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 California’s 49th District, Darrell Issa, who remains the wealthiest man in all of Congress. Issa’s past includes being arrested for stealing a car, and investigated for potential arson in an insurance fraud scheme, and after throwing millions of dollars at a couple unsuccessful Congressional campaigns in the late nineties, he finally found his way to Washington, D.C. in the 2000 election. Issa has made a name for himself the past several years as the Chairman of the House Oversight committee, where he set records for the number of subpoenas he issued to people while leading witch hunts whenever a “scandal” broke in the conservative news media. Sadly, in calling hearings over Solyndra, the IRS investigations into 501c4 groups, Wikileaks, and double-digit investigations into Benghazi… in all those Congressional hearings, exactly zero convictions or criminal charges have been filed, and a small fortune in taxpayer dollars have been wasted in his mad quest to root out corruption that doesn’t exist. Rep. Issa himself bragged in 2010 that under his watch, the House Oversight Committee would hold hearings “seven hearings a week for 40 weeks”. He issued my subpoenas during his tenure than his three predecessors combined. In 2016, he called for the Republican Party to have another government shutdown to protest if Hillary Clinton was not charged with a crime for using a private e-mail server while serving as Secretary of State, because that’s not an unreasonable demand. You’d think with all the s*** the man threw at the wall over a seven-year tenure in that position, he could have managed to find something that would stick, but all it did at best was hurt the poll numbers of whomever he was attacking at the time.
Now, what’s new with Rep. Issa is rather timely. Back on June 28th, 2017, he went to speak before the Federation for American Immigration Reform, aka FAIR, aka an honest-to-not-goodness hate group whose founder likes to talk a lot about the white race being superior because eugenics prove it. And after the Neo-Nazis were marching through Charlottesville and carried out a terror attack, suddenly Issa wanted hearings on white supremacy in Congress. Hey, Darrell? Maybe you should go back through your day planner and invite some of your pals, y’know?
Darrell Issa eked out a victory over Democrat Doug Applegate in the 2016 elections, winning with 50.3% of the vote (a difference of about 1400 total votes). So far in his ninth term in office, he’s frustrated the people in his home district:
- February 16th, 2017: Issa 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: Darrell Issa 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. Issa 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: Issa 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 Issa 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: Darrell Issa 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: Issa 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).
- February 18th, 2018: Rep. Issa 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.
California’s 49th District currently has a +4 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and while that isn’t exactly insurmountable, there’s the matter of Issa’s massive wealth supplementing his fundraising to consider. In a California swing district, and with his actions so far this term have already drawn the ire of his constituents, so much so that he ran up to the roof of his building to avoid them, and went out of his way to plan a “town hall” where he had a special invitation list of people who were conservative, so he wouldn’t have any confrontations with people who actually disagree with them.
After record Democratic voter registration, and record Latino voter registration started to be reported throughout most of California, including Darrell Issa’s district, It became official on January 10th, 2018… Darrell Issa is retiring from office after 9 terms in Congress. And to that, we would like to say… “Goooooood f***ing riddance.”