STORY & PHOTOS BY LAURYN BECKER
With the College Republicans and Young Democrats organizations ramping back up on the Fort Hays Campus, the first annual debate between the two organizations took place on Tuesday. The event was hosted by FHSU’s chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, a national political science honor society.
“It’s super important for the organizations because this is an opportunity to recruit. This is an opportunity for these folks to speak to the university population, to students in particular, and try to build their membership,” said Jay Steinmetz, a professor in Political Theory and a moderator at the event.
This unique event was proposed not only as a way to encourage a civil debate between the two organizations but also as a way to bring in new members as well, especially considering in recent years involvement was at an all-time low among students.
“Unfortunately Turning Point USA destroyed the College Republicans and they disappeared from FHSU, which is very unfortunate because this is a very conservative town and there are a lot of conservative students and it’s nice to have representation of a student-led organization,” Steinmetz said. “College Democrats is a little bit more of an uphill battle, but you know, the university population also has a lot of progressives, a lot of liberals, and it’s an opportunity for them to recruit.”
With important political questions on the topics of healthcare, the economy, and foreign policy, both sides got to voice their beliefs with a chance to win the overall debate.
The College Republicans’ side was made up of Laura Krohn, Noah Erichsen, and Austin Ruff; while Emily Maldonado, Matthew Rome, and Ella Burrows represented the Young Democrats.
Krohn, Erichsen & Ruff 
Burrows, Rome & Maldonado
“I would like to say one of my big things is bipartisanship,” Erichsen said. “And with this debate we had a great crowd and it not only increased awareness, but it also showed that whether Republican or Democrat, we can all work together for a better future.”
Both sides kept a respectful debate, however, once the topic turned to abortion – a heavily debated topic with possible overturn of Roe v. Wade later this year in the Supreme Court – both sides began to heat up.
“The overall stance that the College Republicans take is that every life deserves the right to life regardless. Today, roughly 1 million abortions occur in the United States every year,” Krohn said. “And I think that is outrageously high and through education, especially from a young age, we can decrease this number dramatically.”
The Young Democrats responded with the idea that they don’t want to push that abortion is good, their overall stance is that women should have a choice.
“Overall Young Dems are pro-choice for the most part. We believe that the best way to reduce the number of abortions that occur is [a] comprehensive text, education, and access to free and accessible birth control methods,” Burrows said. “We feel like you can also decrease the number of abortions through targeted poverty campaigns. No abortion is good, but in the cases where it has to happen, we do support choice.”
Since both College Republicans and Young Democrats are still re-growing their presence on campus, they felt a healthy debate would be a perfect chance for the two groups to collaborate and show that even though they may disagree when it comes to beliefs, they can agree that the two should support each other and learn to collaborate with one another.
“We actually prepared a decent amount. We had someone ZOOM us that helps prep politicians for debates, and she talked to us about how to articulate our words and present arguments to help us counter their arguments,” said Britton Haigh, college republicans president. “Individually I know they (Young Democrats) were using no card and using online resources and stuff like that to help prep.”
When it comes to this event continuing in the future, Steinmetz said he expects many more of these debates and other similar events to continue in the future.
“I think it’s here to stay because we had a really good turnout and it’s a great opportunity again, to recruit members,” Steinmetz said. “I like this time of the year as well, early in the second semester, seems like a good time to have a debate. I look forward to year two and maybe we can develop theme debates over time or do something and theme-specific events, but definitely look forward to doing it in the future.”
At the end of the night, both sides could agree that events like these are a great way to keep a healthy relationship between the two groups.
“I believe that having these kinds of debates encourages a healthy discourse instead of the usual political rhetoric where it’s just back and forth bickering and just snipe insults, which doesn’t produce any kind of effective legislation or even just conversation, which seems to be lacking in today’s society,” Rome said.
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