U.S. Government: Elected Officials

  • U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-Charleston)

    Congresswoman Nancy Mace grew up in the Lowcountry. She is the daughter of a retired Army General and retired school teacher.

    Before being sworn into Congress, Nancy earned accolades as one of the most fiscally conservative members of the South Carolina General Assembly; she’s also one of the most pro-conservation lawmakers in the state of South Carolina.

    Nancy grew up in Goose Creek, S.C. And when she dropped out of high school at the age of 17, her parents said, “If you’re going to stop going to school, you got to start going to work.” She immediately became a waitress at the Waffle House on College Park Road in Ladson (exit 203).

    Nancy earned her high school diploma a few months later by taking college classes at Trident Technical College in North Charleston.

    She graduated magna cum laude from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, where she was the school’s first female to graduate from its Corps of Cadets in 1999. In 2004 Nancy earned a masters degree from The University of Georgia. Go dogs!

    She is the author of In The Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel, published by Simon & Schuster in 2001.

    In 2008 Nancy started her own company. Her background in business is in technology, PR & marketing and more recently commercial real estate before coming to Congress.

    Nancy is the recipient of the 2019 Taxpayer Hero Award from the South Carolina Club for Growth; she has a 100% record of voting to lower taxes. Nancy is also the recipient of the Champion Award from Palmetto Goodwill in her efforts in education and in helping those most in need receive job training; she has a 100 percent rating with Conservation Voters of South Carolina.

    Nancy is a single mom of two children ages 12 and 14. She also has two cats, Tyler and Tiger, and a puppy named Liberty.

  • U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)

    Raised in rural Missouri, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley previously served as Missouri’s Attorney General. There he earned a reputation for taking on the big and the powerful to protect Missouri workers and families. He has battled big government and big business, special interests, organized crime, and anyone who would threaten the well-being of Missourians.

    A native of small town Lexington, Missouri in rural Lafayette County, Senator Hawley graduated from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City. After graduating from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006, he moved back home to mid-Missouri with his wife, Erin, where they started a family. They are the proud parents of three young children: Elijah, Blaise, and Abigail.

    Senator Hawley is recognized as one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers. He has litigated at the Supreme Court of the United States, the federal courts of appeals, and in state court, fighting for the people’s liberties. He previously fought Obamacare at the Supreme Court — and won — as one of the lead attorneys in the landmark Hobby Lobby case. He was also a lead attorney in the Hosanna-Tabor case at the Supreme Court, protecting the rights of churches.

    Since taking office, Senator Hawley has been a leading champion in Congress for working families. He’s worked across the aisle to deliver protections for kids online, led the fight for direct payments to working people during the COVID-19 pandemic, and taken steps to crack down on predatory landlords. Senator Hawley has also rolled out proposals to protect American workers from foreign trade cheating, especially from China, and has been an advocate for ending the offshoring of jobs and boosting manufacturing the United States.

    Senator Hawley has taken on corporate special interests to level the playing field for the American worker as well. He boldly stood up to the abuses of Big Tech and Wall Street and has worked to reign in the power of these mega companies while championing innovation, entrepreneurship, and small businesses. Senator Hawley has also worked to keep our communities safe by confronting illegal immigration, and challenging big opioid manufacturers and human traffickers – during his time as the former Attorney General of Missouri and in the U.S. Senate. As a fierce defender of the Constitution, Senator Hawley is committed to protecting Missourians’ First and Second Amendment rights.

    Senator Hawley serves on the Senate Committees on the Judiciary, Armed Services, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

  • U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (SC)

    Congresswoman Nancy Mace grew up in the Lowcountry. She is the daughter of a retired Army General and retired school teacher.

    Before being sworn into Congress, Nancy earned accolades as one of the most fiscally conservative members of the South Carolina General Assembly; she’s also one of the most pro-conservation lawmakers in the state of South Carolina.

    Nancy grew up in Goose Creek, S.C. And when she dropped out of high school at the age of 17, her parents said, “If you’re going to stop going to school, you got to start going to work.” She immediately became a waitress at the Waffle House on College Park Road in Ladson (exit 203).

    Nancy earned her high school diploma a few months later by taking college classes at Trident Technical College in North Charleston.

    She graduated magna cum laude from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, where she was the school’s first female to graduate from its Corps of Cadets in 1999. In 2004 Nancy earned a masters degree from The University of Georgia. Go dogs!

    She is the author of In The Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel, published by Simon & Schuster in 2001.

    In 2008 Nancy started her own company. Her background in business is in technology, PR & marketing and more recently commercial real estate before coming to Congress.

    Nancy is the recipient of the 2019 Taxpayer Hero Award from the South Carolina Club for Growth; she has a 100% record of voting to lower taxes. Nancy is also the recipient of the Champion Award from Palmetto Goodwill in her efforts in education and in helping those most in need receive job training; she has a 100 percent rating with Conservation Voters of South Carolina.

    Nancy is a single mom of two children ages 12 and 14. She also has two cats, Tyler and Tiger, and a puppy named Liberty.

  • U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

    Lindsey Graham has earned a reputation as a conservative problem-solver and one of the strongest proponents of a robust national defense.

    A frequent visitor to American troops stationed overseas for on-the-ground assessments, Graham has consistently pushed for outcomes in the War on Terror which protect our long-term national security interests. One leading conservative recently wrote that when it comes to defending America, “[Lindsey] Graham has been right about more things on foreign policy for longer than just about anyone…if anyone has bragging rights on foreign policy, it is Graham.”

    Graham is also a leader in cutting spending, reforming entitlements, and getting government out of the way so businesses can create jobs. One national conservative organization called him a Taxpayer Hero who puts “the interests of the taxpayer ahead of politics by consistently voting to cut wasteful spending, reduce the tax burden, and make government more accountable to taxpayers.”

    Graham was elected to the United States Senate in 2002 and was re-elected in 2008, 2014, and 2020. He became the first person in South Carolina history to garner over one million votes in the 2008 general election.

    Graham currently serves as the Ranking Member on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Graham also serves as a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senate Committee on the Budget, and Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

    Prior to serving in the Senate, Graham was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as the first Republican from the Third Congressional District of South Carolina since 1877.

    Before being elected to Congress, Graham compiled a distinguished record in the United States Air Force as he logged six-and-a-half years of service on active duty as an Air Force lawyer. From 1984-1988, he was assigned overseas and served at Rhein-Main Air Force Base in Germany. Upon leaving active duty Air Force in 1989, Graham joined the South Carolina Air National Guard where he served until 1995. During the first Gulf War in the early 90’s, Graham was called to active duty and served state-side at McEntire Air National Guard Base as Staff Judge Advocate where he prepared members for deployment to the Gulf region.

    In 1995, Graham joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves. During American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Graham put his experience in military law to use pulling numerous short-term Reserve duties in both countries over congressional breaks and holidays.

    Graham retired from the Air Force Reserves in June 2015 having served his country in uniform for 33 years. He retired at the rank of Colonel.

    A native South Carolinian, Graham grew up in a blue collar family in the small town of Central where his parents ran a restaurant and pool hall. The first member of his family to go to college, Graham earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Carolina. He lives in Seneca and is a member of Corinth Baptist Church.

  • U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

    Ted grew up in Texas. His father, Rafael, fled Cuba after being tortured and imprisoned and came to Texas with just $100 sewn into his underwear. Rafael got a job washing dishes making 50 cents an hour and learned English. He worked hard and attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning a degree in mathematics. He later started a small business in the oil and gas industry. Today, Rafael is a pastor in Dallas.

    Ted’s mother, Eleanor, was born in Delaware to an Irish and Italian working-class family. She became the first in her family to go to college, graduating from Rice University with a degree in mathematics. She broke boundaries at Shell as one of the few women working as a computer programmer at the dawn of the computer age.

    Ted earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, Ted clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist and then worked in private practice. In 1999, Ted joined George W. Bush’s campaign for president as a domestic policy advisor. The best thing about Ted’s experience on the Bush-Cheney campaign, by far, was meeting Heidi Nelson, who also worked on the policy team. Heidi and Ted married after the campaign.

    After working at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission during the Bush administration, Ted moved back home to be the Solicitor General of Texas. As Solicitor General, Ted argued eight cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, and defended our freedom of speech, our right to keep and bear arms, and our religious liberty in courts across the nation. Following his service as Solicitor General, Ted returned to private practice, where he continued to litigate high stakes cases and argued his ninth case before the Supreme Court.

    Ted and Heidi also started their family, welcoming Caroline and Catherine.

    In 2013, Ted was sworn into the United States Senate, where he has been a passionate fighter for limited government, economic growth, and national security. He has authored dozens of legislative measures that have been signed into law, including expanding 529 college savings accounts to allow parents to save for K-12 public, private, and religious education, repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate, imposing sanctions on terrorists who use civilians as human shields, designating North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, targeting Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline through multiple bills that halted construction and kept it stalled, reauthorizing and reforming NASA, holding dictatorships in South America accountable, and ensuring the availability of additional records to help solve civil rights cold cases.

    Ted is honored to serve as the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, a position that gives him the chance to have a far-reaching impact on innovation and growth across the landscape of daily life. As Ranking Member, he is focused on furthering innovation in the telecommunications space, protecting Americans’ privacy and security, helping Americans travel safely and more efficiently, and ensuring that the U.S. continues to lead the world in space exploration.

    He is also leading the fight in the Senate to support Texas jobs, rein in Big Tech, secure the border, and fundamentally reassess the U.S.-China relationship and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for covering up the coronavirus pandemic, committing human rights atrocities, and engaging in censorship, propaganda, and espionage in the United States.