Model Congress is one of the most fun and educational things if you want to learn about government.
My bill this time was about campaign finance reform. It was basically a Constitutional Amendment making Super PACs ineffective on the federal level - however, individuals can still donate directly to campaigns (with the $2700 limit). I wanted to do a public financing system, but then I would have to outline how that would work, and that would be a whole additional bill... I still don't really like the ability to donate to campaigns at all, though, because rich people automatically by necessity have a greater influence than the average poor person. But that's ok, getting rid of Super PACs on fed level, making money not speech, and making corporations not granted free speech rights was a huge step towards making advertising more representative of the people and thereby elections more democratic.
My bill passed in committee with the addition of the federal election part, as opposed to it making Super PACs completely ineffective. So it would've went on to full anyway, but it ended up going to the joint full with both the Senate and House because campaign finance reform was apart of the Presidential Platform. There was a brief Q&A session, and then it passed with the necessary 2/3rds majority.

I was actually surprised, because before in committee, the Ethics committee (mine) had to merge with the Government Oversight and Reform committee to work on the Presidential platform. It just so happened that I already did a bill for the first part of the platform, so we discussed it a bit, and LOTS of people from the other committee thought corporations are people with the right to free speech via money. So... they're the reform committee, but they're against any type of governmental reform... OK.
Corporations are as good as people because they are run by people? Are you KIDDING me? I pointed out that the reason why we HAVE free speech is because PEOPLE care about issues and want to advocate for their IDEAS about HUMANITY. A corporation has no such interest; it by definition only has an interest in its own profits. Another person who supported my bill (who presented my bill with me at the full since we were supposed to have two people) pointed out that corporations don't actually represent everyone in the corporation; they just represent the people at the top, which was actually an amazing point that I never thought of.
Some of the students from the --------- school are actually blatantly dishonest. Or really stupid. Because during that merged committee session I also said something about how we don't allow certain speech that is too harmful anyway - if we don't let people yell fire in a movie theater because that's too harmful, then what is undermining our entire democratic process?
And this guy is like, "Comparing criticizing Hillary Clinton to yelling fire in a movie theater is absolutely wrong/inaccurate/ludicrous/some BS thing". I clarified that I was (obviously) saying it's harmful because it undermines democracy, not because of the specific message of a given political advertisement. But seriously, that's super obvious, that guy was deliberately misrepresenting what I was saying. He's good at politics.

I went up to him after and clarified again, and he understood. He's actually friendly if you talk with him, but when he's making points in a formal setting he is just... Blegh. Like another time during a full session he referenced the previous speaker by saying, "While the previous speaker was rattling on about ______" Honestly, that's just rude.
In my committee, the delegates of that school were great though, and the guy who presented the bill with me was actually from that school. He said that some of those people are obnoxious, but that he doesn't think they actually mean to or realize they sound like assholes.

I guess that's good?
Not to hate on that school specifically, but it's just that I've noticed a number of their delegates seem to be really good at being politicians. All about STYLE, not substance. They are masters about moving their arms around excessively, walking around as they speak in an animated way, and dodging questions entirely when inconvenient.
Like, in committee someone asked me about my amendment, and it was a question I genuinely hadn't contemplated the answer to before. So I was like, "Oh, that's a great question. Hmm, well, *thinks for a second* under the language of my amendment I would say that ______"
And another time, I genuinely didn't know the answer to something, so I was like, "I will look over my bill and take that into consideration and get back to you about it." If I was from that school, I wouldn't been like, "Well, what this bill is doing is blah blah blah *completely ignores actual question and summarizes bill in lengthy way while talking in a way that makes it seem like I know what I'm talking about*.
Yeah. And during the Q&A someone asked the extremely stupid question that went something like, "Given that Hillary Clinton lost the election despite the usage of Super PACs to Donald Trump who didn't, how can you say that Super PACs really have an impact on elections?"

Are you fricking kidding me? Really? You're going to say they don't matter? So why do you even care if we eliminate them? But anyway... I was like, "Thank you for the question... To me, that's like saying that because cigarettes don't always cause cancer that we can't say cigarettes don't cause cancer and lung disease. Obviously Super PACs aren't going to swing EVERY SINGLE election, but that doesn't mean they don't have a significant impact. Super PACs do political advertising, which obviously has an impact on elections."
Then someone who supported my bill from my committee was like, "What do you think of grassroots campaigns in relation to this bill?" Haha. He literally was just giving me permission to talk about why my bill matters so much AND to bring Bernie Sanders into it.

"Thank you, that is a great question!!! I would like to reference the Bernie Sanders campaign, which through being funded by small donors at 27 to 28 dollars per person, was even able to raise more money than Hillary Clinton during some months. I believe this shows that we don't actually need Super PACs to fund political campaigns. Additionally, it shows that removing Super PACs from the equation by necessity makes politicians closer to the voters. When you only rely on donations from people to your campaign directly, you need to get their support to donate to you, so you have to support the people."
Some people were confused about Constitutionality... "Are you aware that the Supreme Court already ruled that blah blah blah"
"Yes, the Supreme Court did rule that money is speech in Citizens United etc. etc. but this bill is actually a Constitutional Amendment, so it would override any of those Supreme Court Cases".
So yeah. The President signed it in today, which I knew would happen, because he's from my school and I know where he stands. So that's good... We got SUBSTANTIALLY more done in four days than what the actual Congress will likely get done in the next century. We got campaign finance reform, we stopped drug gouging, we got correct sex education, we got "Cap and Tax", we got cybersecurity, reduced (or eliminated?) solitary confinemnet, we got much more that I don't know about or am forgetting... Seriously, we're MILLIONS of times more productive than Congress. I'm just saying.
Anyway, to anyone who actually read through all of this (I'm sorry, I realize this is probably a mess), if you can, you should totally join a Model Congress club at your school. Model Congress is seriously so fun.
I mean, if you're a political nerd like me... My friend was bored a lot during committee, and to be fair I phased out sometimes at my first Model Congress because I was in a committee in which most of the bills were about technology. But overall I still really enjoyed being in that committee, so it was still a great experience. I mean, if you know you don't like that stuff, then I guess it's not for you. Worth a shot if you're not sure though.
