On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Florida’s 8th Congressional District, Bill Posey, the U.S. House Representative from Florida’s 8th District, the author of HB 1503, aka “The Birther Bill” that would force all presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates. When asked if he believed President Obama was an American citizen in the wake of that, he refused to answer, calling the question “irrelevant”.
Posey’s also obsessed with overturning the Affordable Care Act, having participated in every attempt to repeal it, and then voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown to attempt to stop it (also voting against re-opening the government when the time came). His one positive quality is that he wants to fund medical research into autism, but it comes with the caveat that he’s only doing so because he believes it’s possible that vaccines cause autism (but he doesn’t believe in something proven like climate change). He’s also been a part of GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, and voted to defund the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican temper tantrum over President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
Bill Posey dodged hosting a town hall in 2017 by instead, opting to call his constituents to let them know he was having a telephone town hall… WHILE IT WAS ALREADY UNDER WAY. He was apparently still distressed that upon learning this, ten thousand of his voters bombarded him with complaints, not only about his availability, but how the GOP was planning on exercising control of both Congress and the White House, and defended the move because “Gabby Giffords got shot at a town hall”. His constituents then further berated him, because Giffords herself called on all members of Congress to hold town halls, as their duty remains to the people.
In July of 2018, after Donald Trump gave a bizarre joint press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where he denied Russians interfered in the 2016 election, effectively siding with the Russian dictator’s denials over his own intelligence community, Bill Posey offered his support to the president, arguing that maybe that foreign interference on our elections isn’t so bad, because “America has done it to other countries for the past 50 years”.
Posey has returned to Washington after being re-elected in 2020 with 61% of the vote, and resumed being a clueless moron as a legislator:
- December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Posey votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
- December 18th, 2019: Posey ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
- May 15th, 2020: Posey votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- January 13th, 2021: Rep. Posey votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
- February 4th, 2021: Bill Posey votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
- February 25th, 2021: Posey votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Posey votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
- March 3rd, 2021: Bill Posey votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: Posey votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
- March 17th, 2021: Rep. Posey votes 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 19th, 2021: Rep. Posey votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
Florida’s 8th Congressional District has a +11 lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which has helped prop Bill Posey up and keep him in place for the past decade. Odds are that the state of Florida being in Republican hands and their fan of gerrymandering, we should not expect this to be remedied to less of an advantage, and Posey is going to remain in power until he decides to retire, or shuffles off the mortal coil.
Which is unfortunate. As is the state of American politics.