Chills crawled down my spine as I stood outside the California State Capitol facing a mountain of discarded clothing. Pants and shirts with tags still attached spilled out of torn garbage bags. The pile surpassed the barriers meant to contain it, creating a visible monument of waste. Pedestrians slowed. Some stopped to take photos. Others simply stared. The display highlighted the 1.2 million tons of textiles Californians throw away each year, roughly 3% of our annual landfill waste, according to California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery.

I traveled to Sacramento to advocate for the Fashion Environmental Accountability Act (AB 405), a proposed California bill that would hold major fashion companies accountable for their environmental impacts. The global fashion industry is responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. AB 405 would require large apparel companies to disclose and reduce hazardous chemicals in their supply chains, according to the Legislative Information database. But what I learned inside the Capitol mattered more than the outcome of the bill itself.

When schools equate civic engagement with standard extracurriculars, they reduce democracy to a theory, misunderstanding democracy entirely. Civic education is incomplete without real participation – not because participation guarantees victory, but because participation exposes power dynamics and allows for personal development. Democracy cannot be mastered through textbook readings; it is sustained by participation, which exposes unequal power, competing interests and the limits of idealism.

Leading up to the capital visit, I helped to garner support from constituents through phone calls and email efforts, encouraging them to contact lawmakers’ offices in support of the bill. Inside the Capitol, lobbyists shuffled binders in hallway corners, calculating which lawmaker to approach next. Democracy was not an abstract concept; it was competing narratives, pressure cooker situations and strategic access.

I was one of the youngest lobbyists. My age became an advantage, intensifying the power of my voice. Legislators engaged with me differently when they recognized that I represented the generation that would inherit the consequences of their decisions.

Ultimately, AB 405 failed after pushback from major fast fashion companies. I had assumed data and public support would be enough. Instead, I witnessed how organized corporate resistance can eclipse grassroots momentum. While students organize calls and emails, industries deploy professional lobbyists and spend billions influencing legislation each year, according to OpenSecrets. Inside the Capitol, democracy’s inherent imbalances were impossible to ignore. 

Some argue that teenage advocacy is symbolic at best and without the right to vote, teens should focus on academics and leave politics to adults. But if we are only taught how democracy functions without being encouraged to participate in it, we are only practicing rote memorization rather than fully understanding the implications of policy. Insulating students from civic engagement does not protect democracy; it weakens it. In the 2012 presidential election cycle, only 10% of Americans between 18 and 24 met a standard of “informed engagement,” according to Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. When it is only experienced within the walls of a classroom, democracy is deliberated, pressured and sometimes even lost.

At school, students study Supreme Court cases, policy debates and current events. The theories are easy to grasp. Participation is not. Participation means confronting power, witnessing compromise and at times accepting defeat. Even if teens cannot formally lobby, they can still engage civically by meeting with elected officials, attending community meetings and leading conversations with peers about legislation.

Democracy is not inherited at 18. It is built long before then. Even though students cannot yet cast ballots, we can influence conversations, mobilize communities and challenge power. The bill failed. The lesson did not. And neither did our responsibility to keep showing up.