In 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” presented profiles of the sitting U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 36th Congressional District, Brian Babin, a dentist by trade who made his first run for Congress two decades ago, failing to be elected in 1996, and making news for being caught in a campaign finance scandal, where he was found to have tried circumventing the rules for maximum donations from one donor by having intermediaries deliver the large sums in smaller pieces. He was caught, and fined $20,000 by the normally toothless FEC. Two years later, in 1998, that scandal may not have been what stood in the way of a Babin victory, as much as the story of his campaign manager simultaneously coming out of the closet, and resigning, saying that Babin had said numerous disparaging things about homosexuals in private meetings. Babin denied this, but the tabloid-like nature of the story, combined with his earlier scandal was enough to sink his chances again.
Well, Texas' 36th District has never been shy about taking on controversial candidates, considering they elected Rep. Steve Stockman back in 2012, nearly two decades after he crazied his way out of office. By 2014, Rep. Stockman had shown he hadn't changed much, so the district elected Babin, another embarrassing throwback to two decades earlier. During the 2014 election season, Brian Babin revealed a variety of mind-numbingly stupid ideas, like his belief that the Affordable Care Act would bankrupt America, his desire to do away with the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, and of course, his desire to build a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border (beating Donald Trump to the punch on this stupid, stupid idea).
Since hitting Washington, D.C. in his late sixties, he has followed up on his campaign platform, showing outrage whenever possible. Perhaps the best example is his response to the Supreme Court's King vs. Burwell ruling, where he introduced legislation that would force all nine of the Supreme Court Justices to enroll in healthcare through the Affordable Care Act (rather than the insurance plans they already have) to show them what they were relegating the American people to. Seriously, this was his patronizing quote:
A few months later, his xenophobia hit a fever pitch. While most Republicans freaked out about the Syrian refugee program AFTER the terror attacks in Paris by ISIS sympathizers from France and Belgium (i.e. not carried out by any Syrian refugees), On September 17th, 2015, Brian Babin went on Facebook to call for a complete suspension of the entire Refugee Resettlement Program, writing:
Two months later in November of 2015, Babin took to Breitbart Radio to be interviewed by Steve Bannon himself, and talk about legislation he filed to defund the Refugee resettlement program. While Babin acknowledged that Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus were refugee, this was different because, “Jesus and Mary didn’t have suicide bomb vests strapped on them.” Babin also has tried squaring his overall Islamophobic stance because he believes that "No-Go Zones" set up by Muslim communities are actually a thing happening in Michigan and Tennessee, and we should stop bringing in Muslims before more of them pop up. Hint for sane people: These “no-go zones” are not happening. All the way up into the last weeks of the Obama administration, Babin was fear-mongering about the refugee resettlement program, claiming it was a “Trojan Horse” to allow terrorists into the country.
Once Donald Trump took office and instituted his unconstitutional Muslim ban, it was Rep. Babin who sent out an e-mail to his constituents, with a survey asking if they supported the measure or not, and within it, claimed several Muslim countries as “terrorism hot spots” that have not produced a terrorist attacker in Europe or the United States within this century.
Now, as you might expect with his hate of Muslim refugees, and a desire to build a border wall, Brian Babin ended up firmly in the corner of Donald Trump in the fall of 2016. So much so, in fact, that he defended Trump for calling Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” during one of the presidential debates as she handed Trump his ass. Babin’s logic? “I think sometimes a lady needs to be told when she's being nasty. I do.”
Brian Babin took the news of the GOP’s defeat in the 2018 elections about as well as most Republicans, which is not well. He’s still been hosted by the “alt right” (i.e. white nationalist) Breitbart News for interviews to claim that Democrats want “open borders” and otherwise fearmonger about immigrants in November of 2018, and only weeks into the new session of the House with Democrats in control, tried to block Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from leading a delegation to the West Bank, because of reasons that amount to trying to stir up Islamophobia. He was pandering to xenophobes by taking a visit down to the U.S/Mexico border in Arizona for photo-ops with border patrol agents, while claiming that the border wall was near completion and one of Trump’s “promises made, promises kept”. (Someone’s living in a fantasy world.)
Back in Washington, Brian Babin’s stupidity continues:
- January 27th, 2019: Brian Babin voted against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attacking our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
- October 23rd, 2019: Babin is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
- December 3rd, 2019: Brian Babin is one of 71 Republicans who votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
- December 18th, 2019: Rep. Babin ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
- May 15th, 2020: Babin votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2020/h109
- December 10th, 2020: Babin signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
- January 6th, 2021: Brian Babin votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
- January 13th, 2021: Rep. Babin votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of police officers.
- February 25th, 2021: Babin votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Babin votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
- March 3rd, 2021: Brian Babin votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: Babin votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
- March 17th, 2021: Rep. Babin votes 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).
- May 19th, 2021: Brian Babin votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
- November 5th, 2021: Brian Babin votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
- March 31st, 2022: Babin votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Brian Babin would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
- May 18th, 2022: Brian Babin is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
- May 18th, 2022: Rep. Babin votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
- May 19th, 2022: Babin votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
- July 15th, 2022: Brian Babin votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
- July 19th, 2022: Rep. Babin votes against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
- July 21st, 2022: Babin is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.
- December 1st, 2022: Rep. Babin is one of 90 Republicans who vote against HR 6878, meaning he is perfectly fine with pregnant women in prison being placed in solitary confinement while claiming to be “pro-life”.
- December 6th, 2022: Babin, embracing the GOP’s white nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment votes against HR 7946, which was meant to honor the promise to grant citizenship to immigrants who served in the United States Armed Forces.
We will finish our update by reminding everyone of Brian Babin’s statement about the January 6th attack on the Capitol, where he lamented those who died, but defended his decision to not certify the election results, citing the non-existent “Election Fraud that undermines our freedoms”. Hey, he didn’t die, he has no regrets. Nor any desire to hold anyone accountable. Maybe that’s because he was sharing texts with Trump White House Chief of Staff and former Congressman Mark Meadows about overturning the election results prior to Jan. 6th. We won’t be surprised if the Dept. of Justice ends up ending his political career.