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Assignment: Analysis of the Factors That Influence Congressional Decision-Making Demonstrate your understanding of the factors that influence...
Assignment: Analysis of the Factors That Influence Congressional Decision-Making
Demonstrate your understanding of the factors that influence Congress members' decision-making. Consider the assigned readings, multimedia, exercises, and your website research; then, write essay.
Deliverables
- analysis
Activity Details
Perform the following steps:
Step 1: Search online for the Congressional Voting Database.
Use this resource to answer the following questions:
- Identify the representatives and the senators with the lowest percentage of voting with their political parties and the representatives and the senators with the highest percentage of voting with their parties.
- Describe what you believe are the advantages and disadvantages of voting along party lines. Explain the incentives for a Congressperson to vote with his or her political party.
- Explain the differences between the trustee, delegate, and politico models of legislator representation. When do legislators tend to act as trustees?
- What is logrolling?
- When do interest groups and lobbyists tend to have the most influence on members of Congress?
- When do Congress members' staffs tend to be most influential?
Step 2: Draft the first half of the paper.
Describe the advantages and disadvantages of voting along party lines. Answer the other questions listed above pertaining to models of legislator representation.
Step 3: Select any representative or senator and visit the THOMAS website.
View the bills the legislator has sponsored. Draft a description of the constituencies you imagine the legislator has based on the bills he or she has sponsored.
Step 4: Visit the Project Vote Smart website.
Examine the same legislator's record on national key votes and answer the following questions: Does this record support your imagined constituencies? What other factors could have influenced the Congressperson's votes?
Step 5: Visit the CongressionalReportCards.org website.
First, examine the same legislator's votes. Describe the advocacy groups with which the legislator's votes most closely align and those the legislator's votes least closely align. How does this record correspond with your imagined constituencies for the legislator? Next, finish drafting the second half of your paper.
Step 6: Edit your paper.
Ensure that you cover these topics in a clear, well-organized analysis.
