Welcome to what is the 830th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be profiling Patricia McElraft, a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives from District 13, and former Delta Burke stunt-double. McElraft has held office now in North Carolina since 2007, meaning she’s been at the heart of some of the s***tiest moments from Tar Heel State Republicans over the past decade, but let’s just look at what she’s been up to since 2013:
- August 2nd, 2012: McElraft drafts HB 819, a bill to ban all research on the impacts of climate change upon the North Carolina coastline.
- April 11th, 2013: Patricia McElraft votes for HB 392, another of those insane GOP bills that seek to drug test welfare recipients, then lose a state a ton of money on the cost of drug testing only to find no significant drug use until lawsuits against the laws succeed to prove the law is a violation of the 4th Amendment rights of those it seeks to test.
- June 5th, 2013: McElraft votes for the Repeal of the Racial Justice Act.
- July 11th, 2013: Patricia McElraft votes for SB 353, an extremely restrictive anti-abortion bill that was amended by the North Carolina GOP from a motorcycle safety bill into an anti-choice measure.
- July 25th, 2013: McElraft votes for HB 589, one of several “stricter Voter ID laws” North Carolina Republicans push during her tenure aimed at suppressing the vote.
- June 3rd, 2015: Patricia McElraft votes for HB 465, a TRAP law aimed at creating abortion regulations so restrictive that they would effectively force the closure of all abortion clinics in the state for failing to be able to meet them.
- June 11th, 2015: McElraft votes for SB 2, a bill to allow state officials to refuse to perform “certain marriage duties” if they have a “sincerely held” religious objection.
- July 21st, 2015: Responding to the South Carolina state legislature voting to remove the Confederate flag from their state capitol after the mass murder of nine African Americans at the historical Charleston AME Church, Patricia McElraft is one of several North Carolina Republicans who vote for SB 22, and to make it harder to remove Confederate monuments in North Carolina.
- March 23rd, 2016: McElraft co-sponsors HB 2, North Carolina’s disastrous anti-LGBT law, and boycotts over the law cost the state well over a trillion dollars of revenue from business boycotts and the tourism industry.
She was even a part of the revolting vote by the North Carolina GOP on the 2019 anniversary of 9/11, when the Republicans in the state legislature told Democrats that no votes were scheduled on the anniversary to honor the victims of 9/11… and then they called a vote to pass a veto-proof budget anyway without the opposition in the chamber.
DEMOCRACY! FASCIST-RULING MINORITY-STYLE!
We’ll note that our final reason to single out McElraft for a profile is related to that first bill that she drafted, HB 819. Literally passing a law to deny the existence of climate change by ignoring scientists takes some serious chutzpah, but it’s the quotes she used to justify it that are truly bonkers:
“In 1974, the alarmists were talking about the ice age coming in. What has happened, has the ice age come in?”
(Spoiler alert: climate change scientists never said anything like that. It’s only reported that they did on the sorts of websites where you can read about lizard-men infiltrating our government to steal our water, and the Bilderberg group ruling over the planet.)
Patricia McElraft will be 73 when November 2020 rolls around, and she will not face a primary challenger prior to her matchup with Democrat Buck Bayliff in the general election. Her district leans so conservative that she’s unlikely to go anywhere of her own will, much to the detriment of North Carolina.
One Year Ago, January 29th, 2019: Randy Hultgren (IL)… 2019 Update
One Year Ago, January 29th, 2018: Randy Hultgren (IL)… Original Profile
Two Years Ago, January 29th, 2017:Sally Kern (OK)… 2017 Update
Three Years Ago, January 29th, 2016: Sally Kern (OK)… 2016 Update
Four Years Ago, January 29th, 2015: Sally Kern (OK)… Original Profile