For most Americans, the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris last week served as a troubling reminder that radical Islamic terrorism is, and will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future, one of the most serious and persistent security threats facing the United States and our allies.
 
As we mourned the loss of life and grieved with the families of the victims in France, we also looked inward, evaluating the strengths and vulnerabilities of the security situation in America. In Washington, D.C., on the campaign trail, and around kitchen tables across the country, everyone was asking: what can be done to ensure that a similar attack, or worse, isn’t carried out on American soil?

As well we should. In the wake of an attack like the one perpetrated in the streets of Paris, this is one of the most important questions to ask. And it is the only clear-eyed, sober response to the stated intentions of radical Islamic terrorist groups – like ISIS, which claimed to have directed the Paris attacks – whose organizing principle is the wholesale slaughter of every man, woman, and child who fails to submit to their violent, repressive authoritarian rule.
 
Establishing an Islamic caliphate governed by sharia law and exterminating all of those outside of it – especially those living in non-theocratic democracies, like the United States – has long been the explicit objective of groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram. And in the wake of the Paris attacks, the threats of violence against Americans within the United States have only grown more frequent and specific.
 
Much of the conversation this week centered around how the United States should respond to the Syrian refugee crisis. The United States has a long, admirable tradition of welcoming foreign refugees, especially those fleeing religious persecution, like many of the roughly 10 million Syrians either internally displaced or seeking asylum abroad. But at the same time, the first and most important responsibility of the U.S. government is to protect the lives and liberties of the American people – including from threats originating within sympathetic refugee populations.

"This is an urgent issue that could have serious – and irreversible – national security implications. So it’s important that we proceed cautiously and cooperatively, without the name-calling and political point-scoring that too often degrades our policy discussions."
This is an urgent issue that could have serious – and irreversible – national security implications. So it’s important that we proceed cautiously and cooperatively, without the name-calling and political point-scoring that too often degrades our policy discussions.
 
But we must be careful not to lose sight of the forest for the trees. The number of refugees fleeing the chaos and violence in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East will only continue to climb unless and until we confront the questions at the heart of the matter – like, why is there a Syrian refugee crisis to begin with? What were the policies and actions that helped create the conditions for the rise of ISIS? What, if anything, can the U.S. government and military do to defend vulnerable communities abroad from systematic religious persecution before they become refugees?
 
These are complicated questions to which there are no easy answers. But they are the questions we must be asking ourselves and our elected representatives – especially those aspiring to become the next commander-in-chief, who have a unique responsibility to offer more than just talking points and platitudes. With the global jihad effort spreading and metastasizing, the flow of refugees from the war-torn corners of the world steadily advancing, and the 2016 presidential campaign heating up, we can’t afford to pretend otherwise.

If you want to understand why the American people don’t trust Congress, take a careful look at what happened this week in the Senate.
 
On Thursday, for the third time this year, Senate Democrats voted against a measure that would have allowed the upper chamber to begin debating a spending bill to fund the Department of Defense for FY2016. And then, after voting unanimously to advance a separate spending bill for military construction and veterans programs – who’s going to vote “no” the week before Veteran’s Day? – the Senate promptly convened for a three-and-a-half-day weekend.
 
After the vote, in an attempt to justify his party’s pattern of obstruction, the Minority Leader explained that his Democratic conference has repeatedly blocked the defense appropriations bill because it opposes the Republican majority’s broader approach to funding the government.
 
Well of course there are serious and meaningful differences of opinion between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate regarding how Congress ought to fund the government. But the American people won’t have an opportunity to hear their elected representatives discuss those differences of opinion in a substantive, robust debate, so long as Senate Democrats continue their craven strategy of blocking procedural votes and Senate Republicans fail to break their habit of acquiescence. 
 
And herein lies the source of the public’s distrust of Congress: for most people, the problem isn’t that there’s too much fighting in Washington, but that all the fighting seems so staged.
 
Like the old rivalries in “professional” wrestling, it’s obvious the two sides disagree, but, aside from the bluster and boilerplate that precede and follow every fight, it’s never clear exactly what they believe.
 
With wrestling, people accepted the scripted, choreographed conflict as part of the game. But with politics in the Senate, they reject it as unbecoming of what is supposed to be the world’s most deliberative body.
 
According to the Senate rules, the minority party has every right to block legislation from consideration with just forty-one votes. But a filibuster of one of the majority’s legislative priorities should be seen as the beginning, not the end, of the fight. It should be met with equally hardball tactics, like cancelling recess and weekends home, or scheduling floor votes at inconvenient times that cut back on senators’ time to fundraise, campaign, or sleep.
 
Most of us, most of the time aren’t going to agree. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss our differences in an open, robust debate. The Senate was designed to foster exactly that kind of deliberation, but the only way to get it working again is, well, Senators working. 
"And herein lies the source of the public’s distrust of Congress: for most people, the problem isn’t that there’s too much fighting in Washington, but that all the fighting seems so staged."
With wrestling, people accepted the scripted, choreographed conflict as part of the game. But with politics in the Senate, they reject it as unbecoming of what is supposed to be the world’s most deliberative body.
 
According to the Senate rules, the minority party has every right to block legislation from consideration with just forty-one votes. But a filibuster of one of the majority’s legislative priorities should be seen as the beginning, not the end, of the fight. It should be met with equally hardball tactics, like cancelling recess and weekends home, or scheduling floor votes at inconvenient times that cut back on senators’ time to fundraise, campaign, or sleep.
 
Most of us, most of the time aren’t going to agree. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss our differences in an open, robust debate. The Senate was designed to foster exactly that kind of deliberation, but the only way to get it working again is, well, Senators working.

At first, I didn’t have strong feelings about the House Speaker’s race. More than anything, it seemed that what mattered was not who the next speaker is but what the next speaker does. I shared my thoughts with the handful of House colleagues who asked for them, but, as a senator, I didn’t feel it was my place to broadcast them.
 
Then, we saw the Republican establishment’s overheated reaction to McCarthy’s surprise withdrawal from the race. Soon thereafter, many more people started asking my opinions about the race when a New York Times columnist nominated yours truly for the job.
 
I have no interest in that job, of course. But given this strange new environment, I thought it might now be appropriate for me to suggest a few lessons conservative reformers can take from the events of the last few weeks, for whatever they are worth.
 
Lesson 1: Politics is a team sport.
 
Lesson 2: Uncertainty is good for us.
 
Lesson 3: This is only the beginning; creative destruction is coming to Washington.
 
Lesson 4: It’s time to bring Uber-level, open-sourcing innovation to Congress.
 
Taken together, I believe these four lessons point toward the terms of a more perfect union between anti-establishment conservatives and Republican congressional leaders, neither of whom can truly succeed without the other.
 
The path to unity is neither decapitating leadership nor unquestioning obedience in the back benches. Rather, it’s the creation of a different model for governing better suited to modern realities.
 
Conservatives shouldn’t want more brinksmanship and showdowns to highlight our ideas; we should want a consistent, inclusive legislative process that renders those tactics all but obsolete. Contrary to so much punditry these past few weeks, I don’t think conservatives need a Speaker all Republicans can blindly trust to cut backroom deals for us, but a Speaker who organizes the House’s work so backroom deals become a thing of the past.
 
If you actually talk to conservative House members about what they want in a new Speaker, you’ll find they don’t mention names or ideology. What they want most are changes to House and conference rules, which will — in their minds — give the legislative process more fairness and legitimacy in this new, “disrupted” political climate. (In the Senate, on the other hand, we don’t need new rules so much as we need more rigorous application of the current rules. Long live the filibuster! But that’s an argument for another time.)
 
The upshot of these reforms would involve less leadership micromanagement of the floor, less-certain outcomes on votes, more rank-and-file input on chairmanships and the agenda, longer work weeks for members, and — not least — a healthy, constructive outlet for anti-establishment conservatives’ laudable pursuit of more rapid and substantial reform.
 
In an absence of trust, what Republicans need now is an abundance of transparency. For conservatives, greater transparency and institutional decentralization won’t mean we can suddenly win every fight. It will only mean we can fight fights of our choosing, and win or lose them fair and square.
 
Leadership, on the other hand, should stop trying to rig the process to control the marketplace of ideas, and simply give the American people and their elected representatives access to a fair, open, and accountable competition. Like Uber, but for Congress.
"The path to unity is neither decapitating leadership nor unquestioning obedience in the back benches. Rather, it’s the creation of a different model for governing better suited to modern realities."
Again, creative destruction is coming to Washington, whether we like it or not. In fact, in many ways, it already has. Speaker Boehner is exiting the stage and Paul Ryan is poised to step up to the job, thanks in large part to the efforts of the dreamers and disruptors in the House. 

For Ryan to succeed in fostering an open-source, creative, and collaborative environment in the House – as I believe he is capable – it will take more than just plans and promises. He will need a concrete, realistic agenda of prudent but disruptive institutional innovations, the will and commitment to stick with it when the going gets tough, and a united G.O.P. House conference working together to wrest back legislative authority from the executive branch and make federal lawmaking more directly accountable to the American people than ever.
 
In this new era, Washington’s centralized status quo has been scheduled for the “destruction” side of the equation; it’s up to conservative reformers now to deliver the “creative.”

Few things divide our nation more than hotly contested questions of morality, culture, and conscience, so I was glad to hear Pope Francis, in his address to Congress, exhort us to be patient, modest, and compassionate in our public policy debates. Toward that end, I believe it’s worth clarifying several key features of the First Amendment Defense Act, which was recently introduced in Congress and has been the subject of controversy and misunderstandings.

First, the impetus behind the bill has nothing to do with a fear that clergy members are in danger of being forced to officiate same-sex marriages. In truth, supporters of FADA are concerned that faith-based institutions that have been serving the public for generations could be forced out of existence by the federal government on account of their suddenly heterodox beliefs about marriage and sexuality – beliefs that President Obama himself held until just a few years ago.

This is not a matter of speculation or hyperbole. It’s exactly what the United States Solicitor General told the Supreme Court during oral arguments in the case of Obergefell v.Hodges. When asked whether a religious school could lose its tax-exempt status for maintaining its belief that marriage is the union of a man and woman, the Solicitor General answered in the affirmative, stating that “[i]t’s certainly going to be an issue.”

Without new protections, colleges and universities, like Brigham Young University or Gordon College, could lose their accreditation, Catholic hospitals could lose Medicaid funding, and countless faith-based K-12 institutions across the country could have their non-profit status revoked. This would be devastating to these institutions and the communities they serve.

The specter of federal workers refusing to process tax returns for same-sex couples is also unfounded. The truth is that FADA expressly excludes from protection federal employees acting within the scope of their employment. Even if Kim Davis were a federal employee (in fact, she’s employed by the state of Kentucky and would therefore fall outside the scope of the bill), she would not have been protected by FADA.

And neither would the bill nullify federal anti-discrimination measures designed to protect gays and lesbians. To the contrary, the bill does not alter or modify any civil rights protections, state or federal. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

In the Obergefell opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy implored all Americans to remember that “the First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.”

The First Amendment Defense Act merely seeks to make good on Justice Kennedy’s appeal to America’s long tradition of religious liberty. I hope all Americans can come to this debate with an honest understanding of the real difficulties involved and come together to find a sensible middle ground founded on mutual tolerance.