“Those two speeches would be in the top ten best speeches of the 118th Congress in the House of Representatives….I appreciate the fact that they listen[ed] politely to each other, didn’t call each other names, there was no ad hominin attacks, and they addressed the substance of peoples’ questions in a really meaning, soulful and responsive way. We don’t see a lot of old fashion style debate in Congress anymore and so this gives me a lot of hope.” 

We often joke that WUDL students have better debates than those that occur downtown in the halls of Congress. We have a powerful testimonial, as panelist Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) praised two WUDL high school students participating in the 3rd annual I-Resolve Public Debate on Monday.

We are less than two months from a highly consequential election, and fittingly, our students sparred over potential improvements to the American Democratic project, covering mail-in voting, lowering the voting age, mandatory voting, and more.

As the discussion went back and forth, Maria demanded to know why she paid taxes but couldn’t vote on the minimum wage or affect policy on long-term challenges like climate change or social security. Her analysis of the low-information voting behavior and the immaturity of many adults made most criticisms of youth voting hypocritical and the importance of habit-building earlier in life. She concluded by saying: “We’re meant to be the future, but we’re unable to advocate for those who will ensure we actually have one.”

Sangeeth’s well-prepared, access-oriented arguments for expanding mail-in voting to ensure more of the 80 million who sit out elections can participate gave us a lot to think about as we head into a presidential election in 43 days. As Sangeeth noted, the subtle power of getting one of those “I Voted” stickers shouldn’t be underestimated. After seeing my parent’s collection of dozens of the “I Voted” stickers on their fridge the previous weekend, I think he’s on to something.

Panelist Bruce Spiva knows a thing or two about the nuts and bolts of democracy. As a prominent voting rights attorney and the current VP of the Campaign Legal Center, he’s litigated cases about voting rights at the highest levels. He recently even threw his hat in the right for elected office, narrowly losing the race for D.C.’s Attorney General last cycle.

Bruce, a former debater himself, noted, “In any profession, and particularly in law, it’s all about how to persuade people to your point of view, to establish some policy, and you do it the way you two did it. By acknowledging where their weaknesses is, and how you’ve thought about it, and how you would get passed or overcome those weaknesses. I think that it’s critical for preparation for any field that you might ultimately go into.”

Missing the debate’s impact on some of our panelists was impossible. Organizer, scholar, and commentator Dorian Warren  stated, “the community organizer side of me, though, really appreciated how they both linked their stories to those facts and argumentation because part of persuasion is connecting with your audience and it is storytelling. Yes, making an argument, yes with evidence, yes with structure but you both did a really great job of connecting to your personal stories but you didn’t do the fallacy of making us assume your personal story is fact, you linked it to how you’re representative of, in many ways, a generation.”

During the reception before the event, we learned that Dorian is actually an alumni of reigning national champion Kenwood High School’s Debate Team (Chicago). Dorian clearly remembers the fundamentals of debate as he honed in on the importance of storytelling and bringing all the persuasive tools to the table, not just logic and facts. We’ve highlighted this at Summer Camp for the last two years, and we hope Dorian can help us emphasize it in future years.

You can view and share last night’s debate from NAUDL’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/-i4aQ7YW_t0.

We are incredibly grateful to Anne Friedman, Alysia LaBronte, and Arsema Paulos for making this event a reality at Planet Word, the exciting (relatively) new museum in the heart of Washington, D.C., dedicated to the power of the spoken and written word.

The I RESOLVE Public Debate Series is generously supported by The Asia Group Foundation, another longtime partner and supporter. The series continues with I RESOLVE – Dallas on October 15th and I RESOLVE – Battle of the Bay on October 29th, 2024.

Congressman Raskin reminded us that in the 1800s, voting was a communal activity involving food, drink, and raucous debate about the issues of the day. We encourage you to get more involved in our local community, supporting (occasionally raucous) local students throughout the regular season with WUDL (and yes, we have great food at all of our local tournaments!).

The regular season starts October 12th at Capital City PCS — we’ll see you there!