Power Before Policy

In anticipation of 2024’s primary election for North Carolina’s Fifth Congressional District seat, the American Institute of Architect’s political action committee (PAC), known as ArchiPAC, gave $1,000 to GOP House member Virginia Foxx. The money, according to the AIA, was meant to support her advocacy on school safety and student debt. The AIA has long spoken up for student debt relief; in 2013 it drafted the National Design Services Act, which included loan assistance for students that work at community design centers in marginalized communities and was first introduced in Congress by House member Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) in 2014.

Despite the AIA’s contribution to her campaign, Foxx, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, doesn’t seem to see eye-to-eye with Perlmutter—or the AIA—on student debt. Just over a month after taking the AIA’s money, Foxx penned an op-ed in the Washington Times berating President Biden’s plan to cancel some student debt as an extravagant boondoggle. “These unaccountable bureaucrats and career politicians claim their reck…