched a movie about the history of American press. The movie started off with a colonial journalist who smuggled his printing press away from the British so that they couldn’t silence his voice. The movie showed its first cool 3-D trick when a Revolutionary soldier fired on a British soldier and the movie used a Matrix-effect, where it made the bullet go really slow and showed it from all angles. Then, the movie discussed Nellie Bly, one of the first investigative reporters ever. She pretended to be mentally insane in order to be admitted to an insane asylum so she could expose the horrible conditions there. Her article wound up getting the asylum reformed, bettering the conditions for the women there. One of the last things the movie had was a segment about the British used radio broadcasts to gain support from the U.S. in WWII. The movie’s 3-D effects were amazing and the blasts of air from the seat in front of you were used in a way that matched what was going on onscreen without seeming cheap at all.

Afterwards, we all split off and were allowed to roam the Newseum on our own. One of the first exhibits that caught my eye was the FBI exhibit where they showcased some of the most important criminals caught by the FBI and how the press covered them. Being so fresh in my memory, the DC sniper part of the exhibit was especially interesting to me. The mock-up of the car used in the shootings was incredible. Moving on from there my group looked at the parts of the Berlin Wall they had on display, along with a guard tower. The sheer height of the tower was dizzying when I looked straight up at it.

Another interesting exhibit was the gallery of Pulitzer Prize winning photos. A few were upbeat and inspiring, while the ones that I feel stuck out the most were the ones that showed how much horror people are truly capable of. The photos were all there because they conveyed emotion and I truly agree that every one of them belonged there.

The exhibit that stuck with me the most in the whole Newseum was the Tower from tower 1 of the Twin Towers. After looking at the heap of twisted metal and reading a timeline of the events, I went into an adjacent video room. The movie playing showed not only photos of the events of that terrible day with interviews of covering reporters, but also actual footage of the towers falling. Never having seen actual video of it, I became extremely emotional as I watched the video, having difficulty maintaining any composure at all.

In all, it was an informative trip.