On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 14th Congressional District, Randy Weber, which is also the former Congressional seat held by Ron Paul, whom Weber replaced. Weber has become a particularly surly member of the Texas Congressional delegation and House Freedom Caucus who reacted to the Supreme Court overturning the Defense of Marriage Act by claiming they were “colluding” with the White House, and then tried to write a series of bill phrased to try and circumvent or nullify that decision that all stalled. H also called President Obama the “Kommandant-in-Chief”, compared President Obama’s visit to Paris to the one Hitler made in World War II, talked about impeaching him for reasons he couldn’t put into words, and claimed that he couldn’t be trusted to fight ISIS or an Ebola outbreak because people died in Benghazi. But epidemics are something which Rep. Weber seems to have a fascination with, as he’s falsely attributed the spread of tuberculosis and H1N1 to having been spread by illegal immigrants crossing our Southern border. He’s quite the charmer, you see.
Since winning re-election in 2016, boy howdy, has Rep. Weber not kept his mouth shut in Congress. Right at the last session was beginning back in January of 2017, Donald Trump was still president-elect, and had one of those kinds of press conferences where he attacks journalists, responding to CNN’s Jim Acosta’s questions by declaring him “Fake News”. While most reasonable observers would have stepped up and criticized the president for trying to attack the fourth estate and act like the sort of fascist dictators that Randy Weber spent the Obama administration comparing Barack Obama to, and wetting himself in terror. Instead, Rep. Weber chose to get on Twitter to say that Acosta was “disruptive” and “should be fired”:
“The CNN reporter who was disruptive to the press briefing, & disrespectful to Trump-should be fired & prohibited from any press briefings.”
It would only take about another three months for Randy Weber to shoot his mouth off again, this time it was in a speech at the sixth annual “Washington- A Man of Prayer” event where he literally broke into tears, sobbing as he begged the forgiveness of God because abortion and same sex marriage are legal. These are the sorts of crocodile tears you only see from televangelists while they’re decrying sin, not a member of Congress with the cameras rolling… but then again, his district is the one that kept electing Ron Paul for years and years.
Weber’s voting record remains as partisan as you’ll find in Congress:
- January 22nd, 2019: Weber votes against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Weber voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- January 27th, 2019: Randy Weber votes against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attack Weber our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
- February 28th, 2019: Weber 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. Weber 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.
- April 4th, 2019: Randy Weber is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- May 17th, 2019: Weber votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Weber votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: Randy Weber votes 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”.
- October 17th, 2019: Weber is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
- December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Weber is one of 71 Republicans who votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
- December 18th, 2019: Weber ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
- May 15th, 2020: Weber votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Texas’ 14th District has a +12 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Even in spite of the fact that Rep. Weber was believed to have met with Russian oligarch Alexander Torshin, no less with Russian spy Maria Butina in attendance back in 2015, which you’d think would have tainted him as a candidate far more than it did in 2018… but he got re-elected then. The current discussion was if he would retire in the “Republican Texodus” as 2020 approached, as multiple GOP Congressman from the Texas caucus were all opting to retire, rather than run for re-election. Randy Weber stuck around, however, in a district that has a +26 Republican lean, survived a primary challenger, and then won on Election Day with 62% of the vote over Democrat Adrienne Bell.
We can expect him to continue to start pretending Joe Biden is a dictator in about two months time, like right after the inauguration. Hell, he might not wait that long.