Day 29

Learning Targets:

Students will be able to:

• Describe the different structures, powers, and functions of each house of Congress.
• Explain how the structure, powers, and functions of both houses of Congress affect the policy-making process.
• Explain how congressional behavior is influenced by election processes, partisanship, and divided government.
• Explain how the president can implement a policy agenda.

*Note:  All responses should be typed in your new interactive notebook (Google doc).

Both assignments (posted Tuesday and Thursday) will be "collected" no later than Friday of each week, and graded by Monday.  This gives you some flexibility and Friday to complete both.  

Opener: Budget and Appropriations

Given that most of you selected the Budget and/or Appropriations committees as the most desirable for members of Congress to set themselves up for a little logrolling, and all revenue bills MUST begin in the House (although it must of course pass through the Senate as well), then which members of the HoR would you argue are truly the most influential?  What pattern or similarity do you notice about the membership of each committee?

https://budget.house.gov/

https://appropriations.house.gov/

Activity One: Bicamerialism

Review the following video and complete the questions below:

*Make sure that you also look at this:  https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45583.pdf

1.  What are the differences in requirements to hold the office of Representative vs. Senator?

2.  What powers are specifically given to the House?  What about the Senate?  Identify at least 2 for each.

3.  When it comes to the realities of Congress, rather than just the requirements, identify at least 2 trends in the House and 2 trends in the Senate.

Activity #2: Ya, ok.  Back by popular demand

https://www.adea.org/policy/state-advocacy-toolkit/how-a-bill-becomes-law.aspx

Order the following events in the process of how a bill becomes a law...

• The bill is signed or vetoed by the President
• The bill is referred to a committee
• The bill is debated by the committee
• The bill is written by anyone
• The bill is debated on the floor of the house or senate
• The bill is sent to a conference committee to eliminate differences
• The bill is sent to the President
• The bill is passed by the committee (or it fails)
• The bill is sent to the other house to repeat the process
• The whole House or Senate votes on the bill
• The bill is introduced to the House or Senate by a member of Congress

Close: 

Click for the Review Sheet. There is nothing you need to complete on this, however, for those of you planning taking the AP exam, you may want to print this out and use it later in May....