Mr. Fitch
Downtown College Prep El Primero High School
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Public Policy Paper

3rd Paper 
Money and Special Interests in Politics

DUE DATE: SAT, 12/20 11:59 PM PST

Congress Member Network and Campaign Finance
You will research the Member of the House or Senate who introduced your bill. 
You will:
(A) Identify their net worth 
(B) From your 2014 member profile from step A, you will list their top 5 assets (based on monetary value) including the name of the asset and the dollar range amount for the asset.  IF they don't have any assets or have fewer than five assets, make sure and note that in your paper. 
(C) You will go to Congressional Races and identify how much your bill sponsor:
(1) raised 
(2) spent and 
(3) has cash on hand for the most recent election. 
You will do the same for his/her challenger(s).
Make sure and identify the challengers by name and include their political party.

Congressional Committee Campaign Finance
(D) Go to the Congressional committee where your bill was referred. 
On the Overview page, you are going to identify the top 5 (based on amount of money) "Sectors Contributing to Members of this Committee, 2014 Election Cycle" including the amounts and sector names. Add the individual and PAC numbers to identify the top 5 sectors contributing to this committee.
(E) On the same page you will scroll down to the links for "Committee-Related Industries" and click on each one listed and record the industry name and the total amount contributed to committee members. It's possible, there will not be any listed. If there are not any "Committee-Related Industries" listed, just mention that in your paper. 

Money in Politics
From this article there are 10 things every voter should know about money in politics. 
Read only articles: #1,2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
(F) Write a 1/2 page summary of the articles. You can either summarize the articles individually OR do one summary for all the articles 
(G) Compare the articles findings to your Congressmember's election. Is the information in the articles true about your Congressman's or Senator's election and money raised and from whom?  Are the articles true about the money given to the members of the Committee your bill was referred to including the sectors/industries and relative amounts?

Conclusion
What's your position on your public policy? 
  • You can use evidence from the pros and cons in your public policy paper I to support your stand.
What's your overall view of Congress? 
  • If you think Congress is working well, why? What's your evidence?
  • If you think Congress is NOT working well, what suggestions would you make.  Here are some ideas. 

MAKE SURE YOU CITE EVERYTHING!
Before submitting -- do you have sub-titles for all the parts of your paper? Is your paper correctly formatted? Do you have one Works Cited page? Have you proofread? Have you spell checked?  Did you complete ALL parts of the paper?

2nd Paper Legislation/Executive Branch

DUE DATE: FRIDAY, 11/21

Legislation 
(A) You will identify the name and bill number of federal legislation, related to your topic, that has been proposed or passed into law in the last three years. 
(B) You will identify who the author(s) (i.e., sponsor) of the bill is
(C) You will summarize the bill. 

Committee(s)
(D) You will identify the name of the committee(s) it was reported to 
(E) You will identify what happened to the bill in committee. Died (no action)? Voted and passed? Voted and did not pass? (use gov.track.us for this)
(F) If not reported out of committee, move to step G.  If voted on, indicate # of Democratic votes, Republican votes and Independent votes.

Executive Branch
(G) You will research and report the White House's position on the legislation or issue by going to the White House website or conducting a Google search
(H) You will identify the executive department(s) and/or independent agency(s) who are/would be responsible for executing the law 
(I) You will identify the mission and budget of the executive department(s) and federal agency(s). (see executive department link above). If an independent agency, you'll have to use a Google search.
1st Paper 
Background

DUE DATE:  TUESDAY 
SEPTEMBER 16

You will provide OBJECTIVE background information on your topic. This will include (A) description of your policy topic including (as applicable) the who,what, why, when, where and how related to your topic 
(B) Summarize the two (or more) sides related to your topic (i.e., what are the arguments for and against your topic)  

Overview
You are going to write a series of papers about one assigned public policy issue.

Papers are 20% of your grade

Paper Requirements
  • 2-3 pages per paper 
  • Double-spaced
  • Times New Roman
  • 12 point font
  • 1" margins
  • Correct MLA format including sub-headings 
  • Works Cited page
  • A minimum of four (4) citations per paper
Topics
Below are the topics which will be assigned. 

Switching Topics
You can switch topics with another student in your same class period but you HAVE to inform me in WRITING who you changed topics with. 

Proposing Topics
You may propose your own topic that is not on this list. You must have my approval for your topic. 
rubric_govt_policy_paper_i.xlsx
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public_policy_paper_-_formatting.gdoc
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government_paper_2_outline.gdoc
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Resources for your Research and Writing Your Paper

Starting Your Search & Evaluating Sources
CRAAP Test                                                               
Students Guide to Web Search                                    
SweetSearch - A Search Engine for Students
Google News
Easy Bib Research
 
Information on Formatting and Writing an MLA Paper
MLA formatting and style guide
Generate MLA citations     

Information on Interest Groups and Campaign Donations
List of interest groups by issue
Open Secrets   
Maplight                                                         

Major National News Sources
CNN
ABC News
CBS News
NBC News
Newsweek
Time
U.S. News and World Report
C-SPAN
PBS Newshour
USA Today
For major national newspapers, click here                                 
Sources for Background Information on your Topic
ProCon.org
Debate.org
Liberal v. Conservative Beliefs
Library research guides
Project Vote Smart - Issues 
Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports
Research of 400+ think tanks and research centers  
        
Political News
PolitiFact                                                                   
Politico                                                                      
The Hill  
                                        
Tracking Congressional legislation
Open Congress
Congress.gov
Thomas  
GovTrack.US                      

The Executive Branch                                                                 
GovTrack.US
White House - policy issues                                         
A-Z index of U.S. government departments and agencies                                                   
Election Results
2008 and 2012 Presidential Election results by Congressional district
public_policy_assignments.xlsx
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File Type: xlsx
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