On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the Institute hosted its annual Registered Student Organization (RSO) Debate, organized and moderated by the Student Government Association (SGA) and Voters of Tomorrow at GT (VOT at GT).
The debate featured four of the Institute’s political student organizations: Youth Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), College Democrats, College Republicans and Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), with over 15 individual speakers in total. These Tech organizations are all chapters of their larger international counterparts, which reflect platforms and ideals associated with corresponding national political parties.
In the debate’s introduction, SGA and VOT at GT set goals for the night: to spark conversation among students around politics, provide an opportunity for organizations to debate and represent their platformshighlight the importance of civic engagement and inspire people to interact with politics and register to vote.
SGA hosts a Wreck the Vote Week every fall, featuring a series of events and initiatives that promote civic engagement and emphasize getting people registered and interested in voting. The format of the week takes on different forms from year to year. Last year, it was rather extensive due to the elections for governor, Atlanta mayor, and president, but this year, in light of no state or federal elections, SGA opted for an abridged week, focusing more on the RSO Debate on Tuesday, with Voters of Tomorrow tabling to help students register on Wednesday on Tech Green.
In an interview with the Technique, Siddarth Prasanna, a fourth-year CMPE and the SGA Vice President of External Affairs, provided some additional background on the event, its priorities and SGA’s involvement.
“The main goal of the week is always to get students out, registered to vote, voting, but also talking about policy and politics and what’s going on around us. Honestly, [the goal is] just to foster that healthy dialogue this year,” Prasanna said. Aligning with Institute and SGA priorities, the debate aimed to foster community and discussion.
The debate was broken into four sections — in the first three, moderators selected what they believed to be important issues in today’s political climate, and in the fourth, participants answered audience questions submitted throughout the course of the event.
For each of the three main topics, each organization made opening remarks and described its position on the issue. Then, each group had the opportunity to rebut or address claims and statements made by others during opening statements, followed by the chance to respond to these rebuttals. Next, a specific question pertaining to the topic is posed, and each organization gives an answer, followed again with time to address one another’s responses.
The first topic of the night was the economy. Aligning with their platform, YDSA opened by addressing the national debt and plans to decrease it, including spending cuts for the military, a progressive income tax, particularly taxes on the wealthy and investing in Americans through programs like universal health care. College Democrats focused on similar policy goals, such as expanding programs like the Hope Scholarship nationally. They highlighted that under Republican leadership, the national debt has tripled, also pointing out recent tariff policies. College Republicans came out in support of cutting government spending on welfare programs as a means of reducing the national debt, instituting progressive tariffs and also began the conversation around ending Social Security. Finally, YAL discussed the severity of the national debt crisis and some steps to rectify it, including cutting Medicare and Social Security.
The question for this section revolved around how we should balance cuts with supporting national needs, and responses followed directly from these opening positions.
The next topic for discussion was immigration. YAL opened strongly in support of stricter enforcement and policy, citing concerns of criminals and more rigorous requirements for citizenship. College Republicans discussed continuing strictness in immigration policy and the need to keep American jobs in-house. College Democrats supported immigration and immigrants’ positive impacts on America, while recalling the origins of the conversation on a “migrant crisis” in the 2016 election cycle. Finally, YDSA discussed in depth the various benefits immigrants bring to America, namely in terms of contributions to GDP and taxes.
For this section, the question was “What should be considered in defining citizenship?” YAL supported an English literacy requirement and an issue of illegal immigrants receiving citizen-funded welfare, while College Republicans argued that America has no responsibility to accept immigrants, citing criminal dangers from cartels in Mexico. College Democrats noted that there is no official American language and that immigrants pay taxes. YDSA doubled down on this, exploring in detail the financial contributions immigrants provide, regardless of their documentation and their ineligibility for welfare.
The third section was on the nature of democracy and power of the executive, which became an open-ended area for closing remarks. YDSA discussed democracy as derived from the consent of the governed, College Democrats discussed some modern attacks on democracy and impacts on the Institute, College Republicans discussed President Roosevelt as a source of consolidating power in the executive and YAL discussed the modern weakening of the separation of powers, particularly through the strengthening of the Judicial Branch.
The final moderator posed question regarded the Supreme Court’s against executive orders. YDSA viewed this as a natural check against the growing power of the executive, which was seconded by College Democrats, who also discussed some recent executive orders that the Supreme Court has decided on, even stating that, in many cases, the Supreme Court is strengthening the Executive. YAL’s perspective was that the Supreme Court is consolidating power beyond its original scope.
To conclude the debate, moderators hosted a short Q&A supported by audience member questions submitted throughout the debate. This took the event full circle, and back to the original goal of inspiring participation in civics and politics, either through organizations like those featured at the RSO Debate or through participating in civil, open, thoughtful discussion of major topics in society, and as Voters of Tomorrow stressed, “registering to Wreck the Vote” and exercising the right to influence government.
The debate was a significant opportunity for organizations to be seen and to have their policy discussed, but the benefits to these groups didn’t stop there.
“The biggest impact for these RSOs was that they got to have a dialogue with some of the other political RSOs that they may not have had before,” Prasanna said. “The student body saw that we can have a healthy dialogue, that individuals and even different chapters of larger organizations can get into these very nuanced topics and having these healthy discussions and watching people shake hands and congratulate each other is important. Nothing is ever more important than the individual next to you.”
To find more information on the organizations featured, their platforms, and how to get involved, check them out on Engage.