Hillsdale College Republicans recently announced its decision to decrease the number of students it will send to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., in February.
Unable to fundraise as much as last year, the club is looking to take half the number of participants to CPAC 2017, Hillsdale College Republicans President junior Brant Cohen said. To ensure active participants in the group get a spot, the College Republicans has implemented new requirements students must fulfill to increase their chances of getting a spot on the trip, Cohen said.
College Republicans sent around 130 students to CPAC 2016, making it the largest organized group in attendance, Cohen said.
The new requirements for this academic year’s event include attending two events sponsored by Hillsdale College Republicans and volunteering twice for the club’s projects. Fulfilling these requirements will make students eligible for applying to CPAC two weeks early, Cohen said.
The requirements aren’t meant to bar anyone from going, Cohen said, but they are to ensure students invested in the annual conference’s purpose can attend.
“The benefit of these new requirements is that if you want to go on the trip, they show that you are actually invested in everything CPAC offers,” he said. “It’s a reward thanking them for their participation.”
Sophomore Abigail Allen, who attended the conference in March, approves of the new requirements because it would help guarantee people want to be there for the events and not just a subsidized trip to the capital, she said.
“CPAC is a very good experience, and it’s even better if you want to be there,” Allen said. “This is a chance for the committed students to get to go.”
Junior Katie Mersereau, who also attended CPAC 2016, however, said the new requirements are unrealistic.
“Not everyone has the flexibility or the time to meet these requirements,” Mersereau said. “That doesn’t mean that they’re politically inactive or not invested in the trip, though.”
Junior Zach Stone agreed: “I think CPAC should be open to people other than the College Republicans. At the moment, it seems like they have a monopoly on who gets to go to CPAC, and that’s not fair.”
Cohen, however, insisted that the requirements are not meant to exclude anyone from the event and that students can still attend the conference on their own, if they aren’t able to attend with College Republicans.
“We just want to make sure the kids who want to go get to go,” Cohen said.