Joe Wilson (American politician)

Wilson was elected to the South Carolina Senate in 1984 as a Republican from Lexington County. He was re-elected four times, the last three times unopposed; Lexington County is one of the most Republican counties in the state. He never missed a regular legislative session in 17 years. After the Republicans gained control of the chamber in 1996, he became the first Republican to serve as Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. Wilson was a member of the Columbia College Board of Visitors and Coker College Board of Trustees.

During his tenure in the South Carolina Senate, Wilson was the primary sponsor of bills which included the following: establishing a National Guard license plate,[13] providing paid leave for state employees to perform disaster relief services,[14] and requiring men aged 18–26 to register for the Selective Service System when applying for a driver's license.[15] In 2000, Wilson was one of seven senators who voted against removing the Confederate battle flag from being displayed over the state house.[16]

Official House photo portrait (109th Congress)

Wilson with President George W. Bush in 2002

As of the 113th Congress, Wilson served on three standing committees and various subcommittees overseeing specific areas of legislation. Wilson serves on the Committee on Armed Services and is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel;[17] he also serves on the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.[18] He serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, for which he also is a member of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.[19] As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Wilson serves on the Subcommittee on Europe[20] and Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.[21] Wilson is a member of the Republican Study Committee[22] and the Tea Party Caucus.

• Composites Caucus (Co-Chair)
• Diabetes Caucus
• Global Health Caucus
• India Caucus
• United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus[23]
• Israel Allies Caucus
• Russia Democracy Caucus
• Sportsmen's Caucus
• House Republican Policy Committee
• Tea Party Caucus
• Congressional Arts Caucus[24]
• Congressional Constitution Caucus[25]
• Afterschool Caucuses[26]
• Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus[27]

Like his former boss, Spence, Wilson is an ardent social and fiscal conservative.[28] He is a member of the Republican Study Committee.

In 2003, Wilson voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, including its Section 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually of taxpayer money to reimburse hospitals for treatment of illegal immigrants. In 2009, Wilson changed to his current position opposing public funds for healthcare of illegal immigrants.[29]

Wilson has sponsored and co-sponsored a number of bills, concerning teacher recruitment and retention, college campus fire safety, National Guard troop levels, arming airline pilots, tax credits for adoptions, tax credits for living organ donors, and state defense forces.

As of January 2006, eight bills co-sponsored by Wilson have passed the House,[30] including H.R. 1973, the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, making safe water and sanitation an objective of U.S. assistance to developing countries.[31]

Wilson is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker. In 2006, he co-sponsored H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act[32] and H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.[33]

He has cited as one of his proudest congressional achievements the Drafting Business Expensing Act of 2003, which allows businesses to immediately write-off fifty percent of the cost of business equipment and machinery. This bonus depreciation provision has been extended for 2008 and 2009 in two separate stimulus bills.[34][35] In addition, Wilson spearheaded the Drafting Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act of 2003, which offers higher education loan forgiveness to math, science and special education teachers in schools with a predominantly low income student population.[36] He cites as his most important vote the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.[36]

On September 9, 2009, during a joint address to congress by President Barack Obama which was nationally televised, Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!"[37][38][39][40] Obama was outlining his proposal for reforming health care and said: "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false—the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."[41]

Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel immediately approached senior Republican lawmakers and asked them to identify the heckler and urge him to apologize immediately.[42] Members of Congress from both parties condemned the outburst. "Totally disrespectful", said Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) of Wilson's utterance. "No place for it in that setting or any other and he should apologize immediately."[43][44] Wilson said later in a statement:

This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President's remarks regarding the coverage of undocumented immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.[45]

Obama later accepted Wilson's apology. "I'm a big believer that we all make mistakes", he said. "He apologized quickly and without equivocation and I'm appreciative of that."[46]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Raising a Question of the Privileges of the House (H. Res. 744)

House Democrats called on Wilson to issue a formal apology on the House floor.[47] House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn who led the resolution said "This is about the rules of the House", while House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said "What's at issue here is of importance to the House and of importance to the country ... This House cannot stay silent".

Wilson refused to make an apology to the House of Representatives, saying in a televised interview, "I believe one apology is sufficient."[48] Congressional Republicans agreed, and opposed further action, with Minority Leader John Boehner saying "I think this is a sad day for the House of Representatives ... I think this is a political stunt aimed at distracting the American people from what they really care about, which is health care."[49] On September 15, the House approved a "resolution of disapproval" against Wilson, on 240–179 vote almost exactly along party lines.[50]

Wilson said afterwards that his outburst reflected his view that Obama's bill would have provided government-subsidized benefits to illegal immigrants.[51] Several fact-checking organizations wrote that Wilson's views were inaccurate because HR 3200 expressly excludes undocumented aliens from receiving government-subsidized "affordability credits".[52][53][54] The non-partisan Congressional Research Service agreed that people would need to be lawfully present in the U.S. in order to be eligible for the credits, but noted that the bill did not bar non-citizens from buying their own health insurance coverage through the health insurance exchange.[55][56] The Obama administration said that, in the final bill, undocumented immigrants would not be able to participate in the Exchange.[57] Such language was included in the Senate Finance Committee's version of the bill, America's Healthy Future Act.[58][59]

Following the incident, both Wilson and Democrat Rob Miller, his subsequent 2010 general election opponent, experienced a significant upswing in campaign donations. In the week after Wilson's outburst, Miller raised $1.6 million, about three times his 2008 campaign,[60] while Wilson raised $1.8 million.[61]

On a 2002 live broadcast of the C-SPAN talk show Washington Journal, guests Wilson and Democratic congressman Bob Filner were discussing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. When Filner noted that the US provided Iraq with "chemical and biological weapons" in the 1980s, Wilson stated that this idea was "made up" and commented to Filner, "This hatred of America by some people is just outrageous. And you need to get over that." Wilson apologized for his remarks in statements to the press.[62][63]

In 2003, Essie Mae Washington-Williams revealed she was the daughter of Wilson's former employer, the late Senator Strom Thurmond, and Thurmond's black maid. Wilson was among those who publicly doubted her assertion that Thurmond had a child out of wedlock. Wilson said even if her story was true, she should not have revealed it because "it's a smear" on Thurmond's image and was a way to "diminish" Thurmond's legacy.[64] After Thurmond's family acknowledged the truth of Washington-Williams' revelation, Wilson apologized, but said that he still thought that she should not have revealed that Thurmond was her father.[65]

In December 2020, Wilson was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden prevailed[66] over incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.[67][68][69]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion." Additionally, Pelosi reprimanded Wilson and the other House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."[70][71] New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat Wilson and the other Republicans who signed the brief supporting the suit. Pascrell argued that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."[72]

In November 2009, the New York Times reported that Representatives Wilson and Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo) made identical written statements, saying that "One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country. Unfortunately, many of the largest companies that would seek to enter the biosimilar market have made their money by outsourcing their research to foreign countries like India." The statement was originally drafted by lobbyists for Genentech, now a Swiss biotechnology firm, but founded, and still headquartered in San Francisco, California.[73]

Wilson supported President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order to impose a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, saying that the order would "secure our borders and keep American families safe from terrorist attacks."[74]

On April 10, 2017, a Wilson town hall meeting at Aiken Technical College in Graniteville, South Carolina was interrupted by activists chanting "you lie" as the Congressman asserted that the Affordable Care Act was causing people to be denied health services.[75]

In 2018, a segment with Wilson aired as part of Sacha Baron Cohen's Showtime series, Who is America?. Wilson endorses "Kinderguardians," a phony program to teach and arm schoolchildren as young as 3 to protect themselves in the classroom.[76] Advocating for toddler carry, he states on camera "A 3-year-old cannot defend itself from an assault rifle by throwing a Hello Kitty pencil case at it".[77]

In the 2006 elections, he defeated Ellisor again, gaining 62.7 percent of the vote, and kept his House seat.[84]

Wilson won re-election in November 2008, defeating the Democratic nominee, Iraq War veteran Rob Miller, 54% to 46%.[85] It was the closest race in the district in 20 years, and the closest race that Wilson had ever faced in 24 years as an elected official. He only survived by winning his native Lexington County by 33,000 votes, more than the overall margin of 26,000 votes.

Challenged by Democratic nominee Rob Miller, Libertarian nominee Eddie McCain, and Constitution Party nominee Marc Beaman,[86] Wilson won re-election on November 2, 2010, defeating Miller 53% to 44%.

Redistricting made the 2nd somewhat more compact. It lost Beaufort and Hilton Head Island. To make up for the loss in population, it absorbed all of Aiken County and a slice of Orangeburg County.

In the November 2012 general election, Wilson ran unopposed and was re-elected with 96% of the vote.

Challenged by Democratic nominee Phil Black, and Labor Party nominee Harold Geddings III,[87] Wilson won re-election on November 4, 2014, defeating Black 62% to 35%.

Challenged by Democratic nominee Arik Bjorn, and American Party nominee Eddie McCain,[88] Wilson won re-election on November 8, 2016, defeating Bjorn 62% to 35%.

Challenged by Democratic nominee Sean Carrigan and American Party candidate Sonny Narang, Wilson won re-election on November 6, 2018, defeating Carrigan 56.3% to 42.5%.[89]