Children’s Congress
What if all across our country children voted for children to represent them to oversee legislative bodies at the local, state, and federal level?
Let’s be honest that elections, politics, policy, legislation, are all about the future. And the people most likely to be affected (positively or negatively) in the future are children — people who currently have no say about those future-oriented policies.
What if lawmakers had to answer to children?
Can you imagine state lawmakers in Tennessee telling children in an oversight hearing that people’s rights to freely (and very easily in that state) obtain and carry firearms supersedes their rights to feel and be safe in their schools?
Can you imagine congress telling children in an oversight hearing that there is no good reason to renew the child tax credit that passed during the pandemic?
Can you imagine congress telling children in an oversight hearing that neither the children nor their parents need affordable and accessible child care?
Can you imagine state lawmakers telling children in a oversight hearings that there was no good reason to ensure equitable funding for schools across each state?
Can you imagine congress telling children in an oversight hearing that there’s no compelling reason to be worried about the extreme temperatures, the wildfires, the floods, the rising seas (and temperatures), the strengthening hurricanes, and consequentially no reason to make policy changes about fossil fuel subsidies and consumption or renewable energy?
These and many others are all policy issues that affect the future of the people who are children now, and they currently have no say. They can’t vote. They have no oversight.
What if we gave them some form of oversight? Had kids elect representatives to have oversight hearings, and then televised them on C-Span?
The media could cover the hearings. Would lawmakers be so dismissive of issues that affect children and their chances to be happy, healthy, and to play?
I don’t know, but it might be an interesting social experiment.