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The United States of America is a place that is supposed to represent democracy.

Consequently, the form of government that is in place is referred to as a Republic Democracy,
which means that the U.S has representatives who are elected to office that represent the people
of the nation. In the United States legislative body, there are 100 members of the Senate and 435
members of the House of Representatives, which totals to 535 members of congress that are
elected by the people. Of these 535 members of congress this paper will discuss one of them,
Senator John Cornyn. There are many aspects that will be discussed including a description of
the Senator, where he acquires his funds for his campaigns, what the Senator has done in office,
and the political initiatives he has taken.
To begin the discussion of Senator John Cornyn, it is necessary to give a description of
the Senator. The Senator was born on February 2, 1952 and was raised in San Antonio, Texas.
He was the second of three children that John and Gale Cornyn had. His father, John Cornyn,
was a pilot in World War Two and flew a B-17 during the war. His father made a career in the
military, he served for a total of 31 years. After his fathers service in the military, he began to
teach at the University of Texas Health Science center. Sen. Cornyn graduated from three
universities, Trinity University, Saint Marys Law School, and the University of Virginia where
he achieved a Masters Degree in Law (Biography). The Senator made a career out of public
service before he became a Senator, serving in many different capacities. He has served as a
district and Supreme Court Justice in Texas. He was also the Attorney General for Texas for
some time. As for his time as a Senator, he has set himself apart as an assertive person and one of
the most conservative senators in office. To be more specific, he has been named the second
most conservative senator according to the National Journal (cite). He has an overall
conservative rating that tops out at 93.8%, and has an A+ record from the National Rifle
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Association for all the work that he has done protecting the gun rights of Texans. As for his core
beliefs, they tend to be a driving force in how he side in his legislative dissentions. As for what
his core beliefs actually consist of, they tend to follow what one would think a strong
conservative would say. He feels that the United States needs to let the power of the free
enterprise system guide the economy to our next economic expansion. Similarly to many other
republicans, he feels that the Nation is in need of a strong military to help support our troops, and
to combat all those who would wish harm against the United States of America. He believes in
the power of strong communities and families that reduce the need and want of interference from
the government. He also believes in the sanctity of life and how precious it truly is, and that the
freedoms that this country was founded on are the life blood of this country, and need to be
protected by those who are in power to do so(Biography).
To begin the discussion of Senator Cornyns legislative record, it is vital to first
understand how he came about obtaining a seat in the Senate and why he wished to do so. The
Senator did not begin in public service. His first job was actually as a realtor, but that proved to
be unfruitful. His lack of success as a realtor lead him to go back to school and obtain a law
degree, which turned out to be a very vital decision for his life to have played out the way it has.
After obtaining his law degree from St Marys law school, he practiced simple law, but that
would not last long (Biography). Before he had his law degree for a decade, he was already
being encouraged by many of the republicans in his area to pursue a seat as a district court judge
in Texas. It was not long before he was making a name for himself as a reformer and would
continue to strive to new heights. A few years down the road, the Senator decided to turn his eye
to the corrupt Supreme Court of Texas, so he decided to run for a seat and try to bring back
impartial judicial acts. The act that caused the senator to decide to run was a scandal that had
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come to life about two of Texass Supreme Court Justices that were corrupt, which lead to the
media saying that Texas had Judges for Sale (About John Cornyn)In 1990, he won a seat on
Texass Supreme Court and brought his trend of reform to Austin to help bring about the
Supreme Court that Texans deserved. His first way of reform seemed to be a success since he
was reelected in 1996. In 1997, the Attorney General of Texas was being looked at for
corruption, and was later indicted and imprisoned for having ties to five lawyers known as the
tobacco five who were involved in the states suit against the tobacco industry(About John
Cornyn). After this, in 1998, he became the first republican Attorney General Texas had in over
a hundred years. He kept his trend of reform going while he was the Texas Attorney General. He
was the first Attorney General from Texas to go in front of the Supreme Court in 20 years. He
personally argued two cases during his time serving. One case was to defend the prison sentence
of man that had been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault against his step daughter,
and the other was to defend the right of Texas children to voluntary prayer in school. All of these
experiences lead him to succeed Senator Phil Gramm for the senate seat in 2002(Biography). It
did not take long for him to set himself apart in the Senate, and he was placed on the armed
service committee. The Senator was also assigned to the budget and judiciary committee. He is
still serving on these committees, and in 2006 was made the vice chairman of the Senate
Republican Conference by the Republican senate leadership team. After his reelection in 2008,
he was given even more responsibilities, and was made the minority whip for the Senate. He was
also asked to be the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while severing
on subcommittees for immigration, refugees, and border security. (Committee Asignments)

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The actual actions that a Congress member takes and completes is the best way to
evaluate how well they did their job. So to truly understand what the Senator Cornyn has done in
the Senate, one must look at the initiatives he took. The Senator, when first brought into office,
made many strides to bring about legislation that would benefit Texas and its citizens. Many of
his initiatives were to protect many of the small businesses and companies that reside within
Texass borders. The Senator also backed the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program which
helped local volunteer and municipal fire stations get the funding that they needed to buy the
equipment and trucks necessary to help defend against the damage that uncontrolled fires can
cause. This program also help to fund safety training programs, and allowed some stations to hire
some employees (Working for Texas). He also helped get funding for first responders, such as
police and firefighters, to update the communication network to help keep citizens safe. This
program will receive over 65 million dollar in funding for the new communication systems
(Working for Texas) (Jobs and the Economy). The Senator has not only sponsored bills
dealing with just Texas, but he was also a forerunner for the APLUS Education reform bill. He
introduced this bill in the 110
th
Congress to reform the No Child Left Behind Act. The program
had many advantages to the No Child Left Behind Act allowing federal money to be given to the
school system to be used in a much broader range of categories instead of the very strict
parameters that the school systems were making no headway with. He also help to bring about,
or cosponsored, the B529 investment plan that is designed to help parents save for the future
education of their children (Legislation). The senator has not only sponsored and cosponsored
many bills, but he has also tried to undermine some as well. One major bill that the senator tried
to undermine and prevent from becoming law was Obamacare, the senator was very open and
public about his dislike of the president proposed healthcare initiative, and went on a variety of
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radio talk shows to talk about the negative effects that it would bring. He voted against the
legislation on every occurrence, and tried to help get the bill defunded after it had been passed in
to law. In total the Senator has introduced or cosponsored 27 bills to repel or defund
Obamacare(Senator Cornyns Record on Obamacare). The Republican Senator, like many
other Republicans in congress, has also supported many taxation bills that would effectively
deceased taxes for citizens. One of these bills was to help lower the taxes for Texans selling their
houses to would them to receive more of a profit from the sale. One of the other taxation related
bills that the Senator Cosponsored was the Fair Taxation act of 2007. This bill was designed to
completely eliminated income taxes, and completely wipeout the Internal Revenue Service. The
Bill was cosponsored by over seventy other republicans but died in committee, never getting
ratified ("H.R. 25: Fair Tax Act of 2013"). (Legislation)
All people running for some form of office need money to campaign with to make
themselves known and to gain supporters. Campaigning is also a place to find corruption, so to
understand who might have an influence on an elected official, one must look at where they
received the money to run for office. According to opensecrets.org, Senator John Cornyn is the
top recipient from many industries, including the PACs organizations and the individuals who
are in that occupation (2014). To give an idea of some of the numbers, the oil and gas industry
has given over 1.082 million dollars to the senator for campaign use in the 2014 campaign cycle
alone. He has also been the number one recipient for industries such as always auto dealers, gun
rights, general contractor, natural gas distributors, and many others that fall into similar
categories and some that do not. The Senator has on hand over 4 million dollars and has already
spent 8 million according to opensecrets.org. He has repeatedly received far above the nation
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averages for campaign funds on the years of big elections. Topping out at close to 14 million in
2008. (Sen John Cornyn)
In my opinion, the Senator has made some very big strides and has kept to his trend of
reform throughout his political career. As a strongly right wing republican, most of the decisions
he makes I tend to agree with or have similar views on so I tend to be bias in this evaluation.
Many of the programs he brought about when he first got the seat as senator were based to help
the people of Texas which I feel was just a big campaign plan, but it is his job to help the
constituents of his state. As time continued, it was more apparent of his national involvement,
and one could more clearly see some of his legislative plans come into the political battleground.
Many of his legislative initiatives that I discussed in the previous paragraph are typically ones
that stood out to me, and that I took a certain liking to. The education legislation that he
introduced was most likely one of his bigger successes in my opinion, even though I feel our
education system is still in need of far more work and funding. He made strides to allow the
school system to spend the money in the areas that they deemed necessary, and not the nation
government telling a local school system that they know more about where the money needs to
be spent even though they probably have never even heard of that particular school. I am also a
big fan of the B529 investment plan. I had previous knowledge of this investment plan, and had
always been a fan of the workings of the program, so his back of the program boosted his
standing from my point of view. The senator also tried to make strides in the realm of taxation
and in some cases he did make improvements on a smaller scale, but I would like to see larger
cuts in taxation which is hard to accomplish in a country thats deficit is growing by the day.
Overall I felt he is doing at least a satisfactory job, but there are always places to improve.
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In conclusion, Senator John Cornyn has been a valuable addition to the United States
Senate. He has made many strides to improve our system that has many flaws. Hopefully he will
continue his trend of reform, and maybe congress will gain more members with similar attitudes.


Bibliography
"Committee Asignments." John Cornyn United States Senator for Texas. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=CommitteeAssignments>. (Committee
Asignments)
"Sen. John Cornyn." Open Secrets. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2014&type=C&cid=N00024852&
newMem=N&recs=20>. (Sen John Cornyn)
"Senator Cornyn's Record on Obamacare." John Cornyn United States Senator for Texas. N.p..
Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00024852&cycle=2014>.
(Senator Cornyns Record on Obamacare)
"Legislation." John Cornyn United States Senator for Texas. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Legislation>. (Legislation)
"Biography." John Cornyn United States Senator for Texas. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Biography>. (Biography)
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"H.R. 25: Fair Tax Act of 2013." GovTrack. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr25>. ("H.R. 25: Fair Tax Act of 2013")
"About John Cornyn." John Cornyn United States Senator. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.johncornyn.com/about2/>. (About John Cornyn)
"Working for Texas." John Cornyn United States Senator for Texas. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014.
<http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=WorkingForTexas>. (Working for
Texas)
"Jobs & The Economy." John Cornyn United States Senator for Texas. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr
2014. <http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=JobsEconomy>. (Jobs and the
Economy)