On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day shared its first two profiles of Renee Ellmers, the U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District. Ellmers had a unique strategy for reaching Congress… she rode the 2010 Tea Party Wave on the strength of her campaigning hard against the “Ground Zero Mosque” in New York City, and while spewing out that sort of bigoted nonsense, accused CNN’s Anderson Cooper of being anti-religion for questioning her pro-Christian/anti-Muslim worldview. After barely winning her first term, North Carolina’s 2nd was gerrymandered after redistricting to be far more conservative, and keep her in office. During her second term, she voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, and drew headlines for saying she was keeping her Congressional salary, saying, “I need my paycheck.” She’s also argued for men getting to pay less for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act because “they won’t be using the maternity leave”, tried spinning the GOP’s “War on Women” by saying the real war was being pulled off with the ACA, and in July 2014, advised her fellow Republicans that the only way they, as a party, would win over female voters in elections was to “bring policy down to a woman’s level”.
Our last update ended just a bit too soon. While we did have plenty of time to cover Ellmers’ bailing on the harsh anti-choice bill, HR 7, because was not thrilled with the language about the definition of rape in the bill and angered the anti-abortion movement, who were outraged that she didn’t just blindly vote for it… Well, Ellmers fell from grace with them so fast, they were demanding she be left off the GOP’s special committee to investigate Planned Parenthood. (Heaven forbid she not blindly try to outlaw a woman’s legal constitutional right to choose in every circumstance! She can’t be trusted!)
Well, another thing came about around two weeks after we published our article that rumors of an affair began to swirl involving Ellmers, and a fellow Congressman. And the guy this dedicated Christian crusader was believed to have started running around with was none other than failed Speaker of the House candidate, California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, right around the time he backed out of the running. Ellmers handled the accusation delicately. HA. I’m just kidding. She told a room full of GOP donors that the rumors of her having an affair with Rep. McCarthy were “bats*** crazy” and claiming she was the victim of false accusations and innuendo. Who knows, really.
Anyway, nothing of substance came out of that story… kind of like Rep. Ellmers’ continuing career in politics:
- September 11th, 2015: Ellmers votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Ellmers 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: Ellmers 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: Renee Ellmers 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. Ellmers votes against House Amendment 1079, which would have prohibited the use of federal funds for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. So if you were wondering, yes, she’s pro-discrimination, all right.
And now… we have some wonderful news. We noted in last year’s profile of Renee Ellmers that hard core anti-abortion supporters were promising electoral vengeance against her because she did not support HR 7, due to its, y'know, really dodgy attempt to redefine rape. She balked at supporting it all the way through passage, and when the legislation got shelved, the biggest scapegoat seemed to be Rep. Ellmers. And wouldn’t you know it… the far right fringe was not making an idle threat. After taking a beating in ads from Kay Daly (the self-professed RINO-Hunter who ended up running in another district) In June of 2016, Ellmers became the first GOP Primary casualty in this year’s election cycle, losing to George Holding. Hell, Ellmers barely even finished second in the primary, only topping third place finisher Greg Brannon (who’s also a nut profiled by CSGOPOTD) by about 200 votes. We’ll have to wait and see if Ellmers ever makes a political comeback, or if she’s just one more idiotic domino from the 2010 Tea Party Revolution to fall.