Blog Posts
Hurricane Florence is still 1,400 miles away, but with much of the South Carolina coastline in the "cone of uncertainty," it’s a reminder to go down the Scout's checklist and “Be Prepared” for all types of emergencies associated with peak hurricane season.
On Thursday the House voted on H.R. 6237, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. I voted against it. The bill passed by a vote of 363 to 54.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
The Founding Fathers laid out very few enumerated requirements for our federal government, and our national defense was one of them.
They say in business never to negotiate against yourself...but it seems that’s exactly what Republicans did with the so-called immigration compromise bill (H.R. 6136). It came back to the floor today for a vote, and I voted against it as it remained a watered-down version of the more conservative original Goodlatte bill (HR 4670) that I had supported last week.
Under the category of catching up on legislative votes, the House voted again on the Farm Bill last week. It passed, 213 to 211, and I joined 19 Republicans to vote against it. In this case, they picked up tem additional Republican votes, which was enough to put it over the top in this attempt.
The House Budget Committee spent Wednesday and Thursday “marking up” the 2019 House Budget Resolution. These “markups” typically involve long days and multiple votes on amendments…but all of this is irrelevant when measured against the whole of the importance of a budget.