As Professor Jacobson noted, Henry Waxman is leaving his seat in Congress after 40 consecutive years as a representative for a West Los Angeles.

The district includes the University of California – Los Angeles. Student Maia Ferdman offers her thoughts on the ideal replacement.

A long-term mindset must also be coupled with a focus on the district’s most salient concerns. These could include traffic alleviation, local business development and most importantly for UCLA, higher education.

UCLA only came under Waxman’s jurisdiction after redistricting in 2012, and he did not show much, if any, focus on higher education during his career. A constituency as large as the UCLA community should make itself heard in Congress through its next representative.

Just last year, the House of Representatives came to a deadlock surrounding student loan interest rates, resulting in their automatic doubling. Although the Senate just passed a bill that will retroactively decrease these rates, we need representatives who will avoid this kind of harmful and counterproductive stalemate in the future.

Already, three Democratic candidates and two nonpartisan candidates have entered the race, and several more have said they are considering it.

Of those candidates, former Los Angeles City Controller and mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel and State Senator Ted Lieu stand out as established figures with a prominent backing. However, neither candidate has had significant involvement in education initiatives.

Students should look for a representative with a clear commitment to curbing student debt, increasing federal support for public higher education and battling unemployment for recent graduates – and a willingness to collaborate with the opposing party in order to do so.

…“The next (representative) should be someone who knows what they want, but also knows how to get what they want,” said Alexander Lyons, a third-year political science student and the external vice president of Bruin Democrats.