The Setup
Groucho Marx once said, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”
If only he knew how right he was…
January 2025. There is a new president in the White House.
Your new President of the United States is:
Tom Brady???
That is right. In a stunning move, the country decided that if Tom Brady was good enough to win seven Super Bowls, he was good enough to be President of the United States of America.
Only one problem. Mr. Brady, for all his wonderful qualities, knows nothing of American government and politics. Fortunately for him, he has picked the right person as his new domestic policy advisor: YOU! So get to work, and don’t mind all the people asking for autographs.
The Assignment
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, it is time to get down to the assignment. As the newest advisor to the most politically inexperienced president in American history, you will need to call on all that you have learned in POS 2041 to help Mr. Brady. Specifically, President Brady has asked for your help in passing a new law. The details of the law, as well as the details of President Brady’s party affiliation (if any) are totally up to you. President Brady wants to know about the kinds of difficulties that his proposal will face, and the things he needs to do to get it passed .
Specifically you should inform President Brady of the following:
1) The structure of our constitutional form of government (separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism – you should talk about all three of these and each should be its own paragraph).
2) The role of specific actors within the formal branches of government (Congress, the bureaucracy, and the courts – you should discuss all three of these and each should be its own paragraph).
3) The role of other institutions and actors (the media, political parties, and interest groups – you should talk about each of these and each should be its own paragraph).
You’ll want to tie this all in with how a bill becomes a law.