GOP Congresswoman Kay Granger—The Latest “Trumpette” Mouthing Fake Indignation Over Speaker Pelosi February 9, 2020
Surprise, surprise (NOT)! On 2/05/2020, Demagogue Donald was acquitted of two impeachment charges brought by the House in an utter sham trial with no witnesses, choreographed by Majority Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The “Team Red” majority Senate is, as we all know, a chamber 99.9% owned by King Donald I. The .1 exception? Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) who courageously voted for Trump being guilty of Article I, abuse of power. From the well of the Senate, Romney choked up with emotion. He called this vote, “the most difficult decision I have ever faced.” Conservative Romney stated that he agrees with much of what Trump has done, “but my promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and political biases aside (cnn.com, 2/05/20, Ghitis).” Romney has always been strongly influenced by his Mormon faith. Romney knew that by casting this vote he would face backlash from vindictive Trump, from many Utah constituents, and from other members of the rabid MAGA crowd, including Don, Jr. who called for Romney’s expulsion from the GOP (Ghitis, cnn.com). Nevertheless, Romney didn’t buckle. His Article I vote makes it the first time in U.S. history that Senators from both parties have voted to remove a president from office, making this vote bi-partisan (See Ghitis, cnn.com). Romney is the first senator in U.S. history to vote to remove a president from his own party (Galant, cnn.com, 2/09/20). All 47 Democrats voted for Donald’s removal. Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) deserves kudos for his votes. He is running for re-election in ultra-“Red” AL which Trump carried in 2016 by 28 points and where he remains highly popular (Cohen & Cook 2020 Political Almanac). Jones’ odds of winning against former GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions look very long. However, like Romney, Jones can look at himself and his children with a clear conscience.
Romney stands tall against his fellow GOPers like Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and many others. These Senators found Trump’s conduct crossed the line, but acted like the impeachment clause consisted of words the Founding Fathers put into the Constitution as useless decoration. And, of course, Susan Collins (R-ME)’s comment that Trump “had learned from this case and will be much more cautious in the future,” fails to pass anyone’s laugh test (Cillizza, cnn.com, 2/05/20). This is “Strike Three” for you, Sen. Collins, after backing Justice Kavanaugh and the 1% tax cut. Hopefully, Dem. Sara Gideon defeats you in 11/2020. While Collins was blathering this drivel, Trump was stating, once again, that his call to Ukrainian President Zelensky was “perfect.” Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown wrote that most GOPers know Trump was guilty but live in fear that his fanatic base will come after them. They fear that the hosts on FOX News will attack them, as well as twitter trolls. They fear Trump will give them awful nicknames and raise strong primary challengers against them. All they care about is staying in office at all costs (See Brown, nytimes, 2/05/20). At his post-victory “laps” at a prayer breakfast and in the White House East Room, Trump attacked Mormon Mitt Romney for “using religion as a crutch,” and claimed that House Speaker, devout Catholic Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), never ever prayed for him, despite her repeatedly saying that. Donald “Two Corinthians” Trump knows nothing about religion and has the nerve to attack believers who truly practice their faith (See cnn. Liptak, 2/06/20, cnn. Byrd, Ure, & Zaslav, 2/06/20).
Trump and his GOP House and Senate lackeys spend ways trying to divert attention from their failures. They work themselves up into a fake lather of indignation against people they consider their “enemies,” a list that now includes James Comey, Robert Mueller, Mitt Romney, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and especially House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The entire GOP is furious that at the end of Trump’s 2/04/2020 State of the Union address, Speaker Pelosi, in front of the cameras, ripped up a copy of that speech that Donald had given her (cnn.com, 2/06/20, CBS 58, WDJT-Milwaukee). Never mind that most pundits rightly considered Trump’s address nothing more than a partisan re-election pep talk (Cillizza, cnn.com, 2/04/20 & cnn.com, Liptak, 2/04/20). On 2/06/2020, GOP Congresswoman Kay Granger put forth a resolution to condemn Pelosi for ripping up the speech as a “breech of decorum that degraded the proceedings of the joint session.” The Democratic House killed or tabled this motion by a party-line 224-193 vote (cnn.com, CBS, 2/06/20). Despite GOPers arguing in Congress and on the internet that Pelosi’s shredding the speech violated federal record keeping laws, legal experts surveyed say that Pelosi did nothing illegal (politifact.com, CBS 58). Pelosi just smartly replied to Donald’s refusing to shake her hand at the beginning of his speech. Translation: she used Trumpian tactics against him and stole the State of the Union hype from King Donald. Democrats proudly gave Pelosi a nickname, “Nancy the Ripper.” Pelosi strongly defended her action to tear up Donald’s address. She said she “tore up a manifesto of mistruths. It was necessary to get the attention of the American people to say, ‘This is not true. And this is how it affects you.’ And I don’t need any lessons from anyone, especially the President of the United States about dignity (Byrd, et al, cnn.com, 2/06/20).” And Pelosi surely needs no lessons from Cong. Kay Granger, the latest “Trumpette” mouthing fake indignation against her. Who is Kay Granger?
Twelfth-term GOP Congresswoman Kay Granger (77) currently represents Texas’ 12th Congressional District, CD. The TX 12th includes about half of Fort Worth and western suburban Tarrant County, along with all of Parker County to the west and part of Wise county to the north. About 76% of the 12th’s population is located in Tarrant County. The 12th includes northern and western Fort Worth neighborhoods and the affluent southwest quarter beyond Texas Christian University (TCU). It contains Fort Worth’s downtown and its stockyards. Fort Worth, often nicknamed “Cowtown,” is now the nation’s 15th most populous city. An aviation center since the 1940’s, Fort Worth has a huge Lockheed Martin plant, employing about 14,000 people that makes bombers and fighter planes, including the F-35 fighter jet. In addition to its cowboy and military culture, Fort Worth has several notable museums, including the Amon Carter Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Cohen & Cook 2020).
Politically, Fort Worth and its Tarrant County remained Democratic in the 1950’s when Dallas went GOP. With Dallas recently swinging back Democratic, Fort Worth and Tarrant County are going Republican. In 2016, the 12th gave Donald 62% of its vote. In “Blue Wave” 2018, Tarrant, the last urban GOP county in TX, barely went Democratic. Beto O’Rourke, in his close but unsuccessful Senate bid against GOPer Ted Cruz, carried Tarrant by 4,400 votes, less than a one percentage point margin. However, the Lone Star 12th still remains solidly GOP with a Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) of +18. Although it is 22.8% Hispanic, the 12th is only 8.3% black, but 62.8% white. The TX 12th has a $64, 541 median income (Cohen & Cook 2020).
Greenville, TX native Norvell Kay Granger grew up in Fort Worth and graduated from TX Wesleyan University. She was a high school teacher and started her own insurance agency which she operated for more than 20 years. In 1989, she was elected to the Fort Worth City Council and two years later was elected that city’s non-partisan mayor. After the Democratic Congressman retired in 1996, both parties tried to recruit her. Granger ran as a Republican. She handily won her primary and then clobbered her Democratic opponent by 17 points. She has easily coasted to re-election in all her other races (Cohen & Cook 2020).
In the House, Cong. Granger is the only woman in the TX GOP delegation and is one of the most powerful Texans in Congress. Her career also shows how she has “evolved” from a non-partisan, to a more moderate GOPer, and, finally, to a Trump loyalist in line with her hard right MAGA party. Granger initially identified as being pro-choice and supported the Roe v. Wade decision. However, she now says she is pro-life. In 2020, Granger signed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe (Cohen & Cook, 2020, thetexan.news, 2/04/20, esquire.com, 10/16/08, thetexan.news, 1/03/20). Granger signed a letter to Trump urging him to “veto any appropriations bill that weakens pro-life protections (buzzfeednews.com, votesmart.org).” Granger supports the Federal Marriage Amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman and opposes same-sex couples being able to adopt (ontheissues.org/TX/Kay Granger).
In 2007, Granger supported Mitt Romney for President and co-chaired a Woman for Mitt group. She stated she “agreed with everything he (Mitt) said (web.archive, 11/09/09, dallasnews.com).” After Trump’s crude misogynistic “Access Hollywood” tape remarks were released in 10/2016, Cong. Granger said Donald “should remove himself from consideration as commander in chief.” After Donald’s election, she stated Trump had a “mandate for change” and she would “work with whoever is the president (Cohen & Cook 2020).” She sure has. She has voted in line with Demagogue Donald 97.3% of the time, a near perfect score (projects.fivethirtyeight.com). She is currently the top minority or ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee (Cohen & Cook, 2020). She was vice chair of the GOP Conference in 2007-2008. She is a member of the dominant conservative GOP bloc in the House, the Republican Study Committee. Granger has an 83% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and 2017-2018 a 99%-1% composite conservative v. liberal score on economic, foreign, and social issues (Cohen & Cook 2020, rsc.walker.gov).
Cong. Granger normally likes to work quietly and usually does not make provocative headlines. Her main interests are watching local Pentagon spending and keeping production high on the F-35 Lockheed Martin fighter made in her district. Her other key interest is a water control project “Panther Island.” As part of the “Panther Island” project, Cong. Granger has directed more than $50 million in earmarks to the northside of downtown Fort Worth to reroute the Trinity River and also create a new entertainment district in that city. In late 2018, Cong. Granger and her son J.D. Granger, the executive director of the Trinity River Vision Authority, received extended negative publicity for the “Panther Island” plan and its ballooning costs (Cohen & Cook, 2020, washingtopost.com, 2/07/12).
The right-wing Club for Growth, because of Granger’s “Panther Island” spending, as well as funding other items, is endorsing a well-financed primary challenge by former Colleyville, TX city councilman Chris Putnam. Trump is currently endorsing Cong. Granger, but Granger knows she can’t take his support for granted, and must constantly show 10,000% plus loyalty to her mercurial leader (See politico.com, Isenstadt, 1/23/20). When Granger put forth her unsuccessful resolution condemning Pelosi’s ripping up Donald’s State of the Union speech, Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill, aptly noted, “It is sad to see a senior Member, respected on both sides of the aisle, have to kneel at the altar of Trump in order to win her primary. That’s all this is about (cnn, cbs.58.com,2/06/20).”
As previously noted, virtually the entire GOP bends and bows in fear before Trump and will say nothing about his anti-democratic moves and misdeeds even though many know better. If Cong. Granger survives her primary challenge by genuflecting to Trump, she can keep getting re-elected in her super-“Red” district as long as she wants. However, she will be an irrelevant member of the minority if Democrats come out in droves plus on 11/03/2020 to keep the House “Blue” and add to their numbers. Trumpism, enabled by its cowardly followers, must not be rewarded.