Understanding the
Legislative Process
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Lesson 1 Understanding the Legislative Process |
Introduction: |
Before one can impact
the legislative process, one must first know how the legislative
process works. In this lesson we will focus on how the legislative
process works at both the state and federal level. They are both
similar. Since most of the students in this class are from North
Carolina, that is the state we will focus on. Most states (except for
Nebraska) operate in a very similar model. We know that you studied
this in a "Civics" class some time in the past but you might have
forgotten a few of the details. If you know how the legislative process
works, you will then be ready to influence this process.
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Learning
Objectives:  |
 Describe how the
legislative process works at the state and federal level. Differentiate if a
bill is a house bill or a senate bill by looking at the number. Define the following
legislative terms:
Discuss how North
Carolina arrived at a County Commissioner form of a government for the
local level.
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| Instructional Activities:  |
Take the "Legislative
Process" pretest. Read Chapter 4 "Understanding Government
Instituions and Processes" in the course text. View the Powerpoint
presentation on "The Legislative
Process in North Carolina." Read how the North
Carolina legislature works from the web site of one of our
legislators. Read "How a Law
is Made" from the North Carolina General Assembly web site." This
has much of the same information as the PowerPoint but is presented
differently. Now let's look at how a law is made at
the federal level. The US House of Representatives has a site for kids
to learn how
a law is made.. Please click on the links to the various steps. I
think you will find this treatment of the topic somewhat simpler than
the "official"
version published by the House Parliamentarian, Even though some of you may think this is
corny, watch the
video on how a bill becomes a law. This if for people who like to
use some of their other senses to learn. Listen to Lee Hamilton, for 34 years a
Congressman from Indiana, share his ideas about writing
legislation. View a chart on how
the U. S. Senate is organized. Watch a short, funny but informative
video about the U.S. House of Representatives. Now watch a similar video about the Senate. You may want to explore
some of the videos produced by the Center on Congress at Indiana
University. We will direct you to some specific videos from this
collection in later lessons. The Re:Vision web site has four very
short web pages that shed some light on how Congress operates. Please
review these pages:
If you need help in understanding some of
the terminology involved in the legislative process you might want to
peruse the legislative
glossary from the U.S. Senate web site and bookmark the site. In North Carolina, the County
Commissioners are responsible for governing the counties. Read "COUNTY
GOVERNMENT: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE" from the state library to understand how
our local form of government has evolved. You may stumble across some
interesting facts. Extension agents should work closely with
their county commissioners. Visit the North Carolina Association of
County Commissioners web site to see what types of information the
Commissioners have access to and explore some of the issues of concern
for Commissioners. |
Lagniappe:  |
Lagniappe is a term commonly used in
Louisiana and means an unusual or unexpected gift or treat. From time
to time there will be a little lagniappe in these classes. You don't
have to click on these links but if you do you should find them to be
amusing (and you might even learn something).
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Assignments: |
Every
week there will be some type of weekly assignment that is designed to
bring closure to the learning process for that week. Your assignment
for this week is to study
how a bill becomes a law and identify at least 3 points in the
process
where you think an individual or organization could exert an influence
on the bill (you can identify more points if you so desire). Describe
how the legislation could be influenced at
the particular points you have identified. In other words, if you were
trying to pass legislation (or defeat it) what are some things that
could be done at certain points in time. Your assignment will probably
be 1-2 typed pages. Send this assignment as an e-mail
attachment to gary_moore@ncsu.edu.
This is due at the end of next week (June 5). |