Trent Franks: “most of my adult life has been related to children's issues. Before I came to Congress, I had the privilege of serving…”

“most of my adult life has been related to children's issues. Before I came to Congress, I had the privilege of serving in the Arizona House of Representatives as chairman of the Subcommittee on Child Protection and Family Preservation. Later, I was director of the Arizona Governor's Office for Children, which had oversight of all of the State's programs for children in Arizona. I was also chairman of both the Arizona State Children's Cabinet and the Interagency Study Committee on Children and AIDS. And for another 4 years, Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of being the executive director of the Arizona Family Research Institute. I later wrote the Arizona scholarship tax credit legislation, a version of which has now gone through five States and serves to scholarship more than 100,000 low-income children who go to a school of their parents' choice. I also wrote Arizona's child obscenity and pornography bill, which became a national precedent and protects children from the insidious harm of both adult and child pornography. Mr. Speaker, the reason I say those things is that there is one critical component of protecting innocent children I have learned over and over again; and that is if you desire to protect children, you must protect the family. Because either families, or government bureaucrats, will ultimately make the decisions about nearly all aspects of our children's lives.”