On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from California’s 1st Congressional District, Doug LaMalfa, one of the dumbest deniers of climate change on Capitol Hill, who actually cites a promise that God made to Noah in the Book of Genesis as proof against the phenomenon, and wants to eliminate carbon dioxide restrictions from the EPA, viewing it as “taking away plant food from the atmosphere”. He also compared IRS commissioner Lois Lerner to “the Republic of Korea”, which is actually SOUTH Korea while grilling her in hearings about the IRS scandal.
LaMalfa once, before Congress, in the wake of a terror attack in Paris, lied and claimed that “We know now that one of the terrorists who participated in the attack on Paris last Friday entered Europe by posing as a refugee.” (Fact-checking the Congressman: The terror attacks were 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.) Oh, and he also went conspiracy theorist regarding the money repaid to Iran that was frozen in banks in the Iranian Revolution in 1979, but returned interest-free in 2016, saying it was a secret delivery done “in the dark of the night on a pallet” (the Obama administration announced it was done six months prior to LaMalfa’s freak out on the House floor.).
Since the election of Donald Trump, no matter how grievously stupid the President or his family might be… LaMalfa has been a tenacious defender of them. In 2017 alone, LaMalfa dug in deep on the most indefensible of reports… the first being his attempts to make the talk of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia go away by just declaring it “a load of crap”. Now, never mind that Donald Trump Jr. already released e-mails that show he wanted the Russians’ help in gathered intelligence detrimental to Hillary Clinton… apparently LaMalfa wouldn’t know a turd if it hit him in the face (which might be an improvement).
But no, that wasn’t all. After Donald Trump’s utterly revolting remarks following white supremacists marching in Charlottesville that led to the death of Heather Howeyer, and Trump’s claims that there were “many fine people there” or that “both sides” were responsible for the violence… Doug LaMalfa actually tried saying Trump’s response to Charlottesville was fine because he had a long track record of speaking out against white supremacists. (HINT: Trump doesn’t, and even when he does, it’s after reporters have to PLEAD with him and say something bad about people as evil as David Duke after days or weeks of sidestepping it.)
Now, with Doug LaMalfa putzing about, working against the interests of the voters of his district, and defending a president like Donald Trump with record low approval ratings because, well, he’s a sociopathic ***hole… you would probably guess that his town halls in California’s 1st have not gone well. Even if that district has a +10 Republican lean, and is atypical for what you’d expect for California… maybe people there aren’t livid, right? OH NO. They were downright PISSED. And LaMalfa can’t handle it. He walked out in the middle of a town hall in front of hundreds of constituents that were booing him back in April of 2017, and decided to regroup and host another town hall months later in a more controlled environment… at an Elks Lodge where he figured he would only see more conservative members of his constituency and fewer people ,overall. Well, that didn’t work either, as an elderly man who lives off of Medicaid grilled Rep. LaMalfa about his vote for Trumpcare and all the people who would have died if it had made it through the Senate. LaMalfa still felt his decision was justified, and the questioner walked away from his Congressman after cursing him, “May you die in pain.”
Speaking of Doug LaMalfa always getting Donald Trump’s back… in 2018, he defended the Trump regime’s family separation policy when they began locking migrant children seeking asylum, some toddlers, in cages. We knew he hated immigrants, but he’s “all-in” on the subject for someone who supposedly represents a district in a blue state.
Inexplicably, Doug LaMalfa won a sixth term in office in 2020 with 57% of the vote and resumed his streak of voting for the worst imaginable legislation:
- May 2nd, 2018: Doug LaMalfa is one of 18 Republicans who sign on to a letter asking to nominate Donald Trump for a Nobel Prize for meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un
- December 3rd, 2019: Rep. LaMalfa votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
- December 18th, 2019: LaMalfa 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: LaMalfa votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- December 10th, 2020: LaMalfa signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
- January 7th, 2021: Doug LaMalfa votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
- January 13th, 2021: Rep. LaMalfa 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: Doug LaMalfa 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: LaMalfa votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. LaMalfa 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: Doug LaMalfa votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: LaMalfa 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. LaMalfa 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. LaMalfa votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
- May 20th, 2021: LaMalfa is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
- June 16th, 2021: Doug LaMalfa is one of 14 Republicans who vote against celebrating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
Doug LaMalfa, thanks to the +10 lean his district has, is one of the few Republicans left in the House in California. With redistricting lying on the horizon, we’d like to think the road to re-election would be tough for a guy like him who only five days after the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, was still questioning the results of the election and participating in Donald Trump’s “Big Lie”. It bears watching to see if he’s left more vulnerable coming up in the 2022 elections, or if he’s cemented into being in place for the foreseeable future.