Monthly Archives: February 2024

By Elaine Carte-Engel

Upon passage in the Senate, Senate Bill 21 was brought to debate in the House. Senate Bill 21, authored by Delegate Elliot Copeland, is an act aimed at increasing the safety of labor conducted in the heat, “as well as declaring an emergency”, regarding rising temperatures.

If temperatures reach over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the bill requires employers to keep “a functioning instrument that is capable of measuring the temperature” on site and available any time when heat related illness is a risk to workers. Employers are also required to provide eight ounces of water every 20 minutes and breaks in a cooled area every hour. Employers who fail to meet these standards will face criminal charges.

Delegate Jiya Sharma served as the sponsor of the bill in the House, where she read a speech written by Copeland. “Without protections, worker’s lives are at risk.” Sharma said, “Across the United States, since 2011 over 400 workers have died due to heat related illness, with around one tenth of them dying here in Texas.”

Sharma believes strongly in the bill she is sponsoring, hoping that it will serve as a vital front line in protecting workers facing continually rising temperatures.

“It’s trying to protect the workers, to protect the people,” Sharma said. While in the house, concerns were raised that the required regulations would stunt productivity and have a negative effect on the economy. To rectify this, an amendment was added stating that the mandatory breaks were not to exceed 15 minutes.

Further concerns were brought up that the bill allowed loopholes, such as no minimum break time, that would render it ineffective. The example of a ‘one second break’ was frequently used in opposition speeches.

“It’s about the intent of the bill. It may have some loose ends but those can be tied up through amendments,” Delegate Theodore Nguyen said.

Despite the issues raised in the debate, Sajid voted for the bill in its passage into law.

“I love how it’s working towards helping employees live in viable conditions while working and making sure they are not hurt because of part of their job,” said delegate Fatimah Sajid.

Sharma was proud when the bill she sponsored for Copeland passed and the team was able to ensure further protections for Texan laborers.

“It’s not slavery, it’s employment, You should be able to have breaks; you should be able to have water breaks and have livable conditions,” Sharma said.

By Mia Godoy

Delegates have many roles they need to adapt to, meaning they need to have a great community around them to help them get through difficulties or problems they may have while trying to adapt to the roles to lead them here to State today. A Delegate here today by the name of Emily Moore gave a little information about how she got here to the State Conference and the community that helped her get through it all. “The main thing that helped me get to state the most was my team,” Moore said. This exemplifies that having a competitive group of Delegates that you can rely on will get you to maintain high standards at the best of your work. A Supportive team will always help get through all the rough times but will also help you get to greater places as for today as an example. The meaning of having support around you is to worry less about the problems and for emotional reasons. “Having the support of my team also helped me get to state,” Moore said. Moore stating this helps us understand the meaning of support more by giving us more time to get through the difficulties of getting prepared for the many roles of being a Delegate. Being a Delegate also needs resources to help you throughout the process of being where you are today. The biggest resource people need is their community. “Having a big school that had a lot of other people in Mock Trial helped me most with resources so that I could get ideas from other teams. We had so many people in both the Prosecutor and defense so I got to see so many different sides of it from many different people,” Moore said. This explanation Moore gave was both inspirational by helping us realize what we need most to help us get to where we want to be. Delegates are all around today showing us the best of them but they truly wouldn’t be able to without the help of their community.

REVEALING THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR Y&G ADVISORS

A whopping 25,000 students participate annually in the growing youth organization Youth & Government, with over 1000 students in Texas alone. The club’s functions prove to be engaging for attending students and adults, recreational regardless of their academic benefits, and flow smoothly despite following a loaded schedule. Although students’ model behavior and proficient efforts at improving their skills play some part in allowing Y&G functions to run placidly, they aren’t the only force at hand. Despite their major role within the organization and the countless lives they’ve permanently impacted, advisors are often overlooked and underappreciated. Agreed upon by many, Youth and Government would not be the same without these key players.

In an interview with Veterans Memorial HS advisor Aaron Williams, he reveals, “Youth and Government teaches you to understand that everyone is different, people have different mindsets. And [it] teaches comradery and research…they can apply this in everyday life.” “As far as students, everything is a success story. When you come here and experience something like this, www.ymcatexasy.org 1 meet others with different backgrounds, that’s a success”. Mr. Williams has been an advisor for 5 years and plans to continue reaching out to students and creating a generation familiar with government. The interview reveals the significance of advisors to our future senators, legislatures, governors, and various other members.

Robbert Root, advisor and coordinator of Holmes High School, shares his student Nathan Swick’s success story: “He was one of the outstanding legislatures. To me, the great picture was watching this young African American male speak at the same place as all the speakers of the senate have spoken and the pride that arose from him”. Mr.Root proves to be a working example of the importance these teachers hold to our youth and the boundless effect they have on their pupils.

Mr. Root recruits students to Y&G by “…[giving] the kids a voice so they can be empowered, and help them recognize their voice is important and what they say is important”. He emphasizes the magnitude of involved and active youth and their representation. Mr.Root, Mr.Williams, and advisors across the globe prove to be the characterization of the club.

San Antonio district director Angelica Torres describes the importance of advisors by stating, “The support for our students, they are those mentors, those leaders, that can vouch for them. They’re advocates there for them every single day. So for me, they’re the face of Youth & Government.” Ms. Torres gushes on about the gravity and weight of an advisory role and acknowledges the transformative and knowledgeable work of these adults. Youth & government owe our advisors long-due appreciation. Without their aid, the art of government would present itself as a persistent obstacle to future generations.

Written by: Amina Ahmed, Foy H Moody High School

By Elan Rodriguez

Over the past ten years, the hottest month’s average temperature has risen nearly 7 degrees which to some may not seem like a big change, but for many people that have a job where they work outside it is a major transition for them. The people who are possibly most affected by this new heat wave are construction workers, the people who quite literally built our country. This new bill is made to help protect our construction workers in the hottest times of the year. The basics of the bill are that environmental heat is the combined heat of air temperature, humidity, radiant heat, and air movement. This bill will also require employers to maintain and utilize an instrument capable of measuring environmental heat such as a thermometer. And that an employee must be provided eight ounces of water at least every 20 minutes during the time they are working. To some people, this bill could cause major delays in construction that could cost companies more money than they intended. However, according to the author of the bill delays would be minimal and they intend to pass this bill for the safety of the workers.

Each year about 1,670 people die every year due to heat stroke complications. Many of those being construction workers. Although this bill is important and has many benefits there are still some gray areas that need to be addressed. For example, it was never specified in the bill what temperature would be considered extreme heat. Without a set temperature employers can argue that they couldn’t consider a certain temperature extreme enough. Another thing that needs to be addressed is that the act shall take place in 90 days which doesn’t seem like much but as many Texans know our weather can change drastically from day to day. If this act does not immediately take effect we could have many more heat stroke deaths.

By Elan Rodriguez

To start this off, this is only my first year in the YMCA Youth and Government program. Back in September of last year, me and my friends decided to sign up to participate in the Youth and Government club at our school – we chose to do media. I wanted to be part of this club because things like this have always interested me. We went on to compete at the district conference and we were able to move forward to state. After all of that, now we’re here.

We arrived at Kalahari at about 1:30 pm on Thursday and sat through the opening ceremonies. After that we were able to go to our rooms to sit back for a bit, before going to the arcade and having some fun. We got back to our rooms at around 10 pm and showered to go to bed. This morning we decided we wanted to go to the State Capital to watch some of the legislative sessions. As I was sitting in the courtroom watching and listening I was also writing notes and things that would go well in my media report. After I wrote my first report I couldn’t think of anything else that wasn’t similar to what I had already written. After some thinking I decided to just write about the experience of being here and hearing all the debating over the different bills. I listened to many different bills, some about worker safety and others about classroom safety. One of my favorite ones was about the safety of construction workers in extreme heat. Overall This was a very enjoyable experience and I am looking forward to the coming days where I will do much more.

By Eliza Pepito

A Dive Into Appellate Court: A Section Often Overlooked

Just as any student who has gone through the US education system should have learned, the First Amendment found in the US Constitution includes the right to freedom of religion. However, if this guaranteed freedom were to be supposedly broken, what would happen?

Well, such a situation in the aforementioned is under investigation in the courts of the Judicial Branch at the Texas YG State Conference. The Appellate Court, the court that addresses appeals (when a party claims that an error was made in the trial court case and calls another court to correct that error), has been tackling the case of Elijah Casey.

Casey, a father and dedicated member of a fictitious religious group (the First Church of the Divine Healing of Our Lord), has decided to decline his daughter the opportunity of medical care due to his faith’s belief in the power of prayer (and prayer alone) to cure diseases and illnesses. Due to Mr. Casey’s choice, his daughter Elizabeth ends up passing away due to a treatable disease, diabetes.

Although Casey had been found not guilty of Second Degree Manslaughter, he did end up being convicted, in the court of trial, for Second Degree Injury to a Child. Consequently, Casey has decided to appeal his conviction over two issues: whether the search warrant used to convict him was improperly issued and whether Casey’s right to freedom of religion had been violated. The intricate and delicate case has forced many delegates to thoroughly study and memorize, inside and out, every little detail and nuance associated with the suit.

According to Appellate attorney Daeun Kim from Creekview High School, the easiest aspect of this otherwise complicated case is that, in being required to argue for both sides of the case, she is “better prepared” and knows what to expect for a counter-argument from the “other side.” Consequently, she can garner the case and its overall issues from a more neutral, “wider perspective.”

Despite this, however, Kim conveys that she still finds attempting to devise an efficient and strong rebuttal to certain counter-arguments the “hardest aspect” of this case, given the complexity of the situation.

In such complex cases, a judge’s role of maintaining neutrality and tackling the case with objectivity is of the utmost importance. For example, Appeals Court Judge and Chief of Justice Candidate, Cindy Ren, expresses the aforesaid attitude. Ren states that, as a judge, she can “see where both sides are coming from” and can only “look forward to hearing more” from each side before coming to a verdict.

Casey’s case truly encapsulates the complexity of our modern world. While society continues to advance and progress, many still choose to stick to and conserve tradition because of comfortability, even if doing such causes harm to others.

With the nature of this case centered around the threat of progression versus the threat of conservation, such a conflict can be and is very viable and applicable to our world today.

By Isabella Martinez

Media is often overlooked by an audience, but great experiences and opportunities are brought along the way once you learn more about YMCA Youth and Government media. Some insight on media is developing communication to interact with other delegates and share your ideas within your branch or outside of your branch. The endless possibilities enable a great space and environment for the mind to have the freedom of creativity. When learning to expand your thoughts into paper, interviews, or documents, you share the final product with the public to keep up a good representation of the YMCA.

Reporters also display the status of conferences between legislatives, delegates, and other members of Youth and Government. Media members get a closer view of the depths in court from different perspectives. As the YMCA website describes the different sections and the meaning of media, it mentions the responsibilities of creating original articles with clear details and highlights to emphasize the great work of all the individuals within the YMCA. I believe the YMCA Youth and Government program is a great start if you plan on having a successful future in the media industry because you get the knowledge of submitting assignments by a certain deadline, developing intellectual understanding, and many more skills that would help you benefit from in the best way possible. Plenty of dedication and confidence is required to continue your journey of becoming an experienced media member. While interviewing a current media member, media means to express an individual’s opinions about their career and their current house branch, also collecting information about why they decided to do pursue their current role. Media has so much to offer in both life and personal preferences to evolve and develop as a social member.

By Ajaila Joseph

Austin, TX – Teams from all over Texas have prepared for this day, the Texas Youth and Government State Conference! Each year the Youth and Government program continues to grow in size gaining new members but losing the old. ” It is a pretty scary but fun experience going to state.” says, Malani McNeil, a first-time Youth and Government member. ” I can’t tell if I feel prepared, over-prepared, or under­prepared! Yes, my advisor and my veteran teammates have told me how it works, but when I’m alone I can’t help but feel a little nervous.”.

Looking around I couldn’t help but sympathize with new members, so I went around gathering evidence to make their first State Conference, a bit easier to navigate. During the opening ceremony Youth Governor, Vannela Mallampati, gave her short speech. “When I first joined Youth and Government I was a shy girl scared to to speak in the room and hiding in the corner. It wasn’t till one day when an advisor told me six words, that I will now tell you guys, ‘Fake it, till you make it!”‘. For the rookies all around let this quote stick with you. The Youth Governor who was once shy, is able now to lead a State Conference, your confidence will get there! As Vannela says “Nobody will remember if you stutter in your opening statement, if you fake it till you make it, eventually you will not be faking it anymore!”. Listening to another delegate, a veteran Esmeralda Rios, give her speech during the opening ceremony, moved me.

I grew up going to school with Esmeralda knowing she was a shy girl. Esmeralda grew in the last year, took a chance, and ran for a state officer position­ and won for that fact! Now seeing her from that shy girl to the confident one I know now, it’s amazing to see that’s what Youth and Government can do! In Esmeralda’s words, ” I would tell rookies to take a chance, I did and look at the outcome! I know it may be scary, but every chance you don’t take is a shot you will a hundred percent miss!” So to all the rookies in YG right now, it’s okay, it may be hard now, but later it will not be!