Former U.S. Representatives Conor Lamb, Charlie Dent M’93 Discuss Democracy, Elections While Showcasing Bipartisan Dialogue

Lamb, a Democrat, and Dent, a Republican, are the co-leads for PACT, which is focusing on the resilience of American democracy by building civic trust, highlighting best practices for the election process and establishing constructive, bipartisan dialogue. The two showcased that on Oct. 26 in their first Pennsylvania appearance, participating in a 40-minute conversation in Packard Laboratory, moderated by Chris Borick, professor of political science and a nationally recognized political pollster. The final 20 minutes were reserved for an audience Q&A, which generated a handful of questions about the current election cycle as well as recurring election-related topics, such as voter ID laws and money in politics.

Despite representing opposite political parties, the two found common ground throughout much of the discussion. One of their few policy disagreements during the evening came in the last audience question of the night from Benjamin Katz ’28, who asked if more states should adopt voter ID laws, since IDs are required to buy alcohol, drive, fly and other activities.

Dent said he has always supported voter ID, although he opposes the currently proposed SAVE Act, which includes proving citizenship. A driver’s license doesn’t prove status, he said, and while a passport does, requiring one is unrealistic since many lack one. He suggested a national digital ID to make things easier for everyone.

Lamb countered that unlike driving or other regulated activities, voting is a fundamental constitutional right. “Anytime that the government is going to then condition your exercise on that right on something such as showing ID, they had better have a really good reason and they better make it no harder than is absolutely necessary for you to exercise that right.”

Acquiring an ID presents financial and logistical hurdles for some Americans, Lamb said. “It may be a small number, it may not even be decisive in some elections. But those people are Americans too. They have constitutional rights too.”

Dent clarified that he wouldn’t limit photo ID to driver’s licenses, and school IDs should be acceptable. “I don't think it's unreasonable that we should verify who we say we are. And many states have already had this requirement. I don't think they found it to be an unreasonable burden for the most part.”

President Joseph J. Helble ’82, who introduced the panel and provided closing remarks, acknowledged the slight difference in opinion and how it was handled.

“There might have even been a little bit of a policy disagreement at the end,” Helble said, “but conversation that was done in a way that was thoughtful, civic, civil and focused on the important issues in front of us.”

“Our democracy is struggling right now,” Dent said. “It's not as healthy as it needs to be. It needs to be better and it can be better. And I'll just do my little piece to help hopefully make it better. And people around the world look to us at the United States as the exemplar, as a great example of what democracy is supposed to be. Well they're not really saying that right now, unfortunately. Other countries are pretty good at this democracy business too and we need to do better.”

While the audience was a balanced mix of students, staff, alumni and community members, the last question Borick asked Lamb and Dent to tell America’s next generation of leaders in attendance one area their talents would best serve the democratic system in the United States.

Dent responded first, saying “there’s a role for everybody,” regardless of their interests or discipline. He listed examples such as the National Institutes of Health for those in the life sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency for those in civil engineering.

“If you're thinking about a career path, I've met a lot of people in the financial services industry who've done extremely well, who spent time in treasury during the troubled asset program, for example,” Dent said. “They were on the regulatory side and learned a lot and they were able to transfer those skills into those government skills in the private sector and vice versa. … You don't have to just run for office. You can, but you don't have to run for office. You can do all sorts of things to serve your country.”

Lamb advised the students in attendance to ignore the forces conspiring to convince people they can’t have much influence on the government. He relayed a story of a recent college graduate running a very successful state representative campaign as campaign manager in his old district in a district that has voted against that candidate’s party by five points in the last election.

“She is, from what I can tell, running the best campaign that this guy has ever had,” Lamb said. “They just crossed over their 30,000th door knocked for the district, which in a state house district is about half of the doors in the entire district. And they had already banked more mail-in votes by Democrats this term than they had had in all of 2024, all the mail-in votes. And this was two weeks before the election. She did that. And in five months out of college, she's pretty much single-handedly taking the district off the map.”