Who's This Legislative Dipshit? Meet Representative "Mean Jean" Schmidt
A former Congresswoman and ardent marathoner is the co-sponsor on Ohio's latest legislative abomination.
Whenever you see barbaric legislation signed into law in places like Texas and Florida, you can rest assured knowing Ohio’s legislative dipshits are taking notes while bathing in children’s blood in their subterranean lairs.
Until yesterday, however, The Rooster had never seen our Statehouse kooks combine two terrible ideas into one. And that’s precisely what happened with House Bill 616, which combines Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law with Texas’ “Non-divisive history teaching” law.
The latter part got attached after a similarly styled non-divisive concepts bill in Ohio imploded when its sponsor, State Representative Sarah Fowler Arthur, said in an interview that her bill would mandate teachers to teach both sides of the Holocaust—an event in which she claimed only “a couple hundred thousand” Jews perished. That would sound make-believe in any other context than Ohio politics.
Here is the rundown on HB-616, via Zoe Christen Jones of cbsnews.com:
The bill, sponsored by Representatives Mike Loychik and Jean Schmidt, would prohibit schools from teaching, using or providing "any curriculum or instructional materials on sexual orientation or gender identity" for students in kindergarten through third grade. For older students, schools would be forbidden from teaching, using or providing such material "in any manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."
This is just another example of Republicans wanting to control education as a way to appeal to racist, homophobic parents who believe that literature can make their kid queer. It’s an added bonus that this kind of legislation will be used to further intimidate gay people or any teacher with political views to the left of Pinochet.
Maybe The Rooster has it wrong. But if that were the case, why would Rep. Schmidt (R-Loveland), co-sponsor of HB-616, react like a slug being chased by a bottle of salt when asked simple questions about the legislation she had proposed moments earlier?
Rep. “Mean Jean” Schmidt is the kind of state representative that makes you realize, “Holy shit, this freak once got elected to Congress.”
And that’s exactly what happened in a special election in 2005, when she defeated future Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine, son of our current governor Mike DeWine, for a Cincinnati-area seat in the House of Representatives by reminding voters that DeWine left his pregnant wife and their two children for a mistress who worked as a lobbyist.
Here are some of her Wikipedia “controversies” subheader, to give you a taste of how that went for her:
“Coward remarks” — when she accused a Democratic colleague, who unbeknownst to her was a Marine and Vietnam veteran, of being a coward for not fully supporting the war in Iraq.
“Second Bachelor’s degree” — about when she repeatedly lied about having a second Bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati for some reason.
“Fake endorsements” — when she lied about being endorsed by series of prominent Republicans and groups.
“Obama’s birth certificate” — when she dabbled in the racist conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in America.
“Armenian genocide denial” — yikes, that’s self-explanatory.
“Illegal gifts from the Turkish Coalition of America” — ok, suddenly that Armenian genocide denial starts to make sense.
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named her the most corrupt member in Congress for accepting everything from free dinners from pharmaceutical lobbyists to hundreds of thousands of dollars in free legal fees. And this is just what we know about.
Naturally, when she lost her Congressional seat to a fellow Republican in 2012, she was deemed fit to return to Columbus eight years later by area voters who had previously elected her to the county commission, the Statehouse and Congress.
Rep. Schmidt has made a career out of taking bribes and marginalizing out-groups, so it’s no surprise to see her appear at the head of a diabolical bill of this nature. The culture war bullshit is what punches her ticket into the bribe factory, after all.
In her spare time, she enjoys marathoning, as you might have guessed by her speedy pace in the video above.
THREAT LEVEL: Low. Overall, Schmidt has been a career backbencher in the Statehouse and Congress. She is better at lurking in the shadows and enriching herself than she is leading any sort of movement since she’s adept at kicking herself in the dick whenever she does speak.
Unfortunately that won’t help the teachers and students of Ohio.
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