About This Lesson
This handout is part of an activity where students decide which Congressional Committee they want to be on and then, as their committee, they decide which bills to hold hearings on. The Congressional Committees I've included are the House and Senate Appropriations and the Senate Judiciary. But you can easily change any of them and just write a new description. After students choose their committee, there are 4 criteria for them to use when considering to give a bill a hearing: Necessity of the law, cost, constitutionality, and if it is possible to enforce. The next few pages give the students an opportunity to explain in writing if each bill fulfills those 4 criteria AND then create questions to ask the sponsor of the bill during the subsequent hearing.
