Do I write in general about bill topics--education, health care, alternative energies, or pollution?

The very short answer is NO! Let me explain.

Every paper you will ever write in college will ask you to narrow your topic and the 2Research Report is no different. In fact, in this case you should be more conscious of narrowing your topic because your clients want to know about your expertise. You must sell them on the information you have that will help them. Information comes in discrete bits that is transform by thinking into knowledge. You need the information first before you can offer solutions to a problem. That's what you are being asked to do here.

But you have to start somewhere and that somewhere are the sites that I've put up for each of the bill topics--see the link at the top of your LobSim org page. These are sites that describe a bill that is currently being debated in the congress. In my example (see the 2RR sample) I've taken the green-jobs bill and started to try to find my (and my org--Minerva's) place in the conversation. We are a grassroots watchdog organization that exists to help those who are powerless or those with very little power. Therefore, we will be trying to lobby those writing the bill to include items in it that will help our clients. In my example, I will want to continue researching green jobs to see who is out there training people for these jobs and if they fit into our mission statement then we will try to promote them. But before we can help anyone we have to find the information that's current about green jobs so that we will have the facts and figures and arguments ready to deploy with those (in this case the congress) who have the job or making laws.

As a staff member in your org, You are between the lawmakers who want to craft a bill (e.g. the green jobs bill) and your clients who you want to support. You are the expert who channels the desires of your clients by way of the information you gather into viable arguments that will influence the passage of a bill. Information is power. What you know can be transformed into knowledge that can then become rules (laws) that everyone who is affected must comply. And if a particular bill has the potential to hurt your clients then you have to gather the information necessary to influence amendments to that law. On the other hand, if the bill being proposed is what your clients want then it is up to you to persuade lawmakers to pass that bill and you then need information to prevent those writing the bill from adding amendments that will change or dilute the law that you want. Either way you are the person who both the congress person and your clients need because you have the information that can be used to support the arguments for passage of the bill or for amending the bill, or for stopping the bill. Information is power.

Information needs also to be specific, detailed, and appropriate if it is to be effective. You need to find an aspect of these broad topics (education, health care, alternative energies, pollution) and carve out for yourself a place where you can be an expert. An expert drills down deep into a subject and comes up with information that is not readily available to the ordinary person. Experts know dates, they know people, they know statistics, they know trends, and they know the conversation, the gossip, the backstory intimately. In other words, a lobbyist cannot be a generalist because he/she will be ignored. "We already know that. Tell us what we don't know and most of all tell us what we can use to help our cause." That's what your clients will say to you. And detailed information is what you need to find and put into your report for this assignment.