Welcome to the 733rd original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing the former U.S. House Representative from Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District, John Duncan, Jr, who is pictured in the above photo where his grin makes him look like he’s auditioning to be a scheming mad scientist in a 1950s horror movie. Now, John Duncan Jr. is another GOP political legacy, as his father held office or Tennessee’s 2nd District from 1964 through 1988. Immediately after his father’s death that year, Duncan Jr. was elected in a special election to hold a seat that’s been Republican since 1859. Duncan would frequently not even face a challenger for his seat, getting pushed back into office at one point for four consecutive election cycles from 1994-2000 unopposed. Duncan wasn’t someone we rushed to profile, because every now and then, Duncan would go off the reservation and reject the agenda of the main Republican Party, like how he was one of the few Republicans to vote against the Iraq War resolution, or how he voted against the bailouts for Wall Street in 2007.
But really, when we really dig, there’s more to learn about Jimmy Duncan Jr. to take exception to. You don’t get to be a Congressman for 30 years and not say or do something stupid in that role. He tended to identify with the Libertarian wing of the GOP, and we didn’t notice at first, that in 2013, Rep. Duncan floated the idea that Ron Paul kept regurgitating, to return the United States to the gold standard. (Which economists estimate would crash not just the American economy, but the global economy.) He also refers to climate change as “the greatest scam in history” and cites five so-called scientists who disprove what ALL the other climate change scientists say is definitely happening.
There were also several years in Congress where Duncan did vote along party lines enough that he was the most conservative member of the Tennessee Congressional Caucus, which when we’re talking about a group that includes people like Marsha Blackburn, Scott Desjarlais, or Diane Black, that’s saying something.We mean, look at this voting record:
- July 12th, 1996: John Duncan votes for the Defense of Marriage Act.
- March 21st, 2005: Rep. Duncan votes for the Terry Schiavo Incapacitated Persons Protection Bill. This despite the fact that a large majority of the country polled at the time felt that the government preventing a person’s plan to die with dignity was an overreach.
- July 18th, 2006: Duncan co-sponsors and votes for a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
- December 6th, 2006: Rep. Duncan co-sponsors and votes for the “Abortion Pain Bill”, which would create an unconstitutional ban on abortion at 20 weeks.
- July 31st, 2007: John Duncan votes against the Equal Pay Bill.November 7th, 2007: John Duncan votes against ENDA, allowing the continued discrimination of LGBTQ citizens based on their sexual identity in the workplace.
- July 24th, 2008: Rep. Duncan votes against funding for the prevention of AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
- January 9th, 2009: Duncan votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
- April 29th, 2009: John Duncan votes against the Hate Crimes Expansion that would provide protections to LGBT citizens.
- June 30th, 2010: After Wall Street bankers taking unnecessary risks nearly imploded the global economy in 2007, legislation finally comes forward to prevent the same behaviors from being permitted in the future. The signature piece of legislation to prevent another financial meltdown was Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, which John Duncan voted against.
- July 30th, 2010: Months after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a bill comes to the floor to better regulate off-shore drilling. Duncan is apparently alright with ecological disasters continuing in the future, as he votes against it.
- December 8th, 2010: Rep. Duncan votes against the DREAM Act.
- December 15th, 2010: Duncan votes against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
- On January 5th, 2011, Rep. Duncan votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.On
- February 18th, 2011, John Duncan votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
- March 17th, 2011: Rep. Duncan votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
- September 15th, 2012: Rep. Duncan votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- September 21st, 2012: Duncan co-sponsors and votes for the “Stop the War on Coal Act”.
- January 15th, 2013: John Duncan votes against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
- February 28th, 2013: Duncan votes against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
- June 19th, 2013: John Duncan votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Rep. Duncan votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown. When the vote came up seventeen days later to re-open the government, Duncan voted to keep it closed.
- Feb 26th, 2014: John Duncan goes “all in” on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by co-sponsoring and voting for the “Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act”.
- July 10th, 2014: Duncan 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: John Duncan 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. Duncan 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: Duncan 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: Duncan votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Duncan 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: Duncan 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: John Duncan 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: Duncan 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: John Duncan 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.
- May 4th, 2017: Duncan 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, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Duncan 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: John Duncan 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: Duncan 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: John Duncan 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: Rep. Duncan 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.
Shortly after the election of Donald Trump, in February of 2017, after Duncan had seen the rage from Democratic activists the day after the inauguration, and at the Women’s March, as well as other protests, he rejected call to host a town hall with his constituents. Where he definitely screwed up is when he publicly admitted it was because he felt that doing this entirely normal part of a representative’s job amounted to showing up for “shouting opportunities for extremists, kooks and radicals.”
Still, Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District has a +20 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Index, and the Duncan family name has been a rubber-stamp for re-election since the Beatles were putting out albums. That seat would belong to John Duncan, Jr. as long as he wanted it, which presumably, he then would try and make his son, John Duncan III, a Knox County Trustee, the shoe-in to be his successor. Well… funny thing about that. Apparently John Duncan Jr. became the target of an ethics investigation for misusing campaign funds for taking personal vacations, to a sum of about $100,000. Meanwhile, his son, John III, was charged with a crime because he worked on his father’s campaign, and the “work” amounted to “do nothing, shut up, and take $300,000”.
This news broke probably not coincidentally around the time Duncan opted to not run for re-election in 2018, and thus, for the first time in over a half century, there is not a Duncan in Congress representing Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District. It seems unlikely that the criminal investigation into him allegedly illegally paying his son with campaign funds would aid any other member of his family from continuing their political dynasty, at least for a generation. And we are perfectly fine with that, and wish Mr. Duncan the finest of “good riddance” greetings.
One Year Ago, February 21st, 2018: Kevin Lundberg (CO)… 2018 Update
Two Years Ago, February 21st, 2017: Kevin Lundberg (CO)… 2017 Update
Three Years Ago. February 21st, 2016: Kevin Lundberg (CO)… 2016 Update
Four Years Ago, February 21st, 2015: Kevin Lundberg (CO)… Original Profile