I am enraged at the robbery being commited by this administration with so-called “stimulus aid” legislation HIDING 500+ BILLION DOLLARS to recipients unaccounted for, and with a smug refusal to be transparent about this THEFT.

So Ronni and I were talking about this, or rather, she was listening to me RANT about this, and she just shrugged: Let teenagers run the country.

THAT stopped me in my tracks. Since both Senate and the House are both ineffective in helping the American family and citizens, THIS was akin to my thoughts several years about when another 780+ BILLION dollars was GIVEN to failed business models with the excuse that “it’ll save jobs”. (cite reference to this)

So Ronni and I kicked around some ideas, and I think we’re about to launch Teen Congress. We are going to collect 435 teenagers (no one over 20 need apply), and give them the issues of the day, and ask them to advise governments on how to navigate through these issues.

BLM, MeToo, Social Security, Corruption, income disparity, etc. all are eligible topics.

We will need to do this in a good way. But the seed of an idea has been planted. Now: on to the details.

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Thoughts in progress:

• 435 kids will comprise each Congress.

• I would like each “Congress” to evolve its own rules (ideally inspired by the US Constitution), and be able to leverage the rules or learnings from OTHER groups to incorporate into its own.

• I would like each Congress to be transparent and explicit in its dealings. This includes rules, decisions, deliberations, memory, etc. Transparent and deliberate means making it available for ANYONE to view and understand.

• As many kids as want to participate WILL participate. They will be gathered (in some TBD way, probably randomly at first) into groups of 435.

  • Ideally, they will be collected proportionally according to the number of seats in the House as their state seats, but we will not be pedantic about this if it impedes going ahead and getting things done.

• I would like each “Congress” to critique the recommendations / “legislation” created by other Congress’s in a transparent responsible manner.

• I can see specific topics given specific timeframes for deliberation, eg.
  • Lynchings, BLM, Racism
  • Renewal energy
  • Food security
  • Corruption, Income disparity
  • Social Security

• I recommend the kids NOT get any outside “adult” help unless THEY REQUEST IT DIRECTLY.

• Sponsors may participate, but without influence on process or content. They may provide platforms for discussion:

  • I can think of Slack, Teams, Asana, Facebook, Loomio, Kumu, TheBrain, Atlassian, etc. offering their platforms.

  • I can see Microsoft, Apple, YouTube, Google, etc. offering their tools.

• Would like to feature each proposal in interviews.