The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent -agent- during the 2007-2008 League.
Committee Meeting/House Session Report
I attended the Judiciary Committee meeting with State Representative Rick Jones. This meeting reminded me of just how passionate people can be about something that they really care about. Everyone that testified for their side of the issue spoke with a lot of emotion and passion.
The first bill that they voted on was one that dealt with forging deeds. Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to this one - I was too busy trying to see if I was the only person in the room under the age of thirty. According to my observations, I was.
The second bill was making a law stating that if your dog bit someone, you are not to flee the scene, but instead, you are supposed to give the victim your contact information and history of your dog's vaccinations. This bill was easily passed through committee after a testimony from someone explaining how his mother was bit by a dog, and after being assured by the owner that her dog did not have any diseases, left, only to become seriously ill a few days later.
The third bill was dealing with petroleum gas and law suits that take place because of it. They claim that the following situation happens a lot: a professional from the petroleum gas company comes and safely installs a gas tank at someone's home or business. After it is properly installed, the owner then tampers with it and changes settings, or tubes or something else, and during this time, and explosion or some other catastrophic event takes place, and the person is injured. They then sue the gas company. This bill makes it illegal to do that, saying that after it is correctly installed and working, the liability is off of the company, and on the owner.
The fourth and fifth bills took the longest, and brought a lot of emotion to the room. These bills provided financial compensation for those who were released from jail after being wrongly convicted for a crime they didn't commit and sent there for a long period of time.
We heard numerous stories of people who had unjustly been put in prison for 18+ years, and then being released after the government found out what really happened. But unfortunately, during those many years in jail, these people had lost their jobs, homes, and for many of them, their family. So when they are released, they have nowhere to live, no family to provide for them, and no job to provide a living, so, ultimately, they have an extremely difficult shot at life - all for something they didn't do.
The people who wrote this bill feel like the state should help them get started again in life. Many questions were asked to the testifiers, and the one that stood out to me the most was Representative Meadows' question. He asked why the state needs to be the one to pay the money when most of these people were arrested by city or county law enforcement. The answer was this: when the prisoner went to court, it was the "State of Michigan vs. the person." After the very personal, heart touching story from a man that actually lost his dad, his only surviving family member, when he was unjustly in prison, the bill passed and the meeting was finally over.
In the afternoon, I went to the House Session. The main thing that I learned from this particular experience was how much time the legislators waste. Seriously. We waited around for almost a half hour before the session started, and when it did, the representatives weren't even paying attention. The session was A LOT less formal than I expected, with most of them either talking with each other, or on their phones, eating, or playing games on the computer. However, they were all paying attention when the Stanley Cup was presented.
