Where is senator roger wicker from

I yield back to the Senator from Maryland. The Senator from Maryland. Madam President, let me again thank Senator Wicker. Thank you for your leadership on so many issues. But on this congressional delegation, for those who are not familiar, it is not easy to put together the type of opportunities to advance American values.

And Senator Wicker took the responsibility as the leader of our delegation to make sure that we had the opportunities to advance American values. I thank him for all the effort he put into it. It was certainly extremely successful. I just want to emphasize a few things before closing. That is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has the responsibility of monitoring the nuclear programs throughout the world.

Obviously, it has played a bigger role in regard to the program in Iran, and it was monitoring exactly what was happening in Iran under the JCPOA. And I think it was helpful for all of us to understand exactly the role that the IAEA can play in regard to getting us information about what is happening on the ground in Iran. We showed our support by going to Narva, which is on the Russian border.

It is a town that has a majority of Russian-speaking Estonians. It is an interesting community. But we could see across the river, very clearly, the Russian patrol boats. We know and heard firsthand of the concern of the Estonians. They saw what happened in Ukraine and they worry that same thing could happen in Estonia with Russian aggression.

I must tell you, our presence to reinforce the NATO commitment, I think, was an extremely important message that we gave to the Estonian people. Would the gentleman yield on that point? I would be glad to yield. The Senator from Mississippi. If I might add, people in Narva, Estonia, and people in the city across the river have access to each other across a bridge there. And it is clear to the people on the Russian side that their cousins and friends in Narva, Estonia, live a better life and have a better standard of living in this free country, this NATO ally called Estonia, than the Russian cousins and friends have on the other side.

I just thought I would add that to the discourse before Senator Cardin moves on to discussing Norway and Bulgaria. Thank you. Madam President, let me move onto Bulgaria very briefly. Senator Wicker did cover Bulgaria. It is an initiative by twelve states that are basically part of the Eastern European Coalition, states that are developing democratic institutions and democratic economies after the fall of the Soviet Union.

They need to build up their resilience as a collective entity in energy, transportation, and digital infrastructure. The Three Seas Initiative is to attract investment to connect the twelve countries together on infrastructure needs. It is for many reasons. It is for its own economic strength and growth, but also for resiliency against the efforts of China on its Belt and Road Initiative, which is trying to infiltrate these countries and convert their way of economy to more of the Chinese system.

The Three Seas Initiative is an effort to have their own independent way of attracting capital. The United States is participating in the Three Seas. We are not a member, but we are participating and providing resources for the fund that is being developed that would be leveraged for these type of investments. While we were in Bulgaria, we had a chance to have bilateral meetings. There were twelve heads of state there. We had very constructive discussions about what is happening in their country.

We raised Helsinki issues with all these countries. Senator Wicker already talked about how we were welcomed by the Bulgarian leadership in regards to the imposition of the Magnitsky sanctions. We are heroes. They feel like they have a second chance to try to develop the type of anti-corruption mechanisms that they desperately need. Our visit to Varna, which is on the Black Sea, was very educational to see how Russia is trying to dominate the Black Sea area and one of the reasons why they are so aggressive in Ukraine and the Crimea.

I think that was extremely helpful for us to understand the security risks and how we have to work with our NATO partners to protect the Black Sea area, particularly from the potential aggression—not potential—from the aggression of Russia. Also in Bulgaria, we had a chance to visit a Roma village. It is not my first visit to a Roma village.

I have visited over the years. It is a real tragic situation. The Roma population have been in Europe for centuries. They lived in communities for hundreds of years, yet they do not have property rights. They have lived in their homes, and yet they do not have the opportunity to have their homes registered.

And at any time, the government can come in and take away their property without compensation. They rarely have reliable utilities. The village we visited did not have water systems, so they had to use outhouses, et cetera.

They had limited availability of fresh water. Their utility service is not reliable. And they go to segregated schools. So we, once again, will raise the rights of the Roma population as part of our commitment under the Helsinki Commission, and we are following up with the local officials to try to help in that regard. Then, lastly, on our way back, we visited Norway. I learned a lot because I did not know about the pre-positioning program.

I know my friend Senator Wicker already knew about this from his Armed Services service, but it is where we pre-position equipment so that we can respond rapidly to a circumstance anywhere in the world. The Norway pre-positioning is actually used to help us in regard to the Middle East and our needs in the Middle East.

So it was an extremely, extremely, I think, productive visit to these countries. I think we did carry out our commitment under the Helsinki Commission, and we advanced American values. I think we represented our country well, and we were very well noticed. Madam President, one other thing that our colleagues might not understand about the OSCE is their role in election observation. As we were leaving Sofia on the morning of July 11, we crossed paths with some other representatives from the OSCE from European countries who were there to observe the parliamentary elections being held in Bulgaria that very day.

We have every hope that the results of these elections will be a further resolve in those two nation members to counter the corruption at the highest level, and we want to congratulate both of those member states of the OSCE for free and fair elections in Europe. With that, I thank my colleague. I yield the floor. Roger Wicker MS last week led a U. The assembly was the first major gathering with an in-person component since the onset of the COVID pandemic in March Gwen Moore WI and Rep.

Marc Veasey TX , Sen. John Cornyn TX , Sen. Thom Tillis NC , Rep. Lloyd Doggett TX , Rep. Andy Harris MD , and Rep. Trent Kelly MS Remote participants in the Annual Session included Commissioners Sen.

Tina Smith MN , Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse RI , Rep. Robert Aderholt AL , and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick PA , along with Rep. Chris Smith NJ During the Annual Session, the American legislators engaged in debates on political affairs and security, economic and environmental matters, and democracy and human rights. In addition, parliamentarians held the first Assembly elections in two years, with both Sen. Wicker and Rep. Hudson easily retaining their leadership posts.

Wicker received the most votes of any of the nine vice-presidential candidates, while Rep. Hudson was elected by acclamation. During a visit to Narva, delegation members engaged with representatives of the local Russian-speaking community and visited the Russia-Estonia border to gain a better understanding of the security situation.

Estonia and the United States are staunch allies in this effort. We also appreciate the important and growing contributions of Estonia and our other regional allies and partners as we work to address global security challenges. While at the summit, they held bilateral meetings with President Andrzej Duda of Poland, President Rumen Radev of Bulgaria, and President Egils Levits of Latvia to discuss a broad range of security and human rights issues. The delegation also traveled to Varna to examine Black Sea regional security issues; visited a Roma community to better understand the current situation of Roma in Bulgaria and underscore U.

I take this time as the Chair of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, as we celebrate our 45th anniversary. The Helsinki Commission is the vehicle for U. President, this is a unique body in that it represents both the executive and legislative branches of government.

The executive branch has representatives on the Helsinki Commission, and both the House and Senate have Senators and Representatives that serve on the Helsinki Commission. I am very pleased to have as my co-leader Senator Wicker from Mississippi as the Republican leader in the Senate on the Helsinki Commission.

The Helsinki Commission has been responsible for elevating our moral dimension to U. Its principles point out very clearly that you cannot have security without dealing with good governance and human rights; you cannot have economic progress unless you have governance that respects the rights of all its citizens.

That is why I was so pleased when President Biden announced that his foreign policy would be value-based, that as we participate in our foreign policy challenges, it will always be wrapped in our values, and his recent trip to Europe underscored that important lesson. And then he issued, not two weeks ago, the statement that corruption is a core national security threat and that we have a responsibility to fight corruption in order to protect our national security.

I am so pleased of the accomplishments of the Helsinki Commission, particularly from the human rights and human dimension. I go back to my early days in the House of Representatives, when the Soviet Union still existed and the challenges of Soviet Jews trying to emigrate from the Soviet Union. It was the Helsinki Commission that was one of the leading voices to help deal with Soviet Jews.

I think about trafficking-in-persons, modern-day slavery, and the efforts that the United States did in leading that effort, including passing landmark legislation in trafficking in persons and establishing a rating system where every country in the world is rated on how well they are dealing with fighting trafficking.

Now this has become the model, and so many countries have acted. It was the U. Helsinki Commission that led the effort for what Congress was able to pass and the international effort in order to fight trafficking-in-persons. I think about the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide, and recognize that it was the Helsinki Commission that pushed to hold those who were responsible for these atrocities accountable, particularly as it related to the Balkan conflict.

Then I think about the landmark legislation that was passed in the Congress that deals with sanctions against human rights violators, first the Magnitsky sanctions and then the Global Magnitsky sanctions.

It came out of hearings from the Helsinki Commission and legislation that we authored. It is not only the standard here in the United States. It has been adopted as the standard in Europe, in Canada, and in other countries, to make it clear that human rights violators will not be able to hide their illicit funds in our banking system or visit our country. Perhaps our strongest contribution is the oversight hearings that we hold. But just last week we had a hearing in the Helsinki Commission on how we can prevent atrocities from occurring in the first place.

So I am very proud of the accomplishments of the commission. So it is our responsibility to challenge when Russia violates those provisions or when we see violations in Turkey—any member State, we can challenge. But we also have to do our own self-evaluation.

As Chairman of the commission, I have been using that opportunity to question conduct in our own country when it does not match the responsibilities that we should have. We saw that in the past in regard to the torture issues in Guantanamo Bay. My participation in the Helsinki Commission goes back to my early days in the House of Representatives and some of my proudest moments of representing our country on the international stage.

Let me just give you a few examples. That is when the Soviet tanks were in Vilnius. That is when the Soviet Union was demonstrating oppression against the people of the Baltic States. It was very interesting.

But we had a meeting with Boris Yeltsin, who at that time was the chair of the parliament, and we got great visibility. A total of 14 senators joined Paul in the filibuster -- 13 Republicans and one Democrat. Wicker was one of 30 Republican senators who did not support the filibuster.

The day after the filibuster, Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Paul , responding to the filibuster. Holder wrote, "Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on U. The answer to that is no. Wicker voted for H. The bill passed the Senate on January 31, , with a vote of 64 - The purpose of the bill was to temporarily suspend the debt ceiling and withhold the pay of members of Congress until a budget could be passed.

The vote largely followed party lines with Democrats overwhelmingly supporting it and many Republicans in opposition to the bill. During the shutdown in October , the Senate rejected, down party lines, every House-originated bill that stripped the budget of funding for the Affordable Care Act. A deal was reached late on October 16, , just hours before the debt ceiling deadline.

The bill to reopen the government, H. Federal employees also received retroactive pay for the shutdown period. The only concession made by Senate Democrats was to require income verification for Obamacare subsidies. Wicker voted with the Democratic Party for the bill. The amendment was rejected by the Senate on June 18, , with a vote of 39 - The purpose of the amendment was to require the completion of miles of fence described in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of before registered provisional immigrant status may be granted.

It would also require miles of fence be completed before the status of registered provisional immigrants may be changed to permanent resident status.

The vote followed party lines. Wicker voted for S. The bill was passed by the Senate on February 12, , with a vote of 78 - The purpose of the bill was to combat violence against women, from domestic violence to international trafficking in persons. All 22 dissenting votes were cast by Republicans. Wicker voted for the fiscal cliff compromise bill, which made permanent most of the Bush tax cuts originally passed in and while also raising tax rates on the highest income levels.

The bill was passed in the Senate by an 89 - 8 vote on January 1, Wicker was one of the 47 who signed the letter. No Democrats signed it. The letter caused backlash from both the Obama administration and members of Congress.

Wicker's home is less than a half-mile northwest of the intersection. Senate Mississippi on November 6, Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. Senate Mississippi on June 26, There were no incumbents in this race.

The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for U. Senate Mississippi on June 5, Wicker won re-election in Allen Hathcock and Robert Maloney in the primary on March 13, He defeated Albert N.

He defeated Ronnie Musgrove I in the general election. On November 7, , Roger F. Wicker won re-election to the United States House. He defeated James K. Ken Hurt D in the general election. On November 2, , Roger F. On November 5, , Roger F. He defeated Rex N. Taylor L in the general election. He defeated Joe T.

Joey Grist Jr. D and Chris Lawrence L in the general election. He defeated Henry Boyd Jr. He defeated Bill Wheeler D in the general election. I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, and I believe the first step toward solving the illegal immigration problem is securing our borders. I also support stiffening penalties on employers who knowingly employ illegals.

During the past two Congresses, I have supported legislation to withhold federal funds from these sanctuary cities. Furthermore, I have supported legislation to detain those who engage in criminal activity while unlawfully residing in the United States. Most Americans are now feeling the impact of this tax law with bigger paychecks. In fact, according to the Tax Foundation, an average family making the median income in Mississippi could keep hundreds of dollars more this year thanks to these tax reforms.

As a former Lt. For our former service members, he is committed to making the VA more responsive and accessible giving our vets more healthcare choices that are closer to home. Prior to this act, no legislation had specifically addressed Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is the most common fatal genetic disorder diagnosed in childhood. Since this act was signed, federal research has paved the way for groundbreaking therapies, extending lives of muscular dystrophy patients by an average of 12 years, and significantly improving their quality of life.

Some of these children are now even going to college, getting married and having children of their own. The legislation established prize competitions for major research breakthroughs, which demonstrate success.

EUREKA runs parallel to federal research, encouraging public-private partnerships and putting together the best minds for research. During my time in Congress, I have cosponsored several bills designed to strengthen and preserve the 2nd Amendment. I support the sensible measures upholding the right of veterans to own firearms and to expand the reciprocity of concealed-carry gun laws across state lines.

I oppose universal background checks, and I have voted against measures to expand background checks for firearm sales at gun shows and on the Internet. We should focus on strengthening our mental health services and the enforcement of existing laws before creating more regulatory burdens that would diminish our Constitutional rights.

Having served in the U. Some people these days like to call Social Security an entitlement like Medicaid or other social welfare programs. Social Security is not an entitlement. Working Americans paid into the Social Security trust fund, with the expectation that they would receive their money back from that fund upon retirement. As a result, the Social Security Program is now on a path leading to insolvency.

Without action, Social Security may not be there for our children and grandchildren. However, reforms are needed to preserve the system for future generations. We can do this. A similar effort geared toward workers in their twenties and thirties must take place today, and I am committed to helping this conversation move forward. Those of us who voted against Obamacare in have fought for years to find solutions that actually address the healthcare problems Americans face.

That means lower costs, tax relief, more choices, competition and access to affordable care. Moving to a single-payer system, as many liberals would clearly like to see, would be a worst-case scenario, essentially a government-run healthcare system. Government administrated healthcare is NOT the solution. I believe the solution lies in allowing states to experiment with their own plans giving each state an opportunity to enact initiatives that work best within their markets.

I have voted at every opportunity to repeal Obamacare and replace it with market-driven solutions, such as the Graham-Cassidy proposal, which would have been a step in the right direction.

However, clearly, the fight to fully repeal and replace Obamacare with something much better is still unfolding.

As your Senator, I will remain committed to securing a healthcare solution that puts more power in the hands of patients and providers, not the government. Radical Islamic terrorism continues to pose a direct threat to America and global stability. Under President Trump, our military and security forces have made great strides eliminating threats from the Islamic State.

Yet, we must continue fighting and remain vigilant until these threats are defeated and eliminated. To achieve this, America must remain committed to confronting and defeating terrorists in their backyard. We must also fight them by dismantling their financial networks and denying them safe harbor. We must also expand educational offerings, primarily through workforce development programs.

As more and more companies at home and abroad look to expand, I will work to ensure our nation and our state remains a destination for new jobs and economic growth. As an elected official, I have a year record of staunchly upholding the sanctity of life and the idea that life begins at conception. House and State Legislature speaks for itself. As a Baptist, I have remained active in various Baptist churches in the communities where I have lived throughout my life, including First Baptist Church of Tupelo, Mississippi.

I know most Mississippians share a strong and similar commitment to their faith, family and the sanctity of life. I will continue practicing and promoting values that the overwhelming majority of Mississippians cherish. Yet, in Washington faith and religious freedom are often under assault.

I have worked to counter this by sponsoring legislation to preserve and promote religious expression, including a measure protecting military chaplains from being forced to perform same-sex marriages.

Wicker supported Donald Trump R in the presidential election. Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties.

Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete.

For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Source: Follow the Money. Accept More Information. Official has not yet co-sponsored this bill. Equality Act- S. View detail on Equality Act- S. Nomination of Dr. View detail on Nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine to be Assistant Secretary of Health.

Nomination of William Barr to be U. Attorney General HRC opposed the nomination.