On this date in 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for Indiana’s’ 8th Congressional District, Larry Bucshon, who since getting elected to Congress in 2010, has participated in the widespread campaign of Republican obstructionism, and making a name for himself as an exemplary climate change denier. See, in September of 2014, he actually made the claim that climate change science is fraudulent because scientists are only producing studies that say it exists, and it is man-made, because if they didn’t, they would be out of a career. Never mind that scientists produce DATA to back up what they’re saying all the time, though. Bucshon is opposed to same-sex marriage to the extent that he has went on record to whine about how he felt the Justice Department wasn’t enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act and is so Pro-Life that he sponsored the “Life Begins at Conception Act”, which would have effectively not only criminalized abortion, but most forms of birth control. Bucshon also voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, and at the vote to re-open the government, voted to keep it closed.
- March 16th, 2017: Larry Bucshon votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge’s written order. We feel safer already.
- May 4th, 2017: Bucshon votes for the House GOP’s healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Bucshon would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
- June 8th, 2017: Larry Bucshon votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
- October 3rd, 2017: Bucshon votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
- December 19th, 2017: Larry Bucshon votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
- February 18th, 2018: Bucshon and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
While Larry Bucshon won re-election in 2016 by almost twenty points, the political winds are not blowing in his favor in 2018. He managed to fend off two different Republican challengers in the GOP Primary last month, but still has to face off against Democrat William Tanoos, a disability attorney from Terra Haute who graduated from the University of Indiana. Meanwhile, Buchson has constituents in his district picketing his office over how badly he’s selling them out to the pharmaceutical industry. That probably isn’t enough momentum to help Tanoos unseat Bucshon, though, given the +15 Republican lean the district has. Still, we’re hoping the unlikely happens, and Bucshon is given the boot in November.