11/13/2023 0 Comments Picture of a rhinoThe gunman, a leftist extremist who was killed by law enforcement, legally bought the rifle used to shoot Scalise and three others despite a history of run-ins with police.ĭespite that, through legislation he has sponsored and co-sponsored, Scalise has staunchly advocated to keep guns as accessible to the public as possible, citing the right to bear arms enshrined in the US constitution’s second amendment. The 2017 shooting was an assassination attempt. Nonetheless, the Duke controversy has followed Scalise throughout a career in Republican leadership, which has seen him survive being seriously wounded in a mass shooting at congressional baseball practice, in 2017 become one of five Louisiana Congress members to vote against certifying some election results hours after the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January 2021 become majority leader in 2022 and, in August this year, announce a cancer diagnosis. But Chuck Kleckley, the Republican speaker of the Louisiana state house at the time, told the paper comparisons between Scalise and the Klan leader were “not fair to Steve at all”. Scalise did not comment on Grace’s remarks. Grace said she thought Scalise had “meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn’t David Duke, that he didn’t have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did”. The controversy deepened when Stephanie Grace, a Louisiana politics reporter and columnist, told the New York Times that at the start of Scalise’s legislative career, while “explaining his politics”, he told her “he was like David Duke without the baggage”. That is why he was invited and why he would come. And I will continue to do so.”ĭuke, however, told the Washington Post: “Scalise would communicate a lot with my campaign manager, Kenny Knight. Those who know me best know I have always been passionate about helping, serving and fighting for every family that I represent. He also said attending the conference “was a mistake I regret”, as he “emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views that groups like these hold”.Ĭiting his Catholicism, Scalise said “these groups hold views that are vehemently opposed to my own personal faith, and I reject that kind of hateful bigotry. Scalise, whose district includes a large suburban area of New Orleans that Duke once represented in Louisiana’s state legislature, said he had been seeking “support for legislation that focused on cutting wasteful state spending, eliminating government corruption and stopping tax hikes”, but “wholeheartedly condemn” the views of the group concerned. Two years before that, Scalise ran into controversy, and his remark about Duke surfaced, after a blogger revealed Scalise’s attendance at a white supremacist conference organised by Duke in 2002. “He’s getting good support already,” Zanona quoted one Republican House member whom she didn’t name as saying.ĭuke, Scalise’s fellow Louisianan, last made national headlines when he supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 – support Trump was slow to disavow. CNN’s Melanie Zanona added that “a number of Republicans have already pledged their support”. Politico’s Olivia Beavers reported later Tuesday that Scalise had started to “reach out to members” ahead of launching a bid for the speakership. Gaetz also said Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Jody Arrington of Texas and Kevin Hearn of Oklahoma might be good choices.īut the speakership may offer Scalise a tempting prize: if he is elevated into the role, he will become the highest-ranking member of Congress ever to come from Louisiana. Immediately after the vote to remove McCarthy, however, the ringleader of the motion to vacate, Matt Gaetz of Florida, used his first remarks to say Scalise would be “a phenomenal speaker”. “This isn’t the time to slow that process down,” said Scalise, denying interest in the speakership. He became Republican House whip in 2014 and was elected majority leader in 2022, as a hardline conservative acceptable to the far right of his party, which has now successfully rebelled against McCarthy.Īhead of McCarthy’s removal, Scalise implored his fellow Republicans “to keep doing this work that we were sent to do” rather than focus on ejecting the speaker. Scalise, now 57, was elected to Congress in 2008. Duke, 73, is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, an avowed white supremacist who ran for Louisiana governor, the US House and Senate, and for president, and who in 2003 was sentenced to 15 months in jail for mail and tax fraud.
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