Six-Page Essay Assignment

Pick a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution concerning elections, political participation, and free expression.  What is the political motivation behind the proposal?  What are the arguments for and against it?  If you were a member of Congress, would you support it? 

Here are some examples from the 115th Congress:

• H.J. Res. 13 (term limits)
• H.J. Res. 19 (direct election of president)
• H.J. Res. 30 (apportionment by citizen population)
• H.J. Res. 91 (voting rights in territories)
• S.J. Res. 8 (regulation of campaign finance)
• S.J. Res. 46 (flag burning)

H.J. Res. 28 deals with six distinct subjects (direct election of the president, voting rights, foreign and anonymous influence, redistricting reform, voter registration, and the establishment of election day as a national holiday).  You may write your paper on one of these six provisions.

And from the 114th Congress:  H.J. Res. 80 (redistricting).

Note that bill numbers start over again with each new Congress.  H.J. Res. 80 from the 114th Congress is completely different from H.J. Res. 80 from the 115th Congress.

Your essay must have at least five different sources.  As I hope that you learned from the riddles, print books are still useful. * Other possible sources include:

• CQ Library
• Law reviews on Lexis-Nexis (click "advanced options" and select "law reviews")
• Congress.gov (http://www.congress.gov/) -- official site for bill summary and status 
• GovTrack (http://www.govtrack.us/) – unofficial site for congressional information 
• ProQuest Congressional, via Honnold menu -- many congressional documents including searchable Congressional Record. Click “databases,” then the letter “P,” then “ProQuest Congressional.”) 
• Committee web pages, which usually contain testimony and text of reports. See http://www.house.gov/committees/ or http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/committees/d_three_sections_with_teasers/committees_home.htm

Your sources may include specialized references such as The Almanac of American Politics, but do not cite general-purpose encyclopedias such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana. And especially do not cite Wikipedia. 

• Assignments should be typed, double-spaced, and no more than six pages long. Use 12-point type and one-inch margins.  
• Cite your sources with endnotes, which should be in standard Turabian format.
• Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Return assignments to the class Sakai dropbox (in Word format, not pdf) by 11:59 PM, November 3. Essays will drop one gradepoint for one day’s lateness and a full grade for two or more days’ lateness. 

*The link takes you to a 1967 Star Trek clip.  Fifty years ago, the notion of using a desktop to access laws and law books was still science fiction.