Even straight white guys were getting hassled…
Looks like black and gay lawmakers aren’t the only ones being pelted with vicious slurs by folks who oppose the health reform proposal. Add a Hispanic lawmaker to the list. Trifecta!
Rep Ciro Rodriguez of Texas has confided to colleages that he was hammered by ethnic slurs by people opposed to reform passing, one of those colleagues tells me.
Rep March Kaptur told me in the hallway today that Rodriguez privately told her he’d been called “some names” back in his district. She confirmed that they were ethnic slurs, but declined to elaborate.
Separately, Kaptur said that Rep Phil Hare of Illinois had told her that someone had grabbed his jacket today, which suggests a threat of violence.
This comes after we learned that protestors screamed the “N” word at John Lewis and the “F” word at Barney Frank. Emanuel Cleaver was even spat at. Now add Rodriguez to the list.
Now look, admittedly, politics is a rough business. It’s not for the squeamish. But this stuff is way beyond the pale, and deserves serious condemnation from senior lawmakers in both parties.
I’ve checked in with Rodriguez’s and Hare’s offices for more detail, and will keep you posted if I hear back.
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Update: Rodriguez’s spokesperson, Rebeca Chapa, gets in touch to say that he was slammed as a “wetback” by an anti-reform protestor at a town meeting this week.
And another opponent called Rodriguez’ home and told the family member who answered to “go back to Mexico.”
The irony of all of the coverage teabaggers are getting is that a pro-immigration march is estimated to have at least 200,000 people today in DC. I’m sure the relatively small number of teabaggers would enjoy trying the racist taunts at the larger crowd:
City officials do not give official crowd estimates, so it is difficult to determine whether turnout reached the more than 200,000 estimated by organizers. However, the demonstration stretched from 7th street to 12th street in a dense carpet of humanity–the movement’s largest show of strength since 2006, when a series of mass rallies in favor of the legalization plan erupted in cities across the country.
I’d like to see a law mandating that any opponent of health care reform who verbally or physically attacks a lawmaker, or anyone else, immediately loses access to Medicare.
(Oh, and Arch–not to be a spelling Nazi, but “harassed” has only one R)