Welcome to the 640th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing the elected U.S. House Representative from Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, Randy Hultgren, who first arrived in Washington D.C. in, yes, the Tea Party Wave in 2010 after he spent twelve years floating around the Illinois state legislature with a meager 51% of the vote. After redistricting, Illinois’ 14th garnered the more conservative portions of Illinois’ 8th District from the 2010 map, so by 2012, Hultgren’s incumbency was far more solid, currently standing at a +5 Republican lean. And that’s a shame, because the last thing the country needs is a man who consistently denies facts and science being given a leg up on being re-elected without effort.
Let us begin with this video from back in 2010, where candidate Hultgren states his belief in intelligent design and his desire to have it taught in schools. American courts have ruled as far back as 2005 that intelligent design was primarily religious and fostered unnecessary entanglement of church and state and further found that intelligent design is not science. But whatever, let’s start ingraining it into the minds of children so they’re true believers as adults and not thinking about the heresy that is evolution, right guys? Randy Hultgren wants that for ‘Murica!
Second, Randy Hultgren has been a personal guest of Tony Perkins, the leader of the anti-gay hate group Tony Perkins on his “Washington Watch” show on occasion, including back in 2013 when he was touting a bill he wrote that would allocate over half a billion dollars to grants to promote “abstinence only” education in schools. After claiming the Obama administration was enacting “dangerous and experimental” sex education programs for “younger and younger children” (because that isn’t a lie made to sound more sinister), Hultgren claimed that there are “incredible success records” for abstinence education. And… that’s completely false, as studies show precisely the opposite, and that abstinence only education is a failure.
Rounding things out, Randy Hultgren is a climate change denier, as he expressed in this interview back in late 2009, where against all evidence, he tried claiming that the Earth was entering a “cooling period”:
“The greatest impact on our climate clearly is the sun, and we have very little impact on the sun and how much energy and temperature the sun is sending to the earth. We have seen clearly over thousands of years that at different times more energy has come through and different times less energy has come through, and that variation has impacted climate change. Over the thousands of years that’s been recorded we’ve had both colder times and warmer times. It happens to be that we’ve recently come out of a warmer time and now actually we’re headed in to a little bit of a colder time, the impact of the sun is much different than impact that we could have had. So, I don’t believe we have a significant impact on climate change.”
If having a variety of science denial in his background isn’t disturbing enough, take a look at Hultgren’s voting record in his four terms in office, and realize there are depths of disappointment yet to be explored in a human being:
- January 5th, 2011: Rep. Hultgren votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He has voted for almost every attempt to do so since.
- February 18th, 2011: Randy Hultgren votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
- March 17th, 2011: Rep. Hultgren votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
- September 15th, 2012: Rep. Hultgren votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- September 21st, 2012: Hultgren votes for the “Stop the War on Coal Act”.
- January 15th, 2013: Randy Hultgren votes against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
- February 28th, 2013: Rep. Hultgren votes against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.
- June 19th, 2013: Randy Hultgren votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Rep. Hultgren votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown.
- Feb 26th, 2014: Randy Hultgren 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: Hultgren 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: Randy Hultgren 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. Hultgren 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: Hultgren 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: Hultgren votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Hultgren co-sponsors and 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: Hultgren 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: Randy Hultgren 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: Hultgren 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.
- March 16th, 2017: Randy Hultgren 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.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Hultgren votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: Hultgren 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, postpartum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Hultgren 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: Randy Hultgren 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.
- September 8th, 2017: Rep. Hultgren chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
- October 3rd, 2017: Hultgren 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: Randy Hultgren 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.
Going into the 2018 elections, Randy Hultgren has no less than seven people facing off in the Democratic primary to take a crack at him. Considering his district only has a +5 Republican lean in a year where polls show Democrats with, even by mild assessments, a +8 advantage, unless the GOP’s fortunes change, Hultgren could find himself bounced out of office. Especially when he’s ignored his constituents’ requests to have a town hall, and instead, accused them of having a “playbook” to be disruptive. It really sets the stage for Illinois’ 14th District being one of many flipped in a Democratic blue wave.
One Year Ago, January 29th, 2017:Sally Kern (OK)… 2017 Update
Two Years Ago, January 29th, 2016: Sally Kern (OK)… 2016 Update
Three Years Ago, January 29th, 2015: Sally Kern (OK)… Original Profile