Legislative Brief
This page is where I provide you with your road map to create your Legislative Brief. This is the largest assignment you will have this semester and you are required to follow a bill in the present session of the Georgia legislature. This assignments is a real exercise in understanding the relationship between policy and politics.
Because this assignment isn’t due until the end of the semester, you will be tempted to wait until much later to get started. THAT WOULD BE A MISTAKE. The legislative session in Georgia is a total of 40 days – that means 40 days actually in session. It will be slightly longer than that, because committee meetings and other work that is off the floor are not counted in the 40 days. These days will fly by and then the legislators will go home and you will find it virtually impossible to complete your assignment.
Georgia is a biennial legislature, meaning that each session is 2 years. This year is the second year of that 2 year session (2025-2026) Any bill that was introduced last year and did not pass the chamber where is started is still able to be resubmitted during this year of the session. But it is important that you only look at bills from the 2025-2026 session. So, here is the legislative schedule:
Start of the Session – January 12th
Crossover Day – March 6th
The day a bill must pass in the chamber where it was introduced and be sent to the other chamber.
Sine Die – April 2nd
The end of the Legislative Session
How in the world do I pick a bill to follow?????
This section talks about the process of selecting the bill you will follow in the Georgia Legislature. The first two videos are an introduction in selecting your bill, and then a discussion of the advocacy organizations you can follow.
The secton part of this section provides you with a link to the five documents that will be the most helpful to you in beginning this process. The first is your Bill Selection Assignment Instructions. I can hear you all thinking “Huh?” This is NOT a graded assignment, but it is REQUIRED. You can submit this assignment in the appropriate submission folder under assignments anytime from February 7th through February 14th.
I have also included the full Legislative Brief outline in this group, but please be aware that I will be discussing each section of the brief assignment over the next week or so.
This is a discussion of the advocacy groups you can follow
