Congress Paper

SENATE SIMULATION This Senate simulation will place students in the role of a senator. The main goal of this simulation is to pass various bills and get the President to sign them into law. The process in which a bill becomes a law is complex. Partisanship and clashing ideologies and egos do not make the process smooth. We will try to examine the most vital aspects of the process. This Senate Simulation will be divided into 5 parts: 1.) Bill Writing Committee- Groups of 3-6 will research and write a bill. The group will use the blank bill provided in the packet. The group must make the bill in the spirit of the topic. (e.g. a group should not make a Bailout Ban bill that allows for more assault weapons. If a member of the group does not support this stance, they can later act against it but for the sake of the bill writing committee every member should try to make the strongest bill possible. Here are the topics of the bills. Please download the document(s) and keep in your binder (#): BILL TOPICS RESOURCES (PROS AND CONS) Please download the sample bill and instructions (only if you haven’t finished writing your bill): Sample Bill and info (#____) 2.) Party Caucus- The class will be split into two parties- Republicans and Democrats. The Party Caucus is basically a meeting of the members in a particular party in which they discuss aspects of bills and choose leadership roles.
a.) Each member will be assigned a seniority number (which helps determine which committee and position you want to be), a state which they represent, and information about how the member’s state stands on issues.
b.) After the bills have been completed, the parties will meet with their respective parties and pick their leaders. We will try to mimic the 112th Congress in which the Democrats control the Senate and thus have the majority leadership positions and the chairperson’s roles. Democrats will need to pick their majority leader (conducts the business