It's the 405th edition of
Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day!
For whatever we might think about the U.S. House Representative for Alabama's 2nd District, Martha Roby, you always have to keep in mind with modern Republicans, that it can always be worse. At the time of her election back in 2010, she might have seemed "moderate" because she defeated Tea Party candidate Rick Barber for her seat, after a hard fought primary where Barber ran ads that depicted the Founding Fathers being told about the "tyranny" of the Obama Administration, before the actor playing George Washington stood and said, "Gather your armies" in response.
I mean, at least she's not THAT crazy. No, instead, Rep. Roby is more of the type that doesn't promote that sort of talk, but instead, lets others do it for her, and panders to those who say it, as evidenced in this video from a town hall on August 2nd, 2013, where she gets asked by a Birther conspiracy theorist, "What I need from you is to know what you can do, you and your fellow non-communist colleagues in the lower House, what you can do to stop these communist tyrannical executive orders laid down by this foreign-born, America-hating communist despot?" Rather than explain to the man that President Obama isn't a communist, or that he's an American citizen, she thanks him for saying what he did, and talks about fighting back against the president's executive orders. And hey, she saved on having to pay for an ad to get the same result, like Barber!
But maybe seeing Roby clueless about policy and playing the victim is more your speed? Check out this interview from 2012 with Jan Helfeld where Roby was asked about the "redistribution of wealth" in the United States, and she comes out hard against the concept, until Helfeld points out that she supports farm subsidies and aid for banks and calls the interview a "trap" and angrily ends it less than a minute later, leaving her press secretary to try to get a copy of the interview to prevent it from being aired.
Of late, Rep. Roby has gone completely off the rails, and started to become one of those politicians that ignores reality to spin their own version of it that more fits the conservative narrative to dictate policy this past year. Watch here as she takes to the floor of the House to give a speech about the controversy surrounding the "sting" videos of Planned Parenthood (that have been debunked by investigators), saying of the fetal tissue used in medical research donated by women getting abortions: "These aren't specimens, they're babies".
And in that same vein of manufactured outrage, perhaps the most poignant moment of Martha Roby's political career thus far came during hour 9 of the 11 hour marathon testimony of Hillary Clinton before the Benghazi Select Committee, where she felt it relevant for the American people to know whether or not Secretary of State Clinton was "home alone" on the night of the attacks on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. Hillary, in true alpha female form, laughed at her, before answering "no". Roby tried following up with a "I don't see what's so funny" approach, seeking a GOTCHA moment that only made her look more desperate, as the whole Benghazi Select Committee did by that point.
Roby has not faced even a single primary challenger since being elected, and Democrats haven't gained much traction against her. After she toppled incumbent Bobby Bright in 2010 with 51% of the vote, she pulled down 64% in 2012 against Therese Ford, and 67% in 2014 against Erick Wright (which may have been helped by Wright deciding to release Youtube videos where he talked politics from his toilet).
If her public speaking didn't give you an idea of what Martha Roby's voting record might look like, well... brace yourselves:
-January 5th, 2011: Roby co-sponsors the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. She has voted for every attempt to do so since.
-February 18th, 2011: Martha Roby votes to defund Planned Parenthood, on the very same day her "smaller government principles" compelled her to vote to continue funding taxpayer dollars towards NASCAR sponsorships.
-March 17th, 2011: Rep. Roby votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
-May 31st, 2011: Martha Roby votes against raising the Debt Ceiling limit, which if not lifted, economists warn could lead to the collapse of not just the American economy, but the global economy. Worse yet, even the Republicans' threatening to hold it hostage during this time led to the United States' having its credit rating decreased by Standard and Poor's for the first time in its history a few months later.
-September 15th, 2012: Rep. Roby votes for the "No More Solyndras Act".
-January 15th, 2013: Marth Roby votes against disaster relief aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
-June 19th, 2013: Roby votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
-September 30th, 2013: Rep. Roby voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown. When the time came for the vote to re-open the government, Roby voted to keep it closed.
-Feb 26th, 2014: Martha Roby goes "all in" on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by co-sponsoring and voting for the "Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act".
-July 10th, 2014: Roby votes for House Amendment 1040, to prevent the implementation of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty, that in spite of just being recommended climate change guidelines, have many conspiracy theorists within the extreme right convinced it’s a plot for global domination.
-January 22nd, 2015: an anti-abortion bill, HR 7, was moving through the House, and was halted because even some members of the GOP were put off by the language in the bill regarding its definition of rape. Martha Roby, however, had no problem with that, and voted for it anyway.
-February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Roby co-sponsors and votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act.
-March 3rd, 2015: Roby votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
-May 13th, 2015: Martha Roby voted for HR 36, a ban on abortion at 20 weeks.
-September 11th, 2015: Martha Roby votes against the United States' nuclear treaty with Iran.
-September 18th, 2015: Roby votes with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, a bill she also co-sponsored, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
-October 23rd, 2015: Rep. Roby votes for HR 3762, the GOP's 61st attempt in the past five years at repealing the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than experts predicted).
Now, if you're wondering why Martha Roby is suddenly falling farther to the right, and investing herself in the farce against Planned Parenthood, or blindly flailing about and hoping she could somehow hit Hillary Clinton's jugular during the Benghazi Select Committee hearings, we can guess as to a reason. For the first time since being elected back in 2010, Roby is facing a primary challenger to her right, in the form of Becky Gerritson, who's already herself earned the endorsement of Roby's last opponent, Rick Barber. While no Democrat has emerged yet to run for the House seat for Alabama's 2nd District, someone should at least consider it, on the off chance this primary leaves Roby and/or Gerritson too unpalatable for voters after they spend the majority of the year trying to drive to each others' right.