I am lobbying to change the way the process of restraining orders are handled and who has access and rights to them. The motivation behind this comes from a personal experience of not only being stalked but threatened and being overwhelmed with just wanting freedom and peace from the situation. However Iw as told I couldn't do anything about it and that a restraining order was not available for my situation.The main supporters of my Idea so far are only other citizens who have gone through a similar situation.The main opponents of the idea are basically everyone who issues them and is comfortable with the law of restraining orders.From researching I have yet to  find any pending legislation on this topic or issue . I would love to see a piece of legislation declaring that If someone has been threatened or stalked and  can prove so they should have legal freedom from having to see or deal with the person . For example if the person is following  you and you can prove it , then go to the police the person should suffer sentencing or if anything a fine.

(​Blog Post 3)

The status of my issue isn't fully clear but it doesn't seem that it's on the top of the to-do list. On the city council website there are either broken links or misdirected pages to say who's working on what topics and what the facts are. 

For my particular topic the main supporters or allies would be the non-profit organizations that either are in support of shelters or provide the supplies for the shelters. These people care and they are amazing advocates but more importantly they have invested in the well being of the homeless and that makes this topic something they can't just wake up one morning and walk away from like a politician can. Surprisingly my representative Darrell L. Clarke is on the board for ethics, safety and housing and homeless. However in my district alone I witness countless amounts of people everyday sleeping on the sidewalk. 

Broken down by congressional districts, the Philadelphia area ranks in the top 2 highest homeless population percentages. 




Representative Robert Brady & Chaka Fattah, are responsible for these districts and if this information was more widely know I think the representatives would feel a bigger need for change. I think the people to be influenced are the people who dont' realize these things are going on. 

The bureaucratic 'task' that I chose was the process of applying for what is known as food stamps. Food stamps are for families that have much financial difficulty and allow them to purchase food and other items with stamps that are issued to them by the government. The process to apply for food stamps was rather simple I filled out a rather lengthy application in which I was required to identify the current living situation that I resided in. The paperwork was relatively simple to understand and rather straightforward. If I had the opportunity to change something about the process that I flow charted, I would have the entire process be online as well as paper so that you may be able to access it without going through the process of retrieving the physical paperwork. In my opinion, I believe that the systems have become so complicated because they want be certain that people who actually deserve it receive its benefits and not someone who may either potentially be lying or doesn't deserve it as much as someone else.

For my final benchmark in American Government I choose to do Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Speech is located in the first amendment. It is important to have freedom of speech because it allows the person how to express how they feel.  This is a right that not should be taken away from any one. Going back and doing this process I feel that more time should have been put into the project and the communication should have been alot better, however it is not a person fault if they do not get internet half the time.  Other then the technical problems I feel like my partner and I worked very well together and also I was keeping up with him to make sure the work was getting done in a timely matter.  How this could have improved was that we should have added more people then what we had. We should have gone to other schools and asked more of outside people. If i was to do this project again i would not change the process. what I learned is that you shouldn't take away people's freedom of speech and that everyone has a right to this. What went well with this is that it was turned in on a timely matter. The most interesting fact was that was defended in alot of cases. What i liked about the project was that it was creative and made us use out people. what i didn't like was that there was alot of technical problems with uploading