congressman timmons is in his second year, one of the youngest people ever to be elected in the state of south carolina to congress, is a graduate of george washington university where he has a degree in international affairs and political science. he has a masters in intellectual studies and a law degree as well from the university of south carolina. he has a masters from n.y.u. in cybersecurity strategy. he was in the south carolina state legislature before he was in congress, and a captain now in the air national guard. so i would like on behalf of all of the former members of congress here to bestow upon the two of them the distinguished service award for the terrific work that they've done on behalf of the united states congress. [applause] l.f.: so derek on behalf of the former members of congress we have the distinguished service award and also have the book that you were just hearing fergus talk about, his book that he has inscribed for you for this occasion. and so thank you. >> it's in there somewhere. l.f.: thank you for all the work you're doing on behalf of congress. dere

distinguished service award presented by the former members of the congress to vice chair william timmons on june 16th, 2022. >> i'll be, brief so we can get started with the conversation. i just want to say one, this is very special to be here. this is just such a historic building, so incredible, the architecture is beautiful. it's an honor to be with the former, members i've been working hard for the last three and a half, years doing the best i can to make an act. my campaign slogan was washington was broken. i got up to washington and was like, that was a good campaign slogan! but i still have hope. i search for the first two years with chair kilmer and vice chair greg and they showed me that there is hope. there is hope because a select committee has been working very hard to heal the institution, to try to mend the dysfunction. to try to get us back into what i referred to as our objectives, evidence-based policy making in a collaborative way from a position of mutual respect. we don't do any of that right now, but we can. and the select committee has proven that we can. and if we