KukriKhan
11-15-2006, 06:32
First of all, full disclosure: I stole this idea from here (http://www.fantasycongress.com/fc/), after hearing a story on US Nat'l Public Radio today.
The Concept: You may have heard of football, basketball, baseball or other sport "fantasy" leagues. All eligible players are listed, from which you pick your ideal team; those players accumulate points for goals scored, passes thrown, yards gained (or whatever we decide). In other words: productivity. Same thing for this 'fantasy congress' plan: we list members of the US congress (or MP's if we so decide, later), assign points for various productivity actions - like: introducing a bill (5 points), moving the bill through committee (10 points), getting a "yea" vote (20 points), getting the Prez to sign it (50 points).
What You Do: pick a 16-member team (4 Senators, 12 Representatives) from the list. Name your team. You make your picks by midnight GMT Mondays. Your team accumulates points throughout the week. Points are tallied on Sundays, after which you can change your picks for the following week.
What I Do: Provide the list of Members of Congress. Using The Congressional Record (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/index.html), and the guys at Fantasy Congress.com (that earlier link), award points (on Sundays) to MoC's, and then to your picked team.
Result: We determine a weekly winner team, based on points scored (winner gets bragging rights). And an overall "season" winner, based on points scored at the end of this Congress in January 2007 (winner gets... something tangible, to be determined).
Addendum: this is a test of interest; the current US Congress will change its member list in January 2007, at which time - if backroomers have interest in the project - we can make a more robust 'fantasy' game, tweaked to our own preferences. Maybe we could get some small monetary prize involved on a weekly/quarterly basis (to spark and maintain interest). Maybe we want to look at another legislative body (parliament, Bundestag, etc). The whole idea is to have a little fun while watching law being made.
If we get 12 "takers" (folks who want to play this test), I figure it'll be worth the organizing effort (12 being 10% of the daily average viewers of the backroom). If it flops, no problem... the concept was introduced.
The Concept: You may have heard of football, basketball, baseball or other sport "fantasy" leagues. All eligible players are listed, from which you pick your ideal team; those players accumulate points for goals scored, passes thrown, yards gained (or whatever we decide). In other words: productivity. Same thing for this 'fantasy congress' plan: we list members of the US congress (or MP's if we so decide, later), assign points for various productivity actions - like: introducing a bill (5 points), moving the bill through committee (10 points), getting a "yea" vote (20 points), getting the Prez to sign it (50 points).
What You Do: pick a 16-member team (4 Senators, 12 Representatives) from the list. Name your team. You make your picks by midnight GMT Mondays. Your team accumulates points throughout the week. Points are tallied on Sundays, after which you can change your picks for the following week.
What I Do: Provide the list of Members of Congress. Using The Congressional Record (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/index.html), and the guys at Fantasy Congress.com (that earlier link), award points (on Sundays) to MoC's, and then to your picked team.
Result: We determine a weekly winner team, based on points scored (winner gets bragging rights). And an overall "season" winner, based on points scored at the end of this Congress in January 2007 (winner gets... something tangible, to be determined).
Addendum: this is a test of interest; the current US Congress will change its member list in January 2007, at which time - if backroomers have interest in the project - we can make a more robust 'fantasy' game, tweaked to our own preferences. Maybe we could get some small monetary prize involved on a weekly/quarterly basis (to spark and maintain interest). Maybe we want to look at another legislative body (parliament, Bundestag, etc). The whole idea is to have a little fun while watching law being made.
If we get 12 "takers" (folks who want to play this test), I figure it'll be worth the organizing effort (12 being 10% of the daily average viewers of the backroom). If it flops, no problem... the concept was introduced.