It was a seemingly normal Thursday afternoon at the Capitol - state representatives and senators argued about affirmative action and welfare.
But these legislators and lobbyists were high school students.
About 750 high school students from around the state spent four days acting as government officials and voting on bills in the YMCA's Michigan Youth in Government program.
Eleventh grader Tyler Deerfield said he wasn't sure what a lobbyist was when he signed up for the event.
But a day into the job in the mock government, he had successfully lobbied against a bill that would change the high school drop-out age from 16 to 18.
"I've always had an interest in politics, and I thought I'd see how it was actually run," said Deerfield, of St. Mary Cathedral School in Gaylord.
Students took positions from all branches of the state government, including governor.
The program works to help students "become confident in themselves, to learn diversity and to understand that democracy is learned," said Joanna Ackley, a student adviser and social studies teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Taylor.
If the youth government passes any bills, which are all written by students, they will be presented to the actual state legislative committees for consideration, adviser Aaron Place of Boyne City said.
A bill for vertical licenses for people younger than 21 was originally passed in Ohio's youth government, he said.
There were about five students to every adviser, Place said. Most advisers were high school teachers or program alumni.
Lyman Briggs physiology junior Farhan Bhatti participated in the youth in government program for three years in high school and has been volunteering since his freshman year in college.
"I feel obliged to keep coming back as a volunteer because (the program) helped me grow as a person," he said, adding that it's his civic responsibility to get other students involved in politics.
Bhatti, who plans to be a politician after medical school, said his experience as a youth in government helped him land different political positions. He was the assistant campaign manager for state Sen. Virg Bernero, D-Lansing, two years ago and the director for Howard Dean's Generation Dean campaign in Michigan.
