Youth In Government: Gavel to Gavel

DAYTON - Senior Bull- dog Samantha Harting saw several of her friends get scraped up in motorcycle spills, so when it came time at her high school Youth & Government club to propose a new law in Olympia, she crafted a bill that might protect them better.

Junior Cardinal Meara Baker, a member of Waits- burg's Youth & Government club, chose a different issue for her bill. She feels that as a state of immigrants, Washington should have a law requiring high school students to graduate with foreign language credits.

"It's important to un- derstand more than one language like they do in Ger- many or China," Baker said.

Harting and Baker had a chance to debate the merits of their "legislation" in front of fellow club members at the Dayton High School auditorium

Saturday as some 50 students from Waitsburg, Dayton, Walla Walla and Spokane assembled to prepare for this year's statewide Youth Legislature in the state capital.

Students from the four towns will represent east- ern Washington when they join hundreds of students from west of the Cascade Mountains in Olympia this May. The group on Satur- day included ten students from Waitsburg and 19 from Dayton, many of whom are raising money by working the concession stands at ball games to help pay for their week-long mock session in state chambers.

Participation in Youth Legislature costs about $350 per student, including a $200 program fee and lodging. Students who attend leader- ship training before the big youth gathering have to come up with the money for that trip as well. But none of that seems to faze the groups in Dayton and Waitsburg, the clubs' adult coordinators said.

"This year, they are really excited about it," said Lind- sey Bailey, Youth & Govern- ment coordinator and history teacher at Waitsburg High School. "It blows me away. They generate great ideas for bills. They like it because it's hands-on. They get to have a voice in government."

Not a real voice, of course. The laws will only be debated among fellow Youth & Government "leg- islators," who, like their real- life counterparts, come from all over Washington.

But just about everything else about the students' ex- perience is as genuine as it gets, because they'll get full access to the capital and the way it functions: the mar- bled halls of the Capitol Rotunda, the stately chambers of the Senate and House, the strict protocol for introducing, reading and debating the bills on the floor and so on.

"It feels so real," said Mary Prior, the civics teach- er at Dayton High School who is credited with bringing Youth & Government to the Touchet Valley 13 years ago.

Even some of the stu- dents' legislative ideas be- come reality by finding their way back to Olympia in the form of actual bills.

Former Youth & Gov- ernment club member and WHS graduate John Hockersmith's proposal allowing underage (18-21) viticulture students to "sip and spit" wine in a classroom environ- ment may soon reach committee, under sponsorship from State Representative Larry Haler (R-Richland).

The "mock session" of the Youth Legislature has been around since the late 1940s, when the Pacific Northwest Area Council of YMCAs took inspira- tion from a YMCA Youth Legislature program held in New York State in 1938 and proposed it here.

An attorney named Frank Bayley Jr. formed a commit- tee to organize the first Youth Legislature with Longview newspaper publisher John McClelland, spearheading the participation of business and government leaders to launch the program.

The Washington pro- gram's advisors include cur- rent and former politicians, attorneys and representatives from such companies as Mi­crosoft, Puget Sound Energy and Starbucks.

During the first Youth Leg­islature in Washington in 1948, 150 students introduced 21 Senate bills and 54 House bills. The first Youth Gover­nor was Walter Becker from Spokane. The program's founders believed "that each individual in society is re­sponsible for helping to find solutions to problems and for taking part in a democratic way of life," according to the YMCA Youth & Government website.

DHS' Prior brought Youth & Government club activities to Dayton in 2000 after her daughter, Lindsey, partici­pated in a similar program at high school in Walla Walla. Bailey approached Prior five years ago to introduce the program to Waitsburg.

Inspired by her involve­ment inYouth & Government, Lindsey Prior eventually went to work for the Secretary of State's office, where she is still employed today, her mother said.

She isn't the only local club "graduate" to take her interest in the political pro­cess beyond her high school campus. Bulldog Madeline Cavazos served as a page for Cathy McMorris Rodgers in Washington, D.C., before graduating from DHS four years ago. And recent gradu­ate Colleen Delp is pursuing a degree in political science at Washington State University, Prior said.

Baker, whose older brother Fletcher was active in the Waitsburg club and served as a youth member of the Waits­burg City Council, agrees that civic engagement is one of the club's main benefits.

" Democracy must be learned by each generation," she said, quoting the pro­gram's vision. If nothing else, she continued, "it helps me form my own opinions and prepares me for voting."

In addition to introducing bills, students take on the roles of governor, attorney general, speaker, senators, representa­tives, media and lobbyists. On Saturday, the district clubs made their choices for those positions from among its ranks. Those students will travel to Olympia for a pre- Youth Legislature training program, Bailey said.

The spring leadership training and mock session expose local Youth & Gov­ernment club members to the state's political diversity, one of the reasons Harting said she's been involved in the pro­gram since her freshman year.

"It's really interesting to see how different people think in the same state," said Hart­ing, who was elected Satur­day to serve in the Youth Gov­ernor's cabinet. "In Dayton, you kind of only get one side of thinking. This (program) gives you a different look on things."

Students from the west side are just as intrigued by political priorities and re­alities east of the mountains, she said. When 2012 DHS graduate Kroft Sunderland brought up a bill that sought to clarify parts of the law al­lowing teenagers to operate farm equipment, his western counterparts were remarkably uninformed about the topic, Harting recalled.

The senior said she already benefits from her newfound debating skills as president of the DHS Associated Student Body, a job that often requires her to be an arbiter of diverse opinions, even on Dayton's small high school casmpus.

"You have to listen to peo­ple beyond your own group of friends and act in the interest of everyone," she said.