The 110th U.S. Congress will convene today.

Which means it’s also time for the second Fantasy Congress.

Conceived last year by four Claremont McKenna College students – Andrew Lee, 21; Arjun Lall, 21; Ethan Andyshak, 22; and Ian Hafkenschiel, 20 – Fantasy Congress (www.fantasycongress.com) operates much like those super-popular simulated sports leagues that have participants glued to the box scores.

But instead of forming leagues and picking athletes who throw for touchdowns or swat balls out of the park, Fantasy Congress players form teams of lawmakers they hope will take it to the hoop with Capitol Hill legislation. The farther a politician’s bill goes, the more points he or she receives.

For example, in last year’s game, Democratic Rep. Danny Davis scored 80 points for getting President Bush to sign a bill naming a post office in his home state of Illinois. Republican Rep. Tom Davis from Virginia won 95 points for getting a law concerning District of Columbia real estate enacted.

Arjun Lall, who graduates this semester and says he deferred a job from Mercer Consulting to continue to work on the site, operates Fantasy Congress with the three other tech-savvy founders and one other CMC student. They earned $5,000 in seed money for the extracurricular project in a Web-based entrepreneurial competition at CMC.

With the 110th Congress looming, Lall and company are planning for a more elaborate Fantasy Congress this year. Among the new features: exclusive drafting within teams, more opportunities for players to score points – such as through speeches, votes and media attention – and advertising to help recoup the costs of maintaining the site.

Members of a previous Congress are sworn in in the U.S. House chamber. A new Fantasy Congress game lets players pick a team of lawmakers and win points by how much legislation the team gets accomplished.

Participation in the game, however, will remain free.

“We definitely want to increase the interactivity between the users, make sure they’re able to communicate and trash-talk when needed and overall make our site a one-stop shop for Congress,” Lall says.

Since Fantasy Congress gained some media attention last fall, wannabe political forecasters have flocked to the site. Lall says the number of users has grown from around 600 to more than 50,000. And many government and political science teachers are now using Fantasy Congress to educate students about the real deal.

“We do intend on taking this to larger markets, potentially through advertising,” Lall says. “We hope to push it into more classrooms, too. We’ve realized it’s a great tool for teachers to teach their students how Congress works.”