Lindsey Graham

A Brief Biography of Lindsey Graham: South Carolina’s Senator

Lindsey Graham is a current Republican Senator who represents South Carolina. Graham was born in South Carolina where he graduated from D.W. Daniel High School and then continued to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Because of the death of both his parents, he transferred to the University of South Carolina where he obtained his undergraduate degree in psychology.

After completing his undergraduate studies, Lindsey Graham continued his education and received his juris doctorate from the University Of South Carolina School Of Law. After graduation he worked as a military prosecutor overseas until he returned the United States, and started to work as a lawyer in a private practice.

After leaving his practice Lindsey Graham later decided to join the U.S. Air force, where he served for six years, until 1988. He left the Air force but then joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve as well as the South Carolina Air National guard. During the Gulf War he acted as the Judge Advocate in Eastover at McEntire Air National Guard Station. He then received a promotion where he was made a Colonel by the Reserve. He served as a reservist on active duty in Iraq in 2007 as well as in Afghanistan in 2009.

In 1994 Lindsey Graham ran for political office and was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served as the Third Congressional District of South Carolina’s first Republican representative since 1877. He served one term as a representative.

In 2002 he was elected into the Senate, and then reelected in 2008. In the Senate, Lindsey Graham serves on the many of the chamber’s important committees. These include

• Appropriations: the committee that oversees expenditures made by the Federal Treasury

• Armed Services: the committee responsible and involved in many areas of national defense

• Budget: the committee that establishes blueprints for total government spending and revenue

• Judiciary: the committee that covers a variety of issues such as the Constitution to intellectual law as well as criminal justice

Lindsey Graham is also considered one of the largest proponents of having a strong national defense and considered a loyal friend and supporter all military personnel. Lindsey Graham has not only showed strong support for the War on Terror, but he has also often visited many of the Iraq and Afghanistan War zones for different on the ground assessments.

Lindsey Graham has continued to be a powerful advocate for many foreign issues, but he has also shown the same level of support for reforming entitlements and balancing the federal budget. He has been called a ‘Taxpayer hero’ who places the taxpayer as a higher priority in hopes of reducing the tax burden by a very well-known national conservative organization.

Michelle Bachman

Michelle Bachman: Minnesota’s Representative

Michele Bachmann is the present representative for the 6th congressional district of Minnesota and the first Republican female to hold a seat in the United States House of Representatives as Minnesota’s representative. Bachman was born in 1956 in Waterloo, Iowa but after her parents separated she moved to California where she was then raised by her single mother.

Michelle Bachmann attended Anoka High School and then proceeded to attend and graduate from Winona State University where she received her undergraduate degree. After earning her juris doctorate from Oral Roberts University, Bachmann continued at College of William and Mary, where she received her LLM in tax law. Around this time, she married Marcus Bachmann in 1978. She then worked for the Internal Revenue Service as an attorney for five years, until she decided to be a stay at home mother.

While she had been involved in different forms of political activism for the next 20 years, Michelle Bachman’s political career began in 2000. She ran for a seat in the Minnesota State Senate, first winning the GOP endorsement against the incumbent of 18 years in district 56. Michelle Bachman then proceeded to win in the general election. After redistricting in 2002, she won against an incumbent for the 52nd district of Minnesota.

In the State Senate, Michelle Bachmann proposed an amendment to the state constitution to prevent the state from acknowledging same sex marriages, which ultimately did not pass. She was also involved in the Taxpayers Bill of Rights and for a short while she acted as the Assistant Minority Leader for the State Republican Caucus, where she was in charge of Policy. However, she was removed from her position after a year.

Michelle Bachman was elected as a Republican representative of 6th congressional district of Minnesota for the House of Representatives in 2006 and is still serving today. She is a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Financial Services Committee.

Michelle Bachmann considers herself a strong supporter for tax reform and a challenger to excessive government spending. She believes in following to the original meaning of the Constitution, as the Founding Fathers would have interpreted it. She is weary of big business and is particularly concerned of the government’s role it in, for example during President Barack Obama’s Health Care Reform bill.

Michelle Bachman also believes that family is the first and most important unit of the government’s vitality and that free markets should be highlighted. She has also held a pro-life stance for the majority of her political career.

In regards to her personal life, Michelle Bachman and her husband have five children. She has also taken in 23 children for foster care.

Virginia Foxx

Virginia Foxx is the current Republican representative for the 5th congressional district of North Carolina who serves in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has been serving this position for four terms.

Early Life and Education

Virginia Foxx was born in 1943 in The Bronx, New York but was raised in a rural area of Avery County, Virginia. She was the first member of her family to graduate from high school as well as college. Virginia Foxx received her undergraduate degree in English as well as a M.A.C.T. in Sociology at the University of North Carolina. She then attended University of North Carolina Greensboro and received her Doctor of Education Higher Education and Curriculum and Teaching

Career before Politics

After finishing her education, Virginia Foxx started her career as a research assistant and secretary at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She went on to teach at both Caldwell Community College and Appalachian State University, and also held different administrative positions at Appalachian State University, such as Assistant Dean.

Virginia Foxx then worked for the North Carolina Department of Administration as a Deputy Secretary for Management under Governor Jim Martin. Her last major job before going into politics was a position as President at Mayland Community College, where she later also worked as a consultant.

Political Career

Virginia Foxx’s entered politics in 1994, where she held a seat in the State Senate of North Carolina for ten years. During her time there, Virginia Foxx sponsored many bills both statewide and locally. She maintained a consistent record against tax increases and worked to make the government more effective without excessive waste.

In 2005, Virginia Foxx was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As a representative, she has supported actions that reduce government spending, lower the national debt, and help the economy grow. She also fights for lower taxes and other legislation that can provide work and jobs for North Carolinians. In 2008, Virginia Foxx was ranked by the nonpartisan National Journal as the most conservative member of the North Carolina’s Congressional Delegation.

Virginia Foxx is currently a member of the Committee on Education and is the chairwoman on the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training as well as a member of the Subcommittee on Early Education, Elementary and Secondary Education. She is also a member of the Committee on Rules.

As a Representative, some of her more significant actions include:

• Being one of the 11 Representatives who voted against bill that provided aid for Hurricane Katrina in 2005

• Voting against the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 2006

• Sponsoring the Electronic Stub Act of 2008

• Voting against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009

• Voting against the Affordable Health Care for America Act in 2009

Nancy Pelosi

The First Female Majority Leader and Speaker: Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi is most well-known for being the Democratic Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives as well as being the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

Nancy Pelosi was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1940 last the last of six children. She attended and graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame a private Catholic high school and then attended Trinity College where she received her undergraduate degree in Political Science. Nancy Pelosi proceeded to intern for Senator Daniel Brewster from Maryland.

During college, Nancy Pelosi had met Paul Pelosi, who she married in 1963. The couple then moved to New York and later to San Francisco, where she started her political career. Nancy Pelosi was elected into the Democratic National Committee in 1976 as a member, which she kept till 1996.

The next year, Nancy Pelosi was elected to be a party chair for Northern California. She was elected to be the Chair of the California Democratic Party from 1981 to 1983. After this, she sat on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as the finance chair, which she kept from 1985 to 1986.

In 1986 Sala Burton, the Representative of the 5th Congressional district of California, became very ill due to cancer and chose Nancy Pelosi to be her successor. Burton passed away a month into her second term and Nancy Pelosi took office the next week, after defeating both the special and general election candidates.

Nancy Pelosi won the Representative seat again in 1988 and since then has been reelected another 10 times, as the district is made up of a majority of Democrats. In the House of Representatives, she sat on the Committee for Appropriates and Intelligence until being elected as the Minority Leader.

In 2001, Nancy Pelosi was the first woman in the history of the U.S. to be elected to the House Minority Whip. In 2002, she replaced Dick Gephardt, the at the time Minority leader, to become the first female Minority Leader of in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Nancy Pelosi was then chosen in a unanimous decision by the members in the Democratic Party to be the next Democratic candidate for the Speaker of the House in November 2006. In the beginning of the next year, she was elected to be the Speaker of the House, making her the first woman to do so.

Some of Nancy Pelosi’s significant opinions include:

• Making a commitment to the education system by funding special education, strengthening schools and modernizing classrooms

• Supporting President Obama’s health care bill

• Protecting the environment and fighting climate change by investing in clean renewable energy, regulating oil speculators, and reducing transit fares

• Allowing women to make private medical choices about and providing reproductive health care

• Fighting against discrimination in work environments and having the laws reflect justice and equality

Former PA State Senator Mellow Receives Sentence

On November 30, 2012, the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania reported that former Pennsylvania State Senator Robert Mellow received 16 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $40,000 while being ordered to pay $79,806.17 in restitution.

Mellow was charged in March 2012 to trying to defraud the Pennsylvania Senate and filing a false federal income tax return. He pleaded guilty.

During the crimes, Mellow was a Senate Democratic Leader and a member of the Pennsylvania Democratic State Senate Democratic Committee and Caucus. He was also in charge of several Senate Democratic administrative offices that provided computer services, communications, and research.

From 2006 to 2010, Mellow conspired with others to misuse staff and resources of the Senate for fund-raising and campaign reasons. Mellow personally allowed false job classification and reclassification forms to be submitted for senate staff members to the chief clerk of the senate.

Mellow was able to misuse staff and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from an organization called the Friends of Bob Mellow and the Democratic State Senate Campaign Committee. The funds were ultimately used to support candidates and causes in Pennsylvania.

Mellow also filed a false federal income tax return in 2008. Mellow and others did not report income that was connected with the sale of a Peckville property where the district office for Mellow was located.

U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith stated: “This was a terrible example and a sad betrayal of the people of northeastern Pennsylvania who he represented and the people of the state. The prosecution and the sentence that was imposed today by Judge Slomsky hopefully demonstrate that no one, including lawmakers, can be above the law.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and the IRS’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Politics

John Kerry Military Service Controversy

William Goebel

Lindsey Graham

Michelle Bachman

Virginia Foxx

Nancy Pelosi

Former PA State Senator Mellow Receives Sentence

John Kerry Military Service Controversy

The Fast Facts on an Election

Arthur K. Delaney

Thomas Rex Lee

Roy Bass

Bob Woodward

Alan Brownstein

William Goebel

Price Daniel

Jackson B. Davis

Rod Laporte

Kay McFarland

Michael C. Dorf