Who's who in Congress?

After you’re assigned your Congressperson, go to their websites and do general research to answer the following questions:

1     1.  What is the demographic makeup of your Congresspersons district?

2     2. What are the important issues for the people in your Congresspersons district/state?

3     3.  What are your Congresspersons committee and subcommittee assignments?

4     4.  In what ways does the demographic makeup and policy agenda of your Congresspersons constituents          match up to their committee assignments?

5     5.  How does the prior career or background of the Congressperson lend itself to his/her position?

6     6.  What committee would your Congressmperson NOT want to be a part of?

        Resources:    My Congressional District for demographic info

                     Senate committee website

                     House committee website

Shutdown cartoons

Which of the following political cartoons do you most agree with concerning Obamacare and the ongoing shutdown that was the result of the budget battle?  Are the Republicans going too far in their quest to repeal/change the Affordable Care Act or is the President (and by extension the Senate Democrats) being too inflexible about changes to his signature healthcare legislation?



source:http://www.npr.org/2013/09/30/226882380/double-take-toons-whiching-hour

Government shutdown

Start with this article from CNN, it gives a good overview of the shutdown, why it happened, and issues surrounding the shutdown.  Here is a similar article from FoxNews.  Continue to research the issue and answer the following questions:
1.  Do our representatives have a responsibility to avoid this type of government shutdown?
2.  How can this shutdown affect the US economy?  Be specific.
3.  Is this heated partisanship an indicator that the government is broken or that our system of checks and balances are working?
4.  Should changes to Obamacare  be on the table for this type of budget negotiation?  Why or why not?