POL 480 - Formation of Public Policy Library Research Guide
Course Information Spring 2003
Legislative History – Content
I. Content (70%)
1. Name and PL# of law
2. Who introduced the legislation and why?
3. The committees who held jurisdiction over the legislation
4. Committee members who were active and why
5. Interest groups, public agencies, and others who were active and why
6. Interest groups, public agencies who you believe would be interested in the law, but were not active and why?
7. The points of contention and conflict among actors in committee
8. The content of legislation as reported out of committee
9. The substance of the floor debate
10. The vote tallies for each house
11. How legislation differed between the House and the Senate and why
12. Who was appointed to the conference committee and why
13. What occurred in the conference committee
14. How the legislation was changed in conference committee and why
15. What the President did and said
16. Brief evaluation of the legislation
II. Organization (20%)
A. How well you blend your facts into an explanation of the passage of the legislation
B. How smoothly your explanation flows
C. Structure of the paper – introduction, body, conclusion
III. Spelling and Grammar (10%)
IV. Warning I
You must appropriately cite to all material that you use. Failure to do so will result in a grade of zero. There are several writing manuals that will instruct you on proper citation – Chicago Manual, the APA, the MLA. Also, I am delighted to help you with your citations.
V. Warning II
You may not select the Brady bill. Also, you may not select Megan’s law, the Pam Lychner Act, or any of the sexual predator reporting laws that was spawned from Megan’s law. Finally, you may not select the Family and Medical Leave Act.
VI. Extra credit
Use one of the theories, or stories, that we cover in class to analyze and explain the political process surrounding the passage of your bill. The analysis should be incorporated within your legislative history, it should not be a separate paper, nor should it be a separate section. The extra credit is worth up to 10 points (or a full letter grade) added into your lowest exam score.
Legislative History – Selecting a Law
1. A legislative history is a story about the politics and the process surrounding the adoption of a law. The story needs to include the actors who were involved in the law’s passage, including the actors conspicuous for their absence, the roles, actions, and strategies of the actors, the compromises made among them, and so forth.
2. What type of a law makes for a good legislative history?
· Passage of the law involved some conflict.
· The law isn’t too complex.
· Lots of good information about the law exists.
3. To browse for laws examine the National Journal (call number JK1.N28, latest three years in reference area, remainder in stacks); Congressional Quarterly Weekly – select CQ Weekly and browse the archives by subject matter. Or, you can search public laws by keyword and subject through CIS Congressional Universe. From CIS Congressional Universe select Laws, and then select public laws. You can search public laws by subject. Select a public policy area that you are interested in and use search terms that will identify laws in that area, i.e, “sentencing guidelines”, “prescription medication”, “health maintenance organizations”, “clean water”, etc.
4. How to tell if the law would make for a good legislative history?
· Browse the contents of the law to determine if it is interesting to you.
· Examine the bill tracking report and the legislative history. The bill tracking report identifies all actions taken in Congress and by the President in relation to the law. In examining the legislative history look for committee hearings and committee reports. These two documents are vital to a good paper. Committees often hold hearings in which a variety of interest groups testify. Thus, hearings allow you to identify the interest groups and their positions. Committees will also issue reports, explaining the law, background to the law, and why committee members support passage of the law. Committee reports will give you a good idea of the positions of committee members, where the idea for the law came from, etc.
5. On Thursday, February 20th, hand in to me on a sheet of paper (typewritten not handwritten) the public law #, the title of the law, and the bill # of the law you have selected. Also, provide a citation to a committee report, a committee hearing, and a floor debate that has convinced you that your choice of laws is excellent.
6. Free advice: spend several hours finding a good law, you will save yourself lots of grief and frustration.
7. TWO TYPES OF LAWS ARE FORBIDDEN 1) BRADY BILL; 2) MEGAN’S LAW AND ALL OF ITS OFFSPRING – LAWS THAT DEAL WITH SEX OFFENDERS.