[Begin B]  Additional Material for CQ’s Legislative Simulation
Julie Dolan and Marni Ezra

 
   Suggestions for the Legislative Simulation Instructor
      Assigning Roles
      Timeline

   Overview of Three Legislative Exercises
      Committee Hearings
      Committee Markup
      Floor Debate

   Overview of Student Roles and Suggested Responsibilities
      Committee Chair
      Committee Ranking Minority Member
      Floor Managers
      Speaker of the House
      Clerk of the House
      Committee Staff

   Suggested Legislative Simulation Assignments

   Link to Witness Testimonies [Link to separate document, which already exists]

   Link to House Standing Committees, 108th Congress [Link to separate document, which already exists]

   Link to House Committee Membership Lists, 108th Congress [Link to separate document, which already exists]
            House Committee on Energy and Commerce
            House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

         Link to Questionnaire on Your Member of Congress [Link to separate document, which already exists]



Suggestions for the Legislative Simulation Instructor

Assigning Roles:

• First, make a decision about what piece or pieces of legislation you will use during the simulation. Ideally students should play members of the House who sit on the committee or committees with jurisdiction over the bills to be included in the simulation. For example, if you decide to use the Safe and Sober Streets Act, we recommend that all students adopt the role of a member who sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Depending on the size of your class, you may be able to draw solely from the relevant committees (listed in CQ's Legislative Simulation). The committees included have at least forty members, so if your class is smaller than this, you can simply list the members from the relevant committees and ask students to choose a member on their own. Another option is to narrow down the original committee list before determining roles.
• You also may elect to assign each student to a congressional district. To facilitate this process, ask your students to fill out the "Questionnaire on Your Member of Congress" from CQ's Legislative Simulation. Their responses will help you assign party affiliations and congressional districts. You also might ask them to petition for specific assignments. After providing all students with a listing of the potential member roles for the simulation, you could require them to write a short paper spelling out their reasons and motivations for representing a particular district or playing a certain member of Congress. Depending on the persuasiveness of their papers, you can assign roles accordingly. Finally, you may elect to assign students specific roles. However you decide to proceed, your class ideally should match the partisan composition of the House at large.
• Students should become experts on the constituency assigned to them (researching its geography, demographics, and political leanings), and they should learn as much as they can about the incumbent. Students will represent their constituencies as politicians seeking reelection. Although they need not play precisely the parts of real-life incumbents, they will find the incumbents' voting records and views instructive models for dealing with their constituencies. We recommend giving students at least two weeks to research their roles and issue positions and to review their committee testimony before starting the simulation.
• In addition to playing the role of a member of Congress, each student should be assigned at least one other role. These roles are assigned not only to make the simulation as realistic as possible but also to make the in-class activities proceed smoothly. For example, without someone assigned the role of committee chair, committee hearings and committee markup may degenerate into a free for all.

Additional recommended roles include:

• Committee Chair (one per committee)
• Committee Ranking Minority Member (one per committee)
• House Majority Floor Manager (often the same person who serves as Committee Chair; one per committee)
• House Minority Floor Manager (often the same person who serves as Committee Ranking Minority Member; one per committee)
• Committee Witnesses (numerous roles for each committee)

You also might assign these optional roles:

• Speaker of the House
• House Clerk/Parliamentarian
• Committee Staff (multiple students can assume this role)

Depending on the size of your class, not all of these roles may be necessary. At bare minimum, we recommend you assign the first five roles. After these are assigned, if some students do not have additional roles, you can draw from the remaining roles. As instructor, you may also decide to assume the role of the Speaker, parliamentarian, or clerk.

Timeline

• At a bare minimum, we recommend one full class period (approximately one to one and a half hours) for each day of committee hearings and each day of floor debate per bill. Committee markups realistically can be held simultaneously with each other, so that all three committees can meet in separate parts of the classroom during one class period.
• The number of bills to use really depends on the size of your class and the number of days you plan to devote to the legislative simulation.

With a smaller class (ten to fifteen members), we recommend using only one bill. While carrying out the committee hearings, those students providing witness testimony step out of their congressional roles for only the few minutes necessary to deliver their testimony. While one witness is testifying, the other witnesses not currently testifying revert to their roles as members of the committee and, like any other member of the committee, are responsible for asking questions of the witness.

The advantage of using more than one bill is that you more easily can arrange for committee members to play witness roles when testifying before the committee during the hearings phase. For example, if you use both the Patient Access to Responsible Care bill and the Safe and Sober Streets measure, a student who plays a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee (with jurisdiction over the Patient Access bill) would also assume the role of one of the witnesses testifying before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (on the Safe and Sober Streets bill).

Overview of Three Legislative Exercises

Committee Hearings

• Each student will play a member of Congress and will sit on one primary standing committee. Each committee conducts hearings on a single piece of legislation. Because the simulation works best when students are fully prepared to act out their roles, encourage students to look at members' Web pages or watch committee proceedings on C-SPAN. Although the committee chair and ranking minority member can expect to have the greatest roles during the committee hearings and markup, the rank-and-file members of the committee should be prepared to ask questions, give opening statements, and participate in the general proceedings. :p>
• Four to six students also are designated as interest group spokespersons. They appear before the committee to present testimony for or against the legislation and to answer the committee members' questions. First, remind them that current House rules specify that witnesses should give a brief overview of their written testimony rather than reading the entire statement before the committee. Second, let them know that witnesses are allotted no more than five minutes to present their oral testimony. Finally, encourage students to communicate the kernel of their arguments to committee members, briefly summarizing the organizations' or individuals' viewpoints they are representing and indicating whether they favor or oppose the pending legislation. Students need not extensively research their positions before testifying but should be familiar enough with all the background materials in the text to field satisfactorily questions from committee members. :p>

Committee Markup:

• Require all students to read through the bill before arriving in class. Because legislative language often is less than straightforward, reading the bill requires some patience and a bit of extra effort.
• To make the markup run smoothly, students should specify which section(s) of the bill their amendments pertain to.
• Current House rules require that members submit their amendments in writing, and requiring the same of students should make discussion of each amendment go more smoothly because other students will be able to see for themselves what exactly is being proposed.
• Students may feel awkward proposing their own changes to the existing bill, but you can reassure them that they need not make wholesale changes to have an impact. Much of legislation is changed incrementally, so making simple changes at the margins is acceptable.
• Depending on which bill the students are marking up, you may or may not choose to have a clerk (played by you or a student on the committee who is momentarily assuming or has been assigned the role) read the relevant sections before they are open to amendment. With the longer bills, a reading by the clerk may refresh students' memories about the substance of each section of the bill as well as confine discussion to more manageable proportions at any one time.
• If you are using more than one bill, feel free to run the committee markup sessions simultaneously. We see no reason for devoting separate days to each committee markup since markup proceedings routinely occur simultaneously throughout the House.
• If the committee decides against reporting favorably on the bill and against sending it to the House floor, we recommend that you go ahead with the floor debate.
• Spend a few minutes at the beginning of class reminding students what they are expected to accomplish throughout the class period. For example, they should be able to introduce and discuss all of the proposed amendments, vote on all amendments offered, and take a final vote to decide whether the bill will be reported favorably out of committee.
• We recommend that you keep track of time, giving students notice when the class period is drawing to a close so they can vote on reporting the bill (they often get so wrapped up in debate that they forget about the final vote requirement). You also may serve as a parliamentarian and provide guidance on points of order and other procedural questions if the committee chairs so request.

Floor Debate

Although we recommend skipping over most of the preliminary procedures (prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, and so on), we do think that one-minute speeches make a nice addition to the floor simulation. Depending on the amount of time you have, you may elect to set aside ten to fifteen minutes for one-minute speeches at the beginning of the floor debate. These short speeches offer students an opportunity to rise and be heard on an issue of importance to their districts, to address current events, or to offer their support for or opposition to the legislation scheduled to come to the floor later in the day.

• In the class simulation, we recommend that you allow about equal time for amending procedures and for general debate (but be prepared to be flexible here). About twenty minutes are probably sufficient for general debate, although you may need to set aside more time if many students plan to give opening remarks or one-minute speeches. The amount of time you will need for the amending phase really depends on the size of your class and the number of amendments you expect will be offered. House rules specify that each member is granted five minutes to offer and explain an amendment and that a member who opposes the amendment is also allowed five minutes to be heard, after which time other interested members also may speak for five minutes on the amendment. In the classroom simulation, it is unlikely that most students will speak for five consecutive minutes on either side. You might modify the rule for simulation purposes, allowing one or two minutes instead of five.
• We recommend you devise some system for communicating students' proposed amendments to the rest of the class. One way is to allow them to rise and read the text of the amendment to their classmates before engaging in debate. However, if students are not familiar with the proposed amendment, class time may be wasted clarifying the nature of the debate, writing it on the board, and so forth. You may decide to require that students submit amendments to you or the House clerk at least a few days before the scheduled floor debate. By doing so, you (or the clerk) can make overhead transparencies, type up a handout listing all proposed amendments, or upload them to a course Web page before floor debate. Alternatively, the instructor may decide to set aside a few minutes at the end of a class period preceding the floor debate session and allow the floor managers time to consult and strategize with their party colleagues.
• Depending on the size of your class, you may want to assume the role of the Speaker of the House or allow a student to take on this role. Otherwise, we recommend that you spend a few minutes before the simulation gets under way outlining the proceedings for the day. We suggest that you also remind students that they should coordinate with their floor manager to be allowed to speak on the floor. Further, you should make a decision about when votes on amendments will be taken, either immediately after debate concludes on each amendment or at the end of the entire amending phase. If you assign students the roles of Speaker of the House and clerk, make sure to communicate with them about their responsibilities before the proceedings start.

Overview of Student Roles and Suggested Responsibilities (see also CQ's Legislative Simulation)

Committee Chair

The chair's most important role is to preside over both committee hearings and committee markup. In selecting someone for this role, the instructor should seek a student who is comfortable with public speaking. Alternatively, the instructor may ask a volunteer from the committee rank and file to play the role of chair. For the student who agrees to take on the role of committee chair or ranking member, we do not require that this student assume any other roles throughout the simulation.

During committee hearings, the chair opens the hearing (providing introductory remarks), arranges the order in which witnesses will appear, calls on those witnesses to testify, apportions time for the committee rank and file to present opening statements (if any) and to ask questions of the witnesses, and brings the hearing to a close. In addition, the chair may choose to communicate with the ranking minority member about the hearing, allowing the minority party some say in the proceedings. Because some committee chairs and ranking members work closely together, while others do not, we usually allow students the option of proceeding on bipartisan or partisan terms, however they see fit to conduct the business of the committee.

The committee chair's responsibilities for the markup session are similar to those for committee hearings. The chair makes opening and closing statements, apportions time among his or her colleagues, presides over any disputes or points of order, and calls votes on amendments and on the entire bill. Similarly, the chair may decide how much say the ranking member will exert over committee markup.

You also may decide to include floor manager responsibilities as part of the chair's duties. See the discussion of floor manager duties (after the following section).

Committee Ranking Minority Member

Depending on the ranking minority member's relationship with his or her committee chair, the responsibilities for this member can vary enormously. If the chair decides to run the entire show, the ranking minority member may be treated like any other rank-and-file member of the committee. At the other extreme, the chair may elect to share responsibility for presiding over the committee. The ranking member is usually the second in line to speak, after the committee chair, during committee hearings and markup. In addition, the ranking member is usually charged with organizing questions from his or her side of the aisle during hearings.

Floor Managers

Floor managers are usually the chairs of the committees or subcommittees that held hearings and markup on the bill. Thus the floor manager responsibilities may be tacked on to those of the committee chair and the ranking minority member, or the instructor may decide to select two other students to assume these roles. The primary responsibility of the floor managers is to steer the bill once it reaches the House floor. To these ends, the floor managers alternate in calling on their colleagues, who may wish to give opening statements (during general debate) and/or propose amendments (during the amending phase).

Speaker of the House (optional)

Students usually are nervous about assuming the role of Speaker, often because House procedures may seem arcane, complex, and confusing. In fact, the Speaker's role in the simulation is limited and entails relatively little outside research. The "sample script" in Appendix A spells out the language most commonly used by the Speaker (or the chair of the Committee of the Whole). In addition, the Speaker rules on any points of order raised by fellow members during floor debate and calls and counts votes when necessary.

Clerk of the House (optional)

This role easily can be assumed by the instructor or assigned to a student. The main responsibility of the clerk is to read aloud sections of bills and proposed amendments during markup and floor debate. In addition, the clerk may be called on to edit bills to incorporate any changes made during markup, to execute a roll call by hand (calling on each member by name and recording their yea or nay vote), and to organize floor amendments before floor debate and to communicate them to the rest of the class.

Committee Staff (optional)

If you have a large class and a number of students have not been assigned additional roles besides Member of Congress, you may want to assign them roles as committee staff. The primary responsibilities of the committee staff during the simulation are to keep minutes of the markup session, noting the nature of all changes made to the existing bill (additions, subtractions, modifications, and so on). At the conclusion of the markup, you can require the staff to prepare a report (one to two pages) that summarizes the committee's actions on the bill. This report will be distributed to the clerk and/or the instructor for making appropriate wording changes before the bill reaches the floor. The report also should be distributed to other students so they can keep themselves apprised of any significant changes made to the bill since it was first introduced.

Suggested Legislative Simulation Assignments

Following are a variety of assignments and exercises that can be used in the legislative simulation.

Member Profile

Assign a paper designed to help students learn about their members of Congress and their districts back home. Combining information about the district and individual member, a profile might assess the fit between the member and his or her district. Does the member "fit" his or her district? Why or why not? What characteristics, if any, do the member and constituents share? What does the district look like demographically? Is it primarily rural, urban, or mixed? Are most voters Republicans or Democrats? Liberals, moderates, or conservatives? Blue-collar or white-collar workers? What is the racial makeup of the district? What industries are located in the district? What organized groups support the member? What special talents and experience does the member have? What committees does he or she sit on? What types of legislation has the member sponsored? How does he or she vote on legislation likely to have a noticeable impact on constituents? How effective does the member seem in representing the district? The idea behind the paper is to introduce students to as much information as possible about their House members to enable them to be effective actors in class simulations.

Letter to Constituent(s) Explaining Washington Activity

Playing their members of Congress, students write letters (papers) to their constituents, outlining their reasons for voting the way they did on particular pieces of legislation (for example, one of those debated in the simulation). This assignment can be used to familiarize students with the bills used in the simulation, to show them how to carry out basic legislative research, and to encourage them to investigate and characterize fully the philosophies of their members of Congress. Students may locate roll-call votes for individual members of Congress through a variety of sources, including CQ Weekly, the homepages of some individual members, the Web sites of the House of Representatives and the Library of Congress (Thomas), and other online sources, such as C-SPAN's Congressional Votes Library, Congress.org, and Project Vote Smart.

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