Alaska Republican state Representative David Eastman was censured in a motion filed by House Democrats that passed in a nearly-unanimous vote of 35-1. Eastman was the lone “no” vote, Anchorage Daily News reports.
On Monday Eastman, a former Tea Party activist and now a pro-MAGA extremist, suggested that society benefits when children are so severely abused they die, because it costs the state less money.
“How would you respond to the argument that I have heard on occasion where, in the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it’s not good for the child, but it’s actually a benefit to society because there aren’t needs for government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child’s life?” Rep. Eastman asked during a hearing of the Judiciary Committee.
“Talking dollars, now you’ve got a $1.5 million price tag here for victims of fatal child abuse,” Eastman continued. “It gets argued periodically that it’s actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise you know, be entitled to receive and need based on, you know, growing up in this type of environment.”
He did not say who makes that alleged argument, but, according to The Washington Post, he defended himself by claiming GOP lawmakers “hear regularly as pro-life legislators that there is an economic benefit to society when unwanted children are aborted since [Alaska Children’s Trust] was arguing the opposite in committee yesterday. What better organization to hear from on this issue than [the trust], as their mission is the prevention of child abuse?”
This is the second time the Alaska House has censured Eastman, who has a lifetime membership to the Oath Keepers, a far right “militia” group that has been called an “organized violent extremist group.”
Eastman attended Donald Trump’s 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 and later went to the Capitol although reportedly did not enter the building. He has falsely suggested the 2020 election was stolen.
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In discussing why the House was voting to censure Eastman, Democrat Andrew Gray, the motion’s sponsor, said: “It is important to remember regarding that member from Wasilla [Eastman] that over the years he has shown Alaska who he is, posting on his website a photo of himself standing next to a quote from Adolph Hitler that calls for the extermination of people, and yet he has been reelected three times to his seat,” according to KTUU.
“We must respond as a body,” Gray added. “We must do something. This body must act.”
Anchorage Daily News adds that Eastman was the first Alaska House member to be censured in state history, “after he claimed that women in rural villages try to get pregnant so they can get a free trip to the city for an abortion. He is now the first and only state legislator to have been censured twice.”
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