This article outlines a semester-long advocacy project that walks students through the steps to develop a successful advocacy campaign, culminating in a trip to the state capitol to "lobby" legislators. The manuscript provides faculty with the basic structure for the project and suggests gradable assignments. The project builds on the…

Institutions build armies of alumni advocates to influence legislators and shape public opinion. This article describes two types of alumni advocacy: grasstops and grassroots. Grasstops advocacy engages smaller, targeted groups of alumni who have a stronger, more influential connection with legislators and other public officeholders. Grassroots…

Just 18 minutes before the midnight signing deadline on May 15, 2010, Minnesota state legislators breathed a sigh of relief. Their bipartisan pension reform legislation, which passed both chambers by large margins and aimed to help shore up a potentially failing pension system, had just escaped a veto threat. Under pressure from his Republican…

What if Stephen Douglas instead of Abraham Lincoln had won the U.S. presidential election of 1860? What if John F. Kennedy had not carried some of the eight states he won by 2 percentage points or fewer in 1960? What if six hundred more people in Florida had voted for Al Gore in 2000? And what if, in that same year, the U.S. House of…

On the morning of September 1, 1960, Herb Klein and Pierre Salinger met in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., to discuss the details of what would be the first televised presidential debate. Klein was press secretary for Republican candidate Vice President Richard Nixon and Salinger was press secretary for Democratic candidate Senator John…

Sealed for 50 years, the transcripts of the executive session hearings conducted by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 and 1954, were recently opened for research. The Senate Historical Office edited the transcripts for publication by the Government Printing Office and on the…

Perhaps more than any other figure in American history, William Jennings Bryan is remembered for specific and identifiable moments of rhetorical action: the much-revered 1896 "Cross of gold" speech and the much-maligned Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925. The dissonance between these two events, at least with respect to the ways in…

Representative Usher Burdick, who sat between 1949-1959, contributed to the isolationist label given to North Dakota. This Republican politician, not enthusiastic about U.S. participation in the Korean War, eagerly lambasted foreign aid during the Truman-Eisenhower years. Above all, the congressman attracted attention during the postwar period for…

This evaluative study investigated through actual demonstrations the effectiveness of satellite videoconferencing in providing a new mechanism for informed dialogue between congressmen and constituents, thus strengthening the legislative process. In this experiment, the use of NASA's portable earth terminal was instrumental in making satellite…

The strategy of the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Universities to combat student aid budget cuts is discussed. The main event was a "Day in Washington" when members discussed the impact of the proposed cuts with the 25 congressmen and two senators from Pennsylvania. (MLW)

This compilation of seven briefs is intended to help citizens lobby United States senators, representatives, and their staff members on issues of importance to the Hispanic American community. Each brief synopsizes an issue, reviews current proposals for addressing the issue, and suggests the appropriate action that the member of congress should…

Examines George Bush's relations with Congress early in his term, focusing on the political and legislative environment in which Bush was operating. Analyzes Bush's legislative strategy, including agenda setting and orientation to Congress. Maintains that effective leadership is defined and constrained by the configuration of political forces. (RW)

Higher education lobbyists in Washington work as liaisons between their institutions and the federal government. The experiences of several lobbyists are described. Lobbying is seen as a game of knowing the people who can help and showing the legislators how a side of an issue benefits them. (MLW)

Criticizes legislation sponsored by Senator Slade Gorton and other Republican members of Congress that would weaken tribal sovereignty and the federal government's trust responsibility. Republican proposals have included limiting tribal jurisdiction of reservation lands, drastically reducing Bureau of Indian Affairs spending, taxing the Indian…

This guide is a revised and adapted version of a previous monograph, "A New Public Perspective on Representative Democracy: A Guide for Legislative Interns." The guide focuses on civic perspective: how citizens view the political institutions, processes, and people that are fundamental to representative democracy in the United States. It…