The most bizarre quasi-scandal of 2014 comes with just a few days left in the year as House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA1), the third highest ranking member of Congress, finds himself ensnared by revelations that he was the keynote speaker at an event hosted by a group founded by David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
The group, the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, was founded by Duke in 2000 with the stated mission of protecting the rights and heritage of European Americans.
How Scalise ended up as the keynote speaker at one of their conventions in 2002 while he was a state representative is still somewhat up in the air, although he concedes that he did speak at the event.
“I didn’t know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group,” he told NOLA.com. “For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous.” He went on to say that he would not have spoken at the event had he been fully aware of their views, but said at the time he did not have staff to vet his invitations to speak, so he spoke to just about any group interested in hearing his message.
“Throughout his career in public service, Mr. Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints,” Moira Bagley, a spokesperson for Scalise, told the Washington Post. “In every case, he was building support for his policies, not the other way around. In 2002, he made himself available to anyone who wanted to hear his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle-class families.
“He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question,” she continued. “The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband, and a devoted Catholic.”
Scalise has already received bi-partisan support from members of Congress willing to vouch for his character, including black Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond who told The Hill he doesn’t believe Scalise has “a racist bone in his body.”
But House Speaker John Bohner and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy have been quiet to this point. Reports suggest that they’re in “wait and see” mode, gauging the potential ramifications of having Scalise as one of the most visible leaders of a Republican Party that is working hard to overcome image issues with minorities.
One congressman who is not shy about his support of Scalise is Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL1).
“I know Steve Scalise as a man of faith and good character,” Byrne told Yellowhammer Monday evening. “People in public service speak to a myriad of individuals and groups, even some with whom we disagree. If this group is as it has been portrayed to be, its views are just plain wrong, and I know Steve Scalise in no way agrees with them.”
Byrne, who was just elected to his first full term in Congress in November, has quickly formed a close alliance with Scalise, whose south Louisiana district shares many of the same priorities as Byrne’s district on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
The two went red snapper fishing together shortly after Byrne was elected. The mismanagement of red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico has been a major point of concern for both men in 2014.
Scalise also played a major role in flood insurance reform, an issue of great importance to coastal Alabama that passed early this year, and has been a strong supporter of south Alabama’s I-10 Bridge project and the shipbuilding jobs in Alabama and Mississippi.
But the prospect of Scalise being pushed out of House GOP Leadership could potentially have an even deeper impact than that on Alabama’s House delegation, and the South as a whole.
Scalise’s election to the number three spot gave southerners a real voice at the Leadership table for the first time since Barack Obama became president in 2008.
“Southerners think different than Northeasterners, Midwesterners, Plains states people,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL05) told NPR.
Brooks is one of many southern Republicans who have grown frustrated with southern state representatives being looked over for leadership roles, in spite of the South being the GOP’s largest base of support on the national level.
“For whatever reason, in this particular conference, the South has been discriminated against, and the heart of the South in particular has been discriminated against, and is zero for the scoreboard,” Brooks said.
Scalise’s election changed that, and another Alabama congressman had a lot to do with it.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL03) was instrumental in propelling a southerner into House Leadership. He organized numerous dinners with southern members in the months leading up to House Leadership elections to get them all on the same page. The week of the election he organized meetings with Leadership candidates and southern members of the House, helping the region flex its muscle. It paid off.
If Scalise isn’t able to hold on to his spot, it could have a negative impact on the clout of South Alabama, Alabama’s congressional delegation as a whole, and Southern conservatives who remain frustrated with the purple-state leadership of Boehner and McCarthy.
But like Boehner and McCarthy, right now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
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— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) December 3, 2014
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