Weekly Updates

This past week I hosted a jobs fair at University of Mary Washington’s Stafford Campus which attracted over 50 public and private employers and nearly 1,000 job seekers. I also had the opportunity to speak at the Spotsylvania Small Business Forum, which drew a number of local small business owners.   A number of vendors returned to participate after successfully hiring job seekers… Read more »

On Sunday, the House of Representatives passed the Senate version of the healthcare reform bill by a vote of 219-212. Instead of this moment being a time for celebration of bipartisanship and reform, it’s come to represent what folks deeply resent about Washington.  The months leading up to this day ignored the legislative process of holding hearings on the proposed… Read more »

When Congress first met, legislators rode on horseback for days to reach Washington, and received stacks of mail from constituents back home. Today, the travel is must faster (it only takes me a couple of hours from Montross to DC) but the mail remains a large part of the job. I receive thousands of emails, phone calls, tweets, faxes, and letters each week. These are just a few of the… Read more »

During these trying economic times every elected official’s top three priorities should be: jobs, jobs, and jobs. With our national unemployment rate at just under 10%, and our economy continuing to struggle, government should be listening and lending a hand to our small businesses. Small businesses accounts for 70% of the jobs created each year in our country and are essential to… Read more »

This week President Obama signed an executive order to establish the "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform," co-chaired by President Clinton's former White House Chief of Staff, Erskine Bowles, and former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY).  According to the White House, the commission "will build bipartisan consensus to put forth solutions to tackle our… Read more »

From Williamsburg to Prince William County, the First Congressional District was slammed by this past week's snow storms. The result left hundreds of thousands of federal and private sector workers stranded at home, and unable to reach the office. However, some of our neighbors were still able to get to work, and it wasn't because they had four wheel drive; rather it was their ability to… Read more »

On Tuesday, I hosted a broadband roundtable in Warsaw, to bring together broadband expansion stakeholders in the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. We had a great group of participants including Ellen Matthews Davis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office, representatives from the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula Planning Districts, telecommunications… Read more »

This past Monday I toured the Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) at Hampton. This Veterans Hospital, the fourth oldest medical center in the VA system, is a 468-bed facility which serves a 15-county area in eastern Virginia and a 10-county area in northeastern North Carolina. I received a brief tour of the center, a briefing from hospital administrators, and met with… Read more »

I started off this week by continuing to hold town hall meetings, to hear directly from my constituents on their thoughts and concerns about the happenings in Washington. I focused on reaching out to our senior citizens, by holding events at retirement communities in Fredericksburg and Newport News. The seniors I spoke with echoed what I've been hearing for months: we… Read more »

This week Congress returned to Washington to begin the second session of the 111th Congress. There are many items on the agenda as we start the year, including healthcare reform, financial services regulatory reform, as well as appropriations bills to fund the government's operations. This week I've focused on working with the Marine Corps, who are currently in the process of deciding… Read more »