By: Bella Bauman
At Assembly in Model Government, one of two things will happen to a delegates bill. A bill is either passed or not passed, and sometimes bills are passed with an amendment. Bills can be not passed for a variety of reasons, such as being unconstitutional, opposing the ideals of the majority of the members, poorly written, and more. Although Assembly delegates work very hard on writing effective bills that will change Wisconsin for the better, bills may not be passed. Writing a constitutional bill that has a positive effect on Wisconsin is a strenuous, extensive process full of discussion and research. Because bills need to be as factual and effective as possible, the members of the Assembly and Senate need to debate and research a bill before it can continue the process of being put into action.
BILL PASSED: MADELYNE DANFIELD and BROOKLYN COENEN
Madelyne Danfield and Brooklyn Coenen are well-spoken Assembly delegates who have co-authored their bill. This bill is an act to protect domestic abuse victims and apprehend suspected abusers non dependent on victim testimony. The authors stated that it is necessary to protect domestic violence victims and ensure the conviction of long time offenders permanently without victim testimony. These delegates state that this bill should be introduced to courts that are involved with domestic violence cases and put a greater number of domestic abusers behind bars to ensure the safety of Wisconsin citizens. The Assembly delegates had a civilized debate about whether or not this bill should be passed. One delegate decided to ask a series of questions of the author about the financing of this bill. While this delegate agreed with the intent of this bill, they stated that in the finance section of this bill, it was not specified who or what would be taxed to fund this bill. This would be an example of an amendment that could be made on a bill. After the period of open debate and closing summation of the bill, the members of the Assembly decided that this is a bill that should be implemented in Wisconsin and the majority voted for this bill to be passed.
BILL NOT PASSED: LYD ZHENG
Lyd Zheng is a second year Assembly member who is an intelligent, talented delegate. This deleagte’s bill is an act to decrease the amount of hours in k-12 public schools and was unfortunately not passed in the Assembly. The bill stated that k-12 public school hours would be reduced by 10% of the original number of school hours because students and teachers would benefit from less time in the school building. The members of the Assembly had an intellectual debate about whether or not this bill should pass. One supporting delegate stated that this bill should be passed because students spend a significant amount of the school day using screens which negatively affects their mental and physical health which is a valid issue. However, an opposing delegate argued that public k-12 schools already do not have enough time in the school day to teach students effectively and if in-school hours were reduced, there would be even less time for teachers to instruct their students properly and more out of school work would have to be given. While this bill is in the interest of bettering the Wisconsin public school system, Assembly delegates have debated this bill and decided that it is in the best interest of Wisconsin public school students to not pass this bill.
The passing of bills is an incredibly important process for improving Wisconsin and the United States as a whole. The world is forever changing and if bills are never added or changed, the state would never move forward and out-dated views and opinions would forever affect everyone in the future. Although this process can be tedious, it is an essential part of improving Wisconsin.