On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for West Virginia’s’ 2nd District, Alex Mooney, who we noted had carpetbagged his way across the Maryland border after serving for years as a state legislator, and waiting in vain for former U.S. House Rep. Roscoe Bartlett to retire, eventually just getting annoyed enough to move to West Virginia and try to run for office there. During his time as a Maryland state legislator, though, Mooney became synonymous with the issue of LGBTQ rights, and his extreme opposition to them. At one point during a 1999 debate on hate crime legislation, Mooney sarcastically asked if people who commit beastiality should also be protected under the law, and in 2008, during a debate on same sex marriage, went as far as to claim its legalization would lead to the gay community “oppressing” religious figures and they would be “coming for the children”.
Mooney also has pushed for legislation to allow the display of religious monuments in public buildings (which is a violation of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment that guarantees a separation of church and state), considers any compromise on immigration to be amnesty, and speaks publicly about “gun-grabbers and pro-abortion zealots” (because that’s totally the direction things have trended the past six years or so in our country). In September of 2015, Mooney also took to the floor of the House to give a speech where he accused Planned Parenthood of harvesting “baby parts” based on lies from the Center for Medical Progress, so there’s that, as well.
Now, we’re going to go ahead and lead our further discussion of Alex Mooney by pointing out that on March 28th, 2018, Alex Mooney recycled an idea from the Ron Paul school of thought regarding the American economy… he wanted to go back to the gold standard, and actually introduced legislation to try to make it a reality. Now, if that doesn’t mean anything to you, it’s because the United States hasn’t used the gold standard in 1971. That’s right, we’re approaching fifty years since we were on the gold standard. And guess what? Some folks in the 1980s were whispering in Ronald Reagan’s ear about doing this, and guess what they determined?
Doing that would cripple not just the American economy, but the global economy. Yet every now and then, some hard right goofball from the Libertarian wing of the GOP starts flogging that dead horse to see if it will come back to life, even though almost 100% of economists oppose doing it, and it’s thought of as part of the reason it was so hard for the United States to recover from the Great Depression.
And, after he won re-election in 2018 with 54% of the vote, let’s just say Mooney has yet to dial back his extremism:
- January 27th, 2019: Alex Mooney voted against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attacking our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Mooney voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: Alex Mooney 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. Mooney 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: Alex Mooney 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: Mooney votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Mooney votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: Alex Mooney 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: Rep. Mooney 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.
- October 23rd, 2019: Mooney 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”.
- December 18th, 2019: Rep. Mooney 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.
Mooney continues to sit in the catbird’s seat in one of the reddest districts in the country, where Donald Trump makes regular visits to suck up to coal miners. While the state overall has been slow to realize how much of a con artist they elected to the White House, they have started to notice. Make no mistake, Mooney has tethered his own fortunes to Trump’s, defending his decision to crash the classified impeachment hearing in October of 2019, and doubling down on his decision to record a message inside the classified hearing to post faux-outrage onto Twitter.
Whether or not folks notice they have a carpetbagger representing them in West Virginia’s 2nd District… well… we’ll have to see if anyone figures it out in 2020.