Speaker John Boehner continues to stand behind House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
Third-ranking House Republican Steve Scalise is
asking voters to consider what (he says) is in his heart rather than what's in his record when deciding what to think about his 2002 speech to a David Duke-founded white supremacist group:
"I reject bigotry of all forms," Scalise said at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday. "And I think when you see the people that know me best, both here and especially back home, people I've served with, including people that I've been on opposite ends politically with, who know the truth and know what's in my heart, they're the ones who I think speak the best."
He rejects bigotry of all forms ... but not to the extent of refusing to speak to the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. Not to the extent of speaking to them in order to challenge their views. No, EURO members didn't seem to have any real complaints about what he said to them. But Scalise doesn't want us to worry, because EURO-type white supremacist stuff is not what's in his heart. And Speaker John Boehner
agrees that it's all about what's in Scalise's heart, which is—again, we're assured, they totally promise—not racism. "He’s a decent honest person who made a mistake," according to Boehner. No word on the honesty factor in Scalise's
initial bogus excuses for why he shouldn't be held accountable.
But fine. Steve Scalise is not the kind of racist who runs around screaming the n word and refusing to swim in the same pool with black people. He is, however, the kind of state legislator who voted—in 2004!—against making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. He was one of six out of 104 legislators to vote that way. Similarly as a state legislator, Scalise was one of just two to vote against making Juneteenth a "special day." He was part of a more substantial minority but still a minority in voting against hate crimes legislation in 1997. He voted against naming a post office for the first African-American judge in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.
I can't know what's in Steve Scalise's heart. But I can look at his record—at how he's voted and what groups he's turned to seeking votes—and say with great confidence that he is not rejecting bigotry of all forms. And it's clear that Republican leaders are more invested in protecting one of their own than in considering just what it means that one of their own was pandering to white supremacists for votes as part of his path to Congress.