Committee Agendas

Here.

The originals are in .docx format, which nobody likes. So here it is, on the internet, alphabetically arranged, without any changes by me whatsoever. Enjoy.

Model Leg 08 in the press

Winona Daily News Day 1
Winona Daily News Day 2
Winona Post
HBC
Channel 8 (WITH VIDEO!!!!)
Channel 19 (WITH VIDEO!!!!)

That's all for now.

A few old bonus links
A few name drops, all in one editorial
West Wing predictions

Pictures for Model Leg 08

The pictures taken by Mr. Pelowski are up on the Model Leg website in the "Shared Documents" folder, inside of the "Pictures" sub-folder.

As of now, the only pictures up are only from the first day of Model Leg. These pictures were uploaded on 12/4/08; if there are any other dates, you know that they are from the second day.

If you have any other pictures, send them my way at gbarules-remove-this-2999 at gmail dot com.

Model Leg directions and stuff

This year ML will be hosted by the same place as last year: The Tau Center of Winona State. Yay.

Never been there before? It's over by the Winona Mall; it's next to that soccer field nearby. (511 Hilbert Street, Winona)

A completely unhelpful map is wherever the blogger software stuck it.

More specific driving directions: Go down Gilmore Avenue (the same road that Winona Senior High resides on) . Go down Vila street - if you were coming from WSHS, go to the right - pass W Mark St. and take a left at the next corner on Howard St. Pass Gould St. and you'll end up on Hilbert St, where you can then shoot into the parking lot for the Tau Center. See Mapquest for more information.

Committee Agendas

Committee Chairs must create their agendas, possibly with the assistance of the Vice Chairs. This should be done in the near future, though there is no formal deadline as of yet.

For the WSHS Chairs, please view the website (a link is at the bottom of this blog), look at what bills will be coming to your committee, and start creating an order in which they will be heard. Ways and Means and the two Rules committees will have to base their agendas off the other committees' plans, so please finish this quickly. You may bring it into the classroom and let us edit it, or you can place the bills yourself.

For our St. Charles Chair, please see your teacher for write access to the site so you may edit your agenda as well.

For those interested, the Chairs:
Commerce - Tia Thompson (WSHS-12)
Education - Andrew Van Cleave (WSHS-11)
Environment and Agriculture - Stefani Schmidt (WSHS-12)
General Legislation - Naeh Klages-Mundt (WSHS-11)
Health and Human Services - Leah DeGrazia (WSHS-12)
Judiciary - Lynette Volden (St. Charles-11)
Taxes - Nick Graetz (WSHS-12)
Transportation - Tessa Morgan (WSHS-12)
Ways and Means - Brennan Meier (WSHS-12)
Rules House - Brooke Brewer (WSHS-12)
Rules Senate - Myles Beckman (WSHS-12)

If you want your bill pssed in a timely matter, these are the people to talk to.

Budget ideas

This post will be edited as we find more ideas to balance the budget.

"Dime a Drink" is an alcohol sales tax that would theoretically raise $500 Million. In bill HF1050.

An elimination on the exception of clothing sales tax that was introduced in the 2005-2006 session would raise $366.1 million.

Updates

The bill book is finished. It's was 388 pages before we did a few page editing changes. This is roughly 100 pages less than last year.

We are starting to add committee agendas, which will be appearing on the website as the chairs get to it. We are also starting to discuss ways to balance the budget.

The people running for elected offices

Expect to see several of these people asking (perhaps demanding) your vote this Model Legislature. Pictures will be added as I get them.

The deadline has passed for announcements.

Governor Race:

Ethan Kastello and August Judisch









Camille Nicholson and Elaine Ayers

President of the Senate Race:

Megan Hatfield
















Tom Blacklock

Speaker of the House: Shay Thompson

Spread this blog!

If they are in Model Leg, they should know this website. Once it gets closer I'll be making information available that will be needed.

For now, the bill book needs to get done. We only have two weeks left to really do work, so keep on truckin' if you're doing something. If you're not pick a task and do it. Chase the morning!

In any case, we're mostly waiting for other schools to get on board, and technical difficulties are starting to arise.

Rules can be viewed online

Click here.

What we need

If you wish to help Model Legislature at this time, what would help the most is looking at the site, writing down changes that need to be made, and then coming in in the morning to make these changes.

This is what needs to be checked:
-House and Senate authors for every bill
-Senate and House numbers for each bill are all accurate and filled in (you can do this by checking the MN Leg website - ones at the top are usually more accurate than the ones at the bottom, for obvious reasons)
-Chairs and Vice Chairs filled (Nominations are being taken! - one year of expereince required for poisitions, though exceptions will be made for people who earned it)
-The Budget needs to be balanced - we need to take notes on the money each bill spends or creates, and then create vehicle bills to raise money. This will take a lot of time and effort, but if we actually do the thing Minnesota will explode (high schoolers can balance the budget better than the real deal!)

You can also request a copy of the Rules to view and peruse for spelling, issues, and other various complaints.

At this point, please, if you have any complaints, come in and change the issues yourself. It it getting down to the wire now, and we don't have much time left.

First post

This blog will be used for giving out information on Model Legislature for the year of 2008.

Please bookmark this site and check it every once in a while.

This is the official site. You cannot edit anything unles you have login info and Microsoft Word 2007.