Your last major assignment is going to be to develop a plan for dealing with the executive branch, legislative leadership, building grassroots, utilizing technology, shaping public opinion, and implementing an electoral action plan.
Part of your grade will be how you integrate these lessons into your plan. Make sure that your plan is balanced and, where asked, include thoughts about the opposition and their activities. You must anticipate what your opposition will do and your grade will be in part how well you demonstrate this.
Things to include in your assignment:
Legislative and Administration Leadership
How will you handle legislative leadership and the executive branch?
What role do you expect them to play in your issue? If negative, how can you manage that? If positive, how will you get them engaged and what do you want them to do?
Who is key to passing your bill? How will you utilize them? How will you influence them? Do they need cover?
Who will you put in the committee to testify? What will they say?
How will you collect the votes to move your bill?
How will you handle amendments?
When the bill goes to the floor, what is likely to happen? How will you count votes and line up supporters?
Finally, briefly explain what your strategy will be in the other chamber is as well.
Grassroots Plan
How will you organize and harness your grassroots? Who are they?
How will you motivate them? What will you have them do? When will you do it?
What will you do to harness new tools of lobbying and outreach? Please don’t say “start a webpage, send some emails, and communicate through Facebook.” That goes without saying. Your job is to think creatively about social media and technological tools and how you can best utilize them to get your message out and work with grassroots.
Provide me with a plan for how you will utilize your grassroots leaders. Include a sample call to action asking the grassroots to take some sort of action. What is the opposition likely to do with their grassroots?
Electoral/Fundraising Plan
Part of lobbying is to gain respect, if not fear. So how will you back up your group’s activities with a campaign plan to reward your friends and punish your enemies?
If your group is simply not set up to do electoral advocacy, don’t try putting a square peg in a round hole. Alternatively, talk to me about how electoral factors impact your strategy. What can you do outside of making campaign contributions to flex your muscle?
Grading Rubric
Your papers will be graded based on the following rubric.
Answered specified questions: Paper addresses fully all the questions posed in assignment. 30 points
Integration of lecture/reading materials, feedback from previous papers, and analysis: Paper applies tools from lessons to design an executable lobbying plan with innovative solutions to solve your political problem. 40 points
Writing/concise: Paper is well written and creative, avoids grammatical and spelling errors, observes page constraints, and is succinct. 10 points
Creativity and strategic thinking: Paper employs well thought out political strategies to solve your legislative issue. 20 points
