Your assignment must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Includes your name and student ID number in the header
2. Be word processed
3. Be double-spaced
4. Be submitted electronically via eCampus
5. Have a minimum length of 1000 words (excluding cited text/directquotations & Works Cited/bibliographic info) saved and submitted as a.doc or .docx file
6. Be presented in paragraph format featuring complete sentences
7. Includes at least two formal citations from a crediblejournalistic source, government website, book, or peer reviewed journalutilizing APA formatting (Your textbook can be used as a supplementarysource, but it would not count towards this requirement.)
8. Follow all of the conventions and rules of Standard Written English

For this writing assignment you will be required to closely follow the instructions.

Do not skip steps!!!!!

The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to identify one ofyour elected federal-level legislative representatives and the issuesthey have prioritized as your representative, then compare the work theyare doing with your personal political beliefs. Do you care about thesame issues that they do? This assignment will be scored out of 100points, and will constitute 10% of your final grade in the class.

Step 1: Go to https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members toinput your address and determine who your elected federal-levellegislative representatives are. You must choose to write on either yourmember of the US House of Representatives or one of your members of theUS Senate.

Step 2: After selecting one of those federal-level legislators,click on his/her name. On that next page, you will find variedinformation about your legislator, including links to other websites youcan use for research, as well as the link to his/her official website,which is found on the upper-right of the page.

Step 3: Go to http://votesmart.org/interest-groups#.VklL93bnvIU tolocate an interest group that lobbies on behalf of an issue you careabout. This can be any issue, from abortion to tax relief, as long as itis an issue that interests you. Navigate on the page to find an issuecategory (like “Campaign Finance and Elections” or “Foreign Aid”) thatyou are interested in. Then, under that category heading, select one ofthe particular groups in that category to research. {Those particulargroups are located on the far right under the “SIG Name” heading.}

Step 4: Respond to the following list of questions in sequentialorder. Each question should be answered completely and numberedaccordingly in separate paragraphs.

NOTE: This is not a position paper. You do not need to offer orsupport a thesis, but your answers are required to be submitted incomplete sentences, and in your own words. DO NOT copy and paste fromany of the websites you will utilize during this assignment. Part of thechallenge of this type of assignment is to strengthen your ability todiscuss political issues using your unique ‘voice’.

Question 1: What is the name of your chosen federal-level legislatorand what is his/her office? What is his/her race/ethnicity, gender,and religious affiliation? What political party does s/he belong to?Does s/he share your preferred party preference? How long has s/he beenin office?

Question 2: On the www.govtrack.us website for your legislator,there will be a section labeled “Bills Sponsored”. Click on “View All”to see a list of that legislator’s list of sponsored legislation. Selectand describe two pieces of legislation sponsored by your legislatorduring the most recent regular legislative session. (If your legislatorhas not sponsored a bill before, you should describe his/her two mostrecent co-sponsored bills).

Question 3: Compare and contrast the mission and goals of yourchosen interest group with the political beliefs and legislativepriorities of your chosen legislator, providing AT LEAST two specific examples of either agreement or disagreement between them. Has your chosen interest group endorsed your elected legislator?

Question 4: Why do you think your chosen legislator was able to wintheir most immediately recent election? In order to answer thisquestion, you must include a description of the demographic makeup ofyour district (if you are writing about your US House member) or state(if you are writing about your US Senator). That demographic makeupshould include race/ethnicity, gender, and the level of voting turnout.Was your legislator an incumbent officeholder prior to his/her mostrecent election, and was this a factor in getting elected? Thisinformation could be located on the web page of your chosen legislator,but might need to be gathered via other appropriate sources (seerequirements above regarding citation sources).

Question 5: Now that you have this information, (pleaseassume/pretend you are eligible to vote) are you more or less likely tovote in the next election? Why or why not? Would you vote to keep thislegislator, or would you vote for his/her opponent?