The US Since 1945

Over the last two weeks of classes, we’ll focus in on the legislative process and on recent / contemporary policies and politics through a project of writing your own bill and taking it up in our Congress’s legislative session.

Download project guidelines

Download bill template (Word doc)

Schedule:

Congress Day #7 – April 15th. Learn about the legislative process. Research and decide on your bill or resolution and begin drafting it.

Bill Workshop Day – April 20th. Finalize your bill, and work as a Congress to organize the pending legislation into committee agendas and a queue for debate on the floor.

Email it to me in its final form by midnight Wednesday April 20 as a Word doc. I will give each document a number, post it to the Congress Wiki, and print it out for our next Congress day.

Day 8 – Fri 4/22 – Legislative Session #1
We will conduct hearings and vote on as many acts as possible.

Day 9 – Fri 4/29 – Legislative Session #2
We will conduct hearings and vote on as many acts as possible.

After Day 9 – update your committee page to its final form by Mon 5/2 (last day of class)

Mon 5/9 (Exam #4 day, 8:30 am) – Reflection paper due on the Congress project.

Enjoy your snow day, although it’s cancelled our 2nd day of Congress. We’ll just stay on track with the syllabus as given instead of making the day up. However, if you’re interested in what we would have done, check out the “Day 2” page on the Congress Wiki.

For Monday 2/8: MO Ch 5 “Consumer Culture”

And, here’s a recent article you might enjoy about how Congress managed during the unusually large snowstorm down in DC a few weeks ago –

Please bring laptops to class on Friday 1/29. You’ll start work on your committee’s wikipage, which means you will need a few people in each committee with laptops handy. Thanks! — Dr. Hangen

No, I am not here this morning (you can follow the meeting I’m attending at Twitter hashtag #oah2014). Yes, we are still having class. Continue reading →

Here’s the plan for our last four classes.

Mon 4/23 – 9/11 and Post. Reading: HOT 369-395 and MO 296-309.

Wed 4/25 – Congress Day #8 – please be there, it will be our day for hearings, debate and voting on 9 or 10 bills – a big agenda.

Fri 4/27 – Recession 101 (or Congress Day #9 if needed). Instead of reading we have listening, a one-hour radio program (long live radio! But I digress). Please listen to, and take notes on, the “Giant Pool of Money” episode of This American Life from from May 9, 2008 that attempted to explain the origins of the emerging recession (then tagged as a “housing crisis”). Note how the producers narrate this tale, and what was (then) considered significant or ominous. From the vantage point of 2012, what parts of this story might you tell differently?

Mon 4/30 – History in OUR time. If you were assigned to add a new document to the end of the Chafe volume, what would it be? Bring your new document to class IN PRINTED FORM. If it’s lengthy, excerpt/edit it to under 5 pages. Also, your Congress page should be done by this day. The end-of-term instructions for your Congress project are found here: http://us45.wikispaces.com/END+OF+TERM+INFO

Reminder: Our third exam will be Monday 5/7 at 8:30 am in our usual classroom. Note the time is EARLIER than our class meeting time by one hour. Your Congress papers are due at the last exam. If you are not planning to take the exam, please make sure I have your Congress paper in hand before 8:30 that morning.

Photo credit: Snapped by me on a college student on the campus of William and Mary

(No Class Monday 4/16 – Patriot’s Day)

Our next class meeting will be a busy Congress Day, discussing and sorting out our own legislation. Please write and submit a bill, preferably electronically by Monday night 4/16. The instructions and details on this are on the Congress Day 6 page. Download the Word template for your bill here.

Reminders:
Everyone writes his or her own bill (or at most, with ONE other person).
These are not committee bills, and do not have to be related to your committee work.
The time period of the bill should be roughly contemporary (since the Reagan era).
Writing more than one bill is fine.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Image: from http://ncpeaceaction.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/congress1.jpg