Ric Keller on Families & Children
Republican Representative (FL-8)
Voted YES on establishing nationwide AMBER alert system for missing kids.
Vote to adopt the conference report on the bill that would assign a national coordinator for AMBER alerts. AMBER alerts is an alert system for missing children, make available additional protections for children and set stricter punishments for sex offenders. Two-time child sex offenders would be subjected to mandatory life sentence. The measure would make it a crime to pander visual illustrations of children as child pornography. It would increase maximum sentences for a number of specified crimes against children. It would also make it a crime to take a trip to foreign countries and engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. It also would enlarge law enforcement's wiretap and electronic surveillance abilities in investigations of child pornography.
Reference: Child Abduction Prevention Act;
Bill S 151
; vote number 2003-127
on Apr 10, 2003
Voted YES on reducing Marriage Tax by $399B over 10 years.
Vote to pass a bill that would reduce taxes for married people by $399.2 billion over 10 years by doubling the couples' deduction and the child tax credit. Among other provisions, the bill would allow married couples filing jointly to claim a standard deduction equal to the deduction they would receive filing singly.
Reference: Bill sponsored by Weller, R-IL;
Bill HR 6
; vote number 2001-75
on Mar 29, 2001
Rated 91% by the Christian Coalition: a pro-Family-Value voting record.
Keller scores 91% by the Christian Coalition on family issues
The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 by Dr. Pat Robertson to give Christians a voice in government. We represent millions of people of faith and enable them to have a strong, unified voice in the conversation we call democracy.
Our Five-Fold Mission: Our ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.
Source: CC website 03n-CC on Dec 31, 2003
- Represent the pro-family point of view before local councils, school boards, state legislatures, and Congress
- Speak out in the public arena and in the media
- Train leaders for effective social and political action
- Inform pro-family voters about timely issues and legislation
- Protest anti-Christian bigotry and defend the rights of people of faith.
Permanent crime database for volunteers with kids.
Keller co-sponsored creating permanent crime database for volunteers with kids
A bill to amend the National Child Protection Act of 1993 to establish a permanent background check system. Congress finds the following:
- In 2006, a total of 16,500,000 adults volunteered their service to education or youth programs.
- An estimated 6.6% of individuals in the United States will serve time in prison for a crime during their lifetime. The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System of the FBI maintains fingerprints and criminal histories on more than 47,000,000 individuals, many of whom have been arrested or convicted multiple times.
- Of individuals released from prison, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years.
Given the large number of individuals with criminal records and the vulnerability of the population they work with, human service organizations that work with children need an effective and reliable means of obtaining a complete criminal history in order to determine the suitability of a potential volunteer or employee.
- The large majority of Americans (88%) favor granting youth-serving organizations access to conviction records for screening volunteers and 59% favored allowing youth-serving organizations to consider arrest records when screening volunteers.
- Even when accessible, the cost of a criminal background check can be prohibitively expensive, between $21 and $99 for each volunteer or employee.
- The Child Safety Pilot Program demonstrates that timely and affordable background checks are possible, as background checks under that program are completed within 3 to 5 business days at a cost of $18.
Source: Child Protection Improvements Act (S.2756/H.R.5606) 08-S2756 on Jul 28, 2008
Page last updated: Mar 15, 2012