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our state government was in shambles. we had short-term deficits and long-term debt. our public schools were failing too many of our students.

faith in our system had bottomed out. it was dawning the collection of challenges we faced. -- it was daunting, the collection of challenges we faced. i remember not knowing quite where to start. then i came across a quotation from one of my favorite predecessors, governor carroll campbell who used to say that if you can find a person a job, you can take care of a family. i have always believed in controlling what i can control, and while governors do not create jobs, there is a lot we can do, and that starts with taking care of the businesses we already have. we got to work. we cut business taxes, we passed tort reform which capped damages on lawsuits. we invested in infrastructure without raising taxes. we stripped all of our regulatory boards and replaced the chairman of our largest and most bureaucratic permitting board with the president of a construction company.

we knew that if you are costing a person or business time, then you are costing them money, and that was no longer acceptable in the state of south carolina. we cut our debt in half and we doubled our reserves. look at us now. we build planes with boeing. we build cars with bmw, mercedes-benz, and now volvo. we now have five international tire companies. first american flatscreen television, you will find them in rural winnsboro, south carolina with element electronics. for those who said bicycles would never again be made in the united states, look no further than kent international, a new jersey bike manufacturer we brought back from china to rural manning, south carolina. they now refer to us, and i love this, as the beast of the southeast. [laughter]

[applause] gov. haley: more than 80,000 new jobs and $20 billion invested has been announced in south carolina over the last five years in every single one of our 46 counties. we had moved 40,000 people from welfare to work. we have now started an inmate to work program which allows us to team up with our inmates, match them up with the skills they need, and they are now able to leave with a job and not just a bus ticket. unemployment has been cut by more than half from 11.1% in 2011 to 4.9% today. more south carolinians are working today than ever before in our state's history.

and you have one of your members here that i have to thank for that, my director of employment and workforce, cheryl stanton. if you would please stand. [applause] gov. haley: rockstar, just saying. over the last few years, i have been asked often about what has taken place in south carolina, as if there is a secret formula that spurred our transformation from a state crushed by the collapse of the american textile companies to the fastest-growing economy on east coast. my answer is that most things in government, it is not as complicated as it's made out to be. what we accomplished in south carolina was not rocket science, it was always about common sense and about a willingness to get creative, challenge norms, and a belief that all things were

possible. look at education, for instance. south carolina has lagged behind in education for a very long time, and yes, we are still behind, but we will not be for much longer. my first year in office i received a letter from an eighth-grade girl who was being bullied at school. she was contemplating suicide and didn't know where to turn. i am grateful i got her letter. i was able to talk to this young lady. she was full of potential and we , struck up a friendship. but i realized she was not alone. so i started going to schools and around the state talking about bullying. it was a wake-up call. but not for the reasons you might think. my daughter recently graduated from a brand-new public high school in lexington where every classroom has a flatscreen tv and every child has a tablet. it would be easy to mistake the high school for a small college. yet, when i went back to my

hometown to give an anti-bullying speech, they did not even have the equipment to play a video. that is wrong. it is immoral. and it is changing. more than four years ago, i started a conversation about education in south carolina. i met with principals and teachers, superintendents and university deans, business leaders and legislators, republicans and democrats. i listened, i learned, and i realized the biggest challenge facing south carolina's education system was our failure -- ourre knowledge failure to a knowledge that it simply costs more to educate a child who lives in poverty. we changed our funding formula

to send additional state dollars to children on medicaid or free and reduced lunch. we now provide reading coaches for every elementary school in south carolina, and we have ended social promotions because we know if a child cannot read by the end of the third grade, they are four times less likely to graduate from high school on time. we are investing in technology, internet to the schools, internet inside the schools, and the tools, computers, tablet, instructional materials, to get every south carolina child up to speed with the world as it is today, not as it was three decades ago. we are aggressively recruiting teachers to rural areas and challenging districts, and just as aggressively incentivizing teachers to stay there. we are doing all of this with accountability. we are doing all of this without raising taxes. and we are already seeing that work. we have made immense changes to the way we teach our kids in south carolina, changes that will be as impactful as they are

uncomplicated. these changes are happening because of two simple things, both of which are quite uncommon in politics today. a willingness to acknowledge a problem and a willingness to move outside of our comfort zone in order to find a solution. it was out of the ordinary for a republican governor to go to the teachers and principals and superintendents to talk about education reform. that was the democrats' territory. so it remains unexplored in a state dominated by republicans. but those conversations helped me understand where they were coming from and how and why actions government took made things worse rather than making them better. and it helped them begin to trust me and my intentions, helped us build a relationship that comes in the end, enabled us to together push these changes through our legislature. everyone wants to feel heard, and in this nation, everyone deserves to be heard.

for too long, leadership of both political parties have written off large groups of our fellow americans. angst, the unrest, the distrust of our institutions, these are all very real. very honest responses to a system that has not worked for so many different people in so many different ways. but just as our political leadership's willful ignorance of the public's desire for government that at the very least attempts to serve them has brought us to a time of distrust and stagnation, outreach, and honest communication can have the opposite effect. it can lead to policy successes as it did with education in my state, and it can lead to even more expansive heartfelt change, as also has happened in south carolina just 18 months ago.

i speak of the mother emmanuel tragedy that happened in charleston and the removal of the confederate flag. when i first got word of the shootings, i knew this was going to be unbearably painful for our state. nine shooting deaths in a church on a wednesday night at bible study. a state senator and a leading figure in the local black ministry shot to death. we never imagined anything this horrifying. each new piece of information was another kick in the gut. the next morning, we captured the killer, and it immediately became clear that this was the act of a racist motivated not by mental illness but by pure hate. our state suffered a devastating wound, the first thing we need to do was lift up those families and celebrate the lives of the victims.

i decided to attend each funeral. i met the families. i heard the stories, and through it all, i had the privilege of meeting nine amazing souls. after each funeral, i would take the program with a person's picture on it to my two kids, and i would introduce them to the person that i met that day. i introduced them to ethel lantz, who despite losing her daughter to cancer two years prior, was a woman of love and joy who constantly saying her favorite song, "one day at a time, sweet jesus, that's all i'm asking of you. give me the strength to do every day what i have to do." i introduced them to our youngest victim, a 26-year-old budding entrepreneur, anxious to open his own barbershop, who on

that night, stood in front of his 87-year-old aunt susie, and spoke his last words to the murderer. you don't have to do this. we mean no harm to you. i introduced them to cynthia heard, whose life motto was to be kinder than necessary. that is now my life motto. every opportunity i have i mentioned the nine we lost and the three survivors, the emmanuel 12. i do not want it to be just their families who knows of the love and compassion, the greatness of those people. i want the whole world to know them, as my children do, and as i do. the second thing that needed to happen was removing the confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. there are many wonderful, decent, honorable people in our state who revere the flag. they are not racist. they are the same people who twice elected an

african-american u.s. senator and twice selected an indian-american governor. as i said what i announced my intention to bring down the flag, this was a debate that did not need to have winners and losers. those who revere the flag for reasons of ancestry or heritage retain every right to do so, but what happened in charleston shed a different light on an issue in a state that we had long struggled with. what we saw in that extraordinary action in charleston was people of all races coming together. we did not have riots. we had vigils. we do not have protests, we had hugs. the statehouse belongs to all people. and it needed to be welcoming to all people. that was not possible with the flag flying. when it came to the removal debate, we had legislators who truly listened to each other. they walked in each other's shoes, and that made all the

difference. that willingness to listen allowed all of us to see each other in a way that does not always happen, with love and grace and compassion. it is a love that we learn from the emmanuel 12 who took in someone that fateful night who did not look like them, did not sound like them, did not act like them, and instead of calling the cops, or instead of throwing him out, they pulled up a chair and prayed with him for an hour. the grace we learn from their families who incredibly stood in front of the murderer just two days later and offered him forgiveness. it is the compassion we learn from the people of south carolina who wrapped their arms around those families, that community, and each other in a way that we have never seen before. the flag came down and south

carolina has moved forward. [applause] our nation has just been through an election as contentious as any most can remember. we are deeply divided nation. of that, there is no question. but i am an optimist at heart. how can i not be? blessed as i am to be the governor of a state that time and again has pulled through tragedies stronger than when we started. this is the lesson i will take from my time in office. a lesson taught to me by the gracious faithful people of south carolina, a lesson that i will continue to share with people across this nation. that through our challenges we find our strength.

it is my hope that our new unified government embraces our challenges and finds our strength. for if we do, if we listen to the will of the people, if we learn from the mistakes of the past, embrace the opportunities of the future and govern with honesty and integrity, there is no limit to where the republican government can take our nation. thank you very much. god bless. [applause]

gov. haley: i think we have time to take a couple of questions. >> governor haley, thank you so much for your leadership. there are a lot of people looking to you for inspiration. and to the 34 republican governors who now have a way of may be taking power out of washington. i was newt gingrich's first committee council 25 years ago, i am with a group called the madison coalition. most of the people in this room think the last administration has usurped the article one power of congress and is rewriting laws through the regulatory process. we would like to end that. there is a proposal out there called the regulation freedom amendment which has been endorsed by the republican national committee, in the republican platform, and 19 state legislative chambers

around the country and six governors have urged congress to propose it. it would require congress approve major new federal regulations and defines major as any regulation that is objected to by a quarter of the house or senate. the idea is in the same way that states persuaded congress to propose the bill of rights and more recently president of term limits, pressure from two thirds of the states, including south carolina and others, could persuade congress to propose the amendment without the risk of a constitutional convention. my question is do you think that , is the kind of approach that might work to start taking power out of washington and curbing the administrative state? gov. haley: i don't know enough about what you are talking about, but what i can tell you is -- [laughter] gov. haley: i did say i was an accountant, right? what i can tell you is, our focus is to first of all,

rollback as many regulations as possible. whether it is the overtime rule, the epa, all of those things. [applause] gov. haley: the importance of repealing obamacare is extremely important, and i have heard of both from president-elect trump as well as from vice president-elect mike pence. so i know that is going to happen. what i can tell you is, the governors have been talking about, with the administration, is that it is extremely important now to move as much back to the states as we can. we see this as a huge opportunity, whether it is education, dealing with medicaid, working on block grants, there are a lot of opportunities to do that. what we have decided as the republican governors association is that, first of all, mike pence, who was a congressman, was also a governor, but he felt it firsthand.

he has offered to be our conduit to make sure we get all of those things done. the second thing i will tell you is we are also going to be meeting with speaker ryan and leadership in the senate to make sure that we are not just governors sitting back in those states. if we have this whole plate, we are going back to the top to make sure everything that has been done over the last eight years, and prior, is rolled back, so we can get more control in the states so we can take care of our people in the best way we know how. [applause] >> for those who don't know me, i am her attorney general. [laughter] gov. haley: either he is telling me to get off stage real quick -- >> i was actually going to make a joke. in your remarks, you said you were not too warm to lawyers, and that took me back.

so happy to learn that you have become warm to us. i did want to say this publicly. i have never felt anything but warmth from you and your administration and your commitment and your staff's commitment to the rule of law has been instrumental in our ability to fight the rollbacks of the administration, executive overreaches. thank you for setting the model for the ag-governor relationship which is not always what it should be in other states. but south carolina, we are the beast of the east, you and i. i also want to say, i was speaking to my dear friend outside before you give your speech, and we were talking about the mother emmanuel massacre as well as the police shooting in charleston three months prior to that. when you look around the country and you see these police officer involved shootings that have a racial overtone to it, you see the riots, the mayhem, the discord that goes on between

various communities, in south carolina, two tragedies happened within three months of another and in south carolina did not happen. the reason is because of the tone from leadership set up a top and from our religious leaders, african-american leaders, leadership in government, which started with you. i wanted to thank you for your support in that regard. [applause] ok. one more question. make it a good one. >> first of all, thank you for your speech. i represent the disraeli society at the university of oxford, united kingdom. thank you for your lovely hospitality in your country, great. i do not want to be a spoil sport, but i have a question going forward. in the u.k., with our campaign to leave the european union, one thing we saw was at the pollsters got it completely wrong.

we saw similar things over here where the pollsters got it wrong in relation to the presidential election. do you think there is the possibility that -- in politics you have the pendulum swing. do you think, going forward, there could be a potential that that confidence cannot be gained by people in polling, giving their opinions, and it may be a case potentially that in a few years down the line, when the republicans may not see it coming, they have an issue similar to the democrats? or going forward, do you think the republicans can unify the people and bring that confidence in polling, expressing what you think to the government? gov. haley: i think i understood your accent. [laughter] gov. haley: i appreciate it very much, we are glad to have you here. i think the people spoke.

they felt frustration, they trusted their government. they trusted their elected officials. and nothing came of it. we saw frustration like we have never seen before. and republicans were as much to blame for that as democrats. what happens from here, i think we have to seize an opportunity. the opportunity is not waiting until the next election. the opportunity is we need to see something in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, and we don't stop. because that is what the american people have demanded. i always side with the american people. i always side with the decisions they make and i always think it is up to us to make the opportunity out of those decisions. so i'm looking for it to be a bright day in america. you will see everyone is very excited. we don't know exactly what president-elect trump is planning as he goes forward, but

we owe it to him to give him the support and strength that he needs so that we can all work together to be successful. [applause] gov. haley: thank you again very much. god bless. >> texas senator and former presidential candidate ted cruz also spoke at the federalist society convention discussing and justice antonin scalia the role of the judicial branch. this is about one hour. >> people can take their seats, we are going to begin the next session.

an unusually obedient crowd, thank you. it is my pleasure and privilege to welcome our next speaker, a man who really is known to all of us, u.s. senator ted cruz. please. [applause] >> i should probably stop right there, let me continue. what you might not know about senator cruz is what an impressive life and career he had even before he was elected to the united states senate. i will tell you about that. he is a princeton and harvard law school grad with honors. he was involved in the federal society student chapter at law school. had there been no harvard chapter, he probably would have created one. after law school, he served in first the judicial branch, where he clerked on the third circuit. next he became the first

, hispanic to clerk for the u.s. supreme court justice for chief justice rhein quist. switching branches, he served as an associate deputy attorney general of u.s. department of justice and then as a domestic policy advisor to president george w. bush on the bush cheney campaign. and then as a director of policy planning at the federal trade commission. moving to state government in he 2003, was appointed as the youngest and first hispanic solicitor general in texas and became that states longest-serving solicitor general. in private practice, he spent five years leading his appellate and supreme court practice. amassing a stellar record before the high court, including many landmark victories. now in the legislative branch, senator cruz serves on the judiciary committees on many committees. my math adding up all that

experience, i calculate you are approaching your 80th birthday. [laughter] >> a truly impressive resume. he has been incredibly engaged and influential lawyer at every branch of government. throughout it all he has stood , formally for limited constitutional government, individual liberty, and the rule of law. the federal society is very pleased to welcome our longtime friend, senator ted cruz. [applause] sen. cruz: thank you. thank you for highlighting my persistent inability to hold a job. although in many manifestations, i have always been able to say, i am from the government and i

am here to help you. it is wonderful to be back at the federalist society lawyers convention. like many of you i have been to this convention many, many times. this is one of the first years in a while that at thursday night i was not up on the second floor playing poker at 2:00 in the morning as many of us have done. this gathering of friends and passionate leaders is an extraordinary gathering. as i was observing to dean and leonard and jean a few moments ago, the timing of this convention is always interesting. [laughter] sen. cruz: the timing of this convention, we could have been here in mourning, wondering what might become of the republic, or we could have been here in celebration, many with resumes in your pockets. [laughter] or, in the year 2000,

nobody could have been here because everybody would have been here in florida in the middle of the recounts. [laughter] sen. cruz: it is always interesting. now is certainly interesting as well. we stand on the cusp of great change. an astounding election occurred just over a week ago. an election that was a mandate for change. an election in which the voters entrusted republicans with control the white house, control of every federal agency, and control of the senate and the house. that is rare. that does not come along often. it provides an incredible opportunity for real and meaningful change, and also responsibility. responsibility that i believe we have to deliver. we have got to actually deliver the change, the fidelity to the constitution and the defense of

liberty that was promised to the voters. i will say i stand here filled , with great hope that we're going to do exactly that. i am pleased to offer words of congratulations to my colleague and good friend jeff sessions who will make an extraordinary attorney general of the united states. [applause] sen. cruz: he is a committed and deeply principled conservative. if those who serve in this administration have even a fraction of his integrity and commitment to principle, we will see an administration that does remarkable things for the people of this country. [applause]

[applause] sen. cruz: this gathering is also a celebration and remembrance of our friend, justice antonin scalia. many of us knew him personally. he was one-of-a-kind. his legacy will it -- will endure forever. one of my favorite stories about justice scalia was back when he was a judge in the d.c. circuit. he was one of two leading conservative justices. ronald reagan was in the white house and everyone knew that one or the other was likely get the next supreme court seat. justice scalia was walking through the parking garage of the court, and two u.s. marshals stopped him at the elevator. they said, i am sorry sir, we are holding this elevator for the attorney general of the united states. scalia pushed past them, stepped into the elevator, jammed the

button, and as the door was closing, he said, you tell him, bob corker doesn't wait for anyone. [laughter] [applause] sen. cruz: that is a true story. the rest, as they say was history. shortly after justice scalia's passing, members of the senate were invited to submit into the congressional record statements commemorating his remarkable career. i am sure that the federalist society crowd here can see the irony in a request to supplement the congressional record, of all things, with praise for justice scalia. given his sterling sense of humor, i suspect he would have

rather enjoyed learning about that request. we're talking about a man who waged a 30 year war against legislative history. the idea that the congressional record was something more than the public musings of self-important legislators who like to hear themselves talk, well, he would have been amused by that. i must say that i am very glad personally that that is not a failing i suffered. [laughter] sen. cruz: i can almost see the justice scalia leaning back, grinning ear to ear, saying that is some request. how about if they really care, they just stop passing unconstitutional laws. [applause] sen. cruz: irony aside, i was pleased to comply with the request. i will share a little bit of what i submitted.

antonin scalia was one of the greatest supreme court justices in the history of our country. a lion of the law. he spent his tenure on the bench championing federalism, the separation of powers, and are fundamental liberties. he was a passionate defender of the constitution. not the constitution as it has been contorted and revised by generations of activist jurists, but as it was understood by the people who ratified it and made it the law of the land. he understood that if the constitution's meaning was not grounded in its text, history, and structure, but could instead be revised by judicial fiat, then the people were no longer sovereign. no longer with the nation be governed by law, which expresses the will of the people, it would be governed by, as he put it, "an unelected committee of nine. this robs the people of the most

important liberty the people asserted in the declaration of won in thee and revolution of 1776, the freedom to govern themselves." the laws of justice scalia helped shape the recent presidential election. as a referendum on his ideas. would americans choose to be ruled by the constitution as written, or would they be ruled instead by unelected activist justices with life tenure? that was the question put to the american people. i would note, it was not a question that we the people would have been able to answer if the senate had confirmed president obama's replacement. the senate, mitch mcconnell, together stood up and rightly said, in exercising our constitutional advice and consent, our advice is that

the people will determine who replaces this seat. [applause] sen. cruz: that is how our democratic republic is supposed to work. the referendum that the voters expressed on election day was stunning. the stakes, had hillary clinton been elected and nominated an activist judge to replace justice scalia, we would have seen the very contours of the constitution and bill of rights altered for generations. they surely would have rolled back basic protections on free speech and the first amendment, including, as she promised, overturning the citizens united decision. the case, i might note where the

, government was seeking to ban a movie critical of hillary clinton. i cannot imagine anyone wanting to be critical of hillary clinton. [laughter] sen. cruz: they also would have narrowly interpreted religious liberty, stripping away the right to free exercise, to follow your faith, and instead giving government the power to force you to choose between abandoning your faith and principle or face the coercive power of the government. they would have reversed the second amendment right to keep and bear arms, the individual rights upheld in heller, justice scalia's most consequential decision. they likely would have banned the death penalty and struck down a federal ban on partial-birth abortion. all that was on the ballot just over a week ago. instead and in contrast,

president-elect trump assured the american people that if elected he would nominate constitutionalists in the mold of justice scalia. in a very real respect, justice scalia was on the ballot as well. thanks to the historic victory we saw last week, it gives me immense pleasure to say the people have spoken and justice scalia has won as well. [applause] sen. cruz: that is fitting because justice scalia never lost faith in the american people. never lost faith in the goodness and the ability of americans to govern ourselves. we now have an historic opportunity to return to the

constitution, an historic opportunity to restore integrity to the federal government. one of the most shameful aspects of the last eight years was the obama administration's unprecedented assault on the rule of law. a repeating willingness to defy the law, over and over and over again. obamacare changed unilaterally over and over again by an executive branch unwilling to comply with statutes and united states code. immigration law welfare reform. ,an administration that would routinely ignore or attempt to unilaterally change the law. then of course there was the abuse of power of the irs targeting individual citizens for exercising free speech rights inconsistent with the political desires of the administration.

we must not forget that the law is a real manifestation of the voice of the people. if we ignore the law, we ignore the people. if we change the law without authority, we supplant the voice of the people. if we abuse the law, we abuse the people. the people are sovereign only so long as law is sovereign. as no man or woman is above the law, but rather we are all one nation. governed by rule of law. because of the election we in this room have an enormous opportunity to help revive and restore our nation. if you look around at this gathering, this gathering may well be the single largest collection of individuals or -- who are likely to serve in the new administration.

if you look down the aisles at your friends and neighbors and colleagues, i have great confidence that we are collectively looking at scores of federal judges. that we're looking at many men and women in this room who will choose to go to work in the department of justice, working to restore the integrity to that department which it has had under both republicans and democrats for centuries, and in integrity that has been badly shaken. we have men and women who may be serving in every federal agency, independent agencies, going to serve our nation. that is a remarkable opportunity. it is a remarkable responsibility. that also means that in doing so, for those who choose to serve, who have the opportunity to serve, we cannot do better.

than to follow the example that was blazed by justice scalia. [applause] senator cruz: it is important to remember that before he was our beloved justice, well before he was even a judge, he was general counsel of the office of telecommunications policy. he was chairman of the administrative conference of the united states, and assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel. it was in positions like these where he met leviathans face to face while honing his skills. for each of us, i look forward to continuing to work hard in the senate, to fight for the principles this country was founded on, and for many in this

room it will be our opportunity once again to do our part and serve, for some a new, for others another time serving our nation. i would note the mission of public service particularly in these times is not for the fainthearted. the federal government can be overwhelming, almost to massive to comprehend. the challenges are daunting. the established interests are entrenched. as they say in politics, it is not beanbag. we need all hands on deck. i'm so grateful for an institution like the federalist society, one that is devoted to ideas, not a partisan organization, a gathering of individuals who cherish and value freedom and the constitution. those ideas and a fidelity to them desperatelyd