Here's how you get things done in Washington: You identify a problem, help write a bill to address it, strategize how to get it passed in Congress, and then find a way to get the president to see it and sign it into law. It's a task that even your average politician finds to be somewhat formidable, but the students of Stuart Wexler's Advanced Placement government and policy class at Hightstown High School in New Jersey pulled it off. Some would call it democracy at work. It all started in 2015, when the students in Wexler's class were studying the civil rights movement and were appalled to discover that many criminal cases involving racial violence and death remain unsolved, even decades later. The class considered all the people who have lived with questions about what happened to their loved ones 50 or more years ago. The killings and injuries have long passed, and the perpetrators are likely gone, but the families are still with us. After brainstorming ways to give those families some answers, the students came up with an idea to create a government-funded national archive of documents from unsolved hate crimes to facilitate families gaining access to the information they need to find closure, if not justice. But creating the archive would require new legislation and getting it passed would take a great deal of time and advocacy. Do teenagers wield the kind of power needed to get something like this done? The Hightstown students were up for the challenge. First, they did a bit of homework, including filing Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain documents about old hate crimes. But the wait to have requests answered is long, and as these old cases often result in an impasse, the students learned firsthand what families go through when they're struggling to get answers. The students also reached out to politicians for help with their cause, even taking bus trips to Washington to find supporters. Democratic Congressperson Bobby Rush from Illinois was among the first to lend his support, and Democrat Doug Jones, who won an Alabama Senate seat in December 2017, also signed on. Jones had a good reason to be interested in the teens' work, as he was the U.S. attorney who reopened a racially motivated church bombing case from 1963 and won convictions against the perpetrators. Six months after he was sworn in, Jones stood on the Senate floor and introduced the bill that had been ghostwritten by the teens, while they watched from the gallery above. They were proud of their achievement, as they had successfully taken their idea from the classroom to Capitol Hill. Mission accomplished? Sort of. The bill still needed bipartisan support to get through Congress. It didn't take long. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was so moved by the teens' work that he decided to become a cosponsor of the bill and help bring other Republicans on board, and by December 2018, the bill unanimously passed the Senate and was overwhelmingly approved in the House. Now all that was needed for the bill to become law was President Donald Trump's signature—but time was running out. It was nearly January 2019, when a new Congress was set to be sworn in. Legislation dies in the transition from one session of Congress to the next, so unless Trump acted fast, the bill would be lost. The enterprising teens thought of a way to overcome this obstacle and get the president's attention: They started a veritable tweet storm. The students tweeted at Trump, his advisors, his staff, and even Trump-friendly celebrities whose followers could carry their message to the White House. During this critical juncture, students "went on a mad, desperate scramble to get the president to sign the bill," explained James Ward, a 17-year-old senior who helped mobilize the student body, class by class, "to take out their phones and tweet." "We were tweeting at as many people as we could," recalled Srihari Subramanian, age 17. Srihari sent an e-mail to businessperson Christopher Ruddy, a friend of the president. "He got back to me within 30 minutes," the teen said. After a short exchange, another note came back. "He said, 'I dropped a message to the president around 10 minutes ago and I really hope your bill gets signed into law.'" Then came the best message of all: Trump had signed the bill. Oslene Johnson, who had been managing the project's Twitter account, cried upon receiving the news. "The families could now, with access to information, at least know something about what happened," she said. If there was a grade for making a difference, the Hightstown kids deserve As all around.
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Here's how you get things done in Washington: You identify a problem, help write a bill to address it, strategize how to get it passed in Congress, and then find a way to get the president to see it and sign it into law. It's a task that even your average politician finds to be somewhat formidable, but the students of Stuart Wexler's Advanced Placement government and policy class at Hightstown High School in New Jersey pulled it off. Some would call it democracy at work. It all started in 2015, when the students in Wexler's class were studying the civil rights movement and were appalled to discover that many criminal cases involving racial violence and death remain unsolved, even decades later. The class considered all the people who have lived with questions about what happened to their loved ones 50 or more years ago. The killings and injuries have long passed, and the perpetrators are likely gone, but the families are still with us. After brainstorming ways to give those families some answers, the students came up with an idea to create a government-funded national archive of documents from unsolved hate crimes to facilitate families gaining access to the information they need to find closure, if not justice. But creating the archive would require new legislation and getting it passed would take a great deal of time and advocacy. Do teenagers wield the kind of power needed to get something like this done? The Hightstown students were up for the challenge. First, they did a bit of homework, including filing Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain documents about old hate crimes. But the wait to have requests answered is long, and as these old cases often result in an impasse, the students learned firsthand what families go through when they're struggling to get answers. The students also reached out to politicians for help with their cause, even taking bus trips to Washington to find supporters. Democratic Congressperson Bobby Rush from Illinois was among the first to lend his support, and Democrat Doug Jones, who won an Alabama Senate seat in December 2017, also signed on. Jones had a good reason to be interested in the teens' work, as he was the U.S. attorney who reopened a racially motivated church bombing case from 1963 and won convictions against the perpetrators. Six months after he was sworn in, Jones stood on the Senate floor and introduced the bill that had been ghostwritten by the teens, while they watched from the gallery above. They were proud of their achievement, as they had successfully taken their idea from the classroom to Capitol Hill. Mission accomplished? Sort of. The bill still needed bipartisan support to get through Congress. It didn't take long. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was so moved by the teens' work that he decided to become a cosponsor of the bill and help bring other Republicans on board, and by December 2018, the bill unanimously passed the Senate and was overwhelmingly approved in the House. Now all that was needed for the bill to become law was President Donald Trump's signature—but time was running out. It was nearly January 2019, when a new Congress was set to be sworn in. Legislation dies in the transition from one session of Congress to the next, so unless Trump acted fast, the bill would be lost. The enterprising teens thought of a way to overcome this obstacle and get the president's attention: They started a veritable tweet storm. The students tweeted at Trump, his advisors, his staff, and even Trump-friendly celebrities whose followers could carry their message to the White House. During this critical juncture, students "went on a mad, desperate scramble to get the president to sign the bill," explained James Ward, a 17-year-old senior who helped mobilize the student body, class by class, "to take out their phones and tweet." "We were tweeting at as many people as we could," recalled Srihari Subramanian, age 17. Srihari sent an e-mail to businessperson Christopher Ruddy, a friend of the president. "He got back to me within 30 minutes," the teen said. After a short exchange, another note came back. "He said, 'I dropped a message to the president around 10 minutes ago and I really hope your bill gets signed into law.'" Then came the best message of all: Trump had signed the bill. Oslene Johnson, who had been managing the project's Twitter account, cried upon receiving the news. "The families could now, with access to information, at least know something about what happened," she said. If there was a grade for making a difference, the Hightstown kids deserve As all around.