GOP Rep. to Black Voter: Not Sure Civil Rights Act Was Constitutional

Luke O'NeilApr 15th, 2014, 3:04 pm

There isn’t very much that those of us on both the left and the right can agree on when it comes to legislation, but if you were going to punch up a short list, you’d probably get around to the Civil Rights Act pretty quickly. You may remember it as the “black people are actual human beings” act of 1964.

But there are still some skeptics out there who aren’t entirely convinced it was even legal. People like freshman Representative Ted Yoho, of the Florida Yohos, whose party affiliation I probably don’t even need to mention.

Was the Civil Rights Act constitutional? Ehhh, who’s to say really? Yoho implied at a town hall meeting on Monday in Gainesville. The thing is, the founding fathers never specifically mentioned anything about lunch counters, per se, so, how are we to know what they intended?

Yoho was asked the question by voter Melvin Flournoy, an African American, as Think Progress reports.

FLOURNOY: Do you think that any part of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 [sic], do you think any part of that is constitutional? And then if you’d discuss why….

YOHO: This country grew through a lot of growing pain. We’re going through it again. As we grow as a country and prosper, we’re going to go through it again in the future. That’s why I’m so thankful for the Constitution because it allows us to do that. Is it constitutional, the Civil Rights Act? I wish I could answer that 100 percent. I know a lot of things that were passed are not constitutional, but I know it’s the law of the land.

We’re going through a lot of pain indeed.

Yoho, a deeply, deeply stupid and venal human being, has a history of downplaying the idea of disenfranchisement. Last summer he suggested that a tax on tanning bed use under the Affordable Healthcare Act was racist.

“I thought I might need to get to a sun tanning booth, so I can come out and say I’ve been disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin,” Yoho said. “As crazy as that sounds, that’s what the left does, right? By God, if it works for them, it’ll work for us.”

Same thing exactly.

While he’s not so clear on the whole equal acceptance under the law thing when it comes to race, Yoho is assured of one thing the Constitution meant to do: put a tank in every driveway.

The “ Second Amendment is the birthright of this country,” he said last year. “It’s part of the benefit of being American…. The militia had the same equipment as the military to protect them against the tyrannical government. I think its more important today than ever, that we uphold our Second Amendment.”

Yoho, you’ll be in no way surprised to know, is also a birther.

Watch video of Yoho’s remarks below, via ThinkProgress: