On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District, Glenn Grothman, a man whose record on women’s issues as a state legislator is bad enough that he didn’t just vote against emergency contraception for rape victims so that they couldn’t avoid get pregnant, he has publicly gone on record to say that women who seek it out are “trained” to say they were raped so they could get the morning after pill. He also has spent a lot of time badmouthing Planned Parenthood, calling the organization “racist” at times, and at others accusing them of allowing pregnant women to have sex-selective abortions, and arguing against funding them because “as a guy” he didn’t think their services would do HIM any good. Grothman would also like to cancel Martin Luther King Day, called Kwanzaa “a fake holiday for black people”, and while he’s at it, has tried cancelling the weekend for workers. Grothman has pledged to cut all government assistance from others because “it’s a bribe to not work hard” and has encouraged his constituents to scrutinize people using food stamps in public to determine if they are “genuinely poor”. Rounding out his delightful personality is his support for the anti-gay laws Uganda pushed forth, where the punishment for being gay is death, and that he feels the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling should not be honored because it would be disrespectful to the American Soldiers who gave their lives fighting for their deeply held religious beliefs in the Civil War (because that makes sense). Back in 2012, Grothman claimed that President Obama and Sen. Tammy Baldwin only won office in 2012 because of widespread voter fraud, so voting record in Wisconsin supported repeated measures on Voter ID In two consecurtive presidential elections now, Grothman straight up predicted Republican presidential candidate would have a better chance of winning Wisconsin because the Voter ID law was put into place, straight up admitting in April of 2016 that it would help stop Hillary Clinton (and sadly, he was proven correct).
Glenn Grothman has managed to weigh in on more issues in ways that we can only describe as inexplicably d***ish. In March of 2017, he went on a rant against college Pell Grants, arguing that they shouldn’t be funded because they, we s*** you not, “discourage marriages”.
Don’t think about why attendance in college might discourage someone from settling down with a spouse too hard, because there is no statistic or logic behind Grothman’s stupid argument. But he was far from done… as the Supreme Court will be making a ruling in the Gill v. Whitford case, which is aimed at overturning an outrageous level of gerrymandering that was set up in Wisconsin several years back. And yet, Glenn Grothman is challenging that the Supreme Court shouldn’t have the authority to do that.
“I’m not sure there should be any restrictions whatsoever, because I don’t think it is the court’s business to draw lines. There are many rules right now — that the courts have laid out — that if you want your redistricting map approved you have to meet.”
Now, Grothman has made various insensitive racial comments through the years, and since we last updated his profile, he was asked about his feelings about Donald Trump’s “s***hole countries” remarks, and Grothman responded that it really wasn’t as offensive as things other presidents have done, like just for example, the time that Barack Obama met with the Reverend Al Sharpton:
“The past president brought Al Sharpton into the White House something like 80 times. That was kind of stunning to me, but nobody ever made a big ruckus out of it.”
Yes, Grothman just equated meeting with a civil rights leader with disparaging the entire African continent and Haiti as a “s***hole”. Making it worse? His comments came, of on all days… Martin Luther King Day.
Glenn Grothman was re-elected to a second term in 2016 with 57% of the vote. Do you think he has a large swath of partisan votes that he’s made? You bet your ass he has:
- March 16th, 2017: Glenn Grothman 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.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Grothman votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: Grothman votes for the House GOP’s healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Grothman 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: Glenn Grothman 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. Grothman chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
- October 3rd, 2017: Grothman 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: Glenn Grothman 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.
Glenn Grothman withered in front of a town hall back in his home district in April 2017, and when faced with outrage over an attempted “Repeal and Replace” plan for the Affordable Care Act, straight up lied to his constituents and claimed that it would still cover pre-existing conditions (See Above, it didn’t). He was also his usually abrasively conservative self, acknowledging he supports a highly expensive but almost certainly ineffective border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, lying by claiming that Planned Parenthood is the “biggest abortion provider in the country” and took time to s*** on the country’s welfare system, falsely claiming that it “discourages” work and marriage.
Grothman’s capable challenger is Dan Kohl, nephew of legendary Wisconsin Senator and Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl, who turned down multiple offers to sell the team unless it was kept in the city. With the money and name recognition behind him, Dan Kohl is an easy favorite to flip a seat in a district where Grothman is already under-performing the Cook Partisan District lean of +8 Republican in two straight elections and polling shows things are trending in Kohl’s direction, with the race being rated as now a toss-up, and Kohl has the advantage in both momentum and strong fundraising, as well as Grothman getting hit for using taxpayer dollars to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on snail-mail notifications in the district to “keep his constituents informed” instead of paying for campaign advertising.
Again, there are four weeks to go until the election or so… but if Glenn Grothman gets booted on November 6th, we’re going to be more than willing to wish him “good riddance” on his way out.