On this day in both 2014, and in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted its first two profiles of Doug LaMalfa, the U.S. House Representative from California’s 1st Congressional District, who pushes all sorts of false narratives to back his policies, such as a claim that abortions increase the risk of cancer in women, or that the Department of Homeland Security was trying to “buy all the bullets” to curb the rights of gun owners by creating a monopoly on the ammunition. He also expressed outrage that the history of the gay rights movement would be taught in California schools, and has tried quoting the teachings of Jesus as a motivation to kick the poor off of food stamps (because Jesus is all about flipping the bird to the hungry). The more amazing thing about his outrage over people on government assistance is his family’s rice farm gets $5 million a year in subsidies, so apparently he’s fine with welfare as long as it lines his already-wealthy pockets. LaMalfa also grows increasingly frustrated that his conservative northern Californian district’s demographics don’t match the policies of the majority of the state (case in point, he reacted to the legalization of same sex marriage by saying “we live in Godless times”), so he’s also discussed a plan to break California up into a number of smaller states to reflect that, and once even made a call for Northern California to secede from the rest of the state, describing an “uprising” as the method to make it happen.
And… LaMalfa is still LaMalfa…
- November 18th, 2015: Rep. LaMalfa speaks before Congress, lying and claiming that “We know now that one of the terrorists who participated in the attack on Paris last Friday entered Europe by posing as a refugee.” (Fact-checking the Congressman: The terror attacks in Paris were carried out by jihadists from France and Belgium and were not actually Syrian refugees, one had paperwork to indicate he was a Syrian refugee to TRICK people into not accepting them so their victims don’t escape Syria.)
- November 19th, 2015: LaMalfa votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act.
- February 2nd, 2016: Doug LaMalfa votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- May 19th, 2016: Rep. LaMalfa votes against House Amendment 1079, which would have prohibited the use of federal funds for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. So if you were wondering, yes, he’s pro-discrimination, apparently.
- July 28th, 2016: Doug LaMalfa signs on to a letter from Rep. Robert Pittenger of North Carolina that criticizes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for moving the NBA All-Star Game because of North Carolina’s anti-gay HB-2 law.
- September 14th, 2016: LaMalfa gives a speech and the floor of the House to express outrage that months earlier, the United States returned assets frozen in banks from Iran after the Iranian Revolution, as part of the nuclear arms treaty signed with the nation, playing into a conspiracy theory that it was a secret done “in the dark of the night on a pallet”. In reality, the Obama White House announced it many months prior, openly.
Doug LaMalfa won the primary for his seat with 41% of the vote against six other challengers, and now faces the top Democrat from that primary, Jim Reed, in November. Reed, a successful lawyer who runs his own practice was a former football player at the University of California at Berkley with the Golden Bears, is a moderate, whose support of the 2nd Amendment and stance on capitol punishment still synch up well with California’s 1st District, which has a +10 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. It’s still going to take a lot to get this seat flipped blue. Then again, Democratic voter registration in California this year was at unheard of levels, particularly among Latinos (go figure, Trump inspired voter participation), and with polling showing that voters currently trust Democrats far more than Republicans, it isn’t impossible that Doug LaMalfa could be upset.
Hopefully, he can go back to his rice farm with his fancy cowboy hat and get some work done in January, and leave governing to sane people.