Ben Sasse is a United States Senator, representing the great state of Nebraska.
He was elected in a 2014 landslide, winning each of Nebraska's 93 counties, and securing the second-largest margin for a new senator in the history of the state. Living off of a rickety old campaign bus, he and his family campaigned tirelessly on a common-sense platform of restoring the Constitution to its rightful place and encouraging a more constructive politics where every public official works to make the American Dream achievable for every family. He believes in term limits and a humbler Washington, where the federal government does fewer things, but the more important things, more urgently, more transparently, and with less partisan screaming. Healthy lives are lived primarily in the private sector, and the vast majority of good policy is created at the state and local level -- and Washington should get better at talking honestly about these essential American realities.
A fifth-generation Nebraskan, Ben grew up walking beans and detasseling corn, experiences that taught him the value of hard work. A graduate of Fremont High School, he was recruited to wrestle at Harvard and then earned a PhD in American history at Yale. Ben comes to the Senate having spent the last five years as a college president. When he was recruited to take over the failing Midland University, Ben was just 37 years old, making him one of the youngest college presidents in the nation. The 130-year-old Lutheran college was on the verge of bankruptcy when he arrived, but became one of the fastest-growing higher education institutions in the country by the time of his departure.
Most of his career has been spent guiding companies and institutions through times of crisis with straight talk about the core issues. He has worked with the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey and Company, as well as private equity firms and not-for-profit organizations, to tackle failing strategies across a broad array of sectors and nations.
Ben believes that we have a moral obligation to pass along a country as great and free and opportunity-filled to the next generation as we were blessed to inherit from our grandparents. This will require a more serious Congress, committed to reforming entitlements, telling the truth about fake federal budgets, modernizing national security for the age of global terror networks, and helping the next generation recover a sense of optimism about the American Dream for everyone of every race in every neighborhood.
Committee Assignments
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The Committee of Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of all matters relating to the nation's agriculture industry, farming programs, forestry and logging, and legislation relating to nutrition and health.
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The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (formerly the Committee on Banking and Currency) has jurisdiction over matters related to banks and banking, price controls, deposit insurance, export promotion and controls, federal monetary policy, financial aid to commerce and industry, issuance of redemption of notes, currency and coinage, public and private housing, urban development and mass transit, and government contracts.
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The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is the chief oversight committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and accounting measures other than appropriations, the Census, the federal civil service, the affairs of the District of Columbia, and the United States Postal Service. The committee had been called the United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs before homeland security was added to its responsibilities in 2004.[1]The committee serves as the Senate's chief investigative and oversight committee. The chair of the committee is the only committee chair in the Senate with the power to issue subpoenas without a committee vote, though in practice, such unilateral subpoenas have rarely been issued in recent years.
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The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) is one of four standing joint committees of the U.S. Congress. The committee was established as a part of the Employment Act of 1946, which deemed the committee responsible for reporting the current economic condition of the United States and for making suggestions for improvement to the economy.
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The United States Senate Special Committee on Aging was initially established in 1961 as a temporary committee; it became a permanent Senate committee in 1977. As a special committee, it has no legislative authority, but it studies issues related to older Americans, particularly Medicare and Social Security. Prior to the passage of Medicare, the committee was studying health care insurance coverage for elderly American citizens. The committee conducts oversight of the Medicare program, Social Security and the Older Americans Act. Some of the issues that have been examined by the committee include unacceptable conditions in nursing homes, protection from age discrimination, and pricing practices for prescription drugs.
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The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. The Commission consists of nine Senators, nine Members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President.
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