District Update | January 12, 2015
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U.S. Congressman French Hill
Dear Friends,

Congress's first week back in the new year was certainly not uneventful. For the first time since Republicans became the majority party in the House, we sent to the president’s desk a bill gutting Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood.


As House Republicans have said for some time now, the best path toward killing Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood is through budget reconciliation. For those in Congress who are determined to gut Obamacare in its entirety, this vote signified a major win in bringing down the fortress Harry Reid and Senate Democrats have built around this disaster of a law.

Predictably the president vetoed the bill, reinforcing that, in addition to creating the problem, Washington Democrats also are now unmistakably responsible for blocking the solution.

Last week, the president also reminded the country how out-of-touch he is with their priorities when he announced a set of executive actions on gun control. In a tone deaf speech where he outlined his plan to bypass Congress, he acknowledged that nearly two-thirds of gun related deaths in this country are suicides, but yet provided no concrete solutions for how to solve our Nation's mental health crisis.

In contrast, I have cosponsored a bill introduced by Rep. Tim Murphy, the Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act. This legislation would reform our mental health programs by moving away from the outdated programs and policies that aren't working and replacing them with programs that meet the specific needs of individual patients and their families.

Working with Congress to use this legislation as a building block for comprehensive reform is a much more reasonable approach to drastically curbing the number of gun deaths than his executive overreach.

His gun control plan is also wrong in believing that Republicans in Congress don't think we need to take guns out of the hands of criminals. So, instead of working with us on this, he has decided to propose unilateral changes to the law that would infringe upon our Second Amendment rights and do nothing to prevent violence perpetrated by criminals. His ideas only make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones. Congress and the American people will not stand for the president's unconstitutional actions on gun control.

Sincerely,


Representative French Hill

News for the Week

D.C. Lull in House tribute to Bumpers
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The U.S. House of Representatives last week honored Arkansas political giant Dale Bumpers, whose memorial service is today in Little Rock. Two Arkansas lawmakers gave speeches eulogizing the former governor and U.S. senator, considered one of the state's most famous stump speakers and storytellers. Bumpers, 90, died on New Year's Day. On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. French Hill, a Republican from Little Rock, read a short tribute to Bumpers, who was a Democrat.

Read More


Obama offers only failed progressive politics
The Hill

In what will be his last State of the Union address, the president will stand in front of a Congress with a considerably different makeup than the one he was first greeted by in 2009—and he has only himself and his “my-way-or-the-highway” leadership style to blame. When he came to office, his list of congressional allies was exhaustive, and they helped deliver to him his major legislative achievement during his presidency, Obamacare.

Read More

 


70 Years of Fulbright Program

Last week, I wrote an op-ed for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette commemorating the Fulbright Program and its many contributions throughout the world:

This year, we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Fulbright program. Established in 1946 by then-Arkansas U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright, this exceptionally American contribution to the world has educated over 360,000 students from 165 countries, including 52 Nobel Laureates and 31 heads of state.

Little known is the contribution of this program to the relationship between America and Afghanistan. Starting in 1952 and all the way through 1979, 250 Afghans studied in the U.S., and 105 Americans studied in Afghanistan.

Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover of the country by the Taliban, the Fulbright program became absent in Afghanistan until recently. Since 2003, there has been a rebirth of the program, with over 450 Afghans pursuing professional and graduate study in the United States.

Recently, I had the good fortune of having tea in Kabul with one of those students, Naheed Esar, a native of Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

At four months old, she and her family were forced to flee to Pakistan, where they lived in a refugee camp. In 1999, she moved back to her native country and studied in an underground school in Herat Province. In meeting with her, I quickly realized I was in the presence of a remarkable individual, one whose story should remind all of us that there can be a future with a free Afghanistan.

During our time together, I learned that she comes from a long line of extraordinary women. Her inspiration for her own success was her grandmother, a freedom fighter and founder of three schools. The indomitable spirit of her and her family has resulted in Naheed's successful graduation from the University of Arkansas as a Fulbright Scholar with a master's degree in cultural anthropology.

You can read the entire op-ed here.

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