I hope you and your family stayed safe and warm during the snowfall that blanketed our region over the last week. As I wrap up a busy few days in Tennessee and head back to Washington, I wanted to offer a quick update with the latest developments on how I’m working on your behalf:
President Obama Skirts the Law … Again
Last December, President Obama signed bipartisan legislation into law addressing major security gaps in our nation’s visa waiver program that have put our national security at risk for too long. I discussed the program in an earlier e-newsletter which you can read here. The new law stipulates that any foreign national who has traveled to terrorist hotspots within the last five years – such as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria – would be ineligible for a visa waiver to enter the United States. Now, just weeks after President Obama’s signed his name to this measure, he is already enacting unilateral changes to its provisions – once again failing to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress.
The Obama Administration is granting broad exceptions to this law; offering visa waivers for humanitarian workers, journalists, and those traveling to Iraq and Iran for “legitimate business related purposes” – though the Administration has yet to clarify how this will be determined. President Obama must implement our nation’s laws as they are written, not as he wishes they were written. That is why House leaders sent this letter to President Obama demanding answers on the Administration’s actions. The President’s end-runs around Congress are an affront to the separation of powers laid out in our Constitution and Tennesseans deserve better. It is because of actions like these that I am now cosponsoring H. Res. 582, a resolution to formally censure President Obama.
I Stand With Those Who Stand For Life
This week, a runaway grand jury in Houston, Texas tasked with conducting a criminal probe into Planned Parenthood’s activities decided to turn a blind eye to the recent undercover video footage that we have all seen with our own eyes and, instead, set its sights on the whistleblowers who exposed the abortion provider’s misdeeds: David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress. The grand jury has now issued Daleiden an unjust criminal indictment that must not be allowed to stand. I wrote about this development and how pro-life Americans can respond in an op-ed for the National Catholic Register, which you can read here. I also discussed this issue earlier this week on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. I hope you’ll take a moment to watch my interview here and let me know what you think.
Travels Around #TN06
On a happier note, I had an opportunity to make stops in Gallatin and Lebanon this week to hear from constituents and take their message back with me to Washington. In Gallatin, I spoke at the board meeting for “Forward Sumner” – a nonprofit aimed at driving economic and community development throughout Sumner County. In Lebanon, I met with the new President of Cumberland University, Dr. Paul Stumb, to discuss the state of higher education in middle Tennessee. I also stopped by Lebanon High School to donate a supply of books from the Library of Congress. As always, if you have an event in your community you’d like to invite me to attend, you can do so here.