“Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” today brings you our 514th original profile, and we’re going to talk about the current U.S. House Representative in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, David Jolly, a freshman lawmaker who was once… wait for it… a lobbyist. Now, that’s not even the kicker.
David Jolly was a lobbyist for… The Church of Scientology. That… is not a traditional Republican affiliation, by any stretch. With all the times we’ve profiled members of the GOP who were rubbing elbows with megachurches or Fundamentalists, or even pointed out Republicans who were ministers or pastors that wanted to also govern and turn the United States into a theocracy… we never have seen anything like David Jolly. How the hell did he get elected to Congress as a Republican without his own party getting torches and pitchforks to rage against him for being in league with an organization that many say is a cult that exploits its members and bleeds them for money?
Well, wouldn’t you know it, his district has a higher-than-normal amount of big Scientology donors who contributed to his campaign, and he had the benefit of running for office in a special election, then was completely unopposed in the primary, and still only faced a Libertarian challenger, Alex Sink, in the general election. While Jolly was flying in under the radar in spite of his peculiar background, it became harder to hide as he decided, for whatever reason, to further elevate his profile and threw his hat into the ring to try and replace Sen. Marco Rubio for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat in the 2016 election.
While up until this point, Rep. Jolly had no problem with folks knowing about his ties to Scientology, suddenly, he was caught trying to scrub that fact from his Wikipedia page by the press (as well as his previous support for same-sex marriage that he must have thought would hurt his chances in the GOP Primary).
His voting record in Congress shows thus far that he seems mostly aligned with his own party, though:
- May 13th, 2015: David Jolly co-sponsors and votes for HR 36, a 20 week abortion ban.
- September 11th, 2015: Jolly votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Jolly co-sponsors and votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- November 19th, 2015: Jolly votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris 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.
- February 2nd, 2016: David Jolly votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- May 19th, 2016: Rep. Jolly votes against House Amendment 1079, which would have prohibited the use of federal funds for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Now, originally in the 2016 election, David Jolly was making a bid to make a run for U.S. Senate, instead of just running for re-election to his House seat. He never built much momentum in polls, even after being bold enough to, on the floor of the House, call for Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race. As he continued to trail the Democratic Party’s front-runners in that Senate race, the GOP turned around and begged Marco Rubio to not retire for fear of losing control of the Senate, and got him to break his pledge to not run for a second term, and enter the race. Thus, Jolly was screwed, and opted to run for his U.S. House seat… not that the Republican Party particularly like him or are supporting him to win a second term against Mark Bircher.
And even if Jolly gets out of the primary, he’s got veteran Florida politician Charlie Crist waiting for him in the general election. Mind you, Crist has lost the past two elections he’s been in down in Florida,but in Florida’s 13th in those statewide races, Crist actually pulled down more votes than his GOP opponents. Still, Florida’s 13th Congressional District has only a +1 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index (a rare actual swing seat), so it’s not like Jolly will get a lot of help from a friendly electoral map. He might be a “less than one term” Congressman here in a couple months.
One Year Ago, July 28th, 2015: Todd Courser (MI)
Two Years Ago, July 28th, 2014: Herman Cain (GA)