Forget fantasy football

It’s easy to see why so many Americans these days think of politics as nothing more than an… It’s easy to see why so many Americans these days think of politics as nothing more than an elaborate game with players jockeying for power, as opposed to working to improve the lives of constituents. This concept has been taken to a further extreme by four California college students, who have devised a new method of satisfying the appetites of obsessed policy wonks and possibly stimulating new interest in our democratic process among young people.

If you’re someone who continually must fight with your roommate over watching C-SPAN or ESPN or are more likely to be caught flipping through The Economist than Sports Illustrated while on the can, you no longer have to be left out while all your friends are eagerly comparing tallies for their Fantasy Football teams — that’s right, it’s Fantasy Congress!

Devised by four self-described political fanatics at Claremont McKenna College in California, the game allows players to select legislators for their teams — four senators and 12 representatives of various stages of seniority. Players join existing leagues or create their own and compete with other teams of drafted public officials. Players rack up points whenever members of their team introduce legislation or maneuver them through various stages of the law-making process. As the game is still in its infancy, the creators plan to add more means of accumulating points as the game progresses, such as awarding points for heavy media exposure of legislators or causing significant public reaction based upon speeches on the floor.

The intent of the game is to help instill a greater interest in Congress’ dealings in a format that may be more entertaining to young people than dry op-ed pieces. “If people cared about politics as much as they care about sports, we’d have a better democracy,” declared senior and co-creator Andrew Lee. A recent study blamed the popularity of fantasy sports leagues for costing employers over $1.1 billion in lost productivity as nearly 40 million workers spent large amounts of time at work managing their fantasy teams.

Popularity of the game — 6,000 members have joined since the Web site was launched a few weeks ago — could also lead to greater awareness and thus accountability of legislators’ conduct. “Congress needs to know young people are watching them, just as they watch sports and athletes,” asserts Lee. Perhaps giving students an incentive to make daily checks on the progress of various bills, in the same amount of time that it takes to check Facebook messages, will ultimately result in greater awareness of just what it is our legislators do. The Web site maintains a list of both the 10 most active and least active legislators (with Republican John Warner of Virginia topping the former).

A greater level of public scrutiny might enlighten players to question the wisdom of their representatives, who continually focus on ceremonial bills that distract the bodies from more urgent matters There is already talk of several professors at Claremont McKenna and elsewhere using the game as a mandatory instrument for students in political science classes that focus on Congress.

There is a part of me that has misgivings about what such a concept says about how we view our democratic process. It seems to me that we have long ago allowed our political discourse to turn into junior high school pep rallies. Instead of a civilized forum of ideas, one is a lot more likely to be subjected to little more than group cheers and the same Tom Petty anthems that play at Pitt baseball games when attending a campaign event. One problem with our democracy is that we seem to be continually strategizing about how to beat “the other side”.

I would be a lot more excited about a system that was truly about various accomplished and not-so accomplished members of society assembling together to discuss, without hidden agendas, the best means of combating problems and then swiftly moving forward. I don’t think progress toward this ideal is made easier by everyone being mobilized into warring tribes the way I fear the blogging culture is making it worse, not better. Just as I couldn’t tell the difference between the Tutsis and Hutus in “Hotel Rwanda,” I can’t tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats on sight — I don’t see why we have to hate each other.

Nonetheless, this still represents a creative way of looking at our legislative process that may compel some to take a more personal stake in certain bills being passed in the same way that good art like “The West Wing” can stimulate interest in government affairs. As Lee notes, “It would be better if we had more kids who wanted to be members of Congress but it’s just not exciting. We’re trying to make it exciting.”

Want to join Daron’s Fantasy Congress league? E-mail him at djc14@pitt.edu.