Admin note: This story has been updated to include information about a defamation suit Dean filed, which he lost.
On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Minnesota's 6th Congressional District, Tom Emmer, a man who looked to be on the fast track into Congress with a record as a state legislator where he attempted to nullify federal law, abolish the minimum wage, and drug test people on government assistance. He also tried to have a bill passed that explicitly had language written into it that “Minnesotans have no constitutional right to an abortion” which sort of contradicts a pretty important Supreme Court ruling you may have heard about, and actually tried to pass legislation to allow pharmacists to deny to sell people contraceptives based on their religious beliefs. Emmer denies evolution and climate change and once froze up during a debate when asked how old he thought the Earth was. Emmer is also vehemently in the anti-gay category, as he once sponsored a ban same sex marriage in Minnesota, chastised colleagues for discussing an AIDS outreach program by calling it “disgusting discourse”, and has frequently been seen in the company of Bradlee Dean, the head of the “You Can Run But You Can’t Hide” Ministry, which has been classified as an anti-gay hate group for its stance that murdering gay people is “moral”. [Admin note: Dean sued Rachel Maddow (among others) for defamation for their reporting of these issues, and Dean lost.] He also took time in 2015 to call for the repeal of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, because apparently he'd like another chance to drive the American economy into a ditch, only eight years after the last time.
Rep. Emmer was surprised when he held a town hall back in February 2017, and hundreds of people showed up to fill a 150 seat venue, dwarfing the attendance from any previous town all in recent years. After it was over, he responded that if people have the nerve to show up and don’t like how he’s doing his job, he’ll just cancel the town hall altogether.
In June of 2018, as the Trump administration’s “family separation” policy was being executed, and migrant children were being torn away from their parents and kept locked in cages by immigration services… Tom Emmer defended that strategy on immigration, claiming that it was up to Congress to stop a policy that Trump could started, and could stop at any time with a stroke of his pen. Also, if Congress was supposed to do something about it, Emmer might want to inform members of his own party, since at the time they controlled the House and the Senate.
Please note that Emmer also led the GOP's push to try and weaken the Endangered Species Act in July of 2018.
As for the rest of his heinous voting record:
- December 18th, 2019: Emmer 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.
- December 10th, 2020: Emmer 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 13th, 2021: Rep. Emmer 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 25th, 2021: Emmer votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Emmer 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: Tom Emmer votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: Emmer 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. Emmer 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. Emmer votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
- November 5th, 2021: Tom Emmer votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
- March 31st, 2022: Emmer votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Bill Tomson would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
- May 18th, 2022: Tom Emmer is one of 192 Republicans who votes against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro-life).
- May 18th, 2022: Rep. Emmer votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
- May 19th, 2022: Emmer votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
- July 15th, 2022: Tom Emmer votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
- July 13th, 2022: Emmer votes against the Honoring Our PACT Act, to provide healthcare to veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving in the War on Terror that leave them more susceptible to forms of cancer.
- July 19th, 2022: Rep. Emmer is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
- July 21st, 2022: Emmer is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.
- December 6th, 2022: Emmer, embracing the GOP’s white nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment votes against HR 7946, which was meant to honor the promise to grant citizenship to immigrants who served in the United States Armed Forces.
While Minnesota’s 6th was once the district of Michelle Bachmann, and has a reported +10 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and with Emmer’s current role as the head of the NRCC would normally make that seem like a formula for him survive what looks to be a woeful blood bath at the polls for Republicans. What’s not helping? Tom Emmer faced scrutiny in 2020 for writing an anti-Semitic e-mail to donors complaining about “Bloomberg and Soros have bought control of Congress”, because why not just cement the GOP’s current devolution into anti-Semitism? After all, under his leadership, the National Republican Congressional Committee began embracing the Qanon conspiracy theory.
Now, after the Dobbs decision at the SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, all signs are pointing to an electorate in the mid-terms that would be angry, and less likely to support a candidate that wants to outlaw a woman’s right to choose. It’s now that we will note Tom Emmer lied and claimed a Democratic bill aimed at codifying abortion as a woman’s right when the life of the mother was at risk was tantamount to “Chinese genocide”, and that Democrats actually were hoping to legalize abortions “up to moments before a child takes its first breath” in an interview with Fox News in September of 2022.
And yet, he wasn’t done, posting a fine stochastic terror trigger ad where he overcompensated for whatever shortcomings he might have by firing a machine gun with “#FirePelosi” as the caption in October of 2022. Tom Emmer still won re-election with 62% of the vote.
Truly, only in a place that would elect Michele Bachmann.
