Congressman Mark Sanford (R) South Carolina, First Congressional District Mark Sanford was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. Prior to that, Mark had no political experience. He has pledged to serve only three terms in Congress. Mark currently serves on the Government Reform Committee, the International Relations Committee the Joint Economic Committee and the Science Committee. He has been active in the movement to balance the budget, reduce the deficit, reform Congress and institute term limits. At the end of the 104th Congress, Mark was elected by his peers to co-chair the New Federalists. The purpose of this group is to influence and lead other legislators towards balancing the budget. Mark was #1 in the 1995 and 1997 Citizens Against Government Waste's ranking of Congressmen according to their votes to cut spending. He also received top honors from the Concord Coalition -- a deficit watch group which listed him on their honor roll. In 1996, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation listed him as the 7th most frugal spender (out of all 435 members of Congress) regarding how he voted to disburse hard-earned taxpayer dollars in Washington. For the past decade, prior to his service in Congress, Mark worked in real estate finance and investment in New York City and Charleston, SC. He spent most of his youth on the family farm outside of Beaufort with his two brothers and sister. Mark graduated from high school there, went on to Furman University, and then received an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Mark and his wife, Jenny, live in Sullivans Island with their young sons, Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake.