PHOTO ESSAY: The Events of the Farabee Senate

Introduction

A collection of photos from Nathan Henderson taken on January 26, 2019. All photos were taken during the YMCA Youth and Government state conferance.

The Chamber Commences

The Chamber of the 72nd YMCA Student Legislature commenced in an orderly fashion on Saturday, January 25, 2018. Led by the senate chairs, deliberation continued until 5 pm where the senators ajorned and returned to the hotel. Five bills were proposed varying in subject material greatly. Overall, the senators sparked continuous debate on the proposed bills.

Introduction into the First Bill

Proposed by Caleb Zhang, bill FS062 states, “an act eliminating automatic addmissions requirements at all public universites and declaring an emergency.” Senator Caleb Zhang started his speech with an explanation of the bill as well as additionally giving background information to why the bill was written. He states that “universities should consider a more wholeistic view of a college application.” This would promote equal opportunites for all students by allowing for universities to consider the whole application of the student.

The Arguement Begins

Senator Zhang provided research for his arguement. He stated in his opening remarks, “colleges must admit the top ten percent to university.” Zhang continued to illustrate his point by saying that automatic admissions do not properly take into consideraton the merit of the student. He said that automatic admissions only focus on grades and not on SAT score or other forms of student academic achivement. Other than helping students get admitted into universiies, Senator Zhang argued otherwise.  

Oponent

Senator Lily Sethre-Brink took to the stand to explain her opposition to the bill. Her arguement was that low income students have more obligations. Frankly, low income students will not have enough time to complete extracurricular activites to go on their transcript. She said that the bill favored higher income students who had more reasources to gain extracurricular activties on their transcript. Therefore, Sethre-Brink rallied for the opposition of this bill.

The Decision

The Farabee Senate passed Senator Caleb Zhang’s bill to do away with automatic admission to universites. The Senate thought the bill proper to the issues that were revelent at the time. After over two hours of deliberation, the bill was passed.

The Second Bill

In a bill proposed by Senator Abel Macias, the senate debated a bill saying, “an act regulating the capacity the capacity of ammunition held in gun magazines and declaring an emergency.” Senator Macias gave numerous details supporting his claim, one of which was the Las Vegas massacre. Senators showed their passion for the bill and deliberation continued for well over an hour. The delegates attempted to ammend and change the bill but in the end, it did not pass.

The Debate on Gun Control-Bill was not passed

Throughout the debate, the senators deliberated on numerous aspects of the bill, as well as trying to make amendments. One of the most common issues that surfaced was the effectiveness of the bill. Senators debated whether limiting the magazine to only fifteen bullets would accomplish the decline in mass shootings. The senators eventually agreed to fail the bill.

False Allegations

The next bill discussed charges against people who accused others of false rape charges. Those who were accsued would end up facing the same charges of purgery. However, too many admendments were attempted and the punishment was raised. Therefore the bill failed.

Failed

The bill itself took well over an hour to be deliberated. All senators who raised their voice in either favor or disgust tried extremely hard for their way to come to fruition. The intent of the bill was good; however, it was not passed.

Summary

Overall in the Farabee senate, the senators showed great activity and energy while debating the bills. Throughout the trials, individuals competed hard and strong to show their opinion in all of the bills that were proposed. Numerous bills were proposed, and all delegates showed their standing in the matters present.