On Sunday, right-wing Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) announced his decision to challenge John Boehner in a run for Speaker of the House. The outspoken representative of Texas’ 1st District is a reliable source of right-wing conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim diatribes. Gohmert accused Boehner of breaking his promise to “fight amnesty tooth and nail.”
In what can generously be understood as a long-shot, Gohmert purported to step up and challenge Boehner and “increase our chances for change.” Last year, Gohmert was one of 12 Representatives who voted against Boehner. This year, 29 conservatives would need to defect in order for Gohmert to win.
Since his election to Congress in 2005, Gohmert has tried to mainstream the agendas of the organized anti-immigrant groups. He repeats the talking points of the nativist movement, and offers his own bizarre conspiracy theories. Despite a long track record of absurd and offensive claims, Gohmert sits on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security; as well as the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.
Gohmert has issued some of his most irresponsible and racist diatribes from the floor of the House.
In July 2010, for example, Gohmert offered one of his most infamous rants before his fellow representatives: the “terror babies” conspiracy theory. He claimed that “It appeared that [the terrorists] would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby… And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists… And then one day, twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.”
Never far from controversy, Gohmert is even closer to leaders of the organized anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant movements.
For the last four years, he has spoken and has been honored with an award at the annual conference of ACT! for America, the largest grassroots and policy organization within this country’s anti-Muslim movement.
Read more about Rep. Gohmert’s ties to organized nativism.