OK, So Congressional Elections Matter
Why a Simulation?
But Simulations Can Be Time Consuming and Complex

OK, So Congressional Elections Matter

Congressional elections, particularly House elections, do not receive the attention they deserve. No matter where one looks, the treatment congressional elections receive pales in comparison to the treatment accorded presidential elections. Textbooks devote far more attention to presidential elections than to congressional elections. Local newspapers cover presidential races extensively, usually with numerous articles each day. If a state has a Senate race in a given year, that is likely to get coverage, on average an article a day. Elections to the House of Representatives get nowhere near this level of coverage. As a presidential election campaign progresses, many voters feel unable to hide from the constant bombardment of the campaign. However, few voters, save the political junkies, believe themselves able to get adequate amounts of information on congressional elections.

It is not my intention here to downplay the importance of presidential elections. It obviously matters a great deal who is elected president; moreover, the accessibility of information enables more people to participate in these elections. Presidential elections are the closest we come to a national political dialogue. However, congressional elections are important and fascinating in their own right. Certainly, they are deserving of more study than they receive in the classroom.

Perhaps the most central reason we should focus on congressional elections is that they matter. All but the most hardened cynic will agree that it makes a difference who is elected president. However, some of the most significant policy change that occurs in American politics follows dramatic congressional elections. For example, the congressional elections of 1994, which swept the Republicans into the majority in the House and the Senate, led to a rightward shift in the political scene and the passage of welfare reform and the Defense of Marriage Act, among other pieces of legislation. It also led the country into a showdown over the budget, culminating in Congress and the president producing budgets that contained surpluses for the first time in thirty years.

Looking back even farther than that, it was the congressional elections of 1980 that gave the Republicans a majority in the Senate and increased their numbers in the House. With these increased numbers, Ronald Reagan was able to pass his economic program, fundamentally changing some assumptions governing policymaking. His agenda would not have been translated into policy to the extent it was had the congressional elections of 1980 not gone as they did. And, going back even farther than that, it was the election of large numbers of Democrats in 1964 that provided the margin of victory in Congress for many of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Presidential elections affect policymaking in this country, but congressional elections do as well.

Congressional elections are also important, particularly at the high school level, as they may afford students dramatic opportunities for political participation. Congressional elections operate at a smaller scale than presidential elections, making the need for student volunteers much greater. Last year, my family and I attended my local community's Fourth of July parade. Before the parade, I walked with my son to the staging area and saw my incumbent congresswoman greeting all of the people who were to march in the parade wearing her campaign shirts. Included in this group were a number of local high school students. I was reminded that in a congressional contest, students who campaign for a candidate probably would meet that person; most campaign workers would even be invited to the election night party. This is far more than any one of us could expect when we participate in presidential elections; the benefit to our students from their involvement in congressional elections is potentially so large that it is well worth our effort to motivate them to participate.

Why a Simulation?

Simulations can be a valuable tool to use in teaching. First, simulations make students active participants in their learning. They do not simply read about congressional elections, or hear their teachers describe them, but rather become part of a simulated campaign for a congressional seat. In this way, they examine a range of possible options and make the decisions that they think will maximize the chance that their candidate will win the election. As the game unfolds, they can reassess the strategic decisions they have made and determine whether they wish to stay the course or change their approach. By becoming part of the action, the students are in a position to learn the processes and strategies involved in congressional elections. Students learn best from making decisions themselves rather than passively accepting decisions made by others.

Simulations also help different types of learners learn better. Some students learn well with the traditional text-lecture-test method. They are able to read a textbook chapter about congressional elections, listen to a teacher regurgitate that material to the class, and then answer test questions on what they have learned. For other students, this will not be productive. Some students are weak readers and/or poor note-takers. Some are more tactile in their learning style and really do learn better by doing. Some have "street smarts" rather than book smarts and might become frustrated by constantly being taught in a style that does not suit theirs. I am not suggesting we abandon traditional skills such as reading, note-taking and test-taking. However, the occasional inclusion of different instructional styles might have positive effects on learning and motivation.

Finally, by presenting political situations as games played by strategic actors, simulations do better than other forms of presentation in terms of realism. Politics is not about a dry recitation of rules and processes: bills almost never become laws following the orderly process we teach our students. Rather, politics is about strategy and choice; different actors use different strategies to try to achieve their aims. They also react to the strategic moves of others. Students can only do this when learning in a way that lets them make these strategic calculations and miscalculations. The best way to learn about how a congressional campaign runs is to run one; perhaps the next best way is to run a simulated campaign. After all, we teach pilots to fly using textbooks, but we also make them put in hundreds of hours on the simulator. Nothing prepares someone for flying like flying; the simulator is the next best thing.(1)

But Simulations Can Be Time Consuming and Complex

All of us who teach government face time constraints on what we can teach; I doubt anyone reading this has ever let a group of students go on the final day feeling that they have taught everything they wanted to teach. Given all this, then, the question must be asked: why advocate a teaching method that will require increasing the amount of time spent on a relatively minor part of the government course?

I can respond to this. First, I have already quibbled with the notion that congressional elections should be a minor part of a government course (see above). If I have not convinced you to care about congressional elections, then I probably have little chance to convince you to do a simulation of them.

But, what if I have convinced you? How to rationalize the time and effort a simulation will require? First, simulations might allow students to learn about the subject in a way that is far better than what could be achieved by other more traditional methods. Students may learn best by actively doing rather than by more passive methods of delivery. Second, simulations can be broadened to cover a wider range of material - this simulation covers not just congressional elections, but also deals with many hot political issues, addresses concerns facing women and minorities in politics, and develops student writing and speaking skills. Finally, this simulation is easy enough to use that it will require minimal extra time from teachers to implement.

The decision to use a simulation to teach any topic is not one to be taken lightly. I hope this section has demonstrated the benefits of studying congressional elections, and has also convinced you that simulations are a good approach to take in teaching this important subject. Of course, your decision whether or not to use a simulation will be affected by the quality of the simulation. Read on to see more about this simulation.

END NOTES
1. In my research, I have had occasion to interview over 75 legislative staffers, many of whom majored in political science while in school. Almost unanimously, they agree that political science classes in college did not prepare them for the real world; they learned how the process operates on paper, but not how it really operates. Simulations represent a first step for solving this problem.