Welcome to what is the 859th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the sitting U.S. House Representative from Georgia’s 1st Congressional District, Buddy Carter, who has served in Congress since first winning office in 2014. Prior to that, he was festering around the Georgia state legislature for a decade from 2005 to 2014. It was in his last year in office in 2014 in the Georgia State Senate that he became the subject of controversy after he sponsored SB 408 which would add requirements on insurance companies which could make mail-order pharmacies lose some of their price advantage. Critics immediately pointed out that this was obvious self-dealing, because Carter owned three local walk-in pharmacies, and he scoffed, instead attacking the media for reporting on his attempt at corruption, and claiming, “It was not a conflict of interest at all. This is just another example of the biased media attacking conservatives.” And of course, Carter is still looking for ways to try and enrich himself based on voting now that he’s in Congress, swearing to never make a vote that would ******* the Affordable Care Act, and reacting to Senator Lisa Murkowski promising to vote against a repeal of it by saying that “Someone needs to go to the Senate and snatch a knot in their ass.”
Classy.
Other than that less than gentlemanly moment, We want to point out that Buddy Carter once told his constituents he felt no need to test a city’s potential rape kit backlog if they were a sanctuary city for immigrants. Also, he sponsored HB 586 in February of 2017, which had it passed, would have outlawed abortion. Completely. Without any exceptions. From conception, he wants all zygotes to have constitutional rights. (How they’re going to exercise their right to bear arms, we can’t say, but it’s the most Republican idea possible.)
On immigration, Buddy Carter deems that “granting amnesty to illegal immigrants is unconstitutional”, and he *******ed Donald Trump’s bigoted Muslim travel ban from the moment it was announced. But he’s not just Islamophobic, but transphobic as well, *******ing Donald Trump’s illogical, random attempt to ban transgender troops from the armed services, saying, quite callously, “I don’t want ‘em serving in the military. SORRY.”
At his first town hall after the election of Donald Trump, Congressman Carter told his constituents he would be “in the front of the line” to investigate Donald Trump should he have done anything illegal prior to getting elected in regards to soliciting help from a foreign power to interfere in our elections. Shock of shocks, when Donald Trump had Bill Barr try to make the Mueller Investigation go away only to immediately pressure Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden, Carter’s reaction wasn’t to bury his head in the sand where he stood, but to immediately declare the whistleblower complaint “wasn’t evidence of anything” from the jump and then dig in and spend the following months after it twisting himself in knots to keep an incompetent crook in office.
Here’s a look at some of the other low lights of his career as a legislator in Congress:
- January 22nd, 2015: Buddy Carter 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. Carter 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: Carter 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: Carter votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Carter 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: Carter 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: Buddy Carter 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: Carter 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: Buddy Carter 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: Carter 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 Carter 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: Buddy Carter 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: Carter 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: Buddy Carter 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. Carter 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 votes for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Carter voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- January 27th, 2019: Buddy Carter votes against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attack Carter our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
- February 28th, 2019: 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.
- April 4th, 2019: Buddy Carter 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: Carter votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- 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: Buddy Carter 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 23rd, 2019: Carter is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
Georgia’s 1st Congressional District currently has a +9 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and going into the GOP Primary, he has two challengers, Daniel Merritt and Ken Yasger, and will face one of three Democratic candidates, Joyce Marie Griggs, Lisa Ring, or Barbara Seidman in the general election. While in many election years, a 9% advantage would make a candidate untouchable, a lot of polling of generic candidates coming in shows that might not, in fact, be insurmountable for Republicans in 2020, as there are generic Congressional candidate polls from around the country that are placing it within reach. Carter won in 2018 with 57% of the vote with a similar partisan advantage, so it’s going to be interesting to see if someone can pull an upset in 2020.
One Year Ago, April 27th, 2019: Rebecca Kleefisch (WI)… 2019 Update
Two Years Ago, April 27th, 2018: Rebecca Kleefisch (WI)… 2018 Update
Three Years Ago, April 27th, 2017: Rebecca Kleefisch (WI)… 2017 Update
Four Years Ago. April 27th , 2016: Rebecca Kleefisch (WI)… 2016 Update
Five Years Ago: April 27th , 2015: Rebecca Kleefisch (WI)… Original Profile