Congressman Mark Sanford’s Weekly Review

From: Mark Sanford
Received At: January 13, 2018 at 06:05AM
Congressman Mark Sanford’s Weekly Review

 

January 13, 2018

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Weekly Review

January 6

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January 8

New Year’s Resolutions and Reflections: I spent this afternoon at a Republican Study Committee planning session. We looked at the nuts and bolts of the legislative year ahead of us and had presentations by Speaker Paul Ryan, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, and others.

What struck me though during one of the less interesting briefs was a blog sent to me by my son Landon that I glanced at during a pause in action. I have attached it below and, in your own reflections on the New Year, thought you might find it of interest. A couple of my sons had groups down to the farm over the holidays, and the blog below, written by Landon’s classmate Sara Terry, really hit home for the way that each one of us at times may struggle with the ebb and flow of life. How do you stay challenged and learning new things while doing the things that simply go with life?

One of my New Year’s resolutions is certainly to include both…to do the things that must be done well but also to enjoy and savor the quiet moments at the farm with the boys – or to properly appreciate a sunrise or sunset. In short, Stephen Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” talked about the need to sharpen the sword. You could use a chainsaw forever, but you’d get less and less done, if you didn’t stop to sharpen its blades. In this new year, we all need to look for ways to replenish and renew. For me, much of that is centered around the farm; for you, it may be something entirely different…but in whatever its form, I hope that you do make the time to do so. I’ll quit opining and get back to the work at hand, but before I do, I send Sara’s blog below and ask that you take a read and give me, or her, your thoughts.

Happy Monday after New Years….

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January 9

A step in the right direction with healthcare… The riddle that has always been inherent on the debate about the Affordable Care Act and what comes next has always centered in the fact that those who received additional benefits under the Affordable Care Act loved it, while those who paid for it in many cases did not. The program entailed a cost-shift from young and healthier to those that in most instances were not. As a consequence of this inherent cost-shift and increasingly fewer choices in the healthcare marketplace, healthcare costs have escalated rapidly for individuals. In some cases, dramatically.

And so last year, we had a lot of conversation about what might come next, and there was a proposal for a wholesale bill to bring about change, and it failed.

Wholesale change, when one is perceived to be taking something away, is real tough politically. In fact, it’s proven impossible.

Therefore, I think that what the Trump Administration proposed on Thursday is something that makes a lot of sense. It will literally take a thousand small changes…from a host of philosophical perspectives…to get healthcare right, given how intricate the human body is and our healthcare delivery system continues to be.

On Thursday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta proposed a new rulemaking that would broadly define “commonality of interest” among employers. What this really means is that people could pool together in the purchase of their health insurance. The Realtors Association could propose a plan and bring with it the buying power not just of a local agency but of agencies across the country. The same is true across a whole host of different industries and independent contractor sole proprietors like Uber drivers or freelance journalists.

Walmart buys in bulk and, as a consequence, is able to get a discount relative to you or me going to the same supplier. The same can now hold true in the purchase of insurance with these pooling arrangements. In short, it’s another way of giving consumers more power relative to the healthcare industry at large.

I introduced the Obamacare Replacement Act with Senator Rand Paul in February of last year, which included a provision to accomplish this very thing with regards to pooling. So despite some cries to the contrary, it won’t overturn what we know about healthcare…and I believe represents a step in the right direction.

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January 10

FISA Press Conference: In case you missed it, we did a Facebook Live this morning during a press conference a group of us held on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This is a law that currently allows the government to compel American companies to assist in the warrantless surveillance of both foreigners and U.S. citizens…and a bill on which the House is scheduled to vote on tomorrow.

If you care about limiting government, you should care about this issue. In fact, for the Fourth Amendment to mean anything, this end-run around the Constitution needs to stop. All developed societies have held a tension between individual freedom on one side and security on the other. The societies that have moved too far toward security over freedom have wound up losing both…which makes this debate all the more important.

Before the vote tomorrow, we will vote on an amendment Rep. Justin Amash is offering to replace the current Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act with another…the USA RIGHTS Act that I cosponsored… Click here to watch…

 

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January 11

FISA Section 702 Renewal: Today was a big day. Just like American military officers, Members of Congress swear an allegiance to uphold the Constitution. Legitimately, people have differences of opinion as to what that means, but we had a significant constitutional debate today and over the last few days about one of its foundational elements.

The Fourth Amendment to me is incredibly clear as it says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The Founding Fathers were so deliberate in this amendment to limit the reach of government. Without probable cause and a warrant, government couldn’t reach into your personal effects. Government’s ability to do so has been made much easier in the digital age, but the Founding Fathers believed there were places that government couldn’t and shouldn’t go without a warrant. This belief was based on their experience in colonial times of British officers coming into a home and searching until they found something to charge the patriots with. The principle of this constitutionally-enshrined limit on government should be just as real today as it was then. In short, I believe that civil liberty is a cornerstone to the bundle of rights that go with the liberties our Founding Fathers promised us.

That was not the prevailing opinion, though 58 Republicans believed as I did today in voting yes for the so-called “Amash amendment.”… Click here to read more…

January 12

I flew home to Charleston last night… got a few hours of sleep, and then drove down to Beaufort County early this morning for a round of visits, stops, and engagements. I’ve included a few pictures below from two of the stops and have two observations from the day and the different perspectives that I’ve heard in it.

One, I was reminded once again that freedom is not free. It takes the active participation and involvement of each one of us. As I’m sure you know, Benjamin Franklin, when asked in the wake of the Constitutional Convention what form of government they had designed, replied a republic, if we could keep it. In this light, I was struck in today’s Reconstruction ceremony of Beaufort County’s vital role in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. It’s little known that Martin Luther King visited Penn Center five times from 1965 to 1967. It’s equally little known that Harriet Tubman, credited for much of the Underground Railroad, was in Beaufort County at the time of the Civil War. There are a long list of other stories to be told on Reconstruction and what it means for our Republic, but the bottom line is this…civics and a knowledge of the very design of our founding documents is vital to the perpetuation of liberty. 

I made the observation as I spoke today that in high school I had worked as a forklift operator at the Sanders Packing Shed in Frogmore, which is just a short distance from the Penn Center. Yet at that point in my life, I didn’t really appreciate all of the history there, and it’s my hope with this rededication of today and the ongoing publicity that should come with the Reconstruction monument that young and old along with those living near or far come to a better appreciation of Reconstruction, what it was about, and what it means going forward in our country. 

Two, I was disappointed once again by the way in which bad news covers over good news. Tragically, the saying in the world of media is that if it bleeds, it leads. Media outlets for some reason have a near-total preoccupation with negative commentary over good. Someone could say something right for a thousand days and not one bit of it would be covered, but on the day someone says something wrong, it’s near-certain to be covered. 

I bring this up because we had an incredibly important debate in the halls of Congress this week on the sanctity of the Fourth Amendment. What happens next in government’s ability in surveillance over the digital or voice transmissions by any one of us will have a lot to do with what liberty looks like and means in the 21st century. Yet, that was certainly not the news of the day. Any number of people at any number of stops in the day brought up the unfortunate and disappointing words of the president. We could have a much longer debate on what was meant, what was intended, or even what was said or not said…but in today’s world of social media, in many ways it really doesn’t matter because of the way that things are near-instantaneously seized upon, commented, and reported on. President Trump doesn’t guard his words as many people do. That’s his style. It certainly is not mine, but regardless of where one stands on the issue of what the president said, it begs the much larger point of a missed opportunity in deliberating important constitutional themes that I had hoped we might have discussed at today’s stops. 

What’s all this mean? One, that the debate on immigration will be protracted and certainly continue beyond what might have been next week’s deadline on a first step with regard to DACA. Two, the Fourth Amendment should matter now more than it ever has, given changes in technology that make government’s reach into every one of our lives that much easier. In this vein, I would ask that you take a look at some of my posts over this week on this very point. And finally, in ending on a higher note, we really do have a remarkable resource in the Penn Center and the Reconstruction monument in Beaufort County. If you haven’t taken a drive out to St. Helena’s Island to see what’s there, at some point in your travels, it’s worth doing so….

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the above. Happy Friday.

 

 
 
 

 

Washington, DC Office
2211 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4001
Phone: (202) 225-3176

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Mount Pleasant, SC 29464-3083
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Beaufort Office
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Beaufort, SC 29902
Phone: (843) 521-2530
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