On this day in both 2016, 2017, and 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented a profile of the sitting U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 31st Congressional District, John Carter, now in his eighth term in Washington, coming into office back in 2002 after spending two decades as a district court judge in the Lone Star state. Carter almost always coasts to victory when his seat comes up for re-election, with his worst showing being a still-impressive 58% of the vote back in the “blue wave” election year of 2006. Due to the extensive bounty of Texas Republicans out there exhibiting obvious signs of mental deficiency or psychological imbalance out there, you might not have heard much about Rep. Carter. Well, that and when you do a Google search of “John Carter” you either get news about a movie that completely tanked at the box office, or art inspired from the book it’s based on featuring a shirtless guy posing with a scantily clad Martian woman wrapped demurely around his leg. I’ll wait a moment while everyone tests that fact to ogle some cheesecake and/or beefcake.
Okay, back to Congressman Carter, now. Our main objection to John Carter being in Congress is not just that he opposes climate change, but to the extent that he does. He actually thinks a phenomenon proven by the great majority of scientific studies is just the result of some massive campaign to trick the populace into supporting it:
“Global warming is simply a chicken-little scheme to use mass media and government propaganda to convince the world that destruction of individual liberties and national sovereignty is necessary to save mankind, and that the unwashed masses would destroy themselves without the enlightened global dictatorship of these frauds.“
And that’s right off his campaign website. If that quote alone doesn’t show you how deep he’s into the cause of climate change denial, feel free to read some of his other comments from the Congressional record on January 24th, 2011.
John Carter was also a huge proponent of the 2013 Government Shutdown, and he was in full spin mode in the build up to it, trying to convince the American people that his cause was noble, and if he didn’t bring the federal government to a screeching halt, and the Affordable Care Act was allowed to go forward, that all would be lost:
“We must postpone this overreaching and damaging law that I believe will bankrupt the hard-working every day American.”
One of the things about John Carter that we find unsettling, though, is that he is the Chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, and one of his responsibilities is preventing cyberterrorism. It’s quite troublesome that Rep. Carter cannot even pronounce the word ”cyber“, admits ”I don’t know anything about this stuff“, and then proceeds to try and conduct a hearing to discuss encryption where he would demonstrate how much of an understatement that really was. Now in his mid-seventies, John Carter doesn’t “get” technology, and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to figure it out, with our national security hanging in the balance.
While the rest of Carter’s opinion on national security past that, of course, is to keep out all immigrants and refugees, and his voting record since hitting office has been highly partisan, supporting a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, voted against equal pay, a woman’s right to choose, against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, for the 2013 Government Shutdown and against reopening the government after it was over.
As his voting record goes on…
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Carter voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: John Carter votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Carter votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Carter votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: John Carter is one of 187 Republicans who vote against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
John Carter got 58% of the vote in the 2016 elections, winning by over twenty points over a Democratic challenger, Mike Clark and Libertarian Scott Ballard. He’s now 78 years old, and should he run for re-election in 2020, it would be for his tenth term in office… however he might join the list of Texas Republican House members opting out, considering he barely won in 2018 against M.J. Hegar when he only pulled down 50.6% of the vote. Texas is trending bluer every day now, and it seems to have started a "Texodus” of retiring Texas GOP Congressman. With voter registration numbers showing Texas trending blue and in a big way… if he does choose to run, he might have voters choose “retirement” for him whether he likes it or not.
One Year Ago, August 14th, 2018: John Carter (TX)… 2018 Update
Two Years Ago, August 14th, 2017: John Carter (TX)… 2017 Update
Three Years Ago, August 14th, 2016: John Carter (TX)… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, August 14th, 2015: Ken Cuccinelli (VA)… 2015 Update
Five Years Ago, August 14th, 2014: Ken Cuccinelli (VA)… Original Profile