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GOP Cong. Warren Davidson--Wildfire Hostage Taker [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-13
GOP Congress Member Warren Davidson Follows Demagogue Donald – He Wants to Turn California Fire Disaster Aid into a Political Football January 13, 2025
At least 24 people have died and many are missing in the wildfires that have hit the Los Angeles area since January 7, 2025. These conflagrations have enveloped the communities of Pacific Palisades, Altadena and several other neighborhoods. Fire fighters are doing their utmost to control these blazes, keep them from spreading, and extinguish them (apnews.com, Weber & Ramer, 1/12/25, cnn.com, Washington Post 1/10/25-1/11/25).
More bodies may later be uncovered (cnn.com). Any person with decency in their hearts, especially lawmakers not hit by this catastrophe, would want to help the stricken Southern California area with disaster relief. However, as we should all know by now, Demagogue Donald, is not one of those individuals. He is a ruthless, cruel, and vengeful person always out to “get” people, especially those living in states that have not voted for him such as California. While this inferno has been raging, Demagogue Donald has been vulgarly attacking CA Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and has ridiculously blamed him for this catastrophe with false information and off-the-wall propaganda.Trump, in fact, has tweeted that if Gov. Newsom doesn’t “come to heel, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems ( yahoo.com/news , 1/10/25, Jones, J.).” What a politically explicit threat! And get this. In Trump’s first term, he was reluctant to send aid to CA when it was hit with a previous wildfire. He only changed his mind when aides showed him that areas of Orange County which had voted for him needed his help (yahoo.com, The New Republic, 8/10/25). Ignorant Donald doesn’t understand that wildfires can spread anywhere in CA and hit GOP areas as well. Fire knows no political boundaries. Apparently “Mr. 1.5%” 2024 popular vote winner doesn’t comprehend that he is supposed to be the President of ALL the American people, even those who did not vote for him. “W” Bush and Joe Biden did not distribute disaster aid on the basis of who voted for them.
And Demagogue Donald is not an outlier of the GOP cultist party that he leads. Other “Team Red” lawmakers feel exactly the same way about punishing their political “enemies.” One of them is Republican Congress Member Warren Davidson. In a 1/10/25 Fox News Business interview with Maria Bartiromo, Davidson told her that if Californians want disaster relief money for these wildfires, “California would have to change the policies that are making the problem bad or worse and I don’t see how Republicans could possibly support that (disaster aid). We have to put pressure on the California government to change course here (yahoo.com, The New Republic, 1/10/25).” There is no evidence, Cong. Davidson, that the present wildfires were caused or exacerbated by CA policies (yahoo.com,Jones, 1/10/25). Just who is this Cong. Davidson?
Fifth-term Congress Member Warren Davidson (54) currently represents Ohio’s 8th Congressional District (CD). The Buckeye State 8th CD is located on OH’s west side bordering Indiana. The Cincinnati and Dayton suburbs and the city of Springfield are part of the 8th. The 8th’s Butler County, in between Dayton and Cincinnati, contains the cities of Hamilton and Middletown. Preble County and Darke County lie in the 8th. Springfield, in Clark County, has had a severe economic decline but $400 million has been invested into its downtown to try to revive it. Butler County has grown in population with a 15% increase from 2000-2019. West Chester Township, also in the 8th’s Butler County, has an Amylin Pharmaceuticals facility that produces diabetes medicine and is owned by Astra-Zeneca. CFM, located in West Chester, manufactures jet engines in partnership with GE and French-owned Safran. West Chester is the home of former House GOP Speaker John Boehner. Butler County has a $600 million natural-gas power plant in Middletown (Cohen & Cook 2022 Political Almanac). Springfield votes Democratic. However, economically growing Butler County is reliably GOP and the balance of the district is “Red.” Half the voters live in Butler County and only 17% in Springfield’s Clark. The latest Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) gives the Buckeye 8th a heavy R+14 score (7/12/22). In 2016, Donald clobbered Hillary here by 35 points, 65%-30%. In 2020, Donald handily beat Biden by 33 points, 66%-33%, his third best score in an OH congressional district (Cohen & Cook 2022).
After his 1988 high school graduation, Sidney, OH native Warren Earl Davidson enlisted in the Army. Stationed with the 3rd Infantry Division, in Germany, he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. He graduated from West Point in 1995 and went to Army Ranger School in 1996. He served in the 75th Ranger Regiment and the 101st Airborne Division (davidsonforcongress.com).
After leaving the military, Davidson attended the University of Notre Dame where he received an MBA (wiki). When he returned home, Davidson started his own tool making business and took over his father’s struggling tool business. Davidson grew that company from 20 to 200 employees. He served two years as a trustee of Concord Township (Cohen & Cook 2022). After GOP Speaker Boehner resigned from the House, Davidson indicated he wanted to run for Boehner’s former seat. Extremist firebrand OH Cong. Jim Jordan arranged for Davidson to get an interview with the hard-right Club for Growth. That group had no trouble endorsing Davidson and spent $1.1 million to assist his primary run. Davidson won the primary in this special election contest. He pulverized his Democratic election rival by 65 points, 77%-12% in this very GOP district in 2016, and has easily coasted to re-election ever since. In 2024, Davidson won his congressional seat by a commanding 25.6% margin, 62.8%-37.2% (nbcnews.com, 2024).
In the House, Cong. Davidson currently sits on the key Financial and Foreign Affairs Committees (CQ 118th Cong At Your Fingertips). He joined the extremist Freedom Caucus, the group that was instrumental in getting Boehner to leave the Speakership and leave the House and where Rep. Jordan has been a leader. Cong. Davidson is also a member of the budget and spending task force on the Republican Spending Committee, the biggest conservative bloc in the House (rsc-johnson.house.gov). In 2019, Cong. Davidson made an unsuccessful attempt to become chair of the Freedom Caucus after Rep. Mark Meadows stepped down. Since Oct., 2019, Davidson has served as that caucus’s policy chair. At the end of 2019, Davidson, like Demagogue Donald, took a hard line during the government shutdown. Davidson demanded that Congress approve a border wall with Mexico. On the Financial Services Committee, Davidson filed a “Drain the Swamp Bill.” That legislation required that each federal agency relocate its employees across the nation to retain no more than 10% of its staff in the D.C. area, an obvious attempt to weaken the “liberal” Belway area and strengthen more rural conservative areas (See Cohen & Cook 2022). On January 7, 2021, after the January 6th attempted Trump-incited Capitol coup, Davidson objected to the certification of electors in the 2020 presidential election that would give Biden his deserved victory over Trump. Davidson falsely alleged “widespread voter fraud” in that contest (nytimes.com, Yourish, Buchanan, & Lu, 1/07/21). In January, 2022, Cong. Davidson additionally faced backlash from Jewish groups after he compared a D.C. city ordinance requiring display of photo ID and proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter businesses to the Holocaust (nbcnews.com, 1/12/22).
We should not at all be surprised at Cong. Davidson’s hostile reaction to giving CA wildfire relief. He was against disaster relief for Puerto Rico and against raising the debt limit to provide for Hurricane Harvey relief (cincinnati.com, BieryGolick, K.). He even stated he was frustrated by the support Donald grudgingly gave for that hurricane relief (Cohen & Cook 2022).
In addition, Davidson is staunchly anti-abortion except to save a mother’s life. He also had no problems with a child rape victim carrying through with her forced pregnancy (davidsonhouse.gov, cnn.com/videos , 6/27/22). He supports the GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare (washingtonpost.com, 2017, politico.com, 4/14/17). Davidson was one of 21 House GOPers to vote against a resolution that would give the Congressional Gold Medal to police forces who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 (Grayer & Wilson, 6/16/21).
With his district’s hard GOP lean, Cong. Davidson can easily keep winning re-election as long as he wants to. However, his influence on national policy can be diminished. How? By making him an irrelevant member of a GOP House minority. However, in order for Davidson and his allies to become members of this House minority, Democrats must come out in droves plus in the Campaign 2026 midterms. We can not repeat the abysmal failure of Campaign 2024 when at least 4-5 million of us failed to vote. Such political malpractice re-elected Demagogue Donald and put Davidson’s party in the majority. Remember, in 2026, all “Team Blue” needs to take back the House to check extremist Donald is a net gain of three (3) seats. I repeat, in politics, voting is EVERYTHING.
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