CENTER VALLEY – On Friday October 25th, North Penn students got a taste of what it’s like to be senator for a day at DeSales University. With Senator Bob Mensch presiding over the day, students got experience government issues and step into the shoes of a state senator.
The morning started off with a seminar explaining to students about the senate committee and developing positions on legislation. Students were also warned beforehand that just like real senators, they will also be required to debate issues in front of their peers to either pass or kill the bill.
“Dealing with the young folks is really a kick for me. Seeing their perspective of the world, getting out to this kind of university and being involved with a program such as this is really rewarding. There’s a lot of fun in getting to know people and their point of view and to understand that we don’t have all the answers; the answers come from a collective group, so to me that’s very rewarding” explained Senator Mensch.
Something else that’s rewarding? His job.
“It’s rewarding, politically every victory is a positive experience. Sometimes stopping bad legislature is also just as equally rewarding and there are bad pieces of legislation out there, mean pieces intended to punish a certain group or do something not in the interest of the overall society. I take personally a lot of delight on being able to stop it” Mensch also added.
With the morning seminar ending, students were than divided into five groups according to the bill topics: education, intergovernmental issues, public health and welfare, state government, and transportation. Next, students were to get into their committees and discuss whether they wanted to get rid, revise, or add onto the bill that their committees were assigned to.
But students were not done just yet, after discussing in their groups, all of the students were called into the main conference room to propose their new revised bill and promote it to the public to see if they wanted pass the bill or defeat it. Students were in for a last surprise as they were joined by Father Bernard O’Connor, the president of DeSales University.
“You need to be passionate and love what you do in order to succeed, and passion is a strong virtue so cherish it always” explained Father O’Conner.
Students who attended the senate for a day conference, walked away with a better understanding of how the government works and a whole new respect for senators.
Senator Mensch also added one last thing, “the most important things I want kids to take away from this are a couple things, first understanding the process and having a better appreciation of it and second, to understand the importance of government and to be involved. It’s your government. The government takes advantage of people when they don’t pay attention to them. So you and all the people here need to leave with the burning desire to be involved in your government. I don’t care if you’re democrat, republican, independent- I don’t care, but register, get out there, and get involved in the process because it’s your government so I hope you take that away from this experience.”