Lamar S. Smith
Lamar Seeligson Smith ( born November 19, 1947 in San Antonio, Texas ) is an American politician of the Republican Party. He is since 1987 a deputy in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 21th electoral district of Texas, which covers an area northeast of San Antonio and west of Austin.
Life
Lamar Smith was born in 1947 in San Antonio and earned a high school diploma in 1965 at the Texas Military Institute. In 1969, he completed a bachelor's degree at Yale University in New Haven ( Connecticut ) and finally acquired in 1975 JD from the Law School of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
From 1969 to 1970 he worked as an intern in Washington DC active, then as a journalist and lawyer. With his wife, Beth, he has two children.
Political career
1978 Smith was elected chairman of the Republican Party in Bexar County. 1980 Smith was elected in matching with the Bexar County 57th electoral district in the Texas House of Representatives, where he worked in the Raw Materials Committee, and in the fire ant inquiry. From 1982 to 1985 Smith had held the office of Commissioner in Bexar County. In 1987 he moved for the Republicans in the House of Representatives as a member of the 100th Congress and has since been a member of all the following conventions.
He is a member of the following committees:
- United States House Committee on Homeland Security
- United States House Committee on the Judiciary (Chairman) As opposition leader, Smith is a member of all subcommittees.
Smith has introduced the controversial bill SOPA in the U.S. House of Representatives. Within the party he belongs to the conservative Republican Study Committee and the Tea Party movement related Tea Party Caucus.
In 2011, Smith received $ 37,250 through November election donations of beer, wine and liquor lobby organizations, between 2009 and 2011 a total of $ 65,800. Maplight.Org leads to the beer, wine and liquor lobby as the third strongest Smiths donations donors.
Political positions
Abortion
Smith advocated restrictions on abortions. In 2009, he voted for a ban on abortions, which are supported financially by the state. 2006 Smith voted for the Abortion Pain Bill, which " should ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully informed about the unborn child caused by pain ". Likewise, Smith voted in favor of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which should prohibit the transport of minors to have abortions in states with different laws on abortion. In 2008, the National Right to Life Committee Smith gave a score of 100 points on a scale, which is to evaluate the use of politicians against abortions.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
On April 23, 2006 reported CNET, that Smith proposed a law that from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( DMCA) should strengthen resulting restrictions on software to circumvent copy prohibitions and allow the federal police increased use of wiretaps for copyright infringement combat.
SOPA
Smith is the author of the Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as " SOPA ," a controversial draft laws against copyright infringement and other illegal activities on the Internet. In this context, the circumstance caused a stir that until shortly before the emergence of the draft law was not a properly licensed image on his website as a background.
Climate change
Lamar Smith represents a skeptical attitude regarding human causation and consequences of global warming.
On May 20, 2013 Smith published an op-ed article in the Washington Post, in which he spoke out against a " overheated rhetoric " in the climate debate, and among other things to the initiated by the Obama administration delay the expansion of the Keystone pipeline as well as the tightening of emission regulations for coal-fired power plants. In addition, he represented various climate skeptic arguments that were presented in a statement of climate scientists as faulty.
Smith received from oil companies repeatedly greater financial support for campaign and career, alone in the period 2011-2012 more than 100,000 U.S. dollars.