Posted on 04/21/2008 1:03:54 PM PDT by NorCoGOP
DENVER — Republican Rep. Douglas Bruce was ordered to leave the podium of the Colorado House of Representatives on Monday after calling Mexican workers "illiterate peasants."
Bruce made the comment during a debate on a bill that would allow the state to help immigrant workers get temporary visas from the federal government.
The Mexican Consulate in Denver did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
The bill is designed to ease a shortage of farmworkers in Colorado.
Bruce, of Colorado Springs, has had had other run-ins since arriving at the Capitol in January as a midterm appointee to fill a vacancy.
He became the first Colorado lawmaker censured by the House after he kicked a newspaper photographer for taking his picture during a prayer. Republicans later removed him the powerful State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee because he refused to co-sponsor a resolution honoring military veterans.
Bruce said he believed resolutions were a waste of time because they have no legal impact.
That about sums it up.
He wasn’t talking about illegals. He was talking about legal guest workers.
Fat chance. He's his own worst enemy.
Yes, but were they bitter people hanging on to God, guns and racism?
Yep.
is this really the best guy Colo. Springs can find to represent them?
No, not by a long shot. He got in on a vacancy committee vote. I understand there is a good Republican getting ready to take him on in the next election.
“after he kicked a newspaper photographer for taking his picture during a prayer”
Loose cannon? I don’t know, I’ve never heard of him before today. If this is true, I’m certainly trepidicious.
He should have directed his condemnation not at these illiterate peasants but to the corrupt Mexican government that denies them a decent living. Besides, I trust these peasants more than the many Muslims that enter our country legally.
The topic was not about illegal aliens. The debate was about assisting workers with their work visas (which refers to people who are or are attempting to be in the US legally). Furthermore, according to the article he described "Mexican workers" (not illegal aliens) as illiterate peasants.
DENVER — Republican Rep. Douglas Bruce was ordered to leave the podium of the Colorado House of Representatives on Monday after calling Mexican workers "illiterate peasants."
Who ordered him? Has the First Amendment been suspended at the Colorado House of Representatives?
The term is "Chuntaro" or "Campesino", which are terms for indian peasants, mostly illiterate.
You're right. What's more, these sorts of antics help to weaken Bruce's one real success, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR). Now that TABOR has been in operation for several years, it's clear that there are a few weaknesses which need to be addressed. But Mr. Bruce has vowed not to budge -- and TABOR will come off looking bad as a result.
Here's the real irony: he was appointed, not elected, by a "vacancy committee" to fill the unexpired term of Bill Cadman. The geniuses who made the appointment are, of course, unaccountable to the voters. (A story on the appointment process is here.)
Bruce's appointment never made much sense to me -- his similar antics made him a failure as a county commissioner; and you had to see even at the time that this sort of things as being almost a dead certainty. And of course, he's made himself the issue again -- and thus he'll be ineffective.
And now, unless Bruce gets booted in the primaries, I wouldn't be surprised if the seat actually went over to a Democrat this time.
When you deal with crap on a regular basis it is very hard to be dignified. In Colorado we have been dealt a major portion of the illegal menu. Kinda guess it comes down to truth and attitude. Tell it like it is Bruce.
“It must have been how he said it...”
Or the fact he wasn’t smiling.
The bill is designed to ease a shortage of farmworkers in “Colorado.”
Got lots of prisons filled with people that have nothing to do. Get them to work for 5.00/hr to pay off the prison system they use.
If that were changed to...calling “President Bush an illiterate monkey.” ...he would have been invited to join the DNC and given a high position.
If they are literate in English, why does the Colorado government offer paperwork in Spanish?
I can’t read Chinese or Portugese. I’d be illiterate there too. That’s what happens when you move somewhere without learning the language.
By and large, I think that our legal immigrants do the best that they can to assimilate. His comment was denegrating to them. If they didn’t have the burden of being classified in the same category as their illegal counterparts, Maybe we could understand that there are really people in this world that still come here because they believe in the “American Dream”
I coached little league in a “depressed neighborhood” for many years and the difference was stark. I’ve always believed that we were a contry of immigrants but this was my first experience in seeing that some are here because they want to become Americans and some are here only to suck the very blood out of the veins of the benevolent benefactors to the world. Big difference ,and IMHO, one worth fighting for.
The problem is: for every good idea he has, he has numerous insulting outbursts that wreck it for everyone who is for smaller government.
He delayed his swearing in so that he could skirt term-limits rules when he runs for reelection. But when he submitted his expense report, he included those days (they get a per diem).
He is a name-caller and a grandstander. He refused to sign the joint resolution honoring veterans and so many members of the public complained about him that his own party removed him from the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
When he kicked the reporter, he was censured; the first representative to ever be formally censured.
There’s more, but you get the idea.
That seems to have been entirely true.
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