Crookston High School senior Ella Weber has been named to Governor Tim Walz’s Young Women’s Cabinet as part of the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota. The announcement from the Governor’s office was made Wednesday.
The Cabinet is composed of young leaders from communities across the state that experience some of the greatest disparities in opportunities and outcomes. In the announcement of his appointments, Walz said the best way to ensure the opportunities and resources are available for young women to thrive is to ask what the State of Minnesota can do to improve their community.
Weber could serve up to a three-year term on the Cabinet, but she’ll likely only serve for six months with her plans to attend MIT next fall as cabinet members must reside in the state. She talked about the first meeting and what the cabinet will do. “We had our first meeting last week,” said Weber. “The Young Women’s Cabinet is comprised of 32 young women across Minnesota. We do a bunch of work in the community. We use our personal experiences to talk to people in government where we’ll advocate for certain policies.”
Most of the appointees are from the Twin Cities, so Weber said she’s looking forward to representing Greater Minnesota. “I’m very excited for this because a lot of the people on the board are more from the Minneapolis area,” said Weber. “So, I’m pretty excited to represent Greater Minnesota. Personally, I want to do the policy track, where we will learn how to advocate for policy. I’ll get a hands-on approach to political science. I get to learn policymaking from the people making the policy.”
During the first meeting, the cabinet met with Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. Weber said they also heard from former Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. “Our first meeting, we got to talk with Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page and the amendment he is proposing to the Minnesota State Constitution,” said Weber. “We were talking about how this would affect education, and it was quite fascinating. I think it’s fairly similar to Governor Walz’s new proposal. It’s kind of fascinating how one word can make all the difference. They changed the amendment a bit more, but it just fascinates me how one word can completely change the meaning of the law and how we approach a situation. Currently, in the Minnesota State Constitution, it promises an adequate education to all students, but this amendment would promise a quality education to all students.”
This would mark a fairly significant modernization to the provisions for education in Minnesota, as many other states have done. Currently, the education provisions in the Minnesota Constitution largely reflects its original 1857 design.
