The swelling epidemic of human trafficking makes a mockery of the law and its protections.
Josh Hawley
More than 150 years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, slavery is illegal almost everywhere. But it is still not abolished - not even here, in the land of the free. On the contrary, there is a cancer of violence, a modern-day slavery growing in America by the day, in the very places where we live and work. It's called human trafficking.
Government serves Christ's kingdom rule; this is its purpose. And Christians' purpose in politics should be to advance the kingdom of God - to make it more real, more tangible, more present.
We have to protect the rights of every person and group to follow their sincere religious belief peacefully without hurting other people.
Meaningful ethics reform is vital to restoring public confidence in Missouri's political system.
Labor, and the ability to earn one's own way, is central to dignity and, indeed, to vocation. Christians should seek to broaden the private economy to include more individuals in remunerative labor.
I am firmly of the view that the Missouri citizens deserve transparent and accountable government, especially in the expenditure of their tax dollars.
The people in Washington are getting rich with our money. Under President Barack Obama, the federal government swelled to record size, and it took more and more of our money to pay for it. Who benefitted? Not Missouri farmers or workers.
Taxpayer-funded abortion, especially the devil's bargain with Planned Parenthood, must cease immediately. To be clear, that means I believe Planned Parenthood should receive no tax monies of any kind.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act extends religious liberty to corporations without regard to their for-profit and non-profit status.
The allegations against Roy Moore are very serious. In the state of Missouri, they are criminal - these are criminal allegations.
Republican government - self-government by the people - is at the heart of what it means to be free.
President Trump has challenged Congress to reduce the burden on the American worker and to build an economy that rewards honest work. Congress should accept that challenge and craft a bipartisan plan that makes real reductions in what government demands from our wallets.
Despite what one might gather from the shrill rantings of the leftist commentariat, for whom religion is a sort of disease, religious difference in the United States has rarely led to serious social strife. That is no small achievement, and one that virtually no other Western democracy can boast.
The Constitution treats religious belief as uniquely special, uniquely central to the dignity of the human person, and, for that reason, beyond the power of the state to control.
We need an attorney general that's going to be an advocate for the state of Missouri and is willing to intervene in the regulatory process and go to court to protect Missourians from over-regulation.
To guard our most cherished values and the law that holds us together, America needs a Supreme Court justice committed to the people's Constitution. Neil Gorsuch is that person.
I said I would be part of the solution in Jefferson City, not part of the problem. And I said I'd take on the culture of corruption.
People don't have any confidence in Jefferson City. There's incredible anger in the political establishment, and one of the reasons is special interests dominate the Capitol in our state.
As attorney general of Missouri, I am my state's chief law enforcement officer. I swore an oath to uphold the rule of law, and that means fighting violence and oppression wherever it exists, especially violence against the poor and vulnerable.
As attorney general, I have a duty to defend the laws and constitution of the State of Missouri.
My first job out of law school was on the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, where Gorsuch is a judge. I observed in the year that I worked at the court what many litigants and commentators have since noted: that Gorsuch possesses an incisive legal mind, writes with skill and wit, and is scrupulously fair.
It's far from clear that restoring Christian social authority is an appropriate aim of politics in the first place.
I will not let the interests of powerful corporations close our economy or jeopardize consumers.
I don't take anything that I read in the newspaper at face value on either side - from anybody.
No entity in the history of the world has collected more information about you than Google. My office wants to know what exactly Google does with all of the information it's gathering.
Through the 1980s and '90s, evangelicals sought to turn back the forces of secularization. Groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition pressed for laws recognizing Christianity's unique place in American life, including laws that would allow prayer in public schools and Christian displays in public places.
The Obama administration contends that starting a for-profit business means leaving religious liberty behind. The administration has effectively told the Supreme Court that for-profit companies have no right to act on moral convictions the government opposes. They are about profits. That position is deeply mistaken.
Facts are often complicated.
Unfair and deceptive business practices have been illegal in most states for decades. Yet traffickers routinely use what appear to be legitimate businesses - massage parlors, bars, nail salons - as fronts for their illegal exploitation. It's the ultimate business scam.
Abortion is not a right. It is a violent act against the defenseless. It violates every principle of morality and should be barred by American law. Until that day, I fully support bans on partial-birth abortion, third-trimester abortion, and indeed every limit that can receive public support.
My view is that Roe v. Wade had no basis in law or fact.
Many entrepreneurs embrace profit-making and charitable purposes. Companies such as shoes seller Toms and eyeglass firm Warby Parker sell products at a profit with a pledge to devote part of their earnings to the needy. The number of for-profit businesses with a built-in charitable dimension has proliferated.
The federal government does not have the authority to tell landowners and ranchers and farmers that they can't farm and ranch their land because someday an endangered species might live there.
It's not a secret that we have a crisis in confidence in public institutions in our country.
American business needs more conscience, not less, whether from religious motivation like Hobby Lobby or from secular intentions.
Contrary to what many secularists allege, the Constitution and Bill of Rights did not 'privatize' religion and quarantine it from the public square.
The best way to put the federal bureaucracy back on a leash is to make it obey the laws the people write.
We are fighting for an open and fair economy. We are fighting for the consumer. Someone needs to.
Republican liberty depends on citizen participation, on a government that is of, for, and by the people.
American workers and American entrepreneurs can compete with anybody, anywhere if our government will stop making America a cost-prohibitive place to do business.
The Constitution authorizes Congress to tax Americans to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. But in Washington, the professional political class has hijacked that authority to rig up a tax code that provides for the well-being of Washington, not the country.
If people can't expect their government to be honest and clean, they can't expect anything from it.
The Constitution has never treated religion as merely another private opinion that government can order people to keep to themselves.
The Supreme Court has been clear that states have the right to protect their citizens against out-of-state regulations that would burden those citizens.
For those of us on the front lines fighting Washington's power grabs, Judge Gorsuch's commitment to interpreting the Constitution and the laws as they are actually written is welcome news.
People have completely lost confidence in our public officials in Jefferson City.
Fighting public corruption is essential to preserving a working democracy that people have confidence in. I said that time and again on the campaign trail, and that's why it's such a high priority for me.
Where we see corruption and can make a case against it, we're being aggressive.
If you abuse the public trust, we're going to find you, and and we're going to prosecute you.
