Bush assignment

Content Type

User Generated

User

Mrrx

Subject

Humanities

Description

Students will explore the political agendas from president Clinton and G. Bush and evaluate their relationship with the Senate and House of Representatives as they attempt to pass their legislative agendas though Congress.

A short history lesson on government:

Article I of the Constitution outlines the Legislative Branch of the United States Government to be comprised of representatives that hold seats in the Senate and the House. The Senate has 100 seats, two for each state and the House of Representative seats are determined by state population, totaling 435 elected members. The House of Representatives serve two year terms and the Senators serve a six year term which means that the terms stagger and every two years approximately 1/3 of the members of Senate are up for election in January. Out of these 535 people, each representative holds either a republican or democratic (occasional we see an Independent) party affiliation. The relationship between the standing president and the total representation within Congress create a very unique and often times tenuous experience for the American people when there is discourse due to political alliances (R/D).

Under Bill Clinton (D) the assembly of the 103rd to 106th United States Congress convinced which means that political majority in the Senate and House shifted like this:

103rd: Senate/House D majority
104th: Senate/House R majority
105th: Senate/House R majority
106th: Senate/House R majority

Under G.W Bush (R) the assembly of the 107th to 110th United States Congress convinced which means that political majority in the Senate and House shifted like this:

107th: Senate 50/50 & House 50/49 with an Independent swaying towards D
108th: Senate/House R majority
109th: Senate/House R majority
110th: Senate 49/49 with two Independent swaying towards D & House D majority

What does all this mean?

In America,the relationship between the standing president and members of Congress are directly linked to how successful he/she is able to project a political agenda and to pass legislation. From 1900 to 2010, the United States of America's experienced a roller coaster of legislation as the political pendulum swayed from republican to democrat and back to republican again. Both Clinton and Bush served two consecutive terms and both meet with fierce opposition as they tried to push their agendas through a primarily oppositional Congress. (Note: this is not an unusual occurrence but for this discussion it is being highlighted)

1st Post: Select one piece of legislation (domestic or foreign/passed or failed) from Clinton or Bush's presidency.

Provide a short summary of the legislation and identify the political agenda set forth by the president, who sponsored the bill and why the bill was proposed.
- Example: FDR and the New Deal, post WWI the nation was in need of economic recovery. As a democrat he saw the government as a way to facilitate change so he developed a slew of government divisions to promote jobs, infrastructure, support and domestic revenue.... etc.
Research how the bill was received by the presiding U.S Congress and include details about the relationship between Clinton/Bush and the standing Congress. Was there opposition? Why or why not...Did the bill pass without and issue? Why or why not?

Additional Sources:

This website is a data base for all the legislation passed through Congress. You did not have to go this route but I wanted to provide valuable search options for you:

Legislation of the U.S Congress Search:

https://www.congress.gov/legislation
Process for finding research:
Select your president, legislation and when Congress was presiding during that time. (or just go to the website and find a bill...any bill;)
Go to the Website titled Legislation of the U.S. Congress and on the left side you can narrow down your search:
Under All Legislation since 1979, Congress you need to select morewhich opens up the list of Congress by numerical order.
Check the box(s) of the # of Congress i.e. 107th, 109th...
Select Bill Type (Key):
H.R or S= house and senate bills
Under All Legislation check one or more options:
Failed on Chamber, Passed One Chamber, Passed Both 7 resolving Differences
Next, select the Policy Area & Chamber of Origin.
See what comes up!

2nd and 3rd Post: Read over your fellow classmates posts and evaluate the legislation proposed, the process and outcome in comparison to the issues you selected.

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Classmate 1 Clintons 1994 Crime Bill (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994), provided funding for thousands of police officers, drug courts, and banned certain assault weapons; I believe was a fail as a whole but still did some good. Clinton’s bill did not establish mass incarceration but it escalated the scale of its effect by pushing harder for mass incarceration. Though the bill assisted urban communities the most by limiting the rising crime rates it was not the sole reason crime and death on our streets were lowered. It allocated more than $3 billion to keep at-risk young people away from gangs and the drug trade. The bill incorporated Senator Biden’s Violence Against Women Act, which has transformed enforcement against domestic violence and sexual assault.1 However the 1994 Crime Bill gave money to police departments to recruit more personnel so they could enforce community policing strategies. African-American and Latino men have been subjected to unconstitutional or inappropriate stops by police officers. Beefed-up police departments, pushing officers to be more active, have produced many more convictions and therefore many more inmates. 2 The bill caused a huge upset especially in minority communities. "I signed a bill that made the problem worse," Clinton told an audience at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's annual meeting in Philadelphia. "And I want to admit it’. The omnibus crime bill that Clinton signed included the federal "three strikes" provision, mandating life sentences for criminals convicted of a violent felony after two or more prior convictions, including drug crimes.3 The idea is that even though half the people being incarcerated aren’t hard felons, the streets will be safer because there are less of them. Many people believed that keeping people behind bars, especially for petty crimes for a long period of time, did not do much to stop crime on the streets. What it mostly did was create a huge net that put a greater amount of people in prison (The bill did include $8.7 billion for prison construction for states that enacted “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which required people convicted of violent crimes to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences 4, and it tore families apart. "And we wound up ... putting so many people in prison that there wasn't enough money left to educate them, train them for new jobs and increase the chances when they came out so they could live productive lives,".5 Classmate 2 On October 26, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).[1] The law was primarily sponsored by Republican Congressman Christopher Smith as an amendment to the Clinton Administration’s 1994 Crime Bill. TVPA is commonly described as a response to the1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision which held ““involuntary servitude” refers only to a situation in which the victim “is forced to work…by the use or threat of physical restraint or physical injury,” thus allowing victims who are held in servitude through “psychological coercion or trickery” to fall through the cracks.”[2] TVPA was (is) intended to more clearly define the “the special nature of this crime [trafficking] necessitates that the victims, who are central to the role of law enforcement, receive ample protection.”[3] Provisions of TVPA were divided into three divisions. Most notability, the Act provided “$95 million, over two years, for enforcement of anti-trafficking provisions and for new assistance programs”[4] and established “severe punishment--including up to life imprisonment--for persons convicted of operating trafficking enterprises within the U.S., and the possibility of severe economic penalties against traffickers located in other countries”[5] An additional critical provision of TVPA is the T VISA mandate and explanation of “duties of the attorney general with respect to ‘T’ VISA nonimmigrants.”[6] A T VISA is defined as a VISA allowing “temporary immigration benefit that enables certain victims of a severe form of human trafficking to remain in the United States for up to 4 years if they have assisted law enforcement in an investigation or prosecution of human trafficking.”[7] During the Statement on Signing the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 on October 8, 2000, President Clinton described TVPA as bi-partisan stating, “I would like to recognize and congratulate the bipartisan sponsorship of, and support for, the "Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000.”[8] The passing of TVPA was widely seen as a success for Clinton’s political relationships. In previous years, Clinton and his administration had been enveloped in scandal and backlash due to health care reform, Whitewater, and affair allegations. To these points - the initial Clinton Administration health care reform plan led to “significant internal disagreement within the administration about the costs of the plan, its scope, and its political marketability.” Later, during Clinton’s second term, “the Whitewater investigation and the suicide of White House aid Vincent Foster”[9] further increased republican tensions between the administration and Republicans. Yet, most damaging was the numerous affair allegations which eventually led to Clinton’s impeachment after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

CLASSMATE POSTS

CLASSMATE 1: RESPONSE

The 1994 Crime Bill that was signed by the then president Bill Clinton had a number of
good objectives as they planned before it was put into action. The president and the Congress
seemed to have thought so much on the theoretical outcomes without weighing so much on the
reactions and how the bill was to be received. As a matter of fact, the bill worked to some extent
to reduce criminal activities in some regions. However, the manner in which the manner in
which the law enforcers conducted the crime related activities brought a lot of cries and...