Lee Introduces Congressional Approval Amendment to Immigration Bill
Jun 19, 2013
amendment number 1208 would require fast-track congressional approval at the introduction of the Department of Homeland Security border security strategies, before the award of Registered Provisional Immigrant, or RPI status, and before the eligibility for that status begins, and also at the certification of the strategy's completion, before those receiving RPI Status may become eligible to become lawful permanent residents, eligible to receive green cards.
Lee Statement On Failure To Pass Congressional Approval Amendment
Jun 19, 2013
The failure of my amendment means their voices have been silenced and the unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats will determine for themselves whether or not border security goals have been met. It is yet another indication that the supporters of this bill are not serious about fixing our broken immigration system or securing the border.
General Statement for the Record-NDAA Mark-Up
Jun 17, 2013
I have spoken to many commanders in the past months about sequestration. While they were unanimous in their criticism of sequestration, they also told me that their ability to handle it would have been increased if they had more time to prepare. To give them more time for preparation, we should be authorizing to levels that are current law, not what we wish they could be.
Lee, Fleming Laud Passage of Religious Liberties Protections for Service Members
Jun 17, 2013
Senator Mike Lee praised the passage of strong religious liberty protections for members of the armed services in the Senate Armed Services Committee-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act
Senator Lee's Immigration Tele-townhall Recap
Jun 13, 2013
On June 12, Senator Lee hosted a tele-townhall meeting to answer constituent questions about the immigration reform bill that the Senate is debating. Here are his answers to their questions
Lee Opposes the Metal Theft Prevention Act
Jun 13, 2013
In my view, this bill exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and imposes a federal regulatory scheme in an area of law the Constitution reserves to the states. In the interest of maintaining the balance between state and federal authority, I will vote against reporting this bill from the Judiciary Committee.
GOP Senators: National Monuments Become Administration’s Latest Tool in War against Oil and Gas
Jun 13, 2013
Monument designations under this administration deserve particular scrutiny. After revelations that the IRS targeted political opponents of the president before the last election, we are now hearing that far-left environmental groups are expecting rewards for their support of the president. Lands are not the spoils of political battles. How they can and cannot be used directly affects the local and state economy, and the ability to fund things like education and infrastructure improvements.
Senator Lee Delivers Remarks to Faith and Freedom Coalition
Jun 13, 2013
WASHINGTON—Today, Senator Mike Lee delivered a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Below are remarks as prepared for delivery:
Thank you very much. It’s a privilege to be with you today.
It’s always a treat to be with conservatives from places other than Washington, D.C. Unlike too many who work and reside in this city, you actually know why you’re here.
You know what you believe. And you know what you’re fighting for.
That already puts you further along the “Road to Majority” than most of us in Washington. Unfortunately, for conservatives around here, the “Road to Majority” is usually “The Road Not Taken.”
There are many reasons why this is so. But I think the biggest is that in this city, conservatives often fall into a trap – defining ourselves by what we are against.
Big government, debt, higher taxes and regulations, Obamacare.
But we don’t invest nearly as much time and energy in communicating what we conservatives are for.
And I don’t just mean what policies we advocate. Conservatism is not about the bills we want to pass, but the nation we want to be.
As you know, for conservatives, politics is just a means, not an end.
The real goal - what conservatives are really for - is not an agenda for government. It’s a vision of society. A view of the world we want to build, together.
Together. That word, “together,” is an essential – and too often overlooked – part of what we conservatives believe.
We’re all committed to bedrock principles of individual liberty, individual rights, and personal responsibility. But the reason we fight for individual freedom is the strength, vitality, and value of the communities free individuals form.
The alternative to big government is not small government. The alternative to big government is a thriving, flourishing nation of cooperative communities – where your success depends on your service.
It’s a free enterprise economy where everyone works for everyone else, competing to see who can figure out the best way to help the most people.
And it’s a voluntary civil society, where free individuals come together to meet each other’s needs, fill in the gaps, and make sure no one gets left behind.
Conservatism has never been a vision of isolated loners. Ours is a vision of husbands and wives; parents and children; neighbors and neighborhoods; volunteers and congregations; bosses and employees; businesses and customers; clubs, teams, groups, associations and friends.
We conservatives don’t simply want smaller government – that’s not enough. We want bigger citizens, stronger neighborhoods, and more heroic communities.
We understand what liberals do not. That freedom doesn’t mean “you’re on your own.” Freedom means “we’re all in this together.”
The value we place on community is based on the value we place on the first and most important human community of them all: the family.
Conservatives have argued for years that the family must be at the core of our worldview. On issues like school prayer, or the right to life, or traditional marriage, or home-schooling, conservatives have said protecting the family is the most important part of our moral agenda.
Today, some critics say that times have changed, and we have to change with them. They say we have to reach out to people beyond our conservative base. They say we have to change the way we think and talk about families.
It may surprise some of you to hear, but I think they make a great point. Times have changed. We do need to broaden our appeal, and change the way we think and talk about family.
But ultimately, the critics have it backwards. The problem is not that conservatives have focused too much on the family -- but far too little.
Too many in Washington seem not to realize it, but the rapid changes we have seen in recent years in America have only made the family more important, not less. The family is the foundation not only of our society, but of our economy, our culture, and our democracy as well. The family is indivisible from any facet of America’s history or destiny. Crises like divorce, fatherlessness, and social isolation – while moral in nature – have enormous social and economic consequences.
In the same way, economic problems like unequal opportunity; stagnant wages; and the spiraling costs of housing, health care, and education represent moral threats to family stability and national unity.
Working families today are bearing the brunt of all of the above. And as a result, too many are falling behind.
Their anxieties are very real – and so are the liberals’ flawed, seductive, big-government proposals to relieve them. To address those anxieties, it is not enough for us simply to oppose liberals’ ideas. We have to propose conservative ones. We have to show working families that bigger government will not solve their problems; that instead, bigger government is creating them.
The “Road to Majority” may be the road less traveled, but it’s long past time for conservatives to take it. Our movement is at its best when we take on big challenges.
And the great challenge of our time is the challenge of the forgotten family: the honest, noble parents across the country trying to make ends meet in a society, economy, and democracy increasingly rigged by Washington against them and their children.
It is time for a new conservative reform agenda that levels the playing field and finally meets the challenges facing working families:
To give underprivileged families a fair chance to work their way into the middle class;
To give families struggling to stay in middle class their fair chance to make a good living and build a good life;
To make it easier for couples for start families… for entrepreneurs to start businesses… and volunteers to start civic and charitable organizations;To help all Americans at every step along the path to success overcome the obstacles big government has put before them.
It is time for a new approach to taxes, to not only lower rates to spur economic opportunity, but to eliminate tax discrimination against parents and families.
It is time for a new approach to education, to break up the special-interest cartels that hold back our young children, and our young adults. Education is opportunity, and government has no business telling students where they can and can’t go to get it.
It is time for a new approach to transportation. New roads mean new neighborhoods, new communities, new jobs, new families, and new opportunities.
Yet today, infrastructure money states could be spending on those opportunities, Washington instead spends on bureaucratic waste and special-interest giveaways.
It is time to rethink a dysfunctional welfare system that holds poor families down. And to reform a corrupt corporate welfare system that props big businesses up.
We need to find new ways – conservative ways that rely on free enterprise and civil society -- to help young couples: get married, afford a home, raise and educate their kids, get good health care, take care of their elderly parents, and retire with security themselves.
Our movement has always identified with those Americans who through hard work and determination have climbed the ladder of success. And we always should.
But our ideals demand we identify even more with those Americans still on the bottom rungs, where the climbing is harder, dangerous, and lonely.
We need to stand up for those Americans no one else will: for the unborn child in the womb; for the poor student caught in the failing school; for the reformed father languishing in prison and the fatherless son facing alone the dangers of the street; for the single mom working two jobs but still ensnared in big-government poverty traps; for the elderly and the disabled, dehumanized by bureaucracy; and for the splintering neighborhoods that desperately need them all.
These families, these moms and dads and grandparents and kids: they’re waiting for us. They know more government isn’t the answer. They know government only divides them.
But they also know that too often our party has ignored them. That has to change.
And it has to change today - right now - because every hour, every day, big government leaves more and more American families behind. It is time for conservatives to remember those forgotten families. In word and deed, in our hearts and in our agenda.
It is time to remember that the most audacious entrepreneurs in America are not high-tech CEOs in Silicon Valley… they’re a young couple at a church back home, saying “I do.”
It is time to remember that the most important investments in our nation’s future are not issued on Wall Street, but are sleeping in their mothers’ arms at the maternity unit of your local hospital.
To be truly pro-growth and pro-opportunity, our agenda must be truly pro-family. Not just on some issues, but all of them.
I believe if conservatives look anew at the challenges facing the family, we will quickly discover opportunities to meet - united and undaunted - the challenges facing our movement, our economy, and our nation.
Building a new conservative agenda of reform around these moms and dads and kids – remembering America’s forgotten families – is the “Road to Majority.”
And if – at long last – conservatives finally take that road less traveled, it will make all the difference.
Thank you for everything you do. Keep the faith. And may God bless you all.
Thank you very much. It’s a privilege to be with you today.
It’s always a treat to be with conservatives from places other than Washington, D.C. Unlike too many who work and reside in this city, you actually know why you’re here.
You know what you believe. And you know what you’re fighting for.
That already puts you further along the “Road to Majority” than most of us in Washington. Unfortunately, for conservatives around here, the “Road to Majority” is usually “The Road Not Taken.”
There are many reasons why this is so. But I think the biggest is that in this city, conservatives often fall into a trap – defining ourselves by what we are against.
Big government, debt, higher taxes and regulations, Obamacare.
But we don’t invest nearly as much time and energy in communicating what we conservatives are for.
And I don’t just mean what policies we advocate. Conservatism is not about the bills we want to pass, but the nation we want to be.
As you know, for conservatives, politics is just a means, not an end.
The real goal - what conservatives are really for - is not an agenda for government. It’s a vision of society. A view of the world we want to build, together.
Together. That word, “together,” is an essential – and too often overlooked – part of what we conservatives believe.
We’re all committed to bedrock principles of individual liberty, individual rights, and personal responsibility. But the reason we fight for individual freedom is the strength, vitality, and value of the communities free individuals form.
The alternative to big government is not small government. The alternative to big government is a thriving, flourishing nation of cooperative communities – where your success depends on your service.
It’s a free enterprise economy where everyone works for everyone else, competing to see who can figure out the best way to help the most people.
And it’s a voluntary civil society, where free individuals come together to meet each other’s needs, fill in the gaps, and make sure no one gets left behind.
Conservatism has never been a vision of isolated loners. Ours is a vision of husbands and wives; parents and children; neighbors and neighborhoods; volunteers and congregations; bosses and employees; businesses and customers; clubs, teams, groups, associations and friends.
We conservatives don’t simply want smaller government – that’s not enough. We want bigger citizens, stronger neighborhoods, and more heroic communities.
We understand what liberals do not. That freedom doesn’t mean “you’re on your own.” Freedom means “we’re all in this together.”
The value we place on community is based on the value we place on the first and most important human community of them all: the family.
Conservatives have argued for years that the family must be at the core of our worldview. On issues like school prayer, or the right to life, or traditional marriage, or home-schooling, conservatives have said protecting the family is the most important part of our moral agenda.
Today, some critics say that times have changed, and we have to change with them. They say we have to reach out to people beyond our conservative base. They say we have to change the way we think and talk about families.
It may surprise some of you to hear, but I think they make a great point. Times have changed. We do need to broaden our appeal, and change the way we think and talk about family.
But ultimately, the critics have it backwards. The problem is not that conservatives have focused too much on the family -- but far too little.
Too many in Washington seem not to realize it, but the rapid changes we have seen in recent years in America have only made the family more important, not less. The family is the foundation not only of our society, but of our economy, our culture, and our democracy as well. The family is indivisible from any facet of America’s history or destiny. Crises like divorce, fatherlessness, and social isolation – while moral in nature – have enormous social and economic consequences.
In the same way, economic problems like unequal opportunity; stagnant wages; and the spiraling costs of housing, health care, and education represent moral threats to family stability and national unity.
Working families today are bearing the brunt of all of the above. And as a result, too many are falling behind.
Their anxieties are very real – and so are the liberals’ flawed, seductive, big-government proposals to relieve them. To address those anxieties, it is not enough for us simply to oppose liberals’ ideas. We have to propose conservative ones. We have to show working families that bigger government will not solve their problems; that instead, bigger government is creating them.
The “Road to Majority” may be the road less traveled, but it’s long past time for conservatives to take it. Our movement is at its best when we take on big challenges.
And the great challenge of our time is the challenge of the forgotten family: the honest, noble parents across the country trying to make ends meet in a society, economy, and democracy increasingly rigged by Washington against them and their children.
It is time for a new conservative reform agenda that levels the playing field and finally meets the challenges facing working families:
To give underprivileged families a fair chance to work their way into the middle class;
To give families struggling to stay in middle class their fair chance to make a good living and build a good life;
To make it easier for couples for start families… for entrepreneurs to start businesses… and volunteers to start civic and charitable organizations;To help all Americans at every step along the path to success overcome the obstacles big government has put before them.
It is time for a new approach to taxes, to not only lower rates to spur economic opportunity, but to eliminate tax discrimination against parents and families.
It is time for a new approach to education, to break up the special-interest cartels that hold back our young children, and our young adults. Education is opportunity, and government has no business telling students where they can and can’t go to get it.
It is time for a new approach to transportation. New roads mean new neighborhoods, new communities, new jobs, new families, and new opportunities.
Yet today, infrastructure money states could be spending on those opportunities, Washington instead spends on bureaucratic waste and special-interest giveaways.
It is time to rethink a dysfunctional welfare system that holds poor families down. And to reform a corrupt corporate welfare system that props big businesses up.
We need to find new ways – conservative ways that rely on free enterprise and civil society -- to help young couples: get married, afford a home, raise and educate their kids, get good health care, take care of their elderly parents, and retire with security themselves.
Our movement has always identified with those Americans who through hard work and determination have climbed the ladder of success. And we always should.
But our ideals demand we identify even more with those Americans still on the bottom rungs, where the climbing is harder, dangerous, and lonely.
We need to stand up for those Americans no one else will: for the unborn child in the womb; for the poor student caught in the failing school; for the reformed father languishing in prison and the fatherless son facing alone the dangers of the street; for the single mom working two jobs but still ensnared in big-government poverty traps; for the elderly and the disabled, dehumanized by bureaucracy; and for the splintering neighborhoods that desperately need them all.
These families, these moms and dads and grandparents and kids: they’re waiting for us. They know more government isn’t the answer. They know government only divides them.
But they also know that too often our party has ignored them. That has to change.
And it has to change today - right now - because every hour, every day, big government leaves more and more American families behind. It is time for conservatives to remember those forgotten families. In word and deed, in our hearts and in our agenda.
It is time to remember that the most audacious entrepreneurs in America are not high-tech CEOs in Silicon Valley… they’re a young couple at a church back home, saying “I do.”
It is time to remember that the most important investments in our nation’s future are not issued on Wall Street, but are sleeping in their mothers’ arms at the maternity unit of your local hospital.
To be truly pro-growth and pro-opportunity, our agenda must be truly pro-family. Not just on some issues, but all of them.
I believe if conservatives look anew at the challenges facing the family, we will quickly discover opportunities to meet - united and undaunted - the challenges facing our movement, our economy, and our nation.
Building a new conservative agenda of reform around these moms and dads and kids – remembering America’s forgotten families – is the “Road to Majority.”
And if – at long last – conservatives finally take that road less traveled, it will make all the difference.
Thank you for everything you do. Keep the faith. And may God bless you all.
Statement on Lee amendment #174 To Strengthen Protection of Religious Freedom in the Military
Jun 13, 2013
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would like to call up my amendment #174 to strengthen the protection of Religious Freedom in the Military. This amends section 533 to clarify that expressions of belief that do not have an adverse impact on military readiness and good order and discipline are to be accommodated by the Armed Services.
Recent news reports about the Air Force meeting with organizations that try to subvert religious expression in the military have many around the United States concerned about the environment that is being created in the Armed Services. The leader of one of these organizations called Christians “monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces” and equated sharing one’s religion as “spiritual rape”.
For many of our men and women in uniform, their faith and religious beliefs are what sustain them through the enormous pressures and stresses of the battlefield, the months away from loved ones with little communication, the life-changing injuries, and the loss of close friends.
If an environment is created where those service members feel that expressing their religion, sharing their faith, or showing outward representation of their beliefs could be found in violation of military policy and grounds for reprimand, it will have an unsettlingly negative effect on military morale and undermine recruitment, retention, and cohesiveness efforts.
I understand that a delicate balance must be struck in the military so that good order and discipline are preserved. I believe that my amendment strikes that balance. Nothing in this would preclude disciplinary or administrative action for conduct that is proscribed by the UCMJ, and commanders would have the ability to maintain readiness and discipline in their ranks.
Our servicemen and women put their lives on the line everyday in order to protect our constitutionally guaranteed rights, including the expression of our beliefs. Congress must ensure that we are protecting them as well.
Amendments that would improve the immigration bill
Jun 12, 2013
Today, I will be filing almost a dozen amendments to the Immigration Reform bill. Here is a brief description of each one:
- Lee #1208 Requires fast-track Congressional approval at the introduction of the DHS strategies and at the certification of the strategies’ completion. Increases accountability of Congress to oversee implementation of border-security measures.
- Lee #1209 Clarifies that the legalization process should be funded entirely by the fees collected. Lessens the economic cost of immigration reform.
- Lee #1210 Removes eligibility for RPI status for those who have absconded or sought to re-enter after receiving a deportation order. Toughens enforcement of existing immigration laws.
- Lee #1211 Replaces “any offense under foreign law” with “any act committed outside the United States” as a ground for inadmissibility.
- Lee #1212 Increases requirements to show that back taxes have been paid.
- Lee #1213 Clarifies that penalties for RPI applicants may not be waived, limited, or reduced. Decreases the authority of the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive penalties.
- Lee #1214 Removes “sworn affidavits” from the list of documents that RPIs may use to satisfy the employment requirement for adjustment to LPR status. Toughens enforcement standards for RPI status.
- Lee #1215 Requires an annual report on welfare benefits granted to illegal aliens and RPIs. Fosters greater oversight of who is eligible for the country’s generous programs.
- Lee #1216 Inserts intent requirements for employer discrimination provisions. Tightens the law to prevent frivolous lawsuits.
- Lee #1217 Increases the W-visa starting cap from 20,000 to 200,000 and the post-phase-in cap from 200,000 to 400,000. Better manages the flow of new immigration to the country while increasing access to needed labor.
- Lee #1207 Allows Customs and Border Patrol agents to engage in enforcement activities on Federal Lands, where they are currently prohibited from protecting the border.
