Welcome back to another edition of my Weekly Round[s] Up. It was another productive and fast-paced week in Washington as we move toward the end of the year. This past week, I announced my nominations to the U.S. Service Academies for the upcoming school year. Congratulations to all nominees for earning these highly competitive nominations through their dedication, leadership and academic excellence. They have bright futures ahead of them. Read more about this process and a full list of my nominees here.
More on the rest of my week in my Weekly Round[s] Up:
South Dakota groups I visited with: Dr. José-Marie Griffiths, President of Dakota State University; South Dakota students with Jobs for America’s Graduates; Justin Tupper from St. Onge, President of U.S. Cattlemen’s Association; and Michael Pauley with South Dakota Catholic Conference.
Met with South Dakotans from: Madison, Martin, Mission, Presho, Sioux Falls and St. Onge.
Other meetings: Mike Gilday, Executive, Admiral (Retired), U.S. Navy and Josh Stiefel; Baju Bhatt, Founder and CEO of Aetherflux and Co-Founder of Robinhood; Moldovan Delegation; Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA; and Bimal Patel, General Counsel at PayPal.
Briefings: I attended one Senate Armed Services Committee briefing, two closed Senate Select Committee on Intelligence briefings and one Central Intelligence Agency briefing.
Introduced Legislation: This week I introduced legislation called the Developing and Empowering Our Aspiring Leaders (DEAL) Act that would increase access to capital for America’s innovators. The DEAL Act passed the House of Representatives unanimously this week. You can read more about it here.
Reagan National Defense Forum: This past weekend I attended the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California. On Saturday, I took part in a panel titled Forging Ahead with Speed: Transitioning to New Technologies at the Pentagon. It was a productive weekend reviewing ways to strengthen America’s national defense and continuing to build partnerships between the military, industrial base and congress.
Senate Bible Study: On Tuesday, I hosted our weekly Senate Bible Study in my office. We discussed the verse John 14:16.
Votes taken: 11 – This past week I voted on nominees David Bragdon and Lindsey Freeman, of North Carolina, to be U.S. District Judges for the Middle District of North Carolina (Yea). We also voted on Susan Rodriguez and Matthew Orso, of North Carolina, to be U.S. District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina (Yea). I also voted on Senator Murkowski’s Disapproval of Biden Coastal Plain Program ROD CRA (Yea).
My staff in South Dakota visited: Deadwood, Ft. Pierre and Lead.
Steps taken: 69,925 steps or 33.86 miles.
Photo of the Week
This week I met with South Dakota students who are participating in Jobs for America’s Graduates. I had a good time talking to them about the work we do here in the Senate.
