Elizabethtown College students instrumental in passage of bills

Zerfuss, Gorton push for new legislation

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Katie Zerfuss at the bill signing ceremony on the House Floor with former Speaker McCall

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (02/08/2011)(readMedia)-- An assignment that Katie Zerfuss began as a student in 2002, recently was signed into law through Act 104 of 2010, the omnibus school code bill. The Act started its journey as House Bill 566, when Zerfuss drafted it as an intern in the Bipartisan management Committee Fellowship Program. Her internship required her to write an original idea for a legislative draft, just as a legislator would.

Al Gorton also was instrumental in the recent passing of a bill. The college sophomore, who was a child of the foster care system from 1997 through 2005, was an advocate for the Children in Foster Care Act (HB 2338), which provides requirements for children in foster care and for grievance policy and procedure.

Zerfuss was, and Gorton is, a political science major at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College.

Zerfuss, who graduated from Elizabethtown in 2003, now lives in Harrisburg and works as a research analyst with the Pennsylvania House Finance Committee. It was her internship through the College that gave her the opportunity to work on the bill. It was really hard coming up with an original idea, she said. "I would research something and find out that it was already done." But then, Zerfuss saw several newspaper articles about sexual assault cases on college campuses, giving her the idea for her bill. "What can we do to protect these people," she thought.

The bill requires that institutions of higher education establish, implement and administer a sexual violence awareness program. "It must be a meaningful program," she said, not just something to put on the books.

While interning under former State Rep. (and subsequent Speaker of the House) Keith McCall, Zerfuss met with folks from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania, to write the draft. McCall, said Zerfuss, was instrumental in getting the draft introduced into the legislative system. "I feel very privileged to have worked for Rep. McCall as this bill was going through the process. I am happy I was able to be involved at a hands-on level. I watched my 'baby' come to life!"

Zerfuss now works with State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, the democratic chair of the House Finance committee in Harrisburg, and her new baby, she said, is the Marcellus Shale drilling legislation.

Al Gorton was 8 when he was taken from his family, beginning almost a decade of being "bounced from home to home." During that time he had eight foster-care placements, including stays in foster-care group homes. "A lot of people don't know they exist," Gorton said of the homes."

Although there are great foster families out there, unfortunately, that was not the case for him. He often felt alienated, unloved and disconnected. "It's really difficult to be a foster kid. You think you're in a family, but you're not REALLY in a family. ... Five years was the longest placement," he said.

"I always thought what will be the end of this. Will I have a family?"

Gorton was split from his siblings-an older biological sister and a younger biological brother-which, he said made things worse, and every couple of months he'd have a new home.

Finally, in 2005 Gorton was adopted. He knows, in the foster care system that this is a rarity, because he was an older youth, so he understands his good fortune.

Because he is interested in politics at Elizabethtown, and because he wants to give back to the foster system that eventually got him to his adoptive family, Gorton became an advocate for HB 2338, which pushes for desperately needed changes in the foster care system.

The rights addressed in the bill aren't really new, he noted, but it brings them all together in one place. "The rights are on the books," Gorton said, "but parents and children didn't know where to go to find them. This brings them together in a condensed version. ... This bill fixes that," he said.

Due to the political process, it took five years to get the bill passed, said Gorton, "political games prevented it from going through earlier."

The bill, which addresses the right to not be harassed, the right to have access to an attorney and the right to a stable education among other things, gives a voice to children in foster care. It also focuses on keeping families together. "Family is key," Gorton said, while wondering how his life would have been different if this bill had been passed 20 years ago.

Last spring, Gorton took part in a press conference with Rep. Mundy, who introduced his bill to the House. He also wrote an op-ed piece for the Patriot News on the adoption of older children. And, more recently, he was interviewed by House Democratic Communications director Kevin Hensil. The video appeared on PNC and can be found on YouTube.

In the end, Gorton has a loving family and the knowledge that a bill for which he was an advocate has come to fruition. "I couldn't ask for better," he said.

Elizabethtown College, in southeastern Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Through personal attention, creative inspiration and academic challenge, Elizabethtown College students are encouraged to expand their intellectual curiosity and are given the opportunity to become a bigger part of the world through experiential learning-research, internships and study abroad. Elizabethtown College's overall commitment to Educate for Service is fulfilled as students are taught intellectually, socially, aesthetically and ethically for lives of service and leadership.

Visit www.etown.edu for more information about Elizabethtown College.

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Elizabethtown College

harveye@etown.edu

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