Come next week, a few of Congress’ most notorious Tea Partyers will no longer be in office. Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican who once declared evolution and the Big Bang Theory “lies straight from the pit of hell,” lost a U.S. Senate primary this year and won’t be returning to the House. Neither will Michele Bachmann, who needs no introduction.
But the departure of such inflammatory conservatives hardly means that the 114th Congress will be a more sober one. Indeed, the crop of Republicans taking power next month is even further to the right than the current House GOP conference. The newly Republican Senate, too, will feature more than its fair share of ultraconservative hard-liners. Today, Salon looks at five of the most extreme Republicans taking power in Washington this month.
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Mark Walker
The retirement of North Carolina GOP congressman Howard Coble paved the way for the election of Baptist pastor Mark Walker, whose statements on race and immigration range from condescending and cringe-worthy to downright frightening.
Walker once wrote on Facebook that he “had the privilege of spending an hour with an African-American male who grew up in the inner city,” but he lamented that “most of these Americans have no concept of the pride and joy when we, as parents, invest in our children.”
On border security, Walker said at a debate that “we got to go laser or blitz somebody with a couple of fighter jets for a little while to make our point.” When the moderator asked whether he worried that this could lead to a war with Mexico, Walker replied, ”Well, we did it before. If we need to do it again, I don’t have a qualm about it.”
Cory Gardner
As he geared up to challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, Rep. Cory Gardner confronted a major problem: on issues like immigration, the 2013 government shutdown, and reproductive rights, he’d taken ultraconservative positions unlikely to play well in a statewide election. So Gardner did what any cynical politician would do; he moderated his rhetoric, pretended he was open to compromise on issues like immigration, and even recanted his support for a state-level personhood amendment. (However, Gardner did continue to support a federal personhood bill, which he disingenuously asserted was nothing more than a statement that he “supports life.”)
Our Terrifying New Congress: Meet 5 Tea Party Extremists Taking Office this Month | Alternet
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