We’re on to the 532nd original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile today, and we’re making time for Jim Jordan, the sitting U.S. House Representative for Ohio’s 4th Congressional District since 2007, who is now serving in his fifth term in office. Prior to that, he spent twelve years as a member of the Ohio state legislature. Jordan’s background prior to entering politics was as a national champion as an NCAA wrestler who eventually became the men’s wrestling coach at Ohio State University (which OSU has a fanatical following, frankly, in the state). Jordan’s career in the Ohio state legislature was spent trying to strip welfare and the social safety net out from those in need of government assistance, and after winning the primary for his Congressional seat in 2006 to replace the retiring Mike Oxley, has been all but guaranteed re-election every year in Ohio’s 4th, a district that has voted Republican in all but 16 years since the Civil War ended.
Jordan was one of the original founders of the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 that orchestrated the downfall of former House Speaker John Boehner, stemming from a disagreement that the two had over the debt ceiling limit way, way back in 2011. If you’re wondering, yes, Rep. Jordan was thus one of the main hindrances into getting an agreement on the debt ceiling passed, refusing to work with his own party to do so, and the inability of the GOP to produce one with control of the House is why Standard and Poore’s lowered the United States credit rating for the first time in our nation’s history.
And when it comes to committees… well, Jim Jordan has taken time as a member of the House Oversight Committee to badger Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards after the release of the Center for Medical Progress’ fabricated “sting” video, interrupting her 19 times in a 5 minute span, embarrassed himself while trying to badger Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings, eventually being called to the carpet for his egregiously incorrect take on the investigation by the collective Beltway media, and after FBI Director James Comey decided there was no precedent or charges that could be pressed against Hillary Clinton for her e-mail server, turned on him and accused Comey of helping “cover up the cover-up” which sounds as paranoid and ludicrous as you’re thinking.
But perhaps that’s not as paranoid and ludicrous as the interview Jim Jordan gave to Tony Perkins, the leader of the anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council on April 30th, 2013, where he started insisting there was merit to the government conspiracy that the Obama administration was trying to “buy up all the ammunition” as part of a plan to negate the 2nd Amendment and limit the freedom of gun owners.
Yeah, that realy happened. But it’s little surprise that Jordan would say something like that around Tony Perkins, after all, in April of 2012 Jordan was telling Perkins the importance of registering Evangelical voters to get them to vote against President Obama was akin to the Union Army winning the war to stop slavery, or Americans in World War II going to Europe to beat the Nazis. Ah… Godwin’s Law. Never gets old.
And that’s not all… after the faux “IRS Scandal” that the GOP worked itself into a frenzy was investigated, and no wrongdoing was found, he continued to demand investigations at taxpayer expense, saying:
“We need this special counsel to help us get to the truth because the so-called investigation by the Justice Department has been a joke. The current investigation has no credibility because it is being headed by a maxed-out donor who is financially invested in the president’s success.”
I guess what we’re getting at is Jim Jordan is an extremist fiscal conservative, provided the money being spent isn’t being wasted on partisan witch hunts that only exist to make people irrationally angry at Democrats.
Jim Jordan has stated he “enthusiastially” supports Donald Trump, and keeps angling at trying to win a shot at being Speaker of the House in the next Congress. You can look at the guy’s voting record and see exactly why that’s a bad idea for the country:
- July 31st, 2007: Jim Jordan votes against the Equal Pay Bill.
- October 25th, 2007: Jordan votes against the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, denying health insurance to millions of children.
- November 7th, 2007: Jim Jordan votes against ENDA, allowing the continued discrimination of LGBT citizens based on their sexual identity in the workplace.
- January 9th, 2009: Jordan votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
- April 29th, 2009: Jim Jordan votes against the Hate Crimes Expansion that would provide protections to LGBT citizens.
- June 30th, 2010: After Wall Street bankers taking unnecessary risks nearly imploded the global economy in 2007, legislation finally comes forward to prevent the same behaviors from being permitted in the future. The signature piece of legislation to prevent another financial meltdown was Dodd-Bill Wall Street Reform, which Jim Jordan voted against.
- July 30th, 2010: Months after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a bill comes to the floor to better regulate off-shore drilling. Jordan is apparently alright with ecological disasters continuing in the future, as he votes against it.
- December 8th, 2010: Rep. Jordan votes against the DREAM Act.
- December 15th, 2010: Jordan votes against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
- January 5th, 2011, Rep. Jordan co-sponsors the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He has voted for every attempt to do so since.
- On February 18th, 2011, Jordan votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
- September 15th, 2012: Jim Jordan votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- February 28th, 2013: Jordan votes against the new version of the Violence Against Women Act.
- June 19th, 2013: Rep. Jordan votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Jordan votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown.
- October 16th, 2013: Jim Jordan voted against reopening the federal government and ending the 2013 Government Shutdown.
- Feb 26th, 2014: Jordan 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: Rep. Jordan 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.
- February 3rd, 2015: Jim Jordan votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
- March 3rd, 2015: Jordan 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: Jim Jordan votes for HR 36, a 20 week abortion ban.
- September 11th, 2015: Jordan votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Jordan votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- November 19th, 2015: Jordan votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
- February 2nd, 2016: Jim Jordan 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. Jordan 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.
Jim Jordan did not face a challenger in his re-election bid for Ohio’s 4th District, which has a +9 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. His opponent is Janet Garrett, a woman who has been working in the upper echelons of Ohio’s education system now for decades who he trounced in the 2014 elections by thirty-five points. That would indicate that this brain-dead lunk is going to be floating around the Capitol, as part of the hard-right Republican insurrection for a sixth term in office, and continue to be a blight on what should be a functional democracy.
One Year Ago, October 21st, 2015: John Kline (MN)
Two Years Ago, October 21st, 2014: Bob McDonnell (VA)