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YSU students debate political issues, encourage young adults to vote Tuesday
By ROBERT CONNELLY
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown State University’s College Democrats chapter and College Conservatives debated a number of issues Thursday while encouraging students to vote.
YSU President Jim Tressel moderated the debate, which featured one-on-one discourse, but two featured the College Conservatives using two speakers.
Both Ernie Barkett, head of the College Democrats, and Mark Stanford, head of the College Conservatives, gave opening remarks.
“A lot of our members here today — it’s the first time they will be getting up and speaking. ... You’re going to get a variety of views,” said Stanford, a senior from Langhorne, Pa. “We want you to inform yourself and then go to the polls.”
The two groups debated these issues: education reform, Islamic State, fracking, tax reform, reproductive rights, immigration, health care, gun rights and minimum wage.
Early in the debate after consecutive topics of Islamic State and fracking, Tressel noted they were running ahead of schedule and asked Jacob Schriner-Briggs and Chad Limbruner a follow-up question on the geopolitics of those two issues.
Limbruner, a member of the College Conservatives, said, “We have found that Marcellus shale has made us more energy-independent. ... This is a great opportunity for us to become energy-independent.”
Meanwhile, Schriner-Briggs, a member of the College Democrats, countered about fracking and natural-gas production, “There’s no long-term solvency in either one of these energies.”
At times there were more than 20 in attendance while students came and went throughout the two-hour program in the DeBartolo Lecture Hall within DeBartolo Hall on the campus.
Shortly after the debate on health care, which focused on the Affordable Care Act, Derrick Thomas reflected on why he attended.
The freshman from Cleveland heard about the event in class and never had attended a debate before. “The health care [debate] was pretty interesting. It was so interesting because both sides gave really good arguments about Obamacare, and it was kind of hard for me, leaning toward the left ... to go against what the Republicans were saying.”
Among the crowd were several area politicians, including Mahoning County Democratic Chairman Dave Betras; Mahoning County Republican Chairman Mark Munroe; Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti; state Rep. Robert F. Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th; and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd.
Munroe said, “This is a great exercise for these young people. It’s so exciting, it’s energizing to see young people willing to pay attention and get involved.” He added, “One of my greatest frustrations as a GOP county chairman is to see that so many of our citizens are not engaged, are not involved and don’t pay attention.”
Both Barkett, a freshman from Canfield, and Stanford were encouraged by the turnout and how their teams did. Tressel ended the event by calling up both men to pick a topic to address that they would want to fix if they were elected next week. Stanford touched on the country’s deficit, while Barkett picked the partisan divide. Tressel, however, pushed Barkett to pick a topic, and he chose education reform.
“We need to educate our future young children,” the freshman said.