Welcome to the 665th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing the sitting U.S. House Representative from Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District, Mike Rogers , who was first elected to office back in 2002 after serving for 8 years in the Alabama state legislature. Roger is now serving in his eighth term in office, which he kicked off in delightfully insane fashion by hastily submitting a bill to remove the United States from the United Nations on January 3rd, the first day of that term, because he doesn’t understand how things like diplomacy work. Back during the furor over the fraudulent videos created by the Center for Medical Progress, Rep. Rogers actually co-sponsored two different bills to attack the funding of Planned Parenthood, because apparently for him, irrational anti-choice legislation is like potato chips, he can’t just have one.
But really, Rogers has bigger, weirder aspirations for our country. Remember last month how Donald Trump started to wistfully talk about a “Space Force”, a branch of the military that would defend America from threats from… space? Well, while Trump is clearly demented, but a lot of times, his ideas aren’t his own. They’re his rambling interpretations of crazy s*** other people whisper in his ear. And, that’s why it seems clear that Congressman Rogers’ repeated calls for a “Space Corps”, in effect a militarized version of NASA (to defend against… intergalactic armies that don’t exist) are the origin of Trump’s nutty suggestion.
Of course, Rep. Rogers also has had a habit over the past few years of putting his foot in his mouth, including in a 2014 speech where he made a homophobic joke, and how in the past year, he’s opined about how NFL players protesting police violence by kneeling during the national anthem as “Un-American”. Never mind that there’s nothing more American than having the freedom of speech to make such a statement… Rogers has racist GOP voters in Alabama to appeal to.
After sixteen years and office, you can bet he’s voted for some of the most infamous conservative legislation through the years:
- March 21st, 2005: Rep. Rogers votes for the Terry Schiavo Incapacitated Persons Protection Bill.
- July 18th, 2006: Rogers votes for a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
- December 6th, 2006: Rep. Rogers votes for the “Abortion Pain Bill”, which would create an unconstitutional ban on abortion at 20 weeks.
- July 31st, 2007: Mike Rogers votes against the Equal Pay Bill.
- November 7th, 2007: Mike Rogers votes against ENDA, allowing the continued discrimination of LGBT citizens based on their sexual identity in the workplace.
- January 9th, 2009: Rogers votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
- April 29th, 2009: Mike Rogers votes against the Hate Crimes Expansion that would provide protections to LGBT citizens.
- July 31st, 2009: Rogers votes against the widely successful “Cash for Clunkers” program that helped save the American auto industry.
- June 30th, 2010: After Wall Street bankers taking unnecessary risks nearly imploded the global economy in 2007, legislation finally comes forward to prevent the same behaviors from being permitted in the future. The signature piece of legislation to prevent another financial meltdown was Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, which Mike Rogers voted against.
- July 30th, 2010: Months after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a bill comes to the floor to better regulate off-shore drilling. Rogers is apparently alright with ecological disasters continuing in the future, as he votes against it.
- December 8th, 2010: Rep. Rogers votes against the DREAM Act.
- December 15th, 2010: Rogers votes against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
- January 5th, 2011: Rep. Rogers votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He has voted for almost every attempt to do so since
- February 18th, 2011: Mike Rogers votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
- March 17th, 2011: Rep. Rogers votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
- September 15th, 2012: Rep. Rogers votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- September 21st, 2012: Rogers votes for the “Stop the War on Coal Act”.
- January 15th, 2013: Mike Rogers votes against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy.
- June 19th, 2013: Mike Rogers votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Rep. Rogers votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown.
- Feb 26th, 2014: Mike Rogers goes “all in” on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by voting for the “Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act”.
- July 10th, 2014: Rogers votes for House Amendment 1040, to prevent the implementation of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty, that in spite of just being recommended climate change guidelines, have many conspiracy theorists within the extreme right convinced it’s a plot for global domination.
- January 22nd, 2015: Mike Rogers votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
- February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Rogers votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that by this point, the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
- March 3rd, 2015: Rogers votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
- September 11th, 2015: Rogers votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Rogers 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: Rogers 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: Mike Rogers votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- February 16th, 2017: Rogers votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
- March 16th, 2017: Mike Rogers votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge’s written order.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Rogers votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: Rogers votes for the GOP’s healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, postpartum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Rogers would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
- June 8th, 2017: Mike Rogers votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
- October 3rd, 2017: Rogers votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
- December 19th, 2017: Mike Rogers votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
Mike Rogers has the benefit of having a district that isn’t just in a red state as crimson as Alabama, the 3rd District there has a +16 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Still, Mallory Hagan, a former Miss America, and author Aida McClellan Winfrey are facing off in the Democratic Primary to take their best shot at ending this Bush Era holdover that’s long since outlived his shelf life as a sane politician.
One Year Ago, April 4th, 2017: Virgil Peck (KS)… 2017 Update
Two Years Ago. April 4th, 2016: Virgil Peck (KS)… 2016 Update
Three Years Ago: April 4th, 2015: Virgil Peck (KS)… Original Profile