Steve Scalise
Stephen Joseph Scalise[1] (/skəˈliːs/ skə-LEESS; born October 6, 1965) is an American politician who has served as the House majority leader since 2023 and the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 1st congressional district since 2008. A member of the Republican Party,[2][3] he served as the House majority whip from 2014 to 2019 and the House minority whip 2019 to 2023.
Steve Scalise
Kevin McCarthy
Steny Hoyer
Ken Hollis
Conrad Appel
Quentin Dastugue
2
Before his election to Congress, Scalise served four months in the Louisiana State Senate and three terms in the Louisiana House of Representatives. He was the chair of the House Republican Study Committee from 2013 to 2014.[4] On June 19, 2014, Scalise's Republican colleagues elected him majority whip of the United States House of Representatives. He assumed office on August 1. He is the first Louisianian to serve as majority whip since Hale Boggs of Louisiana's 2nd congressional district held the position from 1962 to 1971. In 2017, Scalise became the dean of the Louisiana congressional delegation upon Senator David Vitter's retirement. Scalise's district includes most of New Orleans's suburbs, such as Metairie, Kenner, and Slidell, as well as a portion of New Orleans itself.
On June 14, 2017, during practice for that year's Congressional Baseball Game, Scalise was shot and seriously wounded by an anti-Trump domestic terrorist[5][6][7] who was targeting Republicans.[8] Scalise underwent treatment for several months, returning to Congress on September 28.
On October 11, Scalise defeated Jim Jordan to win the Republican nomination for the October 2023 Speaker of the House election following the removal of Kevin McCarthy. However, he withdrew a day later after failing to consolidate the necessary votes.[9][10]
Early life and education
Scalise was born in New Orleans,[11] one of three children of Alfred Joseph Scalise, a real estate broker who died on October 8, 2015, at the age of 77, and Carol Schilleci. His siblings are Glenn and Tara Scalise.[12]
Scalise's great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Italy in the late 1800s.[13] He graduated from Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie in Jefferson Parish[14] and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge with a major in computer science and a minor in political science.[15][16] At LSU, Scalise was a member of the Acacia Fraternity.[17] He serves on the board of the American Italian Renaissance Foundation, servicing the American Italian Cultural Center.
Louisiana Legislature
In 1995, Scalise was recruited by Louisiana Republicans to run for Republican (formerly Democratic) State Representative Quentin Dastugue's District 82 seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives after Dastague made an unsuccessful bid for Governor of Louisiana. Scalise won the seat and was re-elected in 1999 and 2003. He served until 2007.[18][19]
On October 20, 2007, Scalise was elected in a nonpartisan blanket primary to the District 9 seat in the Louisiana Senate vacated by the term-limited Ken Hollis of Metairie. Scalise received 19,154 votes (61 percent) in a three-way contest. Fellow Republican Polly Thomas, an education professor at the University of New Orleans who subsequently won a special state House election in 2016, polled 8,948 votes (29 percent). A Democrat, David Gereighty, polled 3,154 votes (10 percent) in the heavily Republican-oriented district.[20] Scalise, who was term-limited out of the House, was succeeded in the state House by his aide, Cameron Henry of Metairie.
In the special election on November 4, 2008, to fill the remaining three and one-half years in Scalise's state Senate term, Conrad Appel defeated Polly Thomas, 21,853 (52.1 percent) to 20,065 (47.9 percent). Thomas had also lost the race for the seat in 2007 to Scalise.[21]
Other events
Speech at white nationalist convention
In 2002, Scalise was a speaker at a convention for the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), a group which was founded by David Duke. This became known in 2014 after political blogger[92][93] Lamar White, Jr. uncovered anonymous comments from 2002 on Stormfront, a white supremacist website, which made reference to Scalise as a 2002 speaker at the convention.[92][94][95][96][97][98] Scalise confirmed that he had spoken at the EURO conference in 2002 and stated at the time he did not know of the "racist nature of the group". Scalise said he spoke about state tax legislation and that EURO was "one of the many groups that I spoke to regarding this critical legislation," further stating that this is a group "whose views I wholeheartedly condemn." Scalise apologized for speaking to the group, saying, "It was a mistake I regret, and I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold."[93] After Scalise's attendance at the conference was publicized in 2014, journalist Stephanie Grace alleged that Scalise had once called himself "David Duke without the baggage".[99][100]
Various Louisiana politicians, including Republican Governor Bobby Jindal and Democratic Congressman Cedric Richmond, defended Scalise's character.[101] Speaker of the House John Boehner voiced his continued confidence in Scalise as Majority Whip saying that he had "made an error in judgment" and was "a man of high integrity and good character."[94][102] Several Democratic members of Congress, as well as Mo Elleithee, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), criticized Scalise and challenged his statement that he was not aware of the group's affiliation with racism and anti-Semitism.[103] Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center called upon Scalise to step down from his leadership position as Majority Whip.[104][105][106]
Ady Barkan video
In 2020, Scalise spread a video that was doctored to depict the political activist Ady Barkan, who is disabled and uses a speech-generating device, asking 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden whether he supported defunding police, to which Biden appeared to reply in the affirmative. Barkan asked Scalise to delete the video, which was flagged by Twitter as manipulated media, and apologize. Scalise deleted the video; his spokesperson said that editing the video in this manner was "common practice."[107][108] NowThis News posted the interview section on Police Reform on YouTube showing in fact Barkan asked Biden about police reform, including defunding them and Biden agreed stating he proposed that kind of reform.[109]