The Texas Tribune has reported that Texas Congressman, Louie Gohmert will leave Congress at the end of his term and will not seek re-election.
Gohmert, 69, who has a reputation as one of Congresse’s dumbest members, is leaving office in January to focus his attention to run as Attorney General of Texas. He leaves Congress after a seventeen year career highlighted by conspiracy, racism, and bigotry.
Gohmert is known for his numerous conspiracy theories, many of them regarding former president Barack Obama. During his time in Congress he managed to get enraged at the ex-president for being black, accusing him of bringing back the Ottoman empire, being a secret Muslim, comparing him several times to Hitler, and the birther conspiracy that Obama was not born in the U.S.
On the birther conspiracy, Gohmert released the following statement in 2011:
Rep. Gohmert’s Statement On The Release Of President Obama’s Birth Certificate.
Rep. Louie Gohmert ( TX-01 ) issued the following statement today after the White House’s decision to release president Obama’s Birth certificate.
“For more than two years president Obama has failed to present his birth certificate for inspection in early 2008. The New York Times and the Washington Post had raised a question about John McCain’s eligibility since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Others raised questions about president Obama’s eligibility. These two ‘birther’ controversies exposed a flaw in the enforcement mechanism of our Constitutional eligibility requirements for U.S. presidential candidates.
“Last Congress, I signed on as a co-sponsor to HR 1503 authored by Rep. Bill Posey which was not drafted to single out president Obama but for all future candidates beginning in 2012 to settle eligibility requirements before an election begins. HR 1503 was merely an enforcement mechanism for meeting the Constitutional requirements to run for this nation’s highest office.
“It is truly distressing the administration would wait so long to release such an important piece of documentation , when such a simple act was all it required. In my mind, a critically important action we could take in Congress is to eliminate similar controversies arising in future elections. Hopefully, all presidential candidates in future elections will avoid arrogant condescension and simply establish their qualification from the outset.”
Did Louie demand to see Trump’s birth certificate?
Gohmert has also spread false claims of the stolen election, falsehoods that have been debunked time and time again, despite repeated attempts to revive it.
Gohmert, who entered Congress in 2005, has accomplished very little in terms of legislation. Legislation, in which he has been lead sponsor, have only passed the House six times in his seventeen year tenure. Only one has ever been signed into law.
“I’m not sure what he was able to accomplish, I really have no idea,” said U.S. Representative Slyvia Garcia ( D – Houston) who serves with Gohmert on the judiciary committee.
Indeed. It would seem his legacy is one of bigotry, racism, and conspiracy, rather than legislative policy.
Sources: Texas Tribune, Congress.gov.
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