Anti-Gay GOP Congressman Announces Run for Governor

Sponsor of Discriminatory ‘Religious Freedom’ ‘First Amendment Defense Act’

Another leading House Republican will not be seeking re-election. Rep. Raul Labrador has just announced he will instead run to become the next governor of Idaho. 

Labrador has been in the news over the past few days for telling constituents at a town hall that “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” 

Attendees, furious, berated him. PolitiFact rated his claim “Pants of Fire” false, and CNN on Monday called it his “worst week in Washington.”

The Idaho ultra-conservative congressman also made news recently when he, a founding member of the far right wing House Freedom Caucus, was specifically targeted by name by President Trump for blocking the Republican bill to repeal and “replace” ObamaCare from even coming to the floor for a vote at the end of March:

Rep. Labrador did vote for the Republican bill, aka TrumpCare, last week that will kick tens of millions of Americans off health care, should it become law.

Labrador is an anti-LGBT extremist and religious conservative who has been trying for years to pass his First Amendment Defense Act. FADA would grant the “right” to discriminate to anyone who claims they have a “religious belief or moral conviction” that marriage is reserved only for one-man, one-woman couples, and sex is reserved only for the bounds of those marriages. 

President Trump has promised to sign it.

Labrador leaving the House does not kill the bill — Senator Mike Lee has a companion bill he is trying to pass in the Senate, and a new sponsor could be found in the House.

Republicans have been fleeing the House. Labrador, acccording to RollCall, is the “sixth House member to announce he’s running for governor instead of re-election.”

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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license