After being elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2000, and being selected as majority whip and then majority leader, Marco served as Speaker of the House in 2007 and 2008.
A few main points stand out about his tenure: He governed conservatively, he governed on new, conservative ideas, and he amassed an impressive record of accomplishment even during some tough years for the Florida economy.
Even while the Florida economy was slowing as the housing bubble ebbed, and Florida’s revenues dropped, Marco balanced the budget both years without raising taxes, and passed budgets with less spending than Governor Charlie Crist and the State Senate wanted.
As House Speaker, his pro-growth record earned him a 100 percent rating from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and in 2006, he had a 100 percent rating from the National Federation of Independent Business. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said Marco as Speaker was “the most pro-taxpayer legislative leader in the country.”
Further, Marco explicitly campaigned for Speaker on a platform of ideas, laying out in a book 100 policy proposals that he gathered from meeting with Floridians across the state.
In the two years he had as term-limited speaker, Marco’s hard work turned many of these ideas into reality, improving how the government worked for Floridians on everything from education and health care to protecting their property rights or improving vehicle registration.
Here are just some of the ideas he made happen:
Eminent Domain
Just before Marco was speaker, when the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo vs. the City of New London formally gave governments nationwide the right to seize private property not just for infrastructure projects but also for any economic development project, Marco led the effort to curtail government’s eminent domain powers in Florida. He ran a bipartisan committee that examined how to stop governments from seizing property to hand over to private developers. He sponsored both a law and a constitutional amendment to prevent eminent domain abuse, and they both passed, earning the state an A grade from the Castle Coalition, which assesses states on their respect for property rights.
Higher Education
Marco has talked about the importance of supporting vocational education and college alternatives on the campaign trail, and his record on the issue stretches back to his time in the Florida House: He successfully saw through the creation of “career academies” to allow high schoolers to begin learning a trade, encouraged community colleges to focus on high-demand trades and majors, and made the transfer of credits between state higher education institutions easier.
K-12 Education
A number of education reforms from Marco’s 100 Ideas became law, including an expansion of the state’s school choice scholarship program that empowers parents, the promotion of new programs for gifted students, the creation of public-private partnerships for after-school programs and other school services, and easier access to virtual schooling. The House also passed a sweeping law to expand education opportunities for children with disabilities, and ultimately made law a bill focused on helping children with autism.
Two more 100 Ideas promises Marco made happen: He passed the legislation to raise Florida’s K-12 educational standards significantly, create a world-class curriculum without Washington’s involvement, and improve school measurement and accountability systems, and he helped create the Miami Children’s Initiative, a “children’s zone” first suggested in 100 Ideas and modeled after the highly successful Harlem Children’s Zone.
Small Government & Government Transparency
In 100 Ideas for Florida’s Future, Marco proposed the idea of a Legislative Sunset Advisory Committee for Florida, modeled on a committee in the Texas legislature, that would review laws on a regular basis for necessity and effectiveness — and he made it happen. In 100 Ideas Marco also championed the principle of transparency, following through on ideas like creating a public website to detail the state’s budget and requiring accountability for state-funded hospitals.
Crime
100 Ideas set forth a number of ideas to cut crime in Florida communities. Under Marco’s leadership, bills became law that registered sex offenders’ online identities, toughened penalties on repeat sex offenders, expanded efforts to collect DNA evidence from felons, and increased law-enforcement efforts and penalties for gang activity.
Executive Power
Marco stood up against Governor Charlie Crist’s executive overreach: The House blocked Crist’s unauthorized attempt to impose a liberal cap-and-trade scheme on Florida, and Marco stopped an unconstitutional Crist attempt to expand gambling in the state.
============================================
============================================
============================================
In the United States Senate:
1. Marco led the effort on the biggest Republican victory against ObamaCare.
Back in 2013, Marco sounded the alarm about the potential for the Obama Administration to bail out insurers losing money under ObamaCare.
He led the fight to make Congress block the Obama Administration from transferring taxpayer dollars to insurers losing money under ObamaCare. When those big losses started racking up, Marco’s work saved taxpayers $2.5 billion in one year alone.
This isn’t just about saving taxpayers the bailout money: The only way to keep ObamaCare afloat may be to subsidize the insurers who are losing money on it, and Marco has done more than anyone to stop that from happening. In fact, it’s the most important victory against ObamaCare that any Republican running for president has achieved.
2. Marco was behind the toughest part of the recent VA reform law.
Following revelations about deep corruption and incompetence at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Marco introduced a bill that would allow the firing of incompetent, negligent or corrupt VA managers. The bill, the VA Management Accountability Act, was adamantly opposed by government-union-friendly Democrats, including Senator Bernie Sanders.
Thanks to his work on VA issues, Marco was asked to be on the conference committee that put together the final VA reform legislation. There, he ensured that an important element of his VA Management Accountability Act — the ability to fire senior VA executives who aren’t doing their jobs — made it into the legislation that passed. McClatchy’s reported that Marco “played a vital role on a special committee that finalized that legislation.”
In four years as a U.S. Senator, Marco has built a record of accomplishments on some of the most important issues for conservatives.
Here are some of them:
Marco has continued to push for the accountability law to be implemented and has pushed to expand this authority so that any VA employee can be fired for poor performance, and will ensure as president that it becomes law.
Here’s what Pete Hegseth, a top veterans advocate who runs Concerned Veterans for America, has to say about Marco on veterans’ issues:
For the record, from someone who was there, Senator@marcorubio led the charge for #VAaccountability in the U.S. Senate.
3. Marco pushed new sanctions on Hezbollah, which are already beginning to bite.
In 2015, Marco led the successful effort to tighten the screws on the financing of the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
His legislation allows the U.S. to sanction foreign banks that are working with the group, which is waging war on Israel, killed 241 American servicemen in the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombings, and has carried out attacks on civilians around the world. AIPAC praised Marco and Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire’s leadership on the bill, calling it “an important tool against Iranian aggression.”
The good news: Hezbollah is already starting to feel the pinch, the Wall Street Journal reported recently. The group even called Marco’s bill “a new crime by American institutions against our people and nation.”
4. Marco fought the Obama White House to pass sanctions against Venezuela’s brutal socialist regime.
Marco has long been a leader on human rights issues, calling on the U.S. to stand up for people living under oppressive regimes, in Latin America especially.
In 2014, he led an effort to pass sanctions against the corrupt, anti-American government in Venezuela.
One of the problems in the way: The Obama White House was reluctant to take a stand against Venezuela. Marco felt differently, and, as McClatchy’s reported, “played a pivotal role in prodding the Obama administration on the matter – in a hearing, in multiple letters, in Senate speeches.”
At the end of 2014, Marco succeeded in passing the bill, and the White House has since sanctioned several individual Venezuelan government officials who’ve been responsible for human rights abuses.
5. Marco led the passage of the Girls Count Act, to combat human trafficking.
One of the most widespread human rights problems across the world is the way government policies and cultural norms undermine the rights of women and girls: many of them never counted at birth, depriving them of things like education and health care and making them much more vulnerable to human trafficking. The problem is greatest in the poorest countries, but it’s also a huge problem in China, with its horrific one-child policy (now “two child policy”).
Marco succeeded in passing a bipartisan bill, the Girls Count Act, seeing it through to becoming law, that would direct U.S. foreign aid resources toward protecting girls’ rights by addressing this problem.
The bill, supported by groups like Catholic Relief Services, means the U.S. will now help governments to properly register girls at birth and respect their rights under the rule of law, making it more likely that their rights will be respected.
6. Marco has defended religious freedom at home and abroad.
In the Senate, Marco has worked to protect one of our most fundamental liberties, the right to believe and live out those beliefs.
He has been at the forefront of the Congressional effort to reverse the Obama administration’s unconstitutional, anti-conscience HHS Mandate, authoring the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012, and has championed the First Amendment Defense Act, which protects religious institutions’ ability to live by their values.
Marco has also made international religious freedom a foreign policy priority: He led the charge to reauthorize the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, has fought to highlight the oppression of religious minorities in China and elsewhere, especially Christians and others facing genocide in the Middle East at the hands of ISIS.
7. Marco has been a leading defender of Internet freedom.
In 2012, the Senate and House both unanimously approved Marco’s bill to oppose any international efforts to regulate the Internet, calling on the U.S. government to reinforce its commitment to Internet freedom by opposing efforts to cede Internet regulatory power to the International Telecommunications Union.
Thanks to the strong opposition Congress showed, no damaging regulatory measures were adopted at the World Conference on International Telecommunications.
