It was onthis date in 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled Renee Unterman, who has served in the Georgia state legislature in its House of Representatives back in 1998, and moved up into the Georgia State Senate in 2002. She’s been highly conservative for almost two decades, but it was back in 2016 that she started to draw attention to herself for a bizarre determination to use her position as the head of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services to unilaterally prevent hearings on solving the problem of getting funding going towards the state testing thousands of untested rape kits sitting in a back log, the victims who allowed them to be collected wondering if they would ever get tested, and their attackers ever face justice. Unterman’s bizarre defense for this was to claim there just WASN’T a backlog of rape kits under her watch, because if there us, the problem would have already been solved, “Johnny on the spot”.
There was, obviously, bipartisan support to do this from both Democrats, and several Georgia Republicans in the State Senate. The bizarre choice of Unterman to do this earned her a name-drop on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee in March of 2016. Thankfully, there is a happy ending to the story, as the sponsor of the bill, Democratic Rep. Scott Holcomb, was aided by the Republican Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston, The whole legislative miracle of two parties working together to side-step an obstructionist misanthrope made it into a follow-up segment on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee in March 2017… and Renee Unterman decided it would be a great idea to try and paint herself as the victim in this story, calling Sam Bee “vile”, and getting really salty about the fact that Holcomb and Ralston were asking each other, “What the f*** is wrong with Renee?” because POTTYMOUTHS. Which, foul language is a real problem that something should be done about, unlike untested rape kits, AMIRITE, YOU GUYS? As we discovered upon further research, this isn’t the only time that Unterman has used her position to unilaterally block common sense legislation, as she also did so to block a medical marijuana bill back in 2014, as well. With great power, comes a great responsibility to do nothing with it, like Bizarro Spider-Man would say.
The rest of Unterman’s voting record looks like you’d probably expect from someone who justifies all the s***ty things she does on being from “Red meat” country, including her co-sponsorship of SB 396, one of the most bonkers gun laws in the past 20 years in our country (and that’s saying something), which would have allowed Georgia residents to even use deadly force to defend their property, in public, as long as the weapon used was legal. She also has voted to create stricter Voter ID measures aimed at disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters in Georgia, voted for some of her nuttier colleagues’ tinfoil hat conspiracy theory ban on human microchip implantations (which of course weren’t actually even happening), voted for unconstitutional attempts at making drivers’ tests to be given in English only, voted for Georgia Republicans’ attempt at banning picketing outside of corporations (because that’s not a clear violation of the 1st Amendment right to assemble, whatsoever), voted for a 4th Amendment violating bill to institute drug testing on welfare recipients, voted for a “religious freedom” bill to try to allow religious officials the right to refuse services to same sex couples, and several anti-abortion measures throughout the years.
Since we last covered Renee Unterman, she again made some headlines in Georgia after she weighed in on the candidates on the GOP Primary for Governor of Georgia. After a fellow legislator, David Clark, endorsed Brian Kemp, and not the candidate she preferred, Casey Cagle, she got on Twitter to accuse Clark of casting “votes for sexual predators preying on young children being bought & sold for sex”. Several Georgia state legislators from both sides of the aisle not only corrected the record on “the human trafficking bill” that Unterman sponsored not actually doing much of anything to stave off the problem, but blasted her for holding such a petty grudge and pulling some hyperbolic rhetoric to attack a colleague. Unterman never apologized or deleted the post.
In spite of how quickly she’s becoming infamous, Renee Unterman won re-election in 2018 with 58% of the vote. Even more unnerving, is now she feels as though she’s Congressional material, and is making a run for the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District. So should she escape a crowded primary and win… we can look forward to national cable news covering the bipartisan issue of “What the f*** is wrong with Renee?” at some point in 2021. Oh joy.
One Year Ago, July 17th, 2018: Renee Unterman (GA)… 2018 Update
Two Years Ago, July 17th, 2017: Renee Unterman (GA)… Original Profile
Three Years Ago, July 17th, 2016: Mike Huckabee (AR)… 2016 Update
Four Years Ago, July 17th, 2015: Mike Huckabee (AR)… Original Profile
Five Years Ago, July 17th, 2014: Sharron Angle (NV)