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La Conner High government students tuned out reality TV for an hour-long segment of real politics Friday morning.

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Arlington, came to campus to address voting rights, adding a lawmaker’s perspective to a unit taught by social studies teacher Erin Lisser.

“He’s here,” Lisser quipped, “to tell us if it’s really like House of Cards,” citing the popular political drama television series.

Larsen indeed did some shuffling during his La Conner appearance to cover a broad range of topics raised during a question-and-answer session with students that followed his formal presentation. He stressed the importance of college, either two or four year schools, as critical for good employment in his opening statement.

“There are 25,000 STEM jobs in Washington state unfilled” right now, he noted.

Despite the partisan rancor often associated with Washington, D.C., Larsen took pains to soften political rhetoric when speaking to the local teens.

“Most of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, believe they’re doing the best thing for their country and the people they represent,” said Larsen, who has served Washington state’s Second Congressional District since 2001.

While saying he’s “no fan of Donald Trump,” Larsen had kind words for former U.S. President George W. Bush, the two-term Republican governor of Texas who preceded Barack Obama in the White House.

“He’s a great guy,” Larsen said of Bush. “Disagreements on issues didn’t matter to him.”

He was equally complimentary about President Obama’s jump shot, recalling how attention getting it was for the President to walk on to a U.S. military base gym in a suit, take off his coat, roll up his sleeves, get a basketball and hit nothing but net from the 3-point line. His “pretty smooth shot” got soldiers’, often 18- 19- or 20-years old, attention.

Larsen had played basketball at the White House with other members of Congress and the President. “He’s pretty good,” Larsen said of Obama, “but the joke was ‘he always goes left.’”

Larsen visited La Conner less than two weeks after the 230th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, a document so flexible it has allowed expansion of voting rights from white male property owners to universal suffrage.

“In America,” he said, “we have the right to vote, the opportunity to vote, and an obligation to vote. It’s an integral part of the American democracy.”

Failing to vote, said Larsen, has consequences.

“If you don’t vote,” he explained, “it’s like giving somebody else two votes.”

Larsen praised the vote-by-mail format in Washington state, which lowers obstacles to casting ballots but features harsh penalties for proved voter fraud.

Thus far, he said, there have been very few examples of people trying to game the system.

“There are more cases,” he said, “of shark attacks and exploding toilets than voter fraud.”

Larsen reminded students of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed the year he was born, which was enacted to protect the voting rights of minority persons, primarily in the south.

Asked if the voting age should be reduced to 16, he referenced the 26th Amendment, adopted in 1971 during the height of the Vietnam War. It lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

“Young people ages 18, 19, and 20 were going off to Vietnam,” Larsen said, “and weren’t being allowed to vote for the people sending them there.”

Constitutional amendments related to voting rights have generally been the result of major social movements, said Larsen. He is not in favor of 16-year-olds voting.

Students delved into a current social debate, the one now raging over professional athletes kneeling rather than standing for the national anthem.

Larsen said the issue involves two features of the Constitution’s first amendment – freedom of expression on the part of those taking a knee and freedom of speech by persons critical of that form of protest.

“As for me,” said Larsen, “I stand for the national anthem with my hat off and my hand on my heart.

“I don’t sing the national anthem,” he chuckled. “It would be disrespectful for me to sing the national anthem.”

Larsen said he supports the “motor-voter” method championed by one of his Second District predecessors, Al Swift, whose legislation two decades ago resulted in expanded voter registration with mail-in and driver’s license renewal options.

Larsen talked as well about the painstaking process of running for office.

“The amount of work that goes into chasing votes is a lot,” he noted.

It, like attending school, is an education in and of itself, Larsen said.

“When you run for office,” he explained, “you choose the issues. Once you’re elected, the issues choose you.”

Larsen spoke from experience. During his first race, he never had occasion to mention Afghanistan. Less than a year after being sworn into office, 9-11 took place. A couple months later, U.S. troops were deployed to Afghanistan. The southwest Asian country would no longer slide under the radar.

Nor, in Larsen’s case, will La Conner. The town is source of one of his favorite campaign stories, a memory forged while doorbelling alongside former Mayor and City Councilman Dan O’Donnell.

“We were about two blocks from here,” Larsen told those gathered at the high school library. “I came upon a house where the door was open. I rang the doorbell and no one answered.”

Larsen peeked around and saw a man who was lying unconscious on the floor, having fallen from a couch. O’Donnell and Larsen quickly summoned emergency aid.

“Fortunately, he turned out all right,” said Larsen. “Thankfully, that sort of thing doesn’t happen a lot.”

“But, frankly,” he added, “I don’t know if the guy ever ended up voting for me.”

Larsen’s taking photos and selfies with students after the bell may gain him future votes.

He took a serious view when the Weekly News asked him about immigration. “What we need,” he said, “is comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for folks willing to meet the necessary requirements.”

He stressed the need to reform the H2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers. “If people want to eat food,” Larsen said, “they have to come to terms with the role immigrant farm labor plays.”

Larsen went on to Skagit farmers Supply in Burlington for a tour of their new fertilizer facility.