On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day published profiles about Missouri State Senator Paul Wieland, a front-line soldier in the GOP’s “War on Women” that since taking office in 2010, has gone out of his way to try and find ways to undermine the Affordable Care Act, particularly that medical insurance policies can often cover the cost of contraceptive coverage for women. He personally filed a lawsuit against the federal government in 2013 to make sure that he, a good Catholic, wasn’t paying for any potential contraceptives for his daughter on his insurance plan, referring to birth control pills as “abortion inducing drugs” that were “intrinsically evil”. The courts dismissed Wieland’s case as frivolous, not realizing his stunt would do little to deter him. After the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby ruling, Wieland immediately filed another lawsuit against the government, which also got laughed out of court.
Paul Wieland also files dimwitted legislation to prevent the implantation of Sharia Law in Missouri, or to prevent the sinister United Nations Agenda 21 treaty. Heck, he’s even voted for efforts to nullify federal firearms laws, drug test welfare recipients, stricter Voter ID laws (to combat the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud), ag-gag laws to prevent any oversight against livestock farmers, and voted for SJR 39, a special little bill to prohibit any state employee from being penalized for declining to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies.
In November of 2015, after a series of highly publicized racist incidents at the University of Missouri that school president Tim Wolfe refused to act upon, and in some instances, Wolfe himself dug the hole deeper by chastising protesters, the Missouri Tigers Football Team threatened to boycott games unless Wolfe was fired. Wolfe resigned, and it seemed like that was that. Except, it wasn’t for Paul Wieland, who just couldn’t stomach any kind of improvement in race relations, apparently, on those terms, and needed to go after someone as retribution, choosing Gary Pinkel, the now former head coach of the team, who approved of his players’ choice. Here’s where it gets more grotesque… Coach Pinkel had resigned to seek treatment for lymphoma, and the university had bought out the remainder of his contract so he could do so and for his fifteen year loyal tenure in turning around the football team, they also offered him a job as an ambassador of the athletic department. Well, in true “smaller government” interests, Wieland began to publicly criticize the school for these moves, apparently finding less of a problem with a school president who created an environment of permissive racism to a beloved coach for supporting his players through a hard decision.
Paul Wieland was pursuing a second term in office in 2018, even with a Blue Wave crashing upon the GOP across the country, and while Missouri Republicans are also scrambling and in damage control over the scandal surrounding Gov. Eric Greitens, Wieland still managed to get re-elected with 58% of the vote. He is finishing up his last few years in office continuing to obsess about birth control to the extent that he’s sabotaging other legislation to the chagrin of his own party, including creating amendments that jeopardize the state’s Medicaid funding to try and stop any of the budget to going towards contraceptives.
Paul Wieland will be term-limited in the Missouri State Senate in 2022, but could still run for some other office, including the Missouri House of Representatives, where he still have two terms of eligibility. We’re hoping his fanatical quest against birth control ends next year, though.