Youth Legislature 2010-2011 30 hours.
Youth Legislature has been an entirely new and exciting experience! Through the YMCA Youth and Government I was able to create a bill about something that I had passion for and present it in front of various other peers. After creating two bills, I then developed an argument to get them passed and signed by the governor. My goal was to have both of my bills pass in the house so that they could then be proponed by other members of my delegation in the senate. If they passed both the house and senate, then the youth governor, Tucker Cholvin, and the Washington state governor, Christine Gregoire, would sign the them. I first had to come up with ideas for bill which I found to be rather difficult. At first I toyed with the idea of banning bikini baristas, but I found that the law surrounding them was rather confusing. Once a week myself and the other members of Youth Legislature at Sumner High School would meet up with our adviser, Mr. Slater, to come up with bill ideas and learn about the ways of our government. On February 5, 2011 we all went to Seattle to partake in a mock legislature which prepared us for the real Youth Legislature at Olympia in May.
 |
| The Sumner delegation at mock legislature February 5, 2011. |
By this time I still hadn't decided what my bills were going to be about, so I was a lobbyist and argued for/against bills without actually voting on them. Eventually, I discovered that I was passionate about weighting classes so that the valedictorian would go to the kid who applied themselves the most and succeeded. I also co-wrote a bill with Elizabeth Kressler which would add text messaging services to 911 operators in the state of Washington. With my two bills written and thoroughly researched for, I began creating my argument and rebuttals to questions that I foresaw my peers asking about my bills. I was really nervous about the public speaking aspect of Youth Leg, but I knew that with practice I would overcome my fear with ease. Fortunately, Mr. Slater had us argue our bills several times in front of each other so that we would feel confident with our counterarguments. On May 4, 2011 we finally began the true test of our efforts after months of preparation.
 |
| YMCA Youth and Government 2011 at the capital building. |
|
I was pleasantly surprised how well my bills did. I passed them through committee the first day and then they both passed the house on the second and third day. As a delegation we became extremely exhausted from the hours of debate, but we carried on!
 |
| Elizabeth Kressler, Mikaela Raffle, and I inside the halls of the capital building. Thoroughly exhausted, but happy! |
On the second day I was also made aware that my bill about weighted GPA was made public in the YMCA Youth and Government newspaper! I was ecstatic and very surprised that my hard work was controversial enough to be talked about amongst the 235 other pages of bills.
 |
| The article concerning my bill, House bill 17, which raised the GPA for IB/AP classes by 0.3. |
Beyond my excitement concerning the publicity over my bill, I was also eager to see whether the bills would pass the senate. Before my bills were argued in the senate, I received two notes from a fellow delegation member, Zane Gustafson, stating that I would need to propone his nap time bill in the house because it [barely] had passed in the senate. Not only did I have to come up with an argument fast, I had to convince the house representatives that this bill wasn't just a joke so it would pass. My nerves shot through the roof.
 |
| The two notes from Zane [with his terrible handwriting] asking for my help and giving me the main points to his bill. |
Luckily, I managed to muster up enough courage to write an intro, but I had no idea how vicious the reps would be! It did, however, pass the house by three votes. I was pretty proud.
 |
| My argument for SB 24, Zane's nap time bill. |
Unfortunately, my bills were not so lucky. Neither passed the senate, but I was still impressed with their success, especially having never experienced creating and arguing a bill before in my life. Youth Legislature this year really helped me to be more confident in my abilities and bettered my public speaking. Overall it was an awesome privilege to take part in that will inspire me to try many more new activities.
