Gabrielle Giffords

Over the past couple years I’ve discovered that I hold quite a few points of view that are unpopular. Well herein I’m about to express another, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to get on the nerves of pretty much every Democrat in Arizona, if not the United States. So if you’re a Democrat, prepare to be offended.

Gabrielle Giffords, Congressperson for the 8th Congressional District in Arizona, should not be in office.

Her district had been without representation since the attempt on her life back in January that, let us not forget, left a Federal judge and a 9 year-old girl dead. She had been unable to perform her duties until her first and only vote of this Congress thus far, on roll call 690 in the House of Representatives.

So from her shooting on January 8 to the roll call vote on August 1, the 8th Arizona district has been without representation. My question is why Rep. Giffords was never expelled from the House of Representatives? Out of sympathy? Because the Democrat leadership is weary of losing even her seat, despite the fact they had been without her vote for 7 months?

And now there is a person in her district with the balls (or gall, depending on your point of view) to attempt a challenge against Giffords for her seat in 2012, assuming he can get the signatures to get his name on the ballot. He will likely fail to even get the signatures, but if he succeeds he likely won’t electorally survive the primary. The response to his desire to challenge Giffords has been… less than according. If I lived in Arizona’s 8th district, I’d not only sign the petition, I’d do so in a very public place and in a very public manner.

My sympathy to the Representative and her husband, Capt. Mark Kelly, but she should have been expelled from the House of Representatives months ago.