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The Third District representative made the school one of his stops during his Harrison tour on Thursday. Womack visited the House of Grounds, a coffee shop operated by the school’s DECA program.

According to DECA sponsor Chris Dorman, the coffee shop provides students with an authentic, realistic, hands-on enterprise in which they can get experience in running a business. The coffee shop is open for about an hour and a half before and after school and nets about $5,000 a year, Dorman said. However, a new federal law could severely curtail the student-run business or even put it out of business.

As Womack sat down with a cup of the shop’s product, he offered an opinion.

“Oh man, government!” Womack said to the coffee shop’s employees and members of the DECA group. “They’re here to help you, aren’t they?”

Womack talked with his young listeners about government rules and regulations.

“What the government chooses to do could drastically change the bottom line of a business,” Womack said. “Do you think that’s fair?”

He went on to say that regulations are put in place for such reasons as safety and environmental concerns. Regulations were needed to prevent things from running amok.

“But you can over-regulate and force people to go to extraordinary means for no safety or environmental reasons just because someone says so,” Womack said.

The Congressman then cut to the chase. A child nutrition act was passed a few years ago, he said, that was meant to ensure nutrional standards. However, he told the students, in order to meet those guidelines, the coffee shop would probably have to cut its hours and limit the variety of drinks it can sell.

“You guys could be under the thumb of a federal government that could effectively run you out of business,” Womack said. “There has to be a delicate balance between proper regulations and the government in our knickers.”

Teri Garrett, Womack’s Harrison field representative, said that Harrison superintendent Mendy Moss first contacted her with concerns about how the law would affect the students’ enterprise. Garrett passed along the concerns to her boss, who got onto it quickly.

Womack told the students that he had come up with legislation that would exempt school-based enterprises from nutritional standards set forth in the original law.

“I will file the bill and try to get support in Congress to get you guys some help,” Womack vowed, as he passed out copies of the proposed legislation.

He explained that he will file the bill next week when he gets back to Washington, but he wanted the Harrison students “to get their fingerprints on it.”

“Wouldn’t it be cool,” Womack asked, “if some day the president would sign a bill exempting school-based enterprises, and it was because of the House of Grounds?”

Dorman told Womack there would be tremendous support from all over the country for such a bill, and Womack urged everyone to contact other schools to contact their representatives.

Womack went on to explain that when a bill becomes law, a red line copy is made and given to the sponsoring legislator. Many lawmakers, he said, frame the copy and hang it in their office. They will thump their chest and say “Here’s what I did.”

Womack had a different location in mind for such a document.

“I would be willing to put it here in the House of Grounds,” he said.