What to Know: Kansas Youth & Government 2019

Of the 70 students who attended the Kansas Youth and Government convention on Oct. 28 and 29, 30 of them came from East. According to Lieutenant Governor Sophie Rice, the reason for this heavy concentration is East’s previous Presiding Officer’s involvement and promotion of the club at East.

“We try our best to go to every social studies class and give them the opportunity to be a part of a governmental process, and it’s [been] very helpful to bring in more students,” Rice said.

The premise of the conference is to replicate the process of the Kansas legislature, particularly in passing bills. Prior to attending the program, each student is tasked with researching any issue that needs reform, like juuling bans by Aislinn Kinsella or increased bathroom space from Sam Huntley. 

Another item on the conference’s agenda was voting on next year’s presiding officers — the students in charge of running the conference. Juniors Charlie Birt will be Youth Governor, Rice will be Lieutenant Governor, Glory Obi will be President of the Senate and Hananeel Morinville will be Speaker of the House.

Their bills are then crafted and submitted on the deadline of Oct. 7, some which were done the night before or weeks in advance. The students split into two chambers, or groups: the House, for people with with less YAG experience, and the Senate, for those with more experience. From there, they split into committees for related bill topics and decide the most promising bill to present in front of the presiding officers in their chamber.

If a student’s bill passes, it goes to the opposite chamber for another debate. Once that debate has finished, the fate of the bill is in the hands of Senior Sophia Menhert, this year’s Youth Governor, who can either pass or veto the bill that will be sent directly to the real Kansas Senate to be reviewed.

The program isn’t just prevalent at East — Shawnee Mission Northwest also had 24 students in the program. However, the presiding officers have been trying to reach out to other schools around the state of Kansas to expand the program.

“We reach out through friends and other leaders around our communities, in addition to direct contact with school districts,” Birt said. “It’s quite a bit of networking.”

On the last full day of the conference, YAG holds elections for the preceding year’s presiding officers. There, the potential candidates hold election campaigns and have a debate similar to the Democratic Presidential debates, according to Birt. The students in the audience are encouraged to ask relevant topics relating to the program, covering things like future reform and improving the program.

Along with spreading, running and campaigning for the program, presiding officers make sure everything from the bill debates to the peer reviewing of bills stay true to the actual Kansas legislature, while still having some room in the chambers for jokes and companionship.

According to President of the House and senior Sophie Fairchild, the YAG trip was smooth and exciting and a higher amount of bills passed than in the previous years she has been apart of it.

“This year was so much fun,” Fairchild said. “For the most part, we had a great balance of seriousness and fun because we all communicated with each other.”