Republican Illinois House minority leader Tom Cross and State Rep. Bob Pritchard, R-Hinckley, spoke to the College Republicans about voting and budget cuts in higher education Monday afternoon in Altgeld Hall.

About 30 people attended the meet-and-greet where Cross talked about the difficulties of attracting college-age voters.

“It’s been tougher than ever before for the Republicans,” Cross said. “We cannot take anything for granted.”

Web sites are one way the Republican party has tried to get their message out to the younger voter, Cross said.

“We got over 100,000 e-mail addresses from the Web site,” Cross said. “We hope the Democrats are doing it, too – we just hope we do it better.”

Cross also talked about an area where he said the Republican party has fallen short.

“We have done a poor job of developing a ‘farm club’ for the future of the Republicans,” Cross said.

Both Cross and Pritchard talked about higher education and the budget cuts over the past three years.

“We want a government that’s responsible,” Pritchard said. “We don’t want to take funds from schools like Northern.”

Cross blamed Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for cuts in higher education funding.

“It’s unfortunate we have a governor who picks on higher education,” Cross said.

After the meeting, Cross and Pritchard joined the College Republicans in handing out campaign materials outside the Holmes Student Center.

“Tom Cross appreciates the hard work the College Republicans put in,” said Eric Johnson, president of the College Republicans. “It’s great he came here to speak with us.”