Please read through this page and the next page before you start.
The assignment is to assess your 6 legislative representatives by creating a 1-page fact sheet for each one.
–Your national representatives in the U.S. Senate (2 people) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1 person),
–Your state representatives in the New York State Senate (1) and in the New York State Assembly (1), and
–Your local representative (1) in either the New York City Council
Each of the six fact sheets should answer the following 5 questions (you can list #1-4; #5 should be a paragraph).
1) Name and Party Affiliation of the legislator.
2) Bills sponsored, preferably ones that became laws. Briefly describe at least four, in your own words.
–SOURCES: For your representatives name, party, and accomplishments, use the following websites.
You will have to type in your address for all of them except the U.S. Senatefor that, just look for the two people who represent NYS. Youll only do one of the ones in the right-hand column, depending on where you live:
National Representatives 1 and 2: U.S. Senate
http://www.senate.gov/
National Representative 3: U.S. House of Reps.
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
State Representative 1: NYS Senate
http://www.nysenate.gov/
State Representative 2: NYS Assembly
http://assembly.state.ny.us/
Local Representative:
NYC Council
http://council.nyc.gov/html/home/home.shtml
3) Which interest groups rate his or her voting record on particular issues very high, or very low?
–SOURCE: Search the representatives name on this website, and then the ratings tab: www.vote-smart.org.
–Pick at least three different issues that you care about. What do specific groups ratings (especially when theyre very high or very low) tell you about the representatives beliefs about the issues the group cares about? For instance, if rated highly by an anti-abortion group, the representative is anti-abortion. If rated very low by an environmental group, the representative probably doesn’t vote for conservation, etc.
4) Who was his or her challenger in November 2018? How did their views differ, and on what specific issues, in the campaign? Note that one of your U.S. Senators and your local rep did not run this year.
–SOURCE: first try https://ballotpedia.org/Main_Page. If this website isnt helpful try: www.newsday.com, www.timesunion.com, www.nytimes.com and/or www.google.com in order to find other information. You can find election results on New York States election page: https://nyenr.elections.ny.gov/.
5) Your assessment. Briefly address all four of the below in a short paragraph:
–Is s/he doing a good job (for you, your community, state, country)? If so, how, and if not, why not?
–Consider whether the person is of the same party as that which controls the legislative chamber the person is in.
If so, they should have accomplished more. If not, then they probably havent accomplished as much.
–Consider which party you feel represents you better overall. Is the representative from that party or not?
–Then decide, would you vote for this representative in the next election? Why or why not?
Capitalize Congress, Senate, Assembly, etc. Capitalize Democrat and Republican and names of other parties. Make sure you spell legislators names correctly. Proofread your paper before handing it in. I will take off points for errors of capitalization, punctuation, etc.
Make sure you read the next page: it addresses frequently asked questions as well as common problems and errors.
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