The DP sits down with newly-elected Penn Democrats president

The Daily Pennsylvanian sat down with recently-elected Penn Democrats president and College sophomore Matt Kalmans to discuss his plans for the next year, engagement after the election and campus discourse.

The Daily Pennsylvanian: What made you want to run for president of Penn Dems?

Matt Kalmans: Campus politics is probably the most important politics you can practice, especially at our age, because this is the time that everyone forms sort of the ideas and policy positions I think that most people hold for a long time, if not the rest of their lives. So whatever role Penn Dems and College Republicans can play in elevating that dialogue to a place where people want to participate in it — I think that’s really important…. [Penn students] just want to be engaged at a level that is appropriate for their knowledge. So providing opportunities for that is the key as far as I’m concerned.

DP: What are your plans to keep enthusiasm up the year after an election?

MK: We’ve already started working on some very large speaker events [and] engaging in legislative opportunities to a greater extent.… That means going to Harrisburg, going to Philadelphia, going to Washington and establishing relationships with the legislative staffs of our representatives so that we can not only talk about the issues but also make a tangible impact.

[But] there’s political engagement to be done. It doesn’t just end. There are elections next year. There’s a Virginia gubernatorial election, there’s a New Jersey gubernatorial election — these are some big elections for Democrats and now the thing is not just putting Democratic officials in office, it’s defending the principles they were elected on.

DP: Are there any specific issues you’re going to focus your lobbying efforts on in the next year?

MK: What’s really lighting up activism on this campus is stuff like immigration, [which] right now is a real hot-button issue and something that people on this campus care very passionately about and something where I think there’s a lot of headway to be made. Obviously there are a lot of fiscal issues that really affect students now that we’re dealing with the fiscal cliff. Student loan reform is a huge one for a lot of kids that rely on that to go to Penn…. Also now with the Supreme Court considering two gay rights cases, that’s going to be a big one…. We obviously have an extremely active and vibrant LGBT community that we love to advocate for here. And again, with the economy the way that it is, a lot of stuff is going to be on the table to be cut, and just making sure that those cuts don’t affect education and health care and things that a lot of people at this school, in this city and in this country really rely on.

DP: Do you have any plans for bipartisan efforts with College Republicans?

MK: We’ve got two very prominent alumni — one from each party, both of whom are fairly moderate. We’ve got Gov. [Ed] Rendell, we’ve got Gov. [Jon] Huntsman. Both come to campus fairly frequently and both of whom are very connected in the political world. I don’t know what [College Republicans’] relationship is with Gov. Huntsman, but Gov. Rendell has been extremely good to our organization. So working together with them to create some continuing opportunity for dialogue with political leaders is something I think would be pretty cool and benefit people on campus. So if they were to help us reach out to some … real political thinkers and bring them to campus and do bipartisan talks … [and] bring in [Newark, N.J., Mayor] Cory Booker and [Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio and have them really have a substantive discussion.

DP: What are the chances getting someone like Booker or Rubio to actually come to campus?

MK: Well, it depends. Booker we’ve been in talks with for a while. It’s hard in the last year with the election but his chief policy advisor was the president of Penn Class of 2005…. The benefit of going to Penn is you’ve got people in high places and public service that can make things like that happen.

DP: Is there anything you can improve on from the last board?

MK: We could have really large-scale events, and we had quite a few of those with really prominent people, but I don’t know how beneficial it is to the community to have large events where a stump speech is given that you could watch on C-SPAN. I think it’s cool for people who have never seen a president or a cabinet secretary to see that, but I think where the real substantive change and impact is made is in smaller settings. So finding a way to bring people that have that much to contribute to smaller settings is key. We’re not going to get Bill Clinton to a 12-person event, but we might get one of his chief advisors that helped to craft welfare reform or something like that.

DP: Anything else you want to add?

MK: I think in the past, Penn Dems has been a difficult organization to get involved with. We have a GBM at the beginning of the semester but then after that there’s very few entry points. And I think some people are worried, “If I’m not really a politico, is this the place for me?” Something I talked about when I ran and something I intend to keep is I want everyone, no matter what level of political knowledge or policy knowledge they have, to feel like they can learn something and bring something to our organization…. We added a position on our board specifically for that, so that’s going to be a big focus for us this term.

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