The Daily Delegate

By Emma McLaughlin

Constitutional convention (Con-Con) is the program area focused on creating a fair state constitution. California’s constitution is know for being the longest state constitution and includes varying topics like civil service, water rights and public utilities. 

How Con-Con works

During session, there are debates on different bills, like if California officials  who have been found guilty of a felony should be impeached, which are written by the delegates in the program. The delegates get to voice any concerns about the bills and argue for or against rules they think would be good additions to society. 

The delegates are strongly motivated to create a constitution that they can be proud of. Through inspiring debates, delegates try to convince their peers to agree with their point of views on both silly and serious matters. These delegates get to author bills in which are to be debated on during the sessions. With a variety of political opinions we can be sure that the constitution being built will please most.

 Only four people can debate at a time but a speaker may open their time to others, so many delegates in the audience have the opportunity to voice their concerns or arguments for or against the bills being debated. These delegates are passionate about these topics and it it shows, while there are already four teens debating, many people are standing up with hopes to be able to participate as well. 

Lessons Learned From Debates

The topics of the bills vary from serious real life issues to sillier non serious topics. However the silly questions aren’t just made to ease the tension or entertain the delegates during a long session. These silly bills are made to discuss serious situations while disguising them under false situations in order to bring them to new light. During an interview with we see the real meaning behind some ridiculous sounding questions and how personal they can be. 

After asking a delegate about their favorite debate he said it was the one about whether or not vampires would be considered citizens, a debate many people enjoyed. 

“Honestly it was really hilarious until someone turned the point to illegal aliens, which made me think about it differently and relate it to myself because I came from immigrants,” said Damian Langarica from the Crenshaw delegation. However the silliness of this debate did cause some future problems where it would get brought up during serious discussions.

Another favorite debate was the one about AI usage. Genevieve Medel from Sonoma argued pro on a bill proposing that anyone under the age of 21 should not be able to use AI. There were many different opinions most disagreeing with Medel. 

“Personally I feel that we shouldn’t use AI under the age of 21 because our brains are not fully developed, relying on AI will result in people having degrees they haven’t earned and it will be really dangerous.”

From this we see the more personal aspect of these bills and all the thought that goes into to their arguments. 

The delegates work hard, debating for hours on end, aspiring to create a fair constitution. While the world may not see the effects of all the effort put in ‘by these teens, they work tirelessly practicing for their future of improving our country. With the dedication of these delegates it’s safe to say the future of politics is in good hands.