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The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Fantasy football? How about fantasy Congress?
When civic-mindedness meets creativity and that union intersects with geekdom, the result can only be good for democracy. Right?
That’s the hope behind a clever new website and computer gaming venture, Fantasy Congress, a political spin on the popular sports-fan leagues in which participants earn points (and win money) based on home runs, hits, rushing yards, touchdowns and turnovers.
In Fantasy Congress, www.fantasycongress.com, players select or “draft” members of Congress and U.S. senators as they would Cowboys or Eagles.
As of this morning, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the runaway draft leader as he is on 44 percent of fantasy teams. The other top Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is on just 22 percent of team — but she does edge Obama in actual points earned for the teams.
The idea is the brainchild of four southern California college students, and earned a high-profile mention in The New York Times.
“Just as in fantasy football or baseball, each player picks a team — in this case, 4 senators and 12 House members of varying seniority levels — and competes with other players in a league typically managed by a friend or a co-worker,” The New York Times reports. “Members determine whether to play for money or the thrill of victory. But that is where the similarities end.”
And just as in Fantasy football, the Congress game presents some serious conundrums for players: Do you go against your heart, and select points-earning conservatives or liberals even if you can’t stomach their politics in real life?
In other words, if you are a Cowboys fan do you take Eagles players?
According to the Times, players accumulate points as the legislators they have chosen go about their business on Capitol Hill.
“A House member or senator earns five points for introducing a bill or an amendment, and more points for negotiating successfully each step in the legislative process,” The Times reports.
Now, of course, the Claremont McKenna College students who developed this project (which people can participate in for free) don’t measure absolutely everything that goes into being an effective congress member for one’s district.
A small-government conservative more interested in killing bills than hatching them wouldn’t get many points. And big-time bacon boys, congressmen who deliver roads and federal spending for their districts, through behind-the-scenes deals, don’t rack up points in the manner they arguably should.
The developers may add new categories to the game’s massive database, like press mentions, and other indicators of influence to broaden the evaluation into something more than a “School House Rock” lesson on how a bill becomes law.
Fantasy Congress isn’t intended to be a perfect measure of the way Washington works. Like the Senate and House the game no doubt will have its detractors, people who spot an agenda, an unfair angle.
Fair enough. But it’s also an ingenious way to engage young computer-savvy high school and college kids in the basic nuts and bolts of the legislative process.
“Educators, Fantasy Congress is the perfect tool for bringing home the process of legislation and the role of Congress to your students,” say the site’s creators. “Our database is the largest and broadest of its kind, and is updated daily. At the intersection of all of this information, students follow legislation precisely, monitor members of Congress of their own choice, and best of all compete with their friends in the game, in a classroom league or in informal leagues of their own design. Now that you know what it is, make your decision: Watch politics or play politics.”
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