Fantasy Congress

I realized today that the bulk of my recent posts have been political. I suppose that is just a reflection on the season and the RootsCamp project. However, here’s something that also overlaps my interest in Fantasy Sports … Fantasy Congress.

The concept is familiar to anyone who spent five years positioning to draft Peyton Manning out of college: Join a league, Draft a team, and Score as many points as possible. The hitch is that instead of wondering if Bears runningback Cedric Benson is ever going to get a chance to strut his stuff for the home team, you draft members of Congress. And instead of rooting for a touchdown, you keep score on their legislative acumen. When real legislation gets through the lawmaking process, points are scored for your team.

The team roster is composed of sixteen Members of Congress (MCs):

• “Upper Senators” — 2 senior Senators
• “Lower Senators” — 2 junior Senators
• “All-Stars” — 4 senior Representatives
• “Supporting Lineup” — 4 mid-range experience Representatives
• “Rookies” — 4 junior Representatives

There are seven basic stages of legislation that net MC points, from Introduction to Committee Approval to Votes to the President’s Signature. The translation of that activity into points is detailed on the site.

image from FantasyCongress.com

This idea is wonderful. What could be more effective than turning the dull Congressional briefings into an easy-to-digest point system? This is a great implementation (hopefully) that has the intended effect of getting more people to follow the activities of Congress more closely. Veteran fantasy sports owners will agree that playing in their leagues increases knowledge about what is going on. In WhatIfSports, the same is true of the history of players, so it would be interesting if this could also evolve into a historical simulation, where actual legislative history is used to create imaginary results. A “WhatIfCongress” site would have a different education goal, of course: government history. May Paul Simon live forever through the points earned from his Congressional record.

I created a league (password: “accountability”), so if you want to play along go to the site and register.