Will The Real Tulsi Gabbard Please Stand Up... Please Stand Up

Long before her sudden transformation into a Berniecrat, Tulsi Gabbard called me to ask for a Blue America endorsement. She didn't really try to paint herself as a progressive and she came across as a garden variety careerist Democrat, not especially bad and not especially good. At the end of the interview, I asked her about the process by which she had come to change her position on LGBT equality. She immediately said she'd call back and then hung up abruptly and... never called back.

She's extremely popular in Hawaii, where people have largely bought into her self-promoting brand of vaguely anti-establishment nationalism. These days she likes to claim she's a progressive and it is widely thought she will primary Senator Mazie Hirono from the left. ProgressivePunch rates Mazie a high "A," the third best of any U.S. Senator 96.39, fractionally behind Elizabeth Warren's 96.97 and a bit ahead of Bernie's 94.99. There isn't any room to the left of Mazie-- especially not from the sleazy Tulsi Gabbard who's lifetime crucial vote score has earned her score of 73.75 and an "F" rating. Many Democrats with F ratings use their district's conservatism as the excuse. Problem with that is that Tulsi represents one of the most progressive districts in the whole country, with a PVI of D+21. Obama beat Romney there, 71-27%. The only grief Tulsi Gabbard would get if she had a progressive voting record would be from her ultra-conservative family, her Republican financial backers and her enablers at Fox News-- oh, and her pal Steve Bannon.

To help explain the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, I reached out to an old friend on the Big Island-- part of Tulsi's district-- who follows politics closely and has a very long memory. This is his report on one aspect of Tulsi's record, her long-running homophobia:

We need to flee from the hollow wooden statue of a Progressive in which Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has concealed herself to enter Washington. One can get whiplash following Tulsi Gabbard as she darts to and fro from far Left and far Right. She continues to confuse Bernie devotees, aggressive in her lack of sympathy toward Syrian refugees and then bold in her support of the Lakota Sioux against Big Oil. There is nothing inherently wrong about being an effective national politician determined to break free of political genre. A survey of Tulsi’s political record makes clear, however, that she is a populist without principle.

To make sense of Tulsi’s pendular politics, it is time that we look to the locals intimate with the Woman of Hawaii. The most informative criticisms of late come from Hawaii residents who have dredged into Tulsi’s past and brought up more filth than gold.

In Hawaii, Tulsi earned a reputation among her former colleagues in the State Legislature as one of their most bigoted contemporaries. She defined her local career as an outspoken anti-gay and anti-reproductive rights politician. Volumes of official records from the Hawaii State Legislative Reference Bureau tell Tulsi’s story in her own words. Here, Tulsi, then Representative Tamayo, presents a floor speech against a measure supported by local hospitals that resolved to study the needs of LGBTQ students, who continue to suffer the highest rates of suicide in the state:

In this same speech, Tulsi is also recorded as describing gay rights advocates as “homosexual extremists.” Tulsi is no grassroots phenom. She represents the state’s main conservative political dynasty, which successfully campaigned to ban same-sex marriage through constitutional amendment. Her father, Senator Mike Gabbard, led the anti-gay movement in the state and also founded Stand Up For America, a non- profit that promoted nationalism through “the concept of how we are one nation under God.”

Tulsi was also defined by her consistent opposition to basic rights for women. Here, Tulsi joins a Republican bloc to oppose emergency contraceptives for rape victims. This was one of several instances where she attempted to restrict reproductive rights for women on the grounds of religious freedom.

Tulsi has since distanced herself from this unsavory record with a heroic tale of transformation. According to Tulsi’s website, in 2004 she volunteered to fight in the Iraq War, which triggered a libertarian awakening. The facts deviate from the straight and narrow narrative. Nearly seven years later, Tulsi still opposed equal rights for LGBTQ people. Evidence such as this newly discovered constituent email prove that for over a decade in and out of public office, and long after her purported “transformation,” Tulsi was still anti-gay.