One year ago today, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” had its first profile of the U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 11th Congressional District, Mike Conaway, a former accountant and longtime toady of the Bush family who first won office way back in the 2004 elections, who honestly has done his damnedest to not be noticed while the rest of the Texas House Congressional Caucus do all the stupid things. But as mostly anonymous as Conaway has been compared to some of his compatriots, of late he’s drawing a lot of attention, due to the fact that after California Congressman Devin Nunes went and f***ed up meddling in the Trump/Russia investigation by running to the White House to warn them about how the FBI had picked up their conversations with Russian agents during the 2016 elections… while they were monitoring the Russian agents. That’s obviously as partisan of an act as you’re going to see from someone overseeing an investigation, to warn the person being investigated that they were, in fact, the subject of an investigation, and what evidence has been gathered against them. The GOP had to abruptly find someone else to take over trying to quash the inquiries into whether or not the Trump campaigning was doing all the treason and colluding with a foreign power to get their help in winning the presidency in the 2016 election, and picked Rep. Conaway to be the guy, although for Nunes’ supposed “recusal”, he’s still been repeatedly caught with his thumb on the scales a handful of times.
Anyway, yeah, Rep. Conaway’s dozen years of anonymity have gone out the window, because he’s overseeing the House’s Trump/Russia investigation from here on out. Conaway has already expressed doubt in hearings with James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers as to whether or not Russia even interfered in the 2016 election (meanwhile all the U.S. intelligence agencies agree, they totally did). Instead, Rep. Conaway would rather spend time scoring points in hearings that should be serving as a way to preserve the integrity of American elections from a foreign power by instead, talking about the rivalry between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Texas Longhorns (Look, we love college football as much as the next guy, but F***ING PRIORITIES, MIKE. JESUS.) and declare the whole fact that a presidential candidate colluded with a foreign power to sway an election in his favor a case of “move along, nothing to see here”.
It would be a shame if there were some sort of evidence within Mike Conaway’s voting record to indicate that he’s fine with elections being stacked in the favor of the Republican Party, regardless of the cost… OH WAIT, THERE IS. Back in 2006, when the Voting Rights Act was up for renewal in the House, Mike Conaway was one of 33 members of the GOP who shamed themselves by voting against it (and seriously, look down that list, and you see a lot of names from previous CSGOPOTD profiles like Roscoe Bartlett, Steve King, Virginia Foxx, Dana Rohrabacher, and Trent Franks).
Even though the perception is that Conaway is somehow the most trustworthy member of the Republican House they could have placed to oversee the House’s version of the Trump/Russia investigation, we’re still talking about a guy who’s posed for photos in a “MAGA” hast who as late as January of 2017 was comparing the hacking done by Russian hackers during the 2017 election as much of a severe and unprecedented manipulation upon the outcome to the fact that Hillary Clinton hired a Mariachi band to appear at one of her campaign events:
“Harry Reid and the Democrats brought in Mexican soap opera stars, singers and entertainers who had immense influence in those communities into Las Vegas, to entertain, get out the vote and so forth. Those are foreign actors, foreign people, influencing the vote in Nevada. You don’t hear the Democrats screaming and saying one word about that.”
And that is some “bothsidesdoit” bulls***.
And we’re also talking about a guy who has blocked inquiries into finding out how much all of Donald Trump’s weekly trips down to Mar-A-Lago on Air Force One, to stay at his own resort and charge the Secret Service for room nights there actually are costing taxpayers. His actual defense into blocking the inquiry is hardly inspiring:
“This is the House Armed Services Committee. We don’t oversee the federal bureau of ethics.”
So he can acknowledge there’s a reason for there to be some sort of ethical violation there, but THAT’S NOT THIS COMMITTEE’S JOB, SO SHOVE OFF. Although, maybe Rep. Conaway’s lack of concern about ethics might explain why he and his wife have chosen to ignore the rules set in place by the Stock Act, and started purchasing shares in health insurance companies while knowing they would profit from those shares even more if the GOP successfully repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Outside of Conaway trying to half-ass the Trump/Russia inquiry and pretend he’s fully engaged, well, there’s a long, long voting record for us to dive into, featuring the fact that co-sponsored and voted for a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage back in 2006, has on several occasions votes for bans on abortion at 20 weeks twice voted to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, votes against equal pay for women and minimum wage increases, votes against any and all legislation that would increase LGBTQ rights including ENDA and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the fact that he voted against the DREAM Act, voted against the Zadroga Bill, to provide healthcare for first responders from 9/11, and in 2011, even voted against raising the Debt Ceiling limit, which if not lifted, economists warned could have led to the collapse of not just the American economy, but the global economy. Mike Conaway voted against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy, but last year was more than content to vote for Hurricane Harvey disaster relief, but only because he isn’t stupid enough to turn down funding to his own district.
- February 16th, 2017: Conaway 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. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
- March 16th, 2017: Mike Conaway 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. Conaway votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
- May 4th, 2017: Conaway 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 Conaway 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: Mike Conaway 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.
- October 3rd, 2017: Conaway 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: Mike Conaway 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.
- February 18th, 2018: Conaway and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
Unless he gets a serious primary challenger, don’t expect Mike Conaway to be going anywhere unless he chooses to go himself. After all, Texas’ 11th Congressional District only has a +32 Republican lean, only the second most conservative partisan lean for any Congressional District in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. It’s part of why the Republicans wanted Conaway in charge of the Trump/Russia investigation, when you think about it… no matter how much partisan interference he provides… there’s a statistically a slim chance that district flips blue. That’s probably why Democrats didn’t field a candidate against him since 2012, and he only has had to fend off whatever Libertarian candidate appears to try and knock him off. Instead, this year Conaway will face a challenge from Democrat Jennie Lou Leeder, a former teacher and swim coach. If Leeder somehow were to win, well, that would be the biggest proof of a Blue Wave election, to say the least. Odds are highly, highly against that happening. But every candidate deserves a credible challenge. She will, at least, give him that.
One Year Ago, July 12th, 2017: Mike Conaway (TX)… Original Profile
Two Years Ago, July 12th, 2016: Rick Green (TX)
Three Years Ago, July 12th, 2015: Kristia Cavere (NY)
Four Years Ago, July 12th, 2014: Richard Mourdock (IN)