Clinton and The Bill

A detailed Summary of Clinton and The Bill

In 1993 William Clinton was fast at work trying to pull together legislation on National Service. National Service was a cornerstone of his campaign and he was determined to stick to his word and make it a priority. Clinton gathered a committee and tasked them to make National Service happen The Office of National Service headed by Eli Segal had a long road to travel.

As Clinton promised in his campaign, he wanted to provide the financial opportunity to attend college to a broad range of young Americans in exchange for National Service. Along with the National Service legislation Clinton wanted to include a pay-as-you-can loan program that would encourage graduates to enter lower paying jobs such as teachers and police officers, which are more fulfilling and give back to the community and nation. From there the Office of National Service was off to build the framework for the legislation. They began analyzing the current system, and surveying local programs and organizations to see what would work, and how exactly Clinton's campaign promise might actually become a viable piece of legislation that might make it through the congressional circus, not to mention the scrutiny of the private sector.

g, changing, assessing, tweaking, overhauling, appeasing and reassessing of the National Service legislation, the Office of National Service was convinced that it was ready to put in the hands of the public and Congress. On April 30th the plan was unveiled. That was when the real legislative process began. The National Service proposal was out in the open for all to see and the Office of National Service had to win over enough support to get the legislation through Congress. Winning over a few senators doesn't sound like a large task, but when it comes down to it party lines run deep and so do the affiliations with financial supporters and other supportive institutions. In short, in order to win over a member of congress you often have to compromise to include not only the interests of his or her state, but also those organizations that are important to him and the people who elect him. On top of having to gain support from the members of congress the Office of National Service (ONS) had to do it in an inconspicuous way. The ONS members couldn't just go up to the senator or representative for a state and say "this organization will be upset if you don't vote for our proposal." They had to make the organization care enough about it that they would feel compelled to let their congress-member know their opinion on the legislation. This lobbying for support along with an intricate process of gaining influential supporters in each party was a slow process that couldn't necessarily guarantee victory.

As shown throughout Waldman's book crunching numbers became the name of the game for the Office of National Service. In order to gain support from the Democrats the policy just had to be legitimate, they would most likely go with their party and the President. The Republicans on the other hand had to be won over. Even a good piece of legislation could lose support just due to party lines. On top of that everyone who this bill would eventually effect would want to voice his or her opinion and would be fighting to get the wavering members of congress to vote in their favor. The numbers the ONS was concerned with included the amount of votes necessary to get the legislation passed along with the members of Congress who were "in the bag" as voting for the legislation, how many were on the line and how many were dead set against it. Putting these numbers into perspective m

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Approximate Word count = 1602
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics