President 2008

Mike Pence 2008

2007-12-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

Another Time for Choosing

2007-12-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

Here is Mike Pence's speech at an Eagle Forum Conference with Phyllis Schlafly. Please excuse the pauses within the speech. Enjoy

Pence keynotes Reagan banquet at CPAC

2007-03-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Here is Mike Pence's speech that he gave this past weekend at the nation's largest conservative gathering in our nation's capital.

Fellow conservatives and friends, it’s a pleasure to be with you tonight at this Ronald Reagan Banquet. I see so many who’ve served our cause for so many years. David Keene and so many others. You deserve our gratitude and admiration. It is an honor to be with you.

Three years ago at this conference I likened our party to a tall ship at sea that had drifted off course. Last year, I said our ship was not just off course but set on a deliberate course heading into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government republicanism.

Tonight, I have the duty to report that’s no longer the case. We’re no longer off course. We’ve run aground.

Six years without a course correction was simply too much.

And I suspect that three years with the ship analogy is too. So I’ll retire the old girl and the maritime allusions. Though it is tempting to suggest our party scrape a few barnacles off the hull!

It’s also tempting to be cranky at a time like this.

I feel a little bit like a farmer in a story Ronald Reagan used to love to tell. A farmer was driving his horse and wagon to town with a load of grain when he had a head-on collision with an automobile. He was lying there seriously injured.

Later things followed the usual legal procedure with the insurance company and all. The farmer was on the stand and the lawyer asked him, “When you were lying there at the scene of the accident, didn’t someone come up to you and ask you how you were feeling and didn’t you answer you never felt better in your life?”

The farmer responded, “Well, yes, I guess I remember that happened.”

And later on redirect, another lawyer asked him, “What were the circumstances when you gave that answer?”

The farmer replied, “Well, I was lying there and a car came up and a deputy sheriff got out. My horse was neighing with pain and kicking with two broken legs. The deputy sheriff put the gun in his ear and put the horse out of his misery. My dog had a broken back and was whining with pain and he went over and did the same thing to the dog. Then he came over to me and said, ‘And how are you feelin’?’”

After Election Day 2006, let me be clear, I never felt better in my life!

Actually, we might do well to take our cue from the namesake of this dinner. His philosophy for dealing with mistakes was to face facts, take your knocks, learn your lessons, and move on.

We took the knocks in 2006. So what are the lessons? Democrats would have us believe that this election was all about the war in Iraq and a culture of corruption in Washington. Some in our party would have us believe that too.

But I believe those excuses mask a much larger issue.

Our party lost its majority because it didn’t take care of its underlying health. It continued to ignore the warning signs of the consequences of reckless behavior: the freewheeling spending, ever-expanding government programs, the blind eye to social decay and personal ethical lapses. They finally took their toll.

Mark Helprin wrote, “The way out of the wilderness is the truth; recognizing it, stating it, defending it, living by it.”

Here’s the truth:

We didn’t lose because of the war or scandals. The real scandal in Washington, D.C. was runaway spending under Republican control.

This was not in the Contract with America.

Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn’t quit on the Contract with America, their leaders did.

Republicans did not lose this last election because America wanted liberalism. We did not lose because voters wanted less defense, more spending, more bureaucracy, more taxes, more abortion and gay marriage.

We lost because we did not govern as advertised. We did not live up to our promises of limited government, fiscal conservatism and traditional moral values.

You know how, sometimes, when you don’t take care of yourself, don’t do the right things, that your body finds drastic ways to get your attention?

You keep forging ahead, ignoring the warning signs, thinking you can get away without tending to the basics. Then suddenly, your body revolts. “Okay, that’s it. Enough of this abuse. You didn’t listen to me before, but you’re going to listen to me now.”

And this time you do. Because now you have no choice. You just got knocked on your keister with what feels like a 2-by-4.

If you’re lucky, it’s something non-lethal, like the flu. It only feels fatal. Nature’s way of saying, “Stop what you’re doing. Now.”

Three months ago, the Republican Party got hit with the political version of this 2-by-4: The midterm elections.

The lesson was harsh. It was painful. But it’s nowhere near fatal. And, in its own way, it’s downright encouraging.

Because in it, we have proof that Americans still value what they always have: People who mean what they say and say what they mean.

Americans are a tolerant people. But they will not tolerate empty promises. And they will not embrace continued abuse of their trust.

So, we are where we are. What do we do next?

To win back our right to govern, I say we must do so on the merit of our ideas. On our principles. And the consistency of our actions.

We must win back America’s heart.

But first, we must take heart.

Courage.

Courage is the key. Courage is our watchword.

C.S. Lewis said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Courage then is the answer - not recrimination and retreat. Neither in the battle to defend American values or the war on terrorism.

We are at a moment when the leaders of this movement must take a stand.

Our brave men and women in uniform exhibit courage every day. If we cannot muster the courage to fight on the battlefield of words and ideas, we don’t deserve to lead them.

By our words and deeds, let us show them that courage still exists in Congress and in the conservative movement in America.

Our political opponents and our nation’s enemies are hoping that we don’t find that courage. In fact, they’re counting on it. They’d love nothing more than for conservatives to indulge in a non-stop pity party. A two-year finger-pointing fest. Nothing productive. Nothing courageous. Just hand wringing and I-told-you-so’s.

Picking one another apart because of differences on issues not central to the conservative cause is a great help to our liberal opponents.

But a circular firing squad will not get us over the next hill!

I’ve got a better idea…let’s unite this movement and go win some elections!

Lets get up off the couch, rediscover the courage of our convictions and take on the big government liberal agenda of the Democrat Congress every day!

Because now it’s the liberals’ turn.

The liberals will now have to deliver. The conservative rhetoric they adopted for the election now comes due.

America will hold them to their promises. Promises like respecting traditional values, fiscal discipline and “fixing” the war.

The new Democrat Congress is already busy breaking those promises and that is nowhere more evident than in the fight for life at home and the fight for liberty in Iraq.

Before the paint was dry on the sign on Speaker Pelosi’s office, Democrats had already begun to retreat on the values agenda that won them so many conservative seats in Congress.

Having promised voters more respect for pro-life candidates and values, Democrats in Congress wasted little time trampling the right to life. In the first 100 hours, they passed legislation that would take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund morally objectionable research.

Now, I know that some say you can be a conservative and support abortion. Others prefer to only say they advocate a “culture of life.” Let me speak plainly:

I am pro-life and I don’t apologize for it!

The sanctity of human life is the centerpiece of western civilization.

Ronald Reagan famously said, “we cannot diminish the value of one category of human life-the unborn-without diminishing the value of all human life.”

To millions who cherish life, these are discouraging times.

But take heart, conservatives. While the abortion movement may be gathering strength in this city of compromise, Washington, D.C. is the only place in America where life is losing.

In big cities and small towns, American women are listening and learning. In the quiet counsels between mothers and daughters, and sisters and friends, the truth about abortion is being told. Young women are being warned.

Every day, every hour, compassion is overcoming convenience. Life is defeating despair and hope is vanquishing a lifetime of regret.

Life may be losing in Washington, D.C., but life is winning in America.

As in the battle for life, Democrats are beating a fast retreat from their campaign rhetoric on Iraq. While their candidates spoke of phased redeployments, we are already seeing the bait and switch.

Their cut-and-run plan, which they so mightily denounced as a Republican smear during the campaign is now revealed as—surprise—cut-and-run.

For all the Democrats’ furtive, back-room efforts and tortured explanations of their plan, it’s not nearly as complex as they make out.

The Democrat plan to fix the war is simple, straightforward, efficient. It’s a strategy based on just eleven words written by George Orwell:

“The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.”

What Orwell said in irony, the Democrat majority puts forth as policy.

Defeatism is not our way and it is not the American way. Never has been. Never will be.

With their plan to lose the war, to quit on freedom in Iraq, Democrats have determined to measure their success in failure.

Over and over the media tells us America is tired of the war—as if attention span is a legitimate measure.

Yes, America is tired. It’s tired of what we’re being told about this war. It’s tired of the incessant negativity. Tired of the constant coverage of every roadside bomb while excluding mention of any of the many positive stories.

And it’s tired of the deliberate grinding down of our will and our spirit.

No, Americans don’t like this war. Americans don’t like any war. But they hate tyranny and oppression even more.

The media and the Democrats may be tired of this war, but America is not tired of this cause.

The American people want our troops to come home but they want us to win and come home.

In all my trips to visit our soldiers in Iraq, I’ve never met a soldier who didn’t believe in the mission. I’ve never failed to be inspired by their professionalism and bravery.

Today, Democrats say they “support” our troops even as they prepare to choke off funds for essential training and supplies. They support our soldiers but send out surrogates on air and in print to attack their actions and motives. They say they support our troops even while announcing to the enemy dates-certain for withdrawal.

And what if they’re wrong? What if President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq, our soldiers in the field and the Iraqi military succeed? What will my friends in the other party say about their opposition to the troop surge then?

“Nevermind?”

Democrats in Congress would do well to remember that the American people don’t like losers, but they like quitters even less.

The truth is we must fight and win a victory for freedom in Iraq. We have no option but victory. In their hearts, the American people know this, and the American people are willing to make the hard choices to choose victory.

The time has come for conservatives to declare, once and for all, victory is our national policy in Iraq.

On liberty abroad and life at home, my friends, by 2008 the American people will be more than ready to deliver their verdict to the liberals in Congress.

Conservatives can win in 2008!

But winning takes the right ideas, the right players and a lot of heart.

Just ask the Indianapolis Colts. You just knew I had to get that in, didn’t you?

It’s not always the big play. Victory is sometimes measured in inches.

As conservatives, we need to remember that.

Conservatives measure success by incremental gains in life, liberty and security. The liberals, by advancing abortion on demand, bureaucracy and retreat.

These are stark, clear differences. Our job now is to help the American people see them and regain their trust.

How do we do that?

The late Russell Kirk offered advice for this rising generation.

“Redeem the time,” he said. “Redeem the dream -- in ways mundane as well as ways spiritual.

“Begin by brightening the corner where you are. By improving ….yourself, and helping your neighbor.

“You will not need to be rich or famous to take your part in redeeming the time: what you need for that task is moral imagination joined to right reason.”

“Moral imagination joined to right reason.” What a concise definition of conservatism. And the perfect guideline for success in things great and small.

With each corner we brighten, one more brick falls from the foundation of liberal rationale for big government programs, social engineering and bureaucracies.

With each corner we brighten, the institutions of failure, dependency and mediocrity crumble bit by bit.

While the Democrats issue non-binding resolutions aimed at defeat, I suggest that tonight we make our own very binding resolutions aimed squarely at winning back the confidence of the American people.

As I close, I invite you to consider embracing a few simple resolutions designed to redeem the dream of conservative governance in Washington.

These resolutions are for all conservatives. They are not about specific bills or amendments or policy initiatives. They are not about grand strategies to retake the House. They are simple commitments for you to consider as we renew our movement in the service of this nation.

And yes, they are binding. I want you to hold me to them. And I’ll return the favor.

Number One:

Let’s resolve to be happy warriors. I’ve often said, “I’m a conservative, but I’m not in a bad mood about it.” True conservatives accept defeat cordially and cheerfully return to the battle. Let’s reflect the great joy of free people and squander not one minute licking our wounds. No whining. No complaining. Just the courage and optimism worthy of our cause.

Number Two:

Let’s resolve to remain faithful to the ideals of our Founders, embracing the principles of limited government enshrined in the Constitution. Let’s ignore the polls and pundits and the promise of electoral success where they stray from conservative values and know that every time the nation failed to embrace these timeless principles, it has been a failure of leadership and not this great people.

Number Three:

Let’s resolve to keep believing in the American people and to keep believing the American people are on our side. Let’s renew our unshakeable belief in their enduring goodness, wisdom and selflessness. To know that the values espoused by Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan were the values of the American people and they still are today.

Number Four:

Let’s resolve to always remember that this is one nation under God. That in all history, America is unique, rich with a purpose yet to be fulfilled. Let’s keep our eyes fixed on the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who is also the Author and Perfecter of this miracle of democracy.

Let’s make these binding resolutions, subject to no veto except that of a flagging heart.

Beginning right here and right now, let us renew our faith in the American people, the ideals of our Founders, the power of optimism and the God of our fathers.

In a word, let us reflect the character of the man for whom this dinner is named.

If Ronald Reagan were here tonight, standing right here at CPAC as he did more than a dozen times, I think he’d look out at all of you during these challenging times, he would see the determination on your faces and he would be very proud. But he would not be surprised.

And he just might say, as he did not so long ago, that the key to overcoming “…does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. After all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.”

God bless you, and thank you.

CPAC likes Pence for President

2007-03-01T10:28:00.000-08:00

Pence In 2008?

Are CPAC organizers trying to send a message?

They've chosen Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to deliver the keynote address at CPAC's Ronald Reagan banquet 3/2. Does Pence, a former Republican Study Cmte chair, harbor any presidential ambitions? There's already a grassroots website set up to tout him.

Through a spokesman, Pence told us that he thinks about running for POTUS "no more and no less than any other kid who grew up in the Midwest with a cornfield in his backyard."

Asked to elaborate, Pence spokesman Matt Lloyd was more clear: "Congressman Pence has not ruled out a run in the near term or the long term." In other words: Pence is quite comfortable with the buzz.

Hotline Blog

Courage is the key

2007-02-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

Here is Pence's statement on the House Floor regarding the Democrat resolution of the President's troop surge in Iraq.

"Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished Ranking Member for yielding me time. I rise today in opposition to the concurrent resolution before the House. While the resolution expresses support for the troops in Iraq, the heart of the resolution is a statement of disapproval of the President’s decision to “surge” troops in Iraq as part of a new strategy for victory. As Iraq remains the central front in our war on terror and Islamic extremism, I cannot support a resolution that condemns the President’s new strategy in Iraq.

"Let me take a moment to explain my support for the President’s call for a 'surge' in troops. A few days before the President addressed the nation in January, I was invited to the White House to discuss his plan to increase troop levels in Iraq. What I found most persuasive was that the President didn't just lay out a plan for more troops for more troops sake. He laid out a new strategy, including new tactics, new rules of engagement on the ground, and a plan to work alongside Iraqi military forces to put a priority on securing Baghdad. This approach was first recommended by the Iraq Study Group, and I believe we owe it to our military and the people of Iraq to give it a chance to work.

"This is not to say I never had my doubts about the President's new strategy. I went into the meeting very skeptical of the 'surge.' During my four trips to Iraq, our military commanders told me that a large American military footprint in Iraq would be counterproductive to our interests there and to the interests of freedom.

"But that was then, and this is now. That advice pre-dated the extraordinary increase in violence that commenced in the late summer of 2006. Then it became clear that our strategy and tactics on the ground were not working. That is why I believe the President's change in strategy along with the addition of six brigades to support an Iraqi-led effort to quell violence in Baghdad is an idea whose time has come.

"Earlier I mentioned that this approach was first recommended by the Iraq Study Group in its report to the President and the American people. I would like to point out to all of my Democratic colleagues who are calling for the President to listen to the Iraq Study Group and who have expressed support for the Iraq Study Group’s approach that on page 73 of the report the Iraq Study Group endorses a 'surge.' In fact, the Iraq Study Group’s report is where the term 'surge' originated. Let me quote the relevant passage:

We could, however, support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective.

We also reject the immediate withdrawal of our troops, because we believe that so much is at stake. (The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach, James A. Baker, III and Lee H. Hamilton Co-Chairs, p. 73)

"To my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who respect the Iraq Study Group, I say give the President the time and support necessary to implement one of its primary recommendations. For, if you vote for this resolution before us, you not only express your disapproval of the President’s decision, but also your implicit disapproval of the approach endorsed by the Iraq Study Group.

"Mr. Speaker, it was my great hope that the resolution before us would have come up under a rule that allowed for amendments and for Republicans to offer substitute language. Last night I testified to the Rules Committee about a substitute amendment that I offered that would have explicitly stated the sense of Congress that Congress should not take any action that would endanger our troops in Iraq, including the elimination or reduction of funds for the troops.

"I regret that I am not being permitted the opportunity to offer my substitute amendment. And, I regret further that the Members of this House are not going to be afforded the opportunity to go on record with their support for funding the troops.

"My substitute amendment contains language nearly identical to language contained in S. 470, a bill offered by Senator Levin, calling on Congress not to eliminate or reduce funds for troops in the field. (See S. 470, page 8, lines 7-13). If the leading Democrats in the Senate, including the Chairman of their Armed Services Committee, agree that Congress should affirmatively state that it will not cut troop funding, then I do not understand why the Democratic Leadership in the House would not allow such a vote during this debate.

"While the Democratic resolution before us expresses the hope that Congress and all Americans will continue to 'support and protect' our brave men and women serving in Iraq, it does not take that next step to show tangible support of the troops. There is a fundamental difference between pledging to support or protect our troops and pledging not to cut off their funding. Words have consequences. 'Support and protect' does not assure the American people that we will continue to fund our troops in the field. Confucius once said that 'when words lose their meaning, men lose their liberty.' Or in this case, I add 'or maybe their lives.'

"The American people understand this point. A poll cited this morning in USA Today shows that even though a majority of Americans are opposed to the 'surge,' a majority also oppose cutting off funds for the troops. The American people do not want Congress to defund this war, even if they are concerned about the course the war is taking. This Congress should tell the troops and the American people that it will never take away those funds.

"Mr. Speaker, listening to this debate today and to the opposition to the 'surge' being espoused by the Democratic majority, I have begun to wonder…what if?

"I have made it clear that I support the “surge” and the President’s new strategy. My Democratic friends have made it clear that they oppose the 'surge' and the President’s new strategy, and that is their right. At this moment, a majority of Americans appear to be with the Democrats. But, what if?

"What if they're wrong?

"What if you're wrong?

"What if the 'surge' and General Patraeus and our brave men and women in Iraq succeed?

"My Democratic colleagues would do well to reflect on this truth: the American people hate losers, but they hate quitters even more. If this new strategy in Iraq succeeds, what will my friends in the Democratic party say?

"The truth is we must fight and win a victory for freedom in Iraq. We have no option but victory. In their hearts, the American people know this, and the American people are willing to make the hard choices to choose victory.

"Courage.

"Courage is the key.

"Courage is the watchword.

"C.S. Lewis said 'courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.'

"Courage then is the answer – not recrimination and retreat. We are at a moment when the American people and the Members of this body must take a stand. This is a moment for courage. Our brave men and women in Iraq exhibit courage every day. Let us, in this House, follow their lead and show them that courage still exists in Congress. Let us vote down this resolution and find it within ourselves to bring forward the resources and support necessary to see freedom win in Iraq."

Give new strategy a chance

2007-02-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here is an op-ed submitted by Mike Pence to the Washington Times pleading for Americans to give the President's new Iraq strategy a chance so we can have an opportunity for Victory.

Last month, President Bush delivered a speech to the nation outlining a new way forward in Iraq. It has since met with resistance from both parties on Capitol Hill. I support the president's call for reinforcements and a change of our strategy because we must do everything in our power to see freedom prevail in Iraq.

A few days before the president addressed the nation, I was invited to the White House to discuss his plan to increase troop levels in Iraq. What I found most persuasive was that the president didn't just lay out a plan for more troops for more troops sake. He laid out a new strategy, including new tactics, new rules of engagement on the ground, and a plan to work alongside Iraqi military forces to give priority to securing Baghdad. This was first recommended by the Iraq Study Group and I believe we owe it to our military and Iraq's people to give it a chance to work.

This is not to say I never had my doubts about the president's new strategy. I went into the meeting very skeptical of the "surge." During my four trips to Iraq, our military commanders told me a large American military footprint in Iraq would be counterproductive to our interests there and to the interests of freedom.

At that time, there was a general consensus among our military leaders that we ought to move toward a smaller American military presence, to ensure the Iraqi military would step up and the Iraqi government would take responsibility for the country. But that was then, this is now.

That advice predated the extraordinary increase in violence that began in late summer 2006. Then it became clear our strategy and tactics were not working. That is why I believe the president's change in strategy along with the addition of six brigades to support an Iraqi-led effort to quell violence in Baghdad is an idea whose time has come.

Given that reinforcements will strengthen the hand of the U.S. military in Iraq and give us more leverage in the region, I find it curious that many in Congress in both parties are taking a wait-and-see approach or openly oppose the president's plan.

Ironically, most of my colleagues who oppose the president's plan say they still support the troops and want to see us succeed in Iraq. However, the alternative strategies they have put forward will do nothing but promote withdrawal and defeat. It is hard to understand how legislators can claim to support our troops while advocating abandonment of all they fought and died to accomplish.

History leaves little doubt that fundamental disagreements between the president and Congress over strategic decisions are not new. Many members of the legislative branch disagreed with wartime decisions of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, in a bit of irony, some Republicans complained Roosevelt was focusing too much on Europe rather than the enemy in the Pacific who attacked us.

However, the roles of Congress and the president are clearly defined in the Constitution. Under Article I of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to declare war, prescribe rules governing military discipline and regulate the capture of enemy property and appropriate funds for the military.

Under Article II of the Constitution, the president is the commander in chief of the Armed Forces and is responsible for tactical, operational and strategic decisions involved in war fighting. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed these functions and the president has had this role ever since George Washington was entrusted as our nation's first commander in chief. Our Founders expressly rejected vesting Congress with warmaking power, fearful as they were of ineffective "war-by-committee."

Each branch of national government has a clearly defined role in the declaration and conduct of war. As such, while Congress has a role in formulating military policy, it is constitutionally questionable for Congress to impose timetables, benchmarks or tactical decisions on our commander in chief or our troops in the field.

There is no question that even in the heartland of America, people are troubled with our lack of progress in Iraq. I understand the temptation of many in Congress to go backward but I disagree with it. The temptation to retreat must be ignored. Winston Churchill gave us this counsel: "One ought never to turn one's back on a threat in danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."

It is time for an unflinching American response. I support our commander in chief. I support our new way forward. We must come together as a nation and choose to see freedom prevail in Iraq.

Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee.

Washington Times Piece

Pence supports the Colts

2007-01-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a post by Mike Pence on his recent visit with the President.

Today President Bush addressed Republicans at our annual planning retreat at the Eastern Shore of Maryland. While most of the time was spent in very serious discussions of challenges at home and abroad, there was one very light and very Hoosier moment.

Knowing the President's enthusiasm for professional sports, Mrs. Pence got the idea that we and the kids should surprise the President by showing up in the colors and uniforms of the Super Bowl-bound Indianapolis Colts. While there was a dress code for the luncheon, just before the President approached us, Mrs. Pence passed out the Colts jerseys she snuck into the banquet to our three kids.

The President of the United States was delighted when we greeted him in glaring blue and white! He said. "Ok, Pence, alright, the Colts...it might be their year!" We assured him that it was. The President spoke very seriously of his admiration for "Manning" and "Dungy" saying "good at football and good men."

Later I chatted with Josh Bolten, the President's chief of staff, and he told me about his experience watching the Colts-Patriots game at Camp David with President Bush last Sunday. He said, "I never remember eating in front of the television set but we did that night." He made no commitment about the President's preference at the Super Bowl but did say, "he sure was impressed with the Colts last Sunday."

Weren't we all. Go Colts.

Mike Pence
Washington, D.C.

Life is winning in America

2007-01-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

Pence spoke at the annual March for Life rally in Washington D.C. on Monday. He stated that the Pro-Life Movement is winning. Here is an excerpt from an article on the rally.

On Monday's anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, Republican officials in Washington, D.C., told the thousands of activists who took part in the annual March for Life that "life is winning in America."

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told the crowd that had gathered in the nation's capital that Jan. 22 was a "cold anniversary" but noted that "despite the best efforts of the abortion rights movement, 34 years since Roe v. Wade, more Americans embrace the sanctity of life than ever before."

"Although the abortion movement is gathering strength in this city of compromise, Washington, D.C., is the only city in America where life is losing," he said. "In the quiet counsels between mothers and daughters, and sisters and friends, the truth about abortion is being told, young women are being warned, and life is winning in America."

"Every day, every hour, compassion is overcoming convenience," Pence added.

Life is winning in America

Pence gets sworn in

2007-01-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

Here is Pence's statement after getting sworn into office for his 4th term as Congressman.

"Every time I take the oath of office it is a deeply emotional and meaningful experience. I accept the duties and responsibilities of representing the people and values of the 6th Congressional District of Indiana with a deep sense of humility. My ambition is to continue to champion the conservative values of the people who elected me, to serve all the people of our district with a servant's heart without favoritism or politics."

The case for Mike Pence

2006-12-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a piece by Brian Johnson in Human Events stating the case for Mike Pence for President. Please read and you will see more comments about this soon.

The 2008 presidential campaign is actively under way, and while some winnowing has occurred, the field remains as open as it is crowded. Odds at the moment favor Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.) or former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to win the Republican nomination, yet odds change every day. From "early presidential frontrunner" to "outgoing junior senator," Sen. George Allen (Va.) can tell you better than any Las Vegas bookie.

The field is open not merely because it lacks a presumptive nominee such as a sitting president or vice-president, but because it lacks a Reagan Republican who can unite the right's major factions and carry the party on to victory in the general election. Now is the time to call upon an effective champion of conservative ideas and values. It is time for Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to run for the presidency of the United States.

The Right Choice

While many eagerly claim the Reagan mantle, few compare quite like the outgoing chairman of the Republican Study Committee. Ultimately the optimist, Pence exudes a constant hope tempered by appropriate seriousness. His character is grounded in sincere Christian faith, a fact he neither disavows nor exploits. Like many politicians he has a way with words. Unlike many, you can believe every one of them.

With degrees in history and law and a résumé that includes being president of a regional think tank, Pence brings serious academic heft to the table, without resembling an academic. His unwavering conviction to principle has as much to do with moral fortitude as with a thoroughly developed and tested intellectual formation, which should enthuse conservatives after seeing so many Republicans "go native" once they entered the profligate confines of Washington, D.C. As one might then expect, nothing separates Pence from the rest of his crowd like than his actual record in office.

Preparing to enter his fourth term, Pence, 47, has established himself as Congress’s foremost defender of the freedom that survives only when the federal government functions within its constitutional parameters. That has often meant clashing with party leadership and a president who disdain the thought of limited government or any kind of fiscal responsibility, though the representative from eastern Indiana has always honored the letter and spirit of Reagan's famous eleventh commandment.

In 2001 President Bush, Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and others proposed a sweeping education bill that increased federal Department of Education spending by more than 50% and stripped away local control of schools. Conservatives who objected to the No Child Left Behind Act were told to go along to get along, and appreciate the fact that it (allegedly) inched the camel's nose under the tent when it came to school choice. Having once campaigned on eliminating the federal Department of Education in favor state and local control, Pence and his allies steadfastly opposed NCLB as an intrusive boondoggle that had no business becoming law.

Two years later Pence spearheaded conservative opposition to the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the first major new entitlement since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. That collectivist plan also passed, but only after former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R.-Tex.) and his leadership team staged the longest floor vote in history to twist and cajole their way to the narrowest of passages.

Pence and the Republican Study Committee scored an important victory last year with Operation Offset, successfully cutting wasteful government spending in the disastrous wake of Hurricane Katrina. The move was classic Pence, who has long promoted budget process reform, and who helped passed the first true budget-cutting bill that same year.

His stock on the rise, Pence entered last month's Republican leadership elections bidding to serve as minority leader in the next Congress, but was defeated by Rep. John Boehner (R.-Ohio). Dispiriting as it was to the party's already shell-shocked base, it was hardly stunning that the establishment responsible for compassionate conservatism, Jack Abramoff and minority status in two houses of Congress didn't view the fresh face as "leadership" material. Several weeks later, Pence earned a modest but important victory as Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R.-Tex.) prevailed in the RSC elections with Pence's backing.

A Sensible Proposition

As the first presidential election in more than half a century in which neither party has fielded a president or vice-president, 2008 is a year in which anything could happen. If current favorites John McCain and Hillary Clinton both win their party's nominations, it would be the first time since President John F. Kennedy that a senator would be elected, and the first time since at least the 19th century that two senators duel for the presidency.

A continued look at history reveals that a successful bid by a House member would be unusual, but not unprecedented. James Garfield was elected president after his service in the House, and no less than Abraham Lincoln accomplished the feat, though he did run unsuccessfully for Senate before moving to Pennsylvania Avenue. In 2004, then-Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's (D.-Mo.) eventual loss in the primary was due not to his station as congressman, but declining clout of organized labor and other factors.

While Pence has yet to offer any public indication that he is weighing a run, banter in his district back home suggests he might consider testing the waters in at least one early primary state. His potential campaign has received increasing attention from political prognosticators and energetic backing from a grassroots draft movement. A strong, consistent record on economic and social issues could earn him the trust of a restive base while renewing and strengthening the bonds of trust between the libertarian and evangelical wings of the party. As such, he would enter a primary calendar front-loaded with states like South Carolina and New Hampshire with a naturally solid footing from which to compete.

When communicated properly, conservatism wins with the American people. Substance and style make this cheerful conservative from the heartland the perfect candidate to carry a revitalized message of limited government and traditional values to the nation's electorate. Youthful and imminently likeable, he comes complete with a beautiful young family and sparkling past. Pence would keep the South uniformly Republican, make up for the party's recent slippage in the West, hold his own in the Rust Belt and potentially flip places like New Hampshire back to the GOP ledger.

Early Competition

A review of the early favorites quickly reveals serious shortcomings as a potential president, and political liabilities as a candidate. Each has contributed in great ways to the country, a fact to keep in mind in any examination of their weaknesses.

McCain will be 72 years old at election time, and along with questions about his age, there could be ugly, unfair questions asked in false earnest about the effects of his time as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. There will be ugly, quite fair questions about his attack on the 1st Amendment through so-called Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, his vote against the first Bush tax cuts and his lax approach to border security, among others. Although it was some time ago, his first marriage ended in adultery and divorce.

The question of whether a Mormon can win the presidency still lingers for Romney, but that is not his only problem. He could very likely emerge as the John Kerry of the GOP primary, simultaneously defined as liberal and a flip-flopper. He has taken multiple, conflicting positions on important cultural issues such as abortion, marriage and gun rights, which will cost him dearly not only in the primary but in the general.

During the midterms Rudy Giuliani drew crowds at campaign events in Middle America, but it's uncertain the same celebrity will persuade primary voters to pull the lever for a pro-abortion candidate more friendly to gay rights than gun rights; his multiple divorces and infidelities aren't going to score him any points either. Those asserting Rudy could be a map-changer for the GOP display a kind of oxymoronic clairvoyance. He would win the South but with reduced margins, do reasonably well in the Midwest and Upper Midwest and perhaps pick off one or two Upper Coastal or New England states, with an opponent like Bill Richardson (D.-N.M.)—governor of a Western red state, Hispanic, with foreign policy bona fides - carving whole swaths through the Southwest, the Deep South and Appalachia Country and putting the libertarian-leaning but Hispanic-population increasing Rocky Mountain West up for grabs.

Obstacles

Pence has four obstacles to clear on his way to earning the nomination and winning the general. More precisely, there are four things he needs to become president: name recognition, campaign cash, a high-powered staff with national experience and signature legislation he can hang his hat on.

To beltway insiders and the partisan class, Pence is recognized as a rising star and a force on the Hill, yet he remains unknown to much of the American public. To remedy this, he must make noises within the next several months indicating he is open to considering a bid. He should publish a book during the next year outlining his vision for America's future, overlaid against the backdrop of his own autobiography. Finally, the first member of Congress to launch his own blog must continue to aggressively court new and old media alike.

He must signal to major donors that he is at least considering a run, so that the dollars that might come his way do not flow elsewhere. Fiscally conservative, Wall Street Journal-type Republicans, who would like to see a Pence-like nominee as opposed to Sen. Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.), must also get behind him in a big way. With his superstar status among movement conservatives, his early adaptation to the Internet and his relationship with the new media, Pence could raise money from the netroots like few other candidates.

Pence’s status as the race's total-package conservative Republican could provide a boost in recruiting the right kind of staff from the onset, and he would have to be successful in picking up top-level operatives from other campaigns as other candidates drop out. In the end, the staff he can get will depend on him putting out some signs in the next several months, and the degree to which energy from the grassroots convinces top talent that he would be competitive.

Pence’s biggest obstacle could turn out to be a less than extensive portfolio of signature legislative achievements. He must prepare to market nationally his existing record of independence and conviction, but also seek to pass one or two pieces of high-profile legislation in the next two years. Doing so will not be easy under Democrat control, but with their narrow majority in the Senate and a Republican in the White House, there could be potential for Pence to attempt constructive, principled compromise on issues like ethics reforms or even immigration and border security reform, although the latter could prove a long shot.

Other Options

If Pence declines to enter the race, he might instead set his sights on a statewide bid in 2008. Evan Bayh, Indiana's junior U.S. senator and a Democrat, has formed an exploratory committee and will make an announcement in January regarding his intentions as a prospective presidential candidate. He does not have to resign his Senate seat to seek his party's nomination or appear on its national ticket, although if he does, public pressure might compel him to resign his seat in the 1996 tradition of Sen. Bob Dole (R.-Kan.). If that happened, Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, might appoint Pence to Bayh's seat.

Pence's other statewide option in 2008 would be challenge Daniels in a primary, an added incentive for Daniels to select Pence for a vacant seat. Such a challenge has been speculated by some, but not validated by anybody in the Pence camp. Finally, if he instead decides to continue in his role as one of the principal House conservatives, Pence would be well-positioned to make a run for leadership following the 2008 elections.

A Call for Leadership

The right and responsibility of Americans to choose their leaders has in modern history taken its most dynamic form in grassroots presidential politics: first by the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964, later the Reagan Revolution in 1980. Now is the time to consider the qualities we seek in a Republican nominee.

Will we nominate and elect a candidate who embraces our core principles of limited government and traditional moral values, or will we support a politician who places political expediency above those principles, and succumb to the growing danger of Big-Government Republicanism? It is up to conservatives of every stripe to call upon and nominate the right leader who is the right candidate at the right time, and that unique figure in 2008 is Mike Pence of Indiana.

Mr. Johnson is the former editor of Equitas, a conservative and libertarian publication at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He currently works as a political communications consultant in Jefferson City, Mo.

The Case for Mike Pence in 2008

Pence on the Iraq Study Group

2006-12-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here is Pence's statement about the Iraq Study Group report.

"I am confident that our President and the Congress will work together to ensure a successful completion of our mission in Iraq. Our tactics or diplomatic efforts may change, but America must not change its resolve to see freedom win in Iraq. The sacrifices of our fallen soldiers, their families and the millions in Iraq who long for liberty demand no less."

Hensarling replaces Pence as chair of RSC

2006-12-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

Conservatives won with Mike Pence leading the way in electing a true conservative in Jeb Hensarling as the new chairman of the Republican Study Committee. Here is Pence's statement of the victory.

"The members of the Republican Study Committee chose wisely in electing Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas as their chairman for the 110th Congress.

"As the first contested election for chairman of the RSC, this was a choice between two good conservatives. I commend Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Kansas on a well-fought campaign and on his many years of conservative leadership.

"Jeb Hensarling is a friend of freedom like no other. Over the past two years, Jeb has been at the center of every battle where House conservatives made a difference for fiscal discipline and reform. Jeb Hensarling is the right man to lead House conservatives in the 110th Congress.

"For his integrity, his personal courage and his unparalleled devotion to the conservative agenda, I welcome the election of my friend, and freedom's friend, Jeb Hensarling of Texas as the next chairman of the Republican Study Committee."

Club For Growth on the RSC Elections

Pence moves up in prominent presidential ranking

2006-12-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

Mike Pence moved up on the 2008 Power Rankings on PolticalDerby.com after becoming a national conservative figure during the leadership elections in the House. He's currently at 6th place but will soon be in the top 5 because people want a true conservative leader with the principles to stand for limited government, a strong national defense and traditional moral values. Here are the current rankings.

1. John McCain (steady)
2. Mitt Romney (going up)
3. Rudy Giuliani (going down)
4. Newt Gingrich (steady)
5. Mike Huckabee (steady)
6. Mike Pence (going up)
7. Bill Frist (steady) [dropped out of race]
8. Condi Rice (steady)
9. Duncan Hunter (steady)
10. George Allen (going down)

Power Rankings on PoliticalDerby.com

South Carolina wants Pence to explore Presidency

2006-12-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

South Carolina for Pence urges the Indiana Congressman to visit the Palmetto State

A couple of hundred South Carolina families have joined with several thousand nationwide as we urge Conservative leader Mike Pence to visit South Carolina and explore the possibility of a run at the Presidency in 2008.

As the results of the 06 election will attest, the Republican Party has lost its way. Only by a return to core beliefs and firm principles can this party make its way out of the wilderness and back to the majority.

South Carolina for Pence feels that only Indiana Congressman Mike Pence has the integrity, courage, and conservative principles to lead this party back to where it belongs as the party of Ronald Reagan.

Mike Pence is committed to defending Life, a limited Government, and a strong national defense. Pence has a perfect lifetime conservative rating from the American Conservative Union and the Club for Growth. No elected official has done more in the last five years to advance traditional Reagan beliefs than Congressman Pence.

SC for Pence wants those Reagan beliefs to be a part of the national debate in the 08 cycle and we feel no one but Mike Pence can articulate and then implement a Reaganesque agenda that will secure freedom in America for our Children and Grandchildren.

Congressman Pence’s website can be located at www.mikepence.com

and our website is at www.pence08.com.

CONTACT:

Clemsonforpence@pence08.com

* This press release was written and distributed by Clemson for Pence

Eugene Minson Chairman
Melissa Holder Vice Chair
Mirenda Alexander Secretary
Mark Gordon Treasurer
Anthony Stack Executive Director

Mike Pence Press Release

Hensarling to fill Pence's shoes as RSC chair

2006-11-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

Mike Pence led the Republican Study Committee, the largest and most conservative caucus in the House, to national prominence in the conservative debate after 2 years of strong leadership. Now it is time to continue the Pence movement by electing Hensarling, RSC's budget and spending taskforce chair, to fill Pence's shoes in bringing limited government, fiscal discipline and reform to the House while Pence brings this message to America. Here is an article by CQ Politics about the RSC elections.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling will be nominated to head the Republican Study Committee next year, according to a letter sent Tuesday by eight of the most active RSC members.

Their endorsement of the second-term Texas Republican sets up a potentially nasty fight over the direction of the House’s most conservative faction. The four founders of the RSC — John T. Doolittle of California, Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, Dan Burton of Indiana and Sam Johnson of Texas — are expected to nominate their own candidate, appropriator Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, for the post.

The RSC founders’ pick has been honored in the past by the rank and file. But Tuesday’s letter signed by current RSC Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana, John Shadegg of Arizona and six other conservatives signals a willingness among some RSC members to continue using aggressive tactics in the pursuit of a more conservative legislative agenda.

Some Republicans blame Pence and his allies in the RSC for election losses, pointing to their campaign to publicize spending increases during a period of Republican control of Congress. But many conservatives say the GOP’s loss of the House and Senate resulted from an abandonment of small-government principles.

Pence has won praise from conservative activists for his stands against pork barrel spending, President Bush’s 2001 education overhaul and the Medicare prescription-drug law.

But he and Shadegg, both of whom signed the Hensarling letter, were easily defeated in Republican leadership bids earlier this month, a loss that was seen as a rebuke of their message and tactics.

Some conservative aides have expressed concern about promoting Tiahrt, an appropriator to head a group that often clashes with the Appropriations Committee on spending issues. Others worry that Tiahrt would give Republican leaders too much sway over the RSC.

In an interview last week, Tiahrt suggested that he has at least tacit backing from Republican leaders.

“I have spoken with leadership about the job. They’re supportive,” he said.

He argued that he has advanced conservative principles as a member of the Appropriations Committee.

“There are some who think that appropriators are the enemy and everyone’s entitled to their view,” he said. “Most of them haven’t been around long enough to see some of my battles.”

Tiahrt has sponsored amendments aimed at prohibiting funding for foreign family-planning groups, needle-exchange programs and adoptions by gay couples.

His penchant for sticking conservative social-policy riders on appropriations bills has not always met with approval from fellow appropriators.

Hensarling’s backers say he is “committed to advancing conservative principles of limited-government, traditional family values, a strong national defense and retaking the majority in 2008.”

In addition to Pence and Shadegg, the Hensarling endorsement letter was signed by Reps. Tom Feeney of Florida, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Kevin Brady of Texas, Jeff Flake of Arizona, J. Gresham Barrett of South Carolina and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

Hensarling to Be Nominated to Head RSC

Pence's post-leadership election statement

2006-11-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

"It was one of the greatest honors of my life to stand for election as Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. I am deeply humbled by the support extended to me by many both within and outside the Republican Minority in Congress.

"I congratulate Minority Leader John Boehner on his election. I look forward to working with him as we steer our Republican Conference back to the principles of limited government, fiscal discipline and traditional moral values."

Pence's speech to the Republican Conference

2006-11-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

I know there are many traditions in this room but permit me begin by acknowledging God. He has given my family and my staff the health and strength to give our colleagues a choice: to endure this contest of worthy opponents with grace.

I want to thank my supporters in this room, loyal friends who have stood at my side in this cause, wherever life takes my little family, I will always see you in this moment and admire your courage and your willingness to act on principle whatever the cost.

And to those of you who oppose me, thank all of you for the kindness, even in opposition. Many whom I have dueled with on the floor and in conference showed me the greatest respect.

I haven’t been turned down this often or this nicely since I was trying to get a date for the prom!

To the good men and women of the 110th Congress, thank you for your courtesy and your encouragement. I love you guys.

I am running for Republican leader because I believe we did not just lose our Majority, I believe we lost our way.

We are in the wilderness because we walked away from the limited government principles that minted the Republican Congress.

But there is a way out.

Mark Helprin wrote, “the way out of the wilderness is the truth; recognizing it, stating it, defending it, living by it.” Here’s the truth as I see it.

The Truth

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the real scandal in Washington, D.C. was runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a Majority committed to a balanced federal budget, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of a limited federal government.

In recent years, our Majority voted to expand the federal government’s role in education by nearly 100 percent, created the largest new entitlement in forty years, and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

This was not in the Contract with America.

Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision.

I say the American people did not quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our government and our most dedicated supporters.

And I am not saying this because I bear no blame for this departure.

While I opposed No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug entitlement, my opponent voted against the Farm Bill and never requested earmarks in his entire career. I supported the Farm Bill and have requested earmarks every year I have been in Congress.

None of us are blameless, least of all me.

When I say we lost our way, I mean all of us, to one degree or another, lost our sense of true north.

As we choose who will lead us in the days ahead, it is important we learn the right lessons from 2006. It is even more important that we move forward with a renewed commitment to do our duty.

While tragic necessity has placed us in this position, I urge you to seize this day and join me as we return our Conference and our party to the conservative principles that minted our Majority in 1994.

We must reject the path of big government Republicanism that led us into the box canyon of 2006.

Only by renewing our commitment to fight for the principles embodied in the Contract with America can we hope to have the credibility to earn back the opportunity to lead this national legislature.

Let me say a word about my opponent, John Boehner.

I am not running because I think John Boehner did a bad job as Majority Leader. Quite the contrary. I think the guy deserves a medal.

John Boehner is an honorable man and John Boehner is a conservative.

He took a tough job under the worst circumstances and made the best of it and I commend him for it.

I am not running because I think I am a better man. I am running because I think I might just be the best man to lead this conference as Minority Leader.

And the role of the Minority Leader is different from Majority Leader. Each demand different skills and each have different goals.

Our goal in the Majority was to pass legislation reflecting Republican principles.

Our goal of the Republican Minority in the 110th Congress should be to defeat the liberal agenda of the Democrat Party and become the majority in Congress again.

We will only defeat the Democrat agenda by presenting a positive, conservative message in vivid contrast to the big government liberalism of the new Majority.

New Vision

To renew our Majority, we must offer this nation a compelling vision of fiscal discipline and reform.

It is written “without a vision, the people perish.” What is true of a people is also true of any political movement.

Our new Republican minority must rededicate itself to the ideals and standards that minted our majority in 1994.

Now, as then, we must pledge ourselves to find a consensus agenda, acceptable to every member of our conference, like the Contract with America, and promote that agenda through policy and persuasion that will resonate with the American people.

We must again embrace the notion that Republicans seek the Majority not simply to govern but to change government for the better. We are the agents of change and we must return to that reformist vision.

New Voices

And I believe we must confront this moment with new leadership and new voices.

We must take a page from the playbook of President Ronald Reagan who taught us that it is not enough to believe great things, we must effectively communicate great things to the American people.

Throughout my public career, I have worked to provide a credible and persuasive voice for the Reagan agenda. I became a Republican because of Ronald Reagan.

My decade as a working radio and television broadcaster combined with the credibility that has earned me the support of dozens of conservative leaders and publications, might just prove that I am uniquely prepared to renew the confidence of millions of Americans in our commitment to core Republican values.

Without the votes necessary to stop the advance of their liberal priorities, our mission will be one of persuasion and tactics.

We don’t just need leaders in the air to member districts, we need leaders on the air.

Each of us must commit ourselves to using our voices and expertise to dismantle Democrat arguments and expose their liberal, big government agenda at every turn.

I see every Republican member as a leader, with unique gifts and talents, and I am offering my talents as both spokesman and coach to bring this team of leaders to the American people.

But our challenge in the majority won’t just be about opposing the Democratic agenda.

There may be one other task.

In 1990 I was a candidate for Congress when the last Bush Administration sided with a Democrat Majority in Congress to pass the largest tax increase in history.

I watched as a Republican president worked with a Democratic Congress to the detriment of every Republican candidate in the country.

As Moses famously said, “I’ve been burned by a Bush before.”

As most of you know, I have never hesitated to stand with this President when I thought he was right-even on tough issues like the war.

And, I have never hesitated to oppose this President, publicly and boldly, when he has pursued policies at odds with my commitment to limited government.

This Republican Conference and its new leaders must be prepared to stand up to this President when he is wrong …when he pursues policies at odds with the principles of limited government and the rule of law.

I will represent the Conference to the White House, not the other way around.

As your Minority Leader, I will defend our nation, our treasury and our values.

I will stand with those who stand for freedom and defeat the voices of retreat.

I will fight to renew our reputation for fiscal discipline and reform.

And, while I will exercise and abundance of respect for all members on matters of conscience….let me say with clarity:

This is a pro-life conference and I will be a pro-life Minority Leader.

Conclusion

In 1995, House Republicans wrote the following in one of their first governing documents:

America stands at a crossroads. Down one path lies more and more debt and the continued degradation of the Federal Government and the people it is intended to serve. Down the other lies the restoration of the American dream…we choose the second of these roads.

We are once again at a historic crossroads in the nation’s future.

The result of last week’s election means that America is poised to go down the other path--the wrong one.

Our Minority must stand in the gap and point the path to the other road. We must be a light in the darkness. I brought a weathered pocket copy of the Ten Commandments with me this morning. The card is yellow from nearly twenty years of use. As I was preparing to speak, my eyes fell on a passage I had not noticed before. Exodus 20:20 reads, “Do not be afraid for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you.”

Men and women of the Republican conference, Providence has come to test us and I know we will pass this test. We will do the work the American people elect Republicans to do; defend our nation, defend our treasury and defend our values with all we’ve got.

In the words of the founder of our Republican Party, “with malice toward none and charity toward all,” I ask for your support for Minority Leader of the 110th Congress.

Mike Pence

Family Research Council endorses Pence

2006-11-15T06:06:00.000-08:00

It is no coincidence that with every shift in power in Washington there is a shift in Leadership. In two separate op-eds today both Tom McClusky, FRC's Vice President of Government Affairs, and I point out that the new Democratic Leadership will be representing the most in-your-face liberal ideology we've seen since the early 90's. In response the Republicans must elect leaders who best represent the ideology they hope to pursue as a minority party. Will Republicans in Congress decide to stay the course? To do so will guarantee the Republican Party minority status for the years to come. Republicans should elect true blue leaders who will bring back into focus core conservative principles that brought them out the previous 40 years in the political wilderness.

I firmly believe that Mike Pence (R-IN) would be the best choice to lead House Republicans as Minority Leader. As Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Mike has shown his ability to work with and lead his colleagues in championing limited government and family-friendly policies. A refusal to change direction in leadership sends a very clear signal that pro-family issues will remain relegated to the level of campaign issues or below. A vote to stay the course is a vote to remain in the political wilderness for another 40 years. Call your Republican member of Congress and urge them to support Mike Pence

Tony Perkins

Congressional Switchboard
1-800-839-5276 or 202-224-3121

Write your Representative!

Tony Perkins and FRC endorse Pence for Minority Leader

Pence's vision for the future

2006-11-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

Team of Leaders: Renewing Our Majority
Unity—Visibility—Strategy

Mike Pence

“The heart of what a statesman says is in simple words that draw their force from the compelling circumstance that they are true.” – Mark Helprin

Introduction

I believe we did not just lose our Majority, we lost our way.

I believe this happened to us because somewhere along the way we lost our willingness to fight for limited government, fiscal discipline, traditional values and reform. And, I believe that millions of our most ardent supporters figured this out.

As Mark Helprin wrote, “The Republican Party was unwilling and unable to go into battle to defend American exceptionalism, to defend the idea that our politics depend on self-evident truth…that the modern Republican Party fails to defend because its leaders are interested not in truth but in power.” Election Day was not a rejection of our agenda as the opposition party will allege. It was a plaintive cry from millions of Americans who had grown weary of the expansion of government, fiscal mismanagement and outright corruption that has beset our Majority in recent years.

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the real scandal in Washington D.C. is runaway federal spending, and our voters said, “Enough is enough.”

After 1994, we were a Majority committed to a balanced federal budget, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of a limited federal government. In recent years, our Majority voted to expand the federal government’s role in education by nearly 100 percent, created the largest new entitlement in forty years, and pursued spending policies that created record deficits, national debt and rampant earmark spending.

This was not in the Contract with America. Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people did not quit on the Contract with America—we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our government and our most dedicated supporters.

As we choose who will lead us in the days ahead, it is important we learn the right lessons from 2006. It is even more important that we move forward with a renewed commitment to do our duty. While tragic necessity has placed us in this position, I urge you to seize this day and join me as we return our Conference and our party to the principles of the Reagan Revolution.

Our new Republican Minority in Congress must be rededicated to the conservative principles that minted our Majority in 1994. We must reject the path of big government Republicanism that led us into the box canyon of 2006. Only by renewing our commitment to fight for conservative values of limited government, traditional values, fiscal discipline, and reform, can we hope to have the credibility to earn back the opportunity to lead this national legislature.

We are in the wilderness because we walked away from the principles that brought us our governing Majority. I believe there is a way out. “The way out of the wilderness is the truth; recognizing it, stating it, defending it, living by it,” wrote Mark Helprin.

It is time to act without inhibition or fear and to believe in our principles and our people. We must have faith in our ideas, be bold, and trust the innate wisdom of the American people.

It is time to remember the vision of a freedom-loving party championing limited government, a strong robust national defense, and traditional moral values. That is the vision we advertised to our constituents, and it is what they expect from us. If we offer that, they will renew our Majority and put us back in charge. Here is my plan:

Reaffirm First Principles

Let me be very clear. I do not believe we need to figure out what our vision should be. I do not think we need to go back to the drawing board and mix and mash into place a set of principles to guide us. We already know what those first principles are – the same ones articulated by Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and the authors of the Contract with America. We just need to remember them and why we came here.

We came here to promote freedom and opportunity. We came here to allow American families to keep more of their hard-earned money and spend it on their own priorities rather than Washington’s, a reality that only can be accomplished through less government, lower taxes, less federal spending, and economic prosperity. We came here to rekindle the fires of men, material, and morale that warm the warriors who stand on freedom’s ramparts in far-off lands. And we came here to assert again the constitutional rule of law, an unalienable right to life, and the traditional values shared by millions of Americans.

That is our vision. It does not need to be constructed out of papier-mâché or run through a focus group. Instead, it must be remembered, embraced in our hearts, and endlessly articulated, even in the midst of adverse political winds.

Unity

Once we remember what we stand for, it is obviously important to execute, but we cannot execute until we unite. What defines us can no longer be about membership in this faction or that. Our Minority can no longer be riddled by the sort of divisions that have recently characterized our Conference. We must put aside the petty and instead create consistent opportunities to promote the personal ties that bind us.

It is important for you to know that as your Leader, you will have my ear. Leading is listening to the entire Conference and shaping a unified message and agenda for us to act upon, and I will do exactly that.

At the Republican Study Committee (RSC), we fostered a spirit of unity—a sense that we are all in this together with an understanding, borne of experience, that no matter how dark the day, our friends would be at our sides. This focus caused us to revamp our annual retreat so that colleagues and their spouses could talk, get to know each other, and be refreshed anew as they heard the ideas and insights of guest speakers. We continued these gatherings or “mini retreats” throughout the term to give members an opportunity to take a deep breath and reflect on the road just traveled and the road ahead. And on a weekly basis, as other groups within the Conference do, the RSC continued its lunch meetings to share news and opportunities to help each other.

These family-friendly events are important. For this reason, I would plan seasonal “unity dinners” in which the Conference would gather for nothing other than food, fellowship and inspiration. No fundraising, no leadership pitches—just fellowship. In addition, our weekly Conference meetings, which will undoubtedly focus on the important matters of tactics and policy at hand, would still retain a sliver of time to promote smaller, less formal unity opportunities—not all of which will be the brainchild of the new Leadership team. We will rely on your initiative. However, by focusing on it each week, the concept of remaining united will be foremost in our minds.

Visibility

One of the most important responsibilities of any minority is to articulate a credible alternative to the Majority that governs. Minorities that are unsuccessful either fail to construct such an alternative or fail to communicate it. We will not fail to do the former, and we cannot neglect the latter. To that end, we must not shy away from the media either within the Beltway or back home in our districts.

We need leaders traveling to support our candidates and campaigns. But we do not just need leaders in the air — we need leaders on the air. It is important that our Leadership and every single Member be on the public airwaves, articulating our message, and encouraging by example the entire Conference to follow suit.

That credibility will be essential for our primary task these next two years: to expose, dismantle and defeat the “principles to which we have been forced to succumb.” The primary mission of the Republican Party in the 110th Congress will be to defeat the agenda of the Democratic Party in Congress. Each of us must dedicate ourselves to using our talents and expertise to dismantle Democratic arguments and expose their liberal, big government agenda at every turn.

Overall, our Minority must jettison the habitual disdain that all too often takes root with respect to the media. The media does not always consist of our friends, but neither should they be viewed as our enemies. Treating the media with suspicion does us no good in the long run. Our ideas can be communicated and they must. We cannot offer the needed and endless jeremiads to failed Democrat policies (and the new ones they come up with that will fail) if we are silent and invisible.

Strategy

Without the votes necessary to stop the advance of Democrat priorities, our mission will be one of persuasion and tactics. We must offer this nation a compelling vision of renewal and reform. It is written, “Without a vision, the people perish.” We have learned, through arduous trial, that what is true of a nation is also true of a governing Majority. Our duty in the Minority is to communicate a forceful vision of limited government, traditional values and reform that will propel our party back into the Majority in 2008.

After an election defeat, Winston Churchill described the duty before us. Churchill quoted the late Lord Salisbury who wrote in 1867, “It is the duty of Englishmen and every English party to accept political defeat cordially and to do their best endeavors to secure the success or to neutralize the evil of the principles to which we have been forced to succumb.” Churchill added in his own words, “It is good that we have no wish to be unfaithful to so wholesome a tradition.”

The days ahead will be challenging, but I relish the opportunity to be faithful to so wholesome a tradition. Our duty in the Majority was to govern. Our duty in the Minority is to propose solutions based on Republican principles and tear down every Democratic argument that sets itself against our agenda. We must look for every strategic opportunity to stand in the gap.

We must not grow complacent, neglecting to learn the procedures of the House of Representatives — relying on auto-pilot special rules that require no more from us than to show up and vote. Our Minority Leadership team must be present on the floor and practiced at maximizing our procedural posture.

Newt Gingrich once said, “The number-one fact about the news media is that they love fights. When you give them confrontations, you get attention. When you get attention, you can educate.” More than anything, our Minority must educate the American people about our renewed vision and thus, we must choose our battles wisely. Whether it be discharge petitions, extensive use of the unfunded mandates and earmark reform rules, vote-a-ramas, timely motions to adjourn, and filibusters by amendment during the appropriations season, rest assured our Minority will confront.

This will not be a new terrain for me or my team. At the RSC, we used or advocated for many of these tools to move our agenda when appropriate. In addition, we initiated an internal rewrite of the House Rules that led us to offer numerous proposals to improve the rules to control spending and legislative transparency. While most were voted down, the effort deepened our understanding of the Institution and the specific levers at our disposal. Our team is knowledgeable, our team is motivated, and our team is prepared for the House floor.

That is not to say that we will only obstruct. Certainly not. We also will attempt to restart the old GOP-Boll Weevil coalition that proved so successful in the 1980s to advance President Reagan’s revolution with a Democrat House and a Republican Senate. There are Blue Dog Democrats that want to balance the budget, address our nation’s abounding debt, strengthen Social Security, and protect life and marriage. Our Minority will look for opportunities to work with them when there is agreement, and our hope will be that these occasions will not be few and far between.

A Positive Agenda

It is important to get one last thing straight. As your leader, I will not encourage you to use negative personal attacks on the floor or in your campaigns. The American people are weary of the personal invective of modern politics. Some of you may not know that it took me a long time to get to Congress. I lost two races, in 1988 and 1990. Those experiences were not fun, but they taught me an important lesson, prompting me to pen an article called “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner.” My realization was not that negative personal attacks cannot “work.” At times, they very well may, but they have an opportunity cost. They squander priceless opportunities to define how we would govern differently, what our ideas are, and why they are better. When we resort to the politics of personal destruction, we are inherently off-message.

Our campaigns must value winning, but as candidates we cannot be seduced by the political opportunities of the moment and find ourselves swayed from our principles just to win the next election. As I wrote then in defeat and believe now, in order to attain a strong and lasting Majority we ought to be a new breed of candidates that seek to leave a foundation of arguments in favor of policies that will stand the test of time. We must run not just “to win,” but “to stand.” And if we stand on that foundation, we will win and usher in a new Majority—one that will be concerned with far more than continuing to retain itself.

Conclusion

In 1995, House Republicans wrote the following in one of their first governing documents:

America stands at a crossroads. Down one path lies more and more debt and the continued degradation of the Federal Government and the people it is intended to serve. Down the other lies the restoration of the American dream…we choose the second of these roads. We do it because it’s right. We do it because it’s sensible. We do it because America’s future does not belong to the Congress, or the administration, or any political party. It belongs to the American people themselves.

We are once again at a historic crossroads in the nation’s future. Unfortunately, the result of this week’s election means that America, with Republican losses in both the Senate and the House and a President with only two years left to serve, is poised to go down the other path — the wrong one. Our Minority must stand in the gap and point the path to the other road. We must be a light in the darkness. For these two years, my friends, that must be our legacy. It is the only legacy the American people will accept from us.

Support Mike Pence for Minority Leader

2006-11-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Republican Colleague,

I am writing to announce my candidacy for Republican Leader in the 110th Congress and to ask for your support. I will make every effort to speak with you about this personally before our leadership elections, and I am anxious to hear your thoughts and counsel.

Like all of you, I was deeply disappointed with the outcome of Election Day 2006. I am saddened to think of the men and women who will leave our ranks and cannot reflect on the names without emotion or ask, as Gideon did in defeat, "why has all this happened to us?"

I urge you to consider this specific question as we return to the Capitol to choose the men and women who will lead us back to the Majority. I look forward to your analysis but, as Sen. Phil Gramm once said, "I've got an open mind, but not an empty mind." Here is my take.

I am running for Republican leader, because I believe that we did not just lose our Majority-we lost our way. We are in the wilderness because we walked away from the limited government principles that minted the Republican Congress. But there is a way out. "The way out of the wilderness," author Mark Helprin wrote, "is the truth; recognizing it, stating it, defending it, living by it." Here is the truth as I see it.

The Truth:

After 1994, we were a Majority committed to a balanced federal budget, entitlement reform and the principles of a limited federal government. We delivered on balanced federal budgets, welfare reform and responded to a national emergency with defense spending, homeland security and tax cuts that put our economy back on its feet.

However, in recent years, to the chagrin of millions of Republicans, our Majority also voted to expand the federal government's role in education by nearly 100% and created the largest new entitlement in 40 years. We also pursued domestic spending policies that created record deficits, national debt and earmark spending that has embarrassed us and caused many Americans to question our commitment to fiscal responsibility.

This was not in the Contract with America.

Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people did not quit on the Contract with America, we did. In so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.

As we choose who will lead us in the days ahead, it is essential that we learn from the lessons of 2006. It is more important that we move forward with a renewed commitment to our principles and the vigor to do our duty.

Our mission has now changed. Our mission in the Majority was to pass legislation reflecting Republican principles. The duty of the Republican Minority in the 110th Congress is to defeat the liberal agenda of the Democrat Party and become the majority in Congress again. We will only defeat the Democrat agenda by presenting a positive, conservative message in vivid contrast to the big government liberalism of the new Majority.

New Vision:

To renew our Majority, we must offer this nation a compelling vision of fiscal discipline and reform. It is written "without a vision, the people perish." What is true of a people is also true of any political movement. Our new Republican minority must rededicate itself to the ideals and standards that minted our majority in 1994. Only by renewing the promises of the Republican Revolution will we attain Majority status again. Now, as then, we must pledge ourselves to promote and defend the agenda the American people elect Republicans to advance; defend our nation, our treasury and our values. We must again embrace the notion that Republicans seek the Majority not simply to govern but to change government for the better. We are the agents of change and we must return to that reformist vision.

New Voices:

I have great respect and appreciation for the hard work and leadership provided by our current leadership. Like most members of our conference, I have stood behind our leaders through good times and challenging times. However, in this new time of challenge also comes opportunity. I believe we must confront this moment with new leadership and new voices. We must take a page from the playbook of President Ronald Reagan who taught us that it is not enough to believe great things, we must effectively communicate great things to the American people.

In various roles, over the past six years, I have worked to provide a credible and persuasive voice for the Reagan agenda. Credibility will be essential for our primary task these next two years-to expose, dismantle and defeat the Democrat agenda. Without the votes necessary to stop the advance of their liberal priorities, our mission will be one of persuasion and tactics. Each of us must commit ourselves to using our voices and areas of expertise to dismantle Democrat arguments and expose their liberal, big government agenda at every turn. I see every Republican member as a leader, with unique gifts and talents, and I am asking for the privilege of serving this team of leaders.

These are anxious times, and we all feel the pain of opportunity lost. I encourage you to act without fear or inhibition, to be bold in your choices, and return this conference to the ideals and standards that created our national governing Majority. To retake our Majority, we must "be strong and courageous and do the work." We must renew our commitment to the agenda of the Majority of the American people, and defend our nation, our treasury and our values for ourselves and our posterity.

I am ready to work with you to restore and renew the Republican Congress. I ask for your support to serve you as Republican Leader in the 110th Congress.

Most sincerely,

Rep. Mike Pence

A positive campaign/debate (a rarity in politics today)

2006-11-01T12:50:00.000-08:00

After a long month of watching negative campaign ads and listening to candidates only talk about their opposition and how bad they are, here is an example to follow in the debate between Mike Pence and his opponent in the 6th district. Pence knows what it means to be a statesman and how to put our conservative principles on the offensive instead of wasting time talking about the other person. A campaign should not be about a person but rather about ideas. This is why Mike Pence will easily win his re-election. Here is an article on the Pence debate.

MUNCIE -- If their lone debate is any indication, Mike Pence and Barry Welsh are steering clear of the mud-slinging that pervades many campaigns.

Pence, the long-time incumbent Republican, and his Democratic challenger Welsh met Monday in Muncie in a forum characterized by civility and politeness and free from protests.

Pence spent much of the time referring to his opponent as "Rev. Welsh," while Welsh referred to Pence as "Mr. Pence."

While they agreed to a civil approach, they disagreed on the issues.

The first question moderator Steve Bell asked illustrated the differences: What each candidate would first do in Congress that would differ from the other.

Welsh immediately said he would propose a law to raise the minimum wage. Pence said he would do what was necessary to make certain American soldiers had what they needed to fight the war on terror.

On same-sex marriage, Pence said he supported a constitutional amendment to ban it while Welsh said state law made a constitutional change unnecessary. Both are pro-life and agree on the need to secure American borders.

Pence -- who brought his wife, Karen, and senior staff to the event -- talked about how President Bush's economic policies and tax cuts helped create 6.6 million new jobs since August 2003, keeping unemployment at a 30-year low.

Welsh said he opposed foreign trade agreements, saying they had cost too many American manufacturing jobs. Pence countered that free trade helped create jobs and expand the economy, such as Honda building a new auto assembly plant in Greensburg that will create 2,500 jobs.

Jim Hahn, retired from Guide Corp. in Anderson, which is closing next year, said he believed both candidates responded well.

"Pence has been in office and he pretty much knows what is going on," Hahn said.

Fred Hellmer, who retired from Chrysler Corp. in New Castle, said he believed the discussion was even, although he pointed to fewer local jobs and a war that has gone wrong.

"I think the war was a big mistake from the word go," he said.

Janice Canan, a retired real estate appraisal, liked Pence and his views on family values and other issues, saying he represented the views of most area residents.

Pence/Welsh race for Congress a lesson in civility

CNN on Mike Pence

2006-10-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

CNN did a special on how Republicans have strayed away from our conservative principles of limited government and fiscal discipline. Here is an article talking about this special and how Mike Pence is leading us back to our cherished values of Ronald Reagan and conservatism.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A quarter century after the Reagan revolution and a dozen years after Republicans vaulted into control of Congress, a new CNN poll finds most Americans still agree with the bedrock conservative premise that, as the Gipper put it, "government is not the answer to our problems -- government is the problem."

The poll released Friday also showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans perceive, correctly, that the size and cost of government have gone up in the past four years, when Republicans have had a grip on the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House.

Discretionary spending grew from $649 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $968 billion in fiscal year 2005, an increase of $319 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Queried about their views on the role of government, 54 percent of the 1,013 adults polled said they thought it was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Only 37 percent said they thought the government should do more to solve the country's problems.

Americans had a slightly different perspective when it came to the specific issue of promoting traditional values. A slight majority -- 51 percent -- said they thought that was an appropriate activity for government, while 43 percent said it should not favor any particular set of values.

The sampling error for the questions in the poll, conducted for CNN by Opinion Research Corporation, was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

When asked if the size of the federal government has increased in the past four years, 72 percent said it had, and 86 percent said they thought federal spending had gone up during the same period. Those questions have a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percent.

In recent months, a growing number of conservatives have been complaining out loud about increases in the scope and cost of government, despite the GOP's grip on all the levers of power. (Read Jeff Greenfield's analysis of where the right went wrong)

"I believe that as a movement, we have veered off course into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government Republicanism," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, a 110-member caucus that supports limited government and lower taxes.

Poll: Majority believes government doing too much

Endorsement for Pence 2006

2006-10-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

The endorsements continue to pile in for Mike Pence's reelection campaign as it gets closer to November 7th. Here is an endorsement by Fort Wayne's newspaper The News-Sentinel expressing their strong support for Mike Pence and his conservative leadership and service to Indiana's 6th District and America.

Those who want conservative principles and traditional values in Washington, who desire a limited but effective government and a continued, serious effort on the war on terror, should vote for incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Pence in the 6th District...

...Here there are no doubts, no qualifications, no second-guessing. Of all the Republicans worried by the disaffected mood sweeping the nation, Mike Pence should have the least cause for concern. He has absolutely earned another term in Congress by sticking resolutely to his conservative principles and the values he went to Washington to represent. He has gotten national attention – there are even Web sites touting him for president – by reminding fellow Republicans that they are supposed to be members of the fiscally responsible party and that if they abandon that discipline, they don’t deserve to stay in power...

...Certainly Pence has the experience and knowledge required in Washington, as the Indianapolis Star noted in its endorsement. But he also has the courage of his convictions. He is an outstanding conservative and a rising national star.

Pence for Congress

Hear Pence's comments on 2006

2006-10-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

Pence speaks to local newspaper about issues we face in 2006. You can listen to Pence's comments by clicking on the link below.

Hear Rep. Pence's views on the election and key issues

Pence and Cheney encourage troops

2006-10-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence traveled with Vice President Dick Cheney on Air Force 2 from and to D.C. to visit with soldiers last week at Camp Atterbury in Pence's Indiana district. Here is an article by Wish TV.
Vice President Dick Cheney made a stop in Indiana Friday. The vice president visited Camp Atterbury to deliver a speech and to thank the men and women of Indiana's National Guard. Music and entertainment greeted the crowd of more than 1,000 National Guardsmen. For them, the vice presidential visit was an honor.

"It definitely makes it worth it that we have support not only from Indiana, but from the president and vice president a well,' said Spc. Jennifer VanCleave.

During his remarks, the vice president thanked the service men and women for their support since 9/11. Many have already served in Afghanistan or Iraq. Others prepared units for deployment.

"I want you to be proud of the work you do here everyday. The commitment and excellence shown at Camp Atterbury is one of the reasons we will win the war on terror," Vice President Cheney said.

The vice president's speech focused on the country's need to continue the war on terror. He told the crowd there's no turning back.

"To win this war we have to go on the offensive and stay on the offensive until the killers are brought to justice and danger is removed," said Vice President Cheney.

Soldiers agreed with the vice president and stand ready to continue the fight.

"It's difficult but I have a hard time explaining to people is it's such an honor to serve that I can't imagine doing anything else," said Captain Ryan Core.

Cheney told the crowd when it comes to the war on terror, victory is the only acceptable outcome.

There are about 23,000 reservists and guard members in Indiana, with an estimated 4,300 on active duty at any one time. Not all on active duty are serving overseas. Camp Atterbury plays a crucial role in preparing troops for active duty. For many soldiers, Camp Atterbury is their last stop before heading overseas. They spend 60 days at Camp Atterbury preparing for life in the war zone.

The vice president's trip was brief, but he made quite an impact with folks in Columbus. Mr. Cheney traveled on Airforce 2, along with Congressman Mike Pence for their trip to and from Indiana.

His visit lasted for roughly 30 minutes, but he still made an impression on folks dining at Columbus Municipal Airport.

"Well, I eat here about everyday. But I also didn't want to miss today. And I just happened to be here at the right time. Had I been here another time while he was at Atterbury or after he had done gone, I would've missed him," said Columbus resident Rev. Charles Goodin.

Management at Hangar 5 restaurant says Mr. Cheney's visit was also good for business, they had a busy day.

VP Dick Cheney Attends Rally for Indiana Soldiers at Camp Atterbury

Cheney and Pence rally our troops

2006-10-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

Cheney and Pence team up to boost the moral of the American soldier by addressing troops in the Heartland. Cheney continues to travel the country but couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit with America's favorite statesman, Mike Pence. Here are Pence's remarks as Cheney visits Indiana today.

"It is a distinct honor and privilege to welcome Vice President Dick Cheney to Camp Atterbury and the 6th District. Vice President Cheney is one of America's heroes in the War on Terror, and it will be an honor to stand beside him as we thank the Indiana Air and Army National Guard for their sacrifice and commitment to freedom."

Let freedom ring

2006-10-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence closed the New York Stock Exchange yesterday by ringing the closing bell. This honor was altogether fitting as Mike Pence is the leader of fiscal conservatism ensuring freedom and prosperity throughout our nation. Here are Pence's remarks after the closing.

"This Republican Congress has reaffirmed its commitment to prosperity and security. The success achieved in this celebrated financial institution over the past month comes on the heels of recent statistics released from the Congressional Budget Office, which revealed the national deficit has shrunk from $423 billion to $250 billion over the last 20 months.

"With the unemployment rate at a historic low of 4.6 percent and 6.6 million new jobs created since August of 2003, this Republican Congress has demonstrated to the American people that it has the ability to make tough choices in tough times to keep our economy strong and progressing in the right direction.

"Just as Wall Street is flourishing and America's financial health remains sound, Main Street continues to be secure and protected from the enemies of freedom."

Pence: the next speaker of the house?

2006-10-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by a prominent blogger on the speculation of Mike Pence as Speaker of the House. There are tons of people discussing this dream and would do anything to make this a reality. It's time to put a new face on conservatism and Mike Pence is the perfect leader to fulfill this vital role in this great time in history.

Today’s installment of Hotline TV features an analysis of the House GOP’s leadership prospects in 2007. Editor Chuck Todd says Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, is best positioned to be House speaker—and certainly the frontrunner to be minority leader if the GOP loses the majority.

Todd also mentioned Rep. John Shadegg (R.-Ariz.) as a possible contender in a leadership race. Current Majority Leader John Boehner (R.-Ohio) and Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.) would probably get the shaft from Republicans’ wanting an outsider, Todd surmised.

Mike Pence is one of the only few conservatives left in DC. If Mike Pence is the favorite to become the next Speaker of the House, suddenly, conservatives should be working overtime to make sure that the GOP retains the majority in the House.

Here are a few good reasons why he should be the next Speaker:

1. Pence often describes himself as ”a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”

2. Pence has opposed an increase in the minimum wage based on the argument that it would “will hurt the poor and those entering the workforce by reducing the number of entry-level positions in our economy.”

3. Pence has also supported the elimination of the estate tax on the wealthy

4. Pence proposes am immigration reform plan that bridges the gap between the House and Senate Republicans.

5. Pence is a cosponsor of the FairTax.

6. Pence is not afraid to put the word “conservative” on his reelection web site.

7. Pence believes that parents should have the ability to pick which schools their children attend.

The list goes on and on. This guy is a conservative, make no mistake about it.

There’s a grassroots movement to get this guy to run for President in 2008. For the time being, I think he is much more valuable to conservatives as Speaker of the House or as House Majority Leader.

Hotline TV: Mike Pence the Next Speaker

Pence on the Campaign Trail

2006-10-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence is officially back on the Campaign trail in the 6th district gearing up for his re-election in November. Yesterday he spoke to the Muncie Rotary Club about issues important this election like the war on terror, immigration and tax cuts. It's a rough year on Republicans but principled conservatives like Mike Pence actually have good news to bring back to their districts. Below is an article from the Star Press about this campaign stop.

MUNCIE -- Republican Congressman Mike Pence shied away from controversy Tuesday during a Muncie visit, choosing to talk about immigration reform and tax cuts on capital gains.

"I don't want to be partisan," Pence said to members of the Muncie Rotary Club.

Pence, who will run for re-election Nov. 7, last week supported the $35 billion homeland security bill that would increase border fencing to stop illegal immigrants. His landmark immigration reform bill had failed when the House and Senate reached no compromise on the issue.

The Republican congressman did not speak about the growing congressional sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned after it was revealed he sent sexual messages to teenage boys.

Last week, Pence, who authored child protection laws, said he was appalled by Foley's conduct and said the incidents should be thoroughly investigated.

The Rotary lunch focused on the Middle East conflict. Samir Hawana, a project coordinator for the United Nations Development Program in Kuwait, talking about the continued conflict in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel.

Without a continued American military presence in Iraq and elsewhere in the Mideast, Hawana, a native of Lebanon, said the region would erupt in a broader civil war.

"The whole Mideast is a power keg waiting to explode in so many places," said Hawana.

Iran finances Hezbollah, Hawana said, and Lebanon remains the only Mideast example where Christians and Muslims live together and share power.

Pence is a staunch supporter of Israel and the war in Iraq.

"Iraq is the central front in the war against terror," said Pence. "Our cause is just."

The Star Press Muncie, IN

Statements from this weekend

2006-10-01T18:14:00.000-07:00

A lot of things happened before Congress went home to campaign the last 5 weeks before election. Mike Pence released these statements on the legislation that was recently passed and other developments in Congress.

Statement on legislation that ensures captured terrorist be brought to justice.

"It is the solemn duty of this Congress and this President to make sure we do everything within our power to protect the American people. The war on terror is not like any war America has fought before. We are not fighting countries but terror cells. Our enemies in this war are motivated by a brand of religious extremism so bent on violence and destruction that they are willing to kidnap, torture, and murder innocent civilians worldwide.

"Such extremism demands that America do everything possible to stop it.

"But America's place as a leading advocate of human rights throughout the world also demands that we treat every human being with dignity and respect.

"For that reason, I commend the President of the United States, the Chairmen of the House Armed Services and Judiciary Committees and leaders in the Senate for crafting a bill that does just that.

"This legislation is an example of Congress's commitment to protecting the American people from terrorists. It will allow us to prosecute enemy combatants and bring them to justice consistent with the principles of American democracy."

Statement on the resignation of Mark Foley (R-FL)

“As the author of laws designed to protect children on the Internet, I was appalled at the recent revelations that a Member of Congress engaged in reprehensible behavior toward young people connected to the Congressional Page program.

“Congress should thoroughly investigate this matter and, in cooperation with law enforcement authorities, support all proper legal action.

“In addition, Congress should ensure that children are protected from such despicable behavior on the Internet.”

Statement on passage of legislation for Military Chaplins to pray freely

"As we continue to fight terrorism around the world, America's servicemen and women, especially those in combat, need the comfort and guidance only a chaplain can provide. It is important their prayers are not censored so they can provide appropriate spiritual guidance on the battlefield.

"I applaud Chairman Duncan Hunter as well as Congressmen Todd Akin, Walter Jones and Randy Forbes for the yeoman's job they have done protecting the free speech rights of military chaplains in the U.S. Armed Forces. This provision is a good start toward achieving that goal."

We'll only win by being us

2006-09-28T07:03:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by the American Spectator explaining the faulty logic of Republicans thinking that pandering to liberal policies and big government will win them votes and retain their majority. We need to follow Mike Pence's lead and come back to the roots of the Republican Party and fight for limited government and fiscal discipline so we can continue to be that "shining city on a hill."

If a successful steakhouse stopped selling beef and substituted stale vegan sandwiches as part of a strategy to increase its customer base, the restaurant wouldn't remain in business very long. Yet for some reason, the Republican Party has adopted precisely this strategy for governing.

Instead of rewarding its loyal voters with the limited government they were promised, the Republican Party has decided to increase its voter base by offering the stale ideas of big government liberalism. This tactic is difficult to understand given that in modern midterm elections, voter turnout has hovered around 40 percent, meaning that winning is about having an energized base that will show up on Election Day. Nothing would energize that base more than if Republicans used their power to reduce the size and scope of government, so why doesn't the party give its voters what they want?

"It's what I call Republican Disease," former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told me recently. "They want to be loved by the beautiful people. They want the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post to say nice things about them."

At a breakfast hosted by TAS last week, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), one of the few remaining small government warriors in the Republican Party, described the logic behind the Republican leadership's embrace of big government. As they pushed for a massive expansion of federal control over education in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act, Pence recalled Republican leaders justifying it by arguing, "Democrats have a huge advantage on education." A similar attitude took hold as Republicans added the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, marking the largest expansion of entitlements since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

Expanding entitlements and federalizing education clearly runs contrary to conservative principles, but the programs' defenders on the right would argue that they were politically necessary in order to win elections. However, it's difficult to see any evidence that Republicans won over moderates or Democrats as a result of betraying small government conservatives. If anything, the evidence supports the exact opposite conclusion.

According to the exit polls from the 2000 election, those voters who identified education as the issue that "mattered most," favored Al Gore over George W. Bush by a spread of 52 percent to 44 percent. The No Child Left Behind Act had passed by the time the 2004 election rolled around, and yet, according to exit polls, John Kerry trounced President Bush among voters who thought education was most important, by a margin of 73 percent to 26 percent. The numbers are similar with voters who thought health care was the most important issue. In 2000, Gore had a 64-33 advantage among these voters; in 2004, despite the passage of the Medicare prescription drug law (or perhaps even because of it), Kerry was favored by a margin of 77-23.

Defenders of the policy of triangulation may stress that Republicans maintained their majority in 2002 and 2004, but this was largely the result of national security and values issues, not because of any pandering they did on health care or education. Those Republican leaders who see expanding government as the means to maintain power overlook the fact that they have power in the first place because 1994's "Contract With America" promised to get government off of people's backs. They forget that a generation of conservatives was inspired by Ronald Reagan's eloquent defense of limited government, not by statist gobbledygook.

But there is a much simpler reason why Republicans should once-again embrace limited government: it works. If Republicans believe that conservative ideas are right, the best way to prove that to other people is to institute them.

When we spoke, Dick Armey pointed to welfare reform as evidence that if Republicans persevere and actually achieve something, it will be looked back on as a success. Though conservatives might argue that the reform didn't go far enough, it was clearly a vast improvement over the system that existed before it.

If Republicans showed the political courage to implement such policies as school vouchers, market reforms in healthcare, and Social Security personal accounts, at a minimum, they would thrill their base, and would likely win over moderates as liberal scare tactics are proven baseless.

Were they to govern this way, Republicans would be a lot more confident going into Election Day, and they'd be able to run a campaign based on more than simply calling Democrats "fraidy cats." Just as a great steakhouse wouldn't last long were it to start dabbling in vegan cuisine, the Republican Party will not survive as the party of big government.

As Mike Pence put it: "We will never win by being them, we will only win by being us."

Republican Disease

Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion

2006-09-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence stood boldly yesterday on the House Floor to defend the right to public religious expression by giving this speech in support of the Public Expression of Religion Act. Our freedoms are constantly being challenged by liberals who want to see our nation become secular so they will never be confronted by God. But Pence knows that our founding fathers never envisioned a secular society and that's why the very first sentence of the 1st amendment speaks to our "freedom of religion" so that no government can deny us our liberty to speak about Jesus Christ. Here is Pence's speech.

"I rise in strong support of the Public Expression of Religion Act, and I do so with particular gratitude to my Hoosier colleague John Hostettler, who during the course of his career in the United States House of Representatives has stood for the freedom of religion as perhaps no other American.

"In 1976, a statute was passed in this Congress called the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act. Very simply and plainly, this statute was intended to protect the constitutional rights of citizens and level the legal playing field. Under this act, a citizen who felt that his or her constitutional rights had been violated could sue a government official or entity and receive attorney's fees if they win.

"The availability of massive amounts of attorney's fees have caused many municipalities, even some in Indiana, to relent in their fight to preserve the public display of the Ten Commandments or references to God in the public square because of the local government's inability to access federal funds to pay their attorney's fees.

"So in a very real sense, the unintended consequence of the 1976 law was to take a playing field that was imbalanced to one side and make it imbalanced to the other.

"Today we are leveling the playing field once again. We are saying to every American who believes in their heart that 'In God We Trust' should not appear in the well of this Congress as it does behind me; to every American who thinks there should be no reference to religion in the public square whatsoever; it says to every American whose view of the Constitution is that the establishment clause is somehow an antiseptic to remove any reference to our religious heritage in this county; it says our courts are open to you, but the treasury is not.

"As we say in Indiana, where I was born, raised and live, 'I may fight to the death for your right to hold the views that you do, but that doesn't mean I have to pay for it.'

"And because of Congressman Hostettler's leadership on the Public Expression of Religion Act, we say the courthouse doors are open to anyone who would challenge the public expression by local governments or government officials, the acknowledgement of the deep and rich heritage of over hundreds of years by the American people; we would say 'in this instance, in these cases, the public treasury is not open, raise your money, bring your challenges, and let the court work its will."

Mike Pence on Jay Sekulow

2006-09-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

The freedom fighter Jay Sekulow had Mike Pence come on his weekly TV show to talk about the late Ronald Reagan and his legacy. Reagan deeply impacted Mike Pence and influenced him to become the conservative hero he is today. You can watch the footage here by clicking on the link and then clicking on the "Watch Now" button of the 9/22 episode. Please enjoy!

ACLJ on Television

Pence interview on Redstate

2006-09-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

Redstate.com interviewed Congressman Mike Pence about the upcoming elections and the recent legislation Pence led on immigration and earmark reform. Pence was also asked about a possible presidential run for 2008 (this question continues to come up around the country) which he responded that his life is not his own and if he is called into a higher position then he and his wife will pray about it. There is no question that Pence is being called into a higher position because the American people need him to lead our country back to the principles our founding fathers brought to our shores and Ronald Reagan brought to our nation's capital.

Here is what Redstate had to say about Mike Pence. You can listen to Pence's entire interview by clicking on the link below. Please enjoy!

Make no mistake about it, Mike Pence is Mr. Conservative in the U.S. House. While John Shadegg (R-AZ) ran for Majority Leader as the conservative in the race, Mike Pence has led the Republican Study Committee, which is the organization in the U.S. House wherein you find the conservatives and conservative legislation (Mike Pence succeeded Rep. Shadegg as Chairman of the RSC).

In recent months, Rep. Pence has drawn a lot of attention and some criticism for his immigration plan -- a plan that combines free market approaches to immigration and a demand to seal the border and keep it sealed (for the record, I support the Pence Plan).

Congressman Pence, a true friend of RedState, was very gracious with his time. We talked about his immigration plan, earmarks reform, legislation he submitted after the jailing of two reporters in the Barry Bonds case, and his possible Presidential run in 2008.

RedState Radio: Rep. Mike Pence, Conservative

Pence is a real value voter

2006-09-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence recently spoke at the Family Research Council "Value Voters Conference" this weekend along with other presidential hopefuls. Mike Pence has constantly stood up for our American values and is always 100% conservative even if that means going against his party. He is the perfect persona of what a value voter really is.

Pence says no more inflation tax

2006-09-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article laying out the details of the "Inflation tax" that government imposes on us. Mike Pence understands the great harm that this has on all American families and that is why he has introduced legislation to repeal this tax forever. This article is by Phil Kerpen of National Review Online.

The capital-gains tax can be thought of as two different taxes: a tax on real increases in asset values and a tax on nominal, inflationary increases in asset values. That inflation tax, levied on the phantom gains in asset values due to inflation, is one of the most unfair and economically destructive taxes the federal government levies. With inflation having nudged upward of late, there is a renewed urgency to repeal the tax.

Let’s say that in 1970 you bought an asset for $1,000 and you sold it today for $4,000. Under current law, you would owe the government tax on a $3,000 capital gain. But in reality you would owe that tax on an investment that had lost value in real terms — in other words, your $1,000 in 1970 would have had greater purchasing power than $4,000 does today. It’s in this way that you can lose real money on an investment and still owe capital-gains taxes. In this example the tax is not really a capital gains tax at all, but an inflation tax.

A 1995 study by Arthur Hall at the Tax Foundation measured the impact of the inflation tax on an average stock (based on the S&P 500) bought in the forty years before 1994 and sold that year. For many of these time periods, Hall found that inflationary gains well outpaced real gains, creating effective tax rates on real capital gains that were consistently higher than the then-statutory rate of 28 percent, and often higher than 100 percent, which is to say the tax liability was greater than the real capital gain.

I reproduced Hall’s methodology to look at the inflation tax on stocks purchased over the past fifty years and sold today. The results were not as striking as those reached in Hall’s analysis, due to the large real stock gains and relatively low inflation of the past decade. Even so, a significant portion of the stock market capital gains over the past decade have been due to inflation. For instance, inflation accounts for fully 48 percent of the increase in value of an average stock purchased at the end of August 1997 and sold today. Inflation accounts for 56 percent of the gain from August 1998 to present. For just the past year, inflation accounts for about half of the price increase of an average stock. Thus, even for assets purchased during the relatively low-inflation 2000s, the real effective capital-gains tax rate is as much as double the statutory rate of 15 percent.

Stock markets were essentially flat in real terms for decades prior to the Reagan economic program of sound money and tax-rate reductions that triggered the long boom. One reason for the poor stock market performance of the 1960s and 1970s was the bite of the inflation tax, which imposed a major tax penalty on investors who generally did no better than break even in real terms.

In 1993, Federal Reserve Board governor Wayne Angell put it best: “If we are to reduce the damaging effects that we know are caused by all capital taxation, it makes sense to eliminate the worst aspect of the most damaging tax on capital — the tax on phantom gains.”

Fortunately, new legislation sponsored by Reps. Mike Pence (R., Ind.) and Eric Cantor (R., Va.), H.R. 6057, would repeal the inflation tax. The bill would index the tax basis for an asset to inflation, taxing only real gains, not inflation. With the burgeoning investor class making up more than half of voters, this basic fairness issue is sound politics as well as policy. Pence-Cantor is a bill that should become a law.

If Congress fails to act, then the president should instruct the Treasury Department to use its rulemaking authority to index the capital-gains tax. The Internal Revenue Code specifies that the tax is levied on the value of an asset at the time it is sold less its cost, which current regulations interpret as its nominal purchase price. But the code does not define the word “cost,” and interpreting it in real economic terms is certainly reasonable; this is the standard courts use to review the department’s discretion. In 1992, Charles Cooper, a former Reagan assistant attorney general, urged the first President Bush to do precisely this in a well-reasoned Wall Street Journal op-ed. Fourteen years later it is high time the second President Bush end this unfair inflation tax.

Repeal the “Inflation Tax”

Fiscal issues are at the root moral issues

2006-09-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article by Adam Graham discussing the importance of moral issues and how they tie into fiscal issues. He did a great job identifying those that are the most fiscal conservative leaders are also the most socially conservative leaders in Congress. We need leaders who understand completely that fiscal issues are moral issues and to lead based on those convicts.

My friend seems to believe that economics and foreign policy are more important than who we are as a people. I will disagree vociferously.

I believe all the issues are connected. We are told by the left that acts of homosexuality, promiscuity, and divorce are victimless matters that are none of our business, shouldn't not be condemned, and certainly should not be viewed as a moral question.

Yet, if illegitimacy rates had been half what they were over the past 40 years, our national debt would be much lower. We spend billions paying for the cost of social liberalism. If we were to categorize it, I'd suppose liberalism would be the biggest line item in our budget.

Indeed, the Messiah State is liberalism's great gift to us. It is one of the foundational beliefs of the religion of American liberalism that man, through the state is god.

It is why we mustn't speak of religious heritage, we mustn't speak the name of a God beyond government at all, for in so doing we become heretics to the new faith.

Liberalism has sought to destroy the value of work, punish achievement, and remove the ability of our society to make moral judgments on any mater.

Liberalism's mix of big government, social libertinism, and the refusal to make value judgments are all the key points of this culture war. We've not taken it far enough in many areas including absurd no-fault divorce laws that make a marriage more easily dissolved than a month-to-month lease.

Sadly, I think there are people who will not rise to the challenge because they fear obliteration or are obliterated in the primary by GOP voters who are too addicted to government or are afflicted by guilt and their own compromises with the liberal Church of Statism.

You will not achieve anything on economic policy, as long as you have a culture that believes that you have a right to be irresponsible and cannot be accountable for it.

I'll agree that the presence of fiscally irresponsible Republicans is a concern. In many elections, we face a choice between a Republican who gets some things but not others and a Democrat who is utterly clueless. Democrats believe all we need to do is raise taxes and expand government. The Republican who is pro-life may be logically inconsistent, but we'll be more useful than a clueless liberal who believes in growing the government even more. In my home state, we are blessed to have someone in Idaho this fall who will go to Washington and work to reduce spending. He'll join people like Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-In.) (funny how you don't find hardly any Democrats or social liberals who are trying to fix these problems.)

I believe Social Conservatism and Economic Conservatism are linked. You can't effectively have one without another. It is the ideas of family, respect and value for marriage, human life, responsibility, and honesty that makes a society worth living in, and makes limited government possible.

Other nations on Earth have balanced budgets, but no freedom and opportunity and big government in control of all areas of life. I'd rather live in America than Western Europe, Australia. Canada, or any other place on the planet that liberals so believe. Because, it's here where people of decency have a shot, where madness has not fallen like a curtain on the play of economic freedom and moral conscience. It's why I'm here and why I spend so much time writing about vital issues of time.

We are more than our checkbooks, because prosperity will always wax and wane. What will be remembered for is the type of people we are. Today, your average person knows little about the economy of the early 20th Century or the late 19th Century but we remember slavery and segregation. I believe our economic successes and failures as a nation will be little remembered by children and grandchildren, but rather they remember how we dealt with the great issues of our day. Did we respect human life and destroy it? Did we strengthen traditional family or offer it as a sacrifice to the god of liberalism, the god of the state.

These are the questions that matter. Our respect for family, faith, and human life will determine our economic policy, it will determine our foreign policy, and will make us either revered or a by-word for this generation and generations to come.

More than our checkbooks

Pence will defeat terrorism

2006-09-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence has continually been the biggest advocate on the War on Terror, even outside of election season. Pence knows from first hand experience that we are winning the war and we must continue to defeat the enemy abroad so we don't have to face them at home. Here is an article about Mike Pence and his strong pro-American stance to defeat terrorism.

Two archconservative Indiana congressmen, one question:

What about Iraq?

When we asked Rep. John Hostettler on his recent election-season trip to The Star, the first thing he uttered was a reminder that they still haven't found those WMDs.

When we asked Rep. Mike Pence on his visit, about the first thing he said was that he asked a general and was told "We're winning."

For certain, somebody's not in lockstep here. My nod goes to Hostettler, the Southern Indiana firebrand who parted company with Democrats and his fellow Republicans alike in 2002 by voting against the resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq without a formal declaration of war by Congress.

Three years, 3,000 American lives and scores of thousands of Iraqi lives later, Hostettler can comfortably stand by his original objection: no proof for the casus belli, no carte blanche for Bush.

Polls show most Americans are unhappy with the war, so Hostettler hasn't had to do any course-correcting for electoral purposes. He still faces a tough fight from challenger Brad Ellsworth, and he's hardly offering an easy way out of the bloody mess that haunts his party this fall.

Nor is Pence, who predicts "more carnage" from what he describes as a ruthless and sophisticated enemy. At the same time, he harkens back to the purple fingers and the transfers of chores from U.S. to Iraqi forces, along with America's superior firepower, and pretty much echoes the president's Churchill impression. He says he's told the president personally that he's a braver man than his critics (many of whom actually have been shot at, even wounded, in war).

Conjuring, no doubt unintentionally, the ghosts of Vietnam, Pence proclaims that the resistance in Iraq hasn't won a single full-face engagement with American troops. The Viet Cong didn't win the Tet offensive, either, but they eventually proved that winning battles isn't enough for a foreign occupier. We wore down and bogged down in Vietnam; and what would we have "won," anyway, but a perpetually propped-up puppet government?

Back to Hostettler, who shares the worries of many that a civil war may be the ironic legacy of a despot's removal from Iraq. "It is not America's obligation to stay there in perpetuity," he ominously adds. Perhaps the best we can do, he suggests, is witness a government elected by 51 percent of the voters, and leave it be.

Pence's view: "We cannot abandon those people."

Not now, most would agree. Their peril, after all, is our making. And we mustn't forget, a fortune is being conveyed to influential American business interests in this venture. But can we win? Do we care that most of the world does not believe there should be a "we" in that faraway land, or that national sovereignty is something that can be secured by military occupation? Horrible as the many guerrilla atrocities have been, they ensued from the heaviest bombing in all history; "the enemy" is a simplistic term in many eyes, including those of many Americans.

Global perspective is no more a hallmark of Hostettler's repertoire than it is of Pence's. Both are unabashed Israeli triumphalists when it comes to the Middle East. Where they differ, as devout conservatives, may come down to when to declare victory in Iraq. One thing seems certain: If they keep winning elections, their brave president will be out of there long before they will.

Warring right angles

At it again...

2006-09-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence continues the fight to limit government by cutting unnecessary taxes to save the American people money. Here is an excerpt about Mike Pence introducing legislation to eliminate capital-gains tax on inflation.

CAPITAL GAINS -- Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, joined Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence last week in introducing a bill to eliminate the capital-gains tax on inflation.

The bill would index for inflation the cost basis used in calculating the capital-gains tax. The indexing, the bill sponsors said, would have the effect of reducing taxes for millions of people because it would eliminate the tax on inflation built into the capital-gains tax.

No cost estimate was available last week, a Cantor aide said.

CAPITOL UPDATE

Conservatives pass earmark reform

2006-09-15T05:10:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence and his band of brothers led the charge to successfully pass earmark reform in the House by a vote of 245-171. Mike Pence has continually fought to put our fiscal house in order. Here is his speech given on the floor yesterday on this very important legislation.

"Under Article One of the Constitution of the United States, the power of the purse is the power of the House of Representatives, and today we will not yield that power in any way.

"The Constitution gives this body the ability to spend the money of the American people in ways large and small. House Resolution 1000 simply requires that we earmark the earmarks.

"We actually had a cow farm when I was growing up, and I know what an earmark is. It's the tag in the ear of a cow that will tell you whose cow it is.

"The reality is that under the rules that have developed over generations here in the House, we can add provisions to legislation authorizing bills and appropriations bills without adding names.

"Today by adopting H. Res. 1000, we will simply require that we earmark the earmarks.

"Transparency promotes accountability, and this institution would do well to embrace this modest but meaningful step toward greater transparency.

"As Jeff Flake, a great leader on this issue, said earlier, it saddens me to see evidence of the low regard that millions of Americans hold the institution of Congress."

"It is a historic institution filled with men and women of both parties of goodwill and integrity.

"By adopting this modest but meaningful earmarking reform today, we will take an important step toward restoring public confidence in the fundamental integrity of our legislative process at the national level.

"I urge my colleagues in both parties to say 'yes' to transparency and greater accountability. Say 'yes' to earmarking reform."

Ending earmarks

2006-09-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence has been fighting all year long to put an end to earmarks and pass serious reform on this deterimental process that takes our hard earned money and gets spent on pet projects that usually are unnecessary and sometimes unimaginable (ie The Brigde to Nowhere). Mike Pence spoke at the "Ending Earmarks Express" rally on Capital Hill to gather the troops to pass real legislation to ensure that voters will always know where their money is going and how it is being spent.

Conservatives to lead the GOP?

2006-09-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

This next month and a half will determine whether the GOP will keep it's majority in the House or allow the Democrats to take control. Many speculations have risen to say that leadership will have a hard time keeping their position after the midterm elections, win or lose. People have already begun to call Mike Pence the "Minority Leader" suggesting that conservatives would take charge next session due to the base's dissatisfaction with the moderate leadership. Here is an excerpt of another article talking about Pence rising in leadership for '07.

Pence has always generated favorable media coverage through an active RSC press shop. The outspoken conservative stirred so much speculation during the race for majority leader earlier this year that his office issued a release stating he would not cast a bid for the post.

Pence stayed in the spotlight over the August recess with his proposal to revive comprehensive immigration reform, and he has taken a much less combative public stance toward the leadership since last fall’s showdown over federal spending to fund repair efforts in the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast. As evidence, the RSC has not gone on attack this month to force leaders to bring a bill creating a so-called “Sunset Commission” to the floor, despite promises Boehner made to give them the vote in exchange for support on the budget.

Pence’s naysayers criticize him for catering to the media instead of the party, and some congressional staffers jokingly call him “the minority leader” for threatening the conservative base with his push to cut federal spending despite objections from leaders and the centrist Republicans whose vulnerable seats are so valuable to keeping the majority.

Subtle GOP maneuvers

Pence to speak at Americans For Prosperity rally today

2006-09-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

Contact: Ed Frank or Annie Patnaude, 202-349-5880, both of Americans for Prosperity

News Advisory:

The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity, which has held grassroots events at 41 pork-barrel earmarks in 33 states since April with its Ending Earmarks Express bus tour, will hold an earmark-reform rally and news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Sept. 13. The House is expected to vote on earmark reform rules changes late next week.

The Ending Earmarks Express will be joined by sign-waving grassroots supporters, allies from other pro-taxpayer organizations and members of Congress who support earmark reform, including Rep. Jeff Flake, who has led the charge for reform in the House, and Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence.

WHAT: Americans for Prosperity's "Ending Earmarks Express" Rally and News Conference

WHEN: Wednesday, Sept. 13 at 2:15 p.m.

WHERE: Cannon Terrace, Cannon House Office Building, Southeast Corner of Independence and New Jersey Avenues, SE; Rain Location: Rayburn 2255

WHO:

-- Tim Phillips, president, Americans for Prosperity

-- Rep. Jeff Flake (6th Dist. –- Ariz.)

-- Rep. Mike Pence (6th Dist. -- Ind.)

-- Rep. Scott Garrett (5th Dist. -- N.J.)

-- Rep. Jeb Hensarling (5th Dist. -- Texas)

-- Tom Schatz, president, Citizens Against Government Waste

-- John Berthoud, president, National Taxpayers Union

-- J. William Lauderback, executive vice president, American Conservative Union

-- Alison Fraser, director, Heritage Foundation's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

-- Steve Ellis, vice president, Taxpayers for Common Sense

-- Bill Allison, senior fellow, Sunlight Foundation

-- Dan Clifton, executive director, American Shareholders Association

-----

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual's right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit http://www.americansforprosperity.org

We need more conservatives

2006-09-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

Although Mike Pence has been touted by many political analysts and other D.C. insiders as the "next Minority Leader," Pence writes a letter in Human Events on how conservatives need to lead Congress. Mike Pence understands the importance of conservative leadership and demands that Americans support conservatives to help reinforce Pence and his heroic efforts to limit government, defeat the War on Terror and defend traditional moral values. Here is Pence's letter laying out his and the Republican Study Committee's accomplishments during the 109th Congress

The 109th Congress will be remembered as a time of tremendous challenge and great change for the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Buffeted by internal conflict, scandal and external crises, House Republicans were tested again and again by an American public losing confidence in our federal government.

The American people should know that House conservatives never lost confidence in our agenda and the Republican Study Committee stood firm in the winds of change.

As the nation prepares to render judgment on this Congress, it is a good time make an account of the battles fought by House conservatives to enable voters to assess the modest, but meaningful, progress which conservatives have attained during these troubled times.

From the outset of the 109th Congress, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) embraced the principles of limited government, entitlement and spending reforms, and traditional values. The fight for these principles will always be with us, however, now is the time to review some of the meaningful battles RSC has waged during this Congress.

Fiscal Discipline and Budget Reform

At a time of rising deficits and national debt, House conservatives were determined to pass disciplined federal budgets and the reforms necessary to make them work. In this area, RSC has advanced meaningful reforms that represent an important first step toward restoring fiscal integrity to our national budget.

From the very outset of the 109th Congress, RSC took the fight for fiscal discipline and reform to the floor. In January 2005, the RSC offered six amendments to the House Rules Package for the 109th Congress, including: automatic roll call votes on expensive legislation, point of order protection, a rainy day fund, a cap on entitlements, repeal of the Gephardt rule, and the creation of “budget protection accounts” to lock-in savings for deficit reduction during the spending process. This was the first time since Republicans took control that there was a comprehensive attempt to improve the Rules Package.

While each of these amendments failed, it sent an important message to our colleagues that RSC was ready to fight for reform from day one. And it made a difference.

Budget Battle, Round One

Just two months later, RSC members took a stand for reforming the budget process and prevailed. Because of the stand taken by dozens of RSC members, we negotiated a change in the House Rules that gave members of the majority the power to enforce the budget of the majority on the House floor for the first time ever.

In exchange for RSC support of the budget, in March 2005, the RSC secured a form of “point of order protection” to ensure that Members have the procedural tools to enforce the budget during the appropriations process. It was passed in conjunction with the FY06 budget resolution.

As the drama of this internal confrontation faded away, little did House conservatives imagine that our greatest battle for fiscal discipline lay ahead in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in American history.

Hurricane Katrina and Operation Offset

When Hurricane Katrina came ashore, it not only leveled thousands of square miles of our Gulf Coast, it also leveled plans for a deficit reduction bill that had been in the works for months. While virtually all RSC members supported the emergency spending necessary to begin the rebuilding effort, House conservatives fought to salvage deficit reduction as well.

Following Katrina, the Democrats in Congress were talking about a tax increase to pay the cost of recovery and many Republicans were talking about more deficit spending.

Into this debate, dozens of House conservatives went to the microphones at a press conference supporting “Operation Offset”. In September 2005, the RSC offered a menu of roughly $500 billion in savings to pay for hurricane relief in the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. According to many observers, “Operation Offset” put deficit reduction back on the table and led to the enactment of the Deficit Reduction Act (P.L. 109- 171), the first reconciliation bill to reduce spending since 1997.

House conservatives also fought for fiscal discipline in the use of recovery resources. In September 2005, the RSC sent a letter to President Bush encouraging him to suspend Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements in the hurricane disaster areas—which the Administration did for a period of time.

In the wake of the worst disaster in American history, House conservatives stood firm showing that it is possible to confront the ravages of nature with fiscal responsibility.

Congressional Leadership Elections

With the resignation of the House Majority Leader in January, 2006, RSC moved quickly to impact the content and tone of the debate over new Republican leaders. RSC made issue resources available to members as they interviewed perspective leaders. In late January 2006, at the annual conservative members’ retreat, the candidates for elected leadership posts within the GOP Conference spoke before nearly 80 members. Many observers considered this among the most important forums during the campaign. From having a former RSC chairman in the race to promoting an environment where issues drove the campaign for Majority Leader, RSC made a difference in the conference elections in 2006.

Budget Battle, Round Two

Seizing on the opportunity with new leaders to set a new fiscal direction for the House, RSC members threw themselves headlong into the next battle for fiscal restraint, the Budget for FY07.

In March 2006, under the leadership of our Budget Action leader Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R.-Tex.), the RSC unveiled The Contract with America Renewed, its alternative budget for FY07. The Contract with America Renewed was an updated version of the budget that passed the House soon after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. This RSC budget achieved balance through budget cuts in five years, funded the Global War on Terror, and protected the Bush tax cuts.

In addition to proposing a conservative budget, RSC members stood firm for a disciplined federal budget and insisted on real and meaningful budget process reform.

While many in the House were calling for more spending and less reform, in March 2006, the RSC secured a commitment from the new House Leadership to pass comprehensive earmark reform, the Legislative Line Item Veto, a rainy day fund to budget for emergencies, and a sunset commission. The rainy day fund is in effect under the House-passed budget, and both earmark reform and Line Item Veto have passed the House. Passage of the sunset commission bill is still pending.

Even in the midst of changes in leadership, RSC stood firm for fiscal discipline and reform.

Other Taxpayer Savings

Apart from high profile battles, RSC members were also responsible for saving taxpayers billions of dollars by defending the budget and opposing new government spending.

In October 2005, the RSC ensured that a sizable fund to provide affordable housing within Federal Housing Finance Reform Act (GSE reform) could not be used to fund nongovernmental, liberal advocacy groups that promote expanding the size and scope of the federal government.

In May 2006, the RSC took to the House floor to ensure that Congress did not raid a $50 billion reserve fund for the Global War on Terror in order to fund roughly $507 million in unrequested pork projects.

In June 2006, the RSC ensured that Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act (the OCS drilling bill) did not violate the budget, ensuring that the House passed both sound energy policy and budget policy. This saved roughly $12 billion over ten years.

Using Rule 28 of the Conference Rules, which prohibits legislation creating new federal programs from being added to the expedited Suspensions Calendar, RSC quietly succeeded in stopping nearly 15 new government programs saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a word, through natural disaster and political upheaval within the Congress, RSC stood firm for budget discipline and reform.

Battling for Our Values

In partnership with the Values Action Team, under the leadership of Congressman Joe Pitts, the RSC stood in the gap during the 109th Congress to defend the right to life, the sanctity of marriage, the innocence of our children, and many other critical moral values.

Terry Schiavo

The 109th Congress was not just a battleground on budget issues. The halls of this Congress echoed with debates over the value of embryonic human life and the life of a brain damaged woman in Florida. And it all started around Palm Sunday, 2005.

In March of 2005, the world was enthralled with the story of a brain damaged woman named Terry Schiavo and the effort to deny her food and water by the state courts in Florida.

With RSC support, Congress took decisive action give the family of Terry Schiavo access to the federal courts. State courts in Florida had repeatedly denied appeals of a judges order that her feeding tube be removed and House conservatives felt compelled to act.

The Palm Sunday Compromise, more properly known as the Act for the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo, was passed on March 21, 2005, to allow the case of Terri Schiavo to be moved into a federal court. Despite intervention by the other branches, the courts continued to hold that Schiavo was in a Persistent Vegetative State. Her feeding tube was removed for the final time on March 18, 2005. She died thirteen days later on March 31, 2005 at the age of 41.

The Schiavo case showed the nation that House conservatives were willing to withstand the withering assault of the national media to defend the unalienable right to life and due process of a single, vulnerable American. RSC stood firm for life in the midst of our changing cultural times.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research Funding

House conservatives would have about a one month reprieve from the cultural debate before House leaders cleared the Castle-DeGette bill for floor consideration. Castle-DeGette was designed to overturn the president’s policy which prohibited the use of federal tax dollars to fund destructive embryonic stem cell research. House conservatives sprang into action.

RSC issued numerous briefings for members and the media regarding the realities of destructive embryonic stem cell research and the potential of adult stem cell research. RSC member led the effort to move ethical adult stem cell research funding. When the legislation came to the floor, RSC members led the debate.

While the bill passed the House of Representatives, RSC members considered passage a ‘successful failure’ since there was more than enough ‘no’ votes to sustain the expected presidential veto. That vote came on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 810) in July 2006 when the House sustained the President’s veto of the embryonic stem cell research bill by a vote of 235-193. Again, the RSC stood firm and led the successful effort to prevent to use of taxpayer dollars to fund research that destroys nascent human life.

Other Values Victories

In addition to these titanic battles over the sanctity of life, RSC was engaged in the battle over traditional moral values in a whole range of issues. RSC led the way toward expanded House support of the Marriage Protection Amendment. RSC fought to reauthorize funding for abstinence education which many observers credit with a reduction in teen pregnancy and birth rates. RSC successfully fended off efforts to provide taxpayer funding for abortions overseas and at U.S. Military bases in the DoD Authorization bill (H.R. 5122). RSC helped lead the effort to pass historic legislation protecting children in the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act (H.R. 4472). RSC was also instrumental in passage of an internet gambling ban that had failed in previous sessions and moved legislation protecting the pledge and the flag.

In sum, House conservatives stood firm for life, for the unborn, for the vulnerable, for marriage and for our kids. RSC led the effort in the 109th Congress to advance the cause of traditional moral values in the law of the land.

Social Security Reform

It was the RSC that made up the bulk of support for President Bush’s vision to reform and modernize Social Security. RSC stood firm on reform that included big personal retirement accounts, no tax increase and no net increase in entitlement spending. RSC members led the effort in the Republican conference to promote reform in public forums and floor speeches during 2005. President Bush acknowledged the central role RSC was playing in the debate by inviting the senior members of RSC to the White House to discuss Social Security reform in the summer of 2005, a first for the conservative caucus in the House.

Despite the fact that reform faltered, the American people should know that House conservatives stood firm with the President. We remain dedicated to making this New Deal program a ‘better deal’ for younger Americans by introducing personal retirement accounts in the future. A reform Democrats adamantly oppose.

Other Battles

Beyond the RSC’s long-standing goals of limited government, entitlement and spending reform, and support for traditional values, there were countless other skirmishes, small and large, where RSC stood in the gap.

House conservatives have been the bulwark of support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. House conservatives championed the reauthorization of the Patriot Act as a centerpiece of our Homeland Security, while guarding the civil liberties of American citizens. House conservatives led the effort to pass border security legislation and reject the Senate amnesty bill in the debate over immigration reform.

The Conclusion: We Need More Conservative Republicans

The only conclusion one can reach from reading this abbreviated history of the RSC in the 109th Congress is clear: conservatives have been at work but we need more conservative Republicans in Congress.

The progress of House conservatives in the 109th Congress has been meaningful but modest. On issue after issue, spending discipline, entitlement reform and values, the men and women of the RSC have made a difference but, too often, fall short of real change.

Government is still too big and it still spends too much. Our taxes and entitlements cry out for reform. Abortion is still legal and euthanasia is gaining acceptance. There is much work to be done.

For Americans frustrated with the expansion of government and the erosion of values, even under Republican control, House conservatives have one suggestion: send us reinforcements!

While a few conservative voters think the answer lies in handing the reigns of Congress over to the other side, we must fight that message of defeatism and state with conviction; not more of them, more of us!

House conservatives have stood firm in the winds of change that have buffeted our Congress these past two years but we need more honest men and women, willing to do freedom’s work on the front lines of the Republican revolution.

We don’t need more liberal Democrats. We need more conservative Republicans.

We Need More Conservatives in Congress

Pence's address on 9/11 anniversary

2006-09-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence gave an amazing speech today at Camp Atterbury in Pence's home district. September 11th forever changed America and it forever changed Mike Pence as he leads us into the future in the War on Terror.

Thank you for that warm welcome. I am deeply honored and profoundly humbled to be with you.

As I thought about what I might say today, what words of inspiration and hope I might share on this solemn anniversary, I couldn’t help but be struck by how incongruous it is that I should be speaking to you. Our roles today are backwards. It is I and all of Congress who should be sitting in your seats, and you before the microphone.

It is one thing to speak of courage; it is quite another to be courageous.

Whatever inspirational that exists in me is but faint reflection of what already abounds in you.

The fact is, it is YOU who inspire ME. It is you who bring me courage.

It is you who teach me—and the entire nation—about bravery, sacrifice, commitment, and honor. What it means to be an American. And like all great teachers, you teach not through words, but by example.

But I thank you for your kindness. I can think of no place I would rather be on this fifth anniversary of 9-11. It is significant on so many levels.

Camp Atterbury has played a major role in our nation’s response to the vicious attacks on our soil—a key reason why, despite the enemy’s plans, there has been no repeat of those horrible events. The men and women who train here see to that.

America has more than 30,000 reasons to be grateful to Camp Atterbury.

That’s the number of service personnel from each branch of the armed services, as well as agents with Homeland Security and the FBI, who have trained here for deployment in the War on Terror.

By taking the fight to the enemy’s soil, and executing it with precision, determination, and bravery, you have secured for all Americans the ability to do what President Bush urged nine days after the attacks: “Live your lives. Hug your children.”

For five years Americans have been living their lives and hugging their children…not huddled in the shadow of fear, but openly, exuberantly, in the light of liberty, the way our Founding Fathers—and our Heavenly Father—intended. America’s service men and women preserve not only our lives, but also our spirit.

************************************

Each of us remembers where we were at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Time on this day five years ago. Some of you were in class, maybe even cutting class. Some of you were at work, others just getting up, or hitting the sack after pulling third shift.

I was at work when I learned we were under attack. I was in the Capitol Building when the Trade Towers were hit. Then I was told the Pentagon had been hit, and another plane was headed straight for us. My first thought was for my family and my staff. Where do we go? What do we do? My next thought was, “Where do I report for duty?”

I waited for instructions. Tense, anxious minutes passed. Finally, the official word came down. And it was, in fact, just one word:

“Disperse.”

Disperse?

What’s that supposed to mean?!

It dawned on me: that coolly detached directive meant….

“Run for your lives!”

It was a helpless feeling. I wanted to do something…anything…. But there was no duty roster. No one to report to, no plan to follow. Congress, like most of America, was not prepared for such an emergency.

Thankfully, our military was. Our service men and women did not disperse. They reported for duty. Ready, confident, determined. They knew their jobs and did them.

The airspace secured, I stood with my congressional colleagues on the steps of the evacuated Capitol Building that evening. The sky was eerily silent, save for the whine of F-16s. We still didn’t know exactly what we would do, should do. But we knew with a certainty what we would NOT do. Neither we, nor America, would simply…disperse.

In that moment, there rose a swell of resolve and pride. It swept through us like a wave, and someone began the first notes of God Bless America. We instantly joined in. It was a spontaneous moment.

Unorchestrated, unstaged…and decidedly off-key. But it was the most purely authentic moment I have ever experienced in Congress. No politics, no agendas, no grandstanding. We simply stood shoulder to shoulder and asked God to bless America.

Five years later I can say with certainty…He has.

And He still does. Some of the blessings are obvious, others come in….camouflage….

You, our Citizen Soldiers.

Our nation’s security and defense were founded on that concept ---everyday people setting aside a piece of their lives to serve and defend their country. It is a concept that is alive, well and flourishing yet today.

Our nation does not today compel its citizens to service. Yet our military has never been stronger, more effective, or more professional. I believe that’s true not in spite of the dissolution of the draft, but because of it.

There may have been a time when a slick brochure or smooth recruiting officer could fill a quota, swaying the reluctant with promises of tuition reimbursement or “glamorous” world travel a la “Private Benjamin.” That ended on 9-11.

Each of you knew what enlistment could mean. Yet freely chose your path; moved not by grudging obligation, but by honor and desire. It is part of who you are, and why this nation is so great.

The people boarding United Flight 93 in Newark on the morning of September 11, 2001 began the day as ordinary citizens. They ended their morning—and their lives—as Citizen Soldiers in a Pennsylvania field.

It was the first battle in our nation’s War on Terror. The soldiers were untrained and unarmed. The enemy had trained for two years; the Citizen Soldiers had mere minutes to hatch their plan. They had never even met.

It was a conscription they neither sought nor planned. Yet these citizen soldiers--armed only with a refreshment cart and their bare hands--instinctively answered the call to duty.

One of them, Todd Beamer, summed it up while on a cell phone with a GTE Customer service rep. He told her that he and other passengers were going to rush the cockpit.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?’ she asked.

The Citizen Soldier answered. “It’s what we have to do.”

You, more than most, have a depth of appreciation for those words. I suspect they pretty much sum up why you’re here, why you each made the decision you did to serve your country. It’s what you have to do. … not because someone requires it, but because it’s who you are. Like the passengers of United Flight 93, it is not in you to just stand by.

The words of another passenger aboard that flight seem to echo throughout this camp. Knowing what the hijackers had planned, Tom Burnett told his wife simply: “Some of us are going to do something about it.”

In the five years since, one by one, tens of thousands of everyday people made the same life-altering decision. To do something about it. They streamed into recruiting offices or re-enlisted. Soon, many of you will be in the theaters of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. You go knowing what it means.

With hearts aching to hug your own children, you bear your longing so that others may hug their children.

In bearing loneliness for a time, you spare untold millions from permanent sorrow.

In postponing your lives for a time, you give millions the freedom to pursue theirs.

In bearing temporary hardship and fatigue, you prevent countless and unknowable horrors.

And because you have seized your own fear by the throat and wrestled it into submission, you have wrested the heel of oppression off millions of innocent men, women, and children, and opened their hearts and minds to democracy.

But you do not go alone. You take with you the prayers and heartfelt wishes of a grateful America.

For each Citizen Soldier, there are scores of friends and family who also bear the burden of sacrifice. Many are here today. I know it isn’t easy. The price you pay is dear. On behalf of all America, I thank you. Our thoughts are with you.

****************

Before I close, I want to share with you a certainty I hold in my heart: We are winning this war.

Last year, I sat in a meeting with President Bush in the Roosevelt Room . At the end of the meeting, it came my time to speak. He was sitting next to me, so I turned to him and said, “Mr. President, thank you for being more determined than our enemy.”

He sort of reared back in his chair and looked at me. Then he broke into a smile. “I like how you put that.”

I said it not to please him, but because it was true. I was honored when I heard that he’d subsequently adopted the sentiment for use in his own remarks—but not before improving upon it.

He says something like, “Our enemy is determined but America is more determined.”

Mr. President, I like how you put that.

He’s right. A president can only be as determined as the nation he leads, and a Commander in Chief only as good as his troops. Being here today confirms for me the truth of my belief that yes, we will prevail.

For as Ronald Reagan wisely said, “America is great because America is good.”

The dark and evil hearts that spawned carnage and destruction upon our people five years ago succeeded only to increase our might, because they awakened what is good in us.

How utterly maddening that must be to the enemy! Not only did they NOT cripple us with fear or elicit cowering submission, they actually managed to awaken in us a greater measure of those things they so despise in us.

Instead of crushing our spirit, they renewed it.

They unleashed an army of Todd Beamers, Mark Binghams, Jeremy Glicks, and Tom Burnetts. Only this time they have guns, tanks, and planes. They’re trained, armed, and ready.

The enemy intended that the events of 9-11-2001 would never be forgotten….and so it shall be. But not for the reasons they intended.

It is the enemy, not America, that has dispersed.

And though we shall never forget the victims and the heroes of 9-11, 2001, neither shall we forget the heroes of each day that followed, and the ones yet to come.

God bless you, and God bless America.

Pence to give address on 9/11 anniversary

2006-09-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

U.S. Congressman Mike Pence will address the global war on terror and commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9-11 at the Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center's September 11th Memorial Ceremony on Monday. The ceremony will take place from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM at the Camp Atterbury Veterans' Memorial located just west of the main entrance of the camp. The public is encouraged to attend, and the ceremony will take place rain or shine.

WHO: U.S. Congressman Mike Pence

WHAT: Speech at Camp Atterbury September 11th Memorial Ceremony

WHEN: Monday, September, 11, 2006, 11:30 a.m. EDT

Justice will not sleep

2006-09-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

We must win the War on Terror and with Mike Pence standing strong behind our President I'm sure we will accomplish the goal. Here is Pence's statement after Bush's speech yesterday.

"With the news that key figures in the attack on our country on September 11th will be brought to the United States to face prosecution, President Bush has shown the world that justice will not sleep for those who harm our people. I commend the President and all in our military and intelligence communities who have brought us to this moment. Justice demands that these terrorists be held to account. Justice will now be served."

Oklahoma loves Pence

2006-09-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a very good post by the Oklahoma based The McCarville Report Online. This shows how Mike Pence resonates with most conservative leaders nationwide and is starting to gain the necessary attention to mount his presidential run for 2008.

Mike Pence has only been in Congress for six years, but the Indiana Republican from the 6th District has established himself as a conservative force and a possible dark horse contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2008. "Dark horse" aptly describes Pence, whose name won't resonate with most Oklahoma Republicans and, probably, with few insiders.

Why is attention being focused on Pence? The Washington Post recently described him as "a new face on conservatism," and that piece certainly kicked his prominence up several notches, putting his name on the watch list for national columnists, publications and, most likely, the television networks. Syndicated columnist George Will described his brand of conservatism as the "wave of the future." US News & World Report described him as "a powerful force." Pence also has become fairly high profile to some insiders and politician-watchers through his work as chairman of the House Republican Study Committee and as a member of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. The attention prompted Pence's supporters to launch a website, Mike Pence For President 2008.

Pence has a Tom Coburn-like approach to pork barrel spending; he's working with other conservatives in the House to cut spending everywhere he finds it and some say he brings a religious fervor to the subject. Editorial cartoonists have him holding a "REPENT!" sign outside an "Overspender's Bar." His zeal has earned him the total support of the powerful and influential group, Club For Growth, that helped fuel Coburn's successful run for the U. S. Senate and whose supporters across the country donated thousands of dollars to help Coburn. For his efforts to cut spending, Pence was honored by Human Events as its "Man of the Year" last December.

Pence's story is an interesting one. He's the grandson of an immigrant Irish bus driver whose father was a Republican, mother a Democrat. He, too, was a Democrat and in 1975, was Youth Democratic Party Coordinator in his county. Inspired, he writes, by the policies and personality of Ronald Reagan, he switched to the Republican Party. He ran, unsuccessfully, for Congress in 1988 and again in 1990 and then spent time as head of a conservative think tank, the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. He then turned to talk radio, where he enjoyed huge success as the host of his own show. Within a short time, the show was syndicated across the entire state of Indiana and he became the darling of conservatives there. That popularity helped as he launched his campaign for Congress in 2000, and he won. He was reelected in 2002 and 2004 (67 percent of the vote) and is on the ballot again this year.

Pence, 47, is known as an excellent networker; he is a remarkable conversationalist and communicator, most say, and comes across as the guy next door you'd like to have coffee with. Like some smart members of Congress, Pence keeps his family (wife Karen, three children) close to him. When Congress is not in session, they reside in Indiana and when Congress is in session, they live in Arlington, Virginia.

Pence has an Oklahoma connection in pollster and consultant Chris Wilson of Wilson Research Strategies of Oklahoma City, who counts Pence as one of his prominent clients.

Keep your eye on Pence as the run-up to the Republican race for president begins in earnest after this fall's elections.

Who Is Mike Pence And Why Should We Be Watching This Indiana Congressman?

Novak on 2006 Elections

2006-09-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

Political strategist Bob Novak understands the political reality coming this 2006 elections. Many voters are tired of their elected officials not governing like conservatives and not being able to accomplish something that they care about like immigration. Majority of wishy washy Republicans will lose their seat but principled leaders will remain in office. Mike Pence is to be praised for trying to bring a solution to the table on a tough issue that will secure America and further the conservative movement.

WASHINGTON -- Both the Senate Republican leadership's unofficial agenda for the last pre-election session of the 109th Congress beginning this week and a privately circulated White House wish list are extraordinarily heavy. That means the planned adjournment date of Sept. 29 surely cannot be met, and even Oct. 6 may be too early. Yet, immigration is not mentioned on either expansive list.

This is remarkable because Republican members of Congress who talked to constituents during the August recess found the mood of the party's base remains as sour as it has been all year: unhappiness over too much government spending and unchecked illegal immigration under a Republican Congress and administration.

Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, a moderate conservative who is a hard-liner on immigration, was quoted last week reflecting the consensus of his colleagues. Congress will do nothing about immigration until its lame-duck session after an election in which Republicans may well have lost congressional majorities. Isakson stated these reasons for inactivity: Congressional field hearings on immigration will not be concluded until mid-September, and intraparty GOP differences on the issue remain unsettled. The failure of Republican leadership on the issue of the year is palpable.

In the House at least, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is trying to address immigration. He plans to bring together chairmen of the House field hearings later this week to see what can be done before the election. But House GOP sources say there is no chance of the party accepting a guest worker program that is integral to any compromise reform. The resolute House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, during the recess labeled as a "staggering burden on American taxpayers" the Senate-passed bill (approved by President Bush) because it contains the guest worker program.

Immigration is the most melancholy element of a depressing Republican year. The Iraq intervention and its aftermath have hurt, and Republican inattention to runaway government spending has been deplorable. But immigration is the issue most likely to cause rank-and-file Republican voters to stay home on election day, and it may cost the party its congressional majorities.

When Republican Rep. Mike Pence went home to his east central Indiana district in August, he found constituents upset -- as they had been all year -- about spending and immigration. Chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, Pence has courageously taken the position that a border security bill should not omit a guest worker program (that does not include a path to citizenship).

Pence, a rising star in the conservative movement, has faced a torrent of right-wing abuse for advocating a guest worker program that is condemned as amnesty for illegal aliens. Rep. Tom Tancredo, leader of the congressional hard-liners on immigration, has viciously branded Pence as an apostate. But Pence told me last week that Hoosier voters, when he explains it to them, will accept his three-part formula on immigration: protect the border, no amnesty for illegals and access for foreign workers needed by the U.S. economy.

Although no more than 25 House Republicans follow Tancredo's rigid line, that is enough to obstruct a coherent Republican posture. But many more conservative lawmakers write off any guest worker program as just amnesty. In trouble on Iraq and federal spending, Republicans are being lured into a nativist posture that is political fool's gold.

George W. Bush, John McCain and Mike Pence dread a Republican descent into nativism. In my half century of political reporting, I never have seen a candidate or party succeed in playing the economic nationalist card. Even worse, a divided party promises to go into the hazardous 2006 election after doing nothing about an issue its constituents think is most important.

"You get it!" Bush earlier this year told Pence after he agreed with the president that permitting new immigration is compatible with protected borders. "I not only get it, I lived it," the congressman replied, telling him of his grandfather, Mike, who emigrated from Ireland in 1923 and became a Chicago bus driver. Pence told me last week from Indiana he will try to make something happen in the September session. It is an uphill climb, but the grim alternative is a divided Republican Party going into this election campaign with a blank slate on immigration.

The GOP leadership failure

New York Times piece examined

2006-09-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

Of course we can never count on the major media to present an unbiased article, although this New York Time piece is pretty fair to the conservative hero Mike Pence. Therefore, I have decided to mark up the spots where this article needed corrected so people will not get confused or misinformed. The corrected commentary is in bold.

MUNCIE, Ind. — He supports tax cuts and the war in Iraq. He opposes stem cell research and the Medicare drug plan. He is a master of his movement’s medium, talk radio. Jesus Christ is his personal savior and Ronald Reagan his political idol.

Conjure what might be called the perfect conservative, and chances are he would look a lot like Representative Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who in just three terms has turned 100 House allies into a vanguard and himself into one of his party’s rising stars.

Or that was the case until this spring when he sought compromise in the rancorous immigration debate. His complicated plan would strengthen border security and send illegal immigrants home, but let most of them quickly return. Since then, Mr. Pence — named last year’s Man of the Year by the conservative weekly Human Events — has looked to some conservatives like this year’s Benedict Arnold. They say he has lent his conservative prestige to a form of liberal amnesty.

Mike Pence’s Immigration reform plan is not complicated but rather simple. It puts securing our borders first, implements tough employer sanctions and sends all 12 million illegals home to get right under the color of law. Mike Pence put forth a common sense solution that would break the code of politics as usual and secure our borders once and for all. If Pat Buchanan thought Mike Pence was in his camp this whole time, then yes, Pence would look like a Benedict Arnold. But Pence was never in the Buchanan camp but had his feet firmly planted in Ronald Reagan’s camp of conservatism that includes securing our borders yet extending opportunity for anyone with the courage to come to our shores under the color of law.

Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum called his plan “a sick joke.” Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer, threatened to punish politicians who supported it. Pat Buchanan, editor of The American Conservative, likened the betrayal to a scene from “The Godfather.”

Once again, these leaders are in the minute paleo-conservative wing of our Party that feels threatened by immigration of any form. Mike Pence is a Reagan conservative and is not threatened by immigration but is welcoming to those who have the courage, strength and convictions to live here under the law to work hard and raise a family. Pence is about putting forth a solution that will secure our borders and secure our freedoms for the future rather than partisan rhetoric that will only line the coffers of his particular interest group.

Perpetually genial, prematurely gray, Mr. Pence, 47, said, “I was taken aback by the level of invective.” “It’s a test of the character of the conservative movement in the 21st century,” he said. “We are either going to prove that we believe in the ideas enshrined on the Statue of Liberty or the American people will go looking elsewhere.”

Mike Pence’s plan offered everything that conservatives have been claiming they wanted in an immigration bill: a secured border and a limited guest worker program if they all had to go home first. Reagan conservatives have soon realized that these few paleo-conservatives do not want a common sense solution but rather a stalemate in Congress so that they can keep the immigration issue alive. And they have been willing to all but crucify the leader of the conservative movement to do so.

Mr. Pence — who bills himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order” — pushed the plan on a recent trip across his district. He quoted the Bible. He quoted Ronald Reagan. He stood sweating in a tomato field beside Mexican workers. And when asked why an Indiana congressman was focused on the border, he responded with a ready phrase: “April 11, 1923.”

That is when his Irish grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, a Chicago bus driver, arrived on Ellis Island. “We were especially close,” said Mr. Pence, who added that he sees his grandfather’s thrift and hard work in today’s immigrant generation.
Some members of the Muncie Chamber of Commerce had doubts. Some worried about cost. Some worried about compliance. But several complimented him for tackling a tough cause. “It is the greatest privilege of my life to represent you,” he said.

Americans overwhelmingly support the Pence plan: A security first bill that allows a limited guest worker program for those who wish to live and embrace the American dream. Mike Pence always puts serving his constituents and serving his principles first before his career. That’s why when Pence saw an opportunity to end the immigration debate and put forth a solution that would secure our borders and our freedoms for generations to come, he did not contemplate the implications it may have on his career or his future. He merely put his conservative principles in action giving the American people what they wanted: tough action for a tough issue.

Though he comes from a family of Irish Catholic Democrats — his father ran a string of gas stations — Mr. Pence joined an evangelical fellowship group at Hanover College, drawn less by theological issues than by its more personal style of worship. His religion pulled him to the right. “I had a hard way of reconciling my commitment to biblical truth with the national Democratic Party’s commitment to abortion on demand,” he said.

His wife, Karen, teaches at a religious school, and sends out e-mail messages asking for the prayers of his supporters. “Please pray for the Holy Spirit to speak through him at the bbq,” a recent message read.

Mr. Pence, two years out of law school, made his first Congressional run in 1988 and lost narrowly to a longtime Democratic incumbent, Phil Sharp. He tried again two years later, in a negative campaign that won him just 42 percent of the vote. Mr. Pence was devastated.

“What was most painful to me was the bile in my throat over how I had responded,” he said. “My faith says if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn the other. My response, after being attacked by my opponent, was to empty the silos on this guy.”

Mr. Pence delivered an unusual self-rebuke in an article called “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner.” Then he ran a conservative research group, the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and was host of a talk radio show in Indianapolis. The seat opened up again in 2000 and Mr. Pence squeaked in — with civility, he said.

“I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad about it,” he often says.

Arriving in Washington, he was dismayed at conservatives’ support for government expansion. In 2001, he was one of 34 Republicans to oppose the No Child Left Behind Act, which expanded federal involvement in education. In 2003, he was one of 25 who opposed the Medicare drug benefit. “I was voting against big conservative government before it was cool,” he said.

Congressional leaders hinted at reprisals, but the base applauded, especially after a 2004 speech in which he warned that the movement was drifting into “the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government.”

Among those won over was Paul Weyrich, a fixture of movement conservatism. He said Mr. Pence had strong appeal among supporters of four major conservative causes: limited government, free enterprise, strong defense and traditional values.
“Nobody is perfect, but he comes pretty close,” Mr. Weyrich said. “He is what I’ve been waiting for in terms of leadership.”

Last year, Mr. Pence became head of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus. He quickly expanded its profile, and, rivals note, his own. Mr. Pence, unlike many conservatives, courts the news media.

His influence was apparent last fall after Hurricane Katrina, when Washington was suddenly filled with talk of new aid for the needy. Concerned about the cost, Mr. Pence’s group replied with Operation Offset, a plan to cut $500 billion over 10 years in programs that included Medicaid, tax credits for the poor, and care for people with AIDS.

It outraged the leadership, which accused him of showboating, and failed to pass.

The House Leadership was upset because Pence would not go along with their “politics as usual” approach that continued to spend more of American’s hard earned tax dollars. Mike Pence does not take principled stands to lift himself up, but rather he stands on conservative principles to lift up the ideas and demands from the American people of responsible government. Tom Delay, after the budget reconciliation was passed, admitted that Pence stepped in and provided much needed conservative leadership.

But it quickly changed the political dynamics, from starting programs to cutting them. Five months later, with Mr. Pence nearby, President Bush signed a bill that cut $39 billion over five years. “I think Operation Offset had something to do with that, though I would never boast of that,” Mr. Pence said.

Edwin J. Feulner Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington group, said Mr. Pence “has really been central to the revival of principled conservatism in the House.” Admirers have already begun a “Mike Pence for President” Web site.

But some colleagues grumble about what they call his self-promotion, and critics on the left see harshness behind the geniality.

People are upset not because they perceive Pence as being a self-promoter. Anyone who took the time to know or follow Mike Pence would immediately see that although he is principled, he is a humble servant who serves the American people and Jesus Christ only. They are upset because, while they cannot explain it (Christians know it is the Hand of God and Pence’s commitment to honor and serve Him), they know that Pence is going places. Jealousy, envy and even fear has set in and has motivated people to work against Pence. All of Pence’s policy and political stands have been to further freedom for the American people and further the Kingdom of Christ.

Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group, said that while the Republican effort was billed as deficit reduction, it in fact made the deficit larger. That is because the reductions were paired with $70 billion of tax cuts, mostly for the very well-to-do. “This is Robin Hood in reverse,” Mr. Greenstein said.

Barry Welsh, a Democrat challenging Mr. Pence this fall, is a Methodist minister who said, “I find it hypocritical that he claims such Christianity” while “cutting the benefits of those who need them.”

Mr. Pence argued that tax cuts help the poor by revving the economy. That may eventually prove true, but despite large tax cuts the poverty rate has risen in each of the last four years.

“That’s anecdotal,” Mr. Pence said in an interview last fall. Then he offered an anecdote — a story President Reagan told about a pipe fitter pleased to see the rich prosper, “because I’ve never been hired by a poor man.”

With Republicans worried about losing control of Congress in the midterm elections this fall, some moderates say Mr. Pence’s wing of the party has pushed it too far to the right; conservatives like Mr. Pence say that in accepting what they call big government, the party has not hewed to its conservative principles enough.

When Mr. Pence weighed in on immigration this spring, the issue, like much of the Republican agenda, was stalled and Republicans were deeply split. The House had passed a tough bill focusing on border security alone. The Senate had passed a broader measure that included a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.

Mr. Pence tried to offer something to everyone. He included provisions to bolster the borders. After two years, if the government certified that those changes were in place, a guest worker program would begin. Those here unlawfully would have to leave the country and apply at job-placement centers. By requiring re-entry, Mr. Pence argues, the plan avoids amnesty and respects the rule of law. The guest worker visas could be renewed, with a chance of citizenship after 17 years.

Mr. Bush sent an approving signal by inviting Mr. Pence to an Oval Office meeting. And the proposal won a Senate co-sponsor in Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas.

The idea, at best, faces an uphill fight when Congress reconvenes next week. But Tamar Jacoby, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who sees promise in Mr. Pence’s approach, said that without him, “the issue would be dead.”

What Mike Pence has really done is keep the hope of a conservative solution alive to end illegal immigration once and for all.

So his critics fear. Team America, a conservative political action committee, now has a feature on its Web site called “Pence Watch.” Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, said the plan would encourage more illegal immigration and undermine cultural cohesion.

Tom Tancredo is one of those conservative members of Congress who does not want the issue of immigration to go away. Tancredo, himself, has offered various guest worker programs in the past, but now once there is a real opportunity to pass conservative legislation regarding immigration Tancredo is willing to bash his colleague rather than support the outright leader of the conservative movement and the new face for securing our borders and freedom.

But David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, credits Mr. Pence’s “courage to think outside the box.”

Does he worry his conservative image has been tarnished?

“I’m not completely immune to that thought,” Mr. Pence said, en route to a photo op in an Orestes, Ind., tomato field. Then he quoted from Micah in the Old Testament: “Do justice and love kindness.”

Pence makes surprise visit to Christian school in home district

2006-09-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence made a key visit Friday to students at a Christian school in Bluffton, Indiana. Pence shared with the students what it means to be a Christian and how to build a Christ-like character. Here are some excerpts from the article on the wisdom that Pence imparted on the youth of America. This is a very solid article other than the mistake that the Pence for President website is ran by Club for Growth. Please enjoy

Congressmen Mike Pence paid a low key visit to the Parlor City yesterday to chat with students and Community Christian School and offer some thoughts on leadership.
Pence was enroute to Fort Wayne for a television interview at WISE-TV Channel 33, but spent about an hour speaking with students at the school...

...Pence told the students he gets about 500 letters each week and reads every one. When one student remarked, “you look like a President,” a beaming Pence replied, “I do look like a President, don’t I. I work at that.”

Pence has been named as a potential Republican candidate in 2008 and a website organized by the conservative organization Club for Growth has been established at www.pence08.com to further that issue...

...Pence told the younger students he loves his work in the house. “I enjoy all of my job,” Pence said. “I love being home in Indiana, I love going to schools.” “It’s sort of hard work, sure, but you can have fun when you are working hard,” Pence said.

His message for the school’s high school students was more focused on leadership and faith. Pence apologized for getting the students out of class and received a rousing chorus of, “that’s OK,” and “no problems,” in response.

Pence told the students that as young people and Christians, “the ambition of your teachers and your parents is that every one of you will be a leader for Christ.”

Pence dispelled the old adage that adversity is what builds strength. “People often say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Pence said. “The idea is if I go through tough times, face hard moral choices, that builds internal strength,” Pence said.

“That’s kind of a lie,” Pence said. “Adversity reveals character. Character as I understand it, integrity, personal strength, is something that you develop on every quiet day before something bad happens.”

“If you wait until that moment to develop character you will be sorely disappointed,” Pence said.

Pence spoke about George Washington noting that as early as age 14 our first President started writing on the subject of character and morality. Pence told the students if Washington waited until Valley Forge, or when the British climbed the Palisades on the Hudson River, we would all likely be speaking with a British accent and the subjects of a King.

Pence said Washington, “saw his faith not as something he did on Sunday but something he did everyday.”

Pence said, “a lot of people come to Washington D.C. because they want to change the world.”

“The key to me as a student of leadership is be different,” Pence said. “If you want to change the world, change your heart and change yourself.”

Pence was jovial and humorous. When asked what congress does for a living he offered the simplest explanation. “We vote for a living, bottom line. When the bell goes off in the House of Representatives I vote.”

“There’s a lot of other things we do to allow us to vote in an informed way,” Pence added.

Pence told the students he has been a lover of our constitution since he was 14 and entered an essay contest sponsored by the American Legion in Columbus.

Pence told of some of his career highlights such as meeting President Bush, consulting with him on Pence’s proposed immigration reform plan, and visits to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pence said he hasn’t always agreed with the President on every issue, “and he has always noticed.”

Pence said he is a “limited government conservative,” and did not agree with the Bush Administration on the No Child Left behind Act...

...Pence offered some solid parting advice to the students. “Life is going to throw you some surprises, don’t wait until then to develop character,” Pence said.

Pence impressed many of the students. Beth Beard a Bluffton resident and senior at the school said she isn’t usually impressed by politics but was impressed by Pence.

“He is truly sold out for God and dedicated to the country,” Beard said. “I didn’t expect that.”

School Administrator Vicki Bell said Pence’s visit gave the students a good idea what a member of congress actually does. “I think it was awesome that he took the time to visit our student body,” Bell said. “It’s always nice when a political figure comes and visits with us...”

Rep. Pence in Surprise Bluffton Stop; Visits, Shares Wisdom With Community Christian School Students

Kudlow standing strong behind Pence

2006-08-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

Recently people have attacked Mike Pence for his common sense approach to securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration. Here is an excerpt from Larry Kudlow backing Mike Pence and his Reagan style conservatism.

Incidentally, I wrote the article for Human Events when that newspaper awarded Congressman Pence its "2005 Man of the Year" award. I know Mike. The man is a wonderful, Reagan-thinking conservative.

His life is governed by religious values, a belief in a strong national defense, and a pro-growth approach to low taxes and less government spending. This Tancredo-Buchanan backstabbing does this rising GOP star a great disservice. If allowed to go unanswered, it would represent another devastating blow to the Republican Party.

While the Pence-Hutchinson immigration reform idea is not perfect, it does represent a useful discussion point for future action. As diplomatically and kindly as possible, with all the greatest respect for differing points of view, let me just say that the Tancredo-Buchanan attack on Mike Pence is nuttier than a fruitcake.

Larry Kudlow

New York Times front page piece

2006-08-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence's recent plan to secure the border has gained impressive media coverage including yesterday's article on the front page of the New York Times. This biased newspaper wrote a fairly objective piece on Mike Pence but pulled a couple of punches to cut down the conservative hero. We applaud Mike Pence for going beyond politics to stand for what's right to ensure that America is secured and that freedom prevails. In our great time in history, America is in need of leaders like Mike Pence who care more about their country than their career.

MUNCIE, Ind. — He supports tax cuts and the war in Iraq. He opposes stem cell research and the Medicare drug plan. He is a master of his movement’s medium, talk radio. Jesus Christ is his personal savior and Ronald Reagan his political idol.

Conjure what might be called the perfect conservative, and chances are he would look a lot like Representative Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who in just three terms has turned 100 House allies into a vanguard and himself into one of his party’s rising stars.

Or that was the case until this spring when he sought compromise in the rancorous immigration debate. His complicated plan would strengthen border security and send illegal immigrants home, but let most of them quickly return. Since then, Mr. Pence — named last year’s Man of the Year by the conservative weekly Human Events — has looked to some conservatives like this year’s Benedict Arnold. They say he has lent his conservative prestige to a form of liberal amnesty.

Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum called his plan “a sick joke.” Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer, threatened to punish politicians who supported it. Pat Buchanan, editor of The American Conservative, likened the betrayal to a scene from “The Godfather.”

Perpetually genial, prematurely gray, Mr. Pence, 47, said, “I was taken aback by the level of invective.”

“It’s a test of the character of the conservative movement in the 21st century,” he said. “We are either going to prove that we believe in the ideas enshrined on the Statue of Liberty or the American people will go looking elsewhere.”

Mr. Pence — who bills himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order” — pushed the plan on a recent trip across his district. He quoted the Bible. He quoted Ronald Reagan. He stood sweating in a tomato field beside Mexican workers. And when asked why an Indiana congressman was focused on the border, he responded with a ready phrase: “April 11, 1923.”

That is when his Irish grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, a Chicago bus driver, arrived on Ellis Island. “We were especially close,” said Mr. Pence, who added that he sees his grandfather’s thrift and hard work in today’s immigrant generation.

Some members of the Muncie Chamber of Commerce had doubts. Some worried about cost. Some worried about compliance. But several complimented him for tackling a tough cause. “It is the greatest privilege of my life to represent you,” he said.

Though he comes from a family of Irish Catholic Democrats — his father ran a string of gas stations — Mr. Pence joined an evangelical fellowship group at Hanover College, drawn less by theological issues than by its more personal style of worship. His religion pulled him to the right. “I had a hard way of reconciling my commitment to biblical truth with the national Democratic Party’s commitment to abortion on demand,” he said.

His wife, Karen, teaches at a religious school, and sends out e-mail messages asking for the prayers of his supporters. “Please pray for the Holy Spirit to speak through him at the bbq,” a recent message read.

Mr. Pence, two years out of law school, made his first Congressional run in 1988 and lost narrowly to a longtime Democratic incumbent, Phil Sharp. He tried again two years later, in a negative campaign that won him just 42 percent of the vote. Mr. Pence was devastated.

“What was most painful to me was the bile in my throat over how I had responded,” he said. “My faith says if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn the other. My response, after being attacked by my opponent, was to empty the silos on this guy.”

Mr. Pence delivered an unusual self-rebuke in an article called “Confessions of a Negative Campaigner.” Then he ran a conservative research group, the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and was host of a talk radio show in Indianapolis. The seat opened up again in 2000 and Mr. Pence squeaked in — with civility, he said.

“I’m a conservative, but I’m not mad about it,” he often says.

Arriving in Washington, he was dismayed at conservatives’ support for government expansion. In 2001, he was one of 34 Republicans to oppose the No Child Left Behind Act, which expanded federal involvement in education. In 2003, he was one of 25 who opposed the Medicare drug benefit. “I was voting against big conservative government before it was cool,” he said.

Congressional leaders hinted at reprisals, but the base applauded, especially after a 2004 speech in which he warned that the movement was drifting into “the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government.”

Among those won over was Paul Weyrich, a fixture of movement conservatism. He said Mr. Pence had strong appeal among supporters of four major conservative causes: limited government, free enterprise, strong defense and traditional values.

“Nobody is perfect, but he comes pretty close,” Mr. Weyrich said. “He is what I’ve been waiting for in terms of leadership.”

Last year, Mr. Pence became head of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus. He quickly expanded its profile, and, rivals note, his own. Mr. Pence, unlike many conservatives, courts the news media.

His influence was apparent last fall after Hurricane Katrina, when Washington was suddenly filled with talk of new aid for the needy. Concerned about the cost, Mr. Pence’s group replied with Operation Offset, a plan to cut $500 billion over 10 years in programs that included Medicaid, tax credits for the poor, and care for people with AIDS.

It outraged the leadership, which accused him of showboating, and failed to pass. But it quickly changed the political dynamics, from starting programs to cutting them. Five months later, with Mr. Pence nearby, President Bush signed a bill that cut $39 billion over five years. “I think Operation Offset had something to do with that, though I would never boast of that,” Mr. Pence said.

Edwin J. Feulner Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington group, said Mr. Pence “has really been central to the revival of principled conservatism in the House.” Admirers have already begun a “Mike Pence for President” Web site.

But some colleagues grumble about what they call his self-promotion, and critics on the left see harshness behind the geniality. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group, said that while the Republican effort was billed as deficit reduction, it in fact made the deficit larger. That is because the reductions were paired with $70 billion of tax cuts, mostly for the very well-to-do. “This is Robin Hood in reverse,” Mr. Greenstein said.

Barry Welsh, a Democrat challenging Mr. Pence this fall, is a Methodist minister who said, “I find it hypocritical that he claims such Christianity” while “cutting the benefits of those who need them.”

Mr. Pence argued that tax cuts help the poor by revving the economy. That may eventually prove true, but despite large tax cuts the poverty rate has risen in each of the last four years.

“That’s anecdotal,” Mr. Pence said in an interview last fall. Then he offered an anecdote — a story President Reagan told about a pipe fitter pleased to see the rich prosper, “because I’ve never been hired by a poor man.”

With Republicans worried about losing control of Congress in the midterm elections this fall, some moderates say Mr. Pence’s wing of the party has pushed it too far to the right; conservatives like Mr. Pence say that in accepting what they call big government, the party has not hewed to its conservative principles enough.

When Mr. Pence weighed in on immigration this spring, the issue, like much of the Republican agenda, was stalled and Republicans were deeply split. The House had passed a tough bill focusing on border security alone. The Senate had passed a broader measure that included a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.

Mr. Pence tried to offer something to everyone. He included provisions to bolster the borders. After two years, if the government certified that those changes were in place, a guest worker program would begin. Those here unlawfully would have to leave the country and apply at job-placement centers. By requiring re-entry, Mr. Pence argues, the plan avoids amnesty and respects the rule of law. The guest worker visas could be renewed, with a chance of citizenship after 17 years.

Mr. Bush sent an approving signal by inviting Mr. Pence to an Oval Office meeting. And the proposal won a Senate co-sponsor in Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas.

The idea, at best, faces an uphill fight when Congress reconvenes next week. But Tamar Jacoby, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who sees promise in Mr. Pence’s approach, said that without him, “the issue would be dead.”

So his critics fear. Team America, a conservative political action committee, now has a feature on its Web site called “Pence Watch.” Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, said the plan would encourage more illegal immigration and undermine cultural cohesion. But David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, credits Mr. Pence’s “courage to think outside the box.”

Does he worry his conservative image has been tarnished?

“I’m not completely immune to that thought,” Mr. Pence said, en route to a photo op in an Orestes, Ind., tomato field. Then he quoted from Micah in the Old Testament: “Do justice and love kindness.”

Pence visits New Orleans on one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

2006-08-28T05:26:00.000-07:00

Progress and Piles of Debris: New Orleans One Year Later

By Congressman Mike Pence

As our plane approached the New Orleans airport, I didn't know what to expect on my first journey to this fabled city nearly a year to the day after the worst natural disaster in American history.

Thanks to the hospitality of local Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA), we were treated to lunch and a briefing of that fateful day, August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina devastated this city. Rep. Jindal and his staff have been extraordinarily effective in making the case for relief funding in a fiscally responsible manner.

Our first stop was the infamous 17th Street Canal where the levee broke, devastating homes and businesses for miles. I remember watching from Kuwait City as the Army Corps of Engineers labored to close the massive gash in this waterway.

Today, where there was once millions of gallons of water, there is a new levee and an entirely new pumping station. Both are operational and secure. Some of the very same Army Corps who labored in vain that day, showed us the new restrained waterway with pride and expressed confidence about the future.

The one thing that surprised me as I drove through the areas of New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina is the sheer, geographic scope of the disaster just in this city. We passed street after street of abandoned homes, with waterlines showing up to ten feet on their siding. Each and every home was still showing the spray paint of the search and rescue teams who used an ‘X’ marking to indicated people recovered from that site, dead or alive. Many roofs still showed the large holes through which thousands of Americans were airlifted to safety.

While Congress has appropriated more than $12 billion to rebuild these homes, the State of Louisiana has not released a significant portion of these funds to the local citizens and it shows. In nearby Mississippi, most of the housing funds have already been made available but, for reasons lost on me, not so here.

The next site we visited was the Industrial Canal breach, the place where we all saw sunken homes surrounding that school bus crushed by a massive coal barge. Where less than a year ago nature was victorious, now stands a massive concrete levee that seems to stretch for more than a half mile.

When we made our way into the city, through the French Quarter and into downtown, the traffic was heavy and the streets were bustling. While the local Charity Hospital is still bravely operating out of what used to be a department store, much of downtown New Orleans looks like many major American cities, shops open, cars honking, tourists strolling. Not surprisingly to any who know the character of the people of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans is coming back.

We left the city as storm clouds began to blow in from the sea. Some local residents expressed anxiety about a tropical depression forming in the Caribbean. Others said that many former residents were waiting to see how the new levees managed this hurricane season before coming back. Only 30 percent of the population on this city has returned. While I share the hope of local officials that most will return, I could never comprehend the hardship they endured. It would be hard to come home after Katrina.

New Orleans is many things today. She is piles of debris and miles of broken homes. But she is also new levees, new pumping stations, a bustling downtown and alluring French Quarter. I hope they show the progress along with the challenges as the media, the President and dignitaries descend on New Orleans for the anniversary events next week. And if they don't, go see it for yourself. If you do, you will be proud of the people of this city. I know I was.

Mike Pence
New Orleans, Louisiana

Journal entry from Mike Pence in Texas

2006-08-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

ON THE RIO GRANDE WITH SECRETARY CHERTOFF, SENATOR HUTCHISON

By Congressman Mike Pence

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I arrived by small aircraft in the 100 degree heat of a Texas summer at a municipal airport near the US/Mexico border.

Harlingen, Texas, is ground zero for the influx of illegal aliens from countries "other than Mexico" (OTMs) and, like San Diego yesterday, has made tremendous progress reducing the flow of human traffic in recent years.

Shortly after our arrival we watched as the Coast Guard jet carrying DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff (pictured above) touched down and taxied to the terminal. A huge motorcade pulled up to the aircraft and we were spirited into an oversize van for an immediate briefing and border tour.

Secretary Chertoff is an intense and impressive administrator. He peppered the U.S. Border leadership at our briefing with questions and outlined upcoming strategies with ease. Yesterday, Secretary Chertoff made national news announcing that all OTM's would be subject to the new "catch and remove" policy, ending a long-time policy of allowing illegals to leave custody on a promise to return for a hearing six weeks later.

As we left the tarmac, we watched as dozens of OTM' s were escorted to two waiting 737 aircraft for a return trip to their Central American homes.

Following a briefing at headquarters, we made our way down narrow and dusty roads to the edge of the United States, the Rio Grande River. We were briefed on the river patrols, aerial surveillance and technology necessary to interdict human and drug traffic across the treacherous band of water.

At an outdoor press conference, Secretary Chertoff described the recent efforts in this region of Texas and commended the U.S. Border Patrol for the underreported progress they have made.

In response to a question on the prospects for immigration reform, the Secretary stated that the White House was "in no position to endorse" any one proposal. He did express gratitude to Sen. Hutchison and me for our efforts in attempting reach some compromise.

From the Rio Grande, Sen. Hutchison and I flew to San Antonio for a detailed briefing on efforts by the DEA to inderdict narcotics along the border. Today, as yesterday, the message was clear: the same Mexican cartels that are smuggling drugs are smuggling workers into America. The profits from moving thousands of illegal immigrants into our country are subsidizing the manufacture and importation of the drugs that are killing our kids.

As I fly back to Dallas, I believe we have made progress in border security but our U.S. Border Patrol and DEA need help. They need people, technology and funding for barriers and equipment. And they need Congress to come up with a way that people can apply legally outside the United States to meet the needs of our grow ing economy. With the resources, the people, the tools and the ability to just focus on the bad guys, our law enforcement community can secure our border and protect our nation.

Mike Pence
Flying back to Dallas, Texas

Journal entry from Mike Pence in San Diego

2006-08-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

ON THE CALIFORNIA BORDER WITH BORDER PATROL: A TOUR OF SMUGGLERS GULCH

By Congressman Mike Pence

The US/Mexico border in southern California is a study in contrasts. Part of the border is a single, rusted wall of corrugated steel. There are clear signs that illegals have climbed over or dug under this barrier. With more than two million residents of Tijuana, Mexico, just a few hundred yards away, this doesn't appear to be much of a national border. Farther to the east, we got a glimpse of the future: A two-layer border fence with video surveillance towers and a patrol road in the middle. It is an imposing sight and, while not completely secure, the new neighborhoods being built just inside the U.S. border attest to the fact that this border is largely secure.

We spent the day touring border areas, detention centers and the largest port of entry in the United States: southern California's San Diego sector.

Different from many other areas of the US/Mexico border, this is an area that has seen real progress in border security over the past ten years. In 1995, more than 500,000 arrests were processed in this sector and, after extensive border and personnel changes, that number has dropped to around 125,000 in 2005.

The success of what CBP called "Operation Gatekeeper" is especially important since San Diego is considered the number one point of entry for criminal aliens on the U.S. border. The terrain, population density and numerous transportation options have made this the most attractive arrival point for aliens with criminal intent. Progress here should mean that our families are safer from criminal aliens but, unfortunately, the U.S. border is more than just San Diego.

The discouraging news is that there is evidence that success here has only driven many of the drug and human traffic activities to less secure areas of the border.

We were also told that different standards for prosecution in districts along the border virtually invite illegals to "game the system," shaping their smuggling efforts to regions and quantities that will avoid serious criminal penalities.

My biggest insight came during a briefing at the Imperial Beach station of the San Diego sector. There we were told that the same cartels that are building sophisticated tunnels and systems to move illegal drugs into our country have a large network of "load houses" that move workers into the U.S. economy on a fee-for-service basis. Companies in the United States that need laborers spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on these human trafficking organizations. The fees range from $200 to $2,000 per person and are most often paid by wire transfers coordinated by ostensibly legitimate middle men in the United States who arrange for the laborers that have been "ordered" by U.S. companies.

We were told that the same cartels putting drugs in the hands of our kids are making billions of dollars smuggling laborers into the U.S. market. One load house recently detected was posting $1,000,000 per month in income.

This seems to me to be an argument for three major elements of the Hutchsion-Pence plan: border security first, employer sanctions and a new guest worker program.

From what I saw of the success here in San Diego, the border can be secured but it will require people and resources to do it. Employers must face serious fines for hiring illegal immigrants to cut off the demand for illegal workers that fuels the smuggling cartels. We must create, outside the United States, a system that would permit law-abiding workers to obtain access to our nation to work. We must replace the illegal system of load houses, a system that finances drugs and violence, with a legal system that protects our nation, respects our laws and meets the needs of our growing economy.

As I prepare to leave for the border area of Texas, I leave with a profound sense of gratitude for the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol. Their courage, candor and optimism convinces me that we can and will solve the crisis of illegal immigration. May God bless the U.S. Border Patrol.

Mike Pence
San Diego, California

Pence in Texas

2006-08-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

U.S. Congressman Mike Pence will tour the Texas border today with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Look for Mike Pence on Fox News today!

Pence's public schedule follows:

Thursday August 24, 2006

10:05 a.m.
Justice Prisoner Air Transport System Briefing.
Harlingen, TX.
Closed Press.

10:35 a.m.
Catch and Release Briefing with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Harlingen, TX.
Closed Press.

11:25 a.m.
Border Tour.
Harlingen, TX.
Closed Press.

11:35 a.m.
Media Availability.
Willacy County Pump Station, Rio Rico Road.
Harlingen, TX.
Open Press.

1:50 p.m.
San Antonio Border Briefing with Drug Enforcement Agency.
San Antonio, TX.
Closed Press.

2:30 p.m.
Media Availability.
San Antonio International Airport (Enter Gate 83), 457 #2 Sandau Road.
San Antonio, TX.
Open Press.

4:20 p.m.
Media Availability.
Love Field Business Jet Center, 8611 Lemmon Avenue.
Dallas, TX.
Open Press.

Pence in San Diego

2006-08-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence spent yesterday in San Diego observing the border and speaking out to help secure our borders. Pence's "border security first" plan is the best thing we can do to secure our borders and we must take action now. Here is an article from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

(08-23) 04:00 PDT San Diego -- REP. MIKE PENCE visited San Diego recently to get a close-up look at the U.S.-Mexican border. And that gave me a chance to get a close-up look at Mike Pence.

The Indiana Republican is a rising star in the GOP who has emerged as one of the most pivotal figures in the immigration debate. He also must be one of the most frustrated.

That is because every time the three-term congressman comes up with a way to give GOP hardliners what they say they want in an immigration bill, they decide they don't want it anymore. Every time it looks as if he is about to get into the end zone, members of his own party move the goal line.

It's a maddening negotiation.

"I'm not a stranger to controversy," Pence told me, "but the crosscurrents here have been challenging to me."

The Republican holdouts have said all along that they want border security first -- before any discussion about what to do with 12 million illegal immigrants. They said they oppose amnesty and define it as anything that forgives the unlawful act of entering the country without proper documents. And, they said, it would be nice if the illegal immigrants had to return home first and apply to re-enter the United States legally.

Pence agreed to every demand, crafting a "third way" alternative to the cumbersome Senate bill and the unworkable enforcement-only House bill. And yet still, he admits, about a third of House conservatives -- perhaps 30 or 40 members -- are "unalterably opposed" to his approach.

Under the Pence plan, the first priority would be securing the border. Then comes a guest- worker program that would require illegal immigrants in the United States to return to their home countries to register at privately run centers. The immigrants would get work visas that could be renewed every two years for up to 12 years, provided they were learning English. For the next five years, they'd be given a more permanent visa. After 17 years, participants could apply for U.S. citizenship.

Pence gained an ally in Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas who, according to the congressman, "improved the plan immensely" by suggesting that participation be limited to those who come from countries who partner with the United States in the North American and Central American free trade agreements.

"If we have a positive relationship with you," Pence said, "if you're a good neighbor -- diplomatically and economically -- then not only can your multinational corporations do business here and ours there but your people can come work."

There's another limit in the Pence plan. For the first three years of the guest-worker program, the market dictates the amount of people who can participate. But beginning in the fourth year, the U.S. Labor Department would put a cap on the number.

What Pence didn't see coming was that this good neighbor policy would freak out those who are scared silly about the Latinization of America. For those who think that Mexico and the rest of Latin America monopolize U.S. immigration policy, and who worry that Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants are changing the cultural fabric of the country in frightening ways, the Pence plan would only make things worse.

It's in that crowd you'll find the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant group that not only wants to eliminate illegal immigration but also limit legal immigration. FAIR is running hit pieces on the radio in Indiana that label the Pence plan a "backdoor amnesty."

I don't buy that, and neither does Pence.

"If you're applying outside the United States for the legal right to work inside the United States," he said, "that's not amnesty."

"As a matter of the law, there's no amnesty involved in that transaction because you're applying outside the jurisdiction of the United States of America."

And while Pence acknowledges that there is racism in this debate, he insists that it is limited to "a very small number of Americans" and that none of his colleagues in Congress fits the description.

Pence knows that I'm usually not so generous.

"I'm not saying that what you have observed and rightly chastised in your columns isn't out there," he said. "But if we can find a way to get people right with the law without undermining our commitment to law and order, I think every community in Indiana and every community around the country would be more than happy to have these people and more like them."

It's a nice thought -- one that I'd find easier to believe if more Republicans in Congress were embracing the common sense behind the Hutchison-Pence plan.

Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego Union-Tribune

Pence's Christian influence on politics

2006-08-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by The Conservative Voice touting Christian influence in the realm of politics with new leaders like Mike Pence. Mike Pence knows the best way to draw people towards Christ is to speak and act in such a way as to win people with grace and love. Mike Pence is the Christian leader America needs for 2008 and beyond.

Evangelicals are more present-tense in the US Congress than even they would let on. They are not brash nor in-your-face with tracts in hand. They are mannerly, poised, well-educated, yet still firm in the faith.

According to The Washington Post’s Hanna Rosin, "Nearly every third congressional office stocks an ambitious Christian leader who calls himself ‘evangelical,’ according to Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University."

They are a new generation of biblical Christians. They know of the Tammy Faye Bakker types and the Jerry Falwell genre. But they’re not that, at least not in style.

Even their language is more suave. They say the same convictions but their nomenclature is posh-pleasant. There is no compromise to their biblical ethic but they know how to communicate it more effectively than the Bible-thumpers who preceded them.

So it is amazing to realize the statistic: "Every third congressional office stocks an ambitious Christian leader who called himself ‘evangelical.’" Surely George W. Bush realizes that. And now it’s time for the American evangelical community to be encouraged by that.

Red States, give a cheer. Bible believers, thank God. Evangelicals worldwide, realize how strongly God has brought together His righteous remnant in action. Now get in line and behave while keeping to your principles. Listen up and act smart. Do something but do it right this time.

"This year evangelicals in public office have finally become so numerous that they've blended in to the permanent Washington backdrop, a new establishment that has absorbed the local habits and mores.

"They may believe everything they believed before, but they've learned to speak in ways that are more measured and cautious and designed not to attract attention.

"Sen. John Thune is the movement's new David, having overthrown former Senate minority leader Tom Daschle. When talking about abortion, the South Dakota Republican prefers abstractions: ‘I like to connect my principled view with my policy objectives,’ he says. ‘Good principles can lead to good policy.’"

There’s your example of the new Congressional evangelical type. He’s right on. He’s knowledgeable. He’s contemporary. He’s grounded in his biblical beliefs. So there.

"Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has promised to make a brief appearance at this antiabortion news conference. Pence was raised Catholic, born again in college, but a political experience brought on his real ‘conversion.’ In 1990 Pence ran what he described as the nastiest race in Indiana history. He lost.

"From then on he vowed that even while engaged in politics he would always be ‘true to his faith.’ Pence, 45, became a conservative radio talk show host who is stylistically the anti-Rush Limbaugh. ‘I'm a conservative, but I'm not in a bad mood about it,’ he'd say on air. Last year he ran for Congress again with the aim of rehabilitating himself; in ads he never mentioned his opponent.

"After he got to Washington his colleagues voted him head of the Republican Study Committee, a group of powerful House conservatives once known as Newt Gingrich's henchmen. Their platform hasn't changed in 10 years, but under Pence's leadership it's a new day. ‘You do not demonize those who disagree with you,’ he says. ‘If you believe in a woman's right to choose, you're not a bad person, we just disagree.’"

So go the prayer warriors for the Lord in up-town dress. God bless them all.

Evangelical Impact on Congress

Pence for President

2006-08-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a post on RedState by a conservative talking about Mike Pence for President.

When Mike Pence first ran for Congress in 2000, he had several hurdles to overcome. Ask some of the pundits watching his campaign and one of those hurdles was Mike Pence. Competitive primaries are often the breeding ground for negative campaigning. The way the story goes, now-Congressman Pence wouldn’t hear of it. …He still won.

Now the elected head of the House conservatives in Congress (the Republican Study Committee) the small town lawyer born in Columbus who graduated from Hanover College and received his law degree from Indiana University School of Law now leads an army best truly described as the “Majority of the Majority.”

Of course, he doesn’t lead alone. In fact, it could be argued that he doesn’t so much lead as he asks others to find their own potential and run with it. Florida Congressman Tom Feeney has had tremendous success as chairman of the House Conservatives Fund. Congressman Jeb Hensarling has flourished as the Budget & Spending Taskforce Chairman for the RSC. Gone are the days when then RSC languished with 40 members. They claim well over 90 public members. In reality, there are closer to 110.

And what of the thoughtful, soft-spoken representative from Indiana’s 6th District who manages to keep at least a step ahead of Majority Leader John Boehner, several steps ahead of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and miles ahead of House and Senate Democrats on a daily basis?

At last count, there are no longer dozens of “Draft Mike” and “Draft Pence” groups on (and off) college campuses nationwide… there are hundreds. A fiscal and national security hawk whose commitment to conservative ideals is exceeded only by his commitment to playing by the rules (scandal-mongers will be sorely disappointed by Mike Pence), it isn’t difficult to see why some gravitate toward this fast-rising star.

Perhaps understanding that leaders need to take on the challenges of the times, Reagan had the Cold War. President George W. Bush has had the War on Terror. For Congressman Mike Pence, the issue has been one that accounts for between 30% and 85% of all mail and calls to Member offices on a given week: Immigration.

What began as a comprehensive policy called (no surprise) the Pence Plan in the House earned instant praise. It was endorsed almost immediately by conservative icons like Newt Gingrich, Republican leaders like Dick Armey, establishment leaders like David Keene from ACU, pundits like John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, and even candidates around the nation like conservative Oklahoma City Mayor and Republican Congressional candidate Mick Cornett, who made it the focal point of his immigration policy.

While the Democrats have already started campaigning in earnest, the Republican field seems thin so far. Whether or not Mike Pence runs remains to be seen. There is certainly room in the field for his ideas.

Mike Pence for President? Your Thoughts Please…

President 2008 Mike Pence

2006-08-16T14:01:00.000-07:00


Listen to Mike Pence's Congressional Campaign Ad. This is exactly what Pence will be campaigning on during his presidential race. Enjoy!

Pence heads for the Border

2006-08-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

The immigration hero Mike Pence will be heading down South next week to prayerfully secure the border. Please pray for Pence and our country that we will put aside politics and secure our borders to protect our children and future from terrorists, drug smugglers and felons. Here is an article by The Hill.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), whose immigration reform plan has garnered significant media attention during a prolonged standoff between Republican leaders in the House and Senate, is scheduled to make a trip to the U.S. border with Mexico next week, his spokesman said.

The chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee is planning to stop in San Diego, Calif., and El Paso, Texas, next week to promote his plan to overhaul the country’s immigration laws. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) has introduced a Senate companion. A Hutchison spokesman was “hopeful” the senator could make one of the appearances.

Their plan would create a privately funded system for businesses of every size to bring foreign workers to this country while establishing stricter internal and external enforcement of illegal immigration.

Pence’s trip to the border is independent of a leadership-backed effort to build opposition to the Senate plan.

Republican leaders in the House, in coordination with the committees of jurisdiction, have organized 12 field hearings in eight states during the August recess in order to criticize aspects of a Senate-approved plan that would create pathways to citizenship for undocumented workers already in this country. Nine more hearings are scheduled for the rest of the month.

Pence headed for the border

Timeless Speech

2006-08-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

Read Mike Pence's famous 2004 CPAC Keynote Address.

Picture, if you will, a ship at sea. A proud captain steps into the sunlit deck of a tall ship plying the open seas of a simpler time. Its sails full and straining in the wind, its crew are tried and true, its hull, mast and keel are strong but beneath the waves, almost imperceptibly, the rudder has veered off course and, in time, the captain and crew will face unexpected peril.

The conservative movement today is like that tall ship with its proud captain, strong, accomplished but veering off course into the dangerous and uncharted waters of big government republicanism.

I'm Mike Pence and I'm From Indiana.

And I can't tell you what an honor it is for me and my family to be with you today.

I feel I should ask the question of Admiral Stockdale, the question many of you must be asking, "who am I and why am I here!"

All I can say is that I am a Christian, a Conservative and a Republican in that order and that I am deeply humbled to address the most important gathering of conservatives in America!

I am especially honored to address the state of the movement before so many who have done so much for the cause of conservative values.

As we reflect this morning on battles past and future, the words of David before Goliath come to mind when he asked his countrymen, "is there not a cause?"

Conservatives like you gathered here never suffer that question.

Conservatives know the cause: to "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

And by the standards of these fundamental objects of the republic, American conservatives can take considerable pride in the past three years, that the ship of conservative Republican government in Washington is strong.

And our movement is strong.

In promoting national security, economic prosperity and the sanctity of human life, conservatives made measurable gains in 2003.

Under the leadership of President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress, we have provided for the common defense -which the Federalist reminds us is the first and most fundamental object of all.

Ours was a nation under attack as I stood on the east lawn of the Capitol on September 11, 2001. I stood beneath a sky filled with mud brown smoke, people running in every direction...F-16's going supersonic at treetop level to intercept an inbound menace over Pennsylvania...and in the midst of the chaos of that time, stood George W. Bush, his arm draped over the shoulder of a bone-weary fireman, speaking courage through a bullhorn to a listening nation.

And we saw those words matched by deeds of equal valor.

These are the deeds that ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan, and have now defeated and captured the butcher of Baghdad.

These are the deeds that have yielded a safer America and a safer world, visible to all but an angry, frustrated few who remain stubbornly and willfully blind.

Through it all, Republicans in Congress and conservatives throughout the land have stood steadfastly behind our president whose personal courage and bold leadership has made our families measurably safer.

To provide for the common defense at home.

And to project power in the national interest abroad.

Because of conservatism, America is defending freedom at home and abroad.

And since conservatives were the margin in the disputed election of 2000, conservatives can take credit that America has this man as our president "for such a time as this."

At the same time, we have promoted the general welfare with the only means that ever works - the means that unleashes the enterprise and initiative of the American taxpayer. Under the leadership of President Bush and the Republican Congress, two successive tax cuts have provided the largest tax relief since the days of Ronald Reagan. Just as they began to do in 1983, the positive results are now pouring in with each day's economic news. Americans are going back to work. Businesses are expanding and this president's determination to act on his conservative Republican principles is the reason for our returning prosperity.

And on this, the 31st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we can finally progress in securing the unalienable right to life for millions of unborn Americans.

Thanks to the unselfish, unflagging efforts of conservatives who have devoted themselves to being the voice for the voiceless, we can now point to the first major legislative victory since the legalization of abortion in 1973.

A Republican Congress passed a ban of "partial birth abortion" and this Republican president signed it into law.

Republican governance, in these respects, has been conservative governance.

And if any of you believe George W. Bush is not the right man for our country, and not the right man for conservatives to support, you need look no further than these victories in national security, economic policy and the sanctity of life to know that George W. Bush is the right man for America, equal to the times and worthy of our trust.

But despite these enormous conservative achievements, there are troubling signs that the ship of conservative governance is off course.

While Ronald Reagan said famously, "government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem" many Republicans-even many who call themselves conservatives-see government increasingly as the solution to every social ill and-let us be clear on this point- this is a historic departure from the limited government traditions of our party and millions of its most ardent supporters.

And this shift to faith in government is especially clear to me.

Not because I am a congressman, but because not long ago, as I watched the children's animated movie "Ice Age" with my kids I realized...I am the frozen man.

You remember the frozen man...born in a simpler time, slips into the snow and thaws out years later in a more sophisticated age.

Well, I first ran for Congress in 1988. An entrenched Democratic majority controlled Congress, frustrating President Reagan at every turn.

A band of heroic House conservatives were challenging Speaker Jim Wright and welfare state politics; a balanced federal budget was as much a fantasy as a Republican majority in Congress...but some of us believed. We believed we could reduce the size and scope of government and halt the slow march to socialism embodied in the welfare state politics of the left.

I lost my bid in 1988 and again in 1990.

There's a saying in politics: "When you're out, you're out!"

Well, I was out for 10 years.

And when I was finally elected to Congress in 2000, I was like the frozen man...frozen before the revolution, thawed after it was over...a minuteman who showed up 10 years late!

A decade ago, when I first ran for Congress, Republicans dreamed of eliminating the federal Department of Education and returning control of our schools to parents, communities and states.

Ten years later, I am thawed out, take my oath of office in the 107th Congress and join the revolution and they hand me a copy of H.R. 1...One...as in our Republican Congress' number one priority.

The "No Child Left Behind Act." The largest expansion of the federal Department of Education since it was created by President Jimmy Carter.

In the end, myself and about 30 House conservatives fought against the bill and were soundly defeated by our own colleagues.

Our Reaganite beliefs that education was a local function were labeled "far right" by Republicans and the President signed the bill into law with a smiling Ted Kennedy at his side.

Conservatives were told to bear up...that this was the exception, not the rule.

And so, relieved to have that experience behind me, I anxiously awaited a new H.R. 1 for a new Congress...an H.R. 1 I could be proud of. And so at the onset of the 108th, I was handed H.R. 1...the number one priority...the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill.

The largest new entitlement since 1965!

To the frozen man it was obvious.

Another Congress.

Another H.R.1.

And another example of the ship of our movement veering off course.

Actually this bill started out promising. The president asked Congress for a very limited program...extending existing welfare benefits to seniors just above the poverty level where most of the one in four seniors without prescription drug coverage reside.

Many conservatives, me included, were prepared to support this limited benefit. I told the president we shouldn't make seniors choose between food, rent and prescription drugs...we were a better country than that.

But instead of giving the president what he requested, the Congress...the land of the $400 hammer...set sail to create the largest new entitlement since 1965...a massive one-size-fits-all entitlement that would place trillions in obligations on our children and grandchildren without giving any thought to how we were going to pay for it.

Conservatives in the House were faced with a difficult choice...oppose the president we love...or support the expansion of the big government we hate.

Twenty-five rebels decided to make a stand for the principle of limited government.

When all the votes were counted, we were one rebel short.

In the end the bill passed.

The welfare state expanded.

And the ship of conservative government veered off course.

But I will always believe that the stand we took mattered. Even in defeat.

Sometimes a small group of people can take a stand, be defeated and still make a difference.

Like in 1836 when less than 200 men fought against thousands of Mexican forces to defend an ancient Christian mission on the plains of Texas.

Though they died to the last man, the Texas volunteers within those missionary walls exacted such a horrific toll on the Army of Santa Anna, that his aid, Col. Juan Almonte privately noted, "One more such glorious victory and we are finished."

And so they were.

The inspiration of the men who made their stand at the Alamo fueled the victory that Sam Houston would lead just six weeks later.

"One more such glorious victory and we are finished."

One more big government education bill.

One more new government entitlement.

One more compromise of who we are as limited government Republicans, and our majority could be finished.

So then, the state of the movement:

Strong, on the advance, but veering off course from our commitment to limited government.

The time has come for conservatives to retake the helm of this movement and renew our commitment to fiscal discipline and to what we know to be true about the nature of government:

Conservatives know that government that governs least governs best.

Conservatives know as government expands, freedom contracts.

Conservatives know that government should never do for a man what he can and should do for himself.

And conservatives know that we never expand the welfare state but that we don't reduce the freedom of its recipients and all those condemned to pay its price in confiscated taxes.

And conservatives know that if you reject these principles of limited government and urge others to reject them you can be my ally, you can be my friend but you cannot call yourself a conservative.

As I close I think about the year ahead.

The unforeseeable challenges our nation may face.

And I think of the heroes we will likely bid farewell.

And I think of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

I met President Reagan in the summer of 1988.

I was a 29 year-old candidate for Congress and he was winding down a presidency that changed the world.

It was a candidate photo-op in the Blue Room of the White House.

I was determined to say something of meaning to the great man.

After we exchanged pleasantries, I told him I was grateful for everything he had done for the country and everything he had done to inspire my generation of Americans to believe in high ideals.

He seemed surprised, his cheeks appeared to redden with embarrassment and he said, "Well, Mike, that's a very nice thing of you to say."

Moments later in the ballroom he took a minute to respond to my and others' accolades with characteristic humility and optimism saying:

"Many of you have thanked me for what I did for America but I want you to know I don't think I did anything for this country-the American people decided it was time to right the ship and I was just the captain they put on the bridge when they did it."

It's time for conservative Americans to do what Reagan did.

It's time for conservative Americans to right the ship again.

To celebrate our great Republican President and Congress that are leading our nation's progress in national security, economic prosperity and value of human life.

But also to see her listing to port...in the direction of big government and set her right again.

And to know that this is not a sign of disloyalty but of true loyalty to principle.

When a ship is approaching a rocky coast, the life of the ship and its crew depends on the navigator with his sextant to counsel the captain and crew to steer clear of the shoals and if need be to forcefully oppose the captain when the fate of the ship hangs in the balance.

This is our cause.

To stand with our captain as he leads us well.

And to right the ship in that where she is adrift.

And this cause will prevail.

For the cause of freedom is not ours but His - "the author and finisher of our faith."

And I believe with all my heart that He who set this miracle of democracy on this these wilderness shores will see our cause through tomorrow as surely as He has seen it through every yesterday.

Thank you for all you do to keep the cause of conservative values alive in this shining city on the hill, this last best hope of earth, these United States of America.

God bless you and God bless the USA.

Conservative Mandate

2006-08-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Conservatives scored a victory yesterday as liberal Republican Joe Schwarz lost to conservative candidate Tim Walberg in the 7th district of Michigan. Americans want conservatives governing their country and it's time for true conservatives to lead us back to that "shining city on a hill." Walberg looks up to conservative leader Mike Pence and will fight for our conservative principles to ensure freedom and liberty.

MI Rep. Joe Schwarz's long history in his CD -- from doctor, to mayor and active rep -- couldn't save himself from the fire that his moderate positions on social and fiscal issues kindled.

Schwarz's positions easily handed ex-state Rep. Tim Walberg the backing of MI Right to Life and the Club for Growth. RTL helped Walberg's ground game and CFG helped Walberg raise money when the MI and national GOP establishment lined up behind Schwarz.

(It's the first time a Club-endorsed candidate has ever beat a federal incumbent.) Schwarz's electoral base was never large to begin with: he won 24% in the six-way '04 GOP primary. It didn't hurt that Walberg is a minister and was a red-blooded fiscal conservative during his 16 years in the Legislature.

Sources in MI say that Schwarz ran a poor campaign. Robocalls from Pres. Bush, Laura Bush ex-Dem Gov. Jim Blanchard barely helped. Also: Walberg's campaign used sophisticated precinct targeting software developed by a young DC-based consultant.

The solidly GOP CD means Walberg is on his way to Congress. Walberg is certain to stay to the right once there, saying he admires Reps. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Schwarz's absence will rob moderate House GOPers of one of their own, at a time when they've played an influential role in shaping the House GOP agenda (like killing ANWR drilling).

Unified Dem opposition made moderates the key for the GOP leadership to pass legislation. The hope among conservatives is that Schwarz's defeat will encourage moderates to tack right. [JUSTIN MILLER and MARC AMBINDER]

On Joe Schwarz's Defeat

Top 10 Pro-Growth House Members

2006-08-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence recently got rated 100% by The Club for Growth, the most fiscally conservative organization in America. This shows how Mike Pence is capable of being an effective leader while staying true to his conservative principles. Human Events says to watch out for Pence and they are exactly right!

10. Steve Chabot (98%) – Liberals want Chabot’s seat. He’s in an evenly split district (Bush got 51% against Kerry), but that hasn’t weakened his exceptionally strong voting record.

9. Joe Pitts (99%) – A Vietnam veteran, Pitts has quietly attained a very conservative voting record in a state that continues to lurch leftward because of its increasing RINO congressional representation.

8. Sue Myrick (99%) – She’s part of the celebrated Class of 1994 who continues to fight for limited government even after 12 years in Washington.

7. Todd Akin (100%) – Akin was one of the 25 brave fiscal conservatives who successfully resisted the DeLay whip machine by voting against the Medicare drug bill in 2003.

6. Ed Royce (100%) – He speaks softly, but carries a strong voting card. He’s a very smart guy and a nice one to boot.

5. John Shadegg (100%) – Here’s one reason why House Republicans are getting weaker and weaker on fiscal issues…they didn’t elect John Shadegg as their Majority Leader.

4. Jeb Hensarling (100%) – He studied under fiscal legend, Phil Gramm. And while he’s got big shoes to fill, he’s surpassing all expectations as the RSC’s budgetary pointman.

3. Mike Pence (100%) – Mike Pence, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), is a rising star. Watch out for him.

2. Trent Franks (100%) – A successful entrepreneur, Franks is the real deal when it comes to fiscal conservatism. He has publicly stated that he never wants to be on the Appropriations Committee.

1. Jeff Flake (100%) – Very few members of Congress, if any, work harder than Jeff Flake to protect the American taxpayer. Most admirably, he has never secured pork projects for his district.

Top 10 Pro-Growth House Members

Different revolt, same leader

2006-08-03T05:42:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence once again led a revolt against the leadership, but this time it was against a bill that he wanted. Pence has been the biggest proponent of abolishing the death tax which was what this bill was intended to do. Unfortunately the leadership caved into the moderates and tacked on a 41% increase in the minimum wage. This is bad for the economy and bad economically because this legislation would hurt American's poorest families causing them to lose their jobs. Pence has always been the leading voice of reason to stay true to our conservative values. We can always count on Mike Pence to lead the charge for freedom and liberty. Below is an article written by Bob Novak explaining this situation.

WASHINGTON -- When House members departed last weekend for summer vacation, they handed a painful choice to senators left behind in 100-degree Washington heat. The haughty Senate could either rubber-stamp two complicated bills passed by the House or face real-life consequences. When it took the former course, the Republican-controlled Congress again had abandoned conservative doctrine.

This abandonment bears the imprint of Rep. Bill Thomas, the domineering House Ways and Means Committee chairman, in his farewell congressional performance. He combined GOP-sought estate tax relief with the minimum wage increase long blocked by Republicans as job-killing wage fixing. In accepting this, Republican lawmakers cast doubt on what they really believe.

A lame-duck committee chairman overpowering Congress connotes weak leadership in both House and Senate and a president detached from legislative activity. As the summer break approached, Congress was going nowhere on immigration and lobbyist controls, and long ago gave up on Social Security and tax reform called for by President Bush. But non-passage of two bills would bring real-life consequences.

The first such bill dealt with private pension plans, now $450 billion in the hole. Missing a Sept. 13 deadline would mandate a federal bailout of two airlines, Northwest and Delta. The other measure is the "extenders bill," continuing some 40 expiring corporate tax breaks. Unless passed by the Sept. 15 tax deadline, many corporations must restate their earnings -- antagonizing executives as Republicans dun them for 2006 campaign contributions.

I first heard on July 12 that House Republicans were planning to merge minimum wage and estate tax legislation. Thomas last week combined them with the extenders bill. Arrogant, acerbic and authoritarian, the chairman was going out with a bravura performance (refusing to walk across the Capitol to meet with senators). Last week, senators cooled their heels for hours while waiting for Thomas and other House members to attend a meeting.

Sen. Charles Grassley, Thomas's counterpart as Senate Finance Committee chairman, was furious. He had planned to sweeten his pension bill with the popular extender measure. An enraged Grassley burst uninvited into a meeting of House Republican leaders. He and Thomas, long locked in mutual contempt, attacked each other face-to-face at a Thursday night meeting. But Grassley was undercut by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's support of Thomas's plan.

House Republican leaders next swallowed the 41 percent minimum wage hike -- under duress. Moderate Eastern and Midwestern House members, many threatened for re-election and embarrassed by failure to raise minimum wages, issued a ultimatum: Without the minimum wage, they would block scheduled House adjournment last Friday. The moderate tail again was wagging the conservative dog in the House.

Conservative Republican Reps. Mike Pence and Jeff Flake tried to soften the higher minimum wage's impact on small businesses by joining it with a plan to cut their health care costs. They were told this would be doomed in the Senate by the "Big Blues" (Blue Cross and Blue Shield).

"It's about time we increased the minimum wage!" Thomas told the House. That triggered instant conversion by Republican debaters, extolling the minimum wage as a positive good, with or without estate tax relief. When fellow Republicans tried to convince Pence that this was shrewd politics, the third-term congressman from Elwood, Ind., replied: "I didn't come here to pass wage controls." But only 20 other Republicans joined Pence and Flake in voting against Thomas's concoction. The consensus at a Senate Republican conference Monday was positive (though Grassley did not attend).

Thomas, the fabled legislative mechanic, added $3.9 billion over 10 years for the "abandoned mine lands" program to attract mining state Democrats (perhaps including Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia). He also put in the bill state and local tax deductions and writeoffs for higher education expenses, among other goodies. Earlier, the bill took on a timber tax break intended to snare Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, facing a vigorous re-election challenge in Washington state.

At this writing, it appears all this will pass the Senate untouched by week's end. But most Democrats are opposed, chiding Republicans that they embraced a higher minimum wage only if tied to the estate tax. Having abandoned its principles, the GOP can't even get credit from its opposition.

Another GOP retreat By Robert D. Novak

Appeal to the American people

2006-08-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

It's funny how people sometimes mistake Mike Pence as a "centrist" because of his soft-spoken, laid back appeal that influences many people including moderates to agree with his position. It's great that Mike Pence appeals to the "centrist" base but he definitely appeals more to the conservative wing of the Party. Pence has constantly taken bold stances against the leadership in key legislation including the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare Bill, Hurricane Katrina and immigration reform. This is what makes Mike Pence a hero to the conservative base and the American people! Below is a profile on Mike Pence by The Conservative Voice.

Born in the heartland of America, Representative Mike Pence has been representing the Sixth Congressional District of eastern Indiana since 2000. His ascent in the political realm as a national spokesman for conservative principles has been noted in publications such as the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Business Week and The Weekly Standard. In 2005, Pence was named “Man of the Year” by Human Events, a national conservative weekly.

While accolades continue to flow from conservative groups for Pence, it wasn’t always so. After losing his first two attempts at congressional runs in 1988 and 1990, he found himself with a local and later statewide audience as the host of “The Mike Pence Show,” a syndicated radio program. Pence would go on to also appear on a weekend political television show in Indianapolis. He jokes about his long-running radio experience “for ten years [I] did my best impersonation of Rush Limbaugh every day.”But with 2008 coming within vision, there’s talk in Indiana and nationally that Mike Pence might make a good conservative candidate for the presidency. Self-described as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican,” the Congressman’s appeal seems to lie with the centrists of the Republican Party.

His so-called Pence Plan for immigration reform, however, has brought out criticisms from hard-liners, including Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the 97-member House Immigration Reform Caucus. Despite criticism from Tancredo that Pence’s plan would “start the new foreign worker program before border security is even proved effective,” a look on Pence’s website refutes this claim. “Before any new temporary-worker program can begin, our plan requires the president to certify that all mandated border-security measures are completed. The Hutchison-Pence proposal embraces the tough border-security measures of the House and Senate bills. It would add border patrol agents, drug enforcement agents and port-of-entry inspectors; end catch and release; add security fences and other physical barriers at critical points; and employ American technology, such as unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles.” Pence’s website offers the complete plan as advocated by the Indiana congressman and co-sponsor Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX).

Strong on national defense and an advocate of limited government, Pence has often been described as a Reagan Republican. As the Congressman is fond of saying, “Every time I heard Ronald Reagan speak …… he always, invariably brought up the indelicate matter of core values. Whatever venue he was in front of he demonstrated, maybe with just a single line, the courage of his convictions.”

Indiana Congressman Mike Pence is certainly someone to look hard at -- now and in 2008.

Considering Mike Pence

The Fight for Freedom: Mike Pence and 527 Fairness Act

2006-08-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence is the biggest advocate of freedom and has constantly fought against legislation or ideals that intrudes on our liberty. McCain campaigned on campaign finance reform and unfortunately got it passed in 2002, which Mike Pence was directly involved with the lawsuit. Pence went on to say this about McCain, "John McCain is so deep in bed with the Democrats that his feet are coming out of the bottom of the sheets."

Mike Pence has recently fought against McCain's and the liberal's new strategy to reform 527's to keep the elites in power by introducing "527 Fairness Act" that levels the playing field for political parties and individual PACs. Below is an excerpt from an article dealing with this situation and how the Soros's and McCain's of the country are trying to rule over us by taking away our free speech through this form of campaign finance.

In order to effectively fight the Soros/Gill shadow government, the Congress must remove regulatory shackles imposed on political parties, PACs, and non-profit groups if they are to compete against this shadow government. In Congress’s misguided efforts to bring about election reform, they have tied the hands of those opposed to a Soros/Gill cultural revolution.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has stated the problem well. In enacting campaign reform legislation, Congress put restrictions on how much money could be given to political parties and PACs, but 527 groups were generally free of onerous regulations. Money flowed to these groups in record amounts during 2004. In testifying before a congressional committee in April 2006, Pence observed: “Because political speech and the money supporting such speech will always find a home in a free society, Swiftboat Veterans and MoveOn.org dominated the 2004 election airwaves, leaving political parties, political action committees and the campaign committees of George Bush and John Kerry with very little control over their own messages.”

Rep. Pence and other conservative legislators know what must be done to create a level playing field against the Soros/Gill shadow government. The question is whether they will have enough votes to bring about meaningful legislative solutions to fix the damage done by previous campaign reform bills.

If our democratic system is to work the way the Founders envisioned, American politics cannot be dominated by a Soros/Gill network of 527s designed to undermine traditional values. Political parties, PACs, and non-profits should have just as much political power as the shadow government.

American Daily

Sound economics, not increase of minimum wage

2006-07-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

The House passed a bill that would increase the minimum wage to $7.25 harming our poorest folks in America who will lose their jobs due to employers not able to afford this hike. This is a sad day for Republicans who for some reason proposed this bill and passed it. Mike Pence on the other hand understands economics and knows the danger of this devastating legislation. That is why Mike Pence stood strong and voted against it. Mike Pence has the courage and the will to do the right thing everytime. Here is his speech on the House floor in opposition to the minimum wage increase.

"I come to this floor wishing for a different choice than the one before me. The bill under debate provides permanent estate and gift tax relief – something I have long supported. That is why the choice before us tonight is so difficult. While this bill will provide relief to American farmers and small business owners, it also will do much harm to those very same people and the people they employ because of the irresponsible 41% increase in the minimum wage that it also contains. This increase in the minimum wage is excessive and will hurt the poor and those entering the workforce by reducing the number of entry-level positions in our economy.

"Minimum wage increases raise unemployment among teenagers, minorities and part-time workers. The minimum wage violates fundamental free market economics. It costs jobs, and I cannot support policies that will take jobs from those who need a paycheck the most.

"Any proposal containing a minimum wage increase should be jobs-neutral. If the federal government increases costs for businesses with one hand, it is only right that it reduce costs for businesses with the other. And while this legislation does contain good tax extensions, in totality, it is not jobs-neutral. This increase in the minimum wage will cost American jobs, and I cannot support it.

"Additionally, this bill contains unrelated elements added during the eleventh hour. A budget-busting provision is included that converts the Abandoned Mine Land program from discretionary to mandatory spending. The result is an increase in the deficit of $3.9 billion over the next ten years.

"I would like to stand before you tonight and say that I could support this bill because more than anyone, I want permanent death tax relief. But, I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that also contains an excessive minimum wage increase that will hurt small businesses and cost American jobs. And, I cannot vote for a bill that busts the budget by nearly $4 billion over ten years. Regretfully, for those reasons, I stand tonight in opposition to this bill."

Mike Pence and the Club for Growth: The Future of our Party

2006-07-29T05:45:00.000-07:00

Americans who have been a part of and followed the conservative movement over the years have recently recognized two new distinct forces that have been very influential in advancing our conservative agenda of limited government and fiscal discipline: Indiana Congressman Mike Pence and the Club for Growth.

Mike Pence was first elected to Congress in 2000 and was immediately lifted up into leadership. In 2002, he became Deputy Majority Whip and was responsible for ensuring votes for the agenda of the administration and the House GOP leadership. After leading the charge with 33 other House Conservatives against No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the administration and House Leadership continued advancing their agenda of Big Government Republicanism with the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Bill.

Mike Pence stood up for our conservative principles by leading the revolt against the Medicare Bill alongside 24 other conservative heroes, including the current President of Club for Growth Pat Toomey. After the fierce battle and the longest vote in Congressional history, Mike Pence was soon recognized by all of his conservative colleagues as the leader of the conservative movement. He was then elected unanimously as Chair of the Republican Study Committee by over 100 House Conservatives. Leading the RSC, the largest, most conservative caucus in Congress, Mike Pence has become the most influential conservative and has begun to put our conservative agenda on the offensive.

Mike Pence’s effective leadership has been responsible for such victories as “Operation Offset” and has inspired several within his band of rebels to continue to advance the agenda of limited government and fiscal discipline. One such effort has recently been seen by Jeff Flake, RSC member and Pence’s “Right hand man.” Jeff Flake, R-AZ, has begun to fight the battle of pork barrel projects by offering amendments to bills to eliminate irresponsible earmarks. Jeff Flake is forcing House Republicans to prove their commitment to fiscal discipline and giving the American people the opportunity to see which Republicans are truly on our side. Of the 19 amendments to cut pork offered by Flake, Mike Pence voted for all 19. In addition, Mike Pence and Jeff Flake were two of only 21 Republicans to recently vote against an increase in the minimum wage.

Club for Growth, seeing the shift in our Party from our conservative principles of limited government and fiscal discipline to Big Government Republicanism, has taken it upon themselves to expose liberal Republicans and organize campaign efforts to elect true conservatives in primary elections. Their work has been truly astounding in defeating liberal and establishment candidates, and putting in pro-growth Reagan Republicans.

The Club for Growth has become a major force in elected politics for the Republican Party. They have sent the message from the American people to the politicians inside the beltway: the American people want principled leaders who will preserve, promote and defend the historical principles of freedom and liberty.

The Club for Growth and Mike Pence are undoubtedly the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. They both now have the greatest opportunity to take our agenda and our message of limited government, fiscal discipline and freedom to the American people on a national level. With 2008 being pursued by so many self-seeking politicians who have only advanced Big Government Republicanism for the sake of their career, the door is wide open for the American people to elect a true Reagan conservative to our nation’s highest office. There is no doubt that America’s choice for President is a true conservative who can effectively lead and who has been tested in battle. Will the Club for Growth once again send the message from the American people to the establishment? Will the Club for Growth give Americans what they want by getting behind Mike Pence and turning our course of conservative governance back on the right path, once again restoring America as that “shining city on a hill?”

Our prayers are with Mike Pence and the Club for Growth, that they would take the bold stand for the future of our party and this great nation.

Pence: most effective border hawk

2006-07-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

Mike Pence recently revealed his plan to secure our borders, build a fence, and send the 12 million illegals home to get right with the law. Unfortunately Bush, the leadership, and Ted Kennedy want amnesty for illegals so they can stay in America while a clear majority of Americans want immigration reform that is tough on border security. Mike Pence is very concerned about our immigration problem and the future of our sovereign nation, so this is why he stepped out to propose a comprehensive plan that will guarantee a secured border and no more undocumented aliens.

If Pence did not propose this plan, then we would once again have Republican legislation that would harm America worse, take away more of our freedoms and destroy the fabric of our society (with a smiling Ted Kennedy alongside). This is not going to happen due to Mike Pence's bold stand and ability to influence America and the leadership to have common sense on this issue and do what's right. Thank you Mike Pence!

Below is an article about Americans thoughts on the immigration issue.

A majority of California voters considers illegal immigration a very serious issue, and 70 percent want Congress to pass an immigration overhaul bill this year, according to a Field Poll released today.

The statewide survey of 494 registered voters reached findings very similar to those in a national poll released Tuesday by the Tarrance Group and Lake Research Partners. That poll found that 71 percent of likely U.S. voters favor a comprehensive plan similar to a bill passed by the Senate in May.

"This is a very hot issue, a very emotional issue," said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo. "What has emerged is a consensus that this should be dealt with in a comprehensive way. Congress should attempt to not only address border security but guest workers and a path to citizenship. ... I was expecting more division, especially among Republicans and conservatives."

Today's poll also found that 70 percent of California voters want Congress to strengthen border security and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently in the country.

And it revealed that 80 percent of California voters would like to allow the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to stay in the country and apply for citizenship if they have a job and have learned English and paid back taxes.

By contrast, just 34 percent of those polled want Congress to require all illegal immigrants to leave the country and reapply for admission and legal work status, a tactic that is part of a new plan touted by two conservative Republicans, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Indian Rep. Mike Pence.

"In California, there are so many (illegal immigrants) here, it just doesn't arouse the same kind of fear and apprehension," said DiCamillo. "Most people don't feel they're a threat. Californians feel they're generally good people and deserve an opportunity to stay. That's a much more compassionate view than you see in other parts of the country."

Illegal immigration has as much urgency for Californians now as it did in 1994, when Gov. Pete Wilson rode an anti-immigration platform to re-election, said Jack Citrin, associate director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley and an authority on immigration and politics.

But economic insecurity is less acute today, and Californians have even more familiarity with the issue, he said.

"California has more immigrants, and we've got border problems which North Dakota doesn't have," said Citrin. "But I do think people who have personal knowledge and contact, personal interaction, that tends to breed a more tolerant and positive attitude."

President Bush fared poorly in the poll, receiving bad marks from both conservatives and liberals on his handling of illegal immigration. Citrin said Bush may be getting slammed by immigration restrictionists for his more liberal immigration reform proposal and at the same time tarred by those who support his comprehensive approach because he hasn't managed to get it enacted.

"Among Republicans, maybe Bush is too soft," he said. "Among Democrats, they'll never say Bush did anything good."

The poll, a random sample of registered voters, was conducted by telephone in English and Spanish July 10-23 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Poll says 70% of Californians want immigration reform

It is morally wrong

2006-07-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a question from Human Events to Mike Pence on the Bush's recent veto on the stem cell research.

How exactly did we end up at this juncture where the U.S. federal government is poised to compel taxpayers to fund the killing of embryos, and two, can you be consistently pro-life and support the kind of action that’s happening in the Senate?

Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.): It is simply morally wrong, as millions of pro-lifers agree as we do that life begins at conception, to fund this research that involves the destruction of a human embryo. I believe that historically, while Americans appear in most surveys to be evenly divided on the subject of abortion, 80% of Americans oppose the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortion, and I believe that rightly understood that this debate when it properly focuses the attention of the American people on the facts that we are not asking, we’re not asking whether or not there should be stem cell research, we’re not even asking whether or not there should be embryonic stem-cell research. We’re simply asking who pays for it, and it is our belief that the American people understand asking billions of dollars from Americans who believe that life begins at conception to pay for the destruction of human embryos for research is morally wrong and the politics will take care of itself.

Bravo to Bush for Stem-Cell Veto

In God we trust

2006-07-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a clip of Mike Pence's speech on the House floor encouraging the Pledge Protection Act.

"And we say here today to say those words which appear above you, Mr. Speaker, in the phrase 'In God We Trust' in our national motto, words that were reflected in our founding documents that speak of a nation that believes our rights are endowed by our Creator, and words that President Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, that this is one nation under God, to be protected and vouch-safed in our Pledge. Let's take this jurisdiction away, which is our Constitutional power to do, and leave this power with the people of the United States, and the states separately."

Bush stands for life, first veto

2006-07-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

Here is the cover piece to the New York Times talking about Bush's first veto. Thank God for president Bush's stand for Life!

WASHINGTON, July 19 — President Bush on Wednesday rejected legislation to expand federally supported embryonic stem cell research, exercising his first veto while putting himself at odds with many members of his own party and what polls say is a majority of the public.

By defying the Republican-controlled Congress, which had sent him legislation that would have overturned research restrictions he imposed five years ago, Mr. Bush re-inserted himself forcefully into a moral, scientific and political debate in which Republicans are increasingly finding common ground with Democrats.

The president laid out his reasoning in a written message to the House of Representatives, then announced his decision in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by babies born through in vitro fertilization using so-called “adopted embryos.’’

As the infants gurgled and fidgeted in their parents’ arms, Mr. Bush said the bill violated his principles on the sanctity of human life by encouraging the destruction of embryos left over from fertilization procedures. Proponents of the measure have argued that such embryos would be destroyed anyway.

“I felt like crossing this line would be a mistake, and once crossed we would find it almost impossible to turn back,’’ Mr. Bush said. “Crossing the line would needlessly encourage a conflict between science and ethics that can only do damage to both, and to our nation as a whole.’’

Until Wednesday, Mr. Bush was among just seven presidents — all of whom served before 1881 — who had never vetoed a piece of legislation. Four served only partial terms; the other three were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams.

Within hours of the East Room ceremony, the House hurriedly took up a measure to override the veto, but the vote, 235 to 193, fell 51 short of the two-thirds majority required. Fifty-one Republicans, 183 Democrats and 1 independent voted to override, while 4 Democrats joined 179 Republicans in voting to keep the veto intact.

The vote put an end to the bill’s prospects for the year, but not to the stem cell debate, which has escalated into a major issue on Capitol Hill, with Democrats and Republicans alike predicting electoral repercussions in November.

“This is not some wedge issue; this is the soul of America,’’ said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, who sponsored the bill Mr. Bush vetoed. “And this is a colossal mistake on the part of the president.’’

But beyond the principles involved, the White House had clearly calculated that it would have been more of a political mistake to sign the bill. Social conservatives, the heart of Mr. Bush’s base, had demanded the president keep his promise to veto any measure that altered the careful compromise he articulated in 2001. With Mr. Bush’s approval ratings hovering at about 40 percent, conservatives are more critical than ever to the president, and he cannot afford to arouse their ire.

“This is a profound moral issue,’’ said Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, after the White House ceremony. “The issue is whether or not it is morally right to use the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans who find this research morally objectionable.’’

Yet the ground is shifting in the debate, and even Mr. Pence conceded that opponents of the research were ‘’losing the argument with the American people.’’ Republicans, even those like Mr. Bush who oppose abortion, are wrestling with whether embryos that are no bigger than a typographical period but regarded by some as human beings should be destroyed to save lives.

The issue reflects the complex nature of the politics of abortion and medical research in the United States today and is in some ways the flip side of the Democrats’ quandary over abortion. Just as medical advances like ultrasound imaging have spurred greater opposition to abortion, leading some Democrats to recalibrate their views, the promise of embryonic stem cell research has pushed some Republicans toward positions in which black-and-white beliefs about the sanctity of life have given way to more nuanced and ethically complex stances.

As baby boomers have aged, demanding the best medical treatments for themselves and their elderly parents, the public clamor for stem cell research has grown more intense. According to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan polling organization that tracks the issue, roughly two-thirds of all Democrats and independents favor embryonic stem cell research, while nearly half of all Republicans do.

That leaves Mr. Bush — who has not used his veto partly because Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress for nearly all of his presidency — at odds with many leaders of his own party. They include staunch abortion opponents like Senators Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee. Already, some Republicans who opposed Mr. Bush on the stem cell issue are looking to the presidential elections of 2008.

“When there’s another election, another chapter of democracy opens,’’ Mr. Smith said in an interview. “Most of the candidates who have a shot at winning are in favor of stem cell research. This represents a delay en route, but I know where we’re going, and it’s where the American people want to go.’’

As the White House prepared for the East Room ceremony, advocates for patients who support stem cell research flooded the switchboard with calls urging Mr. Bush not to veto the bill.

“We were really hoping, because so many of the American people supported this research, that the president would take this opportunity to take a really big deep breath and reconsider,” said Kathy Lewis, president of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, named for the late actor who was an outspoken advocate for the science.

In a sense, the issue has come full circle for Mr. Bush. The president devoted his first prime-time television address to the issue, becoming the first president to open the door to federal financing for the science.

Under the policy, which Mr. Bush announced on Aug. 9, 2001, the federal government pays for studies on stem cell colonies, or lines, created before that date, so that the government does not encourage the destruction of additional embryos. Mr. Bush said Wednesday that his administration had made more than $90 million available for such work.

The bill Mr. Bush vetoed would have allowed taxpayer-financed research on lines derived from embryos slated for destruction by fertility clinics. Mr. Bush also signed a “fetal farming” measure, barring trafficking in embryos and fetuses with the intent of harvesting body parts.

“These boys and girls are not spare parts,” the president said in a speech that was interrupted repeatedly by hoots of applause, and twice by standing ovations. “They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research.’’

In one respect, the veto plays to Mr. Bush’s personal strengths, reinforcing the perception that he is someone who makes up his mind and sticks to it, ignoring the polls. But Democrats are determined to make the veto a central theme of their fall election campaigns, hooking it in with another hugely divisive medical issue — the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case — to argue that Republicans are beholden to the religious right.

Within hours of the veto, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, sent out a fund-raising letter asserting that Mr. Bush had decided that curing diseases “was not as important as catering to his right-wing base.” Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, put it this way: “This will be remembered as a Luddite moment in American history.”

Even Republicans concede the president’s action could hurt their candidates, particularly moderates like Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, who face tough re-election contests.

“It paints us in a corner as more and more single issue, and more and more unreasonable,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist. “This is the line that the president certainly doesn’t want Republicans to cross, but I think an awful lot of Republicans say this goes across common sense, this research has the potential of saving my father, my mother, or a friend, or curing cancer.”

First Bush Veto Maintains Limits on Stem Cell Use

Pence Sense

2006-07-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a piece from the Washington Post on the marriage debate. Pence believes this was a step closer to victory for the pro-family movement.

WASHINGTON -- The House rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on Tuesday, a setback that conservatives hope to turn to their advantage in the fall elections.

"Be assured that this issue is not over," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

The vote was 236-187 with one member voting "present," a slight improvement over the last House vote just before the 2004 election but still 46 short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance a constitutional amendment.

Supporters argued that Congress must trump the actions of judges around the country who have ruled in favor of gay marriages. "We must not allow an institution of such great importance to be arbitrarily redefined for the entire nation by a small number of unelected judges," said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa.

Opponents, including 27 Republicans, argued that the measure was meaningless _ the Senate rejected the amendment last month, effectively killing it for this session of Congress _ as well as unneeded and mean-spirited.

"This is a partisan effort by Republicans to divide the American people rather than forge consensus to solve our urgent problems," said Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

Democrats argued that the House's focus on the GOP's "American values agenda," which includes votes this week on a pledge protection bill and a vote on President Bush's expected veto of an embryonic stem cell bill, was a distraction at a time the nation faced serious domestic and international problems.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., one of just a few openly gay members of Congress, said he took the proposal personally. "I think this is motivated, frankly, by a dislike of those of us who are gay and lesbian," he said, and he objected to "people taking batting practice with my life."

The defeat in the House followed a series of victories at the state level where courts, legislatures and voters have come out for gay marriage bans.

Forty-five states have either constitutional amendments banning gay marriage or statutes outlawing same-sex weddings. Even in Massachusetts, the only state that allows gay marriage, the state's high court recently ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment to ban future gay marriages can be placed on the ballot.

Bush has advocated, and the Republican Party's conservative base has demanded, that the ban be extended to the federal level. "The administration believes that the future of marriage in America should be decided through the democratic constitutional amendment process, rather than by the court orders of a few," the White House said in a statement.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the leader of House conservatives, argued that the vote was a "successful failure."

"We poured a little more concrete in the footings of a building that will be built," Pence said.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a leading supporter of the amendment, said his group will put out a voter scorecard that will go to millions of Americans before this November's election. "This will be a very prominent issue," he said.

"The overwhelming majority of the American people support traditional marriage," said Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., sponsor of the amendment. "And the people have a right to know whether their elected representatives agree with them."

The proposed amendment says that "marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither the Constitution, nor the constitution of any state, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

The House vote in 2004 was 227-186 in favor of the amendment, 49 short of the needed majority.

"They have now failed twice in their shameful election-year ploys, using gay and lesbian families as punching bags," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group. "We didn't see any traction" in Tuesday's vote, he said.

The Constitution has been amended only 27 times, including the 10 amendments of the Bill of Rights. In addition to two-thirds congressional approval, a proposed amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

GOP Sees Advantage in Gay Marriage Debate

Mr. President: Veto this bill

2006-07-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here is the speech given by Mike Pence on the House floor demanding that the president veto the Castle-DeGette bill allowing embroyonic stem cell research using American's tax dollars.

“We gather today in respectful opposition to the Castle-DeGette bill: A bill that authorizes the use of federal tax dollars to fund the destruction of human embryos for scientific research.

“Assuming H.R. 810 passes the Senate today, on behalf of millions of pro-life Americans, we say, Mr. President, veto this bill.

“As we begin this debate, I am confident that we will hear the supporters of this bill argue in the name of Ronald Reagan that this research is consistent with his long-held views about the sanctity of life. But it was Ronald Reagan who wrote, ‘we cannot diminish the value of one category of human life-the unborn-without diminishing the value of all human life.’

“The supporters will also argue that this is a debate between science and ideology…that destroying human embryos for research is necessary to cure a whole host of maladies from spinal cord injuries to Parkinson’s.

“But the facts suggest otherwise. To date, embryonic stem cell research has not produced a single medical treatment, where ethical, adult stem cell research has produced some 67 medical miracles. Physicians on our side will make the case for the ethical alternative of adult stem cell research and Congress today will greatly expand funding in this area.

“But the debate over the legitimacy or potential of embryonic stem cells is actually not the point of this debate.

“We are here simply to decide whether Congress should take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund the destruction of human embryos for research.

“This debate is really not about whether embryonic stem cell research should be legal. Sadly, embryonic stem cell research is completely legal in this country and has been going on at universities and research facilities for years.

“The proponents of this legislation don’t just want to be able to do embryonic research. They want me to pay for it and like 43 percent of the American people in a survey out today, I have a problem with that.

“You see, I believe that life begins at conception and that a human embryo is human life. I believe it is morally wrong to create human life to destroy it for research. And I believe it is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans, who believe that human life is sacred, and use it to fund the destruction of human embryos for research.

“This debate, then, is not really about what an embryo is. This debate is about who we are as a nation. Not, will we respect the sanctity of human life but will we respect the deeply held moral beliefs of nearly half of the people of this nation who find the destruction of human embryos for scientific research to be morally wrong?

“Despite what may be uttered in this debate today, I say again: This debate is not about whether we should allow research that involves the destruction of human embryos. This debate is about who pays for it.

“And it is my fervent hope and prayer, as we stand at the crossroads between science and the sanctity of life, that we will choose life.

“This morning on Capitol Hill I am surrounded by dozens of ‘snowflake babies,’ children born from frozen embryos…the ‘throwaway’ material we will hear about today. As I speak over the cries and cooing of those little fragile lives, I can’t help but think of the ancient text about the choice we face today: ‘I have set before you life and earth, blessings and curses, now choose life so that you and your children may live’ (Dueteronomy 30:19).

“Let us do as Americans have always done in the face of the frail and vulnerable. Let us choose life, reject federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, that we and these precious children may live.”

Stem cell research is morally wrong

2006-07-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a quote from Mike Pence defending life in the upcoming stem cell research debate.

"It is morally wrong to create human life to destroy it for research." "Also, it is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to finance research that they find morally objectionable."

1st Bush veto likely on stem cell research

Chuck Colson on the Pence plan

2006-07-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by Chuck Colson on immigration and the Pence plan.

By the looks of things, it seems that compromise on the contentious issue of immigration is unlikely, if not impossible. The House's position has been hard-line: We have to stop illegal immigration before we even consider ways we could process illegal immigrants into America properly. Some members have even demanded the wholesale deportation of all illegal immigrants, which would virtually stop the American economy in its tracks.

The Senate has taken what's regarded as a more moderate approach: securing the borders and establishing a guest-worker program so that people who have been here for a while can establish their residence. President Bush's position on the debate has been, in my opinion, comprehensive and responsible.

Yet here we are in July, and instead of ironing out their differences, the House and the Senate are holding dueling hearings across the country.

While getting agreement is hard to imagine, the basis for a good compromise exists. It addresses the important issue of border security while also offering a humane way of dealing with illegal immigrants already living in the United States. It even has a role for Christians who, after all, are commanded to care for the strangers in our midst.

The author of this compromise is Representative Mike Pence (R) of Indiana. I have known Pence for several years and regard him as one of the brightest young stars in the House. He is a serious Christian who is committed to integrating faith and public service.

What Pence is proposing is a two-step process. The first step is to secure the borders. His proposal would include the enforcement measures passed by the House last December.

Once the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the borders have been secured, illegal aliens will become eligible to apply for guest-worker visas. Pence's proposal requires them to leave the country and apply for these visas at what he calls "Ellis Island Centers."

These visas entitle them to work in the United States for six years. After the six years, the worker "must decide whether to return home or seek citizenship. But he will do so under the normal rules and regulations of our naturalization laws."

Pence wants Christians involved in the process and is proposing some faith-based programs so the churches can help people with their paperwork, can teach them English, and integrate them into the communities.

I think that his plan, which has gained interest in the White House and support on both sides of the Capitol, provides the basis of a good compromise. I would modify his requirement that people leave the country to apply for guest-worker visas -I think that could be done in federal facilities around the country and save money and time. And the criteria for certifying border security must be objective and reasonable. But these things can be accomplished.

The point is that this is a good proposal that gets us out of the deadlock and promotes security and respect for the law in a humane and workable fashion. And it addresses the issues of workers without demonizing them.

I hope you will get behind Pence's proposal and call your senators and congressman. Given the contentious quality of the immigration debate, what is needed is support for people like Mike Pence, for whom faith and public service go hand-in-hand.

Showing Compassion, Upholding the Law

Amnesty is not the answer!

2006-07-11T04:28:00.000-07:00

Here is Mike Pence explaining his "Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act" to the USA Today.

By Mike Pence

My four-part plan is tough on border security and tough on employers who hire illegal aliens, but it recognizes the need for a guest-worker program that operates without amnesty and without growing into a huge new government bureaucracy.

• Border security. Before any new guest-worker program can begin, the Pence plan requires the secretary of Homeland Security to certify that all border security measures are substantially completed. The Pence plan embraces the House-passed bill, which adds port-of-entry inspectors, ends catch and release, uses American technology such as unmanned aerial vehicles and requires the building of a security fence across approximately 700 miles of our southern border.

• Reject amnesty. The Senate passed a bill that would provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Allowing people to get right with the law without leaving the United States, when their first act here was a violation of the law, is amnesty. The Pence plan offers a no-amnesty solution to the problem of 12 million illegal aliens living in our country by insisting that they leave the country and come back legally if they have a job opportunity in the United States.

• Enact a no-amnesty guest-worker program using American private sector firms. The Pence plan would set up a system of private worker placement agencies, licensed by the federal government, to match willing guest workers with jobs in America that employers cannot fill with American workers. The private agencies also would perform a health screening, fingerprint the guest workers and provide that information for a federal background check. The process would take a week or less. After six years, the guest must decide whether to return home or enter the separate process of seeking citizenship.

• Strict employer enforcement. All the employer enforcement contained in the House-passed bill is contained in the Pence plan. It sets forth a nationwide electronic employment verification system through which employers confirm the legality of each employee. Employers who operate outside of the system would face tough fines.

Some argue that putting border security first and asking millions of illegal immigrants to leave the country is unrealistic. I submit that it is unrealistic to assume that another round of amnesty will not result in another wave of illegal immigration in the years ahead. We must address illegal immigration, but we must do so in a way that reasserts the principle that the only way to enter the United States is under the law.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., is chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Amnesty isn't the answer

God Bless America!

2006-07-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

The 4th of July represents every year the day when America broke free from England and declared our Independece. Independence Day was represented in Pence's district with an American flag with bold colors and a national hero speaking on the freedoms that America stands for.

Yesterday Congressman Pence spoke at First Christian Church’s "A First Fourth" program at Mill Race Park in Columbus.

According to an article in The Republic, "First Christian Church’s 'A First Fourth' celebration honored the men and women who serve in the armed forces while celebrating America’s independence.

"Several hundred people attended the patriotic service and enjoyed a picnic and old-time games afterward.

Death Tax: Death to the American Dream

2006-06-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

Here are the words of Mike Pence yesterday on the House floor in support of the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006. Even though we need to repeal the death tax, this legislation is a good step in the right direction.

“I rise in support of the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006. I am mindful as I listen to my good friend who just spoke, as he spoke about the estate tax, of what Confucius once wrote millennia ago. He said, “When words lose their meaning, men lose their liberty.”

“I would prefer in the balance of my remarks to speak not about an estate tax, because I don’t know too many estates in eastern Indiana, but I’d rather talk about the death tax, because this a tax that is death to the American dream for small business owners and family farmers all across eastern Indiana.

“And it is why I have dedicated myself in my nearly three terms in Congress to the principle of ending this immoral tax, a tax which, by the way, was instituted in 1916 primarily to raise revenues for World War I.

“It was a product of a time where the redistribution of wealth was seen globally to be an acceptable practice of economics. It was the very nascent time of socialism on the world stage, and America embraced this principle of redistribution with the estate tax in 1916.

“And let me just say that I believe death taxes are immoral. I believe it is morally wrong to make death a taxable event. I believe it is also morally wrong to say to small business owners and family farmers, and any American whatever their means, that after a lifetime of obeying the law and a lifetime of paying your share honestly and legally to the Federal Treasury, that we will make your death a taxable event.

“So I want to say today that I still believe we should repeal the death tax, and the legislation we will consider under this rule is not repeal but it is relief. And it is progress. And this Congress should embrace it.

“The estate tax relief provided in previous legislation is scheduled to end in 2010. What we would pass today would literally bring permanent estate tax relief to millions of American families, especially increasing the exemption to five million dollars per person effective January 1, 2010.

“But let me emphasize what we will do today is not repeal but it is relief, and I want to recognize that progress and embrace it. But let me close with a word of caution.

“To our colleagues who may think of this as a starting point, that this is a deal that we can send down the hallway and we can negotiate from, let me say, having spoken to many of my colleagues who share my belief that we should repeal this onerous death tax outright, that if this is the deal, it’s a good deal for the American people.

“But we say with conviction, this far and no farther. We must demand at the very minimum this relief stand when this bill goes to the desk of the President of the United States."

House Weighs Compromise on Estate Taxes

Praise for Pence's courage

2006-06-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by Family Security Matters praising Mike Pence for his efforts to find a solution in the immigration debate.

Even though illegal immigration is one of the most important priorities of the American people, it looks like Congress is more interested in political posturing than seeking solutions to the problem. This apparent lack of urgency and willingness to listen makes Rep. Mike Pence’s recent compromise proposal all the more interesting. Building on the excellent suggestion of Helen Krieble, a concerned Colorado resident, he has proposed a plan that will put border security first and then implement a guest worker program free from the bureaucratic red tape of a new government program. Well done, Rep. Pence and many kudos to Helen Krieble!

Seeking Security on the Border with Mike Pence
Molly McCarroll
June 21, 2006

Despite the overwhelming demand of the American people, immigration reform is in real danger of stalling in Congress as the Senate and the House of Representatives seek to enact fundamentally different legislation. So far, each house has dug in its heels and proclaimed its vision of reform as being too important to compromise. While such intransigence may give lawmakers the freedom to cite their commitment to principle when election time rolls around, it robs the American people of the action they need and the solutions they demand from their government. If the ultimate outcome of this debate, which looks increasingly possible, is a failure to reach any solution whatsoever, the United States will not only have not gotten its money’s worth from its government, but it will also continue to be plagued by the dangerous uncertainty that characterizes the immigration crisis today.

Into this maelstrom comes Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) with the most promising potential compromise yet. Building on the foundation of the House bill’s strong border security program, Pence’s plan, inspired by Helen Krieble, a concerned private citizen, would require the implementation of technological and human resources to stop illegal border crossings, the construction of a border fence, and the discontinuation of the “catch-and-release” policy that sends illegal immigrants back onto our nation’s streets, as the necessary first steps. Only when these hurdles had been crossed would the second portion of his plan come into play. In this phase, he would implement a viable guest worker program that, along with a path to citizenship identical to that pursued by all legal immigrants, could only be entered into from outside the country. In other words, illegal immigrants would have to leave the country before they could seek legal status. Rather than implementing these changes by creating an unwieldy new bureaucracy, Pence would establish local “Ellis Island Centers” that would serve as liaisons between individuals wishing to enter the country as guest workers, American employers seeking foreign workers, and the appropriate government agencies to provide documentation and background checks.

The future of Pence’s plan is not certain. It is also probable that many Senators who are already feeling pressure from illegal immigrants’ interest groups and various business lobbies will be unwilling to support a bill that would disrupt the lives of immigrants and the profits of employers. But Rep. Pence has offered an interesting and appealing compromise solution. His plan balances the need to defend America’s borders with the economic realities of globalization. The incentive for foreign workers to enter the United States, earn an income they could never achieve at home, and then to return to the countries and cultures that they love has never been higher. But this certainly does not mean that the United States should sacrifice its own security and stability to serve the greedy hand of commerce.

While Pence’s plan has merit, it remains to be seen whether it will be successful. Accomplishment seems to have lost its appeal in Congress these days and there is much to suggest that our elected representatives would rather be on the record saying the right things than actually get their hands dirty and make some progress. But if Congress cannot get its act together and pass a bill, even though that bill will undoubtedly leave much of the divided country dissatisfied, our leaders themselves will lose just as much as we will. Border security and immigration reform are essentials, not options. Bravo to Rep. Pence for having the courage to seek a solution.

Exclusive: Seeking Security on the Border with Mike Pence

Common sense Pence

2006-06-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

Here is an editorial in the Indianapolis Star from a fellow Hoosier seeking common sense from Congress.

Where is common sense? Only Mike Pence has any.

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana voted against funds ($94.5 billion) for war and storm aid because add-ons included $5 billion that is not related to the Iraq war or to Hurricane Katrina.

This $5 billion is for road projects related to previous disasters in several states, including Idaho, and to help the Gulf Coast seafood industry. I applaud him for his efforts to stop these add-ons to existing bills.

Also, I note, that the House approved this bill even though on another page of the June 14 Star, it's reported that hurricane fraud tab could hit $1.4 billion. I repeat, where is the common sense?

Nancy Crawford
Carmel

Pence supports the war on terror

2006-06-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

Here is an article about Mike Pence expressing his thoughts on the war.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., told Congress the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq and he continues to support the global war on terror.

“The enemy has never taken down so much as a full platoon in any military engagement,” Pence said.

“It is an extraordinary credit to soldiers.”

Pence voted with the majority of the GOP-led House that rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq.

The 256-153 vote followed a partisan debate between Republicans and Democrats who are aware of voters’ growing apprehension about the war.

Pence said he has made three trips to Iraq in the last three years and met with many soldiers.

“I’ve never met a soldier who didn’t believe in the effort in Iraq,” Pence said. “I’ve never met a U.S. soldier in uniform who didn’t believe in the mission.”

Pence said one soldier, Jim Newland from Washington, Ind., told him soldiers are on patrol in Baghdad every day looking into the eyes of the enemy.

“And he said to me, ‘We’ve got to stop these people right here. They kill Americans because they like it,’” Pence said.

Pence added that the message is hard for some people to hear, but he firmly believes the U.S. is winning the war.

The non-binding resolution in the House praised U.S. troops and called the war in Iraq part of the larger global fight against terrorism.

Friday’s vote followed a Thursday Senate vote that also soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year’s end.

Republicans and Democrats are sensitive to Americans’ divided opinions on the war and understand it could be a key issue in this fall’s elections.

Pence tells Congress U.S. winning in Iraq

The American Dream

2006-06-12T07:48:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from Mike Pence's speech from his Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act, which draws a picture of the American Dream.

"I mentioned at the outset that I am the grandson of an Irish immigrant. I take my name, Michael Richard from his. Richard Michael Cawley came to this country on a boat from Ireland and stepped onto Ellis Island, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, in the early 20th century. Like millions who came before and since, that frightened teenage boy had a simple dream, a dream expressed when his mother handed him the one-way ticket and said, 'you have a future there,' a dream we call the American Dream.

"My grandfather grew up in a two room house in farm country east of a small village called Tubbercurry, Ireland. When I saw that home the summer after he died, I better understood a moment we shared just a few weeks before he went home to be with the Lord.

"It was the fall of 1980 and my father had finally given in to my mother’s wish for a bigger house and the two-story, 4,000 square foot home in Columbus, Indiana seemed like a palace to all of us…especially my grandfather. When I walked into the house, I saw grandpa sitting alone in the family room and I noticed his eyes were moist with emotion. When I asked if he was alright, he quietly replied in a gentle Irish brogue, 'I just never thought a child of mine would live in a house like this..'. My grandpa, like my mom and dad, lived the American Dream. He got off that boat an Irish lad, he died an American, and I am an American because of him."

Let freedom reign in Iraq

2006-06-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a speech given by Mike Pence on the House floor on US and Iraqi troops eliminating our biggest threat in Al-Zarqawi.

"I rejoice in the death of no man, but today I'll make an exception.

"As America and the world just learned, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead.

"The President of the United States said it was an opportunity to 'turn the tide,' and that the ideology of terror had lost one of its visible and aggressive leaders, and it has.

"But this was not simply a tactically significant strike by US and Iraqi forces. Somebody dropped a dime.

"It is also evidence, as U.S. General George Casey in Iraq said earlier today, of increased cooperation.

"I commend U.S. and Iraqi forces for this extraordinary accomplishment. The leading enemy of freedom in Iraq is dead. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is gone.

"Let freedom reign in Iraq."

The party of old

2006-06-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

We must become the party of old and return to the days where the Republican party stood for something different than the democrats...limited government! Here is an article talking about Mike Pence and conservative colleagues leading the charge to come back to our roots of fiscal discipline and responsibility.

Remember when the Republican Party stood for small government?

One could be forgiven for taking more than a brief moment to answer that question, looking back - and then back further still - before recalling the party distinctions that had seemed set in stone: Democrats spent money on federal programs, while Republicans worked to rein in that spending.

But that was then. Opponents used to mock Democrats as members of the tax-and-spend party. But Republicans of recent vintage have been spending money like the Democrats of old - and they've been running up the deficits to prove it.

But now two Republican members of the House of Representatives are looking to once again put fiscal discipline at the top of the agenda. They are looking to have a periodic review of federal spending - of all federal programs - to determine if taxpayers' money is being spent wisely.

A group of House Republicans led by Jeb Henserling of Texas and Mike Pence of Indiana want to change the rules so that federal programs do not automatically continue indefinitely. Instead, they would be subject to congressional review to see if they have outlived their usefulness. Or if they were ever useful in any way at all.

All programs would face a "sunset" provision under which their budgets would have to be renewed by Congress every five years. Or the sun would set on the program.

Their proposal is a rational attempt to stop runaway federal spending from going on unchecked forever.

But don't expect everyone to see it that way. Doomsayers will doubtless do what comes most naturally to them. And proponents of a particular program will most assuredly pull out all the stops, arguing that the GOP proposal would result in a falling sky, not a setting sun.

We'd strongly suggest that the citizens get ready for such noise. And that they then try to listen beyond all the shouting.

Where is it written that every government program must last for all time? It is written nowhere, of course, but many lawmakers - from both parties - have for too long been acting as though it is the most fundamental of all laws.

It is high time for the sun to set on that kind of outmoded - and terrifically expensive - thinking.

The sun never sets on anything made in D.C.

ACU's David Keene on Pence's immigration plan

2006-06-07T03:01:00.000-07:00

Here is an articly by American Conservative Union's president David Keene on Mike Pence and his immigration plan that will help secure our borders and send illegals home.

Feelings on immigration are running high these days, but the thought that they may prevent any action at all scares many Republicans.

Congressional conservatives remain adamantly opposed to the quasi-amnesty and “guest worker” provisions in the Senate approach supported by the president, Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and are vowing that no bill that comes out of conference including such an amnesty will win House approval. Bush and his allies are just as committed to a bill that will include both.

Both sides say they favor border security but seem quite prepared to sacrifice action on it unless they get their way on the rest of the bill. The result, of course, could be no bill at all and an open political sore that will fester during the upcoming elections.

Administration strategists believe that once they get to conference they’ll be able to cajole, bribe or force House Republicans to accept most if not all of what the president wants and that a conference report including both the administration’s quasi-amnesty provisions and the guest-worker program will, in fact, pass the House. They base this belief on their ability to work with House Republican leaders as they have in the past to force conservatives into line, Democratic support for their approach and the fear among many Washington-based Republicans that doing anything will beat doing nothing.

That fear is in many ways peculiar to Washington, where it is an article of faith that if problems are taken off the table by passing something dealing with them the public will be mollified, regardless of the substance. The Bush administration has operated on this theory from the beginning and is just now discovering that the president’s base is splintering because of the substance of what he’s done, rather than because he hasn’t done enough.

Thus administration spokesmen bragging about Bush’s accomplishments tend to list the very same legislative achievements that conservatives outside the Washington Beltway list as reasons for their alienation. Indeed, as the administration and Republican congressional leaders piled “accomplishment” on “accomplishment,” Republicans around the country became more and more disillusioned with what was going on.

What none of them seems to realize is that the public, or at least the politically attentive public, is as interested in what they do as in the fact that they do something.

On immigration, the public has been demanding from the outset that control of the border must precede any discussion of legal immigration levels, procedures designed to deal with illegals already here or various measures that would make it easier for those seeking work here to gain temporary or semipermanent access to such work. The administration’s desire to solve all these problems in one package may make some logical sense but ignores the fact that such comprehensive proposals at present lack credibility with the public.

Failing to address the border issue could result in political disaster, but so could the adoption of legislation seen by the voting public as likely to make the problem it is meant to solve even worse. The Senate approach is already seen in this light. It won’t solve the political problem and should be rejected by House GOP conferees regardless of whatever pressure they might come under from the administration or their leaders.

It also means, however, that the Senate, the administration and House conservatives have to seek common ground in dealing with the problem in a manner that enhances border security, rejects amnesty and deals reasonably with those illegals here today and with the legitimate need to match those who come here legally with willing employers who will play by the rules.

Fortunately, there are some seeking solutions to these problems that neither surrender principle nor ignore real problems. Chief among them is Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who has put forth an alternative that could attract support from reasonable men and women on both sides of the debate. There is no more credible conservative in Congress today than Pence. He has proved himself over time as both a serious legislator and a principled conservative capable of resisting the temptations and threats emanating from within his own party.

Since speaking out at the Heritage Foundation just before the recess, Pence has come under attack from those on both sides willing to accept the status quo unless they get their own way. Those attacks in themselves should force reasonable members of Congress to take a serious look at Pence’s proposal.

Watch Pence on immigration

Newt toutes Pence's immigration plan

2006-06-06T03:17:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt by Newt Gingrich discussing Congress's current position with immigration going to conference.

One positive addition to the border-security and immigration debate is Rep. Mike Pence's (R-Ind.) bill, the Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act. This bill is as close to the right solution as I have seen. It sets up a four-step process starting with what is needed and universally agreed upon -- border security. Second, it does not provide amnesty for people in the United States illegally. It requires them to go home. Next, it sets up a work-visa program using electronic bio-metric security based on conservative market principles. After an American employer can, in good faith, show that no American worker will fill a job offer, a work-visa holder may be hired. The key feature is that, in order for people who are here illegally to get a work visa, they must go home, because work visas will only be issued outside of the United States. Fourth, once the program is set up, companies that continue to ignore the law will be sanctioned severely.

I hope the House will take a serious look at Rep. Pence's thoughtful and pragmatic approach to solving this issue.

Observations From Asia

Marriage is under attack

2006-06-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

Here are the words from Mike Pence as he stood on the House floor in favor of a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as one man and one woman in America.

“I rise in strong support of the Marriage Protection Amendment, and consider this to be an extremely important day in the life of this institution and the life of this nation.

“Let me say that though I am a conservative and though I support a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage in the terms that the overwhelming majority of the American people wish to continue to define it, it is not my desire to impose views or attack any individual or anyone in a relationship in America.

“I’m from south of Highway 40 in Indiana but I do know the difference between defending and attacking. The truth is, as legal scholars and millions of Americans know, the institution of marriage is under attack by activist judges. It brings us, as the Majority Leader said so eloquently, to this place by necessity where a Constitutional Amendment is the only way we can express the will of three-out-of-four or more Americans who desire to continue to have this fundamental institution of marriage defined as it has been throughout the millennia.

“Activist judges have had successes since 1999 when they convinced the Vermont Supreme Court that they should order a state legislature to legalize same sex marriage.

“The second major victory came when they convinced the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to force that state to give full marriage licenses. The activists have literally plotted a state-by-state strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions mandating same sex marriage.

“And the U.S. Supreme Court provided potent ammunition to activists when they decided the Lawrence vs. Texas case in June of last year.

“In that case dealing with same sex sodomy, the court strongly signaled that a right to same sex marriage could be found in the Constitution.

“Scholars ranging from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia all the way to Harvard liberal scholar and author Laurence Tribe agree that the Lawrence vs. Texas case paves the way for this Supreme Court in this nation’s capital to recognize same sex marriage.

“Same sex couples are now challenging marriage laws in states across the union, including my own state of Indiana.

“So we come here not to attack, but rather in a spirit of civility to defend an institution that is cherished and is so essential to the American people in the life of our nation.

“And with this I close: We are here today because marriage matters. Because like millions of Americans, I believe that it was ordained by God, instituted in the law, is the glue of the American family and the safest harbor to raise children.

“Let us adopt this measure, defend the institution of marriage and ensure that our society’s most cherished social institution is defined by ‘we the people’ and not un-elected judges.”

Keeping America American

2006-06-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

Here is an article talking about Keeping America American and how Mike Pence's immigration proposal is a good step in the right direction.

George W. Bush, John McCain and Ted Kennedy -- indeed the majority of senators -- keep getting it wrong, just like the foreign criminals who keep trying to get a free ride on the backs of American citizens and legal immigrants.

Give a nod to the president for calling immigration reform what it really and truly is -- "It's a difficult task," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday. The crux of the task is the insistence on pardoning an estimated 12 million criminals.

Mike Pence, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, is seemingly perched on middle ground, proposing a four-step plan that puts border security right where Americans want it -- at the top of the immigration-reform to-do list. His plan also "offers a no amnesty solution," engages the private sector in the worker-visa process and, like the House bill passed in December, cracks down on employers who hire illegals.

The Pence plan is a good starting point for House-Senate conferees.

Why? Because of the bottom line: It is against the law to enter this country without our permission; it is against the law to work in this country without our permission; and it is against the law to stay in this country without our permission.

The people who break any or all of those laws are criminals.

They could be the best cotton pickers in the Bible Belt; but they still are criminals if they break any or all of those laws.

They could be the best orange harvesters in all of Florida; but they still are criminals if they break any or all of those laws.

They could be the best maids, shoe shiners, managers, window cleaners, cherry-picker operators, teachers, waitresses,laundresses, landscapers,fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, sons or daughters or inventory takers on the planet; but if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

They could be from Honduras or Israel, Nigeria or Mexico, Canada or Paraguay; Ireland or South Africa; but if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

They could pay rent, a mortgage and Social Security taxes; but if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

They could have worked hard and saved to bring their family here; but if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

They could have contributed money to McCain for President, made cowboy boots for George W. or tended to Teddy's Rose garden; but if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

They are no different than Americans who rape, kill, maim, smoke in a no-smoking area, drive without a license, deal drugs, make moonshine, solicit prostitutes, abuse children, steal credit records, beat their wives, rob a bank, carjack, kidnap, commit home invasions, plant bombs and blow up a federal office building, commit perjury, obstruct justice, smuggle cigarettes, smuggle humans, carry a firearm without a license, force women into prostitution, fail to pay taxes, steal a child's bicycle, commit identity theft or set off fireworks in a jurisdiction that prohibits fireworks. A criminal is a criminal is a criminal. The only difference is if they are in this country without our permission.

Some illegals obtain illegal documents to obtain more illegal documents, and some fly planes into buildings; their initial illegal entry into this country without our permission means they are criminals.

Whether they live in Texas, Arizona or Massachusetts, if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

Whether they are prolife or prochoice, support school choice, are fluent in English, baked brownies for the local PTA fund raiser, consider themselves a Democrat or Republican, have never broken any other local, state or federal law, if they are in this country without our permission they are criminals.

Mike Pence's proposal isn't perfect. In fact, there is no perfect solution.

The difficult task at hand is to first give Americans want they want and then reach a legislative compromise that punishes employers and foreigners who break the law.

We are in this fix today because the Republicans and the Democrats were in bed together 20 years ago. We can't keep letting W. and John and Ted get it wrong -- unless, that is, we want to stop calling ourselves Americans.

Keep America American

Gary Bauer on immigration

2006-06-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Here is an article by former 2000 Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer on the state of the Republican party and how immigration will affect voters in 2006 elections.

Would Republicans regret the day they stood against amnesty for illegal immigrants?

In the New York Times, columnist David Brooks asked of conservatives, "Do they think the GOP can have a future if it insults even the Hispanics who are already here [by opposing amnesty proposals]?"

Mr. Brooks was echoing the sentiment of more than a few normally clear-sighted conservatives who suggest that unless the Republican Party gets behind liberal immigration reform plans it will alienate Hispanics and soon be relegated to minority status.

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie recently warned: "Anti-immigration rhetoric [read: border-security-first legislation] is a political siren song, and Republicans must resist its lure by lashing ourselves to our party's twin masts of freedom and growth or our majority will crash on the shoals."

But as lawmakers consider various immigration reform measures, they should take a hard look at the reams of polling data that show that standing strong on conservative values, not giving in on amnesty, is the key to winning the hearts, minds and votes of Hispanic Americans.

First off, Hispanics are much more conservative on immigration than is commonly believed. An August 2005 Time poll of Hispanics revealed 61 percent considered illegal immigration either an "extremely serious" or "very serious" problem. In addition, 41 percent thought the U.S. was not doing enough to secure its borders against illegal immigration, while 19 percent felt it was doing "too much." Moreover, a 2005 Pew Hispanic Center poll showed a majority of both American-born and foreign-born Hispanics opposed increasing the flow of legal immigrants from Mexico and Latin America.A majority of Hispanics (53 percent) even supported building vast border fences and stiffening penalties for illegal aliens.

As an alternative to amnesty, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence recently presented the Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act, which would require all illegal citizens to leave the country, obtain a visa and re-enter legally. Essentially, the bill includes all of the important border security measures of the House bill passed last year, and adds a provision — allowing illegals to obtain guest worker visas for a duration of two years. Mr. Pence's plan would also create private worker placement agencies to link specific workers to specific jobs for specified time periods in the United States.

Mr. Pence's "rational middle ground approach" is a breath of fresh air in the immigration debate, because it recognizes the economic need for additional workers while also addressing the security issues at stake. This non-amnesty solution would be acceptable not only to conservatives, but also to American Hispanics who oppose illegal immigration and "reform" proposals that reward delinquency. After all, many Hispanic Americans did things the right way — enduring a long legal process to enter the country and pursue citizenship. For these immigrants, calls for amnesty by their former compatriots mock the laws and values that made America so appealing in the first place.

So, what can Republicans do to win the allegiance of Hispanic voters? Simple: Stand up for conservative values. A recent Time poll found that 72 percent of Hispanics considered "moral values issues" as either "extremely" or "very" important, while 87 percent felt similarly about homeland security.

Hispanics' cultural conservatism is well established. On abortion, a plurality of Hispanics (45 percent in the Time survey) wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned, even as Roe maintains majority support (65 percent) among the population at large. Hispanics also oppose homosexuality and homosexual marriage. A 2002 Pew Hispanic Center and Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 72 percent of Hispanics said they felt homosexual sex between adults is "unacceptable," compared to 59 percent for whites. Polls also routinely show much less support among Hispanics for same-sex "marriage."

Republicans have a distinct advantage with Hispanics on national security, too. A 2004 pre-election survey of Hispanics revealed that 40 percent planned to vote for President Bush mainly because of his solid stance on national security issues.

Republican lawmakers must recognize that Hispanics are conservative in a fundamental way. In fact, it was on the strength of his conservative positions on values issues that George W. Bush doubled the Republican share of the Hispanic vote for president in just eight years. No small feat.

Clearly, reaching out to the burgeoning Hispanic electorate has become a matter of political necessity for Democrats and Republicans alike. Not only are Hispanics the fastest growing ethnic group in America, but they are, politically speaking, a relatively untapped resource — only 47 percent of eligible Hispanics voted in 2004, compared to 64 percent of the population at large.

But if, in attempting to capitalize on these powerful electoral realities, Republicans capitulate on amnesty, not only will they give their conservative base reason to stay home on Election Day, but they may alienate a growing constituency that shares those core conservative values of family, hard work, respect for the rule of law and patriotism.

Have Republicans forgotten?