Today, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” is proud to present our 503rd original profile, and in it, we’ll be talking about Brian Babin, the sitting U.S. House Representative for Texas’ 36th Congressional District. Babin, a dentist by trade, 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.
Babin won office in 2014 to replace Stockman with 76% of the vote, a testament to how conservative Texas’ 36th District actually is. And, 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:
“As the Supreme Court continues to ignore the letter of the law, it’s important that these nine individuals understand the full impact of their decisions on the American people. By eliminating their exemption from Obamacare, they will see firsthand what the American people are forced to live with!”
(Because we’re sure that thought never crosses their minds, or so thinks Rep. Babin.)
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, Babin went on Facebook to call for a complete suspension of the entire Refugee Resettlement Program, writing:
”We are crazy to be inviting the problems of the Middle East into the United States. It’s time to suspend the refugee resettlement program until we are able to obtain factual information, assess the federal, state and local costs and determine the national security risks. It’s been on auto-pilot for far too long.“
Babin then tried justifying this 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.
If that’s not already a big indicator that this guy’s a bit touched in the head, take a look at Babin’s legislative record:
- January 22nd, 2015: An anti-abortion bill, HR 7, was moving through the House, and was halted because even some members of the GOP were put off by the language in the bill regarding its definition of rape. Brian Babin, however, had no problem with that, and voted for it anyway.
- February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Babin co-sponsors and votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act.
- March 3rd, 2015: Babin 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: Brian Babin co-sponsors and votes for HR 36, a 20 week abortion ban.
- September 11th, 2015: Babin votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Babin co-sponsors and votes for the bill created by 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: Babin co-sponsors and 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.
In fact, he even took to the House floor to talk of Syrian refugees who would train themselves to be suicide bombers, and how we should “blow them up” first before they have the chance to get us.
- February 2nd, 2016: Brian Babin 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. Babin votes against House Amendment 1079, which would have prohibited the use of federal funds for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
- June 3rd, 2016: Babin accuses the Obama administration of deliberately concealing crime statistics regarding illegal immigrants… to the count of (according to him), 231,000 crimes committed by 86,000 individuals. When asked where he was getting the figures from, Babin said “from victims and their families” which is remarkable that he’d spoken to nearly a quarter million of them, himself (or, y'know, he’s blatantly just making it up).
Texas’ 36th Congressional District has a +25 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, so if a Republican wins the primary, it’s pretty much their seat for the taking. The DNC seems to have conceded that fact, because not only will Brian Babin not face a primary challenger, he won’t face a Democrat in the general election, with his only competition of any kind being Green Party candidate Hal Ridley, Jr. Babin thus will remain in office until at least 2019. I mean, at least he’s not as crazy as Steve Stockman, but that’s not saying much.
One Year Ago, June 28th, 2015: David Schultheis (CO)