By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE —Maine School of Science and Mathematics student James Jelin, 16, is barely old enough to drive, let alone vote, but the Kennebunkport teen found himself on the road to Augusta last week to testify in front of the State Legislature’s Judiciary Committee LD 115, “An Act to Amend the Laws Governing Child Support Enforcement” — a bill he inspired.
Contributed photo by Imogen Page
James Jelin, MSSM junior, authored a bill for the annual YMCA Youth In Government program held annually at the State House; that bill inspired LD 115, which is making its way through the Maine State Legislature. Jelin is shown above participating in the Youth in Government program last November.
Jelin, a junior at MSSM, participated in the annual YMCA Youth in Government in November of 2010, during which he was the House Committee Chair of the Justice Committee for the mock government exercise and wrote the bill “Giving Child Support Payment Priority Over Payments to Unsecured Creditors.” The bill won the Best Bill Award amongst his peers and Jelin was encouraged to contact his local Legistlative representative to see if he’d be interested in sponsoring the bill or one similar.
The student was excited to learn that his local representative, Rep. Alan Casavant (D-Biddeford), liked his Youth in Government (YIG) bill and agreed to submit it for consideration by the legislature, and was extremely excited to hear from Rep. Casavant that “we have a target date for the hearing.”
Jelin was asked to testify at the public hearing for the bill, which is why he and his YIG advisor, MSSM history instructor Daniel Melega, took the trip to Augusta on Feb. 15.
“I was a tiny bit nervous, but I was pretty confident in what I was saying and about what I had written so it wasn’t too bad,” he said. “The committee was also incredibly friendly and not intimidating, so that helped.”
According to Jelin, the current bill is different in many ways from the one he originally wrote. Rep. Casavant submitted Jelin’s original bill written for YIG along with some additional information and the bill was drafted from there.
Amongst his friends, Jelin refers to LD 115 as “his bill” but, “in reality it is no longer my bill, it is a separate bill based on my idea,” he said. Officially, he refers to it as LD115 or by it’s title.
“Official” was certainly in the Augusta air when Jelin submitted his testimony and his words delivered during the public hearing were more thoroughly prepared beyond what many would have expected from a teenager.
“I imagined they would be expecting me to just go up and talk about my experiences and I felt that it would be far more convincing to have a formal argument for passing the bill,” Jelin said. To prepare for his testimony, he researched bankruptcy law and Maine’s statues before writing out a formal argument for passing the bill. Along the way he did get a little advice from his teachers, his mom (a lawyer) and a pretty knowledgeable friend.
Since the hearing, Jelin’s been frequently asked two questions: “How did you come up with that?” and “Will it pass?”
The first question, he explained in his testimony.
“I had a parent who owed approximately $200,000 in child support, but a creditor took the only asset, an unsecured one, that could have paid some of this money,” he told those attending the hearing. “Fortunately, I am part of a strong financially stable family and we were able to get through this. However, there are countless families who are not as fortunate as I am and cannot recover from this kind of huge financial loss.”
The second question is a little tougher.
“It was clear during the public hearing last week that there are some concerns about the language of the bill,” Melega said. “The comments made by Portland-based attorneys representing creditors and the remarks by lobbyists representing the Maine Banks and Credit Unions underscored this. However, I believe members of the Judiciary Committee also showed a willingness to work with the bill,” he added. “We will know more after the work session on the bill, but for now, I think an attempt will be made to pass the bill in amended form.”
Whether the bill passes or not doesn’t detract from the experiences Jelin has gained; the entire process from his first experiences with Youth in Government to the actual public hearing have made him far more interested in politics than he ever thought he would be.
“Real legislature is infinitely more complicated than the mock government because every single person in the state can be affected by every bill and they all have different interests, but in many ways that’s what makes it such an interesting process,” he said.
Many members of the committee and testifying parties humorously suggested that Jelin would either be working at the Statehouse in a couple of years or at the head of the state’s government.
While Melega didn’t have political futures in mind for his students when he took them to YIG in November, he did want them to get a better understanding of the legislative process and how the two elected branches of state government have to compromise and work together.
“Many students do not realize just how much work and time it takes for a bill to become a law,” Melega said. “In particular, I think most students prior to participating in YIG do not understand the vast importance of the legislative committees and their roles in the bill process.”
Jelin has learned those lessons and has been taught a few extra through this process, particularly about the complexities surrounding the passage of a bill.
“When writing a bill, you really need to consider the exact meaning of every single word, as each tiny detail can have drastic effects on the meaning,” Jelin said. “I somewhat understood this going in, but I now see how many flaws there are in the current bill. At the same time, that is to be expected, and I am optimistic that these problems can be fixed with amendments.”
At the Limestone magnet school, Jelin’s success with LD 115 has generated quite a buzz amongst his fellow students, not only about his work and the legislative support he’s received, but about his tenacity to follow the process through.
Jelin plans to participate in the YIG program next year and the creation of LD115 has him not only thinking harder about the next bill he plans to write; other MSSM students are expanding their options when exploring which mock-government issues to address.
It’s been Melega’s experience that students believe that a bill has to deal with a very large issue — like wind farms, the legalization of marijuana or gay marriage — but this isn’t necessarially the case.
“The bill James proposed set out to change a small section of preexisting law to improve the lives of Maine families and children who are owed child support,” Melega said. “While this may not be the politically driven hot-button topic that many students like to debate, it does show students that bills with a narrow focus, in the end, may be more likely to succeed in passage. My hope for next year is that students will begin to look for more unique problems that face Mainers and in tern, propose bills that seek to correct an existing wrong.”
While it may seem out of the ordinary that a teenager would have such an impact on legislation, Jelin’s LD 115 story does reflect the spirit of MSSM.
“For anyone who has had the opportunity to attend MSSM or even tour for a day, I think they understand the academic rigor that our students embrace on a daily basis,” Melega said. “Students are encouraged to dig deep, ask tough questions and not settle for simple answers. James’ story and that of LD 115 is just one of many other examples where our students are striving to excel and make a difference in the world around them.”
“That James brought this to fruition is a testament to the kind of student MSSM attracts, and the level of work they do with our dedicated faculty,” said MSSM Acting Executive Director Michael Sonntag. “This work demonstrates the sort of return on investment our state stands to reap from the work we do with our students at MSSM. We are extremely proud of both James and History Instructor Melega.”
