Editing Christopher Cox (section)

=== U.S. House of Representatives ===
Cox was elected to Congress in 1988 from what was then [[California's 40th congressional district]]. He was re-elected eight more times from this [[Orange County, California|Orange County]]-based district, which was renumbered as the 47th District in 1993 and the 48th District in 2003.<ref name="Biographical Directory of the United States Congress" />

Early in his congressional career, Cox befriended two anti-Communists in Hungary and [[Republic of Lithuania|Lithuania]] who had been prisoners of conscience and who later became presidents of their countries after the end of Soviet domination. Cox met [[Árpád Göncz]] in 1989, and when Cox was later married, he spent part of his honeymoon in Hungary with then-[[Árpád Göncz|President Göncz]] and his wife Mária Zsuzsanna Göntér. Cox met Dr. [[Vytautas Landsbergis]], a professor at the Conservatory of Music in [[Vilnius]], in 1989, well before the successful reestablishment of [[Republic of Lithuania|Lithuanian]] independence. The night [[Vytautas Landsbergis|Landsbergis]] was elected President of [[Republic of Lithuania|Lithuania]], he embraced Cox on the tarmac at the airport in [[Vilnius]] after the [[Soviet Union]] had held Cox in [[East Berlin]] for a prolonged period.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fas.org/man/nato/congress/1997/h970213l..htm |title=Congressional Record, House of Representatives, February 13, 1997, Page: H568 |publisher=Fas.org |access-date=March 3, 2014}}</ref> In May 1998, Cox was presented with the [[Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas]], the highest honor the Republic of Lithuania can give to a living noncitizen.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_/ai_55343562Reason |title=Magazine, "Cox Reports," August–September 1999, by Michael W. Lynch and Jeff A. Taylor. |publisher=Findarticles.com |access-date=March 3, 2014}}</ref>

[[File:Chairman Christopher Cox Portrait.png|thumb|right|220px|Official Congressional portrait of Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox]]
In 1989, Polish President [[Lech Wałęsa]] joined Cox in a [[Washington, D.C.|Washington, DC]] ceremony marking the enactment of Cox's legislation establishing the Polish-American Enterprise Fund. Together with the Baltic-American Enterprise Fund, the Hungarian-American Enterprise Fund, and seven other enterprise funds in Central and Eastern Europe and the former [[Soviet Union]], the Cox legislation, incorporated in the Support Eastern European Democracy (SEED) Act, matched U.S. foreign aid with venture capital in the newly free countries of the former [[Warsaw Pact]]. Cox has some fluency in the Russian language.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://livinglargecirclecity.blogspot.com/2008/08/case-for-chris-cox-as-mccains-vp.html |title=Living Large in the Circle City, August 23, 2008 |publisher=Livinglargecirclecity.blogspot.com |date=August 23, 2008 |access-date=March 3, 2014}}</ref>

In 1994, Cox was appointed by President [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, which in 1995 published a unanimous report warning that the nation cannot continue to allow [[entitlement program]]s to consume a rapidly increasing share of the federal budget.<ref>United States: Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. Final report; with reform proposals and additional views of commissioners, J. Robert Kerrey and John C. Danforth, co-chairs. Washington, DC : Supt. of Docs. (1995), Library of Congress Control Number 95143407.</ref>

Among Cox's notable legislative successes as a Representative was the [[Internet Tax Freedom Act]], a 1998 law prohibiting federal, state, and local government [[Internet taxes|taxation of Internet]] access and banning Internet-only levies such as email taxes, bit taxes, and bandwidth taxes. With [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. Rep.]] [[Barney Frank]] (D-MA) as his chief co-sponsor, Cox authored legislation in 1997 to privatize the [[National Helium Reserve]], which was then $1.4&nbsp;billion in debt to taxpayers. As of 2004, this was the third-largest [[privatization]] in U.S. history, surpassing the value of the 1988 [[Conrail]] [[privatization]].<ref>In 2013, Congress enacted and President Barack Obama signed the Helium Stewardship Act "to complete the privatization of the Federal helium reserve in a competitive market fashion."  See https://www.countable.us/bills/hr527-113-helium-stewardship-act-of-2013</ref> Cox also wrote the only law that was enacted over President [[Bill Clinton]]'s veto, the [[Private Securities Litigation Reform Act]] of 1995, aimed at protecting investors from fraudulent and extortionate lawsuits.<ref>See Wikipedia entry describing provisions of legislation and veto override at [[Private Securities Litigation Reform Act]].</ref>

[[File:Honoring Chris Cox by Dreier and others.pdf|thumb|left|Honoring Cox by [[David Dreier]] and others]]
For 10 of his 17 years in the Congress, from 1995 to 2005, Cox served in the House Majority Leadership as Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the fifth-ranking elected leadership position (behind the [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker]], the [[Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives|Majority Leader]], the [[Majority Whip of the United States House of Representatives|Majority Whip]], and the Chair of the [[House Republican Conference]]). He was Chairman of the [[U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security|House Committee on Homeland Security]], and also Chairman of the [[Cox report|Select Committee on U.S. National Security]] that produced the [[Cox Report]], an indictment of Chinese espionage and of security failures at several U.S. [[United States Department of Energy National Laboratories|national laboratories]].<ref name="Biographical Directory of the United States Congress" />

When Congress established the Bipartisan Study Group on Enhancing Multilateral Export Controls through federal legislation in 1999, Cox was tapped as co-chairman. The group published a unanimous report in 2001 recommending wholesale modernization of U.S. export controls.<ref>[http://www.stimson.org/exportcontrol/pdf/finalreport.pdf] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927170828/http://www.stimson.org/exportcontrol/pdf/finalreport.pdf|date=September 27, 2007}}</ref> Cox also served as Chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security (the predecessor to the permanent House Committee); Chairman of the Task Force on Capital Markets; and Chairman of the Task Force on Budget Process Reform.<ref name="Official SEC Biography: Chairman Christopher Cox" />

In the spring of 2001, then-Representative Cox was considered by President [[George W. Bush]] for a federal appellate judgeship on the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]]. Cox withdrew his name from consideration before a nomination could be made because one of his home state Democratic Senators, [[Barbara Boxer]], objected to him due to his perceived conservatism.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/us/bush-to-reveal-first-judicial-choices-soon.html |title=Bush to Reveal First Judicial Choices Soon |last=Lewis |first=Neil A. |date=April 24, 2001 |website=The New York Times |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/26/us/washington-talk-road-to-federal-bench-gets-bumpier-in-senate.html |title=Washington Talk; Road to Federal Bench Gets Bumpier in Senate |last=Lewis |first=Neil A. |date=June 26, 2001 |website=The New York Times |language=en-US}}</ref> The seat that Cox had been considered for was eventually filled by Bush nominee [[Carlos Bea]].