Fantasy Congress

I just received this email from a list I'm on b/c of the Udall Scholarship I got in college. I don't know much about Fantasy Football, but for any policy wonks out there, this seems to be a fantasy, fantasy game. :) Read on!


My fellow Udallers,

Some of you know that I have been working diligently for the past summer on creating a website where people can "play politics." In my freshman year, I dreamed of a free website just like fantasy football or fantasy baseball, where you draft and manage a team of members of
Congress and you would play against your friends. The hope was that students in high school and college would be able to get more involved in the legislative process and the on-goings of Congress. Teams would be awarded points based on the progress of legislation. I initially
started with a pen and paper, but found it to be much too difficult to keep track of legislation.

After winning a business grant, I along with my fellows Claremont students during the summer created Fantasy Congress. For those worried about a partisan bias, I (the Democrat from Colorado) worked with my Republican professor (jack pitney) to refine the system. Knowing that we've taken too long and reached the penultimate stages of dorkdom, our beta version is finally up and ready to be played: www.fantasycongress.us.

Since Congress will adjourn next Friday for election recess, we have set the game so that you can draft before Monday, and we will run the game on Monday for the month of September. From then on, the game will update on a daily basis, and will continue past the election recess
when Congress reconvenes for its post-election session. So feel free to join the game and draft Mark or Tom Udall anytime you want. The strategy occurs every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (when Congress doesn't do anything), you can go ahead and redraft your players (and
see if you can get better weekly points).

Additionally, this is the first political science measure that ranks legislators on their performance in the legislative process, so it's a wonderful assessment of the 109th Congress. You can browse the Congress and see who the top performers have been throughout the past two years (it's really interesting!).

Please take a look at the website and send me any comments about the website or questions about sleeper picks. Feel free to start a Udall league or just play for right now in the public league. We're going to expand for the next legislative session with exclusivity, so you cannot draft the same members as the rest of your league, and we will try to include other measures of political science (vote counts, cosponsors, poole-rosenthal, and media).

Please tell any government teachers, high school teachers, family, bloggers, or friends that may be interested and feel free to also start your own league for your schools or clubs (just remember to activate the league before Monday). If people paid attention to the ongoings of our Congress, perhaps we wouldn't have as many problems! I think Mo would have enjoyed the humor and goal of this game, so please try it out and tell us how to improve.

For the love of Mo!- Andrew

P.S. I hope you enjoy the Stephen Colbert-like picture on the About Us page. Apologies in advance for cross-posting to other list-servs.

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Andrew Lee
Claremont McKenna College '07
742 N. Amherst, Box 709
Claremont, CA 91711
W: 909-621-8159
H: 909-607-3493
C: 509-552-6211
ALee07@gmail.com
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