Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\nAmerica250PA Executive Director Cassandra Coleman echoed Burns\u2019 sentiment about empowering young people to become involved in their communities. Coleman \u2014 who became mayor of Exeter Borough, Pennsylvania at age 20 \u2014\u00a0encouraged students to make their voices heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir voices matter,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cTheir ideas matter, their communities matter. They do not need to until they have a title, a degree, or decades of experience before they begin making a difference in each of their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given that Congress Hall is smaller than the Capitol floor in Harrisburg, where the House traditionally convenes, the semiquincentennial session was split into two parts to accommodate the lawmakers.<\/p>\n
During the first session, the House unanimously passed Resolution 589, which celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
State Rep. Morgan Cephas (D-192) urged the lawmakers to consider the modern reality of the nation\u2019s founding ideals in an address to the chamber.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Founders wrote all \u2018men\u2019 are created equal,\u201d Cephas said. \u201cAnd we spent the next 250 years figuring out the \u2018who\u2019 they actually meant.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She described the U.S. as an \u201cexperiment,\u201d adding that there has always been a \u201cgap between when freedom is promised and when it actually reaches people\u2019s lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat lag runs through the entire history of our country,\u201d Cephas said, asking the representatives to \u201ccelebrate how far we have come\u201d and be \u201chonest about the work that remains.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second session of the evening, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Joanna McClinton (D-191) led the chamber in unanimously passing House Resolution 590, which celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Tim O\u2019Neal (R-48) spoke to Philadelphia \u2014 and, particularly, Old City\u2019s \u2014 unique role in establishing the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe story of America cannot be told without the buildings in this square,\u201d O\u2019Neal said in an address. \u201cThis is where Pennsylvania governed, this is where America declared itself free, this is where the Constitution was written. The ordinary people who did those things had no guarantee this experiment would last 250 years. They simply did their part to make sure it could. Now that responsibility belongs to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staff reporter Ishani Modi covers state and local politics and can be reached at modi@thedp.com<\/a>. At Penn, she studies biochemistry.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania\u2019s House of Representatives convened at Congress Hall in Philadelphia to commemorate the United States\u2019 semiquincentennial. Lawmakers gathered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-282754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}