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Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Phil Jensen- 2023 Update [1]

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Date: 2023-05-16

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of South Dakota State Senator Phil Jensen, a man who drew national headlines back in March of 2013 for producing legislation that would allow businesses to discriminate against whoever they want, Civil Rights Act be damned. Jensen actually tried claiming that if a bakery owned by the KKK tried discriminating against an African American, that the matter would take care of itself, because customers would be too offended to patronize such a place. This logic, of course then fails to understand everything about the Jim Crow era South.



Anyway, South Dakota Republicans threw Jensen under the bus for his remarks, but have never said anything about other extreme legislation he's produced or supported, including drug testing welfare recipients, an unnecessary ban on Sharia Law in the United States, an attempt to criminalize abortions as "attacks on a fetus", co-sponsoring “religious freedom” legislation to allow people to discriminate against LGBTQ citizens, and Jensen’s sponsorship of transphobic legislation including not just a ban on transgendered citizens using public bathrooms, but also to forbid transgendered athletes from participating in high school sports. (Because that just reeks of a “party of smaller government”, right?)



While the South Dakota GOP spent two years aghast and trying to do damage control over Phil Jensen’s remarks about the Klan, in 2016, he survived Jacqueline Sly, a primary challenger and he still won re-election comfortably in Rapid City with 61% of the vote. Has he dialed back the extremism since we last checked in? Hell no, he hasn’t! Phil Jensen has continued his attacks upon this LGBTQ community, but apparently isn’t content to only do so as a legislator. At a town hall in February of 2017, as David Hubbard, from the Human Rights campaign asked “Who will protect the people of South Dakota from discrimination??”, Jensen’s response drew groans from the audience for its sheer bigotry:

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/16/2169626/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-Phil-Jensen-2023-Update

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