USU hosts civil debate

Utah State University held a civil debate with Democrat House Minority Leader Angela Romero and Republican House Majority Leader Casey Snider. This debate was held on Oct. 12 in the Eccles Conference Center and was created to demonstrate a civil debate on topics they may disagree on for students to see.

Brian Steed, USU’s vice president for government and external relations, moderated the debate. After welcoming both representatives to USU, Steed spoke a little on the background of the debate.

“May of last year or this year, we started to think about this idea,” Steed said. “We have new opportunities here on campus. We will really be engaging with students to make sure that they understand that civil discourse support.”

According to Steed, with various elections that students will participate in throughout their lives, such as USUSA elections or governmental elections, having examples of civil disagreement can be beneficial to students.

“In fact, I would just say that civic-mindedness is one of the pillars that President Brad Mortensen has laid out for us,” Steed said.

Steed also talked about how the debate was not an endorsement or part of any campaign.

“We as a university don’t engage in any of that,” Steed said. “We invited both of our representatives based on their official positions, both as majority leader and minority leader of their respective parties.”

The first question posed​ ​to the representatives was about how their friendship developed.

Romero answered first by talking about how she grew up in a small town and how it affected her ability to create friendships with other colleagues.

“I think a lot of the way I’ve been able to cultivate relationships with my colleagues, and in particular Casey, the representative here, and others, is just we have kind of the same humor,” she said.

Once Romero finished speaking to the students, Snider responded in agreement.

“You know,” Snider said, “we’ve worked on a lot of issues on both sides, and you know, one of the things I like about Angela is that she’s a straight shooter. I may not agree, but I know where she’s at, and that sort of level of dialogue engenders respect, and that just turns to friendship.”

The debate continued as Snider and Romero discussed various issues from housing affordability to water rights, with a few technical interruptions in the form of the microphones emitting a loud, low frequency noise.

The first time this technical interruption happened, Steed said, “That was a bit of a mic drop moment,” resulting​​ in a laugh from the crowd.

The civil debate closed with three student questions about managing data centers, stewardship of natural resources like the Great Salt Lake and keeping civil discourse.

One student asked, “How should we keep our civil discourse in an increasingly radicalizing manner?”

Snider spoke first about his experience and why this is important to him. He talked about a moment that stuck with him was when Robert​ ​Bennett, a former Republican U.S. Senator from Utah, gave his farewell address.

“It was only one of the few times in the history of that body where it was full,” Snider said. “It had Republicans and Democrats both. It wasn’t one side, and it wasn’t the other, and it was full not because Bob Bennett voted with them or he would, you know, bend over backwards to meet their ideals.

Farewell addresses occur in the closing weeks of each two-year congressional cycle and are given by members of congress who are not returning for the next cycle.

“It was because on the back end of everything, Bob Bennett treated people with respect,” Snider said. “It didn’t matter if you agreed with him. It didn’t matter if you supported him. He treated you the same, which was with decency.”

Romero also had a lot to say on this matter.

“From my perspective, a president of the United States should always treat people with civility, and we don’t see that right now,” Romero said, “so if you can’t see it from the highest-ranking official, then why do people think they have to respect each other?”

After the debate, several students were asked why they came. The most common answer was they came because of a class they had. The second most common being they were invited by a friend.

Students were also asked about how they felt about the debate.

“I thought it was good. They were both reasonable. I think there were times when they were maybe pushing partisan ideas and things that didn’t need to have that there, but I think they were both very, in general, very reasonable.” Tanner Swenson, a freshman in political science, said.

This statement seemed to resonate with other students with a variety of answers, from being angry or frustrated at certain points, to enjoying the debate. Most students agreed they appreciated how civil the debate stayed.