Explain how my State and Local government and its laws/regulations impact my life?

Explain how my State and Local government and its laws/regulations impact my life?

One of the roles of the Legislature (the institution that makes laws) is to write and pass legislation. But do citizens understand how that legislation affects their daily lives and the issues that they care about?

This exercise is designed to help students develop a basic knowledge of finding and analyzing information pertaining to congressional legislation and its effect on society and citizens’ lives.

You will research and write a paper detailing how government affects your and society’s pursuit of social, political and economic goals.

How do I accomplish the assignment?

Choose ONE TOPIC:

Laws generally regulate 3 areas of life – social, political or economic. These are your three topics, and you are required to choose one which you will explore further.

Social: laws which regulate/govern social behavior such as marriage, divorce, drinking, use of pharmaceutical drugs etc.
Political: laws which regulate/govern political behavior such as voting regulations; recall that States regulate when/how citizens vote and who gets to vote (as long as they are not in violation of Federal laws)
Economic: laws which regulate/govern economic activity such as food safety, product safety, labor laws, insurance industry (car, health)
Now that you’ve settled on a topic of interest (social, political or economic), find one law (act of Congress) which regulates one area (topic) of citizens’ lives.

Discuss FIVE (5) areas which this particular law potentially impacts your (or society’s) life. For example, while you may not think about this when you drive your car, seat belt laws impact us in the sense that we must wear them, or else we might get fined. Of course, seat belts are proved to save driver’s and passengers’ lives when worn.

Another area of legislation that might impact us is drinking (age of drinking is legally 21), divorce and marriage laws (you can only be legally married to one person at a time), food safety laws (companies, producers, restaurants) regulate how food is made, served, and consumed and these laws determine what is considered safe.

As you can see, laws that state and federal legislators (Congress) make impact us in many ways. Your job in this assignment is to find an area that interests you, find a law that governs/regulates that area, and then discuss FIVE things about it that shows you understand how the law works. Those five areas don’t have to be “I agree” or “I disagree” with the law. It can be a combination of both positive and negative impact of a law, so essentially you don’t really have to take a position on the law and whether or not you agree with it (you can if you want), but rather, the purpose is to show you have done some reading and research on the law and you write in your essay how you believe you understand the law to impact society. You can use yourself as an example if you think you’ve been directly impacted, or you can use a friend, family member, or just society in general.

Note: This is not an opinion piece – while we all may have strong ideological leanings such as for/against the support of a specific issue, you are required to write a short research paper examining FACTS and demonstrate how you understand them. You can certainly agree or disagree with aspects of the law, but that personal opinion is not the basis of the your essay, even if you are allowed to throw in your opinion as a note.

This paper must clearly demonstrate that you have researched and thought about government policy and that you are not just telling me how you feel about something, or how you wish something should be. Papers which only state opinions (or other writer’s opinions about legislative impact) will have points deducted or may not receive any credit.

Double space, use Times New Roman 12-point font
Use APA formatting
Use at least 5 (five) sources such as books, academic journals, recent news articles or websites (limit web sources to 2)*
Approximately 1000 words, not including title page or reference page
Submit paper by due date via Canvas/online link
* Web sources are those that are generally only found on a website; such as, but not limited to, blogs, organizational websites or any information that is not published in print and is only available online.

Remember that newspapers, books and articles are also found online, but are available in print. A “web source” is one that is not found publishcixed or printed (tangible) anywhere.

Last Completed Projects