Putting on a Mock Legislature


The Process
1.	Student select topics for research reports and begin work on
	reports.  Reports can be based on actual bills or on a subject
	the students select to become a bill.   If not using actual
	bills, have students draft a mock bill based on their research.
2.	Choose parties, determine which is majority party.
3.	Select candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor.
4.	Assign individuals to House or Senate.
5.	Choose party leaders for both bodies- Speaker of the House,
	Majority leaders, minority leaders, Secretaries of the House and
	Senate.
6.	Assign committee members.
7. 	Assign committee chairs and secretary.
8.	Assign bills to committees.
9.	Governor gives  State of the State address.
10. 	Committee meet to act on bills.  The students must know the
	purpose of the 	committees, the process for reporting a bill and
	the role each individual plays 	in the process.
11.	Governor and Lt. Governor develop their own legislation, hold
	press conferences and testify on legislation.
12.	Have Secretaries of House and Senate keep the action of their
	particular body updated each day in a way all students can
	follow, i.e. on chalk board or hand 	outs.  That information
	must be up-to-date at the beginning of each day.
13.	Floor action continues as bills come out of committee.  Set a
	deadline for all bills to be out of committee.
14.	Parties hold caucus to discuss legislation	
15.	Governor calls press conferences to act on legislation
16. 	Legislative bodies can call for an override vote if necessary.

Items* needed:

For each Bill:  Each bill should be in a folder with a copy of the
research report and a bill tracking form.  That form accompanies the
bill if it passes out of one chamber and goes to the other.

For the Committee:  Each committee within a class ( or period) should
have a general folder that contains a list of committee members, a list
of bills for that committee, a bill tracking form to track action on all
the bills before the committee, the bill folders and a Committee Chair
and Committee Secretary script sheet. 

For the Clerk of Secretary:  Each chamber's secretary or clerk needs a
list of all members for tallying attendance and votes, committee member
list with chair and co-chairs,  a master notebook of all bills, a list
of the orders of motion posted for all member to see, a calculator (if
needed for figuring majority and 2/3rds),  a Secretary script sheet,
which explains the  proper language used during the legislative process
and journal forms.

For Presiding Officer:  The Speaker of the House and the Lt. Governor
will need a gavel, a list of the orders of business, a  Presiding
Officer script sheet, which explains the  proper language used during
the legislative process and access to the master notebook of all bills. 

For Legislators:  Each Legislator (student) will need a research sheet
and review form that details the efforts of their research, a
Legislative script sheet,  which explains the  proper language used
during the legislative process.




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