CIV-01 · Track a bill through the process

Pick a real bill currently before a legislature (federal or state) and trace exactly where it is in the process — and what has to happen next for it to become law.

One real, currently pending bill, tracked via a legislature's own bill-tracking tool (https://www.congress.gov) for federal bills, or the relevant state legislature's own public bill-tracking site for state bills. The bill's full text. Its status history (committee referrals, votes, amendments) as published by the legislature itself — not a summary site. A one-page process map the student draws from a legislature's own published explanation of "how a bill becomes a law" (https://www.usa.gov/how-laws-are-made) for federal process, or the equivalent official state-legislature explainer.

Picking a bill so old or so stalled that the status history is trivial. Describing "the legislative process" in the abstract without ever naming this bill's actual committee, sponsor, or vote. Treating a news article's summary of the bill as equivalent to the bill text.

Bill identification (number, chamber, sponsor); process map showing exactly which stage the bill is at; status-history table pulled from the legislature's own record; one-paragraph prediction of what has to happen next, with reasoning tied to the actual process (not a guess).

CT: process as evidence, not civics-class abstraction. CR: status history traceable to the legislature's own record. CO: peer re-checks the bill's current status against the same source. CM: process map + status table. CZ: constituents who would be affected if the bill passes or dies.

Government/civics teacher confirms the bill is real and current before the student proceeds past the first checkpoint. Standing instruction: reject any status claim the student cannot point to in the legislature's own record. School-supervised.

R1: one bill, one process question. R2: every status claim traceable to the legislature's own site. R3: process map matches the real stage, not a textbook diagram. R4: at least one competing view on the bill named. R5: map and prediction readable by someone outside the class.

(a) A generic "here's how a bill becomes a law" essay that never actually opens this bill's real status page. (b) A status claim ("it passed committee") that the legislature's own record does not support.

• Week 1: Bill selected and confirmed real/current by teacher; bill text located.
• Week 2–3: Status history compiled from the legislature's own record; process map drafted.
• Week 4: Prediction written; mentor spot-checks two status claims against the source.

Lane A immediately (government/civics capstone, research seminar). No verified credit claim.