In 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented its original profile of the current U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, David Rouzer, whose resemblance to Saturday Night Live cast member Jon Lovitz still haunts us to this day. Rouzer had already established himself as a staunch conservative while he served in the North Carolina State Senate, aligning himself as a climate change denier who tried blocking studies of sea level change, showing he was downright archaic when it came to education, what with his support of corporal punishment without parental exemption in schools, and his homophobic streak was proven by both his opposition to anti-bullying measures that would protect LGBT students and his support for a state constitutional ban on same sex marriage. He hasn’t mellowed out much since heading to Washington, D.C., like how he was willing to state his desire to have another government shutdown over the fact that the GOP was unable to defund Planned Parenthood, due to his viewing of the fraudulent video produced by the Center for Medical Progress (whose leaders were since been indicted for their deception). This was only two years after the last time Republicans shut the government down, and got nothing but costing millions upon million dollars for our country, and threatening government workers with being furloughed, Rouzer was ready to repeat that over a shoddy hoax.
Rouzer was trying to earn big points points as a freshman lawmaker for introducing his own written legislation, but then again, when you consider his bill was to drug test welfare recipients nationally, it becomes a lot less impressive. After all, when states have passed such laws and adopted them, they have lost a fortune on the cost of drug testing, and found statistically less drug use by those on government assistance, without any “savings” of throwing people off welfare. Even worse, the states have lost money on court cases when the same Republicans supporting these bills see their legislation challenged by ACLU lawsuits, and they get overturned as being violations of the 4th Amendment. But that’s David Rouzer for you… take a failed, s*** idea at the state level and try to do it across the country.
In June of 2015: Rep. Rouzer released a statement after the Supreme Court rules in the Obergefell v. Hodges case in favor of marriage equality, saying it would be against the will of our Founding Fathers, and that it created a “slippery slope of shifting sand”. Perhaps this would be a good time to point out to Rouzer that George Washington was cool with awarding a house to Continental Army General Baron von Steuben after the war, mmhm? When a guy with wooden teeth is more tolerant of gays than you are… you have problems.
North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District has a +9 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which was enough to help him limp to get 55% of the vote in the 2018 elections. And he’s returned to the capitol to show how regressive one man can be:
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Rouzer voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: David Rouzer votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Rouzer votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
- April 4th, 2019: David Rouzer is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- June 4th, 2019: Rouzer votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
David Rouzer’s ties to Elizabeth Dole are considered enough to make him a party stalwart, and a favorite pick by many to potentially run for U.S. Senate in 2020, or to try to snag Richard Burr’s seat when he retires in 2022. All we know for sure is, he’s likely to make a decision based on what the redrawn districts for North Carolina look like in the 2020 election. If he doesn’t have that +9 advantage, we expect him to make a challenge to Thom Tillis or jump to a neighboring district to try to save himself.
One Year Ago, June 19th, 2018: David Rouzer (NC)… 2018 Update
Two Years Ago, June 19th, 2017: David Rouzer (NC)… 2017 Update
Three Year Ago, June 19th, 2016: David Rouzer (NC)… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, June 19th, 2015: Linda McMahon (CT)