Majority Whip & U.S. Representative for California’s 22nd District

At an appearance at a diner on Tuesday morning in South Carolina, Representative Mick Mulvaney laid into his fellow freshman Republican lawmakers.  What initially started as an introduction for Rick Perry turned into a verbal beat down in which Representative Mulvaney expressed his utter disappointment with freshman lawmakers who had “abandoned their constituents.”

These comments illustrate the divide in the House Republican Conference.  For our Member of the Week, Majority Whip and Representative for California’s 22^nd District, Kevin McCarthy, the comments represent an uncomfortable ideological gap that must be bridged when the party comes back to Washington next week.

Born in Bakersfield, California in 1965, Kevin McCarthy opened his first business, Kevin O’s Deli, at the age of 19 with the hopes of raising enough money to go college.  Apparently the business plan was spot-on because in 1989 McCarthy graduated from California State University, Bakersfield, with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing.  He would go to earn his MBA in 1994.  Before entering politics in 1999, McCarthy ran several other small businesses.

Though he served as Chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, McCarthy initially made a name for himself as the District Director for U.S. Congressman Bill Thomas, the Chairman of the House Way and Means Committee.  His first election victory was insignificant – in 2000 he won an election to become a Trustee to the Kern Community College District.

In 2002, McCarthy was elected to represent the 32^nd Assembly District in the California State Assembly.  As a freshman legislator, he was selected unanimously by his Republican colleagues to serve as the Assembly Republican Leader, becoming the first freshman legislator and the first legislator from Kern County to assume the post.  During his stint in the California State Assembly, McCarthy used his leadership position to address California’s immense budget deficit and overhaul the compensation system of public employees.

McCarthy entered the Republican primary for the 22^nd District in the hopes of replacing his former boss, retiring Congressman Bill Thomas.  After surviving the heavily fought Republican primary, he swept the general election with 70.7% of the vote.  Since then, McCarthy has been dominant in the Republican district.

As a freshman, McCarthy was appointed to the Republican Steering Committee.  In 2008, at the behest of John Boehner, he served as the Chairman of the Republican Platform Committee during the committee’s meetings in Minneapolis in August, which produced the Republican Party Platform for 2008.  After the 2008 election, McCarthy was chose as Chief Deputy Minority Whip and, after the Republican gains of the 2010 election; he was selected by the House Republican Caucus to be the House Majority Whip.

His meteoric rise was not unnoticed.  Newsweek named him one of the GOP’s “most persuasive compelling members.”  Roll Call named him the “rookie of the year” in the 110^th Congress and The Weekly Standard described him as one of the three “Young Guns of the House GOP.”

As the third-ranking House Republican, his allegiance to the party is not surprising – McCarthy voted with the Republican Party 96.4% of the time in 2011, which ranking 6 among the 242 House Republican Members.  His leadership in the House, along with John Boehner and Eric Cantor, will be called upon once the legion of unshakeable freshman members, such as Representative Mick Mulvaney, return to Washington, D.C.

–Amendment202

Did you enjoy our profile on Representative Kevin McCarthy, check out our other Members of the Week!

U.S. Representative for Indiana’s 6th

One of the concessions that Republicans in the House and Senate won from Democrats during the negotiations to raise the debt limit was the opportunity to vote on a balanced budget amendment by December 31^st.  Last Friday, House Republicans met in a special GOP conference to discuss whether they wanted to pressure vulnerable Democrats or pursue a hard line conservative stance on the floor.  Characterized by a principle vs. political pragmatism debate, GOP lawmakers are approaching this amendment with a full realization of the growing hindrance that has developed as a result of the ongoing evolution (good or bad) of the party.  One of the lawmakers at the center of this debate – and our Member of the Week – is Representative Mike Pence.

One of six children, Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana on June 7, 1959.  He attended Columbus North High School, before going on to Hanover College.  His time at Hanover was eventful, with an ideological conversion that saw him go from Democrat sympathizer to Republican, and from Catholic to evangelical protestant.  After graduating from Hanover in 1981, Pence continued his education at the Indiana University School of Law, where he earned a Juris Doctorate in 1986.

With a law degree in hand, Pence started work as attorney.  This was short lived.  In 1988, and then again in 1990, he moved into the political spotlight after running – and losing – for the House seat he now holds.  Even with the direct endorsement of President Ronald Reagan, Pence lost both times to Representative Phil Sharp, a moderate Democrat.

His second defeat was seen across the political landscape as the end of a political career that had no beginning. But Pence stayed in politics, evolving into a commentator.  He was the president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the radio host of the Mike Pence Show, a right-leaning talk program that was syndicated across the state from 1994 to 2000.

The opportunity to try again for the 6^th District came in 2000.  It was at this time that then-Representative David McIntosh left his seat to run for governor in 2000.  Sensing his chance, Pence moved into the race.  He started his campaign on the offensive, defeating five other candidates in the Republican primary.  In the general campaign, Pence faced questions about his lack of military service and was accused of not offering enough relief for middle-class families.  He countered these allegations with calls for across-the-board tax cuts and Medicare reform.  Ultimately, third time was the charm and Pence won with 51 percent of the vote.

Beginning in January 2001, Pence quickly became one of the party’s leading conservative voices, railing against the dangers of big government.  He maintained a hardened ideological consistency leading to a unanimous election as chairman of the Republican Study Committee in 2005.  Entering the position, he vowed to put more conservative federal judges on the bench, limit abortion rights, and cut spending and entitlement programs in Medicaid.  Nearly a year later, Pence ran for House minority leader, only to lose spectacularly to John Boehner, 168-27.

After being reelected in 2008, Pence ran unopposed for the GOP conference chairman.  He was easily elected, becoming the third-highest ranking Republican and the first Representative from Indiana to hold a House leadership position since 1981.  The position was tailor-made for the media-savvy Pence.  He entered the position off the back of overwhelmingly Republican losses in 2008.  Charged with resurrecting a political brand that was no longer appetizing to a broad swath of voters, Pence ended his tenure with the Republicans retaking the House in 2010.

One of the most outspoken conservatives in the Republican Party, Pence has been quoted as saying “I am a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”  He is a particular champion of controlling the federal budget and cutting government pending, and also support free markets.  In the ongoing internal debate regarding the balanced budget amendment, Pence is the leading advocate of political pragmatism, supporting a version of the amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of members to raise taxes, and would cap federal spending at 20 percent of the GDP.

According to various sources, the amendment has little chance of passing.  Though Representative Pence is running for the governorship of Indiana in 2012, his sway in Congress may continue to push the Republican Party down a road of decision-making emphasizing political confrontation.

–Amendment202

Did you enjoy our profile of Representative Mike Pence, check out other members of the week!

How to speak Republican

Regardless of political affiliation, we think you’ll get a good laugh. This is a repost from Jonathan Bines (Huffington Post columnist).

“ Talking to a Republican can be frustrating. Often, it seems like they are speaking an entirely different language — and in many cases, they are! For this reason, in the hopes of facilitating cross-party dialogue and mutual understanding, I have compiled what I believe to be the first comprehensive Republican-to-English dictionary, featuring words commonly used by Republicans, and their English translations, alphabetized for your convenience: ”

• America (United States of): A country located in the N. Western Hemisphere that is #1.
• Bible: A sacred text that provides incontestable answers when thumped.
• Birth Certificate: An official birth record required of all US Presidents, regardless of race, since 2008.
• Capitalism: A system of economic organization that has never been attempted.
• Christmas: A holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, now rarely celebrated due to persecution by atheists.
• Compromise: (uncommon) A form of political suicide.
• Coast (East): A very bad coast of the continental United States.
• Coast (West): Another really inexcusable coast.
• Communism: The belief that the government should ever do anything.
• Condescending: Accurately informed.
• Constitution (U.S.): The hallowed founding document of the United States, the text of which must be interpreted strictly and amended immediately.
• Corporations: Large people who are overtaxed.
• Deficits:
  1) Fiscal shortfalls incurred by Democrats that threaten to bankrupt the country.
  2) Fiscal shortfalls incurred by Republicans that don’t matter.
• Democrat: A political party.
• Election: A method of selecting representatives, the fraudulence of which may be determined by the outcome.
• Elitist: Qualified.
• Endangered Species: Animals that have it coming.
• Evolution: A theory of human origins that is out there.
• Extremist (Liberal): Espousing or adhering to political beliefs that are held by only a majority of Americans.
• Fact: Information that has been verifiably posted to a RedState comment board.
• Forest (National): Trees that have it coming.
• Gut: Region of the body from which decisions should be made.
• Homosexuality: A membership-only lifestyle organization that perpetuates itself through youth recruitment.
• Hitler: A man to whom it would be inappropriate to compare President Obama in spite of the many uncanny similarities.
• Jesus: Charismatic religious leader and son of God; born in Bethlehem in the year 0; beliefs include love, charity, enhanced interrogation, privatized healthcare, elimination of the estate tax, and the right to carry concealed semiautomatic weapons.
• League (Ivy): an association of eight Eastern universities and colleges, the lack of a fancy education from which qualifies a candidate for political office.
• Liberal: A person who should be rounded up and shot but not really.
• Marxism: A political and economic philosophy developed by Karl Marx and promulgated by Paul Krugman.
• Media (Mainstream): Where you won’t hear things.
• Medicare: A fraudulent, socialistic boondoggle that is sacrosanct.
• Mexicans: Brown people who have it coming.
• Mountaintops: Ancient rock formations that have it coming.
• Muslims: Brown people who have it coming.
• News: Fox News
• Obamacare: A Federally-mandated policy to address the national oversupply of grandparents through euthanasia.
• Organic: Eaten by lesbians.
• Party (Tea): A grass-roots movement of patriotic Americans fighting for the principle of “No Taxation With Representation.”
• Poll: A survey used to determine, to within a margin of error, what percentage of Americans are right.
• Poverty: The condition of having inadequate financial or material resources due to not trying hard enough.
• Propaganda: The politically motivated dissemination of biased information, opinion, or data through its publication in the New York Times.
• Punishment (Capital): The legally authorized killing by the State of someone who is definitely guilty.
• Racism: A form of discrimination that typically happens in reverse.
• Regulation: Rules issued by a government agency for no reason.
• Ronald Reagan: A fictional character based loosely on President Ronald Reagan.
• Scientist: A person who employs a rigorous system of observation, experiment, measurement, and verification to perpetuate his Godless left-wing agenda.
• Social Security: A redistributionist Ponzi scheme that is sacrosanct.
• Socialism: An economic system invented by FDR.
• Taxes: Levies imposed by the government that raise more revenue the lower they are.
• Torture: A method of interrogation that does not rise to the level of torture.
• Terrorist: A person to whom a person who threatens to destroy the U.S. economy unless his demands are met should not be compared.
• Unbiased: Giving equal weight to both sides of the looking glass.
• Wealthy (the): People who earned every penny.
• Up: A direction which, depending on circumstances, is down.
• Warming (Global): An anomalous, anthropogenic increase in the earth’s atmospheric and oceanic temperatures that isn’t happening.
• Welfare: A government program to distribute Cadillacs to unwed mothers.
• Yes: (no translation available)

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Junior Senator Representing South Dakota

Since the Obama Administration announced late last week that it did not see a way to make the long-term care CLASS Act pay for itself, GOP lawmakers in both houses have called for its immediate repeal.  The CLASS Act, crafted by the late Senator Edward Kennedy and intended to provide a voluntary and public long-term care insurance option for employees, now faces an uncertain future due to the introduction of legislation intended to repeal the program.  The bill’s Senate sponsor, and our Member of the Week, Senator John Thune, has urged quick action, expressing the desire to “kill this thing once and for all so it doesn’t become a drain on our children and grandchildren.”

Born and raised in the small town of Murdo, South Dakota, Thune’s ancestral origins are Norwegian.  His paternal grandfather, Nicolai Gjelsvik, arrived at Ellis Island speaking only two English words, according to Thune: “apple pie” and “coffee.”  Since Nicolai’s name was thought too hard to pronounce, he became Nick Thune and moved to South Dakota to start Thune Hardware stores in Mitchell and Murdo, South Dakota.

In high school, Thune was a star athlete, almost winning the state basketball championship.  Ironically, Thune’s political trajectory began when a local saw Thune make five of six free throws in a high-school basketball game and remarked, “I noticed you missed one.”  The local was Representative James Abdnor.  They stayed close throughout high school and college and after graduating from Biola University with a B.A. in Business Thune took a job working for Abdnor, then a senator, in Washington.

After Abdnor was defeated in 1986 by Tom Daschle, Thune was appointed by President Reagan to follow Abdnor to the Small Business Administration.  Three years later, Thune moved back to South Dakota to become the executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party.  From 1991 to 1993 he worked as the State Railroad Director; from 1993 to 1996 he was the executive director of the South Dakota Municipal League.

The long-awaiting ascension to Congress was completed in 1996.  Defeating the state’s lieutenant governor in the GOP primary, Thune strolled through the general election.  Promising to serve only three terms, Thune was reelected in 1998 with the highest margin in South Dakota history, 75% to 25%.  When his third term ended in 2002, Thune announced his intention to challenge Senator Tim Johnson instead of pursuing the governorship.  The race was the closest in the nation in 2002, with Thune losing by a mere 524 votes.  Not long after losing, Thune became a lobbyist, before making another run at the Senate, this time against the United States Senate Minority Leader and Leader of the Senate Democrats, Senator Tom Daschle.

The most expensive election race in South Dakota history ($35 million), the contest between Thune and Daschle had historical implications – no candidate had defeated a sitting Senate leader in more than 50 years.  Throughout the race, Thune used his substantial Republican support (Bill Frist, President Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney to name a few) to paint Daschle as the chief obstructionist of Bush’s agenda.  Thune drove home the idea that Daschle was out of touch with South Dakota, highlighting Daschle’s $1.9 million home in Washington D.C and his differing stances on various social issues deemed important to South Dakotans.  When the race began in early 2004, Daschle led by 7 points in January and February.  When the race ended in November, Thune had defeated Daschle by 4,508 votes, winning 51% of the vote.

Since entering Senate, Thune has voted with Republicans nearly 96% of the time.  Like many others, Thune voted for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package despite saying it went “against every fiber” of his conservative ideals.  A lifetime conservative – the American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime rating of 88.97 – Thune has described his evangelical Christian faith as the most important aspect of his political career.  He has voted to prohibit late-term abortions, against federal funding for abortion and against research on embryos.  He has also support adding an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states that a marriage is between a man and woman.

A very popular Republican, with a network to rival anyone, Thune’s power extends beyond Senate.  His support of legislation to kill off the CLASS Act has put Democrats into a very difficult position, while pushing forward an agenda that portrays the Obama Administration as disingenuous and gutless.

–Amendment202

Like our profile of John Thune, check out other Members of the Week!

Senior U.S. Senator Representing South Carolina

According to recent estimates, despite announcing 15 months ago that it would float its currency, the Chinese renminbi (RMB) has appreciated only 6 percent against the dollar.  Moreover, it is widely believed that the RMB is still 28 percent below its true value.  The impact on the American job market has been clear:  the currency manipulation of China costs anywhere between 1 – 1.5 million American jobs and gives Chinese exporters an illegitimate upper hand.  In response, legislation that would seek to impose sanctions against countries whose currencies are “misaligned” has been introduced in the Senate.  Though the legislation has little chance of progressing, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham – and our Member of the Week - has made news by going against Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to declare his support for the legislation that is meant to protect “the American workforce, who is having their clock cleaned by a communist dictatorship who cheats.”

Lindsey Olin Graham was the son of Millie and Florence James Graham, neither of whom finished high school.  His parents ran a local restaurant/bar/pool hall called the Sanitary Café.  Graham worked in the café as a young child and experienced the racial segregation of the South firsthand; the Sanitary Café only offered takeout service to African-Americans while white people could eat inside.

After graduating from D.W. Daniel High School, Graham became the first member of this family to attend college and joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.  While still in college, both of his parents died (his mother first, his father 15 months later).  He became the legal guardian of his 13-year-old sister Darlene and attended University of South Carolina in Columbia so he could be near his sister.  Graham would go on to graduate with a B.A. in Psychology in 1977 and from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1981.

Upon graduating, he joined the U.S. Force as a lawyer.  He served at the Rhein Mein Air Force Base in Germany until 1988.  Following his departure, Graham joined the South Carolina Air National Guard and the U.S. Air Force Reserve.  He was recalled to active duty during the first Gulf War, serving as Judge Advocate at the McEntire Air National Guard Station.  While there, he briefed members of the Armed Services, who were deploying to the Gulf, on the laws of war and providing any legal services for their families.  Graham has remained in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, holding the rank of colonel.  In 2007, he served two weeks reserve duty in Iraq, making him the only Iraq War veteran in the Senate.

In terms of winning elections, Graham has been flawless.  In 1992, he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives but only went on to serve one term, before running for the U.S. House in 1994.  Running for South Carolina’s 3^rd Congressional District, Graham had the overwhelming support of U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond.  With strong Republican support, coupled with Republican revolution of 1994, Graham won the primary with 52 percent of the vote and the general election with 60 percent of the vote.  Graham became the first Republican to be elected from his state’s 3^rd Congressional District since 1877.  He remained in the House until 2002.

His tenure in the House was defined by his involvement in the Clinton Impeachment Trial.  His seat on the Judiciary Committee gave him extensive influence.  Siding with Democrats initially, Graham was the only Republican on the Committee to voice support for censure of Clinton rather than impeachment.  Though he initially came out in opposition of impeachment, Graham eventually sided with the Republican majority.  He served as a House manager of the impeachment trial and voted for three of the four articles of impeachment.

In 2002, when Senator Strom Thurmond announced his retirement (he had served in the Senate longer than Graham had been alive) Graham announced his intentions to run to succeed him.  As in his House campaign, Graham received the endorsement of Thurmond, leading to no competition in the Republican primary.  In the general election, he defeated Democrat Alex Sanders with 54 percent of the vote.  Graham became South Carolina’s first new Senator since 1965, and the state’s first freshman Republican Senator since Reconstruction.  He served as Junior Senator until 2005, when Jim DeMint was elected to Ernest Holling’s seat.

Portrayed in the recent disagreement with Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham is not afraid to break from the Republican message.  He has voted with the Republican Party nearly 88 percent of the time but has had notable disagreements with the Republican leadership, including the Bush Administration.  Graham challenged the Bush Administration on detaining suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay, stating that detainees should be allowed to see the evidence against them and were entitled to some Geneva Convention protections.  He has supports the notion of climate change and comprehensive immigration reform, which has earned him the ire of conservative activists.

In a political climate where lines are drawn and bipartisanship is increasingly arcane, people like Lindsey Graham are a much-needed necessity.

– Amendment202

Enjoy our profile on Senator Lindsey Graham, Check out other Members of the Week!

U.S. Representative for the 5th District of Texas

The Republican response to President Obama’s $447 billion stimulus plan has been mixed.  John Boehner and Eric Cantor seem to be receptive of certain aspects of the proposal, signaling perhaps a desire to engage in some sort of compromise.  Yet, you have others, like Mitch McConnell, who fall into a more clear-cut camp of opinion, one that is characterized by the belief that the stimulus plan is just more wasteful spending.  One of the strongest proponents of this belief is our Member of the Week – Representative Jeb Hensarling.  Co-chairman of the deficit-reduction super committee, Representative Hensarling is strongly objected to Obama’s request for Congress to come up with additional savings to pay for his jobs plan, believing that the president is essentially tasking a committee designed to reduce the deficit to pay for yet another round of stimulus.

Born in Stephenville, Texas on May 29, 1957, Jeb Hensarling’s exposure to politics came at an obscenely early point in his life; at the age of seven he accompanied his father as he went around knocking on doors on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.  From this moment on Hensarling’s devotion to the Republican Party was solidified.  In high school he spent afternoons organizing Republican political events.

At Texas A&M University – he graduated in 1979 with a degree in economics – he was the GOP precinct captain.  After graduating from the University of Texas Law School in 1982 and passing the Texas bar, Hensarling practiced in San Antonio for two years before returning to politics as a staffer for then-Senator Phil Gramm.  He became Gramm’s State Director in 1985 and was appointed executive director of the Republican Senatorial Committee in 1991 after being fundamental in Gramm’s successful 1990 campaign.

After finishing his tenure as executive director in 1993, Hensarling returned to Texas.  He stayed away from politics for the remainder of the 1990s, serving as a vice president at two different companies before becoming owner of San Jacinto Ventures in 1998 and CEO of Family Support Assurance Corporation in 2001.  He also served as the spokesman for Green Mountain Energy starting in 1993, eventually becoming the vice president of the local utility from 1999 to 2001.

Hensarling’s election to the House was about as straightforward as it gets.  Statewide redistricting divided his home district into two sections.  The sitting representative, Pete Sessions, chose to run for the smaller district, leaving Hensarling the newly opened position.  During the course of the election, Hensarling defeated four other Republicans in the primary, before winning 58 percent of the vote in the general election to beat Ron Chapman.  It is important to note that during the general election, Hensarling was endorsed by a slew of Republicans, including President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.  Since being elected, Hensarling has been reelected easily, winning each time with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Once in Congress, Representative Hensarling quickly became a rising star.  He was the Republican Study Committee (RSC) treasurer in 2005, a position that allowed him to advocate for cutting budget spending.  A year later, he defeated Representative Todd Tiahrt for RSC chairman.  In 2008, Hensarling was within reach of the top position in the Republican House Conference.  Despite having more than enough support from his colleagues to win, he stepped aside and endorsed former Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence, a longtime friend and ally.  After Representative Pence resigned as chairman of the Republican House Conference at the onset of the 112^th Congress, Hensarling was chosen as chairman.

A solid conservative who sometimes struggles to balance his far-right values with the party’s more moderate legislation, Representative Hensarling thrives in his role as one of the main voices for limited government and fiscal discipline.  His leading position on the deficit-reductions supercommittee throws another wrench into the work it is meant to do, while his clear opposition to President Obama’s stimulus plan further reinforces the fiscal divide in Congress.

–Amendment202

Jeb Hensarling was this weeks Member of the Week, we got many more!

Representing the 14th District of Texas

This week we take a look at Ron Paul, a congressman with a bit a muddled.  His meteoric rise in the public consciousness is astonishing.  He has never been a Republican leader in the House and, for nearly a decade, wasn’t even a member of the GOP.  Yet, somehow, through a combination of immaculate timing, and uncompromising political activism, Representative Ron Paul has become an icon of the conservative fringe.

Ron Paul grew up outside of Pittsburgh in Green Tree, where his father was a milkman.  Athletically talented as a youngster, Paul was the 220-yard dash state champion as a junior at Dormont High School.  He attended Gettysburg College, where he received his B.S. in biology in 1957.  After earning a Doctor of Medicine degree from the Duke University School of Medicine in 1961, Representative Paul served as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1963 to 1965 and then in the United States Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968.  Trained in obstetrics and gynecology, he returned to Texas and set up a medical practice in Lake Jackson, a small city an hour south of Houston, after finishing his service in the military.

While still a medical resident in the 1960s, Paul became enthralled with economics.  He was influenced by Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and was an avid reader of Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged was published the year Paul married his wife, Carol – and the theories of Ludwig von Mises.  Though political involvement was initially an afterthought, August 15, 1971 signaled the beginning of Paul’s “political awakening.”  It was on this day that President Richard Nixon took America off the gold standard.  Three decades later, Paul would declare that “after that day, all money would be political money rather than money of real value.”

His initial foray into politics was successful – to a degree.  Despite running a credible race against incumbent Robert R. Casey in 1974 for the 22^nd District, Paul came out on the losing end.  But when President Gerald Ford appointed Casey to direct the Federal Maritime Commission, Paul won the 1976 special election for the vacant office.  He would then go on to lose in the general election, to Democrat Robert Gammage, by fewer than 300 votes, but defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch, and was reelected during 1980 and 1982.  Paul was the first Republican representative from the 22^nd District; he also headed the Texas Reagan delegation at the national Republican convention.

In Congress, Paul was the main advocate of gold.  In 1981, he served on the 17-member United States Gold Commission, which after eight months of study approved the creation of a gold dollar but rejected a return to the gold standard.  He also remained a reliable voted against domestic and military spending; in 1982, Paul was one of 19 House Republicans to join a lawsuit challenging that year’s tax increase.  Idealistic throughout, Paul’s advancement through the power ranks of the Republican Party was hampered by his political stands.  This was highlighted blatantly in 1983, when Senator John Tower announced his retirement and Paul entered the Republican race.  From the very onset Paul was a serious underdog to Representative Phil Gramm, who had the support of the Republican establishment and most financial donors.  Sticking to his guns, Paul professed during the campaign that the “capitalist system has been just about destroyed” and that U.S. military intervention around the world was “about to bring the world back to the brink of a military confrontation.”  He lost in a landslide to Gramm and left Congress in January 1985.

With his first political adventure ending in disappointment, Paul returned to his medical practice.  Simultaneously, he began to make a name for himself in the libertarian movement – the launching of an investment newsletter and the Ron Paul Freedom Report, established Paul as a cultural conservative with anarcho-capitalist economic views.  During this period in political purgatory, Paul also “resigned” from the Republican Party.  In an 1987 open letter of resignation, Paul questioned which “Republican leader on the horizon” could be expected to balance the budget if “Ronald Reagan couldn’t or wouldn’t.”

Paul remained a shining light among libertarians, while building sizeable political, educational, and fundraising networks that would all come into play in 1995.  When moderate Rep. Greg Laughlin switched parties and ran for re-election in the 14^th District as a Republican, Paul rejoined the Republican Party and entered into the race.  Because Republicans had gained control of both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Paul entered the campaign hopeful that his Constitutional policies of tax reductions, terminating federal agencies, and curbing the U.N. would have more support than in previous years.  The campaign turned out to be much harder than expected, with Laughlin receiving the support of influential Republican leader.  In spite of this, Paul defeated Laughlin and then narrowly defeated Democrat Charles Morris – Paul outspent Morris two-to-one.  Moreover, the victory signaled the third time Paul had been elected to Congress as a non-incumbent.

Back in Congress, Paul was philosophically opposed to the trading of votes and voted “no” on anything he considered unconstitutional.  He quickly discovered that Republicans had no serious intentions in downsizing government.  In terms of representing his district, Paul has become a master of balancing his “financial” responsibilities with his ideological foundations; placing earmarks in appropriations bills, then voting against them.

As stated previously. Ron Paul is an adherent believer that the dollar should be tied to gold and that the Federal Reserve Board should be abolished.  He introduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act in 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007.  In 2009, he introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, a proposal to audit the board.  He opposes all foreign aid, all pre-emptive military intervention, and much of the military budget.  He has never voted for a tax increase and firmly believes that any tax cut should be matched with cuts in federal spending.

Paul’s success is surprising.  He is a man of ideology, a man who caters only to what he believes.  His refusal to play the political games of Capitol Hill – for the most part – is commendable.  Ron Paul recently announced that 2012 will signal the end of his political career and though many may not agree with him, and even consider him a joke, his refreshing take on the political landscape of this country will sorely be missed.

–Amendment202

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Andrew Harris

Representing Maryland’s 1st District

While the rest of the House is in their home districts for the traditional August recess, a group of eight House Republicans are staying back, holding pro-forma sessions in the lower chamber every three days for the remainder of the summer.  The decision to not recess prevents President Obama from unilaterally making new appointments to federal agencies, which can be done only if both chambers are in recess.  Protected by the Constitution, which states that neither the House nor the Senate can be in recess without the consent of the other chamber, is seen as unusual due the fact that in past Congresses the task of blocking presidential recess appointments has typically fallen to the Senate.  Sharing a unified intention to stop President Obama from appointing Richard Cordray as the director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the group of freshman – the only exception being three-term Rep. Jim Jordan –reinforces the new face of the Republican Party defined by calculated bravado.  As a member of the group, let us further look at Representative Andrew P. Harris (MD-1).

Before making a political career out of ousting longtime GOP moderates, Andrew Harris was involved in the medical field.  The son of Ukrainian and Hungarian immigrants who fled from a communist regime, Harris earned his Bachelor of Science in biology in 1977 and his M.D. in 1980, both from John Hopkins University.  Harris went on to serve in the Navy Medical Corps and the U.S. Naval Reserve as a Lt. Commander on active duty during Operation Desert Storm.  Following the footsteps of his father, he worked as an anesthesiologist, as an Associate Professor of Anesthesiologist and Critical Care Medicine.

In 1998, Andrew Harris was elected to the Maryland Senate for District 9 in Baltimore County.  A strong supporter of anti-abortion rights, Harris targeted longtime State Minority Leader Vernon Boozer’s record of supporting abortion rights to win the seat.  Once in the Maryland Senate, Harris successfully defeated every Democratic challenger he faced.  Over the course of his 10 years of service in the Maryland Assembly, Harris largely stuck to a conservative agenda.  On health reform, he promoted tort reform, expanding the availability of high-deductible plans combined with health-saving accounts, denying any new health-care entitlements to illegal immigrants, and encouraging electronic medical records.  Moreover, he led a filibuster in March 2006 against a state Senate bill that would have allowed Maryland to subsidize embryonic and stem cell research and championed a state ban on gay marriages.

Harris stepped into the national spotlight during the 2008 U.S. House of Representatives election.  In the bitter GOP primary, Harris defeated nine-term Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrist with 43.4% of the vote to Gilchrist’s 33.1%.  Harris exposed Gilchrist’s liberal leanings to the more conservative communities on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay, in addition to being endorsed by the majority of state senators from the 1^st, to pull a massive upset.  In the general election, Harris narrowly lost to Frank Kratovil, who was endorsed by Gilchrist, by 2,852 votes or less than 1% of the total votes.  Despite losing in 2008, Harris won the rematch in 2010 against Kratovil with 54.08% of the vote.

Bucking trends and defying convention, the new class of House Republicans speaks volumes about where the party might be heading.  The revolving door in politics, with the old being replaced by a new ideological base, is nothing new.  As a result, Andy Harris’s role as a participant in a new cultural era of U.S. politics speaks volumes.

-Amendment202

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Allen West

Representing Florida’s 22nd District

During the debt ceiling “crisis” we kept hearing about the obstructionist tendencies of freshman house members who had entered Congress through the enthusiastic support of tea-party activists.  One such member is Allen Bernard West.  A self-proclaimed “right-wing extremist”, Representative West is causing a stir due to an event he plans on hosting on September 8 in the Rayburn House Office Building during which the controversial film “Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mosque” will be shown.  Not one to shy away from controversial statements and actions, Allen West is our Member of the Week.

A member of the third of four generations in his family to serve in the United States armed forces, Allen West’s father and older brother were both career military officers: His father served in World War II, and his brother served in Vietnam.  He joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 10^th grade and entered the United States Army in 1983 after graduating from the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor of Arts.  West would go on to obtain his master’s degree in political science from Kansas State University and a master of military arts and sciences degree from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officer College in political theory and military history and operations.

West entered active duty on November 1, 1983, at Fort Sill.  After completing airborne training at Fort Benning, West’s first assignment was as an airborne infantry company fire support team leader and battalion training officer in the 325^th Airborne Battalion Combat Team.  In 1987, he was promoted to captain and graduated from the Field Artillery Officer Advanced Course.  As a member of the 1^st Infantry Division, he participated in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

Meritorious Service Medals during his 22 years of service in the Army, his career in the military ended in a tumultuous manner.  In August 2003, while serving in Taji, Iraq, West received information from an intelligence specialist about a reported plot to ambush him and his men.  The alleged plot reportedly involved Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi, a civilian Iraqi police officer.  Even though West had never conducted an interrogation nor witnessed one while in Iraq, he had his men detain Hamoodi.  During the interrogation, West’s men beat Hamoodi on the head and body.  After threatening to kill Hamoodi if he did not divulge information, West proceeded to fire a pistol next to his head – an act that led Hamoodi to divulge “meaningless” information about the perceived plot.

The fallout from the interrogation and the disciplinary inquiry into West’s actions led to a series of events.  First and foremost, West was reprimanded, fined $5,000, and allowed to retire with full pension benefits.  He avoided a court-martial, found guilty of aggravated assault instead.  In the process, West became a hero to people who believed the Army was right to use aggressive interrogation methods.  Dozens of Republican lawmakers, including Senator John Warner, supported West and a nationwide petition calling for his exoneration collected about 140,000 signatures.

After retiring from the U.S. Army, West moved his family to Florida and taught high school for a year.  His political endeavors began shortly thereafter.  In 2008, he challenged Rep. Ron Klein, hoping to expose Klein’s vulnerable status as a freshman congressman.  Unfortunately for West, the combination of a favorable climate for Democrats and Klein’s daunting financial advantage was too much to overcome.  He would go on to lose by a margin of 9.4%.

Down but not out, West came back in full force in the 2010 elections.  In 2009, he delivered a speech at an American Freedom Tour event calling on voters to rise up against a “tyrannical” government that engineered an “entitlement class.”  The speech transformed him into a favorite of conservative activists nationwide, earning him Sarah Palin’s endorsement and making him one of the cycle’s top fundraisers.  In his second go around with Rob Klein, West rarely held back.  Using inflammatory rhetoric, and superior fundraising – raising $5.4 million, while Klein raised only $2.5 million – West defeated Klein by a margin of 8.6%.  He is the first African-American Republican Congressman from Florida since Josiah T. Walls left office in 1876 near the end of Reconstruction.

As mentioned earlier, the political views of West mirror those of the Republican right wing.  He has argued in the past that liberal policies enslave citizens, making them dependent on government help and creating a culture of victimhood and welfare.  He disapproves of government spending, high taxes, big deficits, welfare policies, and public-sector jobs.

In addition to his stance on governmental policies, West is a stern critic of Islam.  At a 2010 event, he was quoted as saying “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion.”  Moreover, he has described Islam as a “very vile and very vicious enemy that we have allowed to come in this country because we ride around with bumper stickers that say co-exist.”

A new breed of Republican or a one-term anomaly?  That is the question facing Allen West.  Whether or not you agree with Representative West, he is a man of unrestrained conviction.  It remains to be seen if that conviction can see him through a tangle of words and positions rife with problems.

–Amendment202

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Darrell Issa

Representing California’s 49th District

Moving away from the childish nature of the debt ceiling debate, this week we focus on Darrell Issa, U.S. Representative for California’s 49^th District.  As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa heard testimony on Tuesday from a half-dozen former and current ATF agents with knowledge of the Fast and Furious operation, a federal gun-tracking program that authorized gun dealers in the Southwest to sell more than 1,000 weapons to known and suspected buyers linked to Mexican drug cartels, with the hope of tracking the weapons to kingpins and dismantling the trafficking routes.  As a result of lackadaisical surveillance and no reliable method of tracing the weapons, more than 100 weapons linked to recent crime scenes in the ongoing drug war in Mexico were sold under the failed program.  And so now, it is up to Rep. Issa to figure out why the program was allowed to continue despite pleas from U.S. agents stationed in Mexico to stop selling weapons to the drug cartels.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1953, Darrell Issa came from a Lebanese-American family.  He dropped out of high school and enlisted for a three-year tour in the Army on his 17^th birthday; serving as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician.  His initial performance levels in the Army were lacking.  After claiming his unit had provided security for President Richard Nixon, sweeping stadiums for bombs prior to games in the 1971 World Series, and that he had always received the highest approval rating during his service, it was revealed in a 1998 investigation by the San Francisco Examiner that none of these claims were true.

After receiving a hardship discharge in 1972, Issa attended Sienna Heights University on an ROTC scholarship, where he graduated with a degree in business administration in 1976.  He promptly returned to active Army service, where he received highly positive performance assessments.

Before running for elected office in 1998, Darrell Issa made a fortune through his company Directed Electronics, Inc.  Founded in Cleveland in 1982 and moved to Southern California in 1986, Directed Electronics became the largest vehicle-security company in the world over the next decade.  DEI’s signature product, the Viper car alarm, features a recording of Issa saying “Please step away from the car”.  His involvement in DEI helped Issa make a fortune estimated at $100 million.

His first foray into politics was fierce and ugly.  In 1998, Issa contested California State Treasurer Matt Fong in the Republican primary for the chance to face Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.  During the race, a series of publications in the Los Angeles Times brought forth a slew of allegations chronicling a wide range of improprieties in Issa’s business dealings, including a mysterious arson fire at his business soon after the purchase of increased fire insurance.   The publications also revealed that Issa, along with his brother, was arrested and charged with stealing a Maserati when was 18, though the charges were later dropped.  Despite outspending his opponent, Darrell Issa would go on to lose in the primary by two points.

Two years after Issa’s failed Senate bid, Congressman Ron Packard, a nine-term incumbent, announced his retirement.  Using name recognition and his own wealth, Issa won the 2000 Republican primary against State Senator Bill Marrow and then the general election against Peter Couvelis.  He has had a secure hold on his Congressional seat ever since.

Issa rose to further prominence during the 2003 campaign to recall California Governor Gary Davis.  A key funder and supporter, Issa contributed $1.6 million to help circulate a recall petition and announced his intention to personally replace Davis.  Despite airing commercials throughout California highlighting his credentials, Issa abruptly dropped out of the race after early opinion polls showed him performing poorly among likely voters.

In spite of being a reliable conservative member of the Republican Party, his Lebanese heritage has contributed to a more nuanced stance on Middle Eastern issues.  In the midst of the 2006 fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Darrell Issa was the lone member of Congress to travel to Lebanon, returning to present a slideshow at the National Press Club depicting the collateral damage.

The disastrous failure of the Fast and Furious operation is stunning: about 590 of the more than 1,000 guns sold under the program have been recovered, with 122 of the recovered guns linked to crime scenes.  Having pursued the issue for seven months with Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Darrell Issa now has the opportunity to not only make sense of the botched program, but to also be at the forefront of a reconfiguration of U.S. policy in Mexico’s drug war.

–Amendment202

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