Congresswoman Jackie Speier came to campus the evening of Nov. 9 to participate in an open forum on recent political events.

The event was put on by Skyline College’s Political Science Association with help from Professor Jeff Diamond who got Speier to come and speak to students. The event was busier than anticipated as people were bringing in extra chairs at the last minute and still several people were left standing. Skyline’s interim Vice President of Student Services, Joseph Madrigal introduced Speier.

“There are so many things that she has accomplished,” said Madrigal.

Speier decided she would talk about the recent elections first and, while this ended up occupying most of the time of the event, it was a subject that interested the students in attendance.

“There are some interesting statistics that I’m going to share with you that will help you put all this into perspective,” said Speier. “The first thing that happened was we lost the [power of] discussion.”

Speier believed that the lack of public understanding on the actions of congress and the infighting with the “blue dog Democrats”, or politicians who call themselves Democrats but often vote Republican, hurt the party and slowed them down.

Speier brought up the horrible re-election rate of the “blue dogs” when compared to the much better re-election rate of progressives. She also lamented at the small turnout for the election among young voters, especially when voting amongst seniors was up and favored Republicans by 21%. A student asked Speier if the election meant the doors were open for compromise on bills passing through the house.

“I like to think that there are opportunities for compromise,” said Speier. “I certainly will be one of those that extend my hand to do that.”

She went on to explain that a lot of Republicans don’t want to compromise because they’re aiming for the presidency, and compromise would make President Obama look like a successful leader.

When a student asked about the budget cuts to education she mentioned that when you compare the California State Prison population and the California University system’s enrollment, you find that despite their similar amounts of people, the state spends five times more money on prisoners. She also used prison workers getting large raises year after year while UC professors did not as an example of problems in the system.

Another student brought up proposition 13, a proposition from 1978 that froze property taxes at 1975 levels as long as you maintained ownership of the house or your children did. She mentioned that she had wanted to do away with parts of the law years ago, especially for people who owned multiple houses reaping the benefits. She followed up by saying that she has a fantasy that Jerry Brown will announce he is going to be a one term governor at his inauguration so that he won’t be beholden to anyone and will fix the system despite how unpopular it may or may not make him.

Speier then talked about how the current resistance to the extended high speed rail system coming to California was nothing new. She explained that the reason BART didn’t have a more southern extension was due to the then-owner of the Hillsdale Mall and his influencing of the board of supervisors because he was scared that people wouldn’t shop at Hillsdale and would just take the train into San Francisco to shop.

After an hour, it was time for Speier to go and many students rushed up to the front to meet her, grateful of her attendance and very interested in all that she had to say. She spent some time talking to individual students before she had to leave, but not before shaking many hands.

After the event, Professor Diamond expressed his gratitude to the many students who attended.

“[…] I was encouraged by the interest and questions,” said Diamond. “I thought [Speier] was articulate and smart.”