A Legislative Case Study Assignment

Abstract

In an article entitled “Teaching the Congress and Legislative Process Courses,” L. Sandy Maisel found by examining the syllabi of such courses that about half of them involved legislative case study assignments. He suggested that further exploration of these assignments would be appropriate. Since students are so commonly required to do case studies of bills in legislative courses, a description of this type of assignment and discussion of how to implement it would be useful. In this paper, I will cover my use of this type of assignment in a course on the legislative process. In describing this legislative case study requirement, sections on background information, the case study assignment, and student reaction to the assignment, together with a brief conclusion, will be presented.