Welcome to what is the 809th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing Todd Rokita, the former U.S. House Representative from Indiana’s 4th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019. In 2016, he attempted to succeed Mike Pence to be the next Governor of Indiana, but lost in the GOP Primary to Eric Holcomb. But it was back in 2000 that Todd Rokita first cut his teeth in Republican politics by serving as legal counsel for several Florida counties during the lengthy recount into the presidential election that got handed to George W. Bush, and his interest in manipulating elections continued on into his tenure as Indiana Secretary of State in 2005, when he pushed for that state’s Voter ID law to help suppress the vote.
On policy, Todd Rokita might not have embarrassed himself on cable news as often as some of his counterparts, but he was representing the second most conservative district in all of Indiana, and thus could support Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, or go to a town hall and declare that admitting a link between human activity and climate change was “arrogant”.
So based on that, it’s of little surprise that his voting record looked a little something like this:
- On January 5th, 2011, Rep. Rokita votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He voted for almost every attempt to do so since.
- On February 18th, 2011, Gus Rokita votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
- March 17th, 2011: Rep. Rokita votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
- September 15th, 2012: Rep. Rokita votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- September 21st, 2012: Rokita votes for the “Stop the War on Coal Act”.
- January 15th, 2013: Todd Rokita votes against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
- February 28th, 2013: Rokita votes against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
- June 19th, 2013: Todd Rokita votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Rep. Rokita votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown. When the vote came up seventeen days later to re-open the government, Rokita voted to keep it closed.
- Feb 26th, 2014: Todd Rokita goes “all in” on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by voting for the “Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act”.
- July 10th, 2014: Rokita 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: Todd Rokita votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
- February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Rokita 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: Rokita votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
- September 11th, 2015: Rokita votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Rokita 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: Rokita 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: Todd Rokita votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- February 16th, 2017: Rokita votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
- March 16th, 2017: Todd Rokita 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: Rokita votes for the GOP’s healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Rokita 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: Todd Rokita 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: Rokita 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: Todd Rokita 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: Rep. Rokita 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.
In 2018, Rokita attempted to get elected to the U.S. Senate, and got into an ugly, ugly primary against Mike Braun and Luke Messer. It wasn’t just the fact that Rokita was pathetic enough to campaign in a MAGA hat with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump, or all the mudslinging he dove into… it perhaps was not the best idea to air an ad featuring Rokita shooting an AR-15 only days after the Parkland shooting, spliced inbetween footage of Colin Kaepernick kneeling to protest police violence during the national anthem at NFL games. But Rokita also had ghosts from his time serving as Indiana’s Secretary of State coming back to haunt him, as it was revealed he was using state resources to aid himself in winning elections, effectively using a record of political donations as his own personal rolodex. Rokita even tried winning over Republican primary voters by denying the American intelligence communities analysis that Russia interefered in the 2016 election, and defended Donald Trump after he was completely dominated by Vladimir Putin at their Helsinki summit. In the end, he only got 30% of the vote, losing by double digits and is now out of office. We’d like to wish him the finest of “Good Riddance” greetings, and hope that he continues to bugger off.
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