In both 2016, and 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented its original profile of the U.S. House Representative from Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, Jackie Walorski, who during her time in the Indiana House of Representatives from 2004-2012, gained some notoriety for being a co-sponsor of a widely contested Voter ID bill to curtail the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud that led to a slew of lawsuits, was barely upheld in a U.S. Supreme Court challenge, and was then duplicated by various other Republican-controlled state legislatures to ensure voter suppression as a national tactic. What really made Jackie Walorski stand out, however, was her complete dedication to attacks on a woman’s right to choose, often sabotaging common sense legislation in the Indiana state legislature by adding on riders or amendments regarding abortion that would be the “poison pill” to make Democrats in Indiana forced to no longer support it. She used this tactic most famously (and disgustingly) to sabotage legislation to prevent hate crimes against the LGBT community by putting in an amendment to consider fetuses a protected group. Walorski decided to make the jump to national politics and hoped to ride the Tea Party Wave to Washington, D.C., to represent Indiana’s 2nd District in the 2010 elections, challenging Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly for his U.S. House seat. During that campaign, she spoke about privatizing Social Security, and with her radical record in the Indiana state legislature, voters still balked at the idea of putting her into office.
But alas, she still wasn’t giving up hope, especially after Indiana’s 2nd District was gerrymandered after the 2010 elections by House Republicans so that Walorski could get another chance at weaseling her way into Congress again, once it had a +6 Republican lean, rather than the previous rating, only a +2 lean, that it had when she lost to Joe Donnelly in 2010. Donnelly didn’t want a rematch, and instead, ran a successful campaign in 2012 to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Jackie Walorski would lose any advantage she might have gained from fundraising, though, after she was involved in a scandal regarding her attempts to fundraise off of a Planned Parenthood “sting” video. No, not the ones that popped up over the summer of 2015. Walorski was using footage from a pro-life activist pretending to be a 13 year old girl and go to a Planned Parenthood to raise money for her campaign coffers even prior to that slander. She sent the fundraising letter out during a period when it wasn’t allowed, then tried saying the ethics committee who were investigating her for doing so were “overlooking the rape and sexual abuse of a 13-year old minor”. (Which, again, wasn’t true, she wasn’t 13, wasn’t raped or abused, and wasn’t pregnant.) Anyway, Walorski’s Democratic opponent was an Iraq War Veteran Brendan Mullen, and as the polling showed the race tightening in August of 2012, she made the classy decision to doxx him, and release his home addresses in Washington, D.C., to the public in a campaign ad. Sadly, this tactic may have worked, as Walorski won office by only about 3,800 votes, 49 to 48%.(And we remind you, this was after the district was gerrymandered to help her as a Republican.)
Since she arrived in the capitol, Walorski’s voting record includes votes against disaster relief funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy, voting to defund the Department of Homeland Security to protest President Obama’s executive orders on delayed deportations, voting for the 2013 Government Shutdown and all anti-choice legislation that comes to the floor. Oh, and she did react to the more recent faux-controversy over Planned Parenthood because of the Center for Medical Progress bogus “sting videos, accusing the organization of ”selling baby body parts.“ Which if you recall, is the exact kind of rhetoric that motivated Robert Dear, the shooter who attacked and killed several people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, so thanks for that, Jackie.
Ironically, in 2016, Rep. Walorski survived both a primary challenge because of how she pulled her own anti-choice bill, HR 7, because she realized too late that it would not provide exceptions for rape, unless it was reported to authorities. Both Walorski and Rep. Renee Ellmers panicked, and called for their own legislation to be dropped before they risked reigniting the War on Women claims the GOP had been battling in a big way (considering they schedule the vote on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, yeah, it would have been pretty bad). Walorski was immediately branded a traitor to the Pro-Life movement, and did her best to earn back their good graces by getting her name down as a co-sponsor on HR 36 in May of 2015, but to no avail. That’s all it took, was pulling back on one anti-abortion measure for how it phrased its exceptions for rape, and she was No True Scotsman. So Jeff Petermann came onto the scene to try to swipe her seat in Congress out from under her. But alas, Petermann failed to unseat her, and Walorski returned to office with 59% of the vote in the general election against Democrat Lynn Coleman.
As such, Walorski has remained in office for a third term, and continues to be a hard-right influence as you’d expect:
- March 16th, 2017: Jackie Walorski 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. Walorski votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: Walorski 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 which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Walorski would be allowed to keep her healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. She and her 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: Jackie Walorski 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. Walorski chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
- October 3rd, 2017: Walorski 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: Jackie Walorski 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.
Walorski has been busy so far in the past few months pleading with Donald Trump to quit being a schmuck and doing moronic things like try to impose tariffs on China, and to please work with the GOP-controlled Congress. And it’s that sort of impotent behavior combined with dodging town halls in her district that make her particularly vulnerable in the 2018 elections, especially when she’s got a candidate like former CEO and Notre Dame alumni Mel Hall coming after her in November. (He’s a Notre Dame alum, and this district has South Bend in it? This could get fun…)
One Year Ago, April 22nd, 2017: Jackie Walorski (IN)… 2017 Update
Two Years Ago. April 22nd, 2016: Jackie Walorski (IN)… Original Profile
Three Years Ago: April 22nd, 2015: Stephen “Stephanie” Meade (CA)