Are There Congressman As Insane And Racist As Trump? How About In Los Angeles?

The GOP sure attracts the nut cases-- Steve Knight, Donald Trump

Lindsey Graham was one of the Republican presidential hopefuls yesterday who lashed out at Trump over his pandering to the racists who are celebrating his anti-immigrant mania. "If he becomes the nominee, we’ll get killed," he told CNN yesterday.

[T]he policies that Mr. Trump is proposing are demagoguery. His approach to describing legal immigrants are hurting us with Hispanics. The way he attacks women is going to be a death blow to the future of our party. Come to South Carolina and I’ll beat his brains out... Donald Trump is not going to be the nominee of the Republican Party. If he is, that’s the end of the Republican party... then we’ll lose. We’ll lose, and we should lose. 65 percent of the Hispanic community in this country, legal Hispanics, find Mr. Trump offensive. I find him offensive. When he attacks Megyn Kelly, a lot of young women think, well, why would you do that? I find that offensive? where is the party leadership? Is that our position as a party?

And Jeb tried his hand at undermining the Trump blitzkrieg too but didn't get too far; he's a low-energy guy, as you know. The problem with the Trump plan," whined Jeb, "is it’s not a conservative plan and it’s not practical. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It doesn’t embrace American values.

But in reality, Trump has dragged almost the whole party-- including Jeb-- along with him into the anti-Latino (and anti-Asian) camp. Candidates like Graham and Jeb, though, say Trump's crackpot proposal, largely written by Sen. Jeff Sessions (KKK-AL), can never get through Congress. They're probably correct. But there are, of course, more Republican congressmembers than just Steve King who are totally on board with Trump on his ugly racism. In fact, one of them is Steve Knight, a Republican freshman from Palmdale (CA-25).

Knight has been relatively quiet since getting to Congress last year. But he was a member of the California legislature from 2008 until 2015, and as an assemblyman and then a state senator he was very outspoken and proud to wave the racist flag whenever he could, even voting against the images of the Confederate flag being removed from state property in 2014. He was one of only three out-and-out racists in the whole California Senate--the other two crackpots being Tim Donnelly and Joel Anderson-- to vote no. (Only one member of the Assembly voted no.)

Knight's voting record would be ultra-conservative if he represented a backward district in Alabama or Mississippi. In suburban L.A., it's just bizarre and a throwback to another century. Widely considered a shill for the NRA and an automaton for the most extreme right-wing proposals that ever come up in Sacramento, Knight was one of only 11 senators who voted against increasing the minimum wage, and despite representing a district with a huge Hispanic population, he was one of only 8 senators who voted against driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants. When the governor decided to expand Medicaid in line with the Affordable Care Act, only 7 die-hard right-wingers opposed it, Knight being one of them. He was also one of only 8 senators to fully back unregulated fracking in earthquake zones in California. He is vehemently anti-Choice and anti-gay and voted against every piece of legislation promoting equality that has ever come before him. For example, he was one of only 9 senators to vote against a bipartisan bill that prohibits tax-exempt status for organizations that discriminate against the LGBT community, and he was also one one of only 7 sociopaths who opposed an anti-bullying bill that passed the Senate with huge bipartisan support.

This cycle, Blue America has endorsed Lou Vince in CA-25, a former marine and LAPD officer. When he declared his candidacy he told voters in Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley that as a congressman he will be committed to...

• Protecting Social Security and Medicare
• Making college affordable
• Raising the minimum wage
• Reforming the banking system to protect our economy
• Fighting against unfair trade deals
• Rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure
• Protecting our local environment and passing legislation to curb climate change
• Fighting for our civil liberties and civil rights
• Protecting marriage equality and a woman’s right to choose"

The DCCC has shown little interest in winning in this newly blue district. They're doing squat for Lou, latest in a long series of Democrats running in the district who have been undermined and sabotaged by a clueless DCCC. But it's a winnable district in an area with an increasing Democratic voter registration advantage. Trump will probably never be President. Help Lou Vince replace a congressman who is at least as bad as Trump-- here on this page.