caleb davis

Youth in Government

MSSM at Youth In Government

This past spring Caleb Davis and Joe Durgin attended model state, a weekend long experience for high school students that simulates parliamentary procedure and government on the state level. Students are elected to almost every electoral position in the actual Maine State House and Senate. They simulate the entire parliamentary procedure from writing legislation, to committee meetings, to debating in the House floor. To heighten the experience, the weekend is spent in the State House in Augusta. Elected Senators sit in the chairs of the Senate and elected Representatives sit in the House seats. Preceding the Augusta weekend are three regional conferences at which students campaign for the position they wish to hold when they reach Augusta. All positions except for one are filled during these conferences. The governor is not elected at the regional conferences, but rather the prior year while the event is taking place at the state house. A candidate is elected at each regional conference, and these candidates then campaign during the program to be elected to be the following year’s governor Elections for Governor take place Sunday morning.
    This year Joe was the lobbyist for state government in the house of representatives. Davis was the Senate chair of the committee on agriculture. Between arguing bills and going to the Saturday night dance at the YMCA Caleb was actively campaigning to be elected governor. He handed out fliers, stickers and shook a lot of hands. By Sunday afternoon, the votes had been tallied and Davis was officially recognized as governor for next year's model state.
    As governor, Davis got the opportunity to go on a trip sponsored by the YMCA to Washington D.C. Where he attended the YMCA National Youth Governor's Conference. "The conference was all about being a leader for the people you're representing," says Davis. The conference featured speakers such as the senior speech writer for the President (John McConnell), Bill Behrens (special assistant to the president for inter-governmental affairs), Michael Bruce (DOE), and the President's best friend, Clay Johnson. The 33 governor's from across the nation also got the opportunity to ask real lobbyists questions during a panel discussion. Another panel discussion featured blog writers from various partisan blogs. Also Davis got to eat breakfast with the Congressman from his district, as well as eat lunch with the Senator from Maine. To top it off Davis and the other governor's got a tour of beautiful Washington D.C. Governor Davis mostly enjoyed meeting people from around the state (and country) "Really awesome kids who know and care about what is going on around them, it was very inspiring."

To anyone interesting in participating in Model State visit http://www.yiginme.org/