Record

Over these past years I have had the opportunity to co-sponsor and vote on a huge variety of legislation. I have voted on budgets, on setting our national priorities, on creating new laws, repealing old laws, on impeaching a President, on going to war. It is a voting record I am proud of and one that I am pleased to say is a part of the public record.

Project Vote Smart: http://votesmart.org/

Open Congress: http://www.opencongress.org/

Congress.gov: https://www.congress.gov

Some examples of the legislation I am especially proud of:

Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, to award a grant to an additional research, training, and technical assistance center to provide information, training, and technical assistance to various entities, including for: (1) developing or continuing statewide or tribal suicide early intervention and prevention strategies; (2) ensuring the surveillance of such strategies; (3) studying the costs and effectiveness of such strategies; (4) promoting the sharing of data regarding youth suicide; and (5) evaluating and disseminating outcomes and best practices of mental and behavioral health services at institutions of higher education.

The American Community Renewal Act of 1999. Co-sponsoring the legislation were Representatives James Talent and J.C. Watts. The bill is designed to provide a powerful stimulus to revitalize and redevelop economically impacted urban and rural communities.

This bill was designed to create a powerful public/private partnership to address the most stubborn economic problems we face as a nation -- how to ensure that economically disadvantaged communities are not left behind as our economy and quality of life as a nation continue to grow. The American Community Renewal Act of 1999 will create 100 Renewal Communities with targeted, pro-growth tax benefits, regulatory relief, individual savings accTo ensure that the aid is tightly targeted explicit community requirements have been established: The area must have a poverty rate of 20 percent or more and an unemployment rate of at least 150 percent the national rate. In urban areas, at least 70 percent of households must have incomes below 80 percent of the median national household income. The bill was eventually incorporated into a large tax bill and passed into law.

Second Chance Act of 2007: Community Safety Through Recidivism Prevention or the Second Chance Act of 2007 - A bill to reauthorize, rewrite, and expand provisions for adult and juvenile offender state and local reentry demonstration projects to provide expanded services to offenders and their families for reentry into society. Authorizes the Attorney General to make grants to state, tribal, and local prosecutors for drug treatment programs that are alternatives to imprisonment. Requires the Attorney General, in coordination with the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, to establish a federal prisoner reentry initiative to prepare prisoners for release and successful reintegration into the community.