How Did Your Representative Vote?

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Overview

This lesson briefly reviews some of things that influence legislators to vote for or against bills. Students will research how their representative voted on a specific issue and discuss what might have influenced their representative’s decisions.

 

Grade Levels

9 – 12

 

Objectives

Students will:

• identify some influences that affect how a Member of Congress decides to vote on a bill; and
• determine how their representative voted on a specific bill and identify some of the influences that may have affected how the representative voted.

Estimated Time

1 day

 

Materials Needed

• E-Learning Module: How a Member Decides to Vote
• Internet connection with Macromedia FLASH ® enabled
• Projection device
• Paper and pencil

Procedure

1. Use a projection device to project the How a Member Decides to Vote E-Learning Module. Complete the activity as a class.
2. Have students name everything that influenced them to vote for or against the bill during the activity.
3. Explain to students that there are many things that influence the way Members of Congress vote. As a class, compile a list of influences. Write this list on the chalkboard, whiteboard, or overhead projector.
4. Have students visit the Thomas Library Web site at http://thomas.loc.gov/ and choose one bill to study.
5. Then ask students to visit the C-SPAN Congressional Vote Search at http://capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/issuesdbq/votesearch.dbq and find out how their representative voted on the chosen bill.
6. Have students formulate a list of things that may have influenced their legislators to vote for or against the chosen bill. Encourage students to think about the constituents their representative serves and the demographics of the areas the representative serves. Students should also consider their representative’s party affiliation.
7. If time permits, allow students to share their conclusions.

Extension Activity

Discuss public opinion polls and make sure students understand that public opinion polls measure the attitudes or opinions of a given population. Ask students how legislators, politicians, and presidents use public opinion polls. Explain to students that some critics say that public opinion polls make elected officials too responsive to the momentary whims of the public and discourage legislators from thoughtful deliberation. Critics also say that the public is not necessarily well informed on an issue but give their opinion to a pollster anyway. Have students write a paper that discusses whether or not they agree with these criticisms.

 

Assessment

Basic Concepts and Processes

Ask your students to respond to the following requests for information and assess their knowledge of key concepts taught in this lesson.

1. Name at least three influences that affect how a Member of Congress decides to vote on a bill.

2. Describe some of the influences that may have affected how your representative voted on a particular bill.

Scoring Guide for Student Lists

The following rubric was designed to help you assign grades to students for this particular activity.

Elements	Possible Score	Assigned Score	Notes
Participates in class discussion	5
Names his or her local representatives	25
Identifies one bill from the Thomas Library and finds out how the local representative voted	40
Describes some of what may have influenced how the local representative voted	30

 

Lesson Plan Feedback

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