12/08/2024
Last week, MAPL students and faculty coached and supported about 130 local high schoolers in role playing as legislators at the Minnesota State Capitol, as part of the Metro State University Model Legislature. These kids got to sit in hearing rooms and on the House floor, debating and voting on bills of their own choosing, drawn from real bills from the most recent legislative session. They also got to hear from legislative leaders like Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy and House Majority Leader Jamie Long. Watching these students in action was inspirational and makes us optimistic about the future! We hope this experience gives these young leaders a sense of agency for participating in politics and government, and makes them more likely to show up at the Capitol in the future, as staff or advocates or as lawmakers themselves.
This is our first year running our own model legislature program through MAPL, modeled on the wonderful Winona Model Legislature that Rep. Gene Pelowski has run for years down at Winona State. He’s been hugely supportive of our work and very helpful to us all year, as we’ve planned for this event. Congratulations to the whole Metro State team that worked on this project, to the many MAPL students involved, and especially to the MAPL faculty team: Representative Emma Greenman, Representative Jess Hanson, and Prof. C. Scott Cooper!
